Father Arguments

[WesOlsen]

What these guys said basically.

that makes it arbitrary. A person's philosophy of murder is as good as anyone else's. There needs to be something else that comes up with a moral law: a moral law giver

All communication is arbitrary. Your dad must first prove that there is a lawgiver and that he has given laws. We can demonstrate that the bible was penned by men, thus making it second hand information and not revelation. Remind him of the contradictory accounts of certain events and most importantly remind him that the bible is the CLAIM not the evidence for the claim.

Simply ask him why there must be a moral law giver. Demonstrate that the bible was written by men using their own arbitrary and rather primitive moral and legal systems and show that they are no different to a contemporary moral system. The second a human pens down an idea it becomes basically as valid as any guff from the bible. When multiple humans agree on an idea it becomes consensus. When, over time, huge numbers of people agree that on the whole a certain idea has merit and is worth adhering to (let's say, not murdering for example) then it become a moral code. This is exactly how bible laws were dished out, only with less consensus and more coercion typically, making them more fascist than democratic. Until your father can prove that there is a lawgiver and that his specific scripture is the real law, which he can't do, then he has crushed his own argument. And even if he does use crafty word play, simply use his own argument to insist that the qur'an is the correct law, because every single point he makes could be ported to Islamic law, or Hindu law etc.