Good for fear of God
There's this bloke on the radio (JJJ of course) at the moment, talking to Gabby on her chat back thing. The topic is gay marriage and the reaction to Howard's latest law which forbids it. This lad was a 20 year old Christian that strongly supports the law. Regardless of my opinion on the matter, it was nice to hear a right wing argument in a discussion dominated by left wing knee-jerkers. I actually think he was stupid, ignorant and wrong, but there was maybe only one other supporter during the couple of hours calls were taken. A bit of balance in a discussion is nice. Anyway, that's not my beef. My beef was prompted by a comment he made, and I'll paraphase (badly):
"A lot of the things we do not agree with and have laws against these days, like theft and stuff, were first set out in the bible. If we are going to allow gay couples now, then it makes a mockery of all the other laws which are based on God's word. I cannot accept that any Christian would agree with gay relationships. Are we going to start accepting theft and things too?".
I've heard it a few times before, and I don't think it is indicative of all Christians, nor any group in particular, but some people try to tell me that our morals - our distaste for murder, theft, doing people "wrong" - is because God told us that is sinful and the bible says so. I am far from convinced that I do not think highly of stealing, that I will not murder someone, because some dude 2000 years ago also thought these things were bad, or because people hear voices from a god which tells them these things are bad, or because it is written in a book.
I put my understanding of morals mostly down to rational observation, and before that was possible, responsible discipline. I know that murder removes a life from the world and upsets people, so it's just not cool. Stealing pisses people off too, and can cause all sorts of hardship - not only that, but I know that I wouldn't want it to happen to me. So theft is also not cool. That's right folks, I realised this before I knew what the Ten Commandments were! When I was in primary school, the ten commandments were not a moral revelation (although there's still some weird shit in there about the sabbath day, graven images and I didn't know what adultery was)! Further, the threat of eternal fire and punshment from a God was not the deterant in commiting such acts. Fear of torture or punishment is hardly a comfortable way to guide ones actions. Luckily, I follow some Christian type ideas about treating people because it feels right. Because I want to.
Now, why does this attitude piss me off so? Probably because it trivialises the human intellect, and free will. That we be reduced to peons who act in such a way because an intangible being tells us to is insulting. It also pisses me off that some religious folk claim that their God invented good morality - that before their God had spoken, we did not know that stealing was wrong. I'd rather give that credit to humans, who know what it is like to have something stolen.
If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for a reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. -Albert Einstein