Morals

Morals are neither religious in nature nor God-based. Morals are what YOU believe to be right and wrong. Every example I could give of this is always mistakenly traced back to the Golden rule of the bible, which by the way, was stated by Confucius more than 500 years before Jesus supposedly said it. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." But as I said, mistakenly. It is easy to do this because it is a simple truth of life itself. "I don't want it done to me, so I will not give anyone a reason to do it." Lying for example. Why is lying bad? Quite simply because if you are caught, you are no longer trusted and trust is one of the hardest things in life to build. Why is murder bad? First nobody has the right to steal someone's life away from them. Secondly, nobody has the right to cause the hurt and pain in the family and friends of the one killed. You will notice that I said murder and not killing. I believe that killing, while despicable and tasteless, sometimes is necessary to protect life. A point I want to make is that the bible actually differentiates between murder and killing also. The ORIGINAL Hebrew text for the commandments says "Thou shall not murder". When it was translated, it became kill. One more reason not to trust the precious bible. Translations are not always correct. If it is not translated correctly, how do you know you are following the right path?

God made the 10 commandments. If he had decided to say "Thou shalt murder everyone who looks at your wife wrong" would that murder be correct? Under Christian thinking, YES! "But God wouldn't have said that. Everyone knows murdering is wrong!", you say. Under Christian thinking, it is only wrong if God says it is wrong. And to say "God said 'Thou shalt not murder' because it is right", means that it is a truth and that's why God said it, not it is a truth because God said it. So if God decided on the 10 commandments because that's what he feels is right and not because it is a truth that must be, then God picked those 10 commandments arbitrarily and could have picked a totally different set.
  1. Thou shalt have as many gods as you want.
  2. Make many images of everything in heaven.
  3. Worship these images as much as you can.
  4. Take God's name in vain as much as possible.
  5. The Sabbath isn't holy. Have an orgy.
  6. Smack your parents around for good measure.
  7. Murder anyone you don't like.
  8. Have sex with every women you see, married or not.
  9. Thou shalt steal everything that isn't nailed down.
  10. Tell as many lies as you think you can get away with.
  11. Be jealous and envy everything your neighbor has.
It is as if he tossed a coin to decide what is right or wrong.Therefore I find that morality is and can be independent of God. We know what must be done to work together in a community. And it's these basic truths and rights that we give each other so that we may be treated as equals, that's what makes up our morals, not God.

I do not feel that a theist can be moral based upon their religious belief. The theist has said that he/she cannot make rational decisions about what is right or wrong and has turned over that right to a god to make those decisions for him/her. The problem with that, assuming there is a god at all, is that the bible was written 2000 years ago. And what might have been right then surely would be considered evil now. For instance, in Deuteronomy 21:21, it calls for the stoning of a stubborn son by the village elders. When was the last time a Christian has stoned his child? Does the Christian not feel this is a moral thing to do? God has ordered it done. "If your son is stubborn and does not listen to you even after chastising him, then have the elders stone him to death to take the evil away". This is not something that would be allowed in today's time. A Christian has to believe that the laws set forth by God are absolute and permanently valid though. Even though we all know that times change. Why couldn't God in all his wisdom not see that?

Several of our values and morals if looked at and thought about, you can find reasons other than "because God said so". And you really need to. I see children ask "why can't I or why shouldn't I do that?" and the answer is always "because I said so or because God said so" What happens to that child when God or the parent holds no significant value to them? What happens when they let God fall away from them? The morals fall away with God and the child has nothing to base their lives on. I raise my children with a depth of understanding of why they shouldn't do something. I do not worry about my children as much as I see others do because I know they understand why something is wrong or bad for them. I explain it to them. The inherent truth of that reason doesn't ever go away. I know they will be safer. You should determine your own morals, for your own reasons, not have someone impose them on you.