Amoral: being outside or beyond the moral order or a particular code of morals <amoral customs>
Many years ago before I had fully embraced my atheism, I was approached by someone who I did business with to join their church. Bill (not his real name) knew that I was a bass player and indicated that they had a real hip christian band that played at services on Sunday and it was a lot of fun and spiritually uplifting. I told him that I was a Catholic and that I wasn't into the whole "Church" thing but thanks for the invite. Sensing a challenge he began to extol the virtues of his little church and added that he too was a dissatisfied Roman Catholic who had recently become born again. He went on about how his life is so much more fulfilling now that he has accepted Jesus Christ into his heart. Again, I politely thanked him for the offer and began to change the subject.
It was then that he dropped the bomb. He said, "You do realize that if you do not take Jesus Christ into your heart and become reborn, that you will burn in Hell forever." At first I thought he was kidding around, but after a few uncomfortable seconds I realized that he was as serious as a heart attack. To reaffirm my suspicion I asked, "You are Kidding right?" He confirmed that he was in fact serious.
Now, I knew Bill for years. Although we never saw each other socially, he was a customer of ours and we had quite a few conversations about a myriad of subjects. He was a good contractor, had a good sense of humor and just seemed like a really sharp guy. I live in the south now, so I am used to hearing this blather, but this was in New York and about 20 years ago so I only heard statements like this from crazy preachers on the T.V at 3:00 in the morning. I was so intrigued by his comment that I felt the need to explore this statement with him further. He indicated to me that it matters not what good deeds that I do on this earth, if I don't re accept Christ into my heart I will burn in Hell for eternity. So "hypothetically", I ask, "I can be faithful to my wife, raise my kids with love and respect, volunteer to help the poor and lead a generally loving life and still burn in hell?" "Yep", he says. Now of course I have to ask the craziest fucking hypothetical shit I can come up with. The following are a few of the rules and standards by which people are allowed to enter Heaven according to a born again Christian.
3 billion Muslims? Hell
7 billion Hindus? Hell
13 million Jews? Hell
What if John Gotti was saved right before he died? Heaven
What if Hitler was saved right before he died? Heaven
Hitler? Really? Hitler? Bill explained that God is so kind that he would even take Hitler into Heaven if he accepted Jesus into his heart. So there you have it ladies and germs, God is willing to send a few billion non-believers to eternal damnation, but he would be willing to let Hitler in on a last minute death bed baptism.
It was this conversation that started me thinking about morality. I keep being told that atheists/agnostics participate in morally questionable behaviors to a much greater degree than people of a religious faith. Of course these are statistics supplied by people of religious faith and of course there is no possible way to measure morality in a person because people have different morals. What religious people are talking about of course is what they determine to be "immoral" behavior. Usually that revolves primarily around the following 5 criteria:
1. Fucking.
Most people of faith don't approve of fucking. Unless of course it is to procreate. When my wife and I attended Pre Cana before we were married (For you non-catholic readers, Pre-Cana is a course Catholic couples must undergo before they can be married in a Catholic church.) the priest asked me if there was any reason I couldn't perform "the marital act". I thought the marital act was the act of getting married. So I therefore quickly deduced that he was asking me if I was capable of walking down the aisle. I confirm this by saying, "Well Father, my legs haven't given out on me yet." My wife looked at me in shock and horror. The priest was trying to decide whether I was being a wise guy or if I was just mildly retarded. It suddenly dawned on me that the marital act is fucking!!! It was also at that point were my wife began to have second thoughts about me. But I digress........the point of the story is that the church believes the only reason that 2 people have to do the nasty is to make little Christians.
Sex is all about fun, and freedom. You can do it with a woman or do it with two women or a man or with 3 woman two guys and a transvestite. You can do it in all different positions and places. You can be tied down on a bed by a 75 year old granny who shoves pickles in your ass while her husband teabags you in the mouth. If that's what floats your boat, got to town hoss. It's awesome! Unless that is, you have dickhead telling you that God will punish you for these acts. Then it's a bummer.
Morality Lesson 1: Sex is wrong, unless it's between 2 people of the opposite sex in order to make babies of said religion.
2. Same Sex Marriage: (see Fucking)
3. Homosexuality: (see Fucking)
4. Violence:
Religious people don't believe in violence.......just as long as the violence doesn't happen to people of their religion. Before everybody gets all crazy, lets be honest. The Christians hate the Muslims, the Muslims hate the Jews, the Jews hate the Muslims and the Muslims hate the Christians. Oh and the Christians hate the Jews and the Jews hate the Christians. Also the Hindus hate the Muslims and the Muslims hate the Hindus. I think that the Christians and the Jews are Okay with the Hindus. Within the Muslim religion the Shi'ite hate the Sunni and the Sunni hate the Shi'ite. Within Christianity the Catholics hate the Protestants. Lutherans hate the Presbyterian and the fucking Baptists hate everyone. We have the Crusades, The Inquisition, The holocaust, The current situation in Gaza, The violence in Zimbabwe, Serbia in the 90's, etc. etc etc. etc.
Morality Lesson 2: Never ever kill anyone of your own faith. Everyone else is fair game because they're going to hell anyway.
5. The Biggie!!! Abortion:
Besides homosexuality, abortion is the big moral issue of our lifetime. Religious people believe that life begins at conception and that an abortion at anytime during a pregnancy is murder. Although I do not believe this to be true I feel that it is actually quite honorable to have this belief. It tells me that a person who believes this has a real love for humanity, a great respect for human life and a true commitment to the betterment of mankind. If only this were true. Ask yourself if you are pro-life or if not, ask someone you know who is if they believe in the death penalty. In my case most of them are against killing zygotes but are for the state sponsored murder of fully formed human beings. I don't want to get into the argument about what crime a person committed or what if that person killed your mom, because if you unconditionally believe in the sanctity of life and yet believe in state sponsored execution than you my friend, are a hypocrite. If you believe that throwing a pipe bomb into planned parenthood clinic is pro-life, you are a hypocrite. If you believe that shooting a doctor in front of his family is pro-life, you are a hypocrite. As a matter of fact it makes you a terrorist.
Does Jesus really love all his zygote little children? Obviously he does because people of faith certainly spend alot of resources trying to make sure they develop into human beings. Of course once the baby is actually born, than you're on your own!! These pro-lifers are also the people who are anti-immigration, anti-welfare, conservative religious zealots who will denigrate a woman as a parasite on society after she has a baby she cannot afford to have or is ill-equipped to raise because abortion was unavailable to her.
Morality Lesson #3: Unborn babies are God's blessing and sacred, and we should as God's children fight for their protection as they cannot protect themselves. Once the baby has been born then we don't really give a shit what happens because the teenage mom is probably a dirty slut for getting pregnant in the first place.
So I guess that I am amoral because I don't follow the normal Judeo-Christian moral ethic. Most religious people attempt to do the right thing because it will get them into heaven. I attempt to do the right thing because I have to share this planet with other humans and I want them to in turn respect me as well. I attempt to be a tolerant, open minded compassionate person because I believe the world would be a better place if we all were. I live for this short time that I have on this planet, not for what awaits me after I take a dirt nap. I don't see the world in black and white. The world is grey. 100,000 shades of grey and each shade has a thousand different hues.
I am not immoral.
I am an atheist, and I bet that I am a better Christian than you.
