Morals

But what really makes me smile is:

With this all-or-nothing reality about the Bible now understood, you can see that there are only two possible explanations for the slavery passages in the Bible:

The Bible is right, and God loves slavery. The entire Bible is God's word, so these slavery passages must be God's word too. The laws in the United States and other modern nations that make slavery illegal defy God's word. Justice Scalia should be promoting slavery in exactly the same way that he promotes the Ten Commandments.

The Bible condones slavery because the Bible was written by slave-owning men, not by God.
Chances are that you have a problem with the first explanation. God would not champion the abomination that is slavery. We all know that.
Therefore, what you are left with is the second explanation. And suddenly, the Bible becomes a poisoned book.

We have fallen down a trickery slope now havnt we? So which will it be?

 

first off

why do we always assume that when someone says "GOD", most of the time
we assume that the religion is christianity?
what about other religions?

you see, the bad thing about religion is that each will tend to "block" themselves from other religion,
believing that their religion is the "true" one.
we separate ourselves from one another.

this ^ statement is true...
there are religions where killing is forbidden, thus, people will follow that rule...
and there are other religions where in if you kill (an enemy?), you will be greatly rewarded in the afterlife...

the objective of religion may be for a good cause,
but in my opinion, religion itself is bogus...
we can use this religions as "GUIDES", religion doesn't need to dictate our lives.
we can be good and do good even if were atheists,
and my favorite line to say: "if it is gods will, where's our free will".
(mmkay, this may be more on a "religion" rant rather than a "morals" rant)

im an atheist too! high five!

=======================================================

oh, and a little situation to leave you by:

some of my female classmates say that they can have a boyfriend, but he must also be in the same "?branch?" of christianity as the girl, then i said "wtf? so your religion forbids you to choose a person that you love that belongs to another branch?"

she may still do so, but it looks as if she doesnt have a choice

another female classmate says that the boyfriend can be from a different branch of christianity, but he must convert to the girls "branch" for him to continue dating the girl, so what? we now have qualifications for us to be with a person? are we gonna force people to convert now?

its these kinds of situation that shows the :FAIL: of religion,
i have a part 2, but ill be heading to school first (and sorry, but my english is still not that fluent)

 

Apparently the majority of America for the first 80 or so years is morally inferior as well.

 

The majority of america is too blindfolded to see that their bible was written by primitive man and not the word of a supreme being.

 

I like how you avoided that.

 

It was a question? :s

Could you rephrase it? i didnt see it under the layers of sarcasm and wit.

If you mean that America is morally inferior because they follow the word of god who advocates slavery. Then yes, it doesnt matter what time period, for gods word is eternal.

Could you anwser mine now?

I have shown you proof that your God advocates slavery in the bible. Now tell me if its his word or that of primitive man? I find it rather disgusting that you can worship such a god.

And to suggest that its the word of man is to suggest that your holy book is not the word of god (which places the rest of it under the same suspect - making it rather poisoned)

So sir! which is it!

You know that You cannot deny Gods position on slavery in the bible, and you know there is no way out of such flawed ideals, and i know for sure you dont agree with slavery, so why you follow such a god i find rather suspect.

 

Yes, it was a question.

I didn't even mention a deity. I simply stated that America is morally inferior.

In fact, by your arguement, mankind is morally inferior, as we all intentionally do immoral things.


I don't care to deny it. I follow this God simply because I feel it is the right thing to do. I suppose you're one of those people who uses the 'stone the wife' example quite a bit.

Your world view advocates doing whatever the hell you feel like, because there's no eternal consequences. Now, is that moral? Or are you just going to ignore the greater part of the Bible, just to prove a flawed point?

 

We are getting somewhere!

Im not sure where you get that second line from though... you just demonstrated that you dont think slavery is wrong, and you disagree with gods opinion on it. I think that makes you and the majority of mankind way more moral than him...

Also i would not suggest that what you put is my world view, you can be an athiest and still be a nice guy you know, or are you suggesting that the fear of eternal consequences is what makes people be nice?... My world view advocates not following immoral gods that adovacte bad ideals.

My argument doesnt matter which part of the bible it comes from, its all gods word apparently, and its all eternal, so no matter which testament its in, its still his position on such subjects. My argument is based on the demonstration through FACT that your god is immoral, it is IRRELEVANT how kind he is about other things in the bible (i have seen 10 year olds more forgiving than him tbh) because he obviously has some pretty sadistic ideas about how to treat other humans, and how its acceptable on his behalf.

If a Slaver was to beat slaves and stone his wife and then go and save a poor puppy would that make him a good guy?

ofc it wouldnt. You're squirming around my argument, trying to find flaws where there is none!

1. i present gods position on slavery.
2. it is proven by his holy word.
3. Slavery is immoral
4. god supports an immoral act = Gods immoral
5. Majority of mankind knows slavery is wrong
6. God doesnt = Hes morally inferiour to mankind.

You love god, so just accept that it wasnt him who wrote it and realise with your goddamn logic that the bible was written by the word of man, and not god.

 

Shouldn't you guys be referring to New Testament instead?
I mean, the Old one was written for entirely different societies, if they wrote slavery is wrong or other stuff against things that were far and wide a standard - they'd just be hanged or cast off for craziness before they could finish the gospel.

Also, funny how our entire race could be considered morally superior to anything.

 

Did you read my post?

It doesnt matter what testament it was written in, its gods world which is apparently eternal.

However, you're suggesting it was written by man, in which case the whole bible comes under suspect.

Read meh posts! Also.. i said the majority of mankind* is morally superior to a being that advocates slavery.

 

No!
Your posts hurt my poor brain

Of course it was written by men. Do you suggest God himself wrote the manuscript and handed it out to someone? It was written by people (most likely more than one) "enlightened by Holy Spirit".

 

Not literally ya nub!

Key Point
The Bible states that it is not the word of men but the word of God, and that the Bible is perfect.

The fact that the Bible is written by God gives the Bible ultimate authority -- God's authority. Because it is the perfect, error-free word of God, the Bible is essential to Christianity. The Bible acts as the single God-given source of information for Christians.


So its Gods WORD that he advocates slavery. My argument still stands that God advocates slavery.

Just for you Mee! i'll quote myself:
"With this all-or-nothing reality about the Bible now understood, you can see that there are only two possible explanations for the slavery passages in the Bible:

1. The Bible is right, and God loves slavery. The entire Bible is God's word, so these slavery passages must be God's word too. The laws in the United States and other modern nations that make slavery illegal defy God's word. Justice Scalia should be promoting slavery in exactly the same way that he promotes the Ten Commandments.

2. The Bible condones slavery because the Bible was written by slave-owning men, not by God. "

"Therefore, what you are left with is the second explanation. And suddenly, the Bible becomes a poisoned book. "

Ya see?

Edit! i got some more proof for you Meee:

In 1 Thessalonians 2:13 the Bible says:
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God.

 

No, you said that God is morally inferior to mankind:

It may be Word of God, but in the end the Bible was written for people to read and learn from. It was written so it'd be "compatible" with people's mindset at the time. What was in there was already a drastic change for most of them. If there were more "ridiculous ramblings" like no slavery, equal respect for women etc (the latter is my assumption only), no one would accept it, so what would be the point?

Notice how New Testament is much more forgiving and the main commandment is to love others (wasn't there something akin to 'eye for eye' in the Old one?). I wouldn't be surprised if some passages from the two Testaments contradicted with each other.
The times have changed and the "new version" was written to account for that.

 

... Meee.
Being morally inferiour to someone MAKES them morally superior to you. Cant believe i have to explain that.

Its really quite simple, for arguments sake:

The bible was written by god, and his word IS ETERNAL. Your posts are seeming to suggest that the supreme being who wrote the bible is rather fallible. Which in their belief he is not.

Many Christians will try to argue that God does not intend for us to keep slaves today. That simply is not true. As you can see, both Jesus and the New Testament are strong advocates of slavery. In Isaiah 40:8 God says, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever." In the twenty first century, God and the Bible fully intend for us to have slaves.

 

Yes, surprisingly enough it's obvious even to meee. What I'm pointing out is that you actually said mankind instead of majority there. Which is IMO ridiculous thought. Yes, according to what you say there are people morally superior to God. There may even be plenty of them. But I wouldn't even go as far as saying that majority of them are morally superior to anyone. Especially since your only point against God here seems to be stand on slavery.

Ok now I actually read some of the thread. Are you F*** serious?! God is morally inferior because he advocates slavery? What about all the people stealing, killing or lying? What about people who can't forgive someone for hurting someone else even if they have no relation whatsoever to either side? What about people hating others for gender/religion/subculture/etc? What about Bamber hating on God all the while denying His existance?

Ok, that last one was a joke

 

The bible also says that women and children are unfit to talk in the church, and that a women is unclean longer after childbirth if they have a female child instead of a male child.

So God also allows sexism.

 

Yes god is morally inferior to the majority of mankind. The majority isnt made up of people who kill or steal or who are racist, infact thats a very small minority.

To elaborate a very small missunderstanding of my argument: God is morally inferior to the majority of mankind OF WHOM do not agree with slavery or animal sacrifice. The majoirty of mankind is made up of people who understand killing, stealing, racism, etc is wrong.

This is kinda irrelevant to my original point though, following down your argument i could say that sending people to suffer in hell for eternity is far worse, morally than killing, or stealing, etc. But that isnt my point.

But oho! it gets better: According to the word of god (Of which is truth apparently), God is sexist, he advocates animal sacrifice, he advocates human sacrifice.

And deep down i think a lot of bible followers see this, rearrange their blindfolds, and ignore it. Is it so hard to accept that the bible is not what you think it is guys?

To any unbiased observer, the reason for rampant sexism in the Bible is very easy to understand: The Bible was not written by God. It was written by primitive men who were flagrant sexists. Just look at how men in primitive countries like Afghanistan treat women today. Those are the kind of men who wrote the Bible. God had nothing to do with this book. The sooner the majority of America wakes up to this BALATANTLY obvious fact, the sooner they can stop dwelling in their pools of ignorance.

---->Conclusion:<----
And we all know it -- Christians and non-Christians alike. The reason why modern societies (including most Christians living in those societies) completely reject sexism is because we all know that the Bible's sexism is wrong. It is exactly the same situation we see when Christians face slavery and animal sacrifice in the Bible. Christians and non-Christians alike reject the Bible's teachings in these areas because the Bible is obviously wrong. The part that is profoundly strange is that, while completely rejecting these parts of the Bible, Chistians will claim that other parts of the Bible are God's word. They seem to be blind to the obvious contradiction.

At some point, Christians have to accept the evidence that we all can see: Either God wrote the Bible, or he did not. If he did, then he is wrong, and we should reject the Bible and him. If he did not, then we should reject the Bible.

 

I am going to stop you right there when you say God has immoral beliefs. Morals are a human construct; they are entirely subjective. We are raised to believe that slavery is wrong and evil, but when the Bible was written, slavery was perfectly acceptable, not morally apprehensible at all. You run into a problem in that you are trying to judge God, not only objectively, but based on a different set of rules.

The truth is, morals are no more set in stone than the law, they change, and they are different between places and times. Should we also judge historical figures based on our laws? That doesn't seem fair to me either. It is impossible to say someone is morally superior to someone else, because each person has different morals than another, someone who is superior by our morals could be seen as evil elsewhere making the entire statement subjective, and thus a mere opinion, not a hard fact.


As for the people who believe morals are divinely inspired, we have a problem. if it is the Christian God we are talking about, he didn't make much mention of them. There are ten rules to follow, and most of the parables involve serving God, helping one another, and just generally being nice to the rest of mankind, yet preachers still see fit to tell their followers what is and isn't right. Basically, most of our so called, divinely inspired morals, were made up by people. In addition, different religions, with their different gods, have different morals. I think we need to drop this whole concept and stop with the moral judgements about everyone, since morals are not universal.

On the subject of God and hell. I am with Fenix that the Bible is not meant to be taken seriously. It is nothing more than a set of stories that, like all religious text and stories, is meant to explain why things are the way they are, and how you should live your life. God isn't trying to condemn you not for following him, he is asking for you to come to him, and accept that you aren't perfect, and then ask for his forgiveness. He lets you make mistakes because that is how you learn, but just as important as making these mistakes, you need to accept that you have made them, and asking for forgiveness from god is one way to do that and if the holy father thing is to be taken seriously, is in the same vein as going to your parents and saying, "I screwed up".

You have to remember one thing, the Bible was written a long time ago, when science was in its infancy, and mostly consisted of breakthroughs in farming. These people had no science, so things had to be explained to them unscientifically, hence the first story of genesis and it is foolish to take it literally in light of what we know. Think of how you would explain the world to a child who has not yet learned physics and biology. In addition, as I said before, morals are fluid. Some things that were said to be wrong then aren't anymore (many people seem to forget that pork is forbidden) while others that were part of daily life (slavery) are now seen as wrong. God wasn't advocating slavery, what is written in the bible is merely a list of rules on how to deal with slaves, just as the manuals that come with your computer tell you not to do certain things to it (pour water on it, install it backwards, etc.)

 

Then you accept that the bible is the word of man. And is poisoned. (Whole point of this thread)
Honestly, you are all aruging from the perspective that it was written by mankind, which makes the whole basis of its beliefs questionable.

You can argue that the bible has lessons to be learned and those are what should be followed. But ****, so does wibbly the pig. And frankly, if you need to look to a book for lessons on what is right and wrong in this world then you're a bit silly.

In reply to your suggestion on morals, It doesnt matter when they were created, because according to bible followers His word is eternal (3rd time i have said that). And to suggest that they dont apply to God is stupid. God is OMNIPOTENT, AND OMNISCIENT. it is wrong to say they are not morally apprehensible to him, due to the time period.

Please try to realise that the bible truely does expect us to enforce slavery today. Which

 

I didn't say the bible was the word of man. I said morals are.

What I said about the bible is that is should not be taken literally. it is a metaphor. I do however accept that is is tainted, since a century ago the Catholic church threw away some of the books that didn't agree with their religious and moral stance.