If There is No God, is Murder Wrong? (a Reply to Dennis Prager)

Morality isn't dependent on a god. If you only refrain from murder because you fear god being angry if you do it, you should be placed In a padded room for the rest of your life.

 

On what do you base your presumption?

The people who burned "witches" at the stake did so In The Name Of God.
https://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201405/european-witch-hunts/

 

That the overwhelming majority of the victims were unjustly executed.

And in case you're not aware, Christ predicted that people would violate God's law in God's name.

 

God approves of murder and in facts demands that some people must be killed. There's a whole list of things that authorizes believers to murder people for.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_actions_prohibited_by_the_Bible

So you can just claim that someone is a witch and kill them per the Bible.

 

Christ was totally executed in pursuance of God's law. God purposely gave his only begotten son. Christ himself could have saved himself at any time but chose not to. The Sanhedrin that condemned him were were the chosen body of elders appointed to authority by god's law. Christ could have healed the sick and raised the dead but instead he chose to die.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

Prior to the execution of Christ execution for violation of Gods law was the norm. Being a judgemental prick is more often the outcome of religion than anything else. Since the execution of Christ the same has been true. Life had little value in the Europe ruled by Christianity.

The fact is, European history is an example of what happens when Christian government is allowed to rule. The end result was superstition, abuse of authority, state-sanctioned murder, oppression of intellect and disregard for human rights.

The bible is interpreted in a multitude of ways to justify a multitude of philosophies. There is no concrete morality at its core. When people argue an objective morality based on the bible most of the time they are arguing for an objective reality based on their own understanding. Choice pieces are totally disregarded by one sect and made central by another.

There is this ridiculous hypocrisy among Christians that any person who acts in a way that is obviously immoral was not really a Christian anyway so an entire system that perpetuates genocide and intolerance is applauded despite its obvious shortcomings. By its own assessment all fall short of the glory of god so really none are truly Christians. So if none are able to live up to its standard of morality and all fall short then it is not a system that has any value on establishing an actual working framework of morality.

 

You and the late Isaac Asimov. Asimov denounced Christianity after he prayed to God to pass a science test.
After failing, Asimov was so angry with God and elected to teach God a lesson by rejecting Him for the remainder of
his famous, but miserable and failed life. Isaac ignored and neglected his own family and son, closeting himself in his office, to type book after book, to the delight of fawning fans and fellow atheists.
The neglected son became a pedophile at something like age 45, trafficking in online pedophilia which was detected when his computer was being serviced.

Asimov was so ignorant that he never flew in commercial aviation, which happens to be ten times safer than automobiles, per passenger mile.

His books are replete with errors and ignorance. I critiqued one of them and sent my notes to his publisher, who forwarded it to Asimov. The best he could do was call me names, without addressing his own published ignorance.
I sold his postcard online years ago for $50 and Carl Sagan's similar letter for $75. Sagan didn't call me names, but simply asked me to buy his newest book. Agnostic Sagan's memorial service was held in St. John the Divine Cathedral, in New York City.

Today, both of them believe in God.

 

You are confused, as always. You conflate "murder" with "killing." They're not the same.
Don't reply. I don't want to hear anything else you have to say, ever. On to my Ignore List you go.
I've read too much from you already.

~ciao

 

Erm, OK..

 

... have not needed the padded room yet.

The fear of God has worked well for me so far.

 

There is this ridiculous hypocrisy among atheists that they are morally and intellectually superior. It is obviously ignorant and immoral for countless reasons that I need not go into, but I should point out that the Ivy League Colleges were formed by Christians for the advancement of science and education, most particularly of Christian men and women.
No atheist has yet named for any audience one single atheist college, nor one single atheist hospital, nor one single atheist soup kitchen, or orphanage.

 

I'm told that there is a story in the bible where God sets bears upon children who mock a prophet. I checked my diary and I couldn't find a single instance of where I had done this myself. Curious huh?

 

The problem being...?

Not really, seeing that unlike God you have no independent authority to execute people.

 

On the contrary, people are people whether they are Christian or atheist. Some have a morality based on empathy and sociology and others do not - in either group. This is because the true root of morality is not based on one's perspective on whether or not god exists. There are incredibly moral, humane Christians and there are incredibly moral and humane atheists. Some Christians are terrible people and some are not. For every Isabella of Spain there is a Joseph Stalin (well perhaps more murderin tyrants whom profess Christianity due to the prevalence of Christianity in human history). The number of people murdered by each had more to do with the way they were able to convince themselves that another group of people didn't deserve respect or empathy.

Ultimately what determines a person's membership in that multi-faceted community known as Christian is not the integrity of their morality it is whether or not they profess a belief in Jesus Christ. After all, ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of god but being saved is a gift freely given to those who profess faith - or so I've read. The morality of these varies based on denomination. Many Catholic Christians will drink alcohol for example. Many Protestant christians consider the consumption of alcohol a moral outrage. Even over time the morality changes. 200 years ago a woman wearing pants would have been a shocking scandal but today some Christian women will even wear shorts on a hot day. A woman wearing shorts on a hot day in Virginia in 1640 would have been excommunicated. Today she might be seen as fashionable. The shorts bear little on her philosophy on the existence of God but no doubt in times past she would have been considered godless. In these cases it is community standards, sociology, which is really the deciding factor.

For a person to do something another person might consider immoral, they must convince themselves that it is ok to do that thing hence it is no longer immoral in their own mind. This can happen for Christians as easily as atheists. A Christian need only develop a theocratic doctrine to turn off their empathy. Similarly an atheist need only develop what they consider a logical justification. Thus it was just as easy for Isabella of Spain to order Jews to either convert or die thus launching the Spanish Inquisition. And thus it was easy for Joseph Stalin to view Jews as a threat to the nationalism of the USSR and launch the Great Purge. In either case genocide was more likey a result of wanting gold and political power than about the perceived existence of Christ. The sociology allowed for it since many people hated Jews in Europe. Since the community was ok with it then the final barrier left would have been empathy. Unfortunately, empathy was turned off.

I personally do not measure the integrity of one's morality by the number of hospitals or colleges named after them. it is possible that a person who is honoured that way may have great moral integrity and it is also possible they do not. Often colleges and hospitals are named after financial benefactors - the money is the source of the honour. Atheism is not based on a hierarchical organization where one person is elevated above the other so it is not as likely to see a building named after one. Also, atheism is relatively new on the world stage.Professing atheism throughout most of human history would have resulted in an execution.

 

Imaginary figures don't have authority.

 

The problem I think stems from this notion that there is an absolute morality which stems from this Christian God. Let's assume for a moment that there is this constant, absolute morality. Why, if there is such a constant absolute morality, does the Christian sense of right and wrong sway so much?

My answer to that question is that it is human interpretation that is the variable here. As an example, Consider the movement to abolish slavery within the British empire. At first slavery was an accepted way of life. Even within the bible there are admonitions to slaves to be the best slave they can, to make a good reputation as obedient. And yet it is from the bible that the movement to abolish slavery took its inspiration. The practice of slavery slowly became less and less acceptable as multiple Christian denominations began to accept that Slavery was inhumane. The sociology of slavery changed. As the sociology changed so too did the sense of empathy that people felt toward slaves until finally slavery was abolished within the entire empire and all slaves set free. The exegesis of antislavery was not without debate. There were many slaveholders who felt justified by the slavery of the Old Testament to hold slaves. There were many who saw the Apostle Paul's tolerance of slavery as a justification. Some Christians took the position that slavery was fine but mistreatment of slaves was not. As with anything, there was a spectrum of thought.

If there is a god of absolute morality who has an opinion on this matter it is not evident. This is just another situation where people look to an ancient text with no clear argument to resolve the problems of today. There was no clear argument because issues of human rights weren't really conceived of in the ancient times that the bible was written. The abolitionists of the 17 and 1800's focused on changing society by urging a sense of empathy because their interpretation of god's morality motivated them to do so. It was also something that happened due to the sociology of Europe. France abolished slavery first under the leadership of Robespierre who was motivated by the ideals of the enlightenment, which was an undercurrent throughout the situation. Nobody would have been concerned about the rights of anyone had there not first been a Magna Carta establishing a limit to what the state can do to a man.

I think that people have a sense of morality and they shape their religion, if they have one, to that sense of morality. The two factors, religion and morality intertwine, shaping each other. This is because "religion" is often just a reflection of what society finds acceptable.

 

According to the Bible it's perfectly OK to kill someone if you think he is a witch or if you see him doing any work on the sabbath.

 

Might is right. Nice one.

 

Except over fools.

 

Complete and utter pablum!

According to you that would mean that atheists don't know the difference between right and wrong.

Onus is entirely on you to prove that nonsense!

 

Obviously that idea is a problem in the mortal sphere, where none of us is the Source of right; but for God, not so much.

 

I can't think of one society in history where murder was acceptable for the average citizen.

No Yahweh necessary.

 

Prove it