Us immoral atheists. May 16, 2008

My wife participates on several parenting bulletin boards and sometimes shares the more interesting threads with me.  The other day she let me know that, since we’re atheists, we have no morals.  You evidently need to be Christian to have morals.

So I started to google about some bible passages I remembered from when I was a moral Christian.  And I discovered some differences between my morals and the morals the bible teaches me:

• Slavery.  By slavery I mean: purchase of another human beings life against their will.
  • Bible is pro slavery.  In some cases all descendants of one person who committed a pretty minor offense were forced in to slavery.  Not only is the Bible pro slavery, but it has many rules for slavery.  Such as beating your slaves.  As long as you hold off on your slave beating just enough so that the slave doesn’t die for 2 days, God’s OK with it.
  • I’m anti slavery.  And I’m anti beating anyone at all.  Even if it takes 3 days for them to die.
• Sex
  • The Bible has some weird rules about sex.  Not much of it is actually explicitly laid out.  One story I find interesting is Genesis 38.  In this chapter we learn that Judah marries some girl and has 3 sons.  He arranges a marriage with the first son and a woman, but for some reason God didn’t like him and killed him.  So Judah makes his next son take that woman for his wife and demands kids.  His son has respect for his brother though and “spills his seed on the ground” instead of inside his dead brothers wife.  Well… God will have none of that, so God kills him!  Later on we find that this same woman, who was married to two of Judah’s now dead sons, dresses up like a prostitute and Judah pays her for the goods.  Well… what do you know, Judah gets the ex-wife (a prostitute he paid for) of his two dead sons pregnant.  And…. God kills him?  No.  God’s OK with this.  So what do we learn from this?
    • Unprotected sex with hookers is OK.  God will not kill you.
    • Taking precautions to prevent pregnancy is not OK.  Having sex WITH YOUR WIFE and trying to prevent a pregnancy will piss God off so much he might just kill you.  But… when was the last time you saw God smote someone?  When was the last time you saw God do anything?
  • I say educate and be safe. Sex has many possible consequences and as long as you’re ready to deal with the possible consequences you’re probably ready for sex. Keeping in mind that no birth control/condom is 100% effective. Also unprotected sex with a hooker who is the widow of two of your sons is NOT OK.
• Equality
  • All people are clearly not equal in the bible.  No equal rights for everyone.
  • I believe all people are equal and should therefore have equal rights.  Color of skin, religious beliefs, sexual preference, whatever.  We’re all equal.
• Animal Sacrifices
  • Bible is pro them.  God often request animal sacrifices in the old testament.  He seems to lust for spilled blood and the smell of burnt flesh.  He even goes as far as convincing one of his loyal followers to sacrifice their OWN SON.  Sure, he stops him right before he actually does it, but that doesn’t make it any less of an asshole thing to do.
  • I like eating hamburgers/chicken/steak etc.  I’m not a vegetarian or anything.  But sacrificing an animal in some sort of ancient blood ritual and burning their flesh… yeah.  Not for me.

Now I know that the new testament changes many things.  But remember it’s the same God throughout all of time.  The same God that Christians worship and call loving is this same God that kills individuals for minor infractions, the same God that wipes out entire populations of people, the same God that kills innocent babies in Egypt because of something the Pharaoh did.  So if we’re talking about Morals instilled upon us from the Christian God, you have to look at the whole bible.

And I know that these are not the morals that Christians today stand by.  Well… some of them are.  It’s hard to find a Christian that believes we’re all equal.  I have some wonderful friends that are Christian and I don’t think any less of them.  It’s just that for me it goes against my nature to follow these rules in the bible.  For me I felt more like I was sinning when I tried to follow what the new testament told me.

I’m just nicer than what the bible will allow me to be.

Now, I said,  “than what the bible will allow ME to be”.  Not that I’m nicer than all Christians.  I fought hard throughout college with what I felt the bible told me was right and wrong.  Others have different views on what is literal and what is not.  Or how one passage translates.  Or what is still valid for our modern culture.  You can come to many conclusions about what it means to be a Christian.  For me, the conclusions I have came to, I will never be Christian again.

Guess that brings up the question, “where do morals come from?”  I think it’s just a sense of what’s right and wrong instilled in us to keep order.  Some evolutionary scientists probably have some theories on it.  But if we all had no morals, no feelings, no empathy… we wouldn’t make it very far as a society.

And morals clearly change throughout time.  Which to me is a clear sign that morals are NOT from a divine superior unchanging perfect being.  Slavery used to be moral.  Racism used to be moral.  I know most people consider homosexuality to be immoral.  But some day I bet the majority of the world will accept gay marriage as equal to straight marriage.  Some day homosexuality will be moral.

I like to think that I don’t just follow the masses.  Who knows though, maybe there’s something in my life that I find “morally acceptable” will be so obviously not acceptable to future generations.