If one does the "right" thing he is considered moral. What about the con man who does many good things, but for bad reasons? What about someone who treats everyone very ethically because he has concluded it is in his selfish best interest?
I'm not too sure just what "being moral" means, but people can have very moral behavior without acknowledging God.
Background beliefs, wherever they come from, should only be viewed as one possible version of the truth. If one believes something that is not true, is it reasonable to expect good results?
God is spirit. He created the physical universe. He also made spiritual beings: part of creation and constrained by time, but not made of matter. The spiritual realm is primary. Each human has a physical body and a spirit; they are divisible. God reserved for himself the ability to create or destroy spirit or physical "stuff."
Intellect, will, mind, emotions, etc., are not distinct realms; they are characteristics of God. All of creation- but especially man- is an image of its creator, so must share many of the characteristics. I believe the mind and will require some spiritual structure; others might argue they are spiritual elements or underpinnings.
The mind and will are the primary media for the interaction of spirit and the physical universe. Miracles proceed from God's will: he has the power, but he must also choose what to do. We can only judge a person by the behavior we observe, but every action is determined in a person's will- in his spirit- before it is manifested in a material way.
Spirits can communicate with each other. Spirit beings are naturally more adept at this since they have only spiritual senses. Humans have spiritual senses as well, but our physical senses are compelling, obvious, and usually verifiable (with physical instruments). If one ignores or rejects this, how much influence or control might a spirit being have over one's spirit?
I believe spirit cannot be "tested" with physical instruments. God specifically forbids testing him. (In Deut. 6:16, et al, the Hebrew "tempt" at root means "test"; the same is true of the Greek words.) If we were able to detect or measure spirit, we would be able to test God in a scientific sense.
These ideas come from the Bible. Why do I believe them? Experience and reason.
When I was about thirteen years old, I asked my father (a Lutheran pastor) why there isn't any physical evidence for all this stuff if God really wants us to believe it? I suppose he felt frustrated over the years he had spent trying to teach me the truth; in any case, he got a little angry with me. I figured (at the time) that if he would get angry over that, perhaps even he wasn't so sure it was true.
I thought for a while that Mr. Spock's example was the way to go; but after some time, it seemed there were too many illogical things going on around me, and I certainly couldn't control my emotions.
I began searching for a way to understand and deal with things that didn't make sense- like my emotions. I spoke with many people, did many things, read many books. I recall I was quite excited about Yogananda Parmahansa for a time.
Everything I tried left something to be desired; they didn't satisfy. I became cynical; after a time, I decided never trusting anyone was a miserable way to live. I went, perhaps, to the other extreme, trying to take everyone at face value and shrugging off or making excuses for anyone's behavior that I didn't like. Still, there was no point to anything; human nature was rotten, and the human race deserved the extinction it seemed to eagerly seek.
One day a couple of Baptist kids witnessed to me. For some reason, this made me quite angry; I decided the next Christian who got in my face would regret it. So I dusted off my Bible and started my Catalog of Contradictions.
The catalog remained empty. I discovered that of all the contradictions I knew were there, the Bible only contained one version. Apparently, the other things I had heard were just that: things I had heard. People, being imaginative, can interpret the Bible or their experience in many ways; the Bible interprets itself.
Things in the Bible which seem to defy common sense (for example) make plenty of sense when all passages using similar words or phrases are compared and contrasted, along with other sections on the same topic; sometimes common sense is wrong. Common knowledge (or tradition) has it that Jesus died on Friday and arose on Sunday; the Gospels certainly contradict that. Reading them without preconceived notions simply indicates he died shortly before sunset on a Wednesday and arose Saturday evening (probably just before sunset). By the way, that makes three days and three nights.
The above was the result of my own efforts; the eerie feeling I ended up with was that the Bible was inhumanly self consistent. Since that time I have found more exhaustive resources with compelling evidence for the Bible's authenticity: scientific accuracy; archaeological confirmations; hundreds of fulfilled prophecies, some in great detail- at least 332 about the Messiah alone.
If one believes the Gospels were "doctored" to fit these prophecies, then one has more faith than I that people could be so clever without one mistake. Also keep in mind that those involved in writing the New Testament all died torturous, humiliating deaths rather than change their story. Such devotion to a known lie?
I have also had a handful of anomalous experiences; most I did not seek, some I even avoided. If I had no reason to trust they came from God, I would be very frightened concerning the true nature of reality.
I am a skeptic. How do we know universal constants are constant universally? Has someone measured the speed of light a billion light years away, or a million years ago? Don't all cosmological theories presume a number of unprovable guesses are true? What of inconvenient scientific data, such as fossils with human footprints within a dinosaur track; or sedimentation and erosion near Mt. St. Helen, known to have occurred in two years time, which a confessed atheist archaeologist commented looks just like the Grand Canyon and would fool him if he didn't know better?
I am still skeptical, and continue to pragmatically chose "what works best" to fit my experience and reason: the Bible is the Word of God, containing all that we need to "pass the test."
I once heard someone say they might believe in God if he personally showed up and explained things. That's exactly what God did; how many times should he do it? Billions?
Here it is: