Does Atheism make sense?

[TheDarkestOfAngels]

Of course assuming I believe the world to be 6000 years ago; which I don not. I believe the world to be somewhere in the range of 4.5 Billion years old. This throws many of your following assumptions and arguments a curveball.

No it doesn't because my assumptions rely on what the bible states and not what you personally believe.

So, you give the right to self-dictate morality to rapists and murderers?

I have the right to stop either of those things from occurring and have a murderer or rapist arrested assuming that I either catch one of them in the act or I have evidence to provide that they have committed murder or rape, are going to commit murder or rape, or some such thing.
So, yes, I have the right to impose my morals on others because my morals and those of others formed the social contract of American society where we all agreed and wrote a law saying that murder and rape are crimes and there are circumstances in which average citizens can take measures to defend themselves from such acts (killing can be justified if it is done is self-defense but doing so involves imposing your morality of "rape and/or murder is bad" upon another.)
So yes, I give and have the right (to a limited extent) to impose my morality upon others and indeed this is the nature of the social contract of any society or government.

You have no say in what is moral or immoral. Perhaps for yourself; but not for your society. You continue to say that god condones rapes, slavery, paedophilia, and murdur. All of these things are condemned in the bible and I have given you scripture that says such. Is it impossible for you to accept that 2000 years worth of Christians could be right about something, and you be wrong?

I've provided scripture that states otherwise, at least in regards to rape, murder, and paedophilia.
None of those things are UNIVERSALLY condemned in the bible and many biblical figures kept slaves, concubines, raped, and murdered people - sometimes at god's behest.
And yes, I do have a say in what is and is not moral because I have a sense of morality and the nature of a democratic society allows me to, if enough people agree with me, change the law and therefore I can legislate my morality upon others, so you are wrong on both counts.

The culture has changed. Jesus' changed the rule book. This is so clearly wrong.

He didn't make rape, slavery, murder, or anything I've been talking about any more moral than in the old testiment. He went out of his way to tell people to turn the other cheek to the bad behavior of others (a moral modern christians seem to forget) but he also tells people to love him more than family and friends - something cult leaders typically tell their followers in order to get them to leave their families and join their group marriage in a secret compound somewhere in Utah. (Why is it always Utah?)
So yeah, even if Jesus did "fix" everything (he didn't) - all it does is make the old and new testiment inconsistent within itself because god changes his mind (something an omnicient being shouldn't be able to do because he can see the goddamn future), among other issues. The New Testiment is just a waste of time and a story about a man who sacrifices himself because god can't be bothered to change the stupid rules he imposes on his own people depsite the fact that he makes exceptions all the time in the old and new testiment.
Therefore, "Jesus fixed it" isn't an excuse.

Maybe before Christianity, but not before god. God was before time.

Slight problem - before christianity, people believed in other gods or no gods but another spiritual belief system or even something radically different from that.
Keep in mind that this is a god who, in the bible, created the world 6000 years ago and the first and all of the following humans from that point recognized god as god for what he was.
Your opinions on the matter are irrelevant because you've admitted that you only take some things from the bible but not others.

If you believe that god is a jealous god who has more than one of his ten commandments basically telling you to worship him and him alone, then it wouldn't make sense that this insanely jealous god would, for tens of thousands of years, make people believe in other gods right up until the times described in the bible.

It's terribly inconsistent with god's personality as described in both the new AND old testiment.

Genesis 6:5-8 clearly says that man had grown wicked, except for Noah. And as we discussed, the story of Sodom shows that god does not kill the innocent. Therefore; we must assume that this is an abundently clear contradiction (as you are an atheist, im sure you will choose this option) that people followed for thousands of years without noticing, or that god only killed the wicked with the flood.

God murdered Noah's wife (I think it was noah, I'm working off memory here) by turning her intoa pillar of salt because she witnessed the destruction of S&G.
Further, read genesis 6 from beginning to end. He felt that humanity had grown wicked because the 'sons of god" and giants were interminging with human women. I'm sure there were other reasons too, but there's actually more than one issue here other than the one I brought up, which is that this omnicient god apparently didn't see this happening beforehand and regretted making humankind and wanted to hit the great ctrl+alt+del buttons in the sky.
In any case, it's no coincidence that the only thing god brought up in terms of his reasoning for humankind's wickedness was because the human race was intermingling with giants (a race that never existed) and the "children of god" (angels? something else?) and didn't like either the non-human--human fornication or the resulting children.
I believe growing violence was also mentioned, but that is in addition to the above reasons likely among others, but those were the only two worth mentioning, apparently. Thus, it seems pretty clear that god wiped out all life in the world except noah, his sons, and their wives because he didn't like humans breeding with beings he didn't personally approve.

Given the other morals of the bible, I'm sure "having babies that god disapproved of" counts as "wicked."

Where do you draw this? Im assuming from Genesis 6:4 which stated that the sons of god bore children with man. It never says that this is why god sent the flood. The scripture you are refering to is simply saying, "Human's cannot be with immortals forever, as they are mortal." He sent the flood because of humanity's wickedness (See genesis 6:5 , 11, and 12.)

So in other words, in a chapter that describes god's decision to cause a global flood, god just casually mentions that this is happening and it's completely unrelated to the surrounding points that leads to god choosing to end the world except for Noah, his family, and everything else that travelled with him in the arc?
You're cherry picking and ignoring pertinent details on the matter. It's no coincidence that god mentions that women are bearing the children of god's children and giants and then states that he's going to murder all humankind because they're wicked.
If I told you that Fred had sex with my wife and then I told you that Fred had to die becuase he's a wicked person, are you telling me that the two is unrelated and that the point of "fred slept with my wife" just means that he was just communicating his affecting for the good deeds she has done for him?"
Are you so entrenched in your belief system that you can't even see what's literally written before you? Your explainations require so much spin that you're distorting the words to mean something completely different than what it says in context.

This was not murder, as they were wicked and against god (see my above scripture references).

It's not murder if there's a good enough reason. Gotcha.

You must look at this scripture from the culture of thousands of years ago. Must I keep saying that scripture is easily demonized when taken out of context? In their culture, women had little value, all of which was lost with their virginity. It was for the woman's protection that she wed the one who deflowered her. If this was not a rule; than the woman would return to her family in shame, and since she lost her marriage value, would be an alone outcast for the rest of her life.

I'm not taking anything out of context.
Secondly, why should I follow Jesus or God in terms of using the bible or god or jesus' teachings if the bible tells me any of the points I've brought up if the bible is okay with things that are completely amoral?
Third, yes, women of the bible had little value, which makes being forced to marry your rapist WORSE not BETTER. Did you listen to yourself when you spoke that line? Do you really think a book that tells me that women have such little value that if she gets raped she has to marry her rapist?
As someone that loves women - especially if they were my mother, sister, wife, daughter, or whatever, how is this acceptable to anyone at all? Do you have any idea what women who were raped go through? Especially if the rape was particularly brutal?
There is nothing anywhere in this that results in anything resembling justice and certainly not a moral guideline that any reasonable modern person should follow.

I honestly hope you can see the mess you're in in attempting to defend the bible here because I see that you're trying to defend it by saying "oh it was a different time..." but that's not a defense if I'm supposed to use this book to see the kinds of morals that GOD is trying to tell me to live by because so far he's telling me that a woman's only value is determined by whether or not she's a virgin and if and who she's married. There isn't a single damn positive thing about that. God didn't condemn it.
Not now. Not then. Not ever.

Under new covenant (testiment) law. This is clearly wrong. Is it so hard for you to accept that you don't disagree with the bible's morality?

The only quote you showed me doesn't invalidate any of my OT points.

WELL OBVIOUSLY. Not even in modern society can you convict someone with a crime if there is no evidence. What other evidence is there if he were not caught in the act? Also, I like how you said "punished with anything significant." What a light way to say, "Punished with death."

No, the man who rapes an unwed virgin is not PUNISHED WITH DEATH - he's "punished" with a fine and a marriage.
The only instance in which a man who rapes a woman is punished with death is if they're in the country and they're found.
That is the ONLY instance in which can result in death for the rapist. In every other instance, he lives and SHE is punished - with death and/or with marriage to the rapist.
That is of course, not acknowledging the fact that she has no say in any of this and her opinion doesn't matter.

If she doesn't cry out, then she is complicate.
What this passage is saying that if it is consensual, then she is also responsible for adultry.

BULLSHIT!
It does not say anything about whether it is consentual or not. The criteria is explicitly dependant upon whether or not she cries out or not. Her consent is NEVER RELEVANT!

Even IF the passage was about consent, it's still punishing the woman for consenting to sex and it would just be an arguement for the bible's misogyny, which frankly doesn't make your arguement better.

What a silly assumption to make. You yourself have read scripture that condemns rape.

It's a "silly assumption" that is completely within the context of the bible's own statements in regard to the subject matter.
Adultery is a sin and at least some translations state that instead of "sexual indecency" and there are numerous passages in the bible that support that, including the points I brought up earlier.

As stated; the laws were also written with the victim's interest at heart. Stop reading scripture like it still applies, and that it was written for your culture.

So then you're acknowledging that the morality of the bible has aboslutely no place in modern society?
Well, that's ONE of the points I've been making anyway.

I think you pick and choose what to take from "my' book (it's yours too), and then take it out of context in an attempt to demonize the bible using your moral code. Your argument is filled with so many fallacies and assumptions that it isn't argueable.

I rejected your silly beliefs a long time ago.
The bible is garbage and I wouldn't miss it if every version of it disappeared from the earth forever.
It' fails at everything it intends to do. It is a terrible novel and not one of the characters depicted in it make a good role model for a person to follow. I didn't demonize your stupid book - I only pointed out what was in it and I didn't twist the words in it to validate my ridiculous beliefs.

14 years old was an average age to be betrothed in the culture that it was written... I assume you choose to skip the passages where Mary thanks god? Interesting.

Apparently you didn't catch it the first time.
God impregnated Joseph's 14 year old wife.
God - the ultimate moral authority of the universe who can see the future as easily as an average human can see in front of him and whose morals exist beyond time and culture, impregnated, without Mary's knowledge or consent, a woman who is 14 years of age (age being an issue in the modern age and SHOULD have been a blip on God's moral radar), who was Joseph's wife. This being an act that, if another man did it, would be considered rape and the man would be put to death by god's own rules.
So what I'm saying is this: This act is immoral both now AND then and it is just as all-round horrifble act whether or not Mary was cool with being impregnated against her will.

That line of defense is just horrible to consider and terribly misogynistic.

Let's turn this discussion to the new testament (I.E. The covanent that we are currently under) , shall we?

By all means, if there's soemthing in the New Testiment that over-writes the old, then by all means, point to where it is and I'll tell you why you're wrong and how it shows that the bible is internally inconcisstent and still proves that god is not omnicient enough to see two feet in front of him, let alone the future, just like I did with the rape passage.

1. I doonot believe Hell to be eternal.

What you personally believe is utterly irrelevant.

2. What a silly metaphor. The mob does not love us. The mob has only self interest. Hell is self-inflicted by going against god, and the price to get out of it isn't 15,000 dollars. It's have a relationship with a wonderful and righteous man named Jesus Christ.

God created hell and he judges us and whether or not humans go there is entirely dependant upon his judgements. My analogy is enitrely correct. Our "free will" and choice to follow god is entirely analogous the mob boss telling you that you have the choice of paying money or getting your family killed becuase the non-christian's choice is to either follow jesus or be tortured forever.
The fact that you don't believe hell to be eternal is irrelevant. It is written as such in the cannon christian mythology and I'm going to go by that in the discussion unless I am wrong about the cannon mythology.

It's a relationship with a cult leader who claims to have magical powers and everyone should love him who is also a zombie. I've heard crazier things from cult leaders as they explain themselves in front of a jury of their peers.... and sicentology and mormonism. Your faith in Jesus is no more or less sensible than those examples.

Unfortunately we are affected by the sins of our fathers. Even now you are confronted with a choice. Accept that you don't deserve to be in the presence of god, and ask Jesus for help. Or accept hell (eternal separation from god.) Eternal separation from good is the punishment. If you truly knew the bible, you would know that all descriptions of hell are metaphorical and vague.

Again - every human being is being punished for being born.
That is not justice - it is the judgement of a sadistic, evil being.

God teaches us that humans have much value. God numbered our hairs. He knew us while we were in the womb. The god of the universe knew you before you were born. You are very important in the eyes of god. "It is his will that all would come to know him."

Let me repeat myself:
Every human being is being punished for being born.
That is not justice - it is the judgement of a sadistic, evil being.

Those rules were for our protection. Without god's ultimate morality, if humans just, through a series of crazy random genetic mutations, were allowed to run things their own way, where do you think society would be?

God's ultimate morality allowed him to murder every single human being, plant, animal, and everything else in the world with a giant flood.
He impregnated a 14 year old wife of another human without her knowledge or consent.
His "ultimate morality" changed the moment he tortured his own son for rules he made to punish humans for being exactly the way he created them for doing everything he should be aware of at all times being an omnipotent and omnicient being.
Without god's "morality" we went from converting serfs to christianity at swordpoint to inventing nanotechnology, talking robots, space stations, GPS satilites, and voyager space probes.

Whatever you think Christianity's influence on "society" is is entirely fictional.