I recently read the article by Daniel Jennings, "I am not a Christian because I AM a moral person", and I wish to dispel a few misconceptions regarding Jennings' "theology" and his anti-philosophical approach to the state of the Christian religion. While I have doubts of my own, I was disheartened by Jennings' falsifications of the Bible, for if this by any measure characterizes the atheist's presuppositions, I would be more inclined to believe rather the reverse.

An open-minded reader of the Old Testament must be willing, for the sake of comprehension, to accept God's divine providence. For example, when Joshua was commanded to march around the wall of Jericho and the wall collapsed and God sanctioned the burning of all the residents, one must realize that the people of Jericho were opponents of God and thusly opponents of his divine will (save the prostitute they delivered who had aided Joshua's spies at a time prior). At the time of Joshua, the Israelites were under the Old Testament Law, namely the Ten Commandments: You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and so forth. I do not wish to, by any means, accuse Jennings' of misunderstanding the difference between murder and loss of life in warfare, however, for the reader this point may potentially be misconstrued in the article. In this light, nonetheless, there is not ONE instance in which God violates any one of the Ten Commandments or other laws set forth in the books of Leviticus or Deuteronomy.

Jennings' article is a classic example of chicanery. He mentions Abraham, for example, who was ordered by God to sacrifice his one and only son (where have we heard that before?). However, what he fails to inform the reader is that God stopped Abraham before he could stab his son and provided him with a lamb to sacrifice, after which Abraham was blessed and his great many descendents would also inherit his blessings as well (according to the angel's prophesy in Deut. 22). Jennings then deceptively enters a controversial corner of theology by mentioning "God's chosen people", the long standing battle between Calvinists and Armenians, and fails to provide evidence in support of either view, further invalidating his argument. (The Israelites would spare those who abandoned their idols and converted to the Christian faith, so it was clearly not just the Jewish people who were God's people). Furthermore, Jennings mentions yet another uncertain point in the Christian religion by stating "I can think of nothing more immoral than untold billions...condemned to eternal suffering simply because they did not accept a given theology." It is a point that has been long debated within the Church-the premature child that dies or the inhabitants of an undiscovered island who have never heard of the Christian faith, and the bible simply does not confront the issues. Jennings refuses to acknowledge in the article the difference between the Old Testament law and the New Testament law set forth by Jesus in the gospels, a point of primary importance in the interpretation of the Christian faith. Before the New Testament Law, God had sanctioned the laws "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." It is in fact the very legal system that prevails in the Western World along with the remnants of capital punishment (e.g. malpractice). However, in the NT Jesus tells teaches that if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other to them or if they ask you to go with them for one mile, go with them for two miles. In fact the teachings of Jesus are so Utopian and idealistic that it is difficult to comprehend the possibility of there existing such a Christian society. Jesus also said that we should love our neighbors as ourselves, love our enemies, and do for others as we would have them do for us. How can that be applied to today's society? Take for instance the rise in terrorism. How can we love the very people who are destroying our families, our businesses, our communities? Jesus tells us to forgive 70 times 7. Is this TRULY plausible or this the fantasy of an age past? Jennings' uses a cunning, but primitive, method in psychology to attack the Christian faith. It is better for one to first gather the facts rather than presumptuously propound an unsupported thesis. Let us not forget Lucy, the fabricated ape-man. That was a disgrace to even the most dogmatic evolutionists. Christians have long been known for their moral rectitude. Jennings' himself even admits that people ask him if he is a Christian simply because he shows a certain degree of morality. Montaigne incessantly praises the Christian ethics in his Essays and that is what Pascal has often called the "benefits" of Christianity. The more important question is whether or not the Christian faith is fantastical. However, for the sake of the ministry, let us practice good science.

-DM-

Thank you for your feedback to I Am Not a Christian Because I Am a Moral Person by Daniel G. Jennings. E-mail notification has been sent to the author. Although there are no guarantees, you might want to check back from time to time for a further response following this post. In the meantime, a few comments.

This assumes the authenticity of the story of Joshua and the wall(s) of Jericho when the fact of the matter is that the story is likely just that, a story, fiction. Archaeological investigation of the site indicates that the wall(s) of Jericho tumbled down--and were rebuilt--numerous times. But more importantly, that Jericho was already in ruin by the alleged time of the alleged conquest by Joshua. [See "Archaeology of the Bible," Magnus Magnusson, p.94].

In fact, the vast majority of the conquests depicted in the book of Joshua are likely fiction. As best we can tell, the Israelites moved from place to place, first settled on the outskirts of the various villages and cities, and then gradually assimilated themselves into the local populations. The archaeological evidence belies the biblical accounts of Joshua's conquests.

There is a problem inherent in any discussion of the so-called Ten Commandments, and that is that there is more than one version in the Bible itself and, in addition, there is some variation in interpretation of the so-called Ten Commandments between Catholics, Protestants and Jews. Thus, one needs to clarify exactly which version and which interpretation is under discussion. (This is one of the reasons, by the way, that I refer to them as the "so-called" Ten Commandments. The other is that what we refer to as the Ten Commandments are, in their original form, not necessarily ten in number.)

There is yet another problem: Because Moses broke the tablets on which "God" allegedly wrote the first version of the Ten Commandments, "God" allegedly redid them. Unfortunately, "He" seems to have forgotten what he said in the first instance inasmuch as the first and second editions are hardly identical. Worse. there are actually three sets of so-called Ten Commandments in the Bible:
1.) EX 20.2-17: the first set of ["Ten"] Commandments on two stone tablets.
[EX 32.19: Moses breaks the first set of tablets.]
[EX 34:1, God promises Moses a new set of tablets with the same words that were on the first set.]
2.) EX 34.12-28: the second set of ["Ten"] Commandments on a new set of two stone tablets.
3.) DT 5.6-21: [allegedly] a restating of the #1 set.

#1 and #3 are essentially the same, although there are minor variations between the two. #2, however, is quite different, and this is in spite of the fact that God allegedly said that he would write the same words on this set of two tablets as had been on the first set, the set which Moses broke. Only #2 is specifically labeled as the Ten Commandments and yet these are not the so-called Ten Commandments which we normally think of as the Ten Commandments. What it boils down to is these different sets of commandments come from different traditions, and in the case of #2, two different traditions have apparently been comingled after-the-fact by an editor. [See post, below, from Jeremy Pallant and the discussion which followed by clicking on the link provided.]

Although "You shall not murder" is a handy translation for apologetic purposes, the best translation of what is typically identified as the sixth commandment is not necessarily "murder." The word in question is Strong's H7523, which means "to dash in pieces, that is, kill (a human being), especially to murder:—put to death, kill, (man-) slay (-er), murder (-er)." In other words, "murder" is an unnecessarily narrow definition.

Even if we allow "murder" as a correct translation, then "God" himself is guilty of premeditated murder in terms of the alleged Flood, murdering unknown numbers of innocent children, for example. Of course the alleged Flood occurs in Genesis, thus you successfully avoid that particular issue by limiting your assertion to Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Even then, however, given that the sixth commandment does not qualify when it is allegedly OK to kill, the truth of your assertion depends upon the assumption that "God" can do no wrong.

Keep in mind that numerous authors, accepted biblical scholars included, have asserted that there is hardly one of the Ten Commandments which "God" himself does not violate or at least condone under at least some circumstances.

Yes, that is a true statement, Christians have long been known for their moral rectitude. Whether or not that is a correct assessment, however, is definitely open to question. Studies tend to indicate that Christians are little different than the population in general in terms of the reality of their alleged moral rectitude. Christian researcher George Barna couldn't find any statistical relationship when he compared evangelicals against the rest of society on fifty moral issues (from divorce to buying lottery tickets).

It seems to me that one could as justifiably say that your comments represent "a classic example of chicanery." Doing so in either case, however, is going a bit too far, in my opinion.

-Don-

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The Real Ten Commandments
Author: Jeremy Pallant
Secular Web Regular
Member # 1637

posted May 18, 2001 05:58 PM

I've referenced a set of commandments found in Exodus 34, and claimed that these were the only such explicitly identified as being THE Ten Commandments. For those who might be curious, they are as follows:

The First Commandment
34:12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
34:13 But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:

The Second Commandment
34:14 For thou shalt worship no other god: for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous god:
34:15 Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice;

34:16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.

The Third Commandment
34:17 Thou shalt make thee no molten gods.

The Fourth Commandment
34:18 The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.

The Fifth Commandment
34:19 Every first birth of the womb is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male.
34:20 But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty.

The Sixth Commandment
34:21 Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest.

The Seventh Commandment
34:22 And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the years end.
34:23 Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before Lord Yahweh, the god of Israel.
34:24 For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before Yahweh thy god thrice in the year.

The Eighth Commandment
34:25 Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the Passover be left unto the morning.

The Ninth Commandment
34:26 The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of Yahweh thy god.

The Tenth Commandment
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mothers milk.

34:27 And Yahweh said unto Moses, write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.

34:28 And he was there with Yahweh forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

I know it's not important to his argument, but I would hate to see Kevin's mention of "Lucy, the fabricated ape-man" pass unchallenged. Presumably this is a reference to the creationist claim that Don Johanson actually found Lucy's knee joint (an important indicator, though not the only one, that she was bipedal) more than a mile away from the rest of her skeleton.

Talk.Origins has a complete review of the issue at http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/knee-joint.html , but I'll summarize below:

This claim was based on a misunderstanding of an answer Johanson gave during an after-lecture Q&A in 1986. "How far away from Lucy did you find the knee?" he was asked, and he responded "Sixty to seventy meters lower in the strata and two or three kilometers away." If you interpret "the knee" in the question to mean "Lucy's knee", then it does look like Johanson is admitting that Lucy was cobbled together from entirely separate finds. But that's simply not what Johanson meant. He was referring to a separate knee joint found in 1973, the year before the discovery of the Lucy skeleton.

Johanson's book "Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind" makes the sequence of events clear. He never claims the 1973 knee joint for Lucy; the bones presented as Lucy's were in fact all found at the same location, and they include both a femur and a tibia, which, although not from the same leg, clearly indicate how Lucy's complete knee would have functioned. Johanson has only ever claimed that the 1973 knee is from the same *species* as Lucy, not the same *individual*.

There's a certain irony to the fact that this creationist canard should be brought up in a thread devoted to questions of morality. Creationist speakers and writers who have spread this myth since it arose in 1987 have been repeatedly asked to retract it, or at least to stop using it, on the grounds that it is demonstrably false. Some have been unwilling to do so. Apparently it's just such a useful story that its falsity can't be allowed to get in the way.

Grant Hicks

To reply to Mr. Mizuno. I wasn't falsifying what the Bible said. I was simply giving my opinion of the Holy Book. As for the idea that Christianity or any deeply held faith equals morality or high ethics. THat is simply a widely held popular prejudice not a fact. Christians and other believers are so anxious to believe that their religion imparts superior morality that they will mistake moral behavior for faith. It's been my experience that morality and ethics have little to do with faith. That morality is determined by behavior not by belief.

Don,

It seems you have misunderstood the entire purpose the article and if my point was unclear, I will elucidate.

If you are earnestly reading the bible to perchance comprehend it and ESPECIALLY the Old Testament, you must be willing to accept "for the sake of comprehension" God's divine providence. Thus, God cannot sin and DOES NOT sin. This is an assumption of the book. And in fact if you may examine the book in this light, "There is not ONE instance in which God violates any one of the Ten Commandments or other laws set forth in the books of Leviticus or Deuteronomy," or any other portion of the bible. I mentioned Deuteronomy, because if you have read the Old Testament, you know that Moses was in fact long before Joshua's time. Your mention of the flood was hardly necessary since the story of Joshua would classify as man-slaughter if you choose to deny God's righteousness. Assuming God's "righteousness" does not assume the historical accuracy of any of the events. Haven't you read any fairy tales before? When you distort the facts, it invalidates your argument, and an article like Jennings' becomes an interpolation.

Christians HAVE been long known for their moral rectitude. That is all that I said and that is all that I meant.


Kevin Mizuno

-DM-

It could as easily be said that it seems that you have misunderstood both the entire purpose of Jenning's article and of my response. Saying so, however, in either your case or mine is going much too far--just as it was going much too far for you to assert that "Jennings' article is a classic example of chicanery" (as you did previously).

The problem with such statements is that one can never be certain that he himself did not misunderstand.

The current attempt at elucidation of your point doesn't change the fact that we have a fundamental disagreement with regard to how best to understand the Bible.

I disagree. To earnestly read the Bible to perchance comprehend it does not require one to even accept the existence of the Bible "God"--let alone accept for the sake of comprehension the alleged divine providence of the biblical "God." The Bible can be understood, for example, as an attempt by relatively primitive men to understand the world around them and to control others.

I disagree. The fact that the Bible assumes that "God" cannot and does not sin does not preclude the possibility that "God" could and does violate his own moral/ethical precepts. And as a matter of fact, the biblical evidence is clear: "God" violates his own moral and ethical precepts in spite of what it might say about his alleged inability to sin. Even if you limit the definition of "sin" to mean an offense against "God" (as Christian apologists tend to do) the fact is that the biblical "God" should be offended by his own behavior.

Necessary or not, my mention of the alleged Flood serves a point: "God" violated his own ethical/moral precepts by engaging in premeditated (given his alleged omniscience) murder of innocent children because "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence" (which, in his alleged omniscience, "God" would have known would be the case even before the alleged Creation).

Of course not. But the proven inaccuracy of the alleged historical events does say something about the trustworthiness of the Bible and tends to indicate that it should be approached with skepticism with regard to what else it might purport.

All comments regarding the interpretation of the Bible can be said to be interpolations.

Whether expressly stated or not, the statement "Christians have long been known for their moral rectitude" implies that Christians tend to be morally superior to non-Christians. And as I mentioned, whether or not that is a correct assessment is definitely open to question.

-Don-