RagingRev

Psalm 14 says:

¹The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. ²The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.³They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. ⁴Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.⁵There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous. ⁶Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the LORD is his refuge. ⁷Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad

The Psalmist David asserts here that the godless individual is immoral…that without God the only possible product of our selves is corruption and greed. If this were true I would assume that the religions associated with the Old Testament would never be seen with such scandal, yet they are often the most corrupt of people…of course I hate to use straw men so I won’t use the obvious lack of proof here or the fact that religion does not always equal morality…we’ve been over that before anyway. What I will do is use this passage as a study in why the Christian mindset is so often that people ouside of their own religious circle are all a bunch of filthy evil-doers.

more

Russ, a Christian and Minister in the Missouri Synod of of the Lutheran Church, and I have been chatting with a certain frequency…for some reason it always lands on the subject of morality…we hit other subjects some times, but morality is one thing that we ALWAYS end up getting back to. Maybe I am not authoritative enough on the subject of morals (I don’t know why not), but I can’t seem to say things in a way that satisfy Russ…so we chat and I explain my side, challenge his side a tad, try to explain why god is not necessary in the moral dilemma that we face daily…and for some reason it just never gets across, I have no doubt that I am using some sort of logic that seems circular but I just don’t know any other way to put it. The thing is, Russ knows that I am not an immoral person, he admits that…He understands that a godless person like myself can still have morals but that they may not have a basis. Usually after going over this a few times we start to do a bit of name calling and then kiss and make up, because Russ is a really nice guy and I am too if I must say so myself (usually we only prod one another, I think he knows I am just picking with him). I guess I just want to know from the Atheists and the Christians (or anyone else for that matter) where I am messing up my explanation of this thing. So what follows is a portion of one of our more recent conversations (edited to make it easier to read, no other edits made) from Gtalk.  Afterward I am going to try to explain my view (which as far as I know is well accepted, but I base it entirely on my own understanding of history and my observations of the human race) Tell me what I can do to improve my understanding or explanation of this, is there a precedent on this argument that could help me?

more

Robert posed a few questions on the Morality and God post that I thought deserved a little attention (actually, all of them from everyone were good, but this is a good easy place to start I think, the conversation that ensued after the post delighted me though, so thanks to those of you that participated, feel free to continue!)

Robert says:

Matt you say God created man and woman imperfect. Is the freedom and ability to do wrong an imperfection or part of perfection?

I don’t really think freedom nor ability to do wrong would be the act of creating imperfection…but creating us in the LIKLIHOOD that we will screw it all up and then planting the device by which we will fail Him in the middle of the garden, then providing the Serpent to tempt man. It’s that the Bible teaches that God essentially SET MAN UP FOR FAILURE that makes HIM the bad guy, that is imperfection.

Regarding God creating evil? I think God IS good (He defines it by his being God). Evil exists when we do that which is not of God. Its not created surely?

Lets take a literalistic view here.

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7, KJV)

The Bible says God created evil. Creating choice is one thing, but creating evil is entirely another. IF god created something (out of nothing or void) that we can definitively say we don’t need (bad things aren’t needed surely?) then isn’t that just setting us up to fail? Why create the unnecessary? And the Sovereign God argument, that God did it so it must be part of his perfect will etc, is bunk because he must know that it is far beyond reasonable comprehension for us feeble minded humans and that our lack of understanding will CAUSE many of us (myself) to go astray. Once again HE is creating the chaos, just like the Bible says.

I know this is brief, tomorrow I intend to bring up the different views that exist regarding God and Satan—one being that Lucifer is the good guy—what do you think?

Adding more information here for Russ:

more

Are morality and god interdependent?

In other words, can morals exist outside of the spectrum of theism?

Or, in other other words, is god the originator and defining substance behind morality?

Recently myself and the Rev. Russ Troester had another long chat, this time we touched on the subject of belief in god essentially being the basis for morality (forgive me if I am putting words in your mouth Russ, this is the understanding I have). Since we often talk during the end of my work day I had to cut the conversation off kind of abruptly (always when it starts getting good eh?) in order to drive home.

more

The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin .

In the following sound clip a Christian calls in trying to support the idea that God (YHWH of the Bible and Jesus) is morally superior to mankind….I think the hosts of the show make some wonderful points here as to just how that might not be the case. Enjoy!

The Atheist Experience-Morality