(Note: this is not the same as the similar-sounding Without belief in an afterlife / fear of hell, how can people be moral?. That one is about behaving because of fear of punishment; this one is about the common belief by theists that people get their moral rules from God / religion / the Bible.)
It may come as a surprise to you, but if you’re a caring, loving person who makes people around you happy, you’re not getting that from religion. In fact, it’s much the opposite.
If your religion is simply “I believe God is like a loving father who wants us to be kind to each other”, then, while you’re much healthier than many other believers, you are making that religion up. You are inventing it, creating it. Or, else, your priest or pastor, who taught you about God and religion, did so.
Because “just be kind to one another” is a philosophy that finds no support in the Bible. That’s not what the Christian god — especially, but not only, in the Old Testament — is about. Not in the least.
According to the Bible — and, again, if you ignore it, you’re making up your own religion –, God really thinks women are inferior to men. He thinks slavery is OK. He thinks people who disobey many of his arbitrary rules should immediately be put to death by other believers. He thinks homosexuals, bankers, disobedient children, and people who eat shellfish should be killed. And he’s OK with genocide — putting entire countries to the sword, including women and children.
Most Christians, of course, are never told about most of the above. Many of those who do are mentally healthy enough to repudiate those beliefs (thus, again, creating their own “sanitized” religion). Those who aren’t healthy enough become fundamentalists: preachers (and agents) of intolerance, suffering and hate.
But my point is that, if you’re a kind, moral believer, you are that despite your religion, not because of it. In fact, you have to ignore much of your holy book, or else you’d probably be in prison already (say, for stoning your child to death because he arrived late from a party).
How can your morality come from religion if you have to ignore most of that religion’s teachings in order to not be a monster?
More about this: Picking and Choosing.
(Note: please keep any comments related to the above question / answer, and not to other subjects, such as whether God exists or not. Thanks.)
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