Forums → WEPR → Biblical Morality (or Religious Morality)
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This may or may not turn into another classic "Theism vs Atheism" thread, and I kind of expect that but I was hoping to keep it on a very specific topic with respect to Christianity. If anyone has another religion whose morality they'd like to discuss that'd be fine too. In general, I was hoping this could focus less on the "is God real" aspect of our discussion, which seems to be the driving force in most religious threads, and specifically on the "if this religion's god is real, is he/it moral?"
The topic is pretty general, but I'll try to start us off with some basic scenarios.
As many of us atheists may be ready to present, there are a lot of passages in the Bible about slavery (click here for specifics). I was wondering how this can be justified if these stories are part of the religion. The passages get pretty specific about how you can beat your slaves as long as they don't die and how they are your property. I find this immoral.
The second one that comes to mind is human sacrifice. Off the top of my head three stories come to mind. The first one, Abraham and Isaac, isn't really human sacrifice as God tells Abraham "just kidding" at the last second. Still, I find it odd that he is revered for his willingness to kill his own son in deference to his god. The second one, is the story of Jeptathah sacrificing his daughter to God since God let him win the battle, details here. We're talking about a God that let Jeptathah win the battle in exchange for Jeptathah sacrificing the first thing that came out of his house, and when it was his daughter, God should've come down and said "Hey, don't kill her, we're even. I don't accept human sacrifice." But he didn't. The third example I have is the most obvious one, Jesus Christ (no link necessary). God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus for repentence for our sins, who is supposedly (maybe not in all religions) considered fully human and fully divine. If this is the case, God accepted the sacrifice of someone fully human instead of just forgiving us without a sacrifice.
The last thing I want to mention is the idea of Hell. Eternal punishment for finite crime is immoral, in my opinion. If you believe God sends anybody to Hell, then he is immoral. Even Hitler doesn't deserve to be tortured forever because he would have to commit an infinite amount of crimes.
You by no means have to talk about every issue and add any issue you want to (even if Christians know an issue in their religion and want to bring it up to counter it, that's welcome). Final point, if the mods think this thread is too similar to another thread or just think this discussion should continue in the main one, I understand. But I was hoping the specific point of this thread could be morality of religions (I started off with the one I know best, my former one) and not whether or not to believe they are true.
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I wanted to entertain a different approach now, and this one is universal for many religions. In general, religions tend to say that depending on whether or not you believe their claims, there are going to be serious ramifications in the afterlife, sometimes eternal ramifications. Regardless of whether or not you believe that there's absolute proof for your belief and we atheists just are ignoring, any all powerful and omniscient god should have known that we would have this issue and should have known how to make its existence clear to us. So my question is, should an all powerful god exist, be aware that there is confusion about its existence, know that if we don't believe in it that something bad is going to happen to us after we die, and choose not to make things clear to us, is that moral? I submit that it would not be moral. I can think of no justification that would make a god judge me for not knowing it exists when the god could not possibly have had to go through something anything remotely like a "leap of faith without evidence" scenario.
I tried to keep from picking a religion for a reason. If your beliefs fall under this description of a god, I would be interested in your response, regardless of religion.
In the bible it said, the seconde commanment if i belive,
Often 3rd after 'no other gods' and 'no carved/graven images'.
"dont speak the name of the lord for vain / for no reason". And yet juhova withnesess say it every time they identify themselves. You dont say/write juhuva by this biblical law.
Paraphrasing the appendix of the New World Tranlsation of the Holy Scriptures, {"The divine name (Jehovah/YHWH) is a causative form of the Hebrew verb "ha-wah" meaning "to become". The tetragrammation (four-letter word) means "He Causes to Become". The tetragrammation appears in both the original Hebrew text and in the translated Greek septuagint. Thus, regardless of which version he read, when Jesus read Isaiah 61:1-2 aloud [Luke 4:14-32], he would've pronounced the word for the divine name. To back this up, Jesus stated that he had declared His name [John 17:6,26]."}
If God is all-forgiving, why is there hell?
If God created man is his own image, why are we so violent?
We also have Epicurus:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God
Most religion's deities have been, seemingly, corrupt. How surprising.
I am interested in karma by which I mean that if I behave in the right way I expect that I will reduce the suffering in my life and move towards a state of bliss.
Why should I expect to live in a good world if I am a bad man?
I am interested in karma by which I mean that if I behave in the right way I expect that I will reduce the suffering in my life and move towards a state of bliss.
Why should I expect to live in a good world if I am a bad man?
Ah, the expectation that our acts are judged objectively by some higher being or some kind of balance, in an attempt to justify good acts. This is projecting human morals on a world that doesn't follow nor know morals.
It also raises another issue (all of the following being purely hypothetic): even assuming we were created neutral (this being the only "fair" assumption in aspect of judgement), all our following acts are still influenced by "good" or "bad" morals that we've been taught. So is it fair to reward some and punish others, over a mere choice that we couldn't possibly comprehend yet were forced to make?
Why should I expect to live in a good world if I am a bad man?
By what measure are 'good' and 'bad' being judged?
By what measure are 'good' and 'bad' being judged?
Good meaning peaceful and prosperous, a bad person meaning a thief, a murderer, etc. Anything bad by either religious or moral standing.
Anything bad by either religious or moral standing.
There are a lot of things that are considered 'bad', even in a single religion, let alone any (ex: some follow the 600+ laws in the bible and breaking any of them is considered sin/bad). Then there's motives and such (ex: stealing out of desperation or working on the Sabbath to feed a family).
I am not one of the folk who wrote the bible,but I do know what is right and wrong from my own standing, i.e. murder being a no-no, stealing for survival being justifiable.
stealing for survival being justifiable.
Being justifiable doesn't make it right though.
Morality is...fluid. It shifts depending on what you value, from what perspective you look from, and from circumstances involved.
That said, I don't see how it would be fair for a perfect being to judge those whom he created inferior to itself. Such is simple cruelty. How can we be expected to always do right if we are not perfect? How could a god expect us to always pick the best choice for ourselves?
Punishing humans for being human is just...I can't even put it into words. It's horrible in every way. If you created something imperfectly on purpose, told it to do which you know it can't, then pass judgement on it for being what it is, that's just despicable.
That's religion. Not all religions or even all parts of a religion, but it only flaws itself, especially in Christianity and Catholicism. The paradoxes can be found in my post near the top of the page.
but I do know what is right and wrong from my own standing
So you meant morality on an individual basis? Good/bad based on what the person finds moral from their religion and personal views?
So you meant morality on an individual basis? Good/bad based on what the person finds moral from their religion and personal views?
From their personal views ONLY. I don't need a group to tell me what is right and wrong. If the majority of humans do not condone killing, stealing, ****, etc, then I think what is right and wrong is fairly obvious. I am not taking this from a lawmaker's point of view, I am taking it from a human point of view.
From their personal views ONLY. I don't need a group to tell me what is right and wrong.
Yet some people's personal views may stem from religion, such as jihadist extremists.
If the majority of humans do not condone killing, stealing, ****, etc, then I think what is right and wrong is fairly obvious.
Argumentum ad populum. For the longest time, a lot of humans and cultures (not sure if it was a majority, but it likely was) condoned some form of slavery. Doesn't make it right.
Argumentum ad populum. For the longest time, a lot of humans and cultures (not sure if it was a majority, but it likely was) condoned some form of slavery. Doesn't make it right.
So you're saying killing wouldn't be wrong if people didn't think it was? Like it as not, there are some basic fundamentals to a person's thoughts and actions. Why are we talking about this?
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