... where do you get your morals from?
I once wrote the
following paragraph as a reasonably fair summary of what christians believe about their bible:
The bible was written by God with the possible assistance of men. It is holy and indisputable but it's contents may be selectively cherry-picked and all the gory, mythical, impossible and unbelievably silly bits can be left out, in order to promote God as fair and loving. Quoting from a bible or waving it at someone is indisputable evidence that you are a good person and oathing on a bible is indisputable evidence that you are not lying.
It thoroughly amazes me that courts of law and parliaments still regard the bible as a magic "truth ensuring" book on which to swear to tell the truth; or to swear to do one's duty.
When I did jury duty two decades ago, I was instructed by the court to swear by this ridiculous book, which in those days had no meaning to me. Maybe I was less atheist and more agnostic then; maybe I just did not want to kick up a stink, so I simply obliged. That won't happen next time because since then I have had time to ponder the book's contents. Maybe I'll take along a copy of "On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin to swear by next time or maybe Einstein's Theory of Relativity . You cannot get more truthful than these.
The bible is a collection of popular myths - along the lines of "Grimms Fairy Tales" but much more unethical. It is full of lies, deceptions and gross misconduct by Jews, Christians and indeed by almighty god herself. It is an "AO" rated fictional crime collection, which nevertheless describes the primitive moral standards of archaic times. It is undeserving of adoption by modern society, which is capable of setting its own far higher moral standards and which indeed rejects most of the moral standards contained in it.
Even most christians, whilst believing there is truth inside its covers, do not realistically accept that the bible is the "whole truth and nothing but the truth."
So the question is: why is a book which is so lacking in integrity still used as an instrument to swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"