My position is and always has been:
I am intelligent enough to understand what the pelople of a community need from each other in order to live in harmony.
If I choose to live as an adulterer, there will be consequences I would rathet avoid.
If I trespass against my neighbor, there will be.............................
If choose to live as a theif, a drunk, an addict, an abuser of women or children, there will be consequences..................................
Any semi intelligent human should be able to sit down and invent the ten commandments with no prior knowledge. He/she should need no help figuring out how society SHOULD be run.
I find it surprising that some would claim morals can only come from God. When such rules should be self evident to any with an IQ over 85.
Those are my thoughts. I know that many do not agree and of course, that is okay with me. Many of my most beloved are deeply religious. I love/ did love (some are departed) them dearly.
That still does not mean I think they were not mistaken.
One need not share nor hypocritically profess a belief in God to be a true conservative in every sense of the word. Consevative does not necessitate Consevative Christian.
I am not atheist but I agree the ten commandments are just common sense rules to keep society harmonious. I agree that a non-believer could come up with a pretty similar set of guidelines for an orderly society.
A group of non believers could absolutely come up with societal norms that benefit the society. The difficult part for a society of non believers is why should any individual person adhere to those norms that benefit society as a whole but not the individual person if they can “game the system”, not get caught, or engage in legal behavior that they like even if it’s bad for society?
Just one example of legal behavior that’s been extremely destructive to society is the number of kids born out of wedlock as society has become secular.
Crime is bad for society but not necessarily some individuals if they think that they can get away with it. In your face gay and lesbian life styles aren’t good for society but without a faith in Gods word how are you going to convince someone that wants to flaunt it much less actively promote it not to? The same could be said for honesty, work, ethic, not sleeping with your neighbors wife and a never ending list of things that are bad for society but may or may not be bad for an individual.
Most people are going to do what feels good or what they perceive to be in their best interest not societies best interest. What a society with a strong Christian faith as we one had does it convince the average person to at least aspire to a code of behavior that is in their best interest as in eternal life as a reward and social acceptance. That also benefits society as a whole. Take God out of the equation and most people don’t give a damn about putting societal good over personal good.
