“How can you have morals if you don’t have anything to base them on?”

If a stranger had asked me this question, it wouldn’t have surprised me so, and I doubt I would have given it much thought later.  But it was my own sister asking me this question.  We were brought up in the same home by the same two parents.  I think she was asking in a more rhetorical sense and not asking me directly.

I replied to her that I just don’t trust people with religious morals.  I’m much more apt to trust someone’s intentions if they are doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do, or because they feel compassion for another.  If a written set of rules (with threat of eternal damnation for violating them) is the driving force behind your good deed, I don’t see your actions as anything but self-serving, no matter the outcome.  I don’t see this as “serving the Lord” but as serving to keep your own ass out of the flames.

My sister is sweet and reasonable, and she didn’t throw a bible at me or tell me I was probably going to Hell for that.  She chewed on it some, and then we went on to talk about kids and men and other important matters.