Why God isn't needed for a Moral Code

To preface, let me explain why I'm writing this.

So there I was: youth group. A religious youth group. Weird, right? But that's not the point.

There I was, at youth group. Sitting around a table with some friends, eating sandwiches and whatnot. Having a good time with my black friend (mostly in the form of smack talk) when our youth minister tells us he has a video he'd like us to see. Reasonable enough, right? Right.

So he goes to YouTube, types in whatever, pulls up the video, and we begin watching it. Just some speaker speaking about things speakers speak about. He's pretty funny; an okay guy. Then he goes off the wall with a slideshow about essentially nothing. Or maybe it was about something -- I'll admit I wasn't really paying attention. Speaker comes back after that, this time with a crazed look in his eye. This is where it all turns down a plague-infested road.

The speaker begins making claims. Claims about Christianity. About how it's the only way. My favorites include:

• Claiming evolution couldn't happen
• Not understand evolution in the slightest
• Thinking evolution was an entirely random process
• Seriously, this guy did not understand evolution (utter blasphemy to me)
• Saying that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and woman
• Not understanding how words work (i.e. "marriage")

And, one of my personal favorites

• God is needed for a person to have a straight moral code

Yep.

The Science Guy understands.

I'm not even going to link the video. Mostly because I can't find it, but also because I find this guy to be a pretentious ass.

The basis for this guy's argument is that, without some form of higher power (in this case the Christian God) then humans would have no moral compass. None. At all.

We'd all be that guy. All of us. No exceptions.

Seriously, man? Fucking seriously? You can't be serious. He's serious.

And you what he used to support his argument? An example. A horrible, horrible example. Wanna know it? Of course you do!

It was murder. In his own words "How would a human know murder is wrong without God?"

I'm just spitballing here when I say - oh, I don't know - because it sorta helps our species when we don't kill each other.

Get it?

Of course, this is a man who doesn't believe in evolution. (A subject worthy of it's own post.) But I digress, let's see how the world works with the Christian God instilling a moral compass into mankind, thus leading to us not murdering each other at all.

O-oh...

Paradise, right? A regular ol' Heaven on Earth? Now let's see what the world would be like without a God to instill a moral compass.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?!

But I like to think there's something more to this -- a more in-depth reasoning, if you will. So instead of using all-inclusive images, let's walk through a story together.

In this one, let's assume there is some higher power giving man morals.

• A man, let's call him Mark, is walking along the side walk one day when he hears a baby crying out of a dark alleyway. Since Mark had gone to church that morning (as he does every morning), this must be God calling him to help the child. Mark, a God-fearing type of man, goes along with this conviction and saunters fearlessly into the alley. There, in a dumpster, lies a hideous wretch of human genetics. But Mark feels God sent him this baby, so he (begrudgingly) takes up the child and cares for him/her until he gets old and dies. Does Mark ever learn to love the baby? That doesn't matter.

Got it? Right, now let's learn about a world where there is no god, no morals, and everyone is horrible everywhere.

• A man, let's call him Mark, is walking along the side walk one day when he hears a baby crying out of a dark alleyway. Since Mark is an amoral asshole, he immediately locates just where the baby is. He creeps up on it, opens the dumpster and peers inside. In the dumpster, swaddled in the gentlest of pink, gazing up at him with ocean blue eyes and a small tuft of golden hair, is a baby girl. She smiles, points at Mark, and giggles a little. Mark leaves her behind to be devoured by rats.

Wait... I get it now! This totally would happen! Because the only way someone can be a good person is if they believe in a higher power -- specifically the Christian God. Atheists be damned -- and they are -- there is no way they can be good people. 

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I've written about something like this before.

Apparently, and again I'm just guessing here, it wouldn't matter to us as a species if we could just murder each other. Ya know, except for the part where we need each other to keep our kind going. But that's all evolutionary mumbo-jumbo, and evolution doesn't exist. Screw intrinsic altruism, right? What kind of social creature needs others to function anyway? Totally not primates, and humans totally aren't primates. Because we were made to not be primates.

I'm going to stop now before I go on a rant about evolution. What do you, the reader think: is God needed to be moral?