Raf

Animals showing some semblance of morality is unrelated to this discussion and has no bearing on it.

I will say it again: NOTHING makes my point more strongly than the intellectually dishonest depths you have to sink to in order to challenge it.

Believing anyone can do anything and everything God does is excusable because of DNA and evolution and you decided to come up with some excise or other makes your opinion on this thread fairly pointless. Your participation on this thread is logically indefensible and in bad faith. you do not seek dialogue. you are trolling. enough.

Like I said, dishonest bad faith questions, uninterested in real dialogue. Shameless

And they undermine any claim that "objective morality" is dependent on Yahweh's existence.

It was literally the subject of the very first reply and addressed immediately. Not in those words, but in those themes. "Different laws for different cultures..." Yeah. Times change. But that is the POINT: Why would objective morality change? That's like saying "the objective chemical formula for water changed." No, it doesn't. The chemical formula for whatever stays the same. But "morality" as a system of mutually accepted principles DOES change. I dare say it tends to improve, at least in the long run. The problem you're not seeing is, understanding how religion evolves contradicts the Biblical principle that Yahweh, by the Bible's definition, does not change. Therefore, what he declared to be moral in 2017 BCE should be the same as what he declares to be moral in 2017 CE. Note, I said what HE declares to be moral. I've seen theists (not fundamentalists, but Christians) argue that when God ordered the children of Israel to kill women and children of foreigners, the people most harmed were the Israelites who did the killing. That's how twisted people become justifying atrocity because it was ordered by a God. Let ANY OTHER GOD order a genocide and Christians would cite it as evidence of that God's cruelty. but Yahweh gets a pass. Relating the question of this thread to the real world requires an acceptance that Yahweh is real [which can be done as a hypothetical for the sake of exploring the issue without accepting it as a reality] and that the Bible is a source of information about his attributes. As such, you don't get the privilege of saying "that's a fundy approach" because to do so is to eliminate the Bible as a source of information about God's attributes. People somehow think it's perfectly fair to quote a verse saying "God is Love," perfectly okay to cite a verse where God says murder is wrong, usury is wrong, etc, but it's out of bounds for me to point out this same God never, anywhere, condemned the ownership of one human being by another, that this same God ordered executions for the pettiest of reasons, that this same God saw fit to punish rapists by making them compensate the victim (that girl's father: the girl's FATHER was considered the victim in a rape case) and having the rapist MARRY THE GIRL! That was his PUNISHMENT! It's out of bounds for me to point that out, because that makes me fundy. But it's okay to point out that God is love. The evolution of God is proof that the premise of this thread is correct: Yahweh was indeed a moral monster, and over time his reputation was overhauled by people who wanted to market him as something more palatable. But Yahweh never changes, according to the Bible, so we have a problem. Something's got to be incorrect. Either he evolved or he didn't. Nonetheless, the overarching point is simple: it is impossible to reconcile the depiction of Yahweh as the source of objective morality with the Bible's depiction of Yahweh, a most immoral character.

It appears we don't agree on one point because you are constantly shifting the premise to something untenable. The Bible tells us the qualities of God. I explore them. BAM! I'm a fundy who doesn't understand how religion evolves. Of COURSE I understand how religion evolves. It's my flipping point! If religion didn't evolve, and people's definition of their Gods with them, then there would be nothing to discuss because either the religion would have gotten morality right on the first try or I would not be arguing that you are more moral than an ancient war God because you would NOT be. But honestly, it just seems to me, based on how you trolled this theme from one thread to another, that you are not actually interested in a real dialogue or discussion, You're just interested in saying "Raf is wrong" on as many threads as you can. Which would be DELIGHTFUL if you had a real point, but you don't. That's why you have to shift all the definitions to post anything. That's why you have to ask, sorry, STUPID questions like whether I think we're more moral than the devil or whether there are any laws in the Old Testament I like. These are bad-faith questions that expose your approach as insincere, and I'm tired of addressing them.

One: your declaration does not make it so. Two: The false equivalency between "fundamentalism" and "atheism" should embarrass you. That it doesn't tells me the quality of this dialogue. Three: Why would I demonstrate an understanding of that which is not true? Four: Glad to see you can acknowledge a fundy perspective without adopting it. So you're saying it's okay for God to kill because he can raise. It's actually the best point you've made. I'll give you credit for that. The problem is, the killing was not done as some kind of favor, ushering him into a pleasant afterlife (whenever that would commence). It was done as a punishment. And as a punishment, it is still ridiculous to think death fits the crime of sabbath breaking. Five: The modern world is still prone to the problems of 5,000 years ago. Thanks. This literally has nothing to do with what we were discussing. Six: "originators of the mythology" is not a misunderstanding, and propaganda DOES survive. What made you think otherwise? "Definitely not thousands of years"? Where did you come up with that rule? By what standard do you conclude propaganda does not survive thousands of years? Of course it does! The existence of all religions save one is a testament to the fact that propaganda can and does survive years, centuries and millenia. (I say "save one" as an oversimplification: most religions are mutually exclusive, and while one may accommodate the other, the feeling usually is not mutual. As such, both cannot be right). Seven: What is an ultimate morality? You need to read more carefully. You're assuming I said there is such a thing.

The depths to which you'll sink to avoid simple answers to simple questions demonstrates that I am correct in asserting that you are more moral than Yahweh. Oh, but you want specifics. Fine: You are more moral than Yahweh as he is depicted in the Bible. "But that's fundamentalist!" No, that's what the Bible depicts. And really, it's revisionist for you to come along thousands of years later and say that the originators of this mythology didn't really think this way. We today are more moral than Yahweh for oodles of rational reasons. We know more. We have challenged the assumptions of the past (allowing slavery and demeaning women). Society has indeed evolved. God is not supposed to evolve, and if He existed as depicted in the Bible, he would not evolve. He is the Lord. He changes not. Can God grow in wisdom? Can his morality improve over time? True, the Law was never designed to be kept on every point. But it was designed to be the expression of His will. Paul called the law "holy just and good." But it's not. Sure, it's got some good points. Hooray, don't murder! (Literally every society came up with the same rule, some with Yahweh's guidance, most without). Showing that there was morality in the Old Testament does not negate the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that Yahweh as he is depicted in the Bible cannot possibly be the author and determiner of objective morality. To criticize my position as relying on a fundamentalist interpretation is to admit I am correct: Fundamentally, if you take the Bible at its word, Yahweh is a moral monster. The two things that absolve him are the unreliability of the fundamentalist position (the Bible doesn't really mean what it says when it says God ordered a man to be executed for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week) and the non-existence of its central character.

Let's make this a little simple. Do you believe there is anything morally wrong with executing a man for picking up sticks on the Sabbath? This is a simple yes or no question. Do you think there is anything morally wrong with killing a man for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week. Answer either yes or no. Anything else is dishonest. Next, does the bible present Yahweh as having executed a man for picking up sticks on the Sabbath? The answer, of course, is objectively yes. He did order that man's execution for that crime. Was that order immoral? My position is, if you're honest, you have to admit that it was immoral for Yahweh to execute a man for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week. It was immoral for Yahweh to order a rapist to marry the woman he raped as punishment for his crime. In my opinion, Yahweh is a fictional character who is not actually guilty of any of these things. But one cannot say that Yahweh is the author and determiner of objective morality without excusing moral atrocities that he authored and authorized. This is not a "fundamentalist view." Missing my argument on that basis admits that my argument is correct. Namely that Yahweh, as depicted in the Bible is less moral than you and I are today. And that would not be the case if he were the author and determiner of objective morality.

only by dishonestly distorting what I say and what the bible says can you present your position. I'm over it.

Telling an atheist to take it up with Jesus... Seriously people. Take it up with Javert.

Are you really done with the issue, TLC? Please?

Did Jesus Christ execute someone for picking up sticks on tge,wrong day of the week? No. Because to do so would have been immoral. Thus saith Raf, and if thus doth not say ye, then ye are immoral

I shouldn't have to. You are moving goalposts, misrepresenting my positions, deliberately obfuscating from the points being made, distorting the logical premises of the discussion.... Honestly, to expect me to come up with rational responses to arguments that do not accept reason as a rhetorical value is too much to ask of anyone. The best I can say is that you guys have proved my point by being so transparently dishonest in your efforts to refute it.

Your dishonest approach to this thread, and to this conversation across several threads, should embarrass you.

this is a stupid question. This is the kind of bad faith question that leads me to believe you guys are trolling the thread and not interested in a real dialogue.

I'm no longer answering non sequiturs

You are reading a non-relevant purpose into the law. It's supposed to be unachievable BECAUSE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE THAT MORAL. It's not supposed to be some random list of immoral edicts just for the sake of demonstrating disobedience. Honestly, the pretzel you have to twist yourself into to justify the morality of a God who straight up murdered someone for picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week is baffling. You can use your "Thus saith Raf" quip all you want, but the fact remains that you are defending a moral structure that's not defensible. And you should be embarrassed about it, honestly.

There is nothing false about the premise I laid out. If God is the source of objective morality, then his law should be objectively moral. Any argument to the contrary proves my point (namely, that he's NOT the source of objective morality, and therefore the imperfection of the law is no surprise). There was never a time in history when it was an objectively moral punishment for a rapist to "have to" marry his victim and pay her father 50 shekels. An omniscient God would know that. So either he's not omniscient, he's not moral, or both. It makes sense that a society's laws and understanding of morality would evolve with time. It makes no sense that a God's understanding of morality would evolve unless he were imperfect and immoral (or at least imperfectly moral) to begin with.

A) Gilligan's Planet ?

The Bible doesn't. People say it of Yahweh. It is that premise that I am challenging. If you do not accept that premise, then I am not arguing with you. http://www.reasonablefaith.org/can-we-be-good-without-god

Are you truly THAT unable to evaluate an analogy? I expected better. Stop derailing all these threads with babble.

Thou shalt not commit murder. This is a stupid question, and I'm tired of you derailing with thread with irrelevant diversions like "Mesopotamia used to do such and such." Mesopotamia does not claim to be the source of objective morality. At some point, the dishonest way you guys have approached the subject matter of this thread has to prick your conscience just a little.

Are you guys done derailing all my threads? Because I'm over it.