system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Christianity is used as a way to justify pre-existing moral beliefs, not as a source of them.

This argument will be specific to Christianity, although I do think it likely applies to other religions. However, I don't know enough about other religions to have a meaningful conversation, so please keep your arguments focused on Christianity. This is also specific to Christians who claim the Bible is the word of God. I am aware that some Christians believe the Bible is the word of people, and their reflections and thoughts on God.

There are several reasons I think Christianity is not a source of most of it's practitioners beliefs, but instead is used as a form of confirmation bias to support beliefs they already hold. These reasons are: Bible verses that get ignored, how it is determined when books are added to the Bible, and how Christianity changes over time with society.

My first point is that people often cherry pick Bible verses. I know that this is pointed out often on change my view and gets tiring, so I'm not going to post examples. I also know that this differs across denominations and that Bible verses are open to interpretation, but in my opinion this actually supports my point. People choose Bible verses to argue beliefs they hold outside of the Bible. If a person believed the Bible was the word of God, why would they pick out specific things from it to believe? To me, it's clear that people don't believe in things such as harsh punishments and not eating shellfish because society no longer cares about those things. However, people do have very strong views about, for example, homosexuality and claim these views are because of the Bible, while simultaneously ignoring other verses of the Bible. This, to me, shows that people are not generally interested in learning from the Bible, but moreso using the Bible to support internal beliefs they can't find support for elsewhere.

They second point I mentioned was about how books get added to the Bible. This applies specifically to Catholics because I'm getting this information from the Catholic school I went to. However, the general methodology for deciding which books to add to the Bible I think applies to probably all denominations. Sometimes, people apparently find books that they think should be added to the Bible and whether or not they get added is determined by what people think about God. This information about God comes from the currently used form of the Bible. Why are we using the Bible to determine what other books should be added to the Bible if the Bible already says contradictory things about God? My view is that it isn't the Bible we use to decide what books get added, it's our own preconceived ideas about what "good" is, and since God is good, we ourselves use our ideas of good to decide what God does, not the other way around.

Finally, society changes all the time, and Christianity changes with it. Before, Christians used to believe gay people were evil, now it's just that they are sinning. We also used to believe in very serious punishments for what we now consider minor crimes. We used to be ok with slavery, and in fact, the Bible tells how slaves should act. But as society changes, so to do the teachings of Churches. To me, this is evidence that people don't get their beliefs from God, they define God's beliefs based in their own. Change my view.

Edit: Thank you guys for all the responses. I just wanted to clarify a few things.

1. I hold no animosity towards Christians in general. I have many Christian friends who I consider to be very intelligent. I will say that this is primarily because they see it as more of the experience and deciding for yourself what an all wise all good God would be like. They don't believe God himself had a direct influence on the writing of the Bible, only that it was written about him by people.

2. I'm already aware the purpose of Jesus was to invalidate the New Testament, or render its rules unnecessary. This kind of also proves my point on a more macro scale. As far as I'm aware, Jews and Christians believe in the same God, but Christians believe the messiah was found. The entire religion of Christianity was founded by a guy who thought those regulations were outdated and got rid of them. And also, why would an infinitely wise God have to change his mind about which rules are necessary?
gpt
Both are correct. Some people use religion to justify their moral beliefs. Others base their moral beliefs on their religion (AKA What would Jesus do?). Others do both at the same time.

When a religious leader changes the personal belief of a follower by quoting their religious texts, the follower is basing his morals on his religion. The religious leaser might be justifying his morals with his religion or might genuinely believe what he preaches.