Elixir
Made in America
Wow. So cogent! I'm convinced.
A loving disembodied, tri-omni genocidal being is the only reasonable explanation for everything.... lightning, seasons, sin, death. So reasonable!
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Here are 9 questions atheists probably find insulting — and the answers
- Thread starter phands
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Wow. So cogent! I'm convinced.
A loving disembodied, tri-omni genocidal being is the only reasonable explanation for everything.... lightning, seasons, sin, death. So reasonable!
Your critique of my groundless assertion is correct but hypocritically selective and/or ignorant.
B/c
That was my point. I was mocking DBT's groundless assertion here................
abaddon
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The only potential problem I see with this post is maybe the choice of phrasing. I don't know how the bible contradicts its own moral code when it's not clear the bible even has one. In any case, there's no doubt that the bible is filled with contradictions, as has been well-demonstrated by hundreds of folk over many years.
phands
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The babble has no moral code at all. Unless you count murder, rape, genocide and slavery as moral.
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Well.....that must be one of the dumbest semantic-null posts ever made.
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Because you did not quote me in the context of my counter to Greta’s lament.
You ignored or missed the fact that SHE was the one that brought the issue of belief into this classic debate. I was the one pointing out her error, because belief has no place in the debate. Non belief or belief in X does not have any influence on whether X exists or not. Further the debate incorporates all worldviews and does not single out atheists.
So you took my rebuttal there out of context to go and find a Bible passage that asserts that atheistic non belief is foolish and the ALL have sinned.
That does not matter. Your quote is a non-sequitur. I do not deny that the psalmist proclaims that atheistic non belief is foolish. I do not deny ALL have sinned. But I do proclaim they are irrelevant to the existence of God or objective morality.
Belief in God does not make God real.
Do people who don’t believe in gravity float away?
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DBT
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Do they? How so?
DBT
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The bible tells us "thou shalt not kill" yet the same book tells us God kills at will, drowning the whole world, ordering genocide, etc. That is a contradiction, ethical, moral, a contradiction however you look at it. God breaking his own commandment.
abaddon
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Ok, so I made a big mistake assuming anything about what you said.
"The bible tells us..." It tells the people in the Bible.
"...yet the same book tells us God kills at will... " So? Were the 10 commandments made by God to God or to "his people"?
"God breaking his own commandment." Do courts contradict the law if they pass and enact a death-sentence in a state that has a law to not murder people but have granted some persons the power to kill people?
I don't know why you chose to favor the 10 commandments as the entire bible's moral code. To me it looks like the bible is a jumble of books with no coherent code applying throughout. I'm on board with the idea the Bible's filled with immorality and inconsistencies. But "God breaking his own commandment" isn't a good example of it.
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OMB. Really. You still don’t get it?
Hold on let me try again………………
I came into the thread about two days after the OP. I was interested in addressing some of the fallacies in phand’s cited article written by Greta. Thus I had to seek a reasonable entry point to present my counter to Greta.
Underseer’s post 15 provided the perfect segue for my protestations. In post 15…………
Because that was precisely what I was seeking to do, I quoted underseer and posted my protestation to Greta’s first straw man in post 34. Go back and check it out.
Then GenesisNemesis attempted to present a counter to my post by asserting that I was contradicting myself. I clearly was not, because his contradiction was about my apparent concern that belief does not does not single out atheists. That was not my concern as I pointed out in post 37 and 46. He created a concern that wasn’t there by cherry picking my words out of context.
You quickly added this point with post 38…....
No quote to indicate your connection to the discussion just that. Thus I was left to reason that your reference to contradiction was still in support of GenesisNemesis’s irrelevant contradiction created by misquoting me.
And here is the BIGGER issue with your post 38……not only was your concern of contradiction irrelevant. But your blunt unsupported assertion was nothing more than a groundless opinion offered as fact. Quite frankly it was an insult to reason. Thus to point this out I simply fired back a groundless opinion right back at you. I was flat out mocking you. I don’t believe that all atheists contradict reasoning. Just some.
But OMB did that ever fly over the heads of the jury. Several protests followed addressing my insult to reason. While completely missing the fact …….. that it was meant to be an insult to reason because I was mimicking you. Apparently you get a pass because you’re an atheist, but OMB should ever a theist present reason the way you did….. fire up the selective indignation. Nancy and Maxine would be proud of you.
Which now brings us back to your last response to me……..post 47.....
And best of all. You still don’t get it. You so missed it, that you are now actually asking me to support my groundless assertion. That was presented as groundless for the precise purpose to mock you. Thank you, it’s been very entertaining.
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DBT
Contributor
In terms of moral standards or ethics, I would say yes, it is a contradiction for the state to say that it is morally wrong to kill, yet allow itself that option.
But then, the law may be based on expediency, not morals, not ethics.
The purpose of the law may to punish, set an example, discourage others. A rule of Law without the pretense of morality.
Well, that's the problem. The Bible lays out a code of conduct, things that are apparently of great value to God, the God of Love forbids killing/murder, stealing, etc,these being abhorrent to God, we are told, yet we have God doing all these things.
It is not like state laws where the governing body may reserve the right to torture or kill people for reasons deem acceptable without consideration of the ethics of their position.
DBT
Contributor
And best of all. You still don’t get it. You so missed it, that you are now actually asking me to support my groundless assertion. That was presented as groundless for the precise purpose to mock you. Thank you, it’s been very entertaining.
It was you who made the remark to me on the basis of what I said. A remark that had nothing to do with what Phand or Greta or whoever else may have said this or that.
Your reply explains nothing.
Politesse
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This argument is full of holes. Where does the Bible make a blanket moral argument against killing? The Decalogue in its original setting served as a legal document, not a moral treatise, and it is moreover very explicitly a contract between YHWH and the Israelite tribes, nothing more and nothing less. I don't see how the prohibition against murder in Exodus is any different from the similar laws that exist in just about every country that has ever had a written legal code.
J842P
Veteran Member
I find it much more insulting to have someone I don't know claim I can't handle the question "are you in this country legally" or for that matter, that list of atheist-related questions, solely due to my ethnicity and religious beliefs.
Like significantly more insulting. To this author I would say, please don't speak for me, or try to imbue me with your own weaknesses.
DBT
Contributor
I'd say that there are no holes, that the evidence of a contradiction in values is there to be seen.
There are many verses to that effect;
18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. - Matt 18 - 19
Love Fulfills the Law
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. - Romans 13: 8 -10
This is not just talking about rule of law, but an attitude toward others, how to treat others, Love your neighbors, turn the other cheek, etc.
Yet the very same book, the Bible, describes both the attitude of God and actions of God that clearly contradict 'Love as ''the fulfillment of the law''
Depicting the 'God of Love' as cruel and vindictive.
Politesse
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If you're going to throw together a bunch of books written nearly a thousand years apart by different authors as though they were a single work by a single author*, there's not much room for intelligent conversation there. The verses in question, the ten commandments, are legal requirements, not parts of a moral work. If Jesus comes along later and insists that evil intentions are the cause of sin, that's an interesting moral argument, but it has nothing to do with the ancient laws of Israel; there's no reason his argument couldn't apply equally well to any person regardless of nation or legal system. Indeed, if read the verses around the ones you quoted, it is clear enough that Jesus is making an argument against narrow legalistic thinking.
*please, let's take it for a given that I know there are conservative Christians who insist on doing this, and that I think they are also idiots but that this does not excuse stooping to their level of literary analysis.
ruby sparks
Contributor
Aren't legal requirements often just morals encoded? I'm not sure there's such a fundamental difference between the two. One might ask, 'why is not killing a legal requirement in Exodus' for example and find that it rests on morals. One could do the same for any of the 10 Commandments.
And saying that the prohibition against murder in Exodus isn't any different from the similar laws that exist in just about every country that has ever had a written legal code might not be saying much if we agree that those similar laws are also either contradictory and/or to be applied unevenly in different circumstances.
To me, that commandment is unhelpfully truncated. It might have been more accurate and true to have it as, 'thou shalt not kill members of thine own tribe' (which would, tangentally, link it to what I was just saying in the thread on carrying capacity). Maybe writing materials or writing time were in short supply back then or something, but the upshot has been that the pruned version has caused a lot of confusion.
And saying that the prohibition against murder in Exodus isn't any different from the similar laws that exist in just about every country that has ever had a written legal code might not be saying much if we agree that those similar laws are also either contradictory and/or to be applied unevenly in different circumstances.
To me, that commandment is unhelpfully truncated. It might have been more accurate and true to have it as, 'thou shalt not kill members of thine own tribe' (which would, tangentally, link it to what I was just saying in the thread on carrying capacity). Maybe writing materials or writing time were in short supply back then or something, but the upshot has been that the pruned version has caused a lot of confusion.
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DBT
Contributor
I do that because that is the Bible what the bible is composed of. There is nothing else that can be done. I did not cobble these works together.
It is a book that many place their faith in, claiming that it is the inspired word of God, which is not my personal idea or claim
The bible as a whole - not of my doing - expresses many things. Some are legal requirements. Some are moral requirements. Some are meant to be expressions of Divine Love, compassion, forbearance, forgiveness....
The problem, as I have been pointing out, is a contradiction between these elements.
Of course, but that is precisely what I was responding to. The Christian world view.
DBT
Contributor
Yes, if a Government tells us that torture is not only illegal, but immoral, yet that Government reserves the right to torture under certain circumstances, it cannot claim a moral high ground, it is acting immorally if it uses torture.
ruby sparks
Contributor
But I think poli is suggesting that it is only 'conservative christians' who think that 'thou shalt not kill' is 'just' a pragmatic rule, and not based on morals. I'm not sure if that's true. So yes, I think we are mainly talking about TCW (The Christian Worldview). There might be exceptions, but imo most of those, unless they don't actually believe in a rule-setting god, are merely trying hard to iron out contradictions.
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