Christian morality: an atheist's point of view (marriage, premarital, married)
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Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,922,771 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
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?
Pigs are enemies of humans?
What the heck are you talking about?????????????????
If all you've got is your opinion, you have no way of judging that to be immoral.
I already know what my "opinion" is.
What is YOUR opinion? Do you think genocide and killing kids is immoral? Or are you going to make an exception to objective morality because God did it?
And if you personally believe genocide is wrong but give God a pass, then morality isn't really objective, now, is it.
Otherwise, you would have to admit that genocide and murdering kids isn't wrong - which should make anyone cringe at the idea of morality corrupted by desperate attempts to rationalize why depraved atrocity is a-okay under certain circumstances.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
I guess the question at that point is to ask why God commanded the Israelites to wipe out another nation?
Anyone with any kind of moral framework would be asking that question - and seriously doubting whether the story is even true given the barbarity and brutality of the event. Anyone who can sit there with a straight face and claim that God is the paragon of goodness and morality while simultaneously excusing God for ordering the wholesale slaughter of every living thing living inside the walls of a city should be spending time doing some serious introspection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Is capital punishment the same as murder? If not...why not?
I know where you're going with this, and what God did was NOT capital punishment. It was slaughter. It was brutality on a scale only an evil god could carry out. I think you and I both know that there were innocents that were killed - and if you REALLY believe that 100% of humanity was engaged in 24/7 wickedness as the Bible portends, then I have some beachfront property in Kansas I'd like to sell you. Cheap. And I'll even throw in a free Bible. Because you have to be grade-A gullible to believe that even the infants were goo-gooing their wicked little hearts out. Even the kittens and puppies were, I dunno, worshiping demons and fornicating and refusing to put tassles on their cloaks. Who the hell really knows?
The botton line is pretty simple. Christians claim their God is utterly good, the source of love, the source of morality - a God who is both perfect and omnipotent. Yet if he is all of those things, then there is absolutely no excuse for resorting to brutality and barbarism. If you want God to be seen as good and loving, genocide and child-killing, virgin-snatching, bashing infants against poles, billions of cases of animal abuse, blood sacrifices, mind games with Isaac, sending bears to murder kids ... seriously, those things are not the way to do it. Christians are asking people to believe that night is day and day is night. You would have us believe that your God is one thing but behaves as though he's just the opposite.
Capital punishment is a human punishment because we just don't know any other way to deal with some of the more heinous criminals. But an omnipotent God? No ... a being with infinite options doesn't need to act like Stalin with superpowers. If that's really the best he could do to solve the problems he faced, then why would I want to worship him?
What is YOUR opinion? Do you think genocide and killing kids is immoral? Or are you going to make an exception to objective morality because God did it?
For ME to do it, yes. Those nations and people were not accountable to me for their sin.
Quote:
And if you personally believe genocide is wrong but give God a pass, then morality isn't really objective, now, is it.
Otherwise, you would have to admit that genocide and murdering kids isn't wrong - which should make anyone cringe at the idea of morality corrupted by desperate attempts to rationalize why depraved atrocity is a-okay under certain circumstances.
Man-made morality is certainly subjective. That's why what you think is irrelevant in a discussion about God. But God made us, he can do with us what he wants. He gets to define morality. What you fail to realize is that there is the authority of God.
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Anyone with any kind of moral framework would be asking that question - and seriously doubting whether the story is even true given the barbarity and brutality of the event. Anyone who can sit there with a straight face and claim that God is the paragon of goodness and morality while simultaneously excusing God for ordering the wholesale slaughter of every living thing living inside the walls of a city should be spending time doing some serious introspection.
At least in your opinion. But we know what your opinion is worth. It's not worth any more than anyone else's.
Quote:
I know where you're going with this, and what God did was NOT capital punishment. It was slaughter. It was brutality on a scale only an evil god could carry out. I think you and I both know that there were innocents that were killed - and if you REALLY believe that 100% of humanity was engaged in 24/7 wickedness as the Bible portends, then I have some beachfront property in Kansas I'd like to sell you. Cheap. And I'll even throw in a free Bible. Because you have to be grade-A gullible to believe that even the infants were goo-gooing their wicked little hearts out. Even the kittens and puppies were, I dunno, worshiping demons and fornicating and refusing to put tassles on their cloaks. Who the hell really knows?
The botton line is pretty simple. Christians claim their God is utterly good, the source of love, the source of morality - a God who is both perfect and omnipotent. Yet if he is all of those things, then there is absolutely no excuse for resorting to brutality and barbarism. If you want God to be seen as good and loving, genocide and child-killing, virgin-snatching, bashing infants against poles, billions of cases of animal abuse, blood sacrifices, mind games with Isaac, sending bears to murder kids ... seriously, those things are not the way to do it. Christians are asking people to believe that night is day and day is night. You would have us believe that your God is one thing but behaves as though he's just the opposite.
Capital punishment is a human punishment because we just don't know any other way to deal with some of the more heinous criminals. But an omnipotent God? No ... a being with infinite options doesn't need to act like Stalin with superpowers. If that's really the best he could do to solve the problems he faced, then why would I want to worship him?
At this point, further discussion really isn't very helpful. It doesn't matter what I say--you've made up your mind.
Location: In a little house on the prairie - literally
10,202 posts, read 7,922,771 times
Reputation: 4561
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
.................
It takes some guts to claim to judge God.
I can not understand anyone who claims to get their morality from a god they worship endorse the genocide of a neighboring tribe, whose land your tribe was trying to invade, to go back and kill all men, women and children you did not get in the first go around, and then keep all virgins for your tribe's men for their own pleasure.
And frankly, if you do endorse that, you better look in the mirror and ask yourself how moral can your thought be.
Even Hitler, who you frequently bring up, did not systematically keep the virgins for his troops to enjoy. Your god's command to do that horrible, horrible thing is worse than the excesses of crimes committed under the Nazis. Far, far worse.
I can not understand anyone who claims to get their morality from a god they worship endorse the genocide of a neighboring tribe, whose land your tribe was trying to invade, to go back and kill all men, women and children you did not get in the first go around, and then keep all virgins for your tribe's men for their own pleasure.
Honestly? What does it matter? All you've got is your opinion.
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And frankly, if you do endorse that, you better look in the mirror and ask yourself how moral can your thought be.
I'm not the one that is suggesting that evil go unpunished.
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Even Hitler, who you frequently bring up, did not systematically keep the virgins for his troops to enjoy. Your god's command to do that horrible, horrible thing is worse than the excesses of crimes committed under the Nazis. Far, far worse.
No....Hitler didn't believe in sparing anyone. I guess you think it's better to kill them. You're kind of all over the map on this, aren't you? I'm glad we don't live by your system.
No, actually, he can't just do what he wants. If that were the case, then you can't define what or who God even is or what he wants. If he's not bound to his words, his promises, and the way the Bible describes him, then both your God and the Bible is patently worthless.
If your God can do whatever he wants, then what's the point - he could be lying to you about an afterlife, then, since there is no moral restraint that would prevent God from being just as bad as, if not worse than, Satan himself.
If God can just "do what he wants" then every preacher on the planet is just whistlin' Dixie every Sunday morning because they don't know jack. How could they? God could just up and slaughter Chicago for no apparent reason or send an angel who might command you to kill your children. He could simply leave this reality completely and abandon you all to oblivion or he could send you to hell simply for wearing that horrible leisure suit back in the 70's. Because the kind of God you describe is a God of chaos, a God of anarchy that follows no rules and, as you said, has no authority above him. He can't even keep his own moral standards (despite being omnipotent) and then gets angry when flawed, imperfect beings can't keep them, either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
What you fail to realize is that there is the authority of God.
What you fail to realize is that the definition of "objective" is independent of God. Ergo, if God is not bound by his own objective moral standards, then those standards are neither objective or absolute.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
At this point, further discussion really isn't very helpful. It doesn't matter what I say--you've made up your mind.
Oh really? Then I suspect you'll withdraw completely from this discussion because I'm pretty sure the rest of your "opponents" have made up their minds, too. Further discussion with anyone not in agreement with you would not be very helpful at this point.
Unless you're targeting me specifically for some reason ... hmm .... are you?
Are there immoral parts in the Bible? Sure there are. Does modern Christianity focus on such things? No they do not.
Ultimately, the best test of the quality of any system of religious belief comes down to this: How successful is it at making bad men/women good and good men/women better. When we focus our religious beliefs on improving ourselves and helping others to do the same, we make the world a better place. From everything I've seen, the overall impact of Christianity on the world is a huge positive because Christianity is built on this very ideal of making people better. The Bible contains many time-tested rules to live by. Societies that have lived by these rules and behaviors set forth by God have been better for it.
Some of the rules were of limited to no value and are most often man-made doctrines that found their way into the mix. Such rules are gradually being discarded by modern Christianity because we realize this.
Generally, all voices attacking Christian morals are founded upon selfish people wanting to do selfish things -- things that do not have a positive impact on all humanity.
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