Not necessarily. The Bible is clear in it's message that God looks at the heart of a person and His Word is a tool by which to do just that...

The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It cuts all the way through, to where soul and spirit meet, to where joints and marrow come together. It judges the desires and thoughts of the heart.
(Heb 4:12)

One may lead a moral life for many reasons, most of which have nothing to do with God. Self-preservation for instance. Leading a moral life will generally make life alot more enjoyable as it fosters good relations with others, thus, a person will endeavor to lead a moral life.

But the motivation is not a Godly one. It is a selfish one. God is not honored by such motivation.

The desire to lead a moral life, regardless of God's influence, is not necessarily selfish. It could develop from a genuine desire to help other people. It is also possible to follow the teachings of the Bible for selfish reasons-- the desire to secure a place in heaven, for instance. I agree that God can see into the hearts of people, but just because you haven't acknowledged God, doesn't mean that you have a bad heart, and God can see if your intentions are the right ones.

Hadn't seen your reply...but was looking to bump this up again for further discussion on whether or not the Bible is the Word of God.

Will tackle this tomorrow.

The Bible says differently...

For the gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself: it is through faith from beginning to end. As the scripture says, "The person who is put right with God through faith shall live."

God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of the people whose evil ways prevent the truth from being known.

God punishes them, because what can be known about God is plain to them, for God himself made it plain. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!

They know God, but they do not give him the honor that belongs to him, nor do they thank him. Instead, their thoughts have become complete nonsense, and their empty minds are filled with darkness. They say they are wise, but they are fools; instead of worshiping the immortal God, they worship images made to look like mortals or birds or animals or reptiles. And so God has given those people over to do the filthy things their hearts desire, and they do shameful things with each other. They exchange the truth about God for a lie; they worship and serve what God has created instead of the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever! Amen.
(Rom 1:17-25)

God says they have no excuse not to acknowledge God.

I will agree that the desire to lead a moral life a part from God is indeed possible and has been done. God can see your motives, and some motives could be genuine and good, but they are not perfect motives. There are motives that might neccesarily be selfish, but are indeed sinful. For those outsid eof God, everything that is done is sinful in some way. And these people outside of God can do nothing to please God. (Heb. 11:6)

Regardless of how you slice it, what it all comes down to is that everyone is sinful. (Rom. 3:23) And the wages of sin is death. (Rom 6:23) So we all die, because we all sin. The good news is that God has provided a way for us to approach him through Jesus Christ regardless of how undeserving we are. Does it matter how moral you are if you reject God's gift of life? I liked Mark's analogy of the lifeline earlier in this thread. Can you charge God for letting someone drtown in the ocean when they chose not to pick up the rope that would save them? Morality won't keep you from drowning, nor will it keep you from punishment for sin.

Bump

My biggest problem lies not with believing that the wisdom of God is in the bible, but rather with believing that he would stop dispensing wisdom at any particlar point in history. This disbelief is only aggravated by the dispensationalist attitude some people have used when explaining the various points of contradiction that take place in the bible, and not at all allieved by the fact that the people which recorded the books of the new testament made at least a few things up (i.e. the conversations in the High Priest's chamber before Jesus was put before Ponitus Pilate). Simply put, to think that The Lord, Your God, would simply stop dispensing wisdom suspiciously directly after the first council of Nicea is a rather ludicris idea.

To say that the bible is the literal word of God is a bit audacious, because while one can claim the infallability of God, one can not by any stretch of the imagination or by any leap of faith assign that same degree of infallabilty to any man except one. Since He never wrote a gospel of his own, we can only suspect which parts of the book contain the infallable wisdom of God, and which contain the failed interpretations of men.

Furthermore, I would contend that the Bible is not the only place one can find salvation in Christ, nor is it the only place one can find the infallable wisdom of God. Simply put, the Bible has ceased to be the living and breathing Word of God, as it was a snapshot of what it was 1700 years ago. The Word of God has done a lot more living and a lot more breathing since then.