Does morality exist without God?

[3sigma]

Have you read the Bible? The biggest recurring theme that pops up is love for one another, and love for God. Jesus wasn't just making that up when He summed up the Law and the Prophets. I would back that assertion, but I'm not fond of quoting the near entirety a 66-volume book on the internet.

Have you compared the number of times in the Bible your God says people should love one another with the number of times it commands people to kill one another or kills people itself? Go and do that then come back here and tell us again what you think is the biggest recurring theme in the Bible.

 

[Zebra1552]

Pretty shallow understanding of it. God had reasons for doing such things, reasons that are founded in the theme I mentioned.

 

[3sigma]

God had reasons for doing such things, reasons that are founded in the theme I mentioned.

So you think telling you to kill homosexuals is founded on the theme of love for one another? You think telling you to kill witches, people who work on the Sabbath and even disobedient children are all founded on the theme of love for one another? You think telling you to kill your brother, your sister, your wife and even your children if they try to turn you from your beliefs is founded on the theme of love for one another? You have a strange idea of what love for one another means.

 

[Zebra1552]

I do think stoning a disobedient child or a witch is founded on love, in that culture. The translation for this day and age would be dissociation. If you can't even put the Bible in its cultural context, how can you determine what its themes are?

As for brother, wife, sister, children- empty claims. Same with homosexuals. You got nothing there to back your claims.

Now, do you have something to say about morality existing with or without God, or are you just going to try and insult Him?

 

[variant]

I do think stoning a disobedient child or a witch is founded on love, in that culture. The translation for this day and age would be dissociation. If you can't even put the Bible in its cultural context, how can you determine what its themes are?

Hurling stones at your children until they die is not an expression of love in any culture.

As for brother, wife, sister, children- empty claims. Same with homosexuals. You got nothing there to back your claims.

Leviticus 20:13: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

Deuteronomy 13: 6-9 "If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying: Let us go and worship other gods, do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people."

You have the Internet right?

 

[quatona]

I do think stoning a disobedient child or a witch is founded on love, in that culture. The translation for this day and age would be dissociation. If you can't even put the Bible in its cultural context, how can you determine what its themes are?

Ah, God as a moral relativist.

 

[3sigma]

As for brother, wife, sister, children- empty claims. Same with homosexuals. You got nothing there to back your claims.

Thank you to variant for providing a pithy comment and the relevant verses. There were, of course, many more examples I could have chosen from the Bible of your God commanding people to kill one another. You have read the Bible, haven’t you? You do know of those verses, don’t you; or do you just pick and choose the parts you want to read or follow?

Now, do you have something to say about morality existing with or without God, or are you just going to try and insult Him?

I told you what I had to say about morality existing with or without your God on the first page of this thread.

As for morality existing without your God or any other god, the examples set by hundreds of millions of atheists and non-religious people around the world today clearly show that we don’t need religions to be moral and, in many cases, we are better off without them.

 

[quatona]

I do think stoning a disobedient child or a witch is founded on love, in that culture. The translation for this day and age would be dissociation. If you can't even put the Bible in its cultural context, how can you determine what its themes are?

As for brother, wife, sister, children- empty claims. Same with homosexuals. You got nothing there to back your claims.

Now, do you have something to say about morality existing with or without God, or are you just going to try and insult Him?

Yes:
If god´s idea of morality and love is reconcilable with stoning disobedient children, then god is quite apparently not required for developing a morality that considers stoning disobedient children wrong.

 

[KCfromNC]

Ah, God as a moral relativist.

That's the nice thing about being a moral absolutist - there are so many different absolutes from God to choose from that you're bound to find one or another to justify your behavior at any given moment. It takes all the frustration out of morality.

 

[Zebra1552]

Hurling stones at your children until they die is not an expression of love in any culture.

Depends on what disobedient means.

Leviticus 20:13: "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

Your point? That's talking about guys, not homosexuality. Big difference.

Deuteronomy 13: 6-9 "If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying: Let us go and worship other gods, do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people."

You have the Internet right?

Civil wars are usually ugly. Usually best avoided.

 

[Zebra1552]

Yes:
If god´s idea of morality and love is reconcilable with stoning disobedient children, then god is quite apparently not required for developing a morality that considers stoning disobedient children wrong.

Define disobedient child. I don't think they're talking refusing to do homework or take out trash.

 

[Zebra1552]

Ah, God as a moral relativist.

Hardly. Culture and context matters in a book older than both of us.

 

[quatona]

Define disobedient child.

In a way that justifies stoning them? I don´t have such a definition. Since it´s your bible that advocates stoning disobedient children I think your bible should provide that definition.

I don't think they're talking refusing to do homework or take out trash.

Ok, "Jaws13" doesn´t think so. That settles it.
So what do you think they are talking?

 

[quatona]

Hardly. Culture and context matters in a book older than both of us.

Unless it´s supposed to be god´s own word and unless god is supposed to provide us with absolute, unchanging morality.

 

[Zebra1552]

In a way that justifies stoning them? I don´t have such a definition. Since it´s your bible that advocates stoning disobedient children I think your bible should provide that definition.

Ok, "Jaws13" doesn´t think so. That settles it.
So what do you think they are talking?

Deu 21:18 "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them,
Deu 21:19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.
Deu 21:20 "They shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.'
Deu 21:21 "Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.
Deu 21:22 "If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,
Deu 21:23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.


H4784
מרה
mârâh
BDB Definition:
1) to be contentious, be rebellious, be refractory, be disobedient towards, be rebellious against
1a) (Qal) to be disobedient, be rebellious
1a1) towards father
1a2) towards God
1b) (Hiphil) to show rebelliousness, show disobedience, disobey
Part of Speech: verb

H5637
סרר
sârar
BDB Definition:
1) to rebel, be stubborn, be rebellious, be refractory
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to be stubborn
1a2) stubborn, rebel (substantive)
Part of Speech: verb


The Bible does define it: Someone who repeatedly and intentionally violates one of the 10 commandments, to honor your mom and dad.

 

[Zebra1552]

Unless it´s supposed to be god´s own word and unless god is supposed to provide us with absolute, unchanging morality.

Straw man. I fail to see where God supposedly did this. And I don't believe it was God who penned the Bible.

 

[3sigma]

Depends on what disobedient means.

Here is what Christianity teaches:

Lev 20:9 For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.

And here is how you try to defend it:

I do think stoning a disobedient child or a witch is founded on love, in that culture.

You claim that stoning a child to death simply for swearing at his or her mother or father is founded in love.

Here is what Christianity teaches:

Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Lev 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
Rom 1:26-27 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
Rom 1:32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

And here is how you try to defend it:

That's talking about guys, not homosexuality. Big difference.

Notice that in Romans, Paul even refers to lesbians. Any reasonable person can see that those verses refer to homosexuals, but you try to deny it.

Here is what Christianity teaches:

Deu 13:6-9 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

And here is how you try to defend it:

Civil wars are usually ugly. Usually best avoided.

Any reasonable person can see that those verses have nothing whatsoever to do with civil war.

The fact that you have to resort to such tactics to try to defend the teachings of your religion speaks volumes about both you and your religion. If these teachings of your religion are an example of morality with your God then I for one will not follow it.

 

[quatona]

Straw man. I fail to see where God supposedly did this.

Did what?

And I don't believe it was God who penned the Bible.

So what do you believe: Does god´s morality advocate the stoning of disobedient children or doesn´t he?

This is your doctrinal book, and it advocates stoning disobedient children to death. There´s the answer to your question why people are opposed to Christianity and its idea of "love".

A doctrine that advocates such things may be excusable by reference to societal customs etc., but it´s certainly neither needed nor welcome to educate us on "morality" and "love".

 

[quatona]

Deu 21:18 "If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them,
Deu 21:19 then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown.
Deu 21:20 "They shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.'
Deu 21:21 "Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear.
Deu 21:22 "If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree,
Deu 21:23 his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance.


H4784
מרה
mârâh
BDB Definition:
1) to be contentious, be rebellious, be refractory, be disobedient towards, be rebellious against
1a) (Qal) to be disobedient, be rebellious
1a1) towards father
1a2) towards God
1b) (Hiphil) to show rebelliousness, show disobedience, disobey
Part of Speech: verb

H5637
סרר
sârar
BDB Definition:
1) to rebel, be stubborn, be rebellious, be refractory
1a) (Qal)
1a1) to be stubborn
1a2) stubborn, rebel (substantive)
Part of Speech: verb


The Bible does define it: Someone who repeatedly and intentionally violates one of the 10 commandments, to honor your mom and dad.

Thanks for your honesty.

And you guys who feel that stoning such a child is founded in "love" seriously want us to listen to what you have to say about morality??

 

[Zebra1552]

Thanks for your honesty.

And you guys who feel that stoning such a child is founded in "love" seriously want us to listen to what you have to say about morality??

It IS founded in love. If you have a slew of people rebelling against each other- which, by the way, happened because the people disobeyed- you have a bloody and violent war on your hands. Better a few die than many.