Biblical Morality

[steve_bank]

I was watching an old Gunsmoke TV epsodoe.

Chester says to a thug out to revenge his brother's killer 'The lord says vengeance is mine.'. The thug counters with 'An eye for an eye.'.


That encapsulates the problem with so called bible based morality, there isn't any. Looking back the old weterns TV and movies had numeous instancs in the dialogue where one person quotes the bible, and someone else counters with another quote.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I was watching an old Gunsmoke TV epsodoe.

Chester says to a thug out to revenge his brother's killer 'The lord says vengeance is mine.'. The thug counters with 'An eye for an eye.'.


That encapsulates the problem with so called bible based morality, there isn't any. Looking back the old weterns TV and movies had numeous instancs in the dialogue where one person quotes the bible, and someone else counters with another quote.

Well said. Some people have quipped that you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to say and not just in Hollywood westerns. The fact that people who differ on moral issues back up their positions on those issues with the Bible demonstrates that contrary to what many apologists claim, their morality is not objective. No morality is objective. So if a theist wants to base her favorite God's existence on objective morality, then she has no real basis for doing so.

 

[FwL]

TV and movies had numeous instancs in the dialogue where one person quotes the bible, and someone else counters with another quote.

A good example of this is the movie 'Lilies of the Field' starring Sidney Poitier as an itinerant laborer/handyman who encounters a group of nuns when he stops at a remote farm looking to get some water for his overheating car's radiator. The Mother in charge of the group of nuns hoodwinks him into repairing their roof by allowing him to believe he has been "hired" to do the job and will be paid for the work. When he goes to collect, the Mother weasels out of paying him by berating his lazy, self-indulgent behavior, pretending not to understand English, and ultimately, engaging with him in a bible verse tug-of-war where she uses her "moral superiority" to get him to, not only, back off on being paid for the work he's already done but to accept doing even more work for free.