Do Christians really get their morality from God and the Bible?

Question

In other words, is belief in God the only reason the average Christian doesn't run around raping and murdering whoever he or she wants?

If God said that stealing or murder was moral and just, would theists be killing and mugging everyone around?

If God's word is NOT the main place Christians get their morality from, why is it so often assumed that atheists are morally compromised compared to theists?

Answer 1

Morality and religion are completely separate issues. Always have been. I'm a Christian, but I don't go around pretending that nonbelievers are incapable of morality. And the Christian who refrains from dangerous and antisocial behavior only due to a fear of divine retribution is not a sane human being, but a sociopath.

Answer 2

The Christian is to follow after the Spirit and not after the lusts of the flesh.

The fruit of Gods Spirit is Faith, Hope & Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Long Suffering, etc... So the morality is from God. The Bible explains things including moral to study for maturing in Christ and edification.

It is an abomination to God to call good evil and evil good. So the God of the Bible wouldn't say that stealing, murders was moral/ just.

The wanna be god of this age; satan, demons & devils; says that stealing or murdering or decieving is moral and just sometimes. If any religion has this teaching in it, then who is their God?

Answer 3

I don't think they want to go to jail. It is much easier to avoid doing things that are illegal because the consequences are more self-evident. Where cheating on your wife...not illegal really but even christian would be more inclined to do it b/c if the wife never finds out then when are they punished? I am saying this because I believe in God and I try to rationalize sins like everyone else does I am not a murderer but sometimes I lie...therefore I am not as bad of a person but I am in actuality immoral as well. We get a lot of our morality from fear of punishment because people aren't that moral if there were no consequences we would do more wrong simple as that. How many can truly say that the fear of hell keeps them from getting out of line when it comes to living with not just laws but morality as well?

Answer 4

I have never met a christian who got their morals from the bible, they just seem to pick pieces from the bible which match their morals. But I also think that many of them truly believe that the bible is the source of their morals.

Answer 5

Jehovah GOD created all of us with a conscience, even if you don't believe in a higher power. I wasn't a religious person growing up and I never read the Bible, but I knew that it wasn't right to do those things. But when I started studying the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses I started caring about those things and did my best not to hurt Jehovah feelings in this regard. That's what it means to fear God, to have the fear of displeasing Jehovah. A good example of this is when someone kills another person and then turns themselves in because their conscience is hurting them. They might not even be a believer but they feel this way.

Answer 6

To answer your question no they don't, in explanation I offer some stories of mine.

My parents believe that God punishes Gay people, as well as certain groups of people (racist, I wont mention the race as its purely bull****), but if I ask a different person he/she will most like say god loves everyone, and if I ask a different person I will get something else. Regardless people create their own idea of God, if you don't believe me look on this forum, people say God can't do this, and God wont do that, so they are putting limits on a supreme being that can do everything?

So to sum it up, people don't get their mortality from god/bible they get from the twisted ideas of what they believe is right, even if it is no way logical.

Answer 7

From kinfolk and native society, as do all of us. those responding "Holy Spirit" and "God has written in our hearts" etc. at the on the spot are not definitively incorrect, yet they're affirming something drawing near a null hypothesis. Given the variance in doctrines and practice of "Holy Spirit inspired" Christians, it really is critical to introduce some theory of "failure to heed" (with conflict as to who's in reality getting/obeying the organic message) yet this seems no different to what you may want to anticipate from a morality derived from society and kinfolk on my own, no Holy Spirit required. in actuality an identical ingredient occurs with an charm to God's lifestyles on the grounds of a "proper introduction", which has then to be changed to account for the bits ruined in "the fall", leaving a mixed image only as consistent without deity in any respect.

Answer 8

Excellent question!! You are such a thinker. Not everyone who is not a christian does the bad things that should not be done. Great thinking there. However the source for every morality is from God, whether that is acknowledged or not.

Answer 9

We get morality from the Bible. We get laws from the Bible. We get some science from the Bible. We get some math from the Bible. We understand about languages from the Bible. We learned about the path in the sea from the Bible. Plus many other things.

Atheists get everything they have inherited from the Bible also. The Lawgiver is God so your laws were His initially.

Answer 10

athiests are also moral, but they also are part of a culture with roots in the judeo-christian ethic. regardless of the source, it is entrenched in our corp beliefs as westerners of the first world. that is an overarching principle, and the individual who is devoted to the Bible finds reinforcement of that ethic in his or her spirituality that embraces the Bible.