Raf

If anyone would actually like to talk about Yahweh and whether the actions and positions attributed to him can rightly be considered moral, I'm game. But Yahweh, not whatever God you can conjure up with malleable attributes that no longer resemble the Yahweh of the Bible but fit your need for a God that "wins" the "argument."

"And my comment at the end of the post was more of a general observation than it was personal... but perhaps the closer to the truth something is the more it tends to sting." Except, of course, it did not sting. The only thing it did was Reveal Your desperation, which made me pity you a little.

You excused temporal atrocity over and over and over again and then chastise me for pointing it out. Please.

The omission of links was intentional because you don't have any. You know the claims you do have won't stand up to scrutiny. So you hide them and pretend that I'm not willing to look for them. Nice try. Dishonest. Sad.

Positive outcomes of realizing you're more moral than Yahweh: recognizing that "it is written" doesn't justify cruelty, sexism, racism or slavery. Other than that I can't think of anything.Seriously, how is it that some of you think I'm the arrogant one in this conversation when others just literally make s--- up as a pronouncement without the slightest bit of critical thought to challenge or support it. No positive outcomes? I could list 30 while snoring.

TLC, if you're going to cite evidence (I didn't call it proof) then cite it. Don't claim it exists and leave others to find it. The ad hominem at the end of your post reveals your desperation. But for the record, I don't need no stinking badges. The pericope of Jesus and the woman taken in adultery only reveals that even Jesus knew the Old Testament law was immoral. Stoning people for adultery. I mean really. No one ever said mercy was a sin. What you're ignoring is that Jesus could have cast the first stone and still not sinned. And you would have to call that moral, even though you know full well it is barbaric. I'm sure when ISIS tosses gay people of rooftops, they justify it with the eternal perspective. Here's the deal: you have repeatedly cited the "end game," big picture, eternal perspective to excuse temporal atrocity, making my point over and over again in the process. That doesn't make me smarter than you. It just means that you've surrendered your capacity to make a moral judgment. You know full well there's something inhumane and immoral about the actions and laws I've cited. But you've convinced yourself that Yahweh is more moral, wise, etc than you. He must be right. I must be wrong. Evidence be damned. Now, temporal or eternal: there is no moral basis for forcing a rape victim to marry her rapist as HIS punishment. There is no moral basis for pelting a man with giant rocks until his skull cracks and he literally can't take it anymore as punishment for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week. That you would excuse such atrocities on the grounds of some eternal perspective (NEITHER of those victims is promised eternal life for enduring such abuses, by the way) speaks to an abdication of your moral responsibility.

You're starting to catch on.

Who is Yahweh? Raf: I define Yahweh according to the Bible. Waysider: I define Yahweh according to the Bible. Longhunter: I define Yahweh according to the Bible. TLC: I define Yahweh according to the Bible. Mark: I define Yahweh according to the Bible. BSvic: Yahweh is one of the god concepts that helps determine sexual evolution. This is the root of our inability to make progress on this thread. TLC, I apologize for lumping your posts in with his earlier. You're making coherent arguments. I don't agree with them, and I've explained why, but they're not incoherent.

Ya think? Then, of course, some people would have nothing to contribute to this thread.

Longhunter, The word you changed from "oral" to "immoral" SHOULD have been changed from "oral" to "MORAL." You're welcome.

I do get to see quoted material, and I think it would be nice if certain people didn't presume to characterize my position when they've repeatedly shown such a failure at basic reading comprehension skills that it's healthier to ignore them than swim through their sewage for a salient point. "The character of God in the Bible" is my definition for Yahweh, as I've said repeatedly. Dismiss that as "the fundy viewpoint" if you wish, but it's Yahweh as opposed to the conveniently shifting, goalpost-moving evolving God that some people keep trying to make this thread about.

LMD is the second of last season's three story arcs on Agents of Shield. The first was the Ghost Rider arc. Second is AIDA becoming self-aware, creating an Agent May decoy, and reminding the team why Ultron was such a spectacularly bad idea. I don't know what was third.

You ain't seen nothing yet. Keep reading.

And by the way, "eternal realities" is a presumption that allows you to excuse these atrocities. Take away the presumption, and you'll see them for what they are.

So slavery, subjugation and execution for a petty offense are okay because eternity. You can talk yourself into excusing all manner of atrocity.

The thread title was intended to be provocative, not necessarily literal (although in any case where we're not dealing with a sociopath, the answer to the thread question is an obvious yes). I suppose I could have titled the thread, can we have objective morality without God? When you put it that way, the question becomes a little bit more difficult. It becomes more difficult because it assumes that we have objective morality now. Morality is a system of value judgments, and value judgments are by definition subjective. Value judgments do indeed change over time, primarily because of what we decide to base those value judgments on. If "all men are created equal" is one of the premises of your value system, then your morality will reflect that. If life begins at conception is part of your value system, then your morality will reflect that. Societies don't always reach consensus on what is considered moral and what is not. But you, as an individual, are always capable of weighing other people's value systems against your own and determining which is more moral, and perhaps adjusting your views when you discover that you might be wrong about something. Because the judeo-christian faith posits Yahweh as the source of objective morality, that view leaves no room for Yahweh to evolve, to grow, to become more moral over time. His people might, but he cannot.

It seems the concern with the premise of this thread topic is that it is so clear that it makes it impossible for people to evade it by changing definitions and altering the premises. Not for lack of trying, of course.

Recognizing that slavery is wrong and that executing people for petty offenses is morally unjustifiable is not grounded in reality. I'll say it AGAIN: failure to recognize that you are more moral than Yahweh will open the door for you to accept any atrocity so long as it's committed or sanctioned by the right god.

Life Model Decoy

Waysider, I find the "ignore" function quite useful for weeding out trolling responses.

Looking back: the law is only *part* of what I've mentioned, not all of it. Allowing Satan to torture Job and kill his family to win a bet he already knew he would win is not part of the law. Turning a woman into a pillar of salt because she looked back while her home and everything and everyone she knew and loved is being burnt to a crisp by fire He could have stopped at any time is not part of the law. That the law was only given to a limited number of people is not relevant to this discussion: The people to whom it was not given were not exactly given a pass. They were vilified, in part because they did not accept the authority of that law (verse reference to come). That the law was given for a limited length of time is a later New Testament ret-con, but even agreeing with that premise, you still can't justify slavery, executions for petty offenses (can we agree that Sabbath-breaking qualified as a petty offense?), subjugation of women (treating the father of a rape woman as the victim and marriage to the woman as punishment for the rapist CERTAINLY qualifies here, no?), etc. without appealing to ignorance about "The End Game," which is an abdication of your moral discernment and can literally be used to excuse ANY atrocity as long as the right God endorses it. Because to be sure, if this thread were called "Are you more moral than Allah," I guarun-dam-tee not a one of you would be torturing the logical process to justify his brutality.

1. Defense of others is always considered a justifiable use of force. The army was going to return the Israelites to slavery. Stopping the army was necessary force. Arguing about how much force was necessary might be worthwhile, but I would not make it a lynchpin of an argument about morality. Still, he could have just put up a wall or made their horses tell them to stop. But okay. 2. You realize this never happened, right? I mean, I'm all for discussing how things are portrayed in the Bible, but it helps now and then to take a step back and say this is not a historical occurrence. 3. You are making my point that if you are unwilling to recognize that you are more moral than Yahweh, then you open yourself up to excusing all manner of atrocity in the name of religion. If any time you have an objection to an immoral act, I can turn around and tell you "if you knew the big picture you would understand that it's really been moral all along," then I can get you to excuse literally anything I do, ever! Basically what you're attempting here is a form of "appeal to ignorance." The fact that we do not know everything is used to excuse atrocity because we don't know the end game, the big picture. If I were to ask, "What would Yahweh have to do for you to recognize that you are more moral than he," you would literally have no answer! He could order the execution of infants, and you'd say, "but big picture." He could kill a couple for being dishonest about how much they were tithing, and you would say, "but big picture." Maybe. But I know enough not to kill a kid for checking out another religion. And so do you. "But big picture..." You have talked yourself into accepting anything as morally acceptable. That's not faith. That's abandoning discernment.

I'm through with the Ghost Rider segment of Agents of Shield. Now on LMD. I wasn't nuts about Arrow. What happened to Vigilante?