Divine Morality

Divine Morality

There are a lot of beliefs concerning divine righteousness, but none of them seem reliable to me. For one, everyone seems to argue about their beliefs. Each belief is usually broken up by sects, divisions and a multitude of individual differences in opinion. People don’t seem to come anywhere close to the same conclusions. Some say the bible meant this and others say that the bible meant that and at the end of the day it all seems to strengthen my conclusion that morality is a personal and subjective concept. If people are going to interpret the Bible, the Quran and the Bagavad Gita anyway they want then I see no reason to believe that there is in fact a divinely righteous way of going about things.

I recognize that there are people who abide by a religion or belief that find happiness in their lives, but one mustn’t overlook the fact that there are then people who believe the exact same beliefs and live miserable lives. There are Christians who come across wonderful opportunities and then there are Christians who lose their families. If there is a divine judge or force out there then it doesn’t seem to care what belief people are abiding by.  Some claim that god does not make one suffer for no reason because god is very fair and yet, from my perspective there is no belief that makes people immune to suffering. Furthermore, if there was such a belief than I have no doubt that everyone would quickly be abiding by it. One can dedicate their entire life to feeding the starving children of Africa, (which most people regard as a noble and good thing to do), and still end up burning to death in a plane crash despite the belief of many that their actions were a positive thing.

Some people argue that religion cannot be tested or researched with science, because it is a spiritual thing. Various gods are exempted from arguments against their existence, because they exist outside the laws of reality. My issue with this is how can one confirm or reject the existence of something that their senses are deemed incompetent to judge? If a god exists outside the realms of observation then how can I ascertain that god’s existence? I suspect that such belief is enabled more than anything else by the desire for it.

“The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.”
 ~ Albert Einstein