Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire For Christians,non-Christians & Atheists

I'm looking at two things:
1. If a person does not believe in any morals or have any moral code of conduct they are not qualified to judge morality because their amoral prejudice will likely pervert their moral judgment because they have already rejected the value of any moral standards and that discussion will be pointless. They will focused on seeing contradictions and will not be open to reconciliations.
2. I'm also asking for their proposed standard of moral measurement by which we will judge the Bible--whether that is personal, corporate, Hammurabi's or Buddha's. We need to fairly declare that standard before we engage in any more moral analysis.Not having that in place will again be a fruitless exercise because someone will likely invent their rules of logic and moral standards as we go.

Why am I insisting on this? We have pages which have already demonstrated that this is how it has already gone. We dealt with alleged contradictions, some of which a young teenager with a little common sense could have figured out and seen they were not contradictions at all ... and then they get repeated again. When I see this happen I can only assume someone is not looking for a profitable discourse or even answers, but is looking to obfuscate.

I am ready to take this forward into more detail if a skeptic or the group is willing to engage with all of the moral benchmark data on the table. Mine is already there and I am waiting.

Western moral codes have been traced back to fourth century Greece and were more or less copied into the Hebrew Bible. Do no harm and do to others as you have them do to you. Very simple and no need to write them down. In the Old Testament they were written down and ignored.

Unlike some, I have a life to live offline. I cannot be here 24/7.






My study of the bible has been in far more depth than yours. Based on what you write, you ignore anything that looks like a contradiction or a problem or order to maintain the preferred version, the things that are taught in Sunday school.




Once again. It is not my moral standards that are under question. It is the moral standards of the bible that are under question. Your trying to impose your own conditions onto me as way of deflection from the actual issues.

Do you really mean to say that if I don't provide a description of my own moral standards there are no contradictions in the bible?

That is not an argument. It's ludicrous.


That there are problems in the bible is undeniable.
For example;

If God is good to all and his tender mercies are all of his works;


''The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.''Psalm 145:9

Yet God has a man killed for gathering sticks on a Sabbath;


While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. 34 They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. 35 And the LORD said to Moses, The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp. 36 And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the LORD commanded Moses. Numbers 15:32-36:

God is clearly not good to all and has shown no mercy toward what to us as mere humans would call a trivial offense. Certainly not a Capital Crime.

We have;

1)God is good to all
2)God kills a man for gathering sticks.
3)God showed no goodness toward that man
4)The Lord is a God of tender mercy.
5) The Lord did not show any mercy for a man gathering sticks on a Sabbath.

God is good to all/God was not good toward the gatherer of sticks'

The lord is a God of tender mercy/ The Lord showed no mercy for a trivial offense.

Even rats exhibit moral behaviors. Are you claiming they have a "written code"?

Great.

Tell us about you position on Slavery.

I'm not aware of anything stated that way in the OT. We have something similar in "love your neighbor as yourself. "
Is this the moral code that you would subscribe to and use as a test of morality?

Not the same.

The parents can be wrong, and they did not choose the out come of your being before you were made.

Keep in mind, by "thy neighbor" the OT means other Jews.

Love other Jews as yourself, but buy your slaves from the Heathen around you.

i just hate it when cultures collide.

always hopeful peaceful solutions to differences can be found.

good diplomats are worth their weight in gold.

No,you are trying to impose your own rules.

This issue has absolutely nothing to do with the moral standards of the poster.

The issue of contradictions is about what the bible itself says about morality and what the bible itself describes about the character and actions of its god.

A god that evolved through time, thought and culture from a vicious, vindictive deity to the relatively more tolerant God of the new testament.


'Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" (Amos
3:6, KJV)

"Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good? "
(Lamentations 3:38)

The Lord is a man of war, Exodus 15:3.

"The Lord shall go forth as a mighty man, He shall stir up jealousy like a man of war: He shall cry, yea roar; He shall prevail against His enemies". Isaiah 42:13

Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey . . . so
shall the Lord of hosts come down to fight for Mount Zion" Isa. 31:4

As opposed to:


1 Corinthians 13; Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.''

1 John 4:7-8; Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

As any objective reader can see, these are two entirely different descriptions, two opposing descriptions that clearly contradict each other.

So it does look like you are passing. I'm not seeing you reference your moral standards by which you make moral conclusions.
Furthermore you folks were initially wanting the difference between the old and new explained but now you are critiquing the old. You exhibit my point. With no understanding in place you guys are all making random potshots.

Those same idea's appear in the Vedas a thousand years before the inception of the Bible.

In the long term, free and fair trade is more profitable than war.

Easy.......summed up.
Not sure if I’m a ‘skeptic’ or not, though you’d likely classify me as such.
1) Courage
2) Truth
3) Honour
4) Fidelity
5) Discipline
6) Hospitality
7) Industriousness
8) Self Reliance
9) Perseverance

actually, that is so true. rattling sabers of one kind or another is almost always present.

the japanese were probably the best original builders or makers of steel of anyone in the world.

the british and the germans with their sheffield, and soligenen steel weren't much short on the list either.

i do recall that the greeks access to really good metallurgy, and supplied the philistines. the hebrews less so.

so, they (the hebrews) wandered around in the desert for a spell prior to taking over the holy land.

it would have been simple to follow the coastline up to the holy land, except for the philistines with their weapon technolgy.

You just claimed your morals are not involved and then you turn around and make a moral judgment on God's law and the application of it. Notice the 4 places in bold where you made a moral judgment. Upon what basis are you making your judgments of what is a trivial offense and what is a capital offense and what is and what is not merciful? In the very post where you said your morals are irrelevant you made a judgment based solely on your morals with no reference to a recognized moral standard. You could not have illustrated my point better.

So what is your moral standard to determine trivial and capital offenses?

I enjoyed this one!

I'm not the one avoiding the issue by trying to impose personal conditions that have nothing to do with subject matter: contradictions in the bible. If you understand what a contradiction entails.



When you say ''no understanding in place'' you actually mean your interpretation, an interpretation that ignores or dismisses what the verses actually say by imposing your own meaning, your own rules.

That has been your ploy all along.

In case I am accused of folding again, I have business to attend to. Back in a few hours. Cheers.

So you should. It is the truth. Inconvenient truths like contradictions in the bible are being dismissed.

Thunderstick:

Here's the six moral foundations that make up moral systems:

1) Care/harm: This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.

2) Fairness/cheating: This foundation is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. It generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. [Note: In our original conception, Fairness included concerns about equality, which are more strongly endorsed by political liberals. However, as we reformulated the theory in 2011 based on new data, we emphasize proportionality, which is endorsed by everyone, but is more strongly endorsed by conservatives]

3) Loyalty/betrayal: This foundation is related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. It underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."

4) Authority/subversion: This foundation was shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. It underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.

5) Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions).

6) Liberty/oppression: This foundation is about the feelings of reactance and resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty. Its intuitions are often in tension with those of the authority foundation. The hatred of bullies and dominators motivates people to come together, in solidarity, to oppose or take down the oppressor.


Here's a couple of video's discussing how liberals, conservatives, and libertarian order these differently: