Monothiesm And The 3 Abrahamic Faiths

Christians don't need to accept the Old Testament as the source of their morality. Jesus set forth new standards for His followers going forward. That doesn't mean a Christian should pretend the Old Testament never happened, though.

I do love it when people think they can look at an out-of-context listing of Bible quotes (from various translations) on an anti-Bible website and consider themselves informed. Sure, it's easy to look back 2k+ years from the lens of our ever-changing sense of morality and pass judgment on the way things used to be, based on snippets of sayings from a book we either never read or never read without preconceived notions. I would expect people in the year 6,000 to look back at us and think we were savages too.

Sorry for linking a 26 minute video but it does go through a lot of stuff about this.

Okay, I've been watching that video and don't really see the point you're trying to make by presenting it. It's basically repeating a bunch of stuff I already know. You'd probably be better off asking me to clarify my comment instead of throwing me 26 minutes of talk and hoping it contradicts what you think I was saying.

Aaaaaaand listening to it further it's off-base and the arguments he's telling atheists to use against believers don't apply to me. So yeah, I think I'm done with this guy.

I am aware that some of the things he goes over don't apply given this is directed to non-theists. A few points that are made that I thought were relevant to the general idea of the old testament being replaced by a new covenant.

*By saying "that's the old testament", is that an admission that there are awful things in it, including many things that God does himself? I assume you'd agree? So if that's the case, why did anything change? With God being unchanging and perfect, why could he not have ordered things properly in the first place? He knew all this would happen.

*It's really up to interpretation to say that the laws and rules of the old testament no longer need to be followed. Jesus even references some of the older laws directly saying they should be followed such as some of the commandments(but doesn't directly mention them all either). Why could God/Jesus not be a bit more clear and save Christians thousands of years of infighting?

*The new testament also has its share of terrible things even when you give them context. Are these fine and dandy because their in the new testament?

*The out of context argument is a bit interesting given that it's easy to find Christians who differ in what they feel the context means. If there is a disagreement, who's right?

Simple, no one is right.

Sigh. Okay, let's take this point by point, and keep in mind that these are very complex topics that can't be covered perfectly, let alone in this setting..


I assume this is mostly in reference to murder in the Bible? It would be safe to assume that a deity would be in complete control of who lives and who dies and the associated timetable for each person. How God decides to carry that out is irrelevant, whether it be cancer or stoning. The only difference is that some of these punishments were delegated to humans to carry out according to specific guidelines. The argument given is a distraction and an appeal to human philosophies. As for your last two questions:

"1 Cor 3:2 - I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able."
"1 Cor 10:13 - There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

The idea is that God tailors the commandments to the people in ways that they are possible for them to handle as a society. This is readily apparent with the ancient Israelites, who basically had to be micromanaged and still managed to screw things up on a regular basis. They weren't ready for the "higher law".


Biblically, there is a strong trend towards God calling prophets to receive revelation for the people. However, the people have free will to listen to or reject the prophets, and if society becomes too corrupt to receive a prophet, they fall into apostasy until they are ready to receive another. After the death of Jesus, the apostles wrote letters trying to clarify which commandments needed to be followed and which didn't, which is especially apparent in letters directed at Jewish converts. If you want to know why Christianity fell into thousands of years of infighting, it's because the apostles got murdered and the church became insanely corrupt. There wasn't anyone receiving revelation that could clarify these points, because anyone challenging the authority of the church would have been murdered.


I more or less addressed this already. Feel free to be more specific if you want clarification.


Here's an example of where I differ in my views from mainstream Christianity. I will never understand "the Bible is enough" argument. There are no less than tens of thousands of Christian sects with their own takes on it, most asking you to take their interpretation as fact. And who gives them the authority to preach, baptize, etc.? A corrupted collection of books? A certificate from a school? I don't buy it. Only a small handful have claims to a line of priesthood authority and/or claims to modern-day revelation. One or zero of those can actually be right, but everyone else has no leg to even stand on.

The mods have something very deep against me.

That's what she said.

They topic suspended me for poking at another poster's sentiment, which I found offensive, then sent me a message saying it was offensive. Duh, that's why I poked at it.. why suspend me?!

Welcome back, OP :) (sorry can't help but find this extremely funny!)

I've plenty of issues with this but... A question first. Is there an absolute morality? And is god moral because he does things that are moral(regardless of if he has a separate list of what "moral" is because he's the creator)? Or is what god does good because he does it? I'd just like to get your view on that.

What about people back then was different that they couldn't understand? Personally, I think that as human morality changed, religion had to keep up or fall out of favor.

So how does one determine if someone received revelation vs someone who was schizo or just lying? I know there are people who believe that they really are hearing god and yet they disagree with others who are also hearing/seeing or whatever.

Clearly being an atheist, I don't actually think anyone is getting divine visions or revelations. When placed in an MRI people who speak about what god wants have the same areas and patterns light up as those who speak about what they themselves want. This is of course not absolute proof of anything but it certainly is a better explanation.

I may not have seen that response. Or if I did, I don't feel like it's a good explanation.

I 100% agree with everything you said here and I appreciate that you said it. Of all the beliefs and religions in the world only one could be right, but all of them could be wrong. I am curious what convinced you that your view is.

I'm aware that you're likely very aware of this as well, but just so it's out in the open and we're clear on it:

This exact argument can be used against people who try to use the Bible to justify hate/intolerance against "immoral" behavior such as homosexuality, ne?

Atheism doesn't "do" anything on its own. That's sort of the point. A complete lack of religion in public life. It doesn't drive anything on its own; people are driven to good deeds or achievement by something other than a devotion to God.

Plenty of people create and achieve and contribute in society without requiring a deity telling them it's the right thing to do.

But your very question is flawed because it presumes that religion can be the only impetus for actions that benefit society. Assuredly, there was a time when religion was needed to hold societies together and keep them moving in the right direction...but realistically speaking, we're a bit removed from that on a macro level.

On an individual level, unfortunately, religion is likely still necessary to keep some people from becoming sociopathic opportunists as the only thing keeping them in check is a fear of eternal damnation. That said, the number of people afflicted as such is likely very small.

I'm still waiting for all the great things lack of religion has done for society.

Haven't seen a lot of witches burned, unclean women stoned, or adulterers publically shamed in pillories recently!

Burning witches...does Hillary count ?

No!

I think we should bring back witch trials. I'm sure I could find someone besides Hillary that we could get !

Somewhat amusingly, you'd get an amalgamation of people practicing actual medicine and a bunch of holy rollers peddling snake oil.

Holy rollers Simpsons reference ! Snake oil Trump reference !

So sad when satire has become life. =(

It's a bowling team get it:

If only I could use my mind to do something besides get Simpsons references....

I was in a bowling league for a while (okay, okay, it was a drinking league and we rolled a few balls down the lanes every now and then) and my teammates were blue collar retirees with backs of questionable stability.

We called ourselves the Lumbar Jacks.

Once you say "individual opinions vary" you're well outside of the realm of objectivity. Of course some people may still think the earth is flat, other people may not be able to tell the difference between male and female. But to the whole that shows a lack of objectivity on their part, not on ours, rational people know otherwise.

Look at gravity: it is objective, you hold up an object, you let go it falls (provided some other force does not act upon it), it works a priori (theoretical) and a posteriori (empirical). You can give millions of people with a basic understanding of physics and math the same data and they'll get the same answer.

Not so with empathy, it is subjective. You can get 5 different opinions from 5 like-minded individuals. Even if whatever they're commenting on they have a general consensus (its wrong, bad, unfortunate, etc...) You can probably find someone who could argue the opposite viewpoint and could never be proven "wrong" despite how unpopular their opinion may be.

I think you're sort of missing how what I'm saying goes hand in hand with what you're saying.

Empathy is empathy. It's definition doesn't change.

It's merely how you're societally conditioned to dehumanize people whom you want to hurt.

Dehumanizing people that is what I majored in at college !

As far as the death penalty. I'm for it because well some people don't deserve to live. It may be immoral or morally grey but some crimes warrant the ultimate punishment.