Moral Man with No God

Is a man who has no God capable of living a moral life? Is our conscience God or an internal balance of right and wrong? There is no scientific way in which these questions can be answered. Religion is faith. Faith is believing in something you cannot prove. But you do not need to believe in an unproven phenomenon in order to live a moral life. Your moral compass is not broken just because Jesus or Allah or any other religious figure is not the driving force which points it. Every religion is a man made theory which was designed for social control. The myth that every person without faith is incapable of living a meaningful moral life is as false as the myth of religion itself.

I started my life as most other children and was incredibly gullible. I believed in Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny and Jesus. My family is not incredibly religious, but consider themselves Christians. My mother never forced a religion on me, due to the fact that she was raised a Jehovah's Witness and feels she lost out on her childhood because of it. I became curious about religion at around 12 years old and began going to church. I enjoyed learning about the stories in the Bible, but even at a young age I was a skeptic. As I got older I tried really hard to buy into Christianity. I went to a youth church where other members were speaking in tongues and would pass out when the pastor laid hands on them. I never understood why I never spoke in tongues or collapsed at the presence of the holy spirit. One time I spoke out in church when we were being taught Genesis. I asked the pastor why there was no mention of dinosaurs. He replied to me that there are no such thing as dinosaurs. I asked him about the fossils and bones. He then stated that the devil placed the fossils and bones on earth to deceive Christians. That is when my skepticism kicked in to full gear.

I stopped putting thought into religion for a long period of time after my days at the youth church. I would tell people I was a Christian if people asked but put little thought into it. After I left the Army I took a job with the railroad. This job requires me to drive up to 1100 miles a week, most of the time by myself. I would just think for hours on end on these drives. I started thinking about religion on one drive and soon became obsessed with trying to find answers. For thousands of miles a debate raged in my mind. I started trying to talk to God and found that no one was talking except me. Then and there it became evident to me that if there is a God he is not interested in me. Without religious guilt I should be free to do what I please, right?

Just because I no longer subscribed to Jesus weekly, does not mean I am a terrible human being. I am sure to some religious extremists I am an abomination and will feel the wrath. But if they are correct, Jesus died for the sins of the world so I should be forgiven of being a skeptic. But I am not out trying to commit every sin. I still live my life according to several of the lessons of the Bible.

Matthew 7:12 states "So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." I am a firm believer in what some call the golden rule. I truly feel that in order to be treated fairly you must treat others fair. This goes along with love thy neighbor. We are all on this world and have no real explanation of why. We can all live life much happier if we treated each other with kindness. There is nothing more disgusting to me then a selfish, boastful human being who cares little for his fellow man.

Then we have the 10 commandments found in the Holy Bible, Exodus 20:1-17 reads as follows:

* "You shall have no other gods before me

* You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

* You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

* Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

* Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

* You shall not murder.

* You shall not commit adultery.

* You shall not steal.

* You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

* You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's."

The 10 commandments is a list of things which the Christian God commands of his people. The story of how the commandments came to be was always peculiar to me. Basically, God manifested on a mountain and spoke to Moses for 40 days. No one else was allowed to go on the mountain to see God just Moses. If I were coming up with a story such as Moses did I would use the same tactics. I would establish myself as the only one capable of communicating. Not only would this make my lie impossible to disprove, but it makes me incredibly important. Like Moses, Joseph Smith and other cult leaders I would take multiple wives as well. After all, we are power hungry men and behind every power hunger man is multiple women. I am comparing Moses to a cult leader because in today's society that is exactly what he would be labeled as, just ask David Koresh.

Although I take issue with how the 10 Commandments came about, I do not believe they are to be fully dismissed. Some commandments hold true today. Although I do not have fear of retribution from an angry God I still abide by some of them. Being a good human being does not mean you have to abide by the laws of God as commanded to Moses.

The first four commandments have no real bearing on the way I live my life. They are not morals I feel benefit humanity. The first commandment