Christians Impaled on the Horns of a Moral Dilemna
Take for instance chapter eight in The Christian Delusion
written by Hector Avalos. He argues that Yahweh is a moral monster, contrary to Paul Copan.
Here then is the dilemma: The Christian thinks there is an objective absolute morality that stems from their perfectly good God, which is both eternal and unchangeable. But the morality we find in the Bible is something quite different than what they claim. Morality has evolved. What we find in the Bible is not something we would expect from a perfectly good God. So Christians must choose, either 1) hold to a philosopher's god divorced from the historical realities of the Bible, or 2) continue to worship a moral monster.
written by Hector Avalos. He argues that Yahweh is a moral monster, contrary to Paul Copan. Here then is the dilemma: The Christian thinks there is an objective absolute morality that stems from their perfectly good God, which is both eternal and unchangeable. But the morality we find in the Bible is something quite different than what they claim. Morality has evolved. What we find in the Bible is not something we would expect from a perfectly good God. So Christians must choose, either 1) hold to a philosopher's god divorced from the historical realities of the Bible, or 2) continue to worship a moral monster.
30 comments:
you're going to see what we do to little liars like you, loftus...
DM, do calm down, dear. Goodness me, you'll give yourself a stroke. Have an aspirin and a lie-down.
Dennis is the reason I had to enable comment moderation on my blog. Seriously dude, SEEK HELP.
John, I once read a very long rationalization of the slaughter of the Canaanites by William Lane Craig, in which he more or less said that the ends justify the means because God is always good. It's the "God decides what is good" school of thought.
But the problem I see with it is that Craig, at least, argues that we "objectively" know right and wrong at an intuitive level. The fallacy of objective intuition is tangential, but if God can condone and command things that are counter to our moral intuitions in a fundamental way and they are still "good" because "God is always good", then our moral intuitions are unreliable – which pretty well undermines the whole Christian morality argument.
I honestly think DM is mentally disturbed. I've reported these two threats of his to Blogger.
I think Mike D says it pretty well.
Basically every christian I've argued with has said the same thing.
-They say yes, its a sin to murder, but the annihilation of the Canaanites was not murder because if God commands it, its justified.
-Yes, lying is a sin, but if God sends strong delusion or a lying spririt, its ok becuase its justified by Gods perfect will.
-Yes, its a sin to wrongly accuse someone of another persons evil, but if God decides to punish the wife, children, even children to the fourth generation for anothers sin, then its justified because Gods ways are not our ways.
All christians really do is uphold as good of morals as their bible allows them, but when their own God is found breaking these morals in their holy book, they make up excuses why its ok.
Im glad John decided to post these reality check issues, enjoying these topics.
Its true that know days most theologians due worship a philosopher's God.
There is so many descrepencies with the character of God in the bible, that in order to continue worshipping such a God, they had to reinvent Him and make Him over and above human logic and understanding, this way God becomes untouchable!
But, in effect, christians also make their God to be unknowable.......how can one claim to know the incomprehensible character of God?
How does one identify with the nature of such a being?
How do they claim a relationship with an unrelatable being?
By trying to raise God above reproach, they have made Him impossible to recognize!
Loftus,
you fucked with the WRONG PEOPLE...
1/
"Take for instance chapter eight in The Christian Delusion[Image] written by Hector Avalos. He argues that Yahweh is a moral monster, contrary to Paul Copan."
Seems very likely.Specially when we notice many followers of these superstitions such as blogger DM,seem to be totally devoid of even enough decency/morals to not be such a simple childish pain in the butt.We ((plainly see)) DMs superstitions allow him even as an adult,to practice pitiful childish pranks like some hairy arsed school kid smashing bottles achieving nothing else other than proving himself to be a real wanker.While also making matters worse for any arguements for continued need of promotion of superstitions.
We Atheists can start see there seems to be some connections between the childish attitudes display by DMs and Winston Smiths and wally wombats operating blogs designed entirely for personal attack bully type tactics aimed at picking on one person being singled out ...One general connection seems to be, these folks all tend to be hanging out far to much with folks following silly superstitions.
Check out the childish actions of these "faithful" ,and compare it to idiotic actions of some Taliban .Once again! all people who seem to not care how their actions effect anyone else.Care not if there childish actions, even spoil matters for their own people also.What of Christians do they seem to stop to considder if promotion of their belief in salvation,might actually be having a detrimental effect of some folks earthly lives?.No they tend to act like blogger DM ,who cares about anyone else "my" salvation comes first.
No these sad people are reckless,floating around in a sea of madness and utter ignorance,completely out of control as if possessed by the very demons their lost minds have belief in.
Yes, what a terrible dilemma.
"The Christian thinks there is an objective absolute morality that stems from their perfectly good God, which is both eternal and unchangeable"
How then do these Christians explain the rather random actions of some superstious followers?..Does this one "devine being" suggest a whole differnt set of "objective absolute morality" to all these whacky superstious followers we can plainly observe being so wreckless and tossed about in such uncontrollable manner?.
What type of "objective absolute morality" is this??.
To me, it seems very much like a type of "relative type morality" pattern we are observing here even within the actions of these people.
"Morality has evolved. What we find in the Bible is not something we would expect from a perfectly good God."
Sure looks like thats how it all most likely happened.We have faith books allowing us to plainly observe moral thought patterns changing through time.Ranging back through time from such thoughts as smashing babies heads against rocks,to stoning folks to death,onward to deciding on not partaking of stoning.
And i ask myself, how does this relate to some devine being also said to be the same yesterday today and tomorrow?.
It just doesnt seem to fit thought of a supreme being.Why would thought of a supreme being need to change?,when this being should supposedly always know whats best right from the very get go.If stoning folks was a good moral thing back in time,stoning should be still a good and moral thought now.
No it fits far much better with the changable thought of man we do often observe.Its mans mind whos morals evolve as he contemplates matters further.
2/
Awhile back i read this little gem on a faith site called theologyweb,where i observed the phenomenom of how moroal thinking can be debated and evolve even among faith circles.
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?p=2977334
Here faithful put forward a case that even Doves sometimes are seen to peck each other.So its being debated by faithful of the thought of "morality" of = some "righteousness" in use of bully type tactics even amongst their own people.
Quote theologyweb:.."God's righteousness demands that doves be ready both in and out of season to give a good pecking to the dove next to them, whether that dove be a brother in Christ or not, and continue pecking it till it bleeds or leaves. That is the righteous way of the dove as JP has taken pains to show defend, based on the perspicacity of Scripture that you both adore. Indeed, only Christians have the divinely inspired truth concerning the necessity of acting in JUST such a manner, perhaps because no other groups have the divine feeling of security that Christians possess and that allows them to act as only a group of homicidal, vengeful, vicious doves for Christ may act."
Doesnt seem much like im observing much sign of this "objective absolute morality" faithful have long argued actually exists.
Seems to me its good sign im OBSERVING here,that moral thought is likely only very relative to what period of time the human thought and culture happens to exist in.It is observed to change with education and modern thought etc.
I suggest whats contained within the ancient holy bible is merely a very "early version" of something kinda equalivalant to the theologyweb.com campus.The Holy bible is but storys(=internet theads)and conclusions of ancient human thought including moral thought of the time.
Yes its very obvious morality has evolved from human thought alone.
Its also very obvious many human thoughts recorded within the Holy Bible belonged to some ancient barbarians and that much moral thought at the time was even obviously wrong.
(As an agnostic/atheist i dont argue against there being need for some use of anger some times.My argument is wondering how faithful suggest "there is an objective absolute morality" yet are still plainly observed using methods seeming to be "relative morality" .It interests me when i observe them trying to still mesh the Jesus turning the other cheek sacrificial type theory, with the honest reality of life)
3)understand that God owns the universe and was specifically working to improve the aggregate obedience of Israel (a type of purification) and judge those who stood against Israel (or would stand against Israel at some point in the future).
RE: moral intuitiveness vs. God is always good
Yes,
Craig gets this part right. The end does justify the means...but the complication is that God gives us a moral conscience as well as sets the standard for good in His Own universe. Our moral conscience, however, is indeed unreliable. None of this undermines the Christian morality argument because of human depravity.
The only thing that is dangerous here (intellectually) is over-simplification and failing to see the whole picture.
The perspective of the author/prophet who is explaining the historical events...and the way in which God is portrayed (anthropocentric)is easily explained.
There is no evolution of morality. Jesus is completely consistent with the God of Abraham...but sin requires permanent consequences.
3)embrace the bible as being consistent with a Holy and Righteous God Who plays for keeps - and understand that the concept of "deserve" is relative to what the Owner of the universe infinitely decrees.
Question this(logically)...I welcome all alleged logical objections..because it is very important to deal with the reality of "no such thing as fairness and equal opportunity" as well as the imperfection of applications with the English word "deserve."
You can't talk about God's Holiness and Justice and how He will repay disobedience without talking about His Love.
Ohhh dear...Christians impaled on the Horns of a moral dilemma that stems from thoughts of some "objective absolute morality"
What to do what to do ..Deary deary me.... what`ll i do
Does God hate as men do. http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=138186
Matters of godly Hate ...Poor lil Chappie .... "Still trying to determine contextually where one ends and the other begins"
Ohhhh deary me deary me how will i ever sleep at night....i`ll be a sweatin all night long in me lil cotton bed socks..ever fearful of being sure to be ready for sounds of celestial trumpets
Impaled on the Horns of a moral dilemma that stems from thoughts of some "objective absolute morality"
The end does justify the means...
Really? Care to spell that out a little clearer?
For instance, if our end-goal was a world without religious fighting and the promotion of harmony, would we be justified in killing all of those who disagreed with our religious views? After all, if our genocide succeeds, perhaps we will end religious fighting. But does even such a noble end justify the means?
Ohhh deary deary me.... Dear God should?? i wear a head covering or not
Ohhh dear God please bless me sweaty lil cotton socks,while im impaled on the Horns of this moral dilemma, born from silly ignorance and such stupidity surrounding matters of "objective absolute morality".
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=138897
Out of curiosity, what are these universal morals that we're all supposed to agree upon? I can't think of anything that all people agree on, and even if we look at just 80% of the population (excluding psychopaths, sociopaths and weirdos), what morals have been agreed upon by all human cultures in recorded history?
John has it right. I like Dawkins's description of a moral zeitgeist, pulling us forward but perhaps at different rates and perhaps with some setbacks. It has the virtue of agreeing with observation, something often lacking in religious discourse.
Shane made a great point: Its true that know days most theologians due worship a philosopher's God. This describes Breckmin’s “God” to a T.
Breckmin states: Question this(logically)...I welcome all alleged logical objections..because it is very important to deal with the reality of "no such thing as fairness and equal opportunity" as well as the imperfection of applications with the English word "deserve."
You can't talk about God's Holiness and Justice and how He will repay disobedience without talking about His Love.
Pardon me Breckmin, just why do you complian about the imperfections of the English language when the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek?
Please quote a Hebrew word that is equals English word Logical! Please tell me how Yahweh / El can be “logical” when there is no Hebrew word to describe him as such?
Fact is, your whole philosophical construct of the god you worship is anachronistically force on to Yahweh.
Your same philosophical idealized god applications (Theos is NOT a proper name!) could work the same positive apologetic theological wonders on the Canaanite gods Baal and El in the Ugaritic texts (After all, they NEVER mass murdered humanity as you sanitized “God” did and will do in the Book of Revelation!).
Thus, your modern apologetically defendable god can only be up held when you can either ignore or outright deny the Hebrew text, a process you appear to be great at!
Ohhh dear dear...finding ourselves forever Impaled on the Horns of our faithful Moral Dilemmas.
Responsible for what you know- is this accurate?
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/showthread.php?t=137884
Well Glod bless me lil cotton socks,but its now 2010 and holy gwakamoley !...Just so happens many of us are still not even quite sure?? yet.
Such fear and terror and sleepless nights,born out of the idiotic thoughts of ancient barbarians dwelling on "objective absolute moralitys" stemming from silly uneducated thoughts of many supposed punishments of killer lightning bolts and killer earthqukes and such.
We have 7 pages already on this theologyweb.com thread, and our good Christian friend "Warmest Ron" is now "rowing" but please do tell God!,does this here man even know where the hell his "rowing" is actually "going" ??? .
Oh dear ...all the dilemma`s
Morality is not objective. Whether or not it is absolute, whether or not in can change, it certainly is not objective.
Morality only applies to creatures with a certain set of values, passions and social connections/relations.
Is rape for example an absolute immoral action? Actually it isn't. Animals rape each other all the time. There is no moral horror here. We aren't going to through them into Jail. You know why? They do not have the full personhood that we have.
And can we violate and trample that personhood. Yes.
This whole issue over absolutism seems a bit short cited to me. Either they are absolute or they are absolutely malleable and wishy washy according to peoples whims. Seems to me this is a false delimma. It makes more sense to note that some morals are absolute, and even if something isn't historically absolute, it doesn't mean it's optional for people today.
Rob R said..."It makes more sense to note that some morals are absolute, and even if something isn't historically absolute, it doesn't mean it's optional for people today.
I agree with Rob R it makes good sense to think that some morals be thought pretty much absolute,i say pretty much absolute only for reasons history already has taught us, we do learn many more things as we go along the way.As we become more educated and informed etc.
For this reasom maybe in effect we also agree our morals are often relative to our knowledge and experience and culture etc.
Rob R said .."even if something isn't historically absolute, it doesn't mean it's optional for people today"
I would agree with that again ..But then im still left to question the "devine nature" of what wass recorded in the bible and is the beliefs of the faith.
If beliefs/thoughts of these faiths later become seen as morally wrong and have such needs to change.Then this to me doesnt seem to connect or even fit very well, with what could honestly be considdered as being what was once suggested and supposed to be "divinely inspired" word of God-/s, who were also suggested to be the same yesterday today and tomorrow.
By these very changes it has become obvious and plain to see, to be far from something thats "divinely inspired" being that it proved itself "not" to be the same "yesterday today and tomorrow" at all.Its proved to be only "relative" to human thought of the ancient time it was thought of.
So atleast in that sense a very real and important dilemma seems to still remain, specially when trying to reconcile these ancient faiths with honestly being evidence for God.
Faithful folks could then try to suggest man changes his mind on many other things as he/she learns more.And with that i would agree.
But a very big difference still remains,with most things humans do change their minds on, they have never made any claim to being prophets supposedly gaining some divinely inspired knowledge, while being led by word of any God.
So a dilemma still remains.
Isn't there another set of horns :
Option 1 :
I don't take the Bible literally, those nasty bits are obviously not accurately reflecting my God.
Results in : anything goes, even concept of God, resurrection, hell etc etc can be "nasty bits".
Option 2 :
Those bits do accurately reflect the will and the word of God. I will not have done or ordered any of those things, but clearly they must be right.
Results in : massive, ongoing, repeated cognitive dissonance and an ongoing pretzelisation necessary to try and balance reality with the word of God.
Option 1 results then in a Christianity such as the one we see Karen Armstrong returning to, and option 2 ends in people cracking up like in the recent polls on how evangelical preachers are falling apart.
All of that as opposed to simply accepting one elegant little fact : there is no God and the Bible is a motley collection of outdated fairy tales.
(Yes, I know, DM, no need to tell me - I'm on the list)
@ Breckmin:
One of the central themes of the Christian morality argument is that without God, we have no basis to say whether something is wrong or not – i.e., we can't say that the Holocaust was really wrong since without God, everyone just acts according to their own moral preferences.
If our intuitions are, by your own acknowledgment, unreliable, and God has condoned and commanded many atrocities any of us would consider morally abhorrent, by what measure can we claim to objectively understand God's morality? Clearly our subjective experiences and biases are unreliable. So pragmatically speaking, we end up right where we would be if a divine moral authority didn't exist at all.
You Christians can't have it both ways. You can't claim that God is the source of absolute morality, then claim that he can circumstantially justify morally abhorrent acts.
Morals are a construct of and reflect the society they are found in.
When humans began organizing our societies' leadership mechanisms by appealing to the will of the people as opposed to arbitrarily following the most accomplished warrior (who incidentally always claimed to have been given his authority from God- and who could argue with him?), we also shed the need for the morals to be objectively 'given' by divine command.
Christians will say that human societies (western ones, at least) owe a debt to the bible for having spelled out a codex of law in the scriptures, and I agree that secular bodies of laws reflect pretty closely most of the big ones: do not kill, do not steal, do not lie, etc. But I say that for a society to survive, it MUST have embraced those rules of its own accord even without the bible.
No society can survive the moral anarchy the Christians claim would be the result if there were no "objective morality". Furthermore, no god is necessary to have provided us with rules, as any society founded upon moral anarchy is doomed to failure.
This observation fits with what we observe in the world, is consistent with atheist thought, and relieves the dilemma of why Yahweh is reported to have done immoral things: it's just a story after all.
AND my explanation has the advantage of being more parsimonious.
Here's another tangential observation:
Is it not possible, that given the amoral deeds reported in the O.T., that these stories were included specifically so that the divinely supported king would have justification to act in an amoral manner when it suited his desire, because he had the ready example of God doing just the same sort of thing (and who would question God?)?
Most current thinking from Biblical scholars today concedes that the bulk of the Old Testament was actually first written down beginning in the time of King David's reign through the end of the Babylonian exile and beyond.
A couple of things can be inferred here:
That everything that came before the time of King David is utterly legendary, and unreliable as history.
That the stories were written for specific purposes, namely to claim divine right of rule for David (and establish his lineage), and to justify the conquest of Caanan, such that the Hebrews would have 'divine title' to the region.
That it's not evidence of anything in the Bible that we have found archaeological evidence of King David, i.e., we SHOULD find evidence of King David, but that doesn't add a whit of truth to the stories that fall chronologically BEFORE David.
Is it so hard to believe that the Bible was written by men to satisfy the purposes of men?
Great point GrearHedEd!
Fact is, 99% of everything important in the Bible is male: From God, to angles, to Jesus, to Satan, to demons and so on. Even the Holy Spirit (which is in Greek, suppose to be neuter) is male (wait, I’m not sure if Jesus had a set of functioning nuts either!).
According to Paul, only men are created in the image of God while women are created out of Adam’s rib.
Thus, according to the largest evangelical denomination in the world (The Southern Baptist Convention), all women were fired who taught religion in any of the SBC owned colleges, universities and seminaries because the Bible (Paul) says it’s morally wrong for women to teach a man.
If beliefs/thoughts of these faiths later become seen as morally wrong and have such needs to change.Then this to me doesnt seem to connect or even fit very well, with what could honestly be considdered as being what was once suggested and supposed to be "divinely inspired" word of God-/s, who were also suggested to be the same yesterday today and tomorrow.
The changes have to do with the development of God's creature. We change, so our moral landscape changes as well to a degree. If we change in this sort of way, then a wise god responds in kind.
Rob R said.."The changes have to do with the development of God's creature. We change, so our moral landscape changes as well to a degree. If we change in this sort of way, then a wise god responds in kind."
Thanks Rob.
But to me it just seems like a god of the gaps or something.To me it doesnt seem to fit so well with a all knowing God that always knows whats right and wrong,and so can be seen to be the same yesterday today and tomorrow.
I know you and i have been through much of this already before.But to me humans havent changed that much in the sense that it was still just as wrong to stone people to death many many years ago,as it is today....Stoning people to death is and ALWAYS WAS a nasty slow cruel death,its a sign of early barbarians who still hadnt learned to be a little more civilized and caring kind.They didnt need to stone folks,there was other ways for instance they could make rope and hang people quick.Or smack em once over the head and instantly kill em with a large bat.
But groups of people got together and stoned folks,like cats have their fun chasing playing and slowly killing mice.
How do we match the idea of divine word of God honestly having been relayed to man,with this type of barbaric action? ...It seems plain to me it displays nothing more than action and thought of early barbarians who still had much to learn.
Now dont get me wrong im not condemning these early people.No not at all.Yes im athiest/agnostic, but im not mean and unforgiving and unable to understand..I know it wasnt entirely their fault, they just still had many things they needed to learn.
Now you could be saying well part of Gods plan is he allows people to learn.
But what im saying is this depletes the idea of the "divine word" that was supposedly "passed down to man" ....I mean what else has this God left for us to learn ...Gay marriage? ...Matters of abortions? ...Euthanasia? ...Where does it stop and start? ...What can we actually say is "divine" word of God HONESTLY passed down to man,thats the same yesterday today and tomorrow, and whats not?.
What you seem to be suggesting is we just see what happens and go with the flow...And what ever we decide in the end...We fill in the gaps, and simply re call it the "divine word of God".
That then just doesnt really seem so very honest to me is all.
Because it becomes even more obvious,all this thought is actually always been coming from us.
But thats just how i see it anyway.
Hi!
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Thank you!
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