One thing I did not anticipate upon leaving the faith was just how much my curiosity about “sin” and the “world” had been suppressed by the structure of rules and “thought regulations” I had imposed upon myself via the Bible or had been imposed upon me via the sect of the Christian faith I was raised within.
I was not supposed to think about sex (it could lead to lust). Alcohol was best avoided altogether. Lying was out of the question. Homosexuality was an abomination.
So I just did not address these issues seriously. Why should I address them and risk falling into sin? So I had developed quite a web of thought-suppressing mechanisms to keep myself from addressing these seriously. They were wrong because they were sin, and they were sin because God said so, and God said so because He is holy and knows best.
So when the ground for all of these moral standards (existence of God) fell out from beneath me, I felt completely adrift for quite some time. Surprisingly I am finding my moral stability returning and am sometime surprised at how easy it is to be moral without God.
I no longer have someone telling me something is wrong. I now need a good reason for why something is wrong – for me.
Many Christian children ask their parents why something is wrong and never get a straight answer other than “God says so” or “the Bible says so” or “I say so”. Then, when the foundation of these morals is removed, their moral structure has the potential to collapse. Most of these children are probably just trusting that mommy or daddy is telling them not to do something because it will harm them. Sad to think that the harm that will come from disobeying God is often harm from God.
Consider that some students go to college and turn into moral reprobates almost immediately. From what I have heard, most of these kids are the kids who grew up with the most restrictive parents. I would almost bet my money that these are the same children who were always told something is wrong because “mommy says so” or “daddy says so”. Once mommy and daddy are no longer around, all of those rules lose their credibility. It is not that the rules were bad, or that the parents taught bad morals, but it was because the parents set up the wrong moral foundation. Remove the foundation, and in the mind of the child, remove the rules.
So then, it may be that a child who is taught that God says so is a good reason to be moral will devolve into moral chaos if God is removed from the picture. The same goes for the Bible says so, the church says so, etc.
So then, why do some who leave a faith devolve into moral chaos but many do not? I would argue that the ones who do not devolve into moral chaos were taught morality that did not find its ultimate foundation in the faith claims. For example, consider a person who is taught not only that adultery is wrong because God says so but also that God says so because adultery causes pain. If this person loses the God foundation for their morality, they will probably keep their moral footing on adultery because adultery still causes pain and this is a good enough reason not to do it.
This explains all the moral discoveries in the last several hundred years that Christianity never espoused – but now claims ownership of as if they received them from God. Like the abolition of slavery, and women’s suffrage, and freedom of speech. These are not moral because they are Christian values, these have become accepted as Christian moral values because they reduce pain.
This demonstrates in my mind that the morals within Christianity today are not divinely revealed, they are human discoveries.
In my opinion, a religion that teaches that morality hinges on the religion itself has the potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a child is taught that they must not do X because Y says so, then once Y is removed the child feels free to do X. X causes pain to the child, and they do what? They return to Y in repentance. Y was right all along. Right?
But what if we remove Y from the picture completely? What do we have left?
Do not do X because X causes pain.
And why do we need any other reason than that?
