Why do people keep equivocating religion with morality?

Given the morals of most religions, it's easier to have good morals without a religion.

-If one argues, as some deeply religious individuals do, that without God there can be no ultimate right and wrong - namely that God determines for us what is right and wrong - one can then ask the question: What is God decreed that rape and murder were morally acceptable ? Would that make them so ?

While some might answer yes, I think most believers would say no, God would not make such a decree. But why not ? Presumably because God would have some *reason* for not making such a decree. Again, presumably this is because *reason* suggests that rape and murder are not morally acceptable. But if God would have to appeal to *reason*, then why not eliminate the middleman entirely ?- Lawrence Krauss, A Universe From Nothing, Pgs 171-172.

Which one of the following is immoral?

a) Raping someone

b) Treating women as objects

c) Picking up sticks on a Saturday

d) Genocide

e) Infanticide

f) Killing someone for having different views to you

g) Slavery

According to the Bible, only option c) is wrong. All of the others are either accepted as mainstream, or even encouraged, in the Bible.

However, you and I both know that all of the others are wrong and that c) is perfectly innocent. You do not get your morality from scripture and neither does anyone else.

Searching through religious scripture for morality is like searching through the sewers for small coins; sure, there is some in there, but is it really worth it?

Because that is an essential part of the scam. Some human being stands up and declares "I am the local mouthpiece of God. Obey me and give me money, and you will go to Heaven when you die."

As children, humans have an instinctive sort of morality: "being good" means "obeying your parent". Many never develop a mature understanding of ethics, that "being good" means being a desirable neighbor, desirable from the point of view of the most common folk who want to live in peace and raise families. If you keep your childhood understanding of ethics, and your own parents have died, you have to find some substitute, and so you become a sucker for those pretending to speak for an invisible Cosmic Parent.

Because they are so wrapped up in their faith that they are unable to comprehend what atheism actually is... A nonreligious movement with a strong moral conscience.

Someone once said: "God may be more powerful than I am but that doesn't make Him more moral than I am." I think he was saying he thought the slaughter in the old testament was a show of immorality.

After reading some of the outbursts of the atheists here, they need something. I'm fine with them rejecting God but perhaps they should watch Oprah or Dr. Phil.

Peace be with you,

lp

They have it backwards. Religious scum have no moral values at all. They're dishonest, they're violent, they brainwash children and threaten biology teachers.

Because without God there are no morals.