THE SOURCE OF MORALITY

Most Christian ministers will staunchly maintain that the Bible and biblical principles are the foundation of morality.  Anyone without that foundation is, according to them, doomed to an amoral life governed by situation ethics and their own lusts.

P. Z. Myers, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, has written an article which thoroughly debunks this stance.  It is available here:  http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/03/why_i_am_an_amoral_family-hati.php

I can honestly say that I never really accepted the old Worldwide stance that a man was to be the dictating ruler over his spouse.  That was partially due to the example engrained in me by my own father.  Although my mother always respected him and thought he should run the family ranching business, my father never made a major decision without first talking it over thoroughly with my mother and considering her input.  I'm sure he never struck my mother and doubly sure he never "cheated" on her.

My father and mother did not attend a church while I was growing up.  They followed me and my sister into Worldwide later.  But, they always did their own thinking, and I'm sure several of the ministers of their local congregation were not pleased that they didn't "jump" to obey some of the authoritarian advice they were given in their fifties and sixties, such as, "Sell out and move to Bismarck so you'll be closer to church."  They would have been left destitute in their old age (they lived into their mid and late nineties) if they had blindly obeyed.

There was, of course, the predominantly "christian" influence of the society around them, but they were very sceptical about religious doctrines, and my mother often said that a lot of people only went to church to hide their meanness.

When I married, I didn't have the attitude many other men in the organization had.  I viewed my wife as an equal and that caused her to disrespect me and tell me, especially toward the end of our relationship and after, that I wasn't a man.  By that time, I was becoming very sceptical and disillusioned, so her biting comments only served to anger me, not make me feel inadequate.

She divorced me when the organization loosened up in that area.  When she filed for divorce, I had begun to see that governments and religions took authority to themselves for purposes of control, proclaimed myself divorced, figured the court would eventually catch up and began the search for a compatible partner.  I have been married twice since and widowered once.  In none of those relationships have I been a controlling dictator.  Nor, have I cheated on either of those wives.  I was faithful to my second wife even while being geographically separated from her for more than eight years prior to her death from cancer.

My faithfulness while in the voluntarily married state was not based on religious strictures.  It was based on human ethics and decency.  I no longer look to a god for authority over my life, since I'm convinced no such entity exists.  Unlike Gingrich, I feel no need to apologize or justify anything.