Who's Moral?

This post is adapted from a speech written by Alex Shaw. Alex is 17 years old and from Augusta, Georgia. He attended Church for the first 16 years of his life and 'came out' to his parents one year ago. Alex will soon be attending college and plans to study religion at grad school. Enjoy!

Religious individuals often claim that, without religion, a significant amount of morality is lost within culture, when in fact, if one were to follow the Bible’s morality to the letter, we’d have stoned kids, stoned gays, and stoned adulterers. Today, when someone reads the Bible, they apply their own morality, the morality of the modern day to the ‘Word of God’. It’s a concept known as ‘cherry picking’, or simply taking the good and leaving the bad. Either God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, his word in biblical form is unquestionable and we follow its every word and stone gays, or there are holes and incongruities in the Holy Book and its law should not be followed. It’s just false to assert that Jesus established a new covenant and that the law of the Old Testament was no longer needed – Matthew 5:17-19.

I realize there are many moderate Christians who selectively chose what they do believe and what they don’t believe about the contents of the Bible. Most Christians, who believe the Bible is the 'Word of God', do not believe that their Jewish friend or Muslim friend will go to Hell because they lead a good life and are, overall, a good person. However, the ‘Word of God’ begs to differ – John 15:4-6. Yes, ok, so the word of the Christian saviour condemns a host of good people solely because they don’t abide in Jesus, but the moderate Christians chose not to believe this because their God is a benevolent God and would never do such a thing. They have committed a grievous error. They have applied their own standards of morality and reason to God’s. If you are able to read the ‘Word of God’ and decide for yourself what is right or wrong, then you do not need a book of divine origins to define your morals, you simply need more books with more situations from which you can figure out your own beliefs. You have, in effect, nullified the need for a supernatural decree of any kind, seeing as how you had no problem believing against the teachings of ‘your’ saviour in the first place.

And if this or that portion of the 'Word of God' is invalid, why is any authority lent to any portion of the Bible? The golden rule is good not because it is of Godly descent, but because it is an exceptional way for any man or woman to lead their life. In the same way, stoning rebellious children for disobeying their parents is not a good rule, not because it too is of Godly descent, but because it is a deplorable way for any man or woman to lead their life.

To state that religion is necessary or even relevant to someone leading a good life isn't an accurate statement. Plenty of atheists have good moral codes, just as many believers have bad ones. People often cite governments without religion such as those of Stalin and Hitler to show what can go wrong if religion is essentially removed from government. But one has to ask the question, "Was it their atheism that moved them to slaughter the innocent?" The obvious answer is no. No one that I'm aware of has committed atrocities in the name of atheism. Think of all the bad in world that has been done in the name of God or Allah before asserting anything about religion being necessary for morality.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and don't necessarily reflect the views of Young Freethought or its editors.