.There is only human morality and in our species history we have always and we will always display some range of behavior both good and bad. Evolution will always do that. If we seek to be less violent and more compassionate we must put our common existence ahead of our personal views. We are still ultimately individuals within the same species.

(November 5, 2014 at 1:22 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: The problem is, you see things from such a narrow point of view. When a child is born into the world, there is suffering for both mother and child, not to mention bloody, yet do we say this is a terrible thing? no. when a child is born it is a joyous occasion, and the suffering is no longer remembered.

Speaking of narrow points of view, this is one from you. Do you honestly think that if we developed a method of childbirth tomorrow that alleviated all of the pain, that it wouldn't instantly become the most popular method of childbirth?

The pain of childbirth isn't erased when the child comes, and it isn't transmuted into some kind of happy thing either. The joy comes at the arrival of the child, not the suffering that preceded it. Nobody looks fondly on the process of childbirth. Nobody finds that pain appealing, it's just a reality of the process. But you're not talking about a process that required pain, you're not even talking about a process that even needed to happen.

You're talking about pain, inflicted on total innocents, for no reason at all, even though there was another way that was just as easily attainable. You're talking about a god who, when given the option of either hurting babies or not doing that, a choice that any normal human being would find trivial, if asked to find the moral answer, chooses to hurt babies.

And you're defending that choice because afterwards you would prefer to think that the babies got something nice, even though you have no indication that they actually did. It's despicable, and before you come back with this "oh, innocents go to heaven" crap, I'd remind you that another thing the bible constantly reinforces is the idea that the offspring bear the consequences of their parents' wrongdoings. The argument could be made either way, I'm just not willing to sugarcoat the entire process the way you are, because maybe there was a silver lining to an ordeal that never needed to happen.

Quote:like wise for those that return to God, it is a joyous occasion in heaven. Death is simply a transition from one place to another, is suffering sometimes involved? sure, but suffering is involved during birth, but that moment of suffering will no longer be remember once you step into eternity.

If suffering is not required in death, but that suffering is inflicted anyway, then that is needless, torturous cruelty. If a human did it you'd rightly call him a monster.

(November 5, 2014 at 2:46 pm)Esquilax Wrote:

(November 5, 2014 at 1:22 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: The problem is, you see things from such a narrow point of view. When a child is born into the world, there is suffering for both mother and child, not to mention bloody, yet do we say this is a terrible thing? no. when a child is born it is a joyous occasion, and the suffering is no longer remembered.

Speaking of narrow points of view, this is one from you. Do you honestly think that if we developed a method of childbirth tomorrow that alleviated all of the pain, that it wouldn't instantly become the most popular method of childbirth?

The pain of childbirth isn't erased when the child comes, and it isn't transmuted into some kind of happy thing either. The joy comes at the arrival of the child, not the suffering that preceded it. Nobody looks fondly on the process of childbirth. Nobody finds that pain appealing, it's just a reality of the process. But you're not talking about a process that required pain, you're not even talking about a process that even needed to happen.

You're talking about pain, inflicted on total innocents, for no reason at all, even though there was another way that was just as easily attainable. You're talking about a god who, when given the option of either hurting babies or not doing that, a choice that any normal human being would find trivial, if asked to find the moral answer, chooses to hurt babies.

And you're defending that choice because afterwards you would prefer to think that the babies got something nice, even though you have no indication that they actually did. It's despicable, and before you come back with this "oh, innocents go to heaven" crap, I'd remind you that another thing the bible constantly reinforces is the idea that the offspring bear the consequences of their parents' wrongdoings. The argument could be made either way, I'm just not willing to sugarcoat the entire process the way you are, because maybe there was a silver lining to an ordeal that never needed to happen.

Quote:like wise for those that return to God, it is a joyous occasion in heaven. Death is simply a transition from one place to another, is suffering sometimes involved? sure, but suffering is involved during birth, but that moment of suffering will no longer be remember once you step into eternity.

If suffering is not required in death, but that suffering is inflicted anyway, then that is needless, torturous cruelty. If a human did it you'd rightly call him a monster.

like I said, you have a very narrow point of view.
your soul has no age, it has existed since the beginning, and at the appointed time you step out of eternity and in to your body here on earth. But because of sin, we suffer and we're appointed to die. When you die here, there is a body waiting for you over on the other side.

Quote:2 Corinthians 5:1
5 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

This scripture is in reference to the body being destroyed and receiving a new body.


The decisions we make in this life determine if we return back to God or not. Children can't be held accountable for their decisions so they go to heaven, maybe God in his infinite knowledge knew that they would just follow the footsteps of their parents and decided to take them early, who knows?

what I do know are these children are happy where they are and wouldn't want to return to earth under no circumstances.

I suppose an unborn child is content to live in the womb forever, after all the womb is all it knows, all it's need are provided for. But after experiencing the outside world would you want to return to the womb?

(November 5, 2014 at 12:43 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:

(November 5, 2014 at 12:25 pm)Jenny A Wrote:

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I god, say these people can have this land, so I help them kill every man woman and child on the land and impale the king on a stake for the day. Rinse, repeat. Josiah in a nut shell. Doesn't get any better in Judges.

People have become bad in some unspecified way. I will kill them all including children except one good family. Oh and I think I'll get all the animals except for a pair of each just for good measure. Genesis

People are building a great big tower and that endangers our authority. Lets make them unable to understand each other, destroy the tower, and scatter the people. Genesis

Thou shalt either kill rape victims or marry them to the rapist. Deuteronomy.

Sacrificing sons to other gods is bad. But you should be willing to sacrifice them to me, because I am your god. (Genesis) And I will reward you militarily for promising to sacrifice the first member of your household to greet you when you return in triumph. Bummer it's your daughter and only child. That's the way the cookie crumbles. (Judges).

Divorce your foreign wives: Judges, various prophets, Kings.

Slavery is an old and venerable institution. Here are the rules. . Deuteronomy.

Eating pork, shell fish, cheese burgers, and camels is a horrible sin. Deuteronomy.

Warrior kings and judges are my favorite kind. Thus says the lord. Judges, Kings, Chronicles, various prophets.

Edam did not help Israel and they the descendants of Jacob's twin brother Esau and everything. They shall be cursed forever.

A ruler won't let some slaves go, so I shall kill everyone in the country's first son and the first born males of their livestock just to be sure the point is made. Exodus.

Will those do? Or do we have to go through the Bible line by line.

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Ok, so pick the one you think is the worst and I'll address that one in depth, a short answer will not do any of those justice.

It's the pattern of a spoiled tyrant. There isn't a worst. It's a pattern of immorality.

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(November 5, 2014 at 12:43 pm)Huggy74 Wrote:

(November 5, 2014 at 12:37 pm)Jenny A Wrote: So you believe that nations who sacrifice their children should be punished by killing all their kids? Odd point of view.

Oddly enough, I explained this in another thread.

If I remember right, the explanation is that the children go straight to heaven. Sorry but that won't cut it. That way leads to infanticide as a morally correct method of birth control. I may be pro-choice, but I won't go there. But the OT god does and he instructs his people to kill babies.

(November 5, 2014 at 3:20 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: like I said, you have a very narrow point of view.
your soul has no age, it has existed since the beginning, and at the appointed time you step out of eternity and in to your body here on earth. But because of sin, we suffer and we're appointed to die. When you die here, there is a body waiting for you over on the other side.

Why do you think repeating the same shoddy point and ignoring my objections counts as a rebuttal? Like I said, and you failed to even acknowledge, pain inflicted where no pain need be is needless, pointless cruelty. It doesn't matter what comes after, the point is that when god was offered a choice between hurting babies and not hurting babies, he chose the former, willingly, and without cause. These are not the acts of a moral ruler.

And don't give me this crap about sin; babies can't sin, they don't have the capacity to yet. If your argument is that they take the blame for original sin then, well, you're kinda done on this whole heaven thing too, since if you're saying they take on the ancestral sin then they're in hell, because another thing babies can't do is make a conscious choice to come to Jesus.

You can't have it both ways; if suffering is a product of sin then those babies were under that sin and are in hell, making the entire process completely monstrous. If the babies aren't under sin, then why were they made to suffer?

Quote:The decisions we make in this life determine if we return back to God or not. Children can't be held accountable for their decisions so they go to heaven, maybe God in his infinite knowledge knew that they would just follow the footsteps of their parents and decided to take them early, who knows?

Right, so they weren't held accountable for any sins, making their earthly suffering completely unjust. And if you're going to use god's foreknowledge as an excuse here, then you can never use the free will excuse to absolve god of responsibility for the problem of evil, either.

Quote:what I do know are these children are happy where they are and wouldn't want to return to earth under no circumstances.

There was a way to get them there without hurting them, and god chose to do the opposite. It doesn't matter if they're happy now, because this isn't about them, it's about the choices and thought processes of god. It has been since the beginning of this conversation, so please stop dodging.

Quote:I suppose an unborn child is content to live in the womb forever, after all the womb is all it knows, all it's need are provided for. But after experiencing the outside world would you want to return to the womb?

Irrelevant to the actual conversation. Quit laying dodgeball and address the issue.

(November 5, 2014 at 3:20 pm)Huggy74 Wrote: your soul has no age, it has existed since the beginning, and at the appointed time you step out of eternity and in to your body here on earth.

Putting "beginning" and "eternity" in one sentence seems pretty odd. Beginning of what exactly?

And stepping out of eternity, which obviously had a beginning, to use your words, means an eternal soul. But this eternal sould doesn't even have the capability of recognizing itself in a mirror till the age of three or thereabouts. It's actually pretty darn stupid for an eternal sould stepping into an earthly body. God must use his special eraser before the appointed time.

All of this apology for god sponsored infanticide is horribly ironic when considering the evangelical, catholic, and fundie views about abortion.

(November 5, 2014 at 4:55 pm)Esquilax Wrote: Why do you think repeating the same shoddy point and ignoring my objections counts as a rebuttal?

First of all, all I do on this forum is repeat myself. I said the above in another thread, how am i supposed to know you read it?

second, I asked a simple question to which you answered with a question, hmmmm.

I also asked you guys to to provide a instance of what you're talking about from the Bible so we can discuss a specific case, which you also failed to do.

(November 5, 2014 at 1:38 pm)Cato Wrote: There is no single 'atheist morality', nor is there any single 'biblical morality'; making the ethical query in the OP all very confused. As has already happened, bad moral actors (God and Hitler) are immediately invoked in an effort to demonize non-existent moral codes by association.

The ubiquitous references to Hitler in these types of discussions are distractions. Hitler's belief or non-belief in God is immaterial, because Hitler's actions are universally accepted as immoral regardless of someone's religious affiliation; notwithstanding the existence of Mel Gibson and Islamacists.

Charges that Christians are immoral because the OT God was a prick are very superficial. Most Christians don't interpret the Bible literally. I don't have data to support this, but I imagine this is at least partially due to the fact that some believers can't reconcile some Biblical tales with their sense of morality and the idea of a just, loving and merciful God. Claims that someone can't be moral without a universal law giver are equally preposterous. When it comes to ethical debate, I put moral nihilists and literal Biblical apologists on the same psychopathic tendencies watchlist.

I just wish people would quit ignoring that meaningful ethical debate has been raging for thousands of years and that it is far more sophisticated than god/no-god. Virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism don't necessarily require a god, but they also don't prohibit the idea of a god in order to be meaningful and practical systems of moral guidance.

The only difference between the atheist and the theist is that the atheist does not assign good or bad or "all this" to a super hero vs a super villain.

The only difference is that the morality advocated by theists doesn't first consider the beings to whom it matters most.