Morality And Religion

[SWIM]

I was reading an old thread here this morning, and it seems to me that many christians think that "morality" comes from religion. I get the feeling that they feel if we did not have the promise of heaven, or the threat of hell, we would all run helter-skelter out there, screwing everyone, stealing, killing etc etc. Like they think the *only* thing preventing this behaviour is a belief in god.

 

To those people, I say bullshit. If you believe that, then you must be a sorry person in your heart. You must feel that *you* would be a social animal if you did not believe. What an ass you must be deep inside if you believe that.

 

Here is some *proof* you are wrong. PROOF, a seldom used word when talking about xtianity.

 

Here is a list of famous atheists in all walks of life:

 

http://famousatheists.org/

 

Too many to post in this thread, that's how BIG the list is.

 

Here's the proof, these people have no religion, yet many contributed greatly to mankind. PROOF that religion is not required to be moral.

Explain that xtians, why aren't all these people social rejects?

You know what? Doing what is right is NOT supposed to be rewarded. Your reward for doing right comes in the form of cause and effect. You do TRUE™ good things, and it has an effect. You live fuller, richer lives, and you feel good inside. You aren't supposed to get a special *perk* (like going to heaven) for doing what you are *supposed* to do in the first place.

 

Punishment is meant at it's heart to "reform", to correct anti-social behaviour. It's not supposed to be revenge.

 

Laws are created to keep social balance.

 

There are lots of christian criminals.

 

Did you know that the majority of members of the mafia, past and present are christian?

 

Here's a question. Do atheists start religious wars? How many crusades have atheists embarked upon?

 

Funny, so MANY christians reject all the negative war/hate stuff in the bible and latch on firmly to jesus's *positive* teachings. Oddly, these teachings (the good ones) are, for the large part, very SIMPLE common sense social behaviour. The name jesus translated to english should be *Mr Obvious*. I think if you need Dr Suess level morality pumped into your brain there are a whole lot easier places to get it from, try a children's bookstore.

 

So christians, lets have a debate about how we need religion for morality? Any takers?

 

Ex-christians, hijacking the thread is allowed and encouraged, because I doubt we will see any xtians in it, that would require balls.

[Thurisaz]

Indeed, I share your prediction that no morontheist will dare to reply.

 

No balls, no reply

[R. S. Martin]

I have a theory as to why Christians believe that humans are depraved--it is so that Jesus' death has meaning.

 

I nearly felt sick when that insight hit me but I can't get around it. My profs say Jesus' followers tried to make sense of Jesus' death when they thought he was the Messiah. They realized that he was God's Pascal Lamb to pay the price for the sin of the world once and for all. It had to be this way to show what kind of God the Christian God was--he was a God who was not embarrassed to be found dead on a cross, whereas the Roman and Greek Gods were aristocrats hell-bent on the honor system.

 

This Christian God tossed the honor system out of the way because Jesus paid the price by death on the cross. He was the highest and died as the lowest, so I guess he bridged the gap between the full spectrum of the honor system from highest god to lowest slave.

 

Whew! I never "got" it before. I'm sure this is the depths of the "mysteries" of God. And it's totally empty. Humans should be able to do this with or without religion. But the feudal system with its lords and slaves has long since gone out of style so modern theologians have had to reinterpret things and instituted morality for the honor system. That is what I think. Where as people were of less value than God, in a democratic society all humans are equal so something had to be made of the matter. Out goes basic value; in comes morality/ethics. That's my idea.

 

Now if one of my profs hadn't slipped up on me I might not have gotten this idea. I mentioned the feudal idea about people having to grovel before their lord for a favor. Prof said that interpretation has not been used for a long time. I thought HUH?!? Okay. How do you prove that one? The moment passed and I was left with my own thoughts. Until now. The idea is in all the songs, in the Psalms. I am not sure what is in the liberal church hymn books and literugy but I don't think they have rewritten the Bible. After studying with these people for all these years I am not convinced that they have reinterpretted things as much as he thinks they have. Not to my satisfaction.

 

They still have totally depraved humanity outside of God. He told me that "we know that if we didn't have guidelines for right and wrong we'd be pretty messed up humanity." Not his exact words but he definitely used the word "we." And it grated on my nerves. I had forgotten how strong their theology was in that line. These are not fundamentalists.

[Jedah]

I think the real reason they think this is for the same reason Xians cant seem to grasp the obvious problems with a benevolent god who kills off those who dont believe him.

 

Christians are locked in their own view of the world were everything is either pointing toward god or away from god, and they fail to realize that those who dont believe in their religion see the world in a much more diverse light. We are not being offered a free gift that we just simply wont take because we are stubborn, but are being offered millions of "free gifts" with the catch that we may only choose one. Xians do not take the time to realize that not everyone sees the world in black and white like they do.

 

Those of us who are outside of the xian box can easily see that morality is simply the product of animals reaching a level of intelligence were we are able to notice what works in a society and what doesnt. We know what we want and need, we know we have feelings, and we are smart enough to realize that everyone else ussually does to. Being the thinkers we are, we can understand why it would be wrong to kill another. Even animals in nature understand this. From a christian perspective, all this "morality crap" is answered for them, so they never take the time to think why or how it came about...thus they make the mistake of assuming that no one can be good without their bullshit dogma. This lack of thought is what leads them to never morally mature past the "punishment - reward" stage. They cant comprehend why they should attempt to be a decent human being without some sort of punishment or reward egging them on, and thus cannot comprehend why anyone else would attempt to be a good person in that situation either.

 

Hate to sound like an asshat, but honestly I think anyone who hasnt realized that no religion has a patent on morality past the age of 16 is a complete fuckin moron. You'd have to be living under a rock to not notice that good deeds are being done by everyone irregardless of their ideologies and beliefs.

[R. S. Martin]

You'd have to be living under a rock to not notice that good deeds are being done by everyone irregardless of their ideologies and beliefs.

 

You know what kind of answers I get when I point this out to them? I was still a Christian when I did this.

• God moves in mysterious ways. (said in a sickly sweet smile by a missionary who just got done expouding on the wonders of God's outpouring in her and her husband's work in the UK)
  
• Maybe it's not about being good. (I have no idea what that was supposed to mean.)
  
• What kind of values have they got?! (said with utmost contempt; I suspect the people being referred to were Christians but I wouldn't know; they were not as "Christian" as we)
  
• *shrug*
  
• *dismiss*
  
• *pretend not to hear*
  

[Guest Sal1981]

I have a theory as to why Christians believe that humans are depraved--it is so that Jesus' death has meaning.

"You're an ugly fuck.

 

Buy this piece of crap and become beautiful!"

 

In order for Christian's to justify the human sacrifice of Jesus - they have to make people believe that it was for scapegoating. It's a play on an old theme: let someone else take responsibility of your actions. There's a problem with it though, some people are independent and take responsibility for their actions, which makes Jesus' sacrifice redundant; and that's where Hell enters into the picture, an "or else ..." proposition.

[Jedah]

God moves in mysterious ways.

 

When I feel in the mood to actually defeat something, I like to answer this with "So in other words, you dont know and dont want to admit it". They will of course try to cop out more, and no matter what I will respond in the same way. It eventually pisses them off because the more you repeat it, the more it ever so slightly shatters their denial.

 

If i had a penny for every copout phrase christians use to substitute for "I have no fucking clue because I like being delusional." I would be a rich man.

[Checkmate]

(Setting aside the fact that "morality" is a totally subjective, human invention...) Christians harp on morality for the same reason they use hell -- without "morality" and without "hell" there is NO JUSTIFICATION for their retarded religion. They've got to push both ideas for their religion to have any merit.

 

But as everyone has already amply demonstrated, there is no "hell" and "morality" exists as a separate entity from religion.

 

So who the fuck needs god/Jesus? Only gullible, self-hating nitwits and manipulative assholes.

 

~ Checkmate

[Robbobrob]

It is something I see a lot from Christians. This need to paint morality as the sole property of religion, and without God, they would all run wild and rape and murder and steal.

 

Rather repulsive way to think of themselves and their ability to control their own actions.

 

I'd much rather trust an Atheist who has worked hard at self-mastery, then a Christian who is only self-controled because he thinks God is watching. Trusting the latter is pure suicide.

[SWIM]

Kind of like my wife with her Anti-Pride attitude. She thinks she should personaly take the blame and ask forgiveness for ALL the bad things she does, but whenever she "does anything good", or basically gets lucky at something, all the glory goes to god.

 

She will spout cliches like "pride goes before a fall" and other such stuff...

 

That's what makes her so sad all the time I think. She suffers from depression. One of the things that has prevented me from divorcing her years ago is my sympathy for her pain, and not wanting her to have to start over. Do I ever get any credit? No, I am a scumbag for not believing. Every bit of success I have had in all our years of marriage has always been "thanks be to god", but like anyone self employed, sometimes there were lows. That was mine or her fault. The tables turn after countless hours of hard work on my part... Praise god, isn't god great michael?

 

Is she thankful to live in a nice house, have money in her pocket? No, it's god's will his blessing. Is she mad at god for taking her father, and her brother? No, that was gods will, and somehow their fault...

 

I get so tired of being the bad guy always, always in my relationship.

 

I guess I need to write a testemonial, I have not yet I guess, because my greatest hardship with christianity is living with christians more so then the trama of de-conversion which happened so many years ago. Hiding it, talking lip service to fit in, now in my mid 40s the constant charade has taken a toll. This board has helped me vent in the short time I have found it. (and man have I been doing some venting...) This is spilling over into my life, the once silent me, is now muttering bullshit outload at times, shocking people. My marriage is getting more and more divided.

 

Ahh that's a rant (or testamonial for another post).

 

My point of this reply other then venting yet again, is that feeling bad, and GUILTY for the bad things that happen, and praising god, and not giving yourself any credit (or those around you) for the good things, is ALSO a part of xtian twisted morality.

[South2003]

It is something I see a lot from Christians. This need to paint morality as the sole property of religion, and without God, they would all run wild and rape and murder and steal.

 

If a god belief enables these psychos to live an ethical/moral life, with empathy for their neighbours, then by all means, I say, keep the damn religion. Then again, we don't see that, do we? They (the true Christians) run amok with phedophilac tendencies, beating verbally and physcially their christian household then turns around and threatens us with their stupidity of hell, fire and brimstone.

 

 

Strange.

[SWIM]

It is something I see a lot from Christians. This need to paint morality as the sole property of religion, and without God, they would all run wild and rape and murder and steal.

 

If a god belief enables these psychos to live an ethical/moral life, with empathy for their neighbours, then by all means, I say, keep the damn religion. Then again, we don't see that, do we? They (the true Christians) run amok with phedophilac tendencies, beating verbally and physcially their christian household then turns around and threatens us with their stupidity of hell, fire and brimstone.

 

 

Strange.

 

Yeah, they think the bible is "magically" the word of god because "he can preserve and inspire the word" yet they fail to see how poorly not only the "word" is, but also how poorly he "magically kept the church free of criminals" . God is not a very good regional manager at all is he?

 

Almost as if he's not even there at all... lol

[Kelli]

I think this topic kind of goes hand in hand with what I was thinking about on my way to work this morning. I sometimes listen to xtian radio to see what they're up to. This morning the station I was listening to had a contest and to win you had to guess what the title of the late Billy Graham's autobiography was. The answer is Just As I Am, named after his favorite hymn.

 

That got me to thinking about something I think about from time to time when trying to dissect christianity. The gist of the hymn Just As I Am is that you come to god just as you are. No fronts, no trying to act good, no trying to be what you're not. Just you. And supposedly god accepts you that way. If only that was really the way it went. No, after god supposedly accepts you the way you are, you're supposed to change. God will transform you, they say, into a new creature that, unlike the old creature, rejects temptation and all manner of sin.

 

We all know how that works out. Funny, if a christian is found guilty of sin, who ends up taking the blame? (But I thought god was supposed to transform me, goddamnit!) And what is the christian told if they sin? That they need to change, of course! I can tell you with no uncertainty that any positive change in my life that ever occured, as a christian or not, came about because I proactively changed it. I changed it. Not god, not some supernatural holy ghost nudge, me! And if christians were honest, they'd admit that they have to make an effort to change.

 

Therefore, I believe that any good or morality is due to the will of the person themselves. It has nothing to do with some man-made book or supernatural holy influence, unless you want to count scaring the shit out of people with threat of eternal hellfire.

[Mythra]

Christians love to say that without the bible, there can be no morality.

 

At the same time as they ignore biblical mandates they don't want to obey.

 

Like killing your child if he gets sassy.

 

Like not eating shellfish.

 

Like obeying the sabbath.

 

Like killing your daughter if she's not a virgin on her wedding night.

 

Like killing anyone who tries to convert you to another religion.

 

And about a thousand other really really stupid rules in the bible.

 

So we have "do not kill" "do not steal" "do not lie". We don't need the bible for those.

 

I, myself have just two rules to live by:

 

1. Be nice whenever possible. (unless provoked)

 

2. Stay out of jail.

[SWIM]

The xtian silence in this thread is deafening...

 

Oh well, guess they have to carefully choose thier battles...

[Robbobrob]

The gist of the hymn Just As I Am is that you come to god just as you are. No fronts, no trying to act good, no trying to be what you're not. Just you. And supposedly god accepts you that way. If only that was really the way it went. No, after god supposedly accepts you the way you are, you're supposed to change. God will transform you, they say, into a new creature that, unlike the old creature, rejects temptation and all manner of sin.

Funny, I've been waiting for God EXACTLY as the hymn wants me to for a long, long time. I don't fake it at all. I am as I am. And I guess it has worked.....I no longer seek dumb faith based dogma truth, but seek to, as Legion said in another thread, to understand. And I have a better life now, than I ever did seeking Jesus as a savior. Gave it all up, and I am starting to finally understand that I have a pretty good life developing.

 

Was it God? was it me? Is there a difference? Should I really care if it works?

[Skiergirl24]

As sad as is sounds, I was once one of those who thought morality came from the Bible! I was raised Catholic and taught about morals etc. I was taught to believe that Morality came from religion. Only when I was older and read the Bible did I realize that it seems like morality and the Bible are mutually exclusive! Hahaha. Not really, but it can seem that way! The Bible is filled with vile, evil deeds and spews hatred across every page. Before my deconversion (I am still sort of in the process of deconverting) I wondered how atheists could live good lives if they did not believe in a God! But when you think about it in a biological way...the purpose of life forms (like humans) is to create more life. Cells divide by nature, and thus create more life. The purpose of a cell is to create more cells (most of the time anyway), thus creating more life! We are engineered to want to create and preserve and protect life. It is out nature to want to love and nurture and protect our children. Friendship and love serve biological purposes. Morality is somewhat biological! Of course deviations exist...Ted Bundys and Osmana Bin Ladens...even nature is not perfect!

 

I think many Christians are just delusional about what the Bible REALLY teaches. In my arena people had it drilled into their heads that God was good and God was love and that the Bible was love. We ignored the bad parts of the Bible...or stupid explanations were created to dispute the vile passages. Most of my friends don't know anything about the Bible...yet they are Christian and think that morality comes from their religion and from living God's word. They don't question it. I didn't either....until the shit hit the fan and I looked around and said "what the f--- is going on here?!"

[Skiergirl24]

When I feel in the mood to actually defeat something, I like to answer this with "So in other words, you dont know and dont want to admit it". They will of course try to cop out more, and no matter what I will respond in the same way. It eventually pisses them off because the more you repeat it, the more it ever so slightly shatters their denial.

 

I love it. I get this all the time too. Most of the people I ask will eventually say somethign along the lines of "How can we, as mere morals, begin to understand the will or nature of God? It is not for us to understand, just to trust and place our faith in the Lord."

[SWIM]

I love it. I get this all the time too. Most of the people I ask will eventually say somethign along the lines of "How can we, as mere morals, begin to understand the will or nature of God? It is not for us to understand, just to trust and place our faith in the Lord."

 

 

And in the very next breath, begin to preach to you "the will of god"...

 

 

LOL

[R. S. Martin]

I get so tired of being the bad guy always, always in my relationship.

 

I guess I need to write a testemonial, I have not yet I guess, because my greatest hardship with christianity is living with christians more so then the trama of de-conversion which happened so many years ago. Hiding it, talking lip service to fit in, now in my mid 40s the constant charade has taken a toll. This board has helped me vent in the short time I have found it. (and man have I been doing some venting...) This is spilling over into my life, the once silent me, is now muttering bullshit outload at times, shocking people. My marriage is getting more and more divided.

 

Ahh that's a rant (or testamonial for another post).

 

My point of this reply other then venting yet again, is that feeling bad, and GUILTY for the bad things that happen, and praising god, and not giving yourself any credit (or those around you) for the good things, is ALSO a part of xtian twisted morality.

 

Michael, thanks for this post. It helps me better understand where you're coming from. I never guessed that you'd be the "silent one" in real life. Then again, probably folks here don't realize what a hermit I am in real life.

[par4dcourse]

I just posted a good quote on God's Morality in general theological issues.

[Jennywocky]

I think if you need Dr Suess level morality pumped into your brain there are a whole lot easier places to get it from, try a children's bookstore.

 

Aw... please don't drag Dr. Seuss into this and sully his good name...!

 

(Actually, there is enough good in his books to rival most of the morality I see elsewhere -- and his work even rhymes.)

 

 

That got me to thinking about something I think about from time to time when trying to dissect christianity. The gist of the hymn Just As I Am is that you come to god just as you are. No fronts, no trying to act good, no trying to be what you're not. Just you. And supposedly god accepts you that way. If only that was really the way it went. No, after god supposedly accepts you the way you are, you're supposed to change. God will transform you, they say, into a new creature that, unlike the old creature, rejects temptation and all manner of sin.

 

We all know how that works out. Funny, if a christian is found guilty of sin, who ends up taking the blame? (But I thought god was supposed to transform me, goddamnit!) And what is the christian told if they sin? That they need to change, of course! I can tell you with no uncertainty that any positive change in my life that ever occured, as a christian or not, came about because I proactively changed it. I changed it. Not god, not some supernatural holy ghost nudge, me! And if christians were honest, they'd admit that they have to make an effort to change.

 

Interestingly, people who I have met who I consider to be "mature" Christians do wrestle with that -- the pressure they get from their own church to 'conform to the standards and be perfect' vs the reality of their humanity, which is that they are imperfect people who sometimes have selfish desires that they feel incapable of rising above. There is a minority that struggles to be more than the "Christian culture"... and they are ostracized even in their own church.

 

I am just clarifying that the term "Christian" is really thrown around in this thread and elsewhere as a term for anyone who believes Christianity, but invariably it only represents the more traditionalized/legalistic church.

 

One of my friends at college (far too long ago, darnit, talk about old...) was a believer because of his own subjective experiences with God and because he shared the values of Jesus... but he (and a few others) felt excluded and marginalized by the staunch "Christian" organizations there because he would challenge them on issues like this. To make a joke out of it, he called his little gang of like-minded thinkers the "Evil Christian Fellowship" and would reject people from joining their ranks for not being evil enough. (This was long before Austin Powers. )

 

Anyway, my point here is mainly that there is a healthy minority of people who espouse to be Christians who do not share this attitude of being "perfect" by being saved or that it's about conforming to standards.

 

Therefore, I believe that any good or morality is due to the will of the person themselves. It has nothing to do with some man-made book or supernatural holy influence, unless you want to count scaring the shit out of people with threat of eternal hellfire.

 

The process of becoming "more mature spiritually" or "more like Jesus" is the process of sanctification, officially. Looking at it from the outside, it takes a long time, and I can't tell how much of it would be "God working" and how much of it is simply the natural maturation over time of a human being with a strong sense of value/love for others. I just can't tell. I meet many good people in life, of different religions, and how can I claim it is "God" working? How would I know?

 

I found myself offended in the last number of months over the idea of "original sin" that I had grown up with, though.

 

If you are constantly telling people they are "shit" essentially before God, filthy, unrighteous, unworthy, and the like... how on earth would you expect them to be able to change that overnight and suddenly accept that God loves them "anyway." It's terrible. The problem is in the actual assumptions of the faith, and they do not align with what I see as "good parenting." Good parents don't tell their kids how much they suck "if not for me ... but I love you anyway" -- that invariably produces dysfunctional kids. I can't imagine that if God was real, he would operate that way.

[sojourner]

Jenny that is a wonderful post that speaks volumes to me

 

 

I just wanted to thank you for that post and let you know it touched me and is causing me to examine some things as in my own self image and how it is effected by christianity

 

thanks

 

sojourner

[upstarter]

Hate to sound like an asshat, but honestly I think anyone who hasnt realized that no religion has a patent on morality past the age of 16 is a complete fuckin moron. You'd have to be living under a rock to not notice that good deeds are being done by everyone irregardless of their ideologies and beliefs.

 

Oh yay!! I'm not a complete fucking moron! I would say it was almost exactly at age 16 that this very thought occurred to me and began my 5 year road to non-belief. At 16 I could not accept that people I knew were good, moral, kind, caring people were going to go to hell because they didn't believe in Jesus. Did not compute.

 

Funny how when I stopped believing in Jesus I didn't begin a violent rampage in the streets. Damn, I missed that lesson!

 

Heather

[Neon Genesis]

I personally don't believe there is such a thing as "good" and "evil". I think these are merely labels society uses to describe productive behavior vs destructive behavior and "morality" is simply the measure that we use to gauge how beneficial our actions are to society. I don't go around lying and stealing from others because "God said so." I don't do those things because it doesn't benefit anyone to steal or lie. I think humans are creatures that depend on other humans to exist. If everyone lied and stole from each other, it would create feelings of distrust and hatred between each other. If humans aren't able to trust each other and become isolated from each other, then the growth of human society becomes stunted, and if human society's progession becomes stunted from isolating each other, I feel like that it will eventually lead to the destruction of humanity. Likewise, I don't go around murdering everyone not because God said so but also because I think murdering people is never beneficial to anyone. Since humans depend on other humans to survive, if we kill every human we see, then we'll have no one left to depend on to help us survive, thus murder doesn't benefit us. And I don't go around raping people because God said so but because likewise it causes feelings of hatred and distrust between people and the health risks involved of raping everyone doesn't benefit anyone. If we all went around raping each other, it would spread diseases like wildfire and if we couldn't have sex anymore without getting a disease, then sex is no longer pleasurable for anyone, thus rape doesn't benefit anyone. This is why the main philosophy in life that I follow is " "An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will." It's nice and simple and it's just plain common sense. And I've noticed that when people don't follow this philosophy of not hurting others, they're usually behaving non-sensically when they do hurt people.