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Morality in Bible stories that you don't understand

We have the morals to defend our nation's, our people.. with the use of our gained 'knowledge' we design weapons that can kill thousands, should our enemies try destroy us. Even if many people don't know what these wars are actually about or who's actually benefitting from it. We can judged our wicked and bring justice and put them to death. It's the erm..moral obligation.

I suppose everyone's a monster in someone else's eyes.
 
We have the morals to defend our nation's, our people.. with the use of our gained 'knowledge' we design weapons that can kill thousands, should our enemies try destroy us. Even if many people don't know what these wars are actually about or who's actually benefitting from it. We can judged our wicked and bring justice and put them to death. It's the erm..moral obligation.

I suppose everyone's a monster in someone else's eyes.
Answers in Genesis talks about God having absolute morality while humans without God have their own relativistic morality.... (like your last statement about monsters).
castle-2010.gif

Absolute morality means if God says it then that settles it.
Learner, if God told you to kill someone, would you obey?
I'd be interested in your response....
 
Absolute morality means if God says it then that settles it.
The problem with this is twofold.

Firstly, the Euthyphro dilemma shows that God cannot settle it no matter what He says.

Secondly, God doesn't say anything, and hasn't for hundreds, probably thousands of years, if ever. The problems of a post-industrial society cannot be found (much less solutions be given) in a pre-industrial text, even if that text were somehow divinely inspired. Where's the updates? Where's the indisputably authoritative guidance, from God Himself, on questions of interpretation?

When most of the developed world isn't interested in God's word, and the rest of them, plus the less developed world, can't agree on which text(s) came from God or on which version of any of them is the most correct, it's undeniable that an update is needed.

Is God incapable of settling the debate by issuing a new text, or at least nominating which old one is the true version, and settling once and for all what the correct interpretation is if any disputed content?

"If God says it, then that settles it" can't be true, if God refuses to say anything to settle anything.

The existence of heresy, claims of heresy, or even mere scholarly debate on the question of which scripture(s) most accurately reflect God's opinions, is clear proof that no Gods are interested in providing moral guidance of any kind to anybody.
 
@bilby
Here's another version of the Answers in Genesis illustration:
castle-1987.gif

It is about the foundations of “Man Decides Truth” vs “God’s Word Is Truth”.

Your reasoning is a form of "man decides truth". Though I don't really believe in the God of the Bible so I'd also be guilty of "man decides truth".
 
@bilby
Here's another version of the Answers in Genesis illustration:
castle-1987.gif

It is about the foundations of “Man Decides Truth” vs “God’s Word Is Truth”.

Your reasoning is a form of "man decides truth". Though I don't really believe in the God of the Bible so I'd also be guilty of "man decides truth".
It's a false dichotomy. Maybe man decides truth, maybe not. But it's a demonstrable truth that we don't have God's Word (or, if we do, it's so deeply buried in bullshit that it's unrecoverable), so if God's Word ever was truth, we are unable to access it - unless we accept the decisions of men about which stuff is God's Word, and which ain't.

Both sides of the dichotomy depend on man deciding truth. The question we have to ask ourselves is whether we want to trust our personal judgment, or submit to the judgment of other men (whose track record is abysmal).

I can't get guidance from God, and I won't accept that Ken Ham is a suitable substitute. Or the Pope, or the Chief Imam, or the Dalai Lama, or the King of England, or, well, anyone else in charge of a religious group.
 
It's very late (or perhaps very early where you are), but the WTF moment for me in the Bible is the whole Garden of Eden/Original Sin thing. Apologies if this has already been covered (didn't read all the responses thus far).

Anyway, let's say you're a parent. You have a nice house with a pool in the back yard, and a toddler. The kid can't swim. Your responsibility is to keep them from falling into the pool. Because of course.

But instead of being...you know, responsible...you don't put a fence around the pool. You don't lock the door to the patio. In fact, you leave the door wide open so that your kiddo can toddle out to the water's edge. But wait...there's more!

You've told Jr. that in no uncertain terms is he to go anywhere near the pool. But in addition to not having a fence and leaving the back door open, you've invited your creepy neighbor - who for some reason has a fetish about watching children drown - to watch your back yard for the day. You know what he's about, but you leave him in charge nonetheless. While you're gone (because of course you leave your child alone with him) he puts your kid's absolute favorite toy floating in the middle of the pool and says "if you can get it, you can have it forever."

Your kid steps off the edge of the pool, falls in, and drowns.

Whose fault is this? According to the Bible, it's totally Jr.'s fault. You - as the responsible adult, parent, and literally the creator of the entire scenario - are blameless. Creepy neighbor with a fetish? Not his fault. No, your toddler (and all their descendants) needs to suffer for all eternity for the "sin" of trying to get the toy in the middle of the pool.

But "God loves you."
 
There may or may not be such a thing as Objective Truth.

Too bad we Subjective humans can never know what it is.

Until we can, we have to discover it through Reason, Evidence-Based Thinking, and Empathy.
 
We have the morals to defend our nation's, our people.. with the use of our gained 'knowledge' we design weapons that can kill thousands, should our enemies try destroy us. Even if many people don't know what these wars are actually about or who's actually benefitting from it. We can judged our wicked and bring justice and put them to death. It's the erm..moral obligation.

I suppose everyone's a monster in someone else's eyes.
You're using a logical fallacy called The Bandwagon Fallacy. No not everyone is a monster. The god in the bible is. How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.
 
How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.
Actually it was Elisha who got offended and cursed them and God made two bears maul 42 of the boys...
 
@Ford
Just about the original story again - Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil (because they hadn't eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil) so they didn't know that disobeying God was bad. BTW if the talking snake wanted to help them it should have told them to eat from the tree of life and so have eternal life. The reason God banished them from the Garden of Eden was so that they couldn't eat from the tree of life.
Whose fault is this? According to the Bible, it's totally Jr.'s fault. You - as the responsible adult, parent, and literally the creator of the entire scenario - are blameless. Creepy neighbor with a fetish? Not his fault.
Actually the talking snake was punished.
 
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How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.
Actually it was Elisha who got offended and cursed them and God made two bears maul 42 of the boys...

God never heard of time-outs?
 
How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.
Actually it was Elisha who got offended and cursed them and God made two bears maul 42 of the boys...

Hardly an example of morality, justice or divine mercy any way you look at it.
 
We have the morals to defend our nation's, our people.. with the use of our gained 'knowledge' we design weapons that can kill thousands, should our enemies try destroy us. Even if many people don't know what these wars are actually about or who's actually benefitting from it. We can judged our wicked and bring justice and put them to death. It's the erm..moral obligation.

I suppose everyone's a monster in someone else's eyes.
You're using a logical fallacy called The Bandwagon Fallacy. No not everyone is a monster. The god in the bible is.

You are right 'technically'... when it's down to the precised meaning of words, but you are wrong here... I was talking figuratively. I would hope this would be understood. The obvious to note: There are NO posts of me calling any of our fellow members on this thread as monsters, and of course, nor do I see God as one either. Each to his or her pov.

How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.

I had already addressed this common misinterpretation, in a previous post - and my reply :

"Well yes... it was two 'she' bears that came out of the woods. Now being that there were two female bears, this would suggest they're still young bears from a 'sleuth' (family group), that was attacking (not killing) 42 young brats. Oh the irony one can think here... poetic justice!"

The irony... two female bears versus 42 male brats, no deaths mentioned.
 
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New American Standard Bible
When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two of the boys.
 
What, you're saying the bears had sex with the boys instead, left the kids free to go home bragging about their sexual adventures?
 
We have the morals to defend our nation's, our people.. with the use of our gained 'knowledge' we design weapons that can kill thousands, should our enemies try destroy us. Even if many people don't know what these wars are actually about or who's actually benefitting from it. We can judged our wicked and bring justice and put them to death. It's the erm..moral obligation.

I suppose everyone's a monster in someone else's eyes.
You're using a logical fallacy called The Bandwagon Fallacy. No not everyone is a monster. The god in the bible is.

You are right 'technically'... when it's down to the precised meaning of words, but you are wrong here... I was talking figuratively. I would hope this would be understood. The obvious to note: There are NO posts of me calling any of our fellow members on this thread as monsters, and of course, nor do I see God as one either. Each to his or her pov.

How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.

I had already addressed this common misinterpretation, in a previous post - and my reply :

"Well yes... it was two 'she' bears that came out of the woods. Now being that there were two female bears, this would suggest they're still young bears from a 'sleuth' (family group), that was attacking (not killing) 42 young brats. Oh the irony one can think here... poetic justice!"

The irony... two female bears versus 42 male brats, no deaths mentioned.
Would you consider this to be moral?
 
If a god or gods are themselves not subject to an independent objective morality apart from themselves then you cannot evaluate and tell which claimed God or gods are true when they supposedly speak on moral matters.

Any false teachers can have a false god or gods claim such and such is morally right or wrong and you cannot know unless there is a standard of right and wrong that exists apart from any god or gods.
 
Would you consider this to be moral?

What's the diff?

If a god or gods are themselves not subject to an independent objective morality apart from themselves then you cannot evaluate and tell which claimed God or gods are true when they supposedly speak on moral matters.

Any false teachers can have a false god or gods claim such and such is morally right or wrong and you cannot know unless there is a standard of right and wrong that exists apart from any god or gods.

That's a big problem with gods.
Maybe THEY have their own gods that are actual GODs that originated all the morality humans' gods need to dictate morality?
If so, how do our gods know whether their gods are making false claims, unless there is a standard of morality that exists apart from their gods?
It's enough to make you get woke and realize the uselessness of godz.
 
We have the morals to defend our nation's, our people.. with the use of our gained 'knowledge' we design weapons that can kill thousands, should our enemies try destroy us. Even if many people don't know what these wars are actually about or who's actually benefitting from it. We can judged our wicked and bring justice and put them to death. It's the erm..moral obligation.

I suppose everyone's a monster in someone else's eyes.
You're using a logical fallacy called The Bandwagon Fallacy. No not everyone is a monster. The god in the bible is.

You are right 'technically'... when it's down to the precised meaning of words, but you are wrong here... I was talking figuratively. I would hope this would be understood. The obvious to note: There are NO posts of me calling any of our fellow members on this thread as monsters, and of course, nor do I see God as one either. Each to his or her pov.

How about the time when a group of children picked on Elisha calling him "baldy". God got offended, sent a group of bears to kill the children for the mockery.

I had already addressed this common misinterpretation, in a previous post - and my reply :

"Well yes... it was two 'she' bears that came out of the woods. Now being that there were two female bears, this would suggest they're still young bears from a 'sleuth' (family group), that was attacking (not killing) 42 young brats. Oh the irony one can think here... poetic justice!"

The irony... two female bears versus 42 male brats, no deaths mentioned.
Would you consider this to be moral?
Well I acknowledge this a 'downgrade' from 'killings' to 'non-killing' from your response at least. It isn't immoral to punish bad behaviour, and there was reason in this case; a punishment measured to the severity or scale level of abuse from the young 42.

From a number of options (with the intention to kill), fortunately...we note there were NO HE-bears, Lions, ravaging wolves, nor even a call for 'fire from the heavens', as granted to Elijah which would also be granted to Elisha in inheritance.
 
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