There is no moral imperative in atheism

[Navynukeman]

If God does not exist, the atheist still requires some ground for their criticisms of Christianity. They still must have a reason to reject the Christian God.

Is the fact that there is no evidence for the reliability of the bible not suitable for criticizing christianity?????

[aitm]

No, I am saying that humans are more moral than any god by the willingness to sacrifice everything for nothing, whereas a god cannot as much as sacrifice nothing for anything. Humanity has a morality that far exceeds that of any god. Therefor as the idea, the concept of morality encompasses even the "gods", humanity has morals that exceeds any gods. We are superior to any god.

[buttfinger]

There is no moral imperative in atheism, so you cannot logically argue against the crimes of Christianity. An atheist can NEVER, NEVER, NEVER say that the crusades were "wrong", because no such category exists for atheists. For the atheist, there are merely different ethical theories that would approach an issue of the morality of the crusades differently.

Yes, actually.  First and foremost, it is EASY to point out that the crusades are a form of hypocrisy.  That alone destroys any credibility a Christian has.  Beyond that, murder IS universally accepted, beyond ALL religious boundaries, to be wrong.  The only real differences of opinion on when it is acceptable to kill another human being are in cases of differing superstitions.  Since the atheist rejects ALL superstition, there is no superstition, including Christian ones, that justify the killing.  Finally, free will is universally accepted as a virtue as well, and killing to deny this freedom and forcing a religious conversion undermines even this basic right.  For all of these reasons, your argument falls falt.

Atheists break with their belief system when they try to argue that there is some objective standard against which they can argue the Bible is a book of violence and genocide. For the atheist, these categories have no moral authority.

Strawman.  It's not universally accepted by atheists that there is an objective moral standard.  Neither does there need to be one for me personally to say that your religion violates my conscience by offending my own morals.  I need not convince you that your wrong to accept that opinion for myself.

Atheists who want to be consistent with their beliefs would prove their ethical categories before they attacked the Bible.

Christians who want to be consistent with their beliefs need to accept the fact that killing to spread their religion is against the principles of love they claim to be upholding as well as violating the free will precept so important to basis of "sin".

[buttfinger]

They still must have a reason to reject the Christian God.

There is no reasonable argument in favor of the existence of gods.  This is all I need to reject claims of their existence.  The immorality and the internal inconsistency of the Christian position is just icing on that cake.

[aitm]

Christians claim that god demands allegiance to the first commandment while conveniently forgetting that this same god then demands his followers disregard the first commandment by butchering and raping infants and children. God has no morality and christians nor jews have no right to suggest otherwise.

[aitm]

ahh, I hear the flutter of pages as auggie scrambles for retorts to his demise.

[The Dude]

Yes, that is what I am saying. What is the morality without God? If someone says "genocide is wrong", what do those words refer to? Why should anyone care?

Our lives. We don't kill other people out of respect for others. I value my life and realize others value theirs. We do it because taking someone's life just isn't cool.

The notion that you need a higher power to fear in order to be a good person is asinine.

[Weltfrieden]

Yes, that is what I am saying. What is the morality without God? If someone says "genocide is wrong", what do those words refer to? Why should anyone care?

You should care because we as human beings are capable of knowing that killing people is wrong. I do not need a god to tell me that murder is wrong in order to stop myself from being a serial killer. My sense of morality is rooted mostly in the golden rule. I treat others how I would like to be treated and that is the basis of my morality. You may say that the golden rule is a religious concept but you would be wrong because, while many religions profess the golden rule, the golden rule is not inherently religious. The fact that some people need to believe in a higher power for them to know that homicide and the like are wrong speaks many more volumes about their morality than it does about mine. I know not to commit heinous crimes and the like because my personal understanding of common sense and morality dictates those things as being absolutely unacceptable. For some people, the only thing holding them back from doing these things is the fear they have of whatever god they happen to believe in, that's pretty fucked up if you ask me.

[aitm]

ah that the problem with "our" understanding of it Rasputin this jit claims that we get our morality from HIS god...period.... forget the idea that as we are already superior to gods morality that that must prove we cannot be his creations as we exceed "his" omnipotence.

[buttfinger]

Maybe we do get out morality from his god.  The fact that this god would grant us morality free of charge, but not grant us belief in the same way, then punish us for lacking the belief he withheld from us, however, is very telling about this gods own personal morality.

[aitm]

nice point butt....er....finger..

[augustine]

If God does not exist, the atheist still requires some ground for their criticisms of Christianity. They still must have a reason to reject the Christian God.

Is the fact that there is no evidence for the reliability of the bible not suitable for criticizing christianity?????

There is tons of evidence for the reliability of the Bible. I have been in seminary libraries where there are millions and millions of books devoted to the academic study of the Bible. Go online and look up Bruce Metzger or FF Bruce or someone like that. There is tons of evidence for the reliability of the Bible.


Of course this completely ignores the original points.

[Weltfrieden]

There is tons of evidence for the reliability of the Bible. I have been in seminary libraries where there are millions and millions of books devoted to the academic study of the Bible. Go online and look up Bruce Metzger or FF Bruce or someone like that. There is tons of evidence for the reliability of the Bible.

There may be tons of books claiming that the bible is reliable and often these kind of books cite the bible itself as the source for proving the bible's reliability. You can't prove something by referencing what you're proving.

[Hakurei Reimu]

There is tons of evidence for the reliability of the Bible. I have been in seminary libraries where there are millions and millions of books devoted to the academic study of the Bible. Go online and look up Bruce Metzger or FF Bruce or someone like that. There is tons of evidence for the reliability of the Bible.

The academic consensus on the Bible is that it is a book of man, written and edited for political purposes, a few exceptional scholars notwithstanding.

If God does not exist, the atheist still requires some ground for their criticisms of Christianity.

On the contrary, it's because God doesn't (provably) exist that allows us to levy these criticisms at Christianity, because if the actors performing them was not God or people authorized by any being but God, they would be horrible, despicable acts. Denying God robs you of the basis for your disgusting divine command authority bullshit.

"Christian morality" is nothing more than the natural moral sense that humans come (mostly) pre-equipped with, that Christians disingenuously lay claim to and introduce serious distortions into.

[Thumpalumpacus]

To the original point of the thread: morality is inherently subjective, and it is even treated as such by those who believe the Bible.