Christian morality: an atheist's point of view (sunday, doctrine, preacher)
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You're just chomping at the bit to run me into a corner, aren't you?
The point that I'm making is that the OP started this thread with the idea that he was going to say that the Bible shows God to be immoral. The problem is, of course, that he, as do you, see morality as being completely subjective. So....you have no possible way of definitively saying what is moral and what is not.
I'm going to try this again - a pear pit as I warned.
How are these doings of God moral?
the deluge,
cursing the fig -tree.
that business of the bear clawing the kids to bits,
the opening of the tombs and the spirits coming out.
sending the demons into a herd of suicidal pigs
letting the israelites take the virgins and kill the rest
Jesus letting the women support him out of their pockets
destroying the two cities - not to mention turning mrs Lot into salt.
For that matter letting Lot get drunk and impregnate his daughters.
Finally that business with Peter, Ananias and Sapphira.
If you can't clear up the morality question here, then you have no business using the Bible to discredit human morality.
But we say 'since your biblegod does not exist, what it says is invalid. Therefore what we can agree on Is'.
I think it's interesting that Vizio actually thinks he can somehow argue for an objective morality by using God and the Bible.
But as I said before - and which was conveniently ignored - even when it comes to God's commands, we as human beings, have made up our own minds which commands to follow and which commands to let fall by the way side.
The dichotomy between pushing for a society that persecutes homosexuals while doing nothing about adulterers is just one of many possible examples. People like Vizio will go to their graves thinking their Bronze Age morality is still the best there is ... but you won't see them giving away all of their possessions to the poor nor will you see them campaigning against banks that charge interest on loans taken out by low-income people.
Which means, of course, that even with a supposedly absolute and objective set of moral standards given by a perfect, infinitely moral god, our society STILL picks and chooses, deciding by consensus which rules to follow and which to not. Just like the vast majority of Catholic women use contraception even though their churches and clergy wail about how contraception is wrong.
Vizio is living in a fantasyland if he honestly thinks that the rules in the Bible are any more or less subjective than all the rest of our moral standards. They have always been fluid.
I'm going to try this again - a pear pit as I warned.
How are these doings of God moral?
the deluge,
cursing the fig -tree.
that business of the bear clawing the kids to bits,
the opening of the tombs and the spirits coming out.
sending the demons into a herd of suicidal pigs
letting the israelites take the virgins and kill the rest
Jesus letting the women support him out of their pockets
destroying the two cities - not to mention turning mrs Lot into salt.
For that matter letting Lot get drunk and impregnate his daughters.
Finally that business with Peter, Ananias and Sapphira.
If you can't clear up the morality question here, then you have no business using the Bible to discredit human morality.
So doesn't man have any blame in all your examples? Man makes the mess, and God has to clean it up. Demons sent into pigs is immoral? You realize they are the enemy and work relentlessly every day to make human beings lives miserable?
So doesn't man have any blame in all your examples? Man makes the mess, and God has to clean it up. Demons sent into pigs is immoral? You realize they are the enemy and work relentlessly every day to make human beings lives miserable?
You really believe this? Seriously? That's sad and funny.
The concept of demons as evil incarnate is another proof that god does not exist as an all powerful, good entity. If you are good, why not destroy the demons? If you don't, you are either not as powerful as claimed, or you are evil because you allow evil to continue to exist.
So doesn't man have any blame in all your examples? Man makes the mess, and God has to clean it up. Demons sent into pigs is immoral? You realize they are the enemy and work relentlessly every day to make human beings lives miserable?
How can Man be responsible for ANY of it? Even assuming for a few nanoseconds that God exists (and all of that jazz), it cannot be denied that God created Man to be exactly who we are. We could not have been anything else or behaved any differently.
And when we behave in the way God created us to behave, he throws a fit and starts handing out punishments like candy at a parade - even being petty enough to take the serpent's feet away (LOL?)
But booting us out of Eden and then sabotaging earth so that it's filled with natural disasters, diseases, viruses, animals suddenly hungry for meat, a sudden and weird discomfort concerning someone else seeing our genitalia, and certainly not least ... DEATH ...
No, all of that isn't enough. God then sends his arch-nemesis Satan to earth, too, and says, "Satan, ol' pal, ol' chum, here is my planet and my crowning achievement - Human Kind. It's all yours. Do with it, and with them, as you will."
Thus Man, already vulnerable as a child race with nothing but a few fig leaves with which to hunt food and create civilization, now has to contend with a supernatural and wholistically evil demi-god waging spiritual warfare against them.
And somehow it's all OUR fault.
*boggle*
Humanity has been yanked around and shafted by this capricious god-being you revere so much; Christianity is an example of mass Stockholm Syndrome.
I'm going to try this again - a pear pit as I warned.
How are these doings of God moral?
the deluge,
cursing the fig -tree.
that business of the bear clawing the kids to bits,
the opening of the tombs and the spirits coming out.
sending the demons into a herd of suicidal pigs
letting the israelites take the virgins and kill the rest
Jesus letting the women support him out of their pockets
destroying the two cities - not to mention turning mrs Lot into salt.
For that matter letting Lot get drunk and impregnate his daughters.
Finally that business with Peter, Ananias and Sapphira.
If you can't clear up the morality question here, then you have no business using the Bible to discredit human morality.
You might as well as if blue sleeps faster than Tuesday. Because if you can't define what is moral, or how we can judge morality, we are unable to determine if these things are moral.
I'll ask once more. Do you agree that there is no such thing as man-made morality that is objective in nature? Until we agree on that, all we've got is opinions, and the question if these things is moral or not is irrelevant.
You might as well as if blue sleeps faster than Tuesday. Because if you can't define what is moral, or how we can judge morality, we are unable to determine if these things are moral.
I'll ask once more. Do you agree that there is no such thing as man-made morality that is objective in nature? Until we agree on that, all we've got is opinions, and the question if these things is moral or not is irrelevant.
You're correct, but neither do you. However, I can confidently assert that the majority of humankind have the same moral compass as I relating to the actions of Hitler and those who rape, murder, and steal. The reason this is is because human morality has evolved to this point and condemns these acts, along with slavery, sexism, and racism, which the Bible promotes or at least endorses.
I develop my morals the same way that you and everyone else does, we evaluate actions and determine whether these would be detrimental to promoting and/or advancing the species, along with what is most mutually beneficial to promote good will. Had you followed the moral code of the Bible and the Abrahamic God, you would still be asserting that slavery, sexism, and racism are moral conducts.
Now, please answer the question that I posed in my previous post, if you can. Since I assume you believe that humans cannot fully understand the mind of God, would it not be possible that at some time God would have a humanly incomprehensible reason to proclaim that murder is moral? If so, would you then follow this proclamation and advance the notion that murderers shouldn't be punished?
Then the discussion is irrelevant. All you've got is an opinion.
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