COMMENT: I do not believe in a God. However, I treat people honestly like I would want to be treated. I want the government to be small and decentralized. I don’t want to harm others, nor do I want to take anything from them not negotiated where both parties benefit. ….
JR
REPLY: I do not think you need to believe in God to be good regardless of who you envision to be God. The Greeks believed more in super-beings, not gods who created you. Even this gold aureus of Diocletian on the reverse pictures the Greek three Fates. They were the ones who judged you. Zeus could only make a recommendation. He neither created you and the world nor judged you upon death. Hence, we still call our future is dictated by fate. The Roman goddess Fortuna was pictured with a cornucopia in one arm and her hand on the rudder of a ship symbolizing she could change your future on a whim. Simply because they were not Christian had nothing to do with the morality of the people predating that religion. Greek philosophy predated Christianity by hundreds of years.
Most of us have a conscience that guides us. Those who are egotistical seem to be absent that core trait. That may be the better explanation than calling it religion per se. An instinctive sense of morality. It does appear that those who reject any sort of image of any God and believe that it is up to them to rule the world are an egotistical difference from being even an agnostic which in itself does not imply evil. They lack any moral conscience. Just because someone professes to believe in God does not mean he is moral – i.e. Constantine the Great. Constantine only ever issued a single bronze coin with any Christian symbol out of millions. He cleverly used Christianity as the excuse to not just win the battle, but to confiscate all the wealth in the pagan temples.
Julian II of the house of Constantine rejected Christianity because, on the death of Constantine, his sons massacred all rivals in the palace who had been born by his first wife. He came to the conclusion that being Christian did not mean that they were moral.
I have been respectful of all beliefs as long as they believe in live and let live. I disagree with Marxism for it is this egotistical vision that there is no God so they will fill that role. That is not you leave me alone and I will leave you alone. That is rejected by socialists who believe that they can rule the world and dictate how others should live. They cannot believe in Freedom of Religion and simultaneously be religious which is in conflict if they stopped and thought what they are really saying.
That is the real essence of Freedom of Religion which includes having one or not. Today, there is a growing trend toward no denominational beliefs that are described as “spiritual” but do not cross that line into the egotistical world that they can reshape the world because there is no God. One does NOT have to believe in God and the last judgment to be moral. They are not mutually exclusive.
These people have created COVID and believe in reducing population which would in other times be called genocide. That is not bringing in nature and the cycles that truly dictate the future – not egotistical demigods.
