"For what it may be worth, I'll say that a wide lobe of my own brain finds it hard to believe that the maker of anything so vast and still so mysterious as our universe and of who knows what beyond it is permanently concerned with how I behave in relation to my diet (so long as I'm not a cannibal or a cruel killer of other edible creatures) or how I use my genitals for anything besides excretion (so long as those organs don't do willful damage to another creature, above all to a child) or how I wear my hair (so long as it doesn't propagate disease-bearing vermin) or with a good deal else that concerns and even distresses many religious people. I can understand a person's or community's strict observance of certain codes for the purposes of discipline and tribal identity; but to attribute the establishment of such codes to the eternal and inalterable will of God seems to me a deeply questionable, if not absurd, choice.
"As for his firm expectations of me, I strongly suspect that God cares how I treat the planet Earth, its nonhuman inhabitants, its atmosphere, and eventually outer space. Above all, the Creator intends that I honor the bodies and minds of my fellow human beings whomever and from wherever and that I must likewise alleviate, as unintrusively as possible, any harm they suffer from others or from nature itself; and I must attempt to repair any harm that I may have done to others. I believe I know that my own grave wrongs have involved a self-absorbed indifference to the feelings and the mental stability of other human beings. Those errors have generally occurred in relations that involved erotic desire; and I've spent a fair amount of tie, even now when paraplegia has severely curbed my scope, in contemplating those wrongs with real regret."