The Bible and morals?

Question

This does not apply to those who admit the only way to derive morals from the Bible is to cherry-pick them. For those who say the Bible is 100% literal truth, everything in the fictional work happened, and not a word should be altered. You ask me how, as an atheist, I can have morals without a God or a holy book. I will focus on the bible for this question, as it is most relevant to the U.S. You are eager to quote the 10 commandments as proof of this, yet when I suggest the following:

How to sell your daughter -- and what to do if she fails to please her new master (Exodus 21: 7-8)

A child who hits or curses his parents must be executed. (Exodus 21: 15,17)

The fathers shall eat the sons ... and the sons shall eat their fathers." (Ezekiel 5:10)

Under God's direction, Moses' army defeats the Midianites. They kill all the adult males, but take the women and children captive. When Moses learns that they left some live, he angrily says: "Have you saved all the women alive? Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." So they went back and did as Moses (and presumably God) instructed, killing everyone except for the virgins. (Numbers 31: 1-54)

After taking in a traveling Levite, the host offers his virgin daughter and his guest's concubine to a mob of perverts (who want to have sex with his guest). The mob refuses the daughter, but accepts the concubine and they "abuse her all night." The next morning she crawls back to the doorstep and dies. The Levite puts her dead body on an *** and takes it home. Then he chops the body up into twelve pieces and sends them to each of the twelve tribes of Israel (Judges 19: 22-30)

Did the NT fix all of this?
Jesus said, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law" (Matthew 5:17)

Jesus says that he has come to destroy families by making family members hate each other. He has "come not to send peace, but a sword." (Matthew 10: 34-36)

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:26)

For those who think the word “hate” in the above example is just another way of saying “love less” or that you must love Jesus more look at this: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37) This clearly does not use the word hate, so the argument that “hate” is just how they said “love less” or that you must love A more than B at the time the Bible was written is false.

I fully admit I am cherry picking these passages, there is a lot of good stuff in the Bible, but you must not ignore the bad either when you accept it as literal truth. When I present you with those quotes, or evidence that the bible supports slavery and intolerance towards women (1Corinthians 14:34,35), you tell me those are not literal stories, but are just allegories. Well what are they allegories for? You just told me you take the bible as truth. Yet the very fact you are deciding what is good and what is bad in the Bible shows you do not get morals from a God or a holy book. You say you must not trust your own intuition for morals, yet you are using that very same intuition to choose what is good and what is just an allegorical story. So, you do not derive all morals from scripture, you get them from parents, society, experience, personal vindications, and history.

To the extent you DO get morals from scripture you cherry pick, just as I have the bad examples. My point is you do not derive all morals from God or scripture, you do not NEED god or a holy book to be a good person.

Cheers.



I used the SAB heavily for this as well as arguments put forth by many prominent atheists, I am merely putting them to Yahoo answers

Answer 1

If you want an answer don't write a page long answer from yourself..

Answer 2

Seeing that you cherry picked these verses, it shows that you have made no effort to study what is really being said.
Unless you are an ancient Hebrew, you do not have to follow the OT verses (the Law). Basically the OT ie essentially a history of Israel. Show me ANY history that is not like this. Any era, any century.
Jesus says think not that I have come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. -Matthew 5:17. If you study the Messianic prophesies in the OT you will see that is just what he DID.
When Jesus says that he comes not to bring peace, but a sword -Matthew 10:34. This is a reference to Christ's mission to separate Good from Evil, not families from families.
Luke 14:26 is an instruction distinctly TO his disciples, not everyone as a whole. As a disciple, these things were necessary.
As far as the Corinthians reference to somehow mistreating women, this must be read as a letter to the church in Corinth at that time to correct some of the problems they were having. Nothing in this can be construed to be permanent or for all time. This only seeked to rectify a problem in the ancient church at that time.
BTW Good luck with the whole "I can do everything myself and be righteous thing". You will find that this is an illusion, and you will only be righteous in your own eyes.
And as another word of advice, get a proper study Bible and make an attempt to learn before you go spouting this SAB Bullsh*t. Give us a break from this repeating bullsh*t.

Answer 3

I've asked this same question to christians many times, and they always try to say that I'm taking these scriptures out of context, or that I need to understand that during this time in history these primitive people had different moral laws. But these are obviously irrational excuses and just show that the average person of faith will give you any excuse to justify their holy book, no matter how irrational or absurd that excuse may be. No one, outside of a very small group of nutcases, in this modern age would support and uphold these absolutely disgusting, superstitious laws. Many christians will admit they don't believe everything written in the old testament, but instead gather their moral values from the newer, upgraded morally true new testament. It is easy to see that this makes absolutely no sense at all. I am grateful that some people strayed away from religion and logically thought about morality and came to the conclusion that morality is not given to us by any god, but instead has been given to us by natural selection, the organisms who work together mutually benefit and survive to create offspring who share these characteristics.

Answer 4

A lot of these verses are taken out of context. To understand the mosaic laws, you must understand the culture of the times. Ezekiel is obviously not endorsing cannibalism but discussing how evil humanity can get when apart from God.

Likewise the passage about the woman who was raped. This is a horrible thing. The bible does not skip over bad things, it tells them like they are. They do, unfortunately, happen. This passage is talking about how low the Israelites had sank and how far they had departed from God.

The bible also uses poetry often. The verse where it says you have to hate your parents does not obviously mean you have to hate your parents, as this goes against what the bible teaches. It uses a strong word to emphasize the amount of loyalty we must have for God.

Answer 5

Would you like to go on and on and on about Atheist Stalin and what he did just 70 years ago.

Just because it's in the book doesn't make it right or a blue print for righoutness, nor does it allow us to be arm chair decision makers.

It is up to each individual to decide what is right and then hope God agrees.

Answer 6

If you don't need this book to be a good person or to give you moral advice...then why even acknowledge it in the first place? I mean, who cares? Why even question it? What difference does it make to an athiest anyway? You don't believe it to be real or to hold any value, so why even concern yourself with what's in one book of the hundreds of thousands available to you?

Answer 7

Please keep your rants short. Pick out one item and biblical passage and let the silly religious people try to justify their beliefs. And don't use only the bible, there are many holy books out there that have silly stuff in them.

Answer 8

Hun that book was wrote by men who wanted to control people! The whole book is corrupt. And yes I do have frinds who are christians... And they know that I'm a Irish Pagan!

Answer 9

We have morals because even atheists (like myself) in the U.S. have been influenced by christian values, and bacause we're plain intelligent. The religious have values because of the guilt factoring in (if you aren't good, you're going to hell). Atheists are just witty.

Answer 10

If you want to know the truth all you have to do is to pray to Heavenly Father. He will guide you to the right road