Christianity and Morality
Posted on: February 5, 2011 - 2:20pm
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Christianity and Morality
Hello!
First time poster here, though I've been into the site for a while. I just wrote a post about the moral inconsistencies inherent to the Bible and Christianity, and I wanted to know what you guys thought. This is something I feel really strongly about, but I was wondering if you think I got the point across. Any suggestions? Thanks!
-notaheathen
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I'll go look at it, but I don't think you need to worry about preaching to the choir. Even if one wants to swallow the scientific absurdity of claiming that a thought can occur without a non material process, much less one with magical super powers, the moral bankruptcy of the bible is enough by itself to reject such a tyrant as a character.
This literary character claimed in the bible called "God" is a tyrant from the beginning of the book uses entrapment, makes a bet with his enemy and uses innocent people as pawns. He uses bullying, genocide, and briefly in the middle of the book makes a very weak attempt to apologize for his abuse, and then at the end of the book starts beating the shit out of everyone again, after he tells you he wont hit you anymore. And the only thing you have to do to avoid his wrath is to kiss his ass.
Does that sum it up?
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welcome to the forum, you should fit right in.
"Don't seek these laws to understand. Only the mad can comprehend..." -- George Cosbuc
Hey, welcome!
Pretty much agree with your comments.
I feel that the moral argument is by far the weakest one for the Theist, in fact, all the evidence is pretty much against it, there are just so many inconsistencies and basic problems, which all evaporate under the naturalist assumption.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Welcome to the forum. Glad to have you here.
Welcome to the forum.
I agreed with all of it. Pretty well written.
I would say our moral compasses originate from our evolution as a social species and our individual upbringing i.e. environment.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Hello and welcome!
You're interested in Christian morality? Glad to see that, I gave it some thought recently and here's the result.
Biblical morality can hardly be called morality. Let's take the ten commandments as an example. It's just a set of rules and half of them are meant just to protect Yahweh's ego. The other half is violated both by Yahweh himself, and his followers, and he also orders them to violate the rules. (typically, thou shalt not kill, unless you or your god are feeling like it)
A set of rules can not be called morality, not even absolute. Morality is more than that. Morality is an effort to maintain social equilibrium, it changes, develops with society, reacts on new situations and dangers and so on. This is the "moral relativism" which some Christians despise so much. Would they rather go with a set of rules which they are ready to violate when a god commands?
Furthermore, recently I listened to some Christian sermon mp3 records from local Evangelical congregation. Man... these people are just... I mean, one preacher did have no idea of logic and internal consistency at all. His omniscient and omnipotent god did nothing to anticipate or prevent anything that Adam, Eve or Satan did, and then GRIEVED over the oh so big surprise that happened when Satan deceived mankind into being a little more independent and ambitious, as it would be a bad thing...and disobedient, must add. And then suddenly we're supposed to make a LOGICAL choice of heaven over hell, eternal bliss over eternal damnation. Suddenly logic is good enough for him? And he has such an effeminate voice... When he spoke passionately about Jesus, it sounded quite creepy.
Another preacher had just absolutely no idea of history or what Bible is about. He picked stories from some of the darker parts of Old Testament. It was something like that: Imagine a nomadic tribe of brainwashed barbarians, led by bloodthirsty god. The war leaders send a group of 12 scouts, who go to check out the "promised land", already full of peaceful people settled down probably as farmers. Only two return, because they probably tried to take what was not theirs and got what they deserved. The two, Jozue and some other guy, carry a huge bunch of fresh grapes as an evidence, that this land is worth raiding and killing everyone who live there. They make up a crazy story about how the other 10 scouts lost their lives, in heroic fight with "giants" near cities with huge, unbreakable walls, so it won't sound like they got their asses kicked by farmers. But they know the truth and long for revenge for lost comrades, so they try to persuade the tribe to go there and raid the place anyway. The tribe is crazy enough to believe them about giants, but not yet crazy enough to fight the supposed giants, so their god takes them back to the desert. They must wander around the desert for 40 years, so two generations grow up without any contact with the outer world. They are now completely brainwashed and probably pretty much genetically inbred, so they will do anything, even the most terrible things, at the god's command. After all, they all grew up without any contact with humans outside the tribe, so as far as they are concerned, all other tribes belong to the impure, inferior races that they are free to kill or betray as they please. (their god) And so they do it with unfortunate proficiency for many chapters, until the genocide Kanaanites and several other nations is finished.
That is how I would re-tell the story mentioned in the second sermon. It has less of a moral message now, but more historical accuracy.
Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.
Like it. Thanks for posting.
The story, though, went a little different, according to how I was told it happened. The two scouts came back and said they could raid the land (I mean God could do it for them and they would just walk in). But the 10 others said there were giants and not to enter. And the foolish nomads of course chose to trust the 10 guys over the 2 and God's promise to deliver the country.