Can People Be "Good" Without God?

Can a person be "good" without "God"?  This argument has been going back and forth now for several weeks on the forum I belong to, and among the "Christians" on the board, the consensus has been pretty much the same: you cannot be "good" without God, because if you don't have God in your life, you cannot lead a "moral" life.

Excuse me?

Of course, when you ask what moralities they are referring to, the inevitable answer is the ones found in God's holy word, the Bible, which often leads me to wonder if these people have ever actually read it, because if they had, they would know there is a whole lot of immorality found within its pages.  Regardless of that, however, I find their definition of morality questionable at times, and downright laughable at others, in the respect that they want someone like me to butt out of their Christianity, but they want to use their Christianity to define how I live my life (why are they so obsessed with my sex life, anyway?).  Something about that trade off just doesn't seem fair.

One of the biggest arguments we have is about sex education.  Of course, they are all for abstinence only education, with no focus on birth control or safe sex practices; we should all remain abstinent until marriage, and even then, we should be enjoying sex within the context of procreation - that every sexual union should be open to conceiving a child.  This is all well and good with one minor problem...it doesn't work, and it has been proven repeatedly that it doesn't work.  First of all, teenagers are naturally curious about sex, and it is stupid to think they aren't going to experiment.  I went to two different high schools growing up, and in both, at least 75% of the graduating classes were sexually active, and of the 25% who said they weren't, half of them were probably lying because they were afraid their bishops would tell their parents.

The other problem with abstinence only education is that it fails to define "sexual activity" as anything beyond good, old fashioned, missionary position intercourse, and it leaves teens ignorant to the fact that while you can't get pregnant by giving a blow job, you can pretty much get anything else.  So now, instead of kids showing up to the clinic pregnant, they are showing up to the clinic wearing their purity rings and chastity bracelets with chlamydia of the mouth (as well as another, more southern, region).

It is interesting to note as well that of all the industrialized nations, the United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy.  In most European countries, sex is discussed openly and honestly, and birth control is readily available.  There is no pretense about sex being some religious, spiritual union between a husband and wife; sex is treated as what it is...a biological act that feels good and is nothing to be ashamed of, and while it does carry risks and consequences, good information, good education, and good prevention reduces these risks and consequences considerably.  It is also interesting to note that in the United States, the South, which is by far the most religious area of the country, also has the highest rate of teen pregnancy (as well as the highest rates of divorce, drop outs, obesity, and illiteracy).

So you tell me...which is more "immoral", giving our kids the information they need to make informed decisions about sex, or keeping them ignorant and stupid, because the Bible tells me so?

Another great area of contention is abortion.  I love the way my Christian friends adamantly declare abortion as being against the teachings of God (thou shalt not murder, Cain and Able, knitting in the womb, blah blah blah), when in fact, there is absolutely nothing in the Bible regarding abortion.  To the contrary; life is defined in the Old Testament (Genesis 2:7 to be exact) as beginning at birth, not at conception.  One verse that has been thrown at me to "prove" that life begins at conception is Exodus 21:22:

"If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit departs from her, yet no mischief follow, he shall surely be punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay a fine as the judges determine."

What's funny about this is that, without fail, they haven't bothered to read the next 3 verses:

"And if any mischief follow (meaning, the woman dies), then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, stripe for stripe."

Get it?  The fetus isn't considered a life, so it is only worth a fine.  The woman, who is a living, breathing creature (property that she is), is a different story.

Anyone who has read the Bible, objectively, knows that killing is commonplace throughout the Old Testament.  Women are raped, babies are cut from their bellies, babies are killed, sons are killed, she bears are sicked on children because they make fun of a bald guy, and so on and so forth.  The reality is that there is no concern for the sanctity of life, unless you are talking about the sanctity of a Hebrew life, and even then there were so many terms and conditions it is any wonder any of them survived at all.

So where does the anti-abortion stance come from?  A codex written approximately 100 years after Jesus' death. 

Yet the protests continue, along with the marches and the chants, which is their right.  But ask them how many unwanted children they have adopted (to be fair, some have).  Ask them how many drug addicted babies they have cared for.  These same people who are so opposed to abortion are the same ones who don't want to deal with the aftermath in the form of the unwanted child.  Every day, there is a new story about a little one who has been abused, beaten, or found buried somewhere because her parents didn't want her, or because she was a burden.  Foster homes are overrun with these kids, and some foster homes are worse than what the child was pulled from.

And these people who say abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape and incest?  Get fucking serious.  How Christian is it to force a woman, or a girl, to not only carry this reminder for 9 months, but also give birth to it?  In both Brazil and Mexico, families and doctors were excommunicated from the Catholic Church for performing abortions on girls who had been raped by their stepfathers; the nine year old girl in Brazil was carrying twins.  The Church, in both cases, stated that to terminate the pregnancies was going against God, and the families (mothers, specifically) and the doctors, despite the severe health risks (including death) to both girls, needed to be punished.  What happened to the stepfathers?  Nothing worth mentioning; neither of them was excommunicated.

Please tell me what, exactly, is moral about that?  Especially coming from a Church which cannot keep its own priests' sexual appetites for young children in check.

The fact is it is entirely possible to be good without God.  In fact, I'd venture to say that most atheists, myself included, actually hold themselves to a higher standard of ethics than a lot of Christians do for one simple fact...we have no one to blame for our actions but ourselves.  If we do something wrong, or commit a heinous act, we know that we, and we alone, are completely accountable for our actions, and we have no God to justify them.

My question then becomes is it possible to be "good" with God?