“You’re taking it out of context.”

“You’re not interpreting it correctly.”

“You’re not qualified to critique the Bible unless you have a PH.D. in Greek and Hebrew.”

You’d think that an all-knowing, all-singing, all-dancing creator of the universe would be capable of authoring a guidebook that’s so clear and concise that no one could possibly misconstrue or misinterpret the intended meaning.

So the only conclusion one can draw is that God is either a complete fuck-wit, or he doesn’t exist.

Here’s the deal. You present, clearly and precisely, your evidence for this most improbable of beings, this “God” fellow. Also clarify which of the many versions of the Judeo-Christian god myths you subscribe to.

To speed things along, a book written, translated, and edited by men is not evidence. Appeals to incredulity are not evidence. Unsupported assertions are not evidence.

If you can manage that (and no godbot has done it yet), then maybe we can actually have a discussion.

To everyone else: Too dismissive? I dunno, just kinda getting tired of seeing the same old song and dance routine from the goddists.

My bad.

First, I disagree that the most qualified to study the Bible are the ones who do not believe it. You have a handful of presuppositions that need to be evaluated.

Second, The Bible does not approve of all that it records. There is much evil recored in Scripture but that doesn’t mean God is ok with it.

Third, There are plenty of scholars who are not Christians that do more justice to this passage than you. You have basically read the passage but you haven’t studied it, nor would anyone expect you to spend much time on it, because you don’t really care right?

Fourth, It seems so obvious that you have honestly tried to learn the culture and language (Hebrew) of the stories in order to accurately understand the story. You must have spent so much time in exegesis.

Fifth, I personally think the prayer isn’t about whining to God so that he can stay all-powerful in my life. I pray to God because it is best for me. To maintain my relationship and to not fall into sin. Of course you don’t believe in sin or the need for forgiveness. If you did we would be able to have an interesting debate.

Sixth, this is to TIM who responded to your blog. He says, “As you point out, the myth that the patriarchs were perfect people who did everything in concert with God is clearly not supported by the stories in the bible.” However, I don’t know of any Christian or scholar or pastor who says that the patriarchs were perfect! In fact, they all usually say the opposite. It is how God works through people like us that is beautiful.

Last, the words “Blessed” and “Atheist” is a contradiction but you probably know this and think it most fitting.

I would like to discuss these things with you if you honestly want to figure stuff out, if you really have objections and seek answers. However, if you want to be an atheist and are completely happy with that then there is nothing I can say or do. If you want to discuss then write me.

Peace.

Ron, I’m not saying Sam Harris said Nazism is OK. You misunderstand me. I’m saying on his moral framework, he has no justification for believing that it’s not. On his view, the goal is to maximize well-being.

Again, I suggest that you watch his videos and/or read his books to familiarize yourself with his arguments. He expounds a moral code that maximizes the well-being of ALL members within society, not just some.

I’m saying The Nazis believed they were doing what would maximize the well-being of the world by exterminating the Jews.

Belief — “the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true” (Wikipedia) — is the operative word here. They believed, without evidence that their propositions were true. And as I’ve already mentioned, those beliefs were conditioned by religious indoctrination which justified animosity towards Jews based on a very narrow interpretation of “let his blood be upon us” in Matthew 27:25. (Incidentally, the term “perfidious Jews” wasn’t removed from the Catholic liturgy until 1955 — ie., ten years after World War II.)

That means that the Nazis couldn’t be faulted for their intentions for two reasons: 1) they thought they were maximizing well-being,

The fact is they weren’t thinking, or at least they weren’t thinking straight. Their actions were clouded by emotions and fueled by personal animosities against an out-group, much in the same way that the religious right in America attempts to blame the breakdown of traditional marriage on gay rights activists.

2) we don’t know if they were right or not because they didn’t win World War II. So we have no grounds on Harris’ framework to decry the Holocaust as “evil,” because we don’t have enough information and can only go off of what we know.

So in other words, your conception of morality is based on the premise that might makes right? Well, at least you’re consistent, because divine command theory presupposes that God’s edicts are good simply because he has the capacity to enforce his viewpoints unilaterally

Asserting God is the standard of good is not begging the question, because when you take all of the characteristics of the classical theistic God, you have enough support to say this God would have a perfect working knowledge of what “good” actually is, and would therefore be a reasonable standard by which to determine this.

You’re evading the point. From whence does God derive a perfect working knowledge of what “good” actually is? If it’s from within himself, then it’s purely subjective to his whims.

And how do we decide that his opinions are congruent with our own unless we already have a working definition of what it means to be good?

I copied and pasted the entire passage because I wanted to make clear how you cherrypicked the text to suit yourself. I never said I was perfect, so no I haven’t sold all my goods and given everything I have to the poor. I’m not making the point about how good I am. I’m making the point that salvation is not about the law, which the entire passage makes clear.

I didn’t cherry-pick anything. I directed you to a passage where Jesus states that eternal life was conditional upon following the commandments. The remainder of the passage adds additional riders, but takes absolutely nothing away from my original point.

Finally, your issue about whether Christians practice what they preach is not what’s at debate. It’s whether the Christian moral framework is incompatible with other ethical systems. Can you tell me how “love your neighbor as yourself” as a principle is inconsistent with your moral worldview?

No, it’s not what’s at debate. But I often wonder why professing Christians never actually follow through with Christ’s teachings. A perfect example of this was given when the crowd attending the GOP debate in South Carolina loudly booed Ron Paul for suggesting that the golden rule should be adopted when it comes to US foreign policy.

Asserting God is the standard of good is not begging the question, because when you take all of the characteristics of the classical theistic God, you have enough support to say this God would have a perfect working knowledge of what “good” actually is, and would therefore be a reasonable standard by which to determine this.

I copied and pasted the entire passage because I wanted to make clear how you cherrypicked the text to suit yourself. I never said I was perfect, so no I haven’t sold all my goods and given everything I have to the poor. I’m not making the point about how good I am. I’m making the point that salvation is not about the law, which the entire passage makes clear.

Finally, your issue about whether Christians practice what they preach is not what’s at debate. It’s whether the Christian moral framework is incompatible with other ethical systems. Can you tell me how “love your neighbor as yourself” as a principle is inconsistent with your moral worldview?

I may be a bit thick but I don’t understand the ‘without God there is no basis for morality’ argument. Does it boil down to ‘with God there is an objective, unchanging set of values while without God everyone is free to make up their own mind so even mass murder is moral as long as the murderer believes it is’? Because this argument is just silly. Even if you only take the bits of the bible directly attributed to God (through Moses) or Jesus definitions of good/moral change frequently. One minute you must sacrifice goats and eating shellfish is an abomination, the next minute the opposite is true.

An we haven’t even begun to look at 2000 years of reinterpreting the morality of the bible to suit the morality of the times. Is Sabepashubbo really going to tell us that killing unruly children or owning slaves is ok? Because the moral justification for these things comes straight from God’s mouth to Moses.

As for the basis of atheist morality, I think Ron has pretty much covered it, except to say that humans live in social groups, to live together they need a common set of rules to live by, so as a good they work it out. Some groups will have a morality that seems immoral to others, but the Nazis actions were considered wrong even by the standards of the day therefore they were not moral. Morality is decided at a group, not an individual level and we are never all going to agree. But neither do Christians about their ‘absolute and unchanging’ morality.