Is the Christian God Moral?

[Anacoluthon64]

If anyone has the desire, I would like to see the thread redirect itself to the specific posting that I made of the Ten Commandments and to see if anyone has specific objections to any or all of those commandments.

Okay, then.  Let’s see how your god measures up when gauged by the same primary moral yardstick we supposedly are to adhere to, on pain of eternal pain.

Commandments regarding our relationship to God

One is tempted to observe that establishing such special rules seems a mark of profound insecurity. Nevertheless, let’s examine them one by one.

I. "You shall have no other gods before me.

Your god manages this one with admirable consistency and also with considerable ease, I imagine.  It is hard to tell, though, whether this cautionary diktat was born in a moment of introspective self-doubt, particularly over the question of his/her own origin.

II. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Much the same as I., but somewhat more sociopathically assertive.  While unlikely, your god could conceivably transgress this one by admiring, say, his/her own reflection, or statues erected in his/her glory.  It also hints at the tantalising possibility that your god had, at one point, a brief moment of self-loathing and visited the consequent pain and suffering on his/her own son.  If so, s/he was at least consistent in the application of his/her law, if not terribly bright about it.

III. "You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

Unless this god of yours has a multiple personality disorder, it is hard to see how s/he could violate this one.  A transparent bit of self-aggrandisement, this, designed as a psychological trick whose only purpose is to keep thoughts of him/her uppermost in people’s minds, as a watchdog against contrary or stray thoughts or utterances.

IV. "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

This one, too, your god adheres to unfailingly, mainly because s/he seems to keep his/her own sabbath seven days out of seven.  So far, then, your god scores full marks.

Continued …

'Luthon64

[Anacoluthon64]

Continued…

Commandments regarding our relationship to our fellow humans

This is where things get a little less hazy.

"Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.

This one’s a bit problematic.  On the one hand, your god has no easily identifiable parents so s/he might not be honouring them, while on the other hand, s/he has lived a long time so it seems safe to conclude that s/he hasn’t been doing any large-scale parental dishonouring.  We are forced to give him/her the benefit of the doubt.

VI. "You shall not murder.

Your god overtly and habitually disrespects this one, often with apparent glee: s/he kills people daily for no discernible reason, and this is doubtlessly premeditated, by virtue of his/her omniscience.  Another word for “premeditated killing of people” is “murder.”

VII. "You shall not commit adultery.

There’s not much evidence one way or another concerning your god’s sexual exploits, but there is quite a bit of talk about the church being his/her bride, so the act of cuckolding and inseminating an unmarried virgin demonstrates at least one lapse into deviant lechery.

VIII. "You shall not steal.

This one, too, is fairly clear.  Once you’ve given someone something, taking it back without that person’s consent is no less than theft.  This is particularly true in the case where such gifts define the recipient.  Your god is quite indiscriminate about so revoking gifts of this kind in the absence of the owners’ consent, most particularly their lives at unexpected moments.

IX. "You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

By keeping him/herself hidden from the world, your god’s entire history is one of false testimony against his/her neighbours if we are permitted the liberty of classing ourselves as his/her neighbours, which seems reasonable in view of the fact that there’s usually at least one of his/her many houses quite near to you.  Also, s/he says one thing and does quite another.  Moreover, s/he doesn’t usually deliver on his/her promises.  Strictly speaking, none of this is false testimony against neighbours, but functionally it may as well be because it confuses the bejabbers out of them.

X. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour."

Here, we are forced into drawing the uncomfortable conclusion that your god’s taking away of people’s things is, at base, motivated by covetousness.  While it isn’t entirely clear that s/he’s always after a spouse, servant or beast of burden, such ambiguity of motive doesn’t obscure the underlying keenness to subtract something from his/her target’s existence.  In brief, it’s still desirousness of one kind or another.



The final adherence score, then, is a quite unimpressive 5/10.

'Luthon64

[wandapec]

George Carlin does an excellent job of  breaking the 10 commandments down to 2 commandments! It is brilliant!

[johnno777]

To Wandapec

Well here's the thing! George Carlin was beaten by some 2,000 odd years in reducing the Ten Commandments to two, by a man called Jesus. So, that was not so brilliant. What was even less brilliant, in fact, extremely dumb of George Carlin, was for him to think that he can mock God and get away with it unscathed. By the look of him, he'll be finding that out real soon. Before his punishment begins (maybe it will be part of it) he, like every person ever created by God, from the creation of the earth, until the return(soon)of Jesus Christ,  will bend his knee and proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of the Father.(Phillipians 2: 10).

[wandapec]

I threw George Carlin just to add a little humour, but anyway.

George Carlin was beaten by some 2,000 odd years in reducing the Ten Commandments to two, by a man called Jesus.

If this is true, why would his old man come up with the 10 commandments in the first place? Surely, he would have known they could have been reduced to just two and given them to Moses right up front?

to think that he can mock God and get away with it unscathed

I take it your god is not very modest? Surely, a little humour about the inadequacy of a list that was made up when wheel barrows were “advanced technology” deserves maybe a little discussion before lashing out with punishment?

until the return(soon)of Jesus Christ

It has been “soon” for some time now – over 20 centuries! In fact, if you go according to what Jesus apparently said was that “Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.” (Matthew 24:34 KJV). The same claim is repeated numerous times through the bible. Who's fooling who?

[ArgumentumAdHominem]

I really want to respond to so much of what has been said here but I do not want to detract from the excellent points that have been made by everyone else, points which I really would like to hear a response to.  So I will not post anything which might detract from that or overload Johno.

I notice that 'Luthon "earned" five "woo-woo nut" ratings all within one week, all in the same week where her participation was almost exclusively in this thread?  Enjoying yourself there Johno?  You also have a "-5" rating but they didn't all come from one person, I can account for one.

[Anacoluthon64]

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

'Luthon64

[Anacoluthon64]

I notice that 'Luthon "earned" five "woo-woo nut" ratings all within one week, all in the same week where her participation was almost exclusively in this thread?  Enjoying yourself there Johno?  You also have a "-5" rating but they didn't all come from one person, I can account for one.

Well, thank you, AAH – I am genuinely touched by your concern in this regard, even though I myself don’t set too much store by these ratings, considering that their assignment is largely subjective, arbitrary and uncontrolled.

Anyway, my latest post in this thread has secured me another demerit from johnno777, no doubt because I cited something inconveniently moralistic from his holy book that leaves considerable leeway for interpretation.  It is telling that this censure occurred on a Sunday, when good people should be observing their god’s sabbath, instead of out and about doing their lord’s work in the form of denouncing heathens, heretics, apostates, and so on.  But then, maybe such denunciation can be construed as light entertainment or some such, rather than as work.

And this post is sure to provoke at least another fevered click on my “woo-woo nut” link.

ETA: Hmm, I sense a presence…

'Luthon64

[johnno777]

For ArgumentumAdHominem

5... now 6 votes against Luthon in one week and on the same thread. Must mean I found the woo woo nut button, or I think that Luthon is 6 times more a woo woo nut than anyone else does...or both.

I've enjoyed a fair amount of your rhetoric and have enjoyed especially your and Luthon's command and understanding of the English language, as well as evidence of some wide reading, but I'll probably post one more post tonight, as some sort of response to Luthon, then I'll be out of here, at least for a while.

Elements of this forum reflect some of the realities of life in the real world. It's so easy to say, or do something stupid that will get one into deep and far reaching trouble, in a matter of seconds, but which may take many years to extricate oneself from, if one takes the right course of action afterwards. In a similar way, it does not take much time, courage or brainpower to type out on a keyboard: "your God stinks", "Where does it say in the Bible AIDS is a punishment for same-sex?, "why musn't we eat pork?","where does it say you can't be a transvestite?" etc.etc.

It takes very much more time to expain why certain things appear, or are the way they are in the Bible.Some questions are easy to answer from the Bible, if one knows it, and others need the exercising of discernment, or wisdom. Facts are not always enough. Then there are some questions for which one does not have an answer, but that it could be useful to point out certain salient points which may illuminate one's thinking and steer them into a direction which may deliver an answer.

To go through these processes, in an attempt to offer answers to the enquirees, is a hard enough and energy sapping task, if people who are fielding the questions, do so because they really want to know about God and Christianity; but its harder to do the same for people who obviously have no desire to know the truth, as espoused by the Bible, and who just want to use the forum to vent their spleen, mock the Christian worldview or garner some sort of validation for their views from other like-minded people on the forum.This validation process may be sought by brownie point accumulation, through the "critical thinker"-"woo woo nut" check in counters, or from the odd nudge nudge-wink wink process, where a "good on ya" comment from the Alpha adrogonene (maybe I've invented a new word. who says nothing good can come out of this forum?) counts for a lot.

I take the biblical injunction to "redeem the time" very seriously, partly because I believe that Jesus Christ will be returning to earth soon, and partly because I've been around for a fair amount of time and I'm in the end zone (roughly, a place where you know without a shadow of a doubt, that the time you may have left, is shorter than the time you have already had on earth). To that end, I believe it to be a waste of time to engage with people who are, not only not interested in Christianity, but who also cannot muster up a common decency to treat people in a way that they themselves would like to be treated as well. There is also a biblical reference to not "throw pearls before swine" (not that I think any of you are pigs) as well.

So, that's it. Maybe I can post on Saturdays in the near future. We'll see.

[wandapec]

All the best Johnno.

[Anacoluthon64]

I believe that the word you were looking for to describe me, johnno777, is "androgyne," as in “Alpha Androgyne.”

If so, I’m quite flattered actually, because the implication is that in the absence of any knowledge of my gender, I’d’ve been viewed as male, and I can’t help but suppose that there’s some kind of lesson about christian morality to be found in there somewhere.

But, yes, best wishes to you in your further pursuits, should you decide to call it a day.

'Luthon64

[johnno777]

For Anacoluthon64

I’m shot, I don’t feel like writing anything, but here goes.
Apropos your last post to ArgumentumAdhominum, on a matter of order, the Sabbath is a Saturday. Since Christ, Christians do not observe the Sabbath day, but the Sunday, which became known as the “Lord’s day”. The appellation for Sunday is derived of course from the sun god, Ra, a pagan god. Some of Christ’s followers (the women [always a problem: just to stoke a few more coals {or is that ‘chestnuts’}] continued observing the Sabbath, however. The day is unimportant. Paul discusses this in Romans 14:5-6. It is the principle of Sabbath rest which has an etymology of God resting after creating the heavens and the earth with its inhabitants and it has a forward metaphorical resonance with the salvific Sabbath for believers when they reach their Heavenly home, where Jesus says to them “Well done good and faithful servant, enter into your rest (Sabbath).” So, for Christians, one day (any day) should be used as a day of rest from one’s usual work and as a day of contemplation and reflection on their relationship with God.

With regards to your hack job of dealing with the Ten Commandments, as I have said before, it shows a great measure of immaturity and a lack of understanding in many spheres. As God says in the Bible, the knowledge of man is as foolishness to God (1 Corinthians 3:18-19 and Job 5:12-13). The God who created the universe with all its constellations and encoded all the laws that would sustain the smooth running of it, and who created the earth and all the people, animals and insects on it. Who sends rain where it is needed, who feeds a bird when it is hungry, who enables a woman to give birth to a child etc.etc, also gave you your brain and a free will, which you have decided to use against Him. How stupid, how dumb, how foolish!

I detect in you a desperately unhappy person who can’t find peace or satisfaction anywhere. It is not that you don’t believe that there is a God. You are bitter and angry that He is not constructed in the image you have created for Him to be. You hate his rules and judgements. You think He is unfair in His dealings with you and with humankind. Your ignorance does not allow you to see that His judgements are right and that He is fair and just in all His dealings with us. Knowledge without wisdom is useless. Where can one find wisdom? “The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:7) as well as many other places in the Bible. The Hebrew word used there is not restricted only to mean awe or respect, but also fear fear.

Believe me when I say that I will make it a mission to pray for you that God will extend His mercy to you, that He will cover you with His love and that He will save you from yourself and the enemy of your soul, who is the real murderer. I will pray that He will open your spiritual eyes and that He will give you discernment. I do not say this with a paternalistic attitude, or with any triumphalistic attitude but with a God given desire to see you saved from temporal and eternal misery. The Bible says that it is not God's will (desire) that any should perish.My life’s experience has shown me that usually those who are the most vociferous opponents of God, are the ones closest to surrendering their lives to Him. You are potentially closer to God than the man who attends church every Sunday with a dour look on his face and a size 12 Bible tucked under his arm, convinced that he has his reservation and ticket on the Gospel train to Glory land, where Jesus will actually say to many of them “Depart from me, I never knew you.” (Matthew 7: 23).

I may answer your Decalogue diatribe some time in the future, but for now, ciao.

For Wandapek
Thanks a lot!

[bluegray V]

As I said in some of my first replies to this thread, I don't think this topic holds much merit, since (as ArgumentumAdHominem
mentioned) you might ask similar questions of Santa, FSM or the tooth fairy.

But anyway, assuming that the Christian God who made heaven and earth exists, heres a few thoughts on whether or not he is moral:

As the supreme creator, he surely is also in charge of what is moral or not? Who are we to tell him what he can and cannot do? As the cliché goes, 'Do what I say, not what I do'
It is therefore ultimately fruitless to apply any man made moral code where God is concerned.

But if you still really want to do it anyway, consider this. Who do you hold up to the moral code? Remember that there is the trinity to account for. Sure God killed a lot of people, but I'm sure you can argue that it was probably at least partly carried out by the Holy Spirit. And I'm pretty certain that Jesus will hold up much better to any moral code than his father. So it is not so simple.

Secondly, on the 10 commandments, I much prefer the more revised version that Jesus came up with. Love God with all your being and the people around you like yourself. Which basically means you have to act in a way that is not bad for the people around you. So you can argue that God acts in everybody's interest when he causes hardship. Even if we as individuals don't find it particularly convenient, it is for the greater good and therefore moral.

To sum it up. Is the Christian God moral? Of coarse he is! He defines morality

PS. I'm glad people came up with the slogan WWJD? instead of WWGD?, otherwise we could have had a few problems with people doing silly things claiming they are just doing what God would have done... mind you we already have that

PPS. @johnno777
Please try to think WWJD before you get trigger happy with the reputation system again. It's childish and useless. One vote should be enough, let your arguments do the rest.

[Anacoluthon64]

My apologies for the delayed reply — I was away for the last two days.

As bluegray V points out, if you’re going to define the christian god as the wellspring of morality, then s/he is, of course, moral.  But that statement is almost, but not quite, as meaningful as saying that I am a parent of my child.

Anyway, johnno777, it seems that you have reinvented yourself at a stroke of the keyboard from an avenging, wrathful, old testament firebrand into a temperate, long-suffering, new testament figure of peace and compassion that would point out unbelievers’ stupidity, dumbness and foolishness just before presenting a quasi-pious show of concern.

Concerning your point of order over the sabbath, I can’t resist the temptation to point out that you have posted here on eight consecutive days, so the violation remains, unless, as said, you would argue that debate here constitutes “rest from one’s usual work” and “contemplation and reflection on [one’s] relationship with God.”

Sorry, but I remain wholly unconvinced, and your prayers for my “salvation” will be wasted, despite a superficially noble intention that, in reality, is meant to paint me as profane, if not evil.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Why?  Because you know almost nothing about me and mine and so, once again, your presumption is most revealing.  Because “soul” and “spirit” and “god” are fanciful concepts that have no correspondents in reality.  Because dead is dead and remains so.  Because this one life is all that we have.  Because we must use this life to its fullest and not squander even a moment of it hankering after illusions, however wonderful they might seem.  Because false hope is ultimately more enervating than no hope at all.  Because historically, humanity is never worse than when the taste for reason, logic and evidence is lost.  Because you and your god would subvert the taste for just those things.

And, FYI, I’ve been happily married for a bit more than ten years now.  We have a young child that we are, quite naturally, concerned about, in particular protecting her from the mind cancers that are religion, along with many other common and not so common superstitions.  Your displays here have done near enough nothing to prompt in me a reassessment of these views.  And notwithstanding your mostly defective pop-psychoanalysis of me, you are right on only one point: I am both angry and sad, but not for the reason you imagine.  Your god is important to me only insofar as believers’ promotion of him/her corrupts and hobbles other people’s, and especially children’s minds, by devaluing their reasoning abilities, by encouraging them to give up thinking, by making glib and unsustainable promises, by making it oh so easy for people to justify visiting horrors on their fellows, by using fear and intimidation to spread even more fear, and by pretending that it’s all about love.

'Luthon64

[bluegray V]

Good post 'Luthon. I'm proud to have you as a member here and wish I had your way with words