Weltall

One of the major objections I found with the bible was the unwritten 11th Commandment: Do as I say, not as I do. Ok, so god says contradictory things and does contradictory things, but you'd think that if one of his commandments was the extremely simple (only 4 syllables, very hard to mess up) 'Thou shalt not kill' and then he goes and does it himself there's a double standard that no deity worth anything should have. Once you realize that, the rest doesn't matter. There may be some good points in there, but the overal deal is crap.

contracycle

Yes it is, becuase god is timeless and immortal. God also suggests morality is absolute. Indeed, even today, people claim that atheists are immoral because they do not follow the word of god. But if the morality of god is ONLY that of a wandering tribe making war on their neighbours, then in fact our modern societies are more moral than god.

Well we can only go on what we do know, if if god appears immoral and ionconsistent for some ineffable reason, he has only himself to blame. And it is not that we "get to define" gods morals - but we can compare gods morals to our own and see that he is lacking.

So what? Do you think an act is less immoral if you say "this hurts me more than it hurts you?" This just makes god both immoral and patronising.

But a crap explanation is a good indicator that soemthing is Not True. If you claim that is god is moral, and we see he is immoral, then it is much more likely that the idea of god was just an expression of Israelite naitonalism and not a really existing supernatural power.

Chicle-Treat

Life was different, wasn't it? Can someone please explain to me how this is a defense, though? If what we know today is more 'moral' than life back then, why couldn't that morality be expected from God back then? Or if was more "moral" back then, who would advocate returning to that kind of system?

Sandslice

Here... I'll give you a few reasons.

1. If God is both omniscient and omnipresent, then every action They took three thousand years ago is concurrent with every action They take now. Therefore, on the matter of judgin' God's morality, if They consider Themself to be omnimax, then we must consider that every action ever taken by Them is bein' taken by Them right now. This means that we can indeed judge God for past actions, as to Them, the concept of past actions is irrelevant.

2. We judge God's morality because They want to have a relationship with us, based on Their reception of our greatest levels of love and trust possible. I could throw up a random list of guys from the past, and ask you if you'd place the love and trust of a familial relationship in these fellows:
-Hannibal Lecter
-Constantine I
-Oda Nobunaga
-Christopher Columbus
-Siddhartha Gautama
-Ariel Sharon
-Yasser Arafat
-George Bush

For each case, how would you determine whether to place yer love and trust in the man? You would judge that man's morality relative to yer own. But for a deity to demand such a devotion at the highest possible level, should not one's discernment of that deity's morality also be at the highest standard?

3. I can counter this with two points:
-If the Bible is the inspired word of God, and God approves of praises sung in Their name, then it can be shown (in various Psalms, especially 136) that They do indeed delight in hearing how They slaughtered babies in Egypt and committed genocide of various cultures. If God can delight in the retellin' of these events, and God was responsible for the same, then it follows that God delights in the actions themselves.
-Pleasure is not always necessary for moral determinations. The first two chapters of Job shall suffice for such a demonstration.

4. Argument from ignorance. I'll let you have that argument, though, as I don't need it.

Now, in the judgement of God's morality.

1. If a parent were to put a child in a playpen full of toys, and one knife, and tell the child "don't play with the knife, or you'll get cut," and the child plays with the knife and gets cut, is it moral for the parent to slap the child hard enough to do permanent (but not extremely severe) damage, and then kick her out of the house forever?

2. Is it moral for a parent to allow another family member to ruin all of a child's belongings, and then to physically abuse the child, even if the child is excellently well-behaved? As an aside, is this any more or less moral that this action was done as a bet to see if the child would continue to behave well?

3. Is it moral for a parent to treat a child like the child can do nothing right, and to threaten to shove the child in an oven and lock the door, unless she shows undying love and devotion to the parent on account of the parent's ritual execution of the child's brother?

4. Is it moral for a parent to pick up the one well-behaved among her children, carry her and her favourite dolls out of the room, then walk back into the room, kill the other children, and destroy every toy in the room, just because those children were brats?

Now, you'll notice that I included analogies for four aspects of God here: the expulsion from Eden, the first two chapters of Job, the concept of hell and soli deo gratia, and the Noachide flood.
If you assert that God is perfect love and unreproachable in morality, then you must answer YES to all four of my questions. If, however, you cannot answer YES to these, then you cannot assert that God is perfect love and a definition of morality.

Madkins007

So, you all think that the moral standards of a few people in the early 21st century are THE definition of morality of all time and space?

conkermaniac

No, but I do not think that the moral standards of a few people in the 1st century should be the definition of morality in the 21st century.

Sandslice

Actually, the Christian claim is that the moral systems of the past are perfectly applicable today, and that Jehovah never changes. Therefore, it is appropriate to evaluate that claim (particularly for my second reason) based on both our own understanding of morality, and the ethic of reciprocity.

It also follows that if one can put an attribute of God into a human analogy, and determine that the human is not moral in a given situation, then God can likewise not be considered moral in that attribute.

Now answer my four questions.

Chicle-Treat

If our morality is no better than that of the first century, why don't we go back? Seriously, I'm curious.

Madkins007

I'm not trying to claim one is better than the other, just wondering why we think this morality held by those of us in industrialized countries for the last 100 years is the final word on the subject.

I don't think God has changed His mind about morality, but I am also not sure we would define the word the same way He would.

As for what other Christians say about moral standards- these are fallible humans saying this stuff. Since this thread is about Bible Critisim and History, not 'Poorly Defined Beliefs of Some Christians' (although it is often hard to seperate these!)

Roland

God once told Moses to stone a man to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. We no longer do that. Being as objective as you possibly can, which do you think demonstrates the more highly developed sense of morality?