Some quick thoughts on morality.

I was chatting with a friend recently when the bible came into the conversation. I asked him what he thought of the bible, did he believe it all to be true and literal, or is it just interesting reading? He had a response that irritated me a bit. He told me it was simply a good moral guide. I will admit that I had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to that statement because I have read a lot of the bible and there are some things in there that I find to be atrocious. I pointed that out and he explained that not all of the bible should be used as a moral guide, however he didn't really give any details that would tell me which parts of the bible to listen to or not.
As it turned out, from a little bit of digging, he admitted that he didn't really get his morality from the bible. He got it from his own moral standard. That is how he knew what stories to label as 'moral' and what stories to simply ignore.
Anyone who has read the bible knows some of the many stories of immoral acts portrayed therein, and very few take ALL of them literally.
Why? Because they don't actually get their moral code from the bible anyway.

This brings another interesting thought to mind. When I was still a believer I would occasionally say that I was happy that I was born into the church because I thought that If I had been raised atheist, I would be some kind of psychopath killer, and I would not be moral at all. I think the reason I thought this was mainly philosophical. I thought that if there were no god and no afterlife, there would be no consequences and no impact because life on the planet will end completely someday. So nothing I could do would matter.
Later I came to the realization that I don't believe in god. It was not a choice, it was a realization. Once I did realize that, I thought about what I had said before and realized that it was totally wrong and foolish. I cannot divorce myself from my morality which is engrained just because it isn't going to matter. I cannot kill anybody and I was fooling myself when I said I could.
I would argue that I am MORE moral than I was before, my choices are now a product of looking at the consequences for myself and others, and making the choice that does the least damage. I no longer think homosexuals are evil, I no longer believe that they are making any kind of choice as to their sexuality. I cannot choose to be attracted to the villain octopus from little mermaid and make it true. I don't hold all of the same prejudices that I did before, I dont do things with the intent to make up for it later. I'm a better person all around because my mind has been opened.
Just some thoughts to meditate on. Enjoy.
Athens.