E.G.

According to a view I'm attracted to, we should think there are precisely two realms of reality: the natural world and morality. We can learn about the truths of the natural world with scientific methods, but that's not the case for moral truths. Morality is entirely separate from the natural world, and for that reason, science cannot reveal moral truths to us. So our moral beliefs amount to a kind of faith. Faith in moral reality is the only kind of faith that we should have. This faith amounts to a certain kind of religion, but an exceedingly spare one.

In a nutshell, my view is that we should take it on faith that, e.g., pointless cruelty really is morally wrong. But we should not take it on faith that, e.g., God exists, or that there is an afterlife, or any of that sort of thing. 

This spare religion has certain advantages. For one thing, it is aesthetically pleasing. Traditional religions are metaphysically bloated in ways that make them unbeautiful, in my opinion.

I do not know whether such aesthetic considerations provide anything like reasons for belief. It is not clear to me whether an idea's elegance can be rightly regarded as an epistemic count in its favor. Anyway, even if elegance is not an epistemically relevant consideration, I think it is still some kind of an advantage.

One of the disadvantages of this spare religion is that it requires us to take the sort of leap of faith that is forbidden by thoroughgoing methodological naturalism. Insofar as methodological naturalism is appealing, rejecting it is a cost.

In willingly paying this cost, the spare religion that I favor resembles bloated religions such as Christianity. But in exchange for that cost, Christians get quite a lot in the way of comfort and solace, whereas the spare religion that I favor is not particularly comforting at all.

While I was listening to NPR in the car the other day, I heard the story of Alex Yurkiv, a young musician who wrote this joyful Christian song which promises a familiar kind of Christian salvation. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing in the natural world, and nothing in morality, that can save us in the way that Christians like Alex Yurkiv think we can be saved. And people who share Yurkiv's religion can find a certain kind of meaning in his death (he died very young in a tragic accident). My spare religion does not equip us to see such meaning. I think many will see all of this as a disadvantage of the spare religion I am recommending.

Another disadvantage of this spare religion is that it may require us to resist various kinds of pressure toward expansion. That is, there may be pressure toward admitting articles of faith that go beyond bare faith in morality. Containing this sort of pressure will require some effort, I think. But it will be necessary to contain it, because giving in to this pressure will rob the worldview that I'm sketching here of its distinctive feature and chief selling point: namely, its spareness.

I see two possible sources of such pressure: analogical and transcendental.

Analogical: One may argue that if we are willing to take it on faith that moral facts exist, then we should also be willing to take it on faith that various other things, e.g., divine beings, exist. Resisting this kind of analogical pressure toward expansion will require us to argue that faith in morality is somehow uniquely justifiable, or rational, or in some other way special, relative to other kinds of faith.

Transcendental: One may argue that the existence of moral facts somehow requires the existence of further sorts of non-natural entities or realities, and therefore, if we take it on faith that moral facts exist, then we thereby commit ourselves to also having faith in those further things. The best way to resist this kind of transcendental pressure toward expansion, I think, will be to develop and defend a clear picture of the resultance relation between moral facts and natural facts.