From faith-based initiatives to prayer in school to the “sanctity of marriage”, we are constantly being told that this country is losing it’s morality and we need to have it instilled in us all over again. But I have to ask, why is it that only religion is able to give people morals?

Do we all get our morals from religion? Can someone with no religious background grow up to be a decent, upstanding citizen? If you read the paper or watch television, you’ll likely be told that religion gives people morals, and the decline in religion is the reason for the decline in morals.

I was sent to Sunday School every weekend as a child, and taught the same nonsense that children are likely being taught this coming Sunday. I stopped going to church at about the age of 15, and never in my life did I consider myself religious. I went because my family went, but never identified. Never in my life have I made a moral decision based on religious beliefs.

Many people believe that the root of all morals comes from religion and a society without firm religious beliefs will be a failing society. The reason most God-fearers believe this is because they personally feel the need to “be good” in order to please a higher authority. The feel that people with no religious beliefs don’t fear God, therefore can do whatever they want with no fear of punishment.

To say that an atheist has no obligation to follow the law because they fear no eternal damnation (or other God-ish punishment), is just asinine. I personally obey the law because it is necessary to a functional society. I fear the legal system in my current life far more than the legal system in a life I don’t believe in. I am much more afraid of the person that feels they can do as they wish in this life, because they are certain it will be okay in the next life.

Morals are taught by parents and elders to children. Some use religion to instill their beliefs, and often times it works out fine. The vast majority of people in this country are good people. The common ingredient in teaching morals seems to be fear. Children of religious families are taught to fear God, and children in non-religious families are taught to fear punishment. The children with no morals, I’d wager, often turn out that way because of poor teaching at some point in their life, be it from a parent, school teacher, or whomever. The problem in this country isn’t a lack of religion, it’s just a lack of common sense.

If parents weren’t afraid they would get arrested for smacking their child, or they weren’t afraid that their children would “divorce” them, maybe they could do the job we need them to do. The problem with morals in this country is something we allowed to happen without religion playing a part at all. The reason this country is perceived to have a lack of morals is, to me, quite obvious. When I see 12-year olds on their cell phones, chatting on the Internet, and dressing like thugs and whores, how can you be surprised that they turn out to be thugs and whores with no communication or social skills. They are having sex younger and younger, and that too is often attributed to a lack of religious values, but I don’t believe that to be true either. I blame a large part of that on the Internet and a complete lack of parental supervision. Kids today have access to information that they used to have to learn the old fashioned way, and they are using what they learn.

Religion is not the problem, parent-child interaction is the problem. Parents don’t discipline children properly (or at all). Parents are completely oblivious to what their children do online. And parent have never been clued into what their kids were doing when they left there house. Put all of these together and you end up with each generation having less and less morals.

We don’t need to put prayer in schools to instill morality. We don’t need faith-based initiatives to force religious beliefs on people. We need people who are willing to help make better people. We need people like the ACLU to let parents do their job. Parents need to do their jobs better. If we can accomplish this, we can have a country with morals again.

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