You know that feeling you get when someone asks you whether or not you believe in a place where people you know and possibly love will burn in excruciating pain for all eternity? Well, that feeling is your morality telling you something’s not quite right. But wait! How could your own personal sense of morality be at odds with what the Bible says…if that’s where you get your morals from? The simple answer, of course, is that humanity developed/evolved into its own moral code that has nothing to do with a god.

I notice that a lot of Christians read or hear of some pretty nasty things in the Bible that don’t mesh too well with them and they immediately try and think of some way to make it seem not-so-nasty, or just write it off as “we can’t understand the mind of God.” These Christians know very well that something like eternal torment is immoral, but at the same time, they believe that God gave them their concept of morality. If a god gave you your morals, you would agree with every word of the Bible since that is his word. Instead, you are able to judge for yourself what is good and bad about the Bible. If you get your morality from the Bible, how in the world are you able to read it and know what is good and what is bad about it?

It’s like learning how to fly an airplane, but you know what they’re telling you just isn’t right. Not only that, but you actually know a better way to do it, without having gotten any instruction on the subject before.

If we developed morals independent of a god, that would explain why we feel uneasy at some of the things we read in the Bible. Case closed. However, if we developed them from God, then that means there’s some sort of unknown reason why we feel uneasy about these Bible passages. Maybe there’s some unknown reason that we’ll never be able to comprehend why he ordered the slaughter of all of the firstborns of Egypt — including firstborn cattle — rather than solving the issue in a different way (Exodus 12:29-30). Maybe there’s some unknown reason why God killed David and Bathsheba’s baby for David’s transgressions rather than punishing David directly (2 Samuel 12:11-15). Maybe there’s a reason God eternally tortures his creation for non-belief, even though most of us would never do that to anyone we loved…or even hated (Revelation 21:8).

Understanding that we developed our own moral system seems to be the easier way to explain all of that.

At one point not too long ago, the majority thought it was morally acceptable to buy and sell human beings. We eventually came to realize this was wrong, and slavery was abolished. The majority still thought it was acceptable to deny these darker skinned folk the right to vote, take a dump in the same bathrooms or the fundamental right to attend a decent school. Again, good sense prevailed, and now we have a black president.

Did you see what just happened there?

We just went from accepting blacks as slaves to accepting a black person as the leader of the United State of America in a matter of 200 years. I wish we had a name for this phenomenon but I can’t think of what to call it? Oh yeah…it’s called evolution. Music evolves. Clothing evolves. Technology evolves. Morals evolve.

If you realize that morals evolve, you can only imagine that back when the Bible was written, our moral structure was a lot more crude than it is now, which is why you see the stories on incest and genocide that you do. To them, that was acceptable, just as slavery was, which is why that’s in the Bible too.

Everything that can be had as a Christian can be had as a non-believer, including morals. The only difference is that you don’t have that internal struggle and wonder why you feel uneasy about something you read in the Bible or heard from a minister. There’s no ‘chalking it up to God working in mysterious ways’. You just come to an understanding that murder, rape, theft, child abuse and driving in the left lane on a highway if you’re not passing anyone are all completely wrong based on reason and sensibility.

I think another moral change is about to happen, probably in my lifetime, with homosexuality. As more information surfaces about the hows and whys of it, we’ll realize that there’s nothing wrong with being gay just as we realized there’s no problem with having dark skin. I think this revalation will also allow at least some people to realize the err of Christianity and the Bible where God says gays should be killed (Leviticus 20:13), but we find out conclusively that it is as natural as heterosexuality. Christians will either have to write off such a finding as fallible human trickery — all the while hypocritically taking advantage of every other advancement of science that doesn’t conflict with their belief — or go through another internal battle. I just don’t think Christianity can survive but so many of these battles as we advance scientifically and morally.

I think our last big moral step beyond homosexuality would be the acceptance of non-believers into all facets of society. Right now, I have to worry about whether or not this site will affect my ability to keep my current job or get another one, and that’s incredibly sad. It’s not the most grave injustice known to this planet, but it’s one I think is worth at least having a beer and talking through it.

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