In countries like the US, where religion has traditionally played a big role in public life, more and more are turning away from organised religion while still holding onto a sense of the spiritual. But with that change comes a big, inevitable question: can you really be moral without religion?
It’s a reasonable ask. The question has ignited debate from both religious and atheist quarters and plagued philosophers for centuries. It’s one thing to say you can be moral without scripture telling you what’s right and wrong. But on what do you base those morals? Who, and on what authority, says your morals are right.
“We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.”
― Christopher Hitchens
For many SBNRs, the answer is a confident yes. But their approach to ethics is often misunderstood or dismissed altogether as vague, inconsistent, or self-indulgent.
So, where do SBNRs get their moral compass from? And how do they respond to critics who think their approach is lacking?
Morality Without Dogma
One of the defining traits of the SBNR mindset is its rejection of external religious authority in favour of inner guidance. That often means turning away from what they see as rigid rules, denominational squabbles, outdated dogma, or ritual for ritual’s sake.
For many, being spiritual but not religious means thinking for yourself and doing what feels right,. Not just following a rulebook. Of course, this area gets murky when you question what happens when different people or cultures think something ‘feels right’ when you think it feels appalling.
For SBNRs, ditching the rulebook doesn’t mean ditching their own personal morality. They recognise the seemingly relative nature of their predicament and tend to lean heavily on empathy, compassion, and intuition when making ethical choices. While not documented in a rulebook, a key guiding principle for the SBNRs is quite simple: don’t harm others.
Rather than seeing morality as something handed down from a divine source, they often locate it within, their “inner voice” or sense of personal alignment.
The Inner voice
Philosophers have long argued that you don’t need the divine rulebook to be moral. Kant believed reason could lead us to universal moral principles, like treating others as ends, not means. Hume, by contrast, saw morality as rooted in our natural emotions, our capacity to feel, to empathise, and to care.
Many SBNRs describe a kind of ‘awakening’ to their own essential goodness, seeing people as fundamentally kind until the world teaches them otherwise.
I was chatting with a woman I met at a retreat a couple of years ago, who called herself spiritual but not religious. We were sitting on a bench overlooking this quiet loch, and I asked her if she ever worried about getting it wrong, morally speaking.
She shrugged and said, “I don’t believe in hell. I don’t think I’m going to be punished for not following the rulebook. I just want to be able to sleep at night.. To feel like I did right by the people I love, and the strangers I meet. That’s enough for me.”
That idea stands in stark contrast to traditional religious views, particularly in the West. Christianity sees humans as sinful and in need of moral correction from outside themselves, with punishments of hell or purgatory.
And while the rulebook can be a guide, many within religious communities aren’t always the best at living up to it.
Picking and Mixing Wisdom
Interestingly, many SBNRs don’t reject all religion, they just resist being pinned to one tradition.
Instead, they draw from a variety of sources: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Indigenous teachings, astrology, psychology, self-help books—you name it.
They tend to believe that most religions are pointing to the same essential truths: be kind, be compassionate, live mindfully, love others.
This spiritual ‘buffet’ style of belief is often frustrating to the more conservative members of organised religions. But when you step back and look at the approach, it allows them to build an ethical framework that feels authentic and personally meaningful, without having to buy into the full theology or baggage of any single religion.
It’s often an intuitive process of ‘that speaks to me’ rather than ‘that’s what I’m supposed to believe.’ It is real, authentic ‘liberty of conscience’.
There’s also a strong focus on personal experience, rather than a societal or divine pressure. Instead of relying on tradition or clergy to explain what’s right and wrong, SBNRs often view their own spiritual journey as the ultimate authority.
Ethics, for them, becomes less about universal rules and more about personal growth, well-being, kindness, and conscious living.
The Criticisms. And the Pushback
As noted, from a religious perspective, the biggest concern is usually the lack of objective grounding. If there’s no divine source for morality, then isn’t everything just… relative?
Can people really be trusted to choose their own ethical principles without drifting into moral chaos?
Some argue that morality without God is like a house built on sand. What feels right to one person might feel totally wrong to another. Without something like sin or divine judgment to anchor us, how do we even know what right’ means?
There’s also a lingering belief in some religious circles that true peace or moral clarity only comes through a relationship with a specific deity, often Jesus.
Atheist critics, on the other hand, take issue with the spiritual part of SBNR. While they might agree that religion isn’t necessary for morality, they sometimes see SBNRs as intellectually soft, wishy-washy, too reliant on feelings, vague spirituality, or woo ideas.
They argue that ethics should be grounded in reason, evidence, and a clear-eyed view of human well-being, not in a mystical sense of ‘alignment’ or cherry-picked religious quotes.
Some also view the SBNRs tendency to borrow from religious traditions without fully engaging with their history or complexity as naive or even disrespectful. It is worth noting that most religions have borrowed from each other and from ancient belief systems.
And, of course, some atheists see all religion, even in diluted, individualised form, as a problem rather than a solution.
The SBNR Response
First, it’s worth remembering that SBNRs are not a monolith. There’s great diversity within the movement. That said, SBNRs don’t usually shy away from these criticisms.
Many are quick to point out that religious institutions haven’t exactly had a flawless moral record. From colonialism and crusades to modern-day scandals, the moral high ground claimed by some religious groups can feel shaky.
They also challenge the idea that morality must be fixed or dictated from above. In a pluralistic world, many SBNRs argue that empathy, non-harm, and mutual respect are enough to build a solid moral framework. Just because those values come from within doesn’t make them any less valid.
As for the charge of being too subjective? SBNRs often argue that moral thinking should be flexible and responsive, contextual and not static.
They view personal reflection, dialogue, and real-world experience as the more important aspects of refining their own ethical beliefs. Without doubt, their approach does lack the structure of traditional systems, but on the upside, it likewise avoids the rigidity and exclusion that often come with dogma.
Interestingly, even when SBNRs think they’ve left religion behind, many of their values, individualism, personal responsibility, progressivism, have deep roots in Protestant and Enlightenment traditions. In a way, SBNR ethics aren’t detached from religious history, they’re a modern evolution of it. Religions have always evolved and will continue to do so.
There is a sniff of irony in conservative evangelical Christians objecting to people finding a new, authentic belief system.
The Challenges of Going Solo
SBNRs acknowledge the genuine challenges to this way of living, the biggest one being the isolation. In the absence of a shared language or community framework, it can be difficult to work through moral dilemmas. Building consensus on complex issues can be tough.
When everyone is following their own compass, how do we agree on the right path?
There’s also the risk of ethical inconsistency. Personal intuition is a powerful guide, but it’s also fallible. We all have blind spots and biases, and without external checks, it’s easy to fall into self-serving justifications.
Still, none of this is unique to SBNRs. Every ethical system has its snags. There is no other ethical system that has not been subjected to a barrage of criticism, so why would this be any different?
What matters is whether it can respond to real-world challenges, and keep evolving.
Spiritual but not religious ethics
Would a just God sentence a morally good individual to hell for never having heard of him? And for that matter, would a just God expel a morally good individual to hell who has heard of Jesus, but simply finds no evidentiary reason to believe? According to any reasonable interpretation of Christianity’s key doctrines, the answer is a simple and firm ‘Yes.’ This is because, according to Christian dogma, it is impossible to be ‘moral’ without Jesus Christ; I disagree with this on a fundamental level.
A New Moral Landscape – Spiritual But Not Religious Ethics
As more people move away from institutional religion, understanding the approach to the spiritual but not religious ethics isn’t just interesting, it’s essential. This growing demographic is helping to reshape the new moral landscape. It is pushing us to reconsider where ethical authority comes from and what it means to live a good life.
In the end, yes, morality absolutely can exist outside of traditional religion. It always has, and for many SBNRs, it already does.
Their ethical lives are grounded in kindness, compassion, empathy, reflection. It’s a wide-reaching search for wisdom, and a commitment to harm reduction.
The SBNRs recognise that their diverse ethical system it isn’t perfect. But then again, neither are the systems they’ve turned away from.
And in an ever-evolving world, that willingness to adapt and evolve might just be their greatest strength.
