The Bible is NOT the Gold Standard of Morality

The moment I realized morality didn’t live inside a book

Let’s talk about something I wish someone had said to me years ago, back when I was still terrified to question a single line in “scripture.”

A lot of Christians believe that if you don’t accept every word of the Bible as literal, perfect, untouchable truth, then you’ve basically decided to live like the devil. No morals, no compass, no accountability. Just… chaos, debauchery, and maybe some extra cursing.

For years, I believed that too. Not because it made sense, but because I was trained to believe it. I was taught that morality starts and ends with one authoritative book. If you wandered outside of it, even for a second, you’re opening the floodgates to depravity.

But the more honest I became with myself about how I actually felt about the Bible, the harder that was to reconcile. Because the Bible is not the gold standard of morality. Not even close.

And if you actually read it without flinching, without skipping the messy parts, without spiritualizing everything to make God look better than the text itself portrays him, you start to see the cracks.

Let’s walk through a few.

According to the morality of the Bible, genocide is fine as long as God commands it. Entire nations wiped out. Men, women, children, animals. And if the so-called chosen people are the ones doing it, it’s not just acceptable, it’s righteous.

Slavery? Not only condoned but regulated. As long as you follow the rules, it’s moral. Did you know that the Bible goes into more detail about how to own people than it does about how to love people?

Women? Silent and submissive. Basically, they’re property. Not spiritual equals, not teachers, not leaders. Just helpers. Extras. Background characters in a male-dominated story.

And if your kid mouths off or disobeys? Stone them to death. Literally kill them. That is in the Bible.

These are the “absolute truths” Christians claim we’re morally lost without. Some claim that “context” is important or that “that was part of the old covenant.” Wait… I thought God was the same yesterday, today, and forever…? Regardless… this is (or was) the standard we’re told is higher than all human reason, empathy, or conscience.

Yet most Christians ignore these parts entirely. They don’t preach them. They don’t post them on Instagram with a cute sunset background. They skip right over them because they didn’t, then they’d be forced to admit that these verses do not reflect love, wisdom, or divine truth. They reflect the brutality of the era they were written in and nothing more.

But the second I say, “I don’t think Paul’s private letters to Timothy are the literal words of God,” suddenly I’m the one cherry-picking?

The mental gymnastics required for that level of cognitive dissonance should qualify as an Olympic sport.

And we haven’t even gotten to the biggest mind-twist of them all: the belief that you were born evil. Before you ever take your first breath, you are already considered depraved, corrupt, and destined for hell. You arrive in the world guilty. Condemned.

That’s supposed to be morality? Sounds like psychological abuse dripping in authoritative, religious language. It is a crafty system designed to break your self-esteem, then sell you the cure for the wound it created. It is classic top-down control.

The truth I didn’t learn until much later is that morality does not come from fear. It does not come from obedience. It does not come from being told you are broken and only a book can fix you.

Morality comes from consciousness.

It comes from connection, compassion, intuition, and awareness. It comes from the part of you that knows what love feels like and recognizes harm even when a “sacred” text tells you it’s holy.

Rejecting the Bible as an absolute moral authority doesn’t mean you have no compass. It means you get to adopt a moral framework rooted in actual love rather than ancient brutality. Which is… like… such an exhale compared to the typical Christian way, right?!

It means you get to value women as equals because it is obvious that they are. It means you get to reject slavery because it is inhumane, no matter who allowed it. It means you get to say genocide is wrong, even if someone claims God commanded it.

And maybe most importantly, it means you no longer have to hate yourself in order to stay “faithful.” You no longer have to believe you were born a problem. You get to grow. You get to heal. You get to become a full and free human being.

That is morality. That is spirituality. That is truth.

Once you see this, it becomes almost impossible to go back to the old framework. You can’t unsee the contradictions. You can’t “unknow” the harm. You can’t pretend that fear and obedience are the same thing as love.

And if you’re in that deconstruction space right now, where everything feels shaky and confusing and you’re wondering who you’ll be on the other side of this, I want you to know something:

You are not losing your faith.
You are expanding it, allowing it to breathe and grow. You are waking up to a bigger, wider, deeper spirituality than anything all that reverence fear could ever contain.

You are remembering what love actually feels like…nd that is the beginning of real morality.

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