Tag: Morality without Religion

Do We Need God to Know That Eating Your Sister Is Wrong?

📘 About This Series

This post is part of a daily response series to The Problem of God: Answering a Skeptic’s Challenges to Christianity by Mark Clark. The series critically engages with each chapter and section of the book, examining Clark’s arguments through the lens of reason, historical evidence, and The God Question’s core philosophy: what’s true doesn’t fear investigation.

Today’s post responds to content found in pages 45-47 of the book — the section titled “What If They Ate Your Sister?”

If you’re just joining us, you can view all prior entries in this series on The God Question blog at https://godordelusion.com/the-god-question/. The God Question is a blog that investigates Christian claims with clarity, courage, and calm. We believe truth can withstand scrutiny—and that real meaning doesn’t require pretending to know what we don’t.

Can we know that something is morally wrong—even if we don’t believe in God?

Mark Clark doesn’t think so.

In Chapter 2 of The Problem of God, Clark tells a story from his time at Michaels craft store. An atheist co-worker claimed that morality is culturally constructed. To test him, Clark asks: “What if a jungle tribe tortured and ate your sister? Could you really say that’s wrong?” The implication is clear: If you don’t believe in objective morality, you must accept that cannibalism is just a matter of taste.

But this argument falls apart under scrutiny.

It relies on shock—not reason. Clark knows we’ll recoil in horror at the idea of someone eating a loved one. That horror, he argues, proves the existence of a moral law, which in turn proves the existence of a lawgiver—God.

But this is emotional sleight of hand. Just because something feels deeply wrong doesn’t mean it requires a supernatural explanation. Our moral instincts are real—but they’re also explainable through biology, psychology, and culture. Evolution favors cooperation and empathy. We’ve learned, over centuries, that causing harm leads to chaos.

Clark’s argument also creates a false choice: Either you believe in God, or you believe nothing is really wrong. That’s simply not true. Secular ethics offers a rich tradition of moral reasoning based on harm reduction, shared values, and reason—not divine command.

And ironically, history shows that religious people—including Christians—have often used “God’s law” to justify moral atrocities: slavery, holy war, racism, subjugation of women. These weren’t moral advances—they were cultural norms disguised as divine mandates.

So the real question is this: Do we need God to explain why torturing people is wrong?

No.

We need empathy, intelligence, and a commitment to human dignity. And those are available to believers and non-believers alike.

A clear, clever breakdown of moral development from a secular point of view.

A Closer Look at Sardis Baptist’s Easter Sermon

What Are Sunday Specials?

Every Sunday, we take a closer look at a sermon preached in a local church—usually right here in the American South, where religion saturates culture and identity. These aren’t distant hypotheticals or abstract doctrines. They’re real messages, delivered this week, to real people. Our goal isn’t mockery or hostility—it’s clarity.

We apply The God Question’s Core Philosophy: evidence over assumption, logic over tradition, and clarity over emotional manipulation. We listen closely so we can think critically—and help others do the same.

Date Analyzed: April 13, 2025 (Palm Sunday)

Speaker: Pastor Mike Goforth

Church: Sardis Baptist Church, Boaz, Alabama

Series: Sunday Specials – A Critical Lens on Local Sermons

Method Applied: The God Question’s Core Philosophy

🎙 The Sermon in Summary

Pastor Mike Goforth delivered a Palm Sunday sermon titled “The Easter Parade,” drawing from Ephesians 4:17–24. He used the metaphor of “putting on new clothes” to illustrate what it means to become a Christian—contrasting the “old man” (non-believer) with the “new man” (born-again believer). The message celebrated the resurrection of Jesus, emphasized substitutionary atonement, and described the moral failings of those outside the Christian faith. It ended with an altar call, inviting listeners to “put off the old man” and join the family of God.

🧠 What’s the Problem?

While the sermon was passionate, rhetorically smooth, and aligned with traditional evangelical teaching, it raises serious concerns when viewed through the lens of The God Question’s Core Philosophy—a method that values evidence, logic, historical awareness, and emotional integrity over inherited dogma.

🔍 Claim-by-Claim Critique

1. Jesus died for our sins.

This foundational claim assumes a divine economy where sin is a transferable debt and blood is the only acceptable payment. But this view of justice would be ethically outrageous in any secular context. The notion that one person can be punished for another’s wrongdoing isn’t just illogical—it’s morally troubling.

2. Jesus rose from the dead.

The resurrection is framed as historical fact, yet the sermon provides no evidence beyond personal belief. The Gospel accounts of the resurrection are contradictory, and Paul—our earliest source—never mentions an empty tomb. Without independent corroboration, this claim rests on circular reasoning.

3. The tomb is empty.

Again, asserted as fact but supported only by internal Christian texts. An empty tomb, even if verified, wouldn’t prove a resurrection—it would raise more questions than it answers.

4. Salvation requires a combination of intellectual belief and heartfelt trust.

This framing subtly blames nonbelievers: if you don’t accept Christianity, it’s because you either don’t understand it or don’t feel it deeply enough. It’s an immunized argument, closed off from honest challenge.

5. Nonbelievers are blind, hardened, perverted, greedy.

This is not description—it’s demonization. The “old man” is painted in disturbingly dehumanizing terms. Apparently, if you’re not born again, your mind lacks perception, your heart is like stone, your soul is perverse, and your lusts are uncontrollable.

But is that true? Millions of thoughtful, moral, generous people reject Christianity—not because they’re blind or broken, but because they’ve critically evaluated the evidence and found it lacking.

6. Believers are honest, generous, self-controlled, and aware of sin.

These are admirable traits, but they are not exclusive to Christians. Suggesting otherwise creates a moral superiority complex. Plenty of believers fall short, and plenty of nonbelievers live principled, compassionate lives.

7. Eternal separation from God awaits the unsaved.

This is classic fear-based theology. The threat of eternal punishment is held over the listener’s head as the cost of doubt. This is emotional coercion disguised as spiritual invitation.

8. Hearts are harder on Sand Mountain than in foreign countries.

This statement reflects a colonial mindset: locals have rejected the gospel too many times and are now spiritually calloused, but “untouched” people elsewhere are more receptive. It’s the same logic used by missionaries for centuries to justify invading cultures and undermining native worldviews.

🧱 What This Reveals

Pastor Goforth’s sermon isn’t just a celebration of Easter—it’s a well-oiled delivery of evangelical fundamentals, complete with insider language, guilt-based motivations, and fear-driven appeals. When stripped of its emotional packaging, we’re left with a theology that:

  • Punishes unbelief more than it rewards reason
  • Exalts faith over facts
  • Uses metaphor to manipulate (e.g., “old clothes,” “hardened heart”)
  • Divides humanity into saved and lost, righteous and reprobate

📣 Final Thoughts

This sermon is a perfect example of why critical thinking about religion is essential—especially in places where it dominates cultural identity. If you heard this message and felt uncomfortable questioning it, that’s no accident. It wasn’t designed to be questioned. It was designed to be believed.

But belief without evidence is not a virtue. And doubt, when paired with reason, is not a weakness. It is the beginning of clarity.

🧭 The God Question’s Invitation

If you’ve grown up hearing messages like this—messages that define you as lost, unworthy, or broken unless you accept a specific belief system—we invite you to pause. Think. Examine. Not just what you’ve been told, but why you were told it.

You are not broken for asking questions. You’re brave.

Let’s keep asking.

The Evolution of Morality: Why Humans Are Good Without God

Is it possible to be good without God? For many believers, the answer is an automatic “no.” The argument goes like this: Without a divine lawgiver, there can be no objective standard of right and wrong—only shifting preferences and moral chaos. If God doesn’t exist, then “anything goes.”

But reality tells a different story.

🧬 Morality Isn’t Handed Down—It Evolved

Long before organized religion, early humans lived in cooperative groups. Those who shared food, cared for the sick, and punished cheaters were more likely to survive and reproduce. These behaviors—altruism, empathy, fairness—are not divine mandates but evolutionary advantages.

In fact, primates like chimpanzees and bonobos exhibit basic moral behaviors: they reconcile after fights, help others in distress, and protest unfairness. Morality, then, is older than scripture. It’s baked into our biology.

🤝 The Real Roots of Right and Wrong

We don’t need to read Leviticus to know that murder is wrong or kindness is good. Moral instincts are rooted in human empathy and cultural evolution. Over time, societies refined moral codes—not through divine revelation, but through trial and error.

Ask yourself: Do we need the threat of hell to avoid hurting others? Or do we avoid it because we feel the suffering of another person—and because stable, fair societies benefit everyone?

If belief in God were required for morality, then nonbelievers (atheists, agnostics, the “nones”) should be rampaging the streets. But countless studies show otherwise: Secular societies consistently rank higher in measures of human well-being, peace, and social trust.

🔍 If Religion Created Morality…

Then why do so many religions sanction slavery, genocide, and the subjugation of women? Why did morality evolve past scripture—outgrowing its tribal, violent, and sexist roots?

Modern values—human rights, gender equality, LGBTQ+ dignity, racial justice—have flourished not because of religion, but often in spite of it. They are the product of reason, dialogue, and the widening circle of empathy.

📜 Morality Without Myth

A god who must command you not to murder or steal is not making you moral—he’s threatening you into submission. Genuine morality arises when we do what’s right even when no one is watching.

If your goodness depends on divine surveillance or the promise of paradise, what does that say about the source of your morality?

We are good—not because we fear God, but because we care about each other.