The proclamation that the God of the Bible is a necessary prerequisite for morality’s existence is, basically, rubbish.

For starters, there’s a raw non-sequitur gap of logic behind it all. People assume: The God of the Bible (henceforth referred to simply as “God” unless otherwise clearly marked) exists – therefore morality exists. There’s a big space in that dash to begin with. It’s not a given — there’s an earth-to-Saturn gap of logic there, and no reason for the too-common assumption that the two statements are somehow linked. I mean, really, that should be the long and short of an open-shut case. You can stop and start there and be logically in the right. Just throw out the dash, and you’re good. If you’re satisfied with that, you can stop reading. This is only going to get as complicated as you want it to be.

However, if you start to overthink things, you can fill that dash with a lot of unnecessary stuff. For example, you may assume that morality needs some powerful being to exist. The gist of the argument is that, without someone to enforce the rules, we’re in a free-for-all. So we need God as the enforcer. In short, might makes right, so since God is mighty, God is right.

If you think that might makes right, fine. But God isn’t necessary for that principle to exist. It simply does not follow that since might makes right, God makes sense. I mean, the principle has applied to rulers for centuries, because what it claims is that the most powerful person in a given situation is in charge. In Christianity, wouldn’t you know it, the most powerful person in charge (who you can’t see, taste, touch yourseslf) often has a humble spokesman (or spokesmen, as the case may be)! And whatever he says goes. The might of an invisible being makes the ruler seem like the most powerful being since, well, before sliced bread.

This also opens up a possibility that is rather offensive to me – which is that the most powerful person in a given situation shouldn’t be questioned. To that, I call shenanigans. Yet, the logic has been used to prevent everyone from parents to rulers to clergy from being questioned. It’s like a shield, and it really has no business being there. The fact that you are more powerful than me does not mean I am under any obligation to do what you say. How do I know you have my best interests at heart?

So, yeah. That whole might makes right thing doesn’t make sense to me.

And then there’s that other argument — the argument that God is naturally so good and awesome that I should automatically want to follow Him doesn’t really hold water either. Call me crazy, but I’m not a big fan of genocide or just killing people who don’t agree with me, and God did that on an epic scale.

“Well,” comes the response from oh-so-many Christians, “He killed those bad men, women, children and infants for the good of the Israelites.” Yes, and Hitler killed the Jews for the sake of the Germans –and, like Moses, he claimed he did so at the prompting of God. Same difference. Just doesn’t cut it for me. When you understand your issues with Hitler’s God, you’ll understand my issues with Moses’ God.

And Christianity is not based on a person’s moral goodness anyway, remember? Everyone – every last person on earth – is a sinner, supposedly. They apparently got an F on the report card for morality. So everyone starts from scratch. Then they get saved by Christ, and that makes you better! It turns that “F” into an “A”! This is not because you’re a good person, mind you. It’s because you believed that a cosmic Jewish zombie saved everyone from the horrifying first sin of human beings, which occurred when a naked woman bit into a fruit at the prompting of a talking snake. Well, I guess they do say the truth is stranger than fiction. “But,” the Christian rushes in to say, “I’m not better than you – it’s Christ who has made me perfect.” Of course, this can be said in much more sophisticated ways, but it basically boils down to sounding a lot like, “I’m not better than you –it’s Christ who has made me better than you.” Christianity isn’t about being moral – it’s about believing the right thing — at least, in reference to most forms of modern Christianity. So to say you need Christianity to ensure morality is kinda to miss the point, isn’t it? At least, according to a major segment of Christianity.

So, yeah. To say the Christian God is necessary for morality doesn’t make any sense to me now, whatsoever. It’s really a no-brainer, if you take a step back and just fucking think about it.

Thanks for reading.