Picking and Choosing Your Moral Code

I saved the best for last. These two clips are the final in the list I had made to share with my religious friend, and they also happen to be my favorites.



This is episode #503 of the Atheist Experience. The topic is on responding to apologists. The portion of this episode that I want to focus on is in the last fifteen minutes or so, but feel free to watch the entire episode. Go to the 1:14:00 mark to listen to a great conversation between the hosts and a Christian caller.

The discussion here eventually turns to biblical inerrancy and morality. When the host points out some of the deplorable acts of god and his immoral laws in the old testament, the caller claims that those things no longer apply and that those laws were to "train up" the people of ancient times. The host knocks her argument out of the water by making three important points.

• In the bible, god says that he us unchanging and therefore if something was morally correct in the past, it should be morally correct today
  
• Jesus himself in the new testament says that not a single aspect of the old laws will be changed (Matthew 5:18)
  
• The caller believes that the ten commandments are binding today, yet those are written in the old testament

This is a great example of how many believers are guilty of picking and choosing from their religious text. They focus on only the positive parts of their doctrine that make them personally feel good. And they ignore (or choose to remain ignorant) of all of the horrific acts and commands. Here's a nice long list of cruelty and violence found in the Christian bible. It says to kill children, kill those who commit adultery, kill non believers (hey, that's me!), kill homosexuals, cut off the hand of a woman if she touches a man's genitalia, etc. Now why do you think Christians ignore all of those commandments? Probably because they don't want to follow them, because an average human being is much more moral than this psychopathic deity character that so many millions of people worship. It makes no sense to me. But I suppose I would rather have them pick and choose and only focus on the good stuff than try to live out what the bible says word for word. But I still find it really, really annoying when believers pick and choose parts of their doctrine that they like and ignore everything else.







This is another Christian caller and the discussion in these clips focuses on the morality of human beings and god. Moral superiority and inferiority, justification of adequate punishment for misdeeds, biblical portrayal of the nature of god, and thoughts on hell. I don't have much to add here because I think this video needs no commentary. I do share the host's frustration and disappointment with the caller. He seems like a very nice, very decent guy and he just doesn't have the balls to oppose his religious dogma. The last two thirds of the second clip are a passionate rant by the host on the caller's reluctance to be honest with his feelings.




Well, that's it! I finally finished posting all of these clips. I'm going to make another post later that has every single one of these clips embedded to make it easy to reference. I also have a lot of other videos I found related to these discussions that I'll share in another large post. But I'm not going to analyze and discuss each of them like I have done so here. Most of them are long documentaries, but they really taught me a lot and gave me some interesting perspectives on the matter. Thanks for sharing in all this material with me and I hope that you thought about the topics and gained something out of it!

Finish What You Start

Lately instead of posting to my own blog, I've been reading and commenting on others. In particular I've been pretty active at the Atheist Experience blog. I had a great discussion with others in a couple recent posts there. The first post was a discussion about the moral/ethical implications actions of professed gods. I made the first comment to that post so if you're interested, read it through and follow where the discussion led (there was at least one theist who participated in the dialogue). Also in that post someone shared a quiz called "Religion 101" which I enjoyed. I don't agree with the wording, fairness, or relevance of some of the questions on there, but in general I think its great. The quiz can be found here. I have a Christian friend I've been having some religious discussions with off and on in the past few weeks and I'd like to ask if she would mind taking it and then we can have a discussion about the answers that she selected. The second post I commented on was about the "end times" doctrine in Christianity found in the Book of Revelation. The original topic was a discussion of how sick and disturbing it is to see believers actually express their desire for the end of the world to come and to observe all the non-believers suffering in agony, but the discussion in the comments went all over the place.

If you recall, earlier this year I mentioned that I had put together a selection of various video clips from The Atheist Experience that I wanted to watch together with my religious friend. And when our discussions broke down and she no longer wished to talk about the subject anymore, I started sharing the clips on my blog. The last time I shared a clip was way back in March and I'm not even half way through my list, so I need to finish what I started. Here's the next clip in the series on how the concept of "sin" is a control mechanism. In my notes I wrote to watch only the first four minutes and thus will only comment on that length, but feel free to watch the entire 10 minute clip.



The commentary by the co-host Don is rather acerbic, but I do think he makes an interesting conjecture on how sin is used to exploit people, and how ridiculous the concept of original sin is. If you don't know, original sin is the idea that you are guilty for all the "sinful" actions of your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etcetra all the way back to the original two human beings, Adam and Eve (of course, I don't believe that two homo sapiens spontaneously popped into existence from nothing in the first place). I don't have much else to add here.

Link to google video (Sorry, blogger isn't accepting the embed code for some reason)

This is actually a full 90 minute episode, not a single clip. The portion of this episode I want to discuss is the segment from 6:00 to 35:00. Yes, its nearly 30 minutes long. In my notes I wrote that this segment is about the following. "A dialog on what motivates people to believe in Christianity, reasons for beliefs, reasons for disbelief, and touches on young Earth creationism". At 12:00, the hosts discuss a Christian blogger who told atheists why they are atheists, and gave two reasons (both reasons he gave require the atheist to believe in God). I've seen this many times before, on both sides of the aisle. Rather than listen to why the other person believes or disbelieves in something, they assert their own reasons on that person and assert them. Sometimes they do this because its easy for them to refute. Sometimes they do it because it makes them feel more comfortable about their own beliefs. But regardless of why they do this, its wrong for them to do so. The hosts also mention that some people, such as Ray Comfort, claim that there are no atheists. Rather those that call themselves atheists do believe in a god (particularly his god), but are in denial about it or reject the god for some reason. Its quite an ignorant assertion.

Between about 14:00 and 22:00, the hosts divulge into a good summary of the difference between theism, gnosticism, and weak/strong atheism. Around 24:00 the co-host Tracie provides a great example of contrast between the reaction of two fundamentalist Christians when they are presented with conflicting evidence that the Earth is 6,000 - 10,000 years old. One believer is open-minded at looking at the scientific evidence and as a result, becomes convinced that that particular belief they hold was wrong. The other is adamant that nothing can nor ever will change their beliefs. The latter believer is the type that I have serious problems. They proudly boast about being close minded and either uniformly reject or ignore contradictory evidence. Regardless of what you believe or disbelieve, whether its gods, UFOs, or political ideology, I think it is a horribly awful thing to be dogmatic and close minded to contradictory arguments, evidence, and opinions. And religion, particularly many forms of fundamentalism, are excellent and promoting this maligned view.

The Crazy Things People Will Do For Their God

I've been reading posts on the Atheist Experience blog for the past couple of months now. There is one that Tracie (one of the hosts on the show) made a few weeks ago that I wanted to share and comment on.

Is Religion Beneficial to Society?

Tracie's post analyzes the thought process of religious believers who are willing to personal commit or condone atrocities such as genocide, murdering their own child, etc. if their god commands it. This is something that resonated strongly with me because, if you recall, my religious friend said she was perfectly willing to go into an elementary school and murder all the children there if her god commanded her to. It totally shocked me that she said this, and it still does. Below are some selected quotes from that post that I think are worth emphasizing, but really I recommend that you read the entire article.

And I would follow that section with all the letters we get from adherents telling us that their religion is good, who after a few exchanges say that mass genocide, mass infanticide, suicide-mass-murder, rape, slavery and child sacrifice are all morally acceptable if, and only if, a god tells you to do these things.

Religion can take a human being who is willing to condemn an action as immoral in a particular circumstance, and get them to say that same action is moral in that same circumstance, if a god says to do it.

Someone might want revenge on Hitler to the point of hoping for a merciless, vengeful eternity of torture. But an average child? Or even an average adult? It’s hard to believe anyone would say that any of our friends and neighbors should be deserving of torture for ten minutes, let alone eternity?

There is something unnerving about living in a society where the predominant religion is one that can make a standard, normal human assert that atrocities should never be committed—except when god says to commit them.

There are many interesting comments to this article as well. I made some comments of my own there and talked about my religious friend, her willingness to commit murder for her god, and her response to my question of how is she different than a jihadist. (Her answer was "they're not really talking to god"). Here are some good responses I got to that from other comment writers.

cipher:
The sad thing is that Tyler's friend could easily have said, "If I heard the voice of God telling me to murder children, I'd assume that I was losing my mind" - but that wouldn't occur to most of them. It seems more reasonable to them to say, "Why, yes, I'd murder children."

tracieh:
Actually they do say things like “god would never say that.” But it's just too easy to point to all the times their god is described to have had people do these things in their own Bibles. Then you say, “You mean this god?”

tracieh:
I agree that it is unbelievable to see that they will say it outright--sometimes without a moment's hesitation. But god is always right—so killing children becomes right if god says to do it. That’s how "god" works in people's heads.

tracieh:
She’d "really" be killing for _god_, but they are killing because they’re deluded about what they think god is (i.e., their god isn't the "real" god). So, they’re not justified. It’s only justified if you do it for the "real" god. And since her religion is the "real" one and theirs is "false"—they’d be terrorists, and she’d be a martyr. Funny, though, how that works both ways, right?

I really, really wish I could ask my religious friend to read this post and all of the comments. If she ever agrees to talk to me about her faith again (although I doubt she will) this is going to be one of the first things I want her to read along with my earlier post about belief in hell.

I believe you're going to hell...and I hope I'm wrong.

I've been thinking about the concept of hell a lot lately. I would like for you to think about it too, especially if you are a believer in some form of hell. First lets take a brief look at what hell is, at least in general without getting too far into specifics or different religious explanations.

What is hell?
Hell is a place that human "souls" go to after their mortal life on Earth ends. No other species on Earth, at least according to most mainstream monotheistic religions, is at risk of going there.

What happens in hell?
You are subjected to the ultimate form of torture. Your "soul body" will burn in a lake of fire. You will be tortured and mutilated and suffer the most unimaginable suffering from the moment you die for all eternity. There will not exist a single moment of respite from this continuous torment.

What factors determine whether or not I will go to hell?
It varies according to which belief system you adhere too. But according to my religious friend, you can go to hell for either of these two conditions. (1) You do not accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior (ie, you are not a Christian). (2) God will judge your life and if you did not "follow his rules" as he outlines in the bible well enough, then he damns you to hell. Muslims, from what I know, believe all non-Muslims go to hell but I'm not sure if any other conditions apply.

Once I'm in hell, how do I get out or make my situation any better?
You can do nothing to change your fate after you die. Once you're in hell, you will stay there for all eternity. God will not forgive you and will not show a single ounce of mercy for you no matter who you are, no matter how apologetic you are, and no matter how much you are suffering and crying out in pain asking for mercy. He will allow it to continue. Forever.

Where did hell come from?
Like all things, God made the decision to create it. He deemed the existence of hell, of eternal torture, a necessary and just thing.

How many people living today are destined to go to hell?

Let's provide an estimate how many people are going to go to hell, shall we? Well, the answer of course depends on which religion is correct. (Most) Christians say that all non-Christians are going to hell while (most) Muslims say that all non-Muslims are going to hell. For the sake of keeping this short, we will consider just these two religions. Also because I'm not God and can't judge whether someone is a "proper" Christian or Muslim and doesn't deserve hell, I'll just say for the sake of argument that 100% of persons of the correct faith are not going to hell. I'm also going to ignore denominations and just assume that both Catholic and Protestant, Shiite and Sunni, etc. are all not going to hell (even though many of these denominations believe that this is not true). So lets take a look here. The graph below is from adherents.com and lists an estimated distribution of the world based on religion.



Now according to cia.gov, the human population of the world is somewhere in the ballpark of 6,706,993,152 people, or 6.7 billion. As a comparison, the population of the United States is approximately 307,212,123 people, or 0.307 billion people. The US population accounts for 4.58% of the current world population.

If the 66% of the population that is non-Christian world is damned to hell, that's 4,426,615,480 people, or 4.4 billion. 4.4 billion people are deserving of eternal torture and punishment according to mainstream Christian belief. And if we assume that Allah is the one true God instead of the Christian one, looking at the 79% of the non-Muslim world we have 5,298,524,590 or 5.3 billion on the verge of eternal damnation. To put that in perspective, if the Christian teachings are true then a quantity of people that is over 14.4 times that of the current population of the United States is deserving of the worst suffering imaginable, forever (the number of non-Muslim damned is 17.2 times).

Holy crap!!! I thought your god was supposed to be a loving and merciful character? How is it that so many people sing praise to Jesus (who is God) or Allah and say nothing but wonderful things about them when they surely realize that of the number of people who are currently living on this Earth, he is sending 4.4 b-i-l-l-i-o-n of them to be tortured for eternity simply because they don't believe in him? I am having trouble finding the correct ways to express the seriousness of this. Lets think about the horrors of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. About 2.2 billion people on Earth believe that the other 4.4 billion deserve a punishment that is far, far, far, FAR worse than what those poor, innocent Jewish and other minority victims suffered. Furthermore they deserve to suffer in that state for all eternity without a shred of hope for temporary respite, not even being allowed a second death. If Jesus is justified in torturing those who are "inferior" for not believing in him, why don't I ever hear Christians making the claim that Adolf Hitler was justified in his actions during the Holocaust? Is the only difference because Jesus is a God while Hitler was merely a man? Does that mean that there is a different set of morals and justified actions for a God than a man? If God is justified in everything that He does, does that imply that the more powerful or knowledgeable a being is, the more correct their seemingly unethical actions would be?

I know that what I am about to say may cause a lot of Christians, Muslims, and people of other faiths to become furious but I will say it anyway. If the god (Jesus, Allah, Yahweh) in your religion is going to send all non-believers of your faith to be tortured for eternity without respite, then your god is much worse than Adolf Hitler. And much worse than Joseph Stalin. And much worse than Mao Zedong. Your god is much worse than all three of those genocidal mass murderers combined. I would love if someone could explain this and convince me why I am incorrect about what I just said.

Coping with a belief of hell

Why do people continue to hold on to the beliefs that all others who do not share their faith are going to be damned with eternal torture? Isn't it distressing to them? I haven't met all 4.4 billion people of the non-Christians nor have I met all 5.3 billion people that are non-Muslims, but I am willing to wager that a large majority of them are good, decent people and I'm sure that nearly everyone would agree with me on that. If I personally held that belief that those people deserve to be tortured, I would be devastated! I generally care about other people, including those that I've never met. My mission in life is to do what I can to make the world a better place for both the people living on this Earth now and for those who will live long after I am dead (and burning in hell?). I think I can understand better now those people of faith who make it their mission to convert as many people over to their belief system as possible, so long as they are doing so because they genuinely believe that these (innocent?) people would otherwise be tortured by their "loving" god (add sarcasm). But not all missionaries have that sort of altruistic intention in mind I'm sure.

I also think I now have a better understanding of the grief that must exist in a religious family when a close friend or family member rejects the teachings that they have shared. I grow more thankful every day that I did not grow up in such a family, because I know it would be so much harder for me to be who I am. Having become close friends with a religious person was hard enough on me. When she told me that she believed that I was going to hell, despite having nothing but positive things to say about me at that time, it really did hurt. And it was also very confusing and difficult for me to accept. How does she cope with that belief if she cares about me? How does she also respect my right to believe or not believe what I choose and not try to actively convert me? (I'm glad that she doesn't try that by the way). Is it just something that she doesn't think about? Does she avoid becoming emotionally attached to any person who she believes is going to hell? I wish I could ask her these things.

Is hell something that people deserve?

Whether my religious friend or another person believes that I and X billion number of other humans on the planet are going to suffer from a state of eternal torture upon death is one matter. I think that a question that many believers fail to ask themselves (and should) is "Do these people deserve that?". Lets examine three possible responses.

"Yes, I believe you deserve to go to hell for not sharing my belief."
Well then I wonder how your position is any different from Hitler, as incendiary as that may sound. Hitler believed that all Jews and other groups should be thrown in concentration camps, starved, beaten, and murdered en masse. You believe that all non-Christians/non-Muslims/etc. should be thrown in a lake of fire, tortured, mutilated, and tormented for all eternity. You both believe that certain groups of people deserve this inhumane, unimaginable level of punishment and suffering.

"I don't know, that's God's will."
But you still believe that these people will go to hell, right? So obviously your god thinks that they deserve to go to hell. And because your god is infinitely more powerful, more knowledgeable, and more benevolent than you (really?), you are just willing to default to his/her/its decision and respond "Yeah, that's cool with me". Personally, in some ways I find this answer to be almost more insulting than just saying yes. Perhaps you feel guilty, so you want to avoid the question and shift the blame to your god. After all, this is his judgment, right? Have you ever considered questioning his judgment? Have you ever considered saying to your god "Hey, I disagree with you torturing these billions and billions of people for eternity and I think you should stop"? If you haven't, then why the hell not?

"No, I don't think that you deserve that simply for not sharing my faith."
Great! You are more moral than the god that you worship. You are not alone either, because most human beings are as well. I know that if I was a god, I sure wouldn't be putting these people through so much suffering for not believing in me. Especially if I was the sort of god that wanted people to believe in me based on "faith", or belief without evidence.

I believe that you are going to hell, and I hope that I am wrong about that.

Everything I've said builds to this final pressing question that I've been pondering for the past week. If people genuinely hold this belief about hell, why do I never hear anyone say "I believe that you are going to hell, and I hope that I am wrong about that"? Do they really want to be correct that 4.4 billion or 5.3 billion of their fellow human inhabitants of Earth are going to hell, to be greeted by the screams of the billions more already there and to be followed by the trillions who will die later? I have been told that I am going to hell countless times throughout my life, yet not one person has expressed any sort of remorse about that belief. They've never told me that they wished that particular belief that they held was not true. Does that mean that they want it to be true?


I'd guess "probably not", at least for most decent and caring human beings. So why don't they abandon it? Why is religion this "all or none" deal to so many people? Can you not continue to believe in God while rejecting the belief in hell? Can you not believe in a heaven if you do not believe in a hell? Many people have already rejected many aspects of their belief system, whether they realize it or not. I have yet to meet a Christian who adheres to Deuteronomy 21:18-21, which states that you should stone your unruly children to death. (I've also yet to meet a person who does not admit that they were not unruly at some point during their childhood). I could list dozens, perhaps hundreds of examples like this that you would reject, I promise you.


If from the bottom of your heart of hearts you believe that I am going to hell, that will always make me sad. Even more so if you are a beloved person to me. But I hope that you'll at least have given the idea of hell some thought. And maybe, just maybe, you'll say to me one day "I believe that you are going to hell...and I hope that I am wrong".

Various Topics on the Christian God

I took a bit of a break from blogging this last week. It really takes a lot of time and effort to blog about these topics, look up information, formulate arguments, etc. Plus I think now that the major conflict with my friend is over, I'm a little bit less enthusiastic about this. But I'll continue writing about it for as long as I see fit. At least I promise to finish my collection of videos from the atheist experience.

Which brings me to my next clip which comes in two parts. This one is a little light hearted and poking fun at things, but I have a strong agreement to many of the views that the hosts present in this video. There's not much to comment on for the first 4-5 minutes of this clip, although that's probably the most amusing part of the video. I'll punctuate several points in the video by the time that they occur.

Part 1.



@ 4:45 - What are you going to do when you die and you find out that all of this [God] is true?
I would then believe. Its as simple as that. I'll be surprised then of course, because I think that the evidence strongly suggests that the bible is false in many many different areas. But what I would like to turn around and ask a Christian is "What are you going to die and find out that your religion is not the correct one?". Maybe the Muslims are right. Maybe the Hindus are right. And guess what, you Christians can then join me in whatever version of hell the correct religion may prescribe and we can have a lengthy discussion about it then.

@5:15 - If the God that exists is the one spoken about in the bible, I still would not worship him.
I agree with this statement. If God is all powerful and chooses to exterminate life that is "incorrect" (such as is written in Noah's Ark), I would not worship that God. I would condemn that God for his immoral and unjust acts towards life. I don't care if he "created everything". Life is not something to be toyed with. If I have a child, does that give me the right to stone them to death for being disrespectful to me? Does it give me the right to kill them at my whim? "I created you, and I can end you" is an immoral stance. But for some reason, Christians seem to think that its okay that God can do that. I will not worship something that I do not respect, even if I believe that it exists. And if I find out that God exists someday (the God written in the bible), I will no longer be an atheist, but I also won't be a Christian. I will be a theist who believes in a petty, jealous, unjust, immoral diety.

But that doesn't mean I won't try talking to him. I'll try to convince him that the things he has done and is doing are wrong. I don't care that he's omnipotent or omniscient. If he thinks that he is right and that committing genocide and infanticide and accepting human sacrifices are all good, then he has a lot of explaining to do to me before I'm ready to worship him. He has the power to convince me and he knows how to do it, so don't tell me that its my fault for being a lowly human who can't understand his great plan.

@ 5:25 - You're born guilty because of something your ancestors did.
I reject this as well because it just isn't right. All these infants are born into the world guilty of the crimes of their parents, their grandparents, and so on? If some man or woman ever committed some atrocious wrongdoing to me, for example killing someone I hold close, is it right for me to blame it on their 2 month old infant? That's ridiculous! We are all born innocent, not guilty. I reject such a system where I have to continually apologize to God, the only perfect being, for being imperfect. He made me imperfect as he made all other life imperfect, so shouldn't he be apologizing to me for making me less than perfect and thus making me "guilty"?

@ 7:35 - I'm God and I created everything. Including hell.
This is another item that boggles my mind when trying to understand how Christians can believe that God is good. He created the system of heaven and hell. He decided that he will not provide concrete evidence of his existence because he wants people to believe in him on "faith". And those who look at the evidence, examine arguments, and come to a well-reasoned and rational conclusion that this God probably doesn't exist are to be punished. And by punished he means tortured, burned, mutilated, and put through the most unimaginable suffering for all eternity, with absolutely no hope of forgiveness. Some Christians have probably thought this through themselves because quite a number actually do not believe in hell at all. It probably came down to them having to chose between rejecting the notion that their God is good and rejecting the notion of hell.

Part 2.



@ 0:55 - What will you say to God after you die? I'll say that I was honest in my thinking.
Exactly. If it is a crime for me to be honest about what I think and believe? Belief in something like a God is not so easy as to say "I believe and I accept this as true". I could say that, but the words would be meaningless because I don't actually believe it is true nor do I feel it is true. Is that my fault? Am I wrong to have such high standards in believing in some invisible all-powerful being that created me and loves me and is present with me at all times? Even the 10 commandments say thou shalt not lie, so should I lie and say that I believe in God when I really don't? I could convince everyone that I do, except for God of course because he knows what I really think about him.

@ 2:30 - Would you lock your children up in a basement and torture them forever for not loving you?
Many Christians like to provide the analogy of human is to God as child is to parent. When I say I don't believe in God and don't understand why he would punish me as severely as he said he would for no believing, I often hear the argument "well imagine if you had a child that you loved and they didn't respect you or believe in you, how would that make you feel?" Disappointed at the very least, devastated at the most. But if we're going to go there, how does the act of torturing and burning and raping my non-believing child for eternity justify itself? Especially when I want my child to believe in me, find me, and form a relationship with me but I am absolutely not going to prove my existence to the child? That's a horrible God and I hope that he does not exist.

The Bible as a Source for Morality

This video is about morality in the bible. A lot of religious people mistakenly think that morals come from God. Considering I've been an atheist my entire life and I'm a very moral person, that clearly proves them wrong. The truth of the matter is, in both the Old and New Testaments there are scores of absolutely immoral and atrocious acts done by God either directly or indirectly (though his followers), or human acts that God condones. For example, God decides to kill nearly all of his creations via the flood described in the story of Noah's Ark. At about the 2:50 mark, Russel (the co-host to the left) makes a great point about people dismissing some of what is written in the Old Testament, but accept other parts (like the Ten Commandments). This "picking and choosing" from the bible is something that I don't understand in Christians. Jesus himself says that he did not come to refute the old laws, but to fulfill the prophecies (yet he went on to break many of those old laws anyway). I would quote the biblical passages if I could recall them off the top of my head, but I forgot where exactly I read it. But I'll talk about "picking and choosing" from the bible at another time.

Here is another short clip related to this subject.



The whole argument that "morality comes from God" is a non sequitur. On what basis do people make this claim? It is true that the bible states that "God says these things are good and these things are bad", but that doesn't make them moral! The bible is filled with tons of immoral teachings! I won't bother to give you a long list of examples but here's one: stone your unruly children to death if they do not listen to you. I think we would all agree that killing your children for not listening to you is immoral. Even if the bible did contain nothing but good moral advice, that still doesn't mean that morals come from God. Until about a couple months ago, I had never read the bible (except for some small excerpts from Genesis as a teenager). And yet all my family and friends would say that I am a moral person. I am kind to others, treat all living things with respect, volunteer my time and money, and make an honest effort to make this world a better place in my everyday life.

So where did my morals come from? Were they "revealed" to me by God without me knowing it? No. My morals come from thinking how I would like to be treated as a person and treating others in that way. They come from reading the stories of both great and infamous figures of the past such as Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler, Ghandi, and Joseph Stalin. I look at these important figures of history and decide for myself "Hey, MLK was a good guy who tried to make the world a better place and I want to be like him. Hitler was an evil man who killed many innocent people because of an ambition towards an ideology and I should strive to never be like this person". I think that we all operate in the same way or a similar way, even if people don't acknowledge it. Otherwise we'd have Christians torturing and killing people (including each other) for petty offenses. If you think that you need to keep believing in a God and the bible so that you don't go on a immoral spree of rape, theft, and murder, then I hope you continue to go to church every single day. But moreso, I hope that you realize that the absence of a God would do nothing (or perhaps very little) to change your morality as a person.