MrWonder Wrote: Hi, The Bible is the basic guideline for morality. Without it, it's just whatever a person thinks. I am new to this site and I must say I love the open intelligent discussions that it allows. Craigslist rapidly degenerates to name calling and posturing. Thanks for creating this. I do respecfully disagree that the Bible is any guideline of morality as it professes to be. In fact I think it allows people to imagine they are being moral when they are actually being highly immoral. Case in point, the Civil War was started over the easiest question of morality there is; slavery. Any self examination would lead to the conclusion that to enslave another human being is wrong yet both sides claimed the Bible endorsed their point of view and believed God was on their side. However, the south (widely considered the most pious part of the country) had to be forced at the point of bayonet to stop the practice. It amazes me that any writing could be so open to interpretation as to cause this kind of lapse in judgement and still be considered a guideline. It might be good at this point to define "morality". I commonly hear it defined as "doing the right thing or the good thing". But this is clearly inadequate since "the right thing" is open to interpretation. Perhaps a better definition could be "the increase of happiness and the lessening of suffering". Not perfect but less open to interpretation. The Ten Commandments (supposedly the only words God thought important enough to dictate directly) only have three that address issues of morality; murder, adultery, and stealing. All of which originated in civilizations before the Ten Commandments. Interesting that God did not think to include torture as a rule but thought "coveting" was somehow worse.And yes, I read Sam Harris! Thanks for listening.