It is a common position that there are no morals or ethics without religion to back them since God is the source of morality. So if you take this view, where do you get those moral values?

The options are from the Bible, your pastor or some other religious leader, or you own feeling of what God would want you to do. The professor of my “Christian Ethics” class had his own theory which he called “Redemptive Ethics,” which he based on what was most likely to bring somebody to Christ. These same religious people tend to think that atheists have no grounds for ethics since they would lower themselves to “survial of the fittest.”

Let’s look at the various sources of Christian morality:

If you base your ethics on the Bible and you stop at the Golden Rule, and actually try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, then I think you would be on the right track. But if you look at the rest of the Bible then you would also have to:

Approve of slavery.
Approve of polygamy.
Kill homosexuals.
Kill thrives.
Kill women caught in adultery.
Kill disobedient/disrespectful children.

I’m sure quite a few readers are thinking about the beautiful story from John 8:1-11 where Jesus set free the woman caught in adultery with the words, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” This is a nice story, but it isn’t found in the earliest manuscripts and it’s location in manuscripts that include it varies quite a bit. This was obviously a late addition. That being said, it is a great story, in fact it shows better ethics that what you actually find in the Bible.

If you base your ethics on trying to bring people closer to salvation, then wouldn’t concealing evidence that might cause people to question their faith, or just out right lying to them be good since it might bring them to find Christ or keeping them from loosing their faith?

If you base your ethics on the teaching of a church leader or your own personal feeling of God’s will then what you have is a subjective, ever changing morality that shifts with changing societal views. Let’s look at two prime examples:

1. Many pastors in the 19th century were arguing for slavery, using sound Biblical support, that is until after the Civil War and slavery was no longer popular.
2. The Mormon church supported polygamy until banning that practice was a requirement for Utah to be admitted to the Union. Then all of a sudden, the doctrine changed.

Those who really base their ethics on the Bible look a lot like Fred Phelps and Bradlee Dean. I know it’s unfair to use these two as examples of Christian ethics, but they do definitely follow the teaching of the Bible. If you don’t agree with them, yet think that you base your ethics on the Bible then I ask that you try to find Biblical support for your position on the six topics I gave above.

That wraps up this post. As a few people have pointed out, I have yet to cover atheist ethics, and I promise that in next week’s serious post I will cover humanistic ethics. I should note that I am sorry that I’ve had to let the production quality of my posts slip over the last weeks, but I have been quite busy getting moved and settled in. I will soon try to have everything back on track on the blog.