SirLancelot
Active Member
It is morally wrong today to own slaves, yet in the bible God was perfectly ok with it.
It is morally wrong to kill another man yet God orders the mass genocide of the cannonites.
There is the story of Job which is a man who has his life completly taken away in utter misery (read it to find out how horrible it was) from God for what? Essentially to win a bet against the Devil. Where s the morality in that?
How about the story of Nathan and David,
David commits adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.[27] Bathsheba becomes pregnant. David sends for Uriah, who is with the Israelite army at the siege of Rabbah, so that he may lie with his wife and conceal the identity of the child's father. Uriah refuses to do so while his companions are in the field of battle and David sends him back to Joab, the commander, with a message instructing him to abandon Uriah on the battlefield, "that he may be struck down, and die." David marries Bathsheba and she bears his child, "but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."[28] The prophet Nathan confronts David, saying: "Why have you despised the word of God, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife."
So Nathan goes to David and tells him a story of a wealthy man with a big flock of sheep stealing a poor mans only sheep to feed a party he's having. David gets in an uproar and God says to David through Nathan;
Then Nathan said to David, You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your masters house and your masters wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And If that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!David
Does anyone see anything morally wrong with this? God clearly says that he gave his masters wives and if it wasn't enough he would have given him more. How morally good is God?
My favorite example; It is morally wrong for children to work in sweatshops over in Indonesia. But the truth of the matter is that children have ALWAYS worked even up until the early 1900's in America. In 1880 there was a survey taken in America and over 2,000,000 children under the age of 15 worked 60-80hrs a week. Now it's morally wrong for children to work why? because we are now a wealthy nation where our children don't have to work. Lets look at it like this, Indonesia is where we were economically 150yrs ago what if someone told us 150yrs ago we weren't aloud to have children work we'd tell em to fuck off. Is it fair for us to impose the same moral standards on them even though they are so far behind economically? The country is so poor they wouldn't even be able to afford to instill a minimum wage. Here's another fact children working in sweatshops in Indonesia make $2.10 a day. If we stopped doing business with those sweatshops their is only two other options for a job. The girls could go into prostitution or all the children could go back to the farm they were at before only making a $1 a day risking starvation. Ideally we would want to think if they didn't work they would be in school... well the few schools they have cost $ and when the children are working it's because they are helping the family eat, even if they didn't work they wouldn't go to school so what else but starve.
I guess the point of my rant is that Morality is completely subjective it isn't objectively rooted in God or come from God's will.
Here is my argument; with the premises and conclusions laid out.
For simplicity, suppose the atheistic moral system consists of one rule only: Harming others is morally wrong.
The theists objection seems to me to be the following:
But surely this can be said of the theists position too? Under theism, morality would be something akin to: adherence to the wishes/nature of god is morally good. Let us apply the same line of reasoning to it:
All thoughts welcome
It is morally wrong to kill another man yet God orders the mass genocide of the cannonites.
There is the story of Job which is a man who has his life completly taken away in utter misery (read it to find out how horrible it was) from God for what? Essentially to win a bet against the Devil. Where s the morality in that?
How about the story of Nathan and David,
David commits adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.[27] Bathsheba becomes pregnant. David sends for Uriah, who is with the Israelite army at the siege of Rabbah, so that he may lie with his wife and conceal the identity of the child's father. Uriah refuses to do so while his companions are in the field of battle and David sends him back to Joab, the commander, with a message instructing him to abandon Uriah on the battlefield, "that he may be struck down, and die." David marries Bathsheba and she bears his child, "but the thing that David had done displeased the Lord."[28] The prophet Nathan confronts David, saying: "Why have you despised the word of God, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife."
So Nathan goes to David and tells him a story of a wealthy man with a big flock of sheep stealing a poor mans only sheep to feed a party he's having. David gets in an uproar and God says to David through Nathan;
Then Nathan said to David, You are the man! Thus says the LORD God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your masters house and your masters wives into your keeping, and gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And If that had been too little, I also would have given you much more!David
Does anyone see anything morally wrong with this? God clearly says that he gave his masters wives and if it wasn't enough he would have given him more. How morally good is God?
My favorite example; It is morally wrong for children to work in sweatshops over in Indonesia. But the truth of the matter is that children have ALWAYS worked even up until the early 1900's in America. In 1880 there was a survey taken in America and over 2,000,000 children under the age of 15 worked 60-80hrs a week. Now it's morally wrong for children to work why? because we are now a wealthy nation where our children don't have to work. Lets look at it like this, Indonesia is where we were economically 150yrs ago what if someone told us 150yrs ago we weren't aloud to have children work we'd tell em to fuck off. Is it fair for us to impose the same moral standards on them even though they are so far behind economically? The country is so poor they wouldn't even be able to afford to instill a minimum wage. Here's another fact children working in sweatshops in Indonesia make $2.10 a day. If we stopped doing business with those sweatshops their is only two other options for a job. The girls could go into prostitution or all the children could go back to the farm they were at before only making a $1 a day risking starvation. Ideally we would want to think if they didn't work they would be in school... well the few schools they have cost $ and when the children are working it's because they are helping the family eat, even if they didn't work they wouldn't go to school so what else but starve.
I guess the point of my rant is that Morality is completely subjective it isn't objectively rooted in God or come from God's will.
Here is my argument; with the premises and conclusions laid out.
For simplicity, suppose the atheistic moral system consists of one rule only: Harming others is morally wrong.
The theists objection seems to me to be the following:
- 1) Why should anyone follow this rule? People are free to disagree with this proposed system of ethics (psychopaths, say) - one may regard harming others as morally good.
- 2) Harm is an ambiguous term - what one person considers harm may not be so for another.
But surely this can be said of the theists position too? Under theism, morality would be something akin to: adherence to the wishes/nature of god is morally good. Let us apply the same line of reasoning to it:
- 1) Why should anyone adhere to god? People are free to disagree with this proposed system of ethics (Satanists, say) - one may regard adherence to the wishes/nature of god as morally wrong.
- 2) Adherence to god is ambiguous - what one person considers as being in accordance with gods wishes/nature might not be so for another - look at the thousands of discrepant denominations.
All thoughts welcome
