Morality means a million different things to a million different people. Unless there was one “true” irrefutable moral system, no one could assert that belief in God is essential to morality. However, if you hold to the Christian view of morality, then yes, belief in God is technically essential because of the whole regeneration and presence of the Holy Spirit discussion. But that’s just one slice of a very large, and opinionated pie. You would be hard pressed to find a non-Christian that asserted belief in a god that they didn’t acknowledge as being integral to being a moral person.
Personally, no I don’t believe you need to believe in God to agree that killing people is (situationally) wrong, that stealing is wrong, that lying is bad, and all those other token first-world notions of morality. However I adhere myself more to the Christian view of morality than just the standard “vanilla” version, so my personal expectations of myself are different than those for other people.
Morality is not that hard or confusing unless you try to figure it out without God’s standards revealed in His Word. It’s what’s right and what’s wrong. He also says that everyone’s own conscience will condemn them on judgement day, without Christ. That agreement about killing, lying and stealing can only happen because of God’s image in every single person. If mankind truly had evolved from dirt there would be no conscience to bother anyone when they killed. Animals don’t feel guilty when they kill, it’s only instinct to them. Contrary to popular atheist opinion, we are not animals.
“If mankind truly had evolved from dirt there would be no conscience to bother anyone when they killed”
Dennis, you REALLY need to read some ACTUAL science on the evolution of human morality.
Really.
It will rock your world.