Normal

Leviticus 20:9

Keith

Why do you interpret that this command from God is directed at me?

Joe V.

Keith, you keep making this assertion. Now, back it up. Provide us all with empirical evidence of how the source of all morals come from God. Or did you mean that the source of the Bible is God? In either case, provide us with the evidence. If the evidence for the Bible is so clear and unambiguous, is it admissable as evidence in a court of law?

- Joe

callmejay

Keith:

You have stated that God's objective morality is clear to everybody, despite the honest disagreement among his many followers. How do you deal with the billions of people who until very recently had never even heard of Jesus or the Jewish God and yet still had their own systems of morality?

Also, while I understand why you might be uncomfortable with the idea that there is no objective morality, that in itself has nothing to do with proving the existence of God. You are essentially arguing that it is distasteful to believe that there is no objective morality, and that therefore there must be!

I believe the Nazis were wrong because I believe that killing millions of people simply for belonging to a certain race or religion is wrong. That is a subjective statement. It may very well be possible that Hitler believed he was morally in the right. (I find that somewhat unlikely, but it is a possibility.) On what grounds could I punish him? Simply my own subjective morality. The fact that he could kill me based on his own subjective morality doesn't change that. You may not like it, but each of us has different morals, and even those morals change from day to day. You state that there is an objective morality, but nobody seems to be able to agree what it is. My argument that there IS no objective morality can be strongly supported merely by walking up to different people and asking them moral questions. They give different answers. Your claim -- that there is an objective morality -- doesn't at first glance seem to fit these data, and therefore you have to get into explaining that either most people don't know about the objective morality, or that they are ignoring it. I think that puts the burden of proof on you.

Again, it sounds like you believe in God because of a WISH for an objective morality, not because it's obvious that there is an objective morality for anyone looking around. Ask around. People have different morals. Billions of people have moral systems based entirely on something other than the Judeo/Christian God(s.) Objective morality is a pipe-dream; you're just in denial.

Normal

What makes you think it's not? He is telling you punishments for disobedience. Ignoring those commands is going against god's objective morality, no?

Mageth

Originally posted by Keith
Then it wasn't morally wrong for Pol Pot to murder, rape, and exterminate his countrymen for the "crime" of being literate. Sounds like a wonderful way to build a "civilization."

Pol Pot's actions were morally wrong under my moral standards, and under the moral standards of most of the rest of the world. Our goal should be to get as many people in the world to recognize that such actions are not good for civilization.

That's the best we can do. But as you can see below, that's superior to the Biblical guide on such matters.

Once again, you can find the objective and right moral standard in the bible. Its source, is God.

Once again, in the OT, God's chosen people are described as murdering, raping and exterminating entire Canaanite civilizations for the "crime" of being of a different ethnicity/religion than theirs (and supposedly at YHWH's command). So how could we use the Bible to determine that Pol Pot's actions were immoral according to God's supposed "objective and right" moral standard? Maybe God told Pol Pot to do what he did?

I've looked in the bible, and certainly don't find any objective moral standard there (as I and others have said, the Bible has been used for over 2000 years to derive and support a variety of different, and sometimes diametrically opposed, moral standards). Further, many of the moral examples and commands I find there are not what I would consider "right".

The bible is woefully inadequate as a moral guide, especially in the modern world.

Earlier you said:

How can YOU decide what is right for others?

And now you say:

Once again, you can find the objective and right moral standard in the bible. Its source, is God.

So it sounds like you have decided what is right for all, and are trying to dictate, what is right and wrong for everyone. And to use the authority of an imaginary divine being to enforce what you've decided is right. So where do you get off accusing anyone else of trying to decide what's right for others?

Further, you keep talking about this "objective" (and now "right") moral standard in the Bible. I keep asking you to produce it - list at least 25 or so (or better spend some real time and list 100 or so of them; after all, we all need to know them, don't we?) of these supposedly objective moral standards that everyone should obviously know about and agree upon. List chapter and verse that objectively state these moral standards. And tell me how many total objective moral standards are found there.

If you want something easier, answer a question I mentioned earlier - is it objectively right or wrong, based on the Bible, to beat your child with a rod? At the same time, is it right or wrong to not beat your child with a rod?

Further, earlier you said that it would be morally wrong to kill your child for cursing you, and I assume you think it would be morally wrong to kill a man or woman for engaging in homosexual sex. Show me where the bible objectively says either of these actions is morally wrong. And if you can do that, show me how that "trumps" the OT commands to do just that. (Note that these OT laws imply that it would be morally wrong, a sin against God actually as you would be violating God's Law, to not kill the child or the homosexual in these cases).

Pain Paien

Originally posted by Keith:
As far as I can tell, only you have these problems. I'm just following your statements.

By whose definition? If one follows your statement, and does not believe murder is wrong (for example, because "god" told them to do it, or any other various possibilities), then murder is not wrong. Your stance on this is unquestionably a subjective one. Either retract it, change it, or admit that you've conceded this argument.

Well, since you never established that murder was "by definition" morally wrong (a sentiment that the bible is obviously not in agreement with), you're the only one whose logic is faulty. Unless, of course, you're admitting that your god is capable of promoting and commiting something that is wrong "by definition".


Now, on the topic of your laughable dodge of the issue of murdering rebellious children:
In the King James version of the bible Leviticus 20:9 reads: "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him."

How is that passage in any way ambiguous? It's very plainly a universal statement, as it begins "for EVERY...". I find it hard to believe that even you can convince yourself that this passage isn't one of the "objective" moral statements in the bible. In every one of the bible versions I could find the sentiment expressed was universal (for example, some read "each, anyone, any" etc.). Now, again, you have a contradiction on your hands.
So which is it? Is killing disobedient objectively morally right, or is the bible not the source of objective morality?

Keith

I meant that God is the source of objective morality and God is also the source of the bible. I don't know if the bible is admissable as evidence in a court of law, nor do I understand the relevance of that question.

Do you believe that something can be both objectively true AND unprovable? I do, and I suspect you do too. But, of course, the bible has withstood the test of time and it has empirically proven itself to be true in the area of morality as well as many other areas.

Keith

You still haven't told me why YOU interpret this particular command from God as being directed at me. I would agree that IF God has commanded this TO ME, then I would sin by not following it.

Pain Paien

Originally posted by Keith:
This is just another wildly unsupported assertation. In what ways has the bible "stood the test of time"? It has NEVER, in all its history, been able to maintain a consistant moral system, even among Christians.

It has certainly failed as a scientific, historical, and legal guide. Perhaps you meant to say that the mere fact of its continued existence demonstrates its veracity. If this is the case, I must recommend Homer's historically accurate account of Ulysses' journey.

That you claim that the bible has "empirically proven itself to be true in the area of morality" makes me wonder if you're actually just trying to be amusing. On the off chance that you're serious, I'll waste my breath and say that the idea that morality can be "empirically proven" is one of the most ridiculous assertations I've ever heard (at least as much so as the claim that man evolved from clams; perhaps you should look into Scientology).