Argument from Conscience

[robvalue]

Thanks Redbeard

Kingpin: again I appreciate you're effort to explain but I can't make much sense of it. If all you're taking away from God is "love your neighbour as yourself" that is, as you said, anything but objective. That's a very useful but also vague starting point, as it depends on each person how they would carry this out. So it's not universal or objective in the least. Nor does it requires a god; all it requires is empathy. Whether God told us that rule or we just found it to be a good way of describing how morality works, we get the same result.

[Lucanus]

This is one of the greatest discussions I've ever seen on this board, keep it up!

[robvalue]

It is certainly the best one I can remember! It's great to not be thrown into Hell halfway through the debate for not agreeing with someone, which is what usually happens.

As for the bible, if all we need is "love thy neighbour", what's the point of the rest of it? You'd actually have to make a series of excuses why you don't follow the rest of it. It's full of immoral instruction right through.

[Kingpin]

It is certainly the best one I can remember! It's great to not be thrown into Hell halfway through the debate for not agreeing with someone, which is what usually happens.

As for the bible, if all we need is "love thy neighbour", what's the point of the rest of it? You'd actually have to make a series of excuses why you don't follow the rest of it. It's full of immoral instruction right through.

No there is really only one excuse and that was Jesus fulfilled the law and paid the consequence of sin for all.  That is why Drich and GC will say things like "they don't apply".  While technically true, I think that statement needs clarification.  If we go back to genesis, there was one simple commandment.  "Do not eat of the tree of knowledge of god and evil."  That was broken and Moses had to come up with 613 laws.  I go back to my analogy of the smoke detector.  The sign says "Don't mess with it".  We then do what we want and say, "well it didn't say don't touch, or destroy, or disengage, etc." 

There is an objective standard, "Don't mess with it" and we selectively interpret and redefine.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Don't mess with it" is -objective-...and doesn't -require- interpretation? In any case, it's hard to fault people for busting a request such as god made. It's clearly what we do, even from the beginning, -before- "the fall". We were already habitual messers-with of things......obviously created that way, if the narrative can be trusted. It's like scolding a dog for chewing on a bone, lol. If you're worried about fido...then you don;t leave chicken bones in the trash. I guess that level of personal responsibility, accomplished daily by apes with kids and dogs...is too much for a god?

[Kingpin]

It is certainly the best one I can remember! It's great to not be thrown into Hell halfway through the debate for not agreeing with someone, which is what usually happens.

As for the bible, if all we need is "love thy neighbour", what's the point of the rest of it? You'd actually have to make a series of excuses why you don't follow the rest of it. It's full of immoral instruction right through.

Oh and Rob you should know by now that I would never throw you into Hell

[Whateverist]

That's what they all say.

[robvalue]

It is certainly the best one I can remember! It's great to not be thrown into Hell halfway through the debate for not agreeing with someone, which is what usually happens.

As for the bible, if all we need is "love thy neighbour", what's the point of the rest of it? You'd actually have to make a series of excuses why you don't follow the rest of it. It's full of immoral instruction right through.

No there is really only one excuse and that was Jesus fulfilled the law and paid the consequence of sin for all.  That is why Drich and GC will say things like "they don't apply".  While technically true, I think that statement needs clarification.  If we go back to genesis, there was one simple commandment.  "Do not eat of the tree of knowledge of god and evil."  That was broken and Moses had to come up with 613 laws.  I go back to my analogy of the smoke detector.  The sign says "Don't mess with it".  We then do what we want and say, "well it didn't say don't touch, or destroy, or disengage, etc." 

There is an objective standard, "Don't mess with it" and we selectively interpret and redefine.

You're right, that is one big excuse for not following the bible. Either the bible is realiable or it isn't; if it is reliable, we have God on the record condoning such horrors as murder, rape and slavery. I don't know how Jesus exactly makes up for this, considering it's just God pretending to be a human. I've never understood what the big deal is there. At best you're saying God used to be an immoral monster but then improved a bit. Or even that God was immoral because of us or something?

If the bible isn't reliable, then just forget it. It seems that the only important message is just one sentence and the rest is stuff that needs excusing. And even that message is not unique to Christianity, like many of its facets it's stolen from older religions.

If the bible just happens to be reliable when it says stuff you like and is unreliable the rest of the time, you may as well write your own bible!

So, do you really believe Adam and Eve literally happened? And even if it did, how can you respect a being that curses people for what happened before they were even born? That is some fucked up shit.

I'm telling you as a concerned friend, your excuses for God sound just like battered spouse syndrome.

[Kingpin]

No there is really only one excuse and that was Jesus fulfilled the law and paid the consequence of sin for all.  That is why Drich and GC will say things like "they don't apply".  While technically true, I think that statement needs clarification.  If we go back to genesis, there was one simple commandment.  "Do not eat of the tree of knowledge of god and evil."  That was broken and Moses had to come up with 613 laws.  I go back to my analogy of the smoke detector.  The sign says "Don't mess with it".  We then do what we want and say, "well it didn't say don't touch, or destroy, or disengage, etc." 

There is an objective standard, "Don't mess with it" and we selectively interpret and redefine.

You're right, that is one big excuse for not following the bible. Either the bible is realiable or it isn't; if it is reliable, we have God on the record condoning such horrors as murder, rape and slavery. I don't know how Jesus exactly makes up for this, considering it's just God pretending to be a human. I've never understood what the big deal is there. At best you're saying God used to be an immoral monster but then improved a bit. Or even that God was immoral because of us or something?

If the bible isn't reliable, then just forget it. It seems that the only important message is just one sentence and the rest is stuff that needs excusing. And even that message is not unique to Christianity, like many of its facets it's stolen from older religions.

If the bible just happens to be reliable when it says stuff you like and is unreliable the rest of the time, you may as well write your own bible!

So, do you really believe Adam and Eve literally happened? And even if it did, how can you respect a being that curses people for what happened before they were even born? That is some fucked up shit.

I'm telling you as a concerned friend, your excuses for God sound just like battered spouse syndrome.

Rob, atheists are not alone in asking these questions.  This is a very common issue amongst believers.  There have been incredible articles written about it.  One thing I keep in mind is that I am not God and placing any moral judgments on God makes no sense to me.

I could create a long winded response, but instead I will point you to some amazing articles written about this subject

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013...ml?start=1
http://www.bethinking.org/bible/old-test...s-killings
http://epsociety.org/printer_template.asp?pid=45

I'm a little curious why you say you are concerned however.  If there is no God, each person finds their own meaning in this life and I find that in my delusion of a sky daddy which fulfills my life to immense happiness.  You believe there is nothing but this short life and we simply decay, to say you are concerned makes no sense.  Concerned about what?

[Redbeard The Pink]

You're right, that is one big excuse for not following the bible. Either the bible is realiable or it isn't; if it is reliable, we have God on the record condoning such horrors as murder, rape and slavery. I don't know how Jesus exactly makes up for this, considering it's just God pretending to be a human. I've never understood what the big deal is there. At best you're saying God used to be an immoral monster but then improved a bit. Or even that God was immoral because of us or something?

If the bible isn't reliable, then just forget it. It seems that the only important message is just one sentence and the rest is stuff that needs excusing. And even that message is not unique to Christianity, like many of its facets it's stolen from older religions.

If the bible just happens to be reliable when it says stuff you like and is unreliable the rest of the time, you may as well write your own bible!

So, do you really believe Adam and Eve literally happened? And even if it did, how can you respect a being that curses people for what happened before they were even born? That is some fucked up shit.

I'm telling you as a concerned friend, your excuses for God sound just like battered spouse syndrome.

Rob, atheists are not alone in asking these questions.  This is a very common issue amongst believers.  There have been incredible articles written about it.  One thing I keep in mind is that I am not God and placing any moral judgments on God makes no sense to me.

I could create a long winded response, but instead I will point you to some amazing articles written about this subject

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013...ml?start=1
http://www.bethinking.org/bible/old-test...s-killings
http://epsociety.org/printer_template.asp?pid=45

I'm a little curious why you say you are concerned however.  If there is no God, each person finds their own meaning in this life and I find that in my delusion of a sky daddy which fulfills my life to immense happiness.  You believe there is nothing but this short life and we simply decay, to say you are concerned makes no sense.  Concerned about what?

Ok, what you're saying there is that you don't want to put any moral constraints on god, and theoretically that's because he's the objective source of morality, right? So if his morality includes condoning genocide, rape, and slavery, and he's the objective source of morality, why have we as humans gotten together and decided on our own that these things are immoral? Technically, according to scripture, every slave that so much as wants to be freed (let alone tries for escape or abolition) is breaking god's commandments in both testaments.


If god gets to decide what all the rules are and when they actually apply, then his morality is arbitrary, not objective and absolute. If he punishes humanity with such violence because it's required whether he wants it or not, then he is not the objective source of the morality, only the enforcer of it, and we should be appealing to whoever actually made the rules and put us under the arm of this monstrous thing that supposedly created our universe.