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Smoking Gun, Oh Atheists?

Cephus

Relentlessly Rational
Don't you think that this is "wrong"? To kill people for having consensual sex?

There are lots of things in the OT that nobody pays any attention to, at least unless they're crazy. Yet many Christians claim that there is an unchanging objective morality that... apparently changed a lot on the Bible. What gives?
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
Huh ? Luther was a genius, but he was dead wrong re the Jews. People have good, bad or indifferent opinions because of many many factors, one can't simply say because A is A, he became that way because of B. Maybe his mommy didn't love him (although historically she apparently did ). You are trying to set the faulty trap of judging ideas and doctrines by the behavior of those who say they keep them. Stalin was an atheist. Stalin killed millions and millions of people, therefore all atheists are murderers. It just doesn't work that way. Quotations please

Stalin was a Georgian orthodox Christian who was responsible for reinstating the clergy after the revolution and opened up 20,000+ churches. He donated billions of rubles to the church, was known as the only Christian in the Kremlin and when he died had not 1, not 2 but 3 archbishop officiate at his Christian funeral. As far as i know the atheist claim is made for one incident where a college acquaintance related a claimed conversation some years after Stalin's death, a conversation made 50 odd years previously. Stalin was a sick megalomaniac but an atheist??? No.
 

Simurgh

Atheist Triple Goddess
so we go to Stalin and call him an atheist to make the bible bangers feel better about the inquisition, the rape and slaughter of native populations everywhere christians went to colonize and exploit the land. Yep, Stalin was a power hungry tyrant, a christian one as history documents clearly enough. the communists wanted to break the stranglehold the orthodox church had over Russia--a backwards and under developed country. they thought the best thing to do was abolish religion. good idea, but they soon realized that people needed the rituals, and rhythms of religion and made up a new religion--state-atheism. same thing new people wielding the power. then you throw in some leader worship and you are back where you started.
so while we are talking about christian morality and all that stuff, why not address the hypocrisy of this trope of all life being sacred, thereby justifying the murder of abortion providers for example. why is life not sacred when we talk about shipping our sons and daughters off to war? putting people on death row? why are we throwing the lives of poor people and their children away? where are those moral christians when people are abused and tortured in the name of political power and the privileges of the wealthy?
 
so we go to Stalin and call him an atheist to make the bible bangers feel better about the inquisition, the rape and slaughter of native populations everywhere christians went to colonize and exploit the land. Yep, Stalin was a power hungry tyrant, a christian one as history documents clearly enough. the communists wanted to break the stranglehold the orthodox church had over Russia--a backwards and under developed country. they thought the best thing to do was abolish religion. good idea, but they soon realized that people needed the rituals, and rhythms of religion and made up a new religion--state-atheism. same thing new people wielding the power. then you throw in some leader worship and you are back where you started.
so while we are talking about christian morality and all that stuff, why not address the hypocrisy of this trope of all life being sacred, thereby justifying the murder of abortion providers for example. why is life not sacred when we talk about shipping our sons and daughters off to war? putting people on death row? why are we throwing the lives of poor people and their children away? where are those moral christians when people are abused and tortured in the name of political power and the privileges of the wealthy?

I'm so sick of people pointing to Stalin as an example of possible negative consequences of atheism. It's total garbage and explained well here:

 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Stalin was a Georgian orthodox Christian who was responsible for reinstating the clergy after the revolution and opened up 20,000+ churches. He donated billions of rubles to the church, was known as the only Christian in the Kremlin and when he died had not 1, not 2 but 3 archbishop officiate at his Christian funeral. As far as i know the atheist claim is made for one incident where a college acquaintance related a claimed conversation some years after Stalin's death, a conversation made 50 odd years previously. Stalin was a sick megalomaniac but an atheist??? No.
Really ? Was he a Russian communist ?
Stalin was a Georgian orthodox Christian who was responsible for reinstating the clergy after the revolution and opened up 20,000+ churches. He donated billions of rubles to the church, was known as the only Christian in the Kremlin and when he died had not 1, not 2 but 3 archbishop officiate at his Christian funeral. As far as i know the atheist claim is made for one incident where a college acquaintance related a claimed conversation some years after Stalin's death, a conversation made 50 odd years previously. Stalin was a sick megalomaniac but an atheist??? No.
No, he wasn't a Christian. A person can call themselves a fencepost, that doesn't make them one.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
Maybe.

But that's how I judge the effect of Christianity on the culture at large - by how it manifests in people. You tell people that women have less value than men, and men value them less. Christian women often buy into it as well. Women helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment.

From Helen Gardner:

"The bible teaches that a father may sell his daughter for a slave [Ex. 30:7], that he may sacrifice her purity to a mob [Judges 19:24; Gen. 19:8], and that he may murder her, and still be a good father and a holy man. It teaches that a man may have any number of wives; that he may sell them, give them away, or swap them around, and still be a perfect gentleman, a good husband, a righteous man, and one of God's most intimate friends; and that is a pretty good position for a beginning. It teaches almost every infamy under the heavens for woman, and it does not recognize her as a self-directing, free human being. It classes her as property, just as it does a sheep: and it forbids her to think, talk, act, or exist, except under conditions and limits defined by some priest."

What effect do you think that such doctrine has? None? Pro-woman?




Fallacy of false analogy. No comment was made about all Christians based on Augustine's words.




I already gave you the quote from Augustine. There are many more like it, also from prominent church fathers:

Tertullian: "You [woman] are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert - that is, death - even the Son of God had to die."

John Calvin: "Woman is more guilty than man, because she was seduced by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognize this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame."

These ideas are inconsistent with our modern understanding of women's pace in society. The issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights over the past century include, though are not limited to, the right:

to bodily integrity and autonomy
to be free from sexual violence
to vote
to hold public office
to enter into legal contracts
to have equal rights in family law
to work
to fair wages or equal pay
to obtain credit
to have reproductive rights
to own property
to education.

I seem to recall that some progressive nuns helped fight for some of these issues, but I'm pretty sure that they were rogues representing themselves and not the church.

Even today many of these issues are still contested, notably equal pay and reproductive rights." Consider the recent Hobby Lobby case that was adjudicated by the Supreme Court, where it was claimed by the Green family that their religion taught them to try to prevent women from getting contraceptives. From Wiki:

"David Green (born November 13, 1941) is an American businessman, philanthropist, and the founder of Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts and crafts stores. Green comes from a family of preachers and says he has built his business squarely on biblical principles: "We're Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles."

He's telling you how he views Christian teaching.

Another even more recent big hit for Christianity and its views on women came with the Center for Medical Progress' assault on Planned Parenthood using undercover operative. It backfired and fomented a killing spree in one of the clinics by a Robert Lewis Dear.

And even more recently, you've got the overwhelming majority of Christian evangelicals having voted for Trump despite his intensely misogynistic behavior including shaming beauty queens for their weight in the middle of the night on Twitter, storming into dressing rooms uninvited and unannounced, and his infamous comment about sexual assault of women's genitals made while laughing.

The secular community was outraged. The evangelical Christian community didn't have a problem, and voted for him over a church attending Christian woman.

I'm going to guess that no amount of evidence will have any impact on your judgment about whether Christianity is a misogynistic enterprise. It simply not an idea that most Christians are willing to countenance.

But the rest of us have no reason not to see that Christianity, like it's younger sister Islam, is systematically misogynistic. It is institutionalized misogyny, and has bee for centuries.
Let m be just as clear as I possibly can be. First, Christianity is based upon the NT. It is not based upon the comments of any person, nor the social effects of any philosophy. All irrelevant. Christ made it abundantly clear that many would claim the name, but that few would be genuine. Christianity is about an individual persons relationship with God, and other people. It is not about building empires, political philosophy etc., etc. etc. So you are actually totally confusing the issue, no doubt innocently out of ignorance, but there it is. Don't hand me quotations from any person, unless you find them in the NT. All others mean nothing. As to the treatment of women, I would suggest that the equality of women was solely a Christian idea, that developed in a world where women worldwide were treated as chattel slaves. Misogyny is the hatred of women, find it commanded or supported in the NT, or drop the issue. For a Christian there is no other authority that applies, and the other chaff is just whistling in the dark.
 

shmogie

Well-Known Member
I'm so sick of people pointing to Stalin as an example of possible negative consequences of atheism. It's total garbage and explained well here:

You are over reacting. My point was judging by stereotypes, not putting down atheists. Stalin said he was Christian, supposedly, OK, no prob, that is what he said, though he wasn't. I retract his name from my original post and insert Chairman Mao, he probably murdered more than Stalin. Feel better now ?
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
I'm an atheist and I think rape is wrong too. I just don't think some imaginary man in the sky said so, thus making it true.

Okay, is it objectively (always) wrong or subjectively (conditionally, therefore sometimes) wrong?

If it is always wrong, why do most skeptics say absolutes don't exist? (And isn't their statement an absolute statement?)
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
The Bible is full of contradictory morality, at best, which is about what one should expect from a non-unified book of books who's writers did not share a cohesive belief system about anything, morality included.


We do it the same way Theists do, based on our own personal accepted ideas of right and wrong - The only difference is that we don't justify ourselves with cherry-picked passages from an old book.


No - And, there are none.

You've just said, "There are no absolute moral codes," which is, in itself, an absolute moral code.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
In my defense, I never claimed that something is inherently right or wrong. In or outside the Bible. For I am not a moral realist (there are atheist moral realists, by the way).

So, when I challenge thing like "you should stone to death rebellious children, or people collecting sticks on the Sabbath or perform genocide involving ripping apart pregnat women with a sword....what I really mean is: you are a believer in objective (and therefore unchanging) morality: are those things objectively good?

Ciao

- viole

If you've never claimed that a thing is inherently right or wrong, how do you use the term, "objectively good" in a meaningful sense?
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
You don't shirk them?

Well, you didn't answer them.....that was avoidance.....or using your term....you "shirked".

And.....you had to tell me some sort of reason why you won't/didn't answer them.

FYI - this is my third post to these forums.....they aren't in any thread except this one, because I wrote the post.......but you sure had to add a qualifier to the request, and still didn't answer them.

My point was made....thanks for confirming it.

Be honest for once in your life....you will have a much better life if you do.

Oh great, now I'm tempted to answer them here, but you are not going to read it. You can send me a thread to go to, right, instead ofhijackin
You don't shirk them?

Well, you didn't answer them.....that was avoidance.....or using your term....you "shirked".

And.....you had to tell me some sort of reason why you won't/didn't answer them.

FYI - this is my third post to these forums.....they aren't in any thread except this one, because I wrote the post.......but you sure had to add a qualifier to the request, and still didn't answer them.

My point was made....thanks for confirming it.

Be honest for once in your life....you will have a much better life if you do.

Oh great, now I'm tempted to answer them here, but you are not going to read it. You can send me a thread to go to, right, instead of hijacking this far more important thread?

When someone says they will happily solve your imagined problem, that no one will answer your questions, with "okay, not what I want to talk about it, but I will, and gladly, on a new thread," what is the best possible response to make, and does it match yours above?

Garbage responses like "be honest for once in your life" convince me only that skeptics are mean, Christians are nice, and my worldview is correct.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
There is so much just plain wrong in this post...

Of course rape is wrong. The bible has so many inconsistencies that to focus on this one thing is silly. And when atheist are self righteous it's because we're often dealing with close minded individuals which makes getting any real dialogue going akin to pulling a plunger out of quicksand.

It sounds like you're saying it's okay for atheists to actually be self-righteous, even though they don't believe the word "righteous" is a thing.

I feel obliged to point out your double standard.

I'd also ask you how you so confidently say, "rape is wrong, of course".
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Attention all atheists, and those who love them as much as I do (which is considerable):

Underhill wrote, "Of course rape is wrong."

I'm okay with saying rape is wrong, but I seek better than "of course" to prove the conclusive nature of my correct, biblical, godly, sanctified, righteous, worldview.

Is this the best you folks have to offer, really? "Of course, rape is wrong".

So you DO believe in inherent absolutes? Interesting . . . "fascinating," as Captain Spock would say.

Hint: In the animal kingdom and that thing of beauty atheists worship known as Evolution, rape is propagation of the species.

"Of course, Evolution is true. Do what you must to survive, and over time, what survives must flourish. Of course, rape is wrong . . . "
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
Okay, is it objectively (always) wrong or subjectively (conditionally, therefore sometimes) wrong?

If it is always wrong, why do most skeptics say absolutes don't exist? (And isn't their statement an absolute statement?)

Would you care to give an example of when rape is morally OK? Because I am drawing a blank here, but since you know so much about atheistic morality, perhaps you could tell us when rape is OK.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Would you care to give an example of when rape is morally OK? Because I am drawing a blank here, but since you know so much about atheistic morality, perhaps you could tell us when rape is OK.
Without arguing that is OK, we see numerous historical & current examples of people who believe it is.
Just one example would be the Japanese invasion of China.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
It is good thing for me that my morality is not based on what other people believe.
Isn't it?
You grew up in a particular culture.
Its effect upon you is unavoidable.
But I also wager that you've a genetic predisposition to some morality.
These factors interact.

And who doesn't think their own morality is best?
Certainly those Japanese soldiers who raped & ate their victims had "The Truth" on their side, eh.
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
aristophanes-poet-wise-people-even-though-all-laws-were-abolished.jpg
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
Isn't it?
You grew up in a particular culture.
Its effect upon you is unavoidable.
But I also wager that you've a genetic predisposition to some morality.
These factors interact.

And who doesn't think their own morality is best.
Certainly those Japanese soldiers who raped & ate their victims had "The Truth" on their side, eh.


How about we pretend you are not telling me something I have already taken into deep consideration, so that you can tell me more about my moral beliefs.
 
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