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The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history
may be the hijacking of morality by religion.
Religious zealots like to remind us that The Bible provides us with morality. Without this morality, we would be lost in a sea of sin and decadence. Many Jews and Christians will also state: We stand firm upon the bare proposition that God has spoken authoritatively and inerrantly in the pages of the Holy Scripture.
Now, who shall we smite, kill, stone or whip today? Sweet Jesus (who brought us the concept of eternal punishment of Hell, also brought about the concept that all sins can be forgiven except one (not recognizing the existence of the Holy Spirit of God). This, you can kill, rape, torture and even eat small children all day long. When you pass on, ask Jesus for forgiveness, and Poof, you're on the fast track to Heaven
Killing homosexuals
While the bible tells us that being gay is not natural, then why is a talkng serpent or a talking ass natural?
Killing adulterers
Killing disobedient children
Killing women who are not virgins on their wedding night
Killing all non-Christians (told by Jesus Christ,
the Lamb of God:-)
Killing anyone who is accused of wickedness by at least two
people
Killing anyone who commits beastiality
Killing anyone who works on the Sabbath
Killing those who commit blasphemy
You can sell your daughters as slaves
You can beat your children with a rod
You can own slaves (from pagan countries)
Incest is very popular in the Bible. Adam and Eve's children did it, Noah's children did it.
Jonah
lived inside a large fish (whale) for three days.
There is
the talking snake
and the
Tree of Knowledge.
True morality is doing what is right without the threat of divine retribution nor the possibility of divine reward. The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God's treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them.
Christians claim their morality is eternal and unchanging. Yet at one point, Christians believed slavery, marital rape, forced conversion and criminalization of homosexuality were moral. This shows that people decide what is moral, then project their moral values onto god. This has to be among the funniest, and among the most delusional, things Christians always say. They insist god's morality is eternal and unchanging. But that's not really true, is it? There are many things that Christians once thought were morally acceptable, but have since abandoned because modern society disapproves of these behaviors. Slavery was one of them. Marital rape another. So was child abuse. The immutability of Christian so-called objective morality is so easily refuted that there's something else going on here and that is good old-fashioned Christian cognitive dissonance, especially prevalent among the more dimwitted Christians. Doctrine does not determine moral behavior, but rather the process is man determines what doctrine is, assumes god is its source and then coerces others, often through threats and force, to live in accordance with its precepts. Today, it is modern society that dictates what is right and wrong to Christians, not their god. Christians adjust their religious doctrines accordingly so as not to run afoul of the secular authorities. Apparently, the secular law is significantly more humane than Christian morality ever was, otherwise Christians wouldn't have to constantly change their own morality in order to keep up with the times.
If you ACTUALLY NEED religion to have morals... If you need being tempted by a "perfect, perfect and blissful heaven" as a reward, and have a "burning hell where you will be tortured for all eternity" as a punishment, just to make you behave like a good person? |
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I've collected these morally questionable, erroneous, or
thought provoking bible verses while browsing r/atheism the last few
months. I've summed up what they're about (of course, the interpretations
are subjective), but you can look up the full verses here.
1 Corinthians 11:14 (Men should not have long hair) 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 (Women should remain silent in church) Deuteronomy 13:6-16 (Death penalty for Apostasy) Deuteronomy 20:10-14 (Attack city, kill all men, keep women, children as spoils of war) Deuteronomy 21:18-21 (Death penalty for a rebellious son) Deuteronomy 22:19-25 (Kill non-virgin/kill adulterers/rapists) Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (Pay virgin's parents for raping her) Ecclesiastes 1:18 (Knowledge is bad) Exodus 21:1-7 (Rules for buying slaves) Exodus 35:2 (Death for working on the Sabbath) Ezekiel 9:5-6 (Murder women/children) Ezekiel 23:19-20 (A whore who had sex with men hung like donkeys) Galatians 5:2-4 (If you are circumcised, Christ has nothing for you) Genesis 1:3,4,5,11,12,16 (God creates light, night and day, plants grow, before creating sun) Genesis 3:16 (Man shall rule over woman) Jeremiah 19:9 (Cannibalism) John 3:18 (He who believes in Jesus is saved, he that doesn't is condemned) John 5:46-47 (Jesus references Old Testament) 1 Kings 7:23 (Pi equals 3) Leviticus 3:1-17 (Procedure for animal sacrifice) Leviticus 19:19 (No mixed fabrics in clothing) Leviticus 19:27 (Don't trim hair or beard) Leviticus 19:28 (No tattoos) Leviticus 20:9 (Death for cursing father or mother) Leviticus 20:10 (Death for adultery) Leviticus 20:13 (Death for gay men) Leviticus 20:15 (Death for bestiality) Leviticus 20:18 (No sex with a woman on her period) Leviticus 21:17-23 (Ugly people, lame, dwarfs, not welcome on altar) Leviticus 25:45 (Strangers can be bought as slaves) Luke 12:33 (Sell your possessions, and give to the poor) Luke 14:26 (You must hate your family and yourself to follow Jesus) Mark 10:11-12 (Leaving your spouse for another is adultery) Mark 10:21-22 (Sell your possessions and give to the poor) Mark 10:24-25 (Next to impossible for rich to get into heaven) Mark 16:15-16 (Those who hear the gospel and don't believe go to hell) Matthew 5:17-19 (Jesus says he has come to enforce the laws of the Old Testament) Matthew 6:5-6 (Pray in secret) Matthew 6:18 (Fast for Lent in secret) Matthew 9:12 (The healthy don't need a doctor, the sick do) Matthew 10:34-37 (Jesus comes with sword, turns families against each other, those that love family more than him are not worthy) Matthew 12:30 (If you're not with Jesus, you're against him) Matthew 15:4 (Death for not honouring your father and mother) Matthew 22:29 (Jesus references Old Testament) Matthew 24:37 (Jesus references Old Testament) Numbers 14:18 (Following generations blamed for the sins of previous ones) Psalms 137:9 (Violence against children) Revelation 6:13 (The stars fell to earth like figs) Revelation 21:8 (Unbelievers, among others, go to hell) 1 Timothy 2:11-12 (Women subordinate and must remain silent) 1 Timothy 5:8 (If you don't provide for your family, you are an infidel) Zechariah 14:2 (Women ravished when city is taken in battle) Edit: I originally had written Mark 20:21-22...it's actually Mark 10:21-22.
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Samantha_Cruz commented on There is no morality without the Bible
(r/atheism)
The Code of Rr-Nammu specifies moral standards and was written down at least 1000 years before the oldest books of the bible so we can pretty safely conclude that morality did not originate from the Abrahamic god. (We also have moral codes in the Code or Urukagina and the Code of Hammurabi that also predate the abrahamic religion by over 1000 years; Morality clearly didn't begin with jewish goat herders.) The ten commandments is blatantly plagiarized from the 42 negative confessions from the Egyptian book of the dead. The 'golden rule' was rather obviously around at least 3 centuries before "jesus" plagiarized it (it's seen in Confucianism, Jainism and Hindu documents dating to at least the 3rd century BCE) If an all powerful, all knowing, benevolent 'god' created morality why is he depicted as such an immoral piece of #% in the only written record of his existence? If he's omniscient why was his morality not optimized from the very beginning? - Why did he fail to prohibit slavery, rape or catholic priests molesting children while pretending to represent this supposedly moral 'god'? Why does he demand animal sacrifices in the very next chapter (exodus 34) after handing moses those stone tablets? Why does he specifically give permission to beat your slaves (as long as they don't die within a few days). why does he murder 42 boys for 'making fun of a bald man' and turn terrified women into salt piles for 'looking backwards' as the city explodes behind her? how could a source for morality have jobs entire family murdered over a ridiculous juvenile bet that's beneath the dignity of most 5th graders? If a parent leaves a toddler in a room with a jar of delicious looking cookies and tells that toddler not to eat the delicious looking cookies and later finds that while they were out the toddler ate one of the delicious looking cookies that only tells me one thing... the parents are morons; It doesn't make the toddler and all of his descendants for the rest of eternity "evil" or require them to be cursed with "original sin" until "his son" (that is also himself) gives up a three day weekend pretending to be dead so "god" (the supposedly omniscient being) can suddenly transform his entire personality from the old testament vengeful, angry, wrathful god into a supposedly 'loving, benevolent, merciful god' that has suddenly learned that it's possible to forgive people. Before eating from the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" how would this "eve" character; that lacked the knowledge of good and evil know that disobeying 'god' was 'evil'? Without the knowledge of good and evil she is no more capable of recognizing right from wrong than the toddler that ate those cookies. Also: if an omniscient "god" created that ridiculous chain of events that led to this then that "god" is the only one that deserves to be blamed for how it turned out.
If I only had ten commandments to work with I could have come up with a
much better list; I'd start by throwing out the 4 totally unnecessary
narcissistic/egotistical/tyrannical demands that you kiss my a$$ and
perhaps add rules that actually help humanity... like "no more slavery",
"don't rape people", "don't allow the church to hide pedophiles while
pretending to represent me" and maybe when I say "don't kill people"
I might also not list over 100 different instances where I demand that
you kill people for inane and unimportant things like picking up sticks
on the wrong day of the week or having consensual sex with someone with
matching genitalia. This 'all knowing' 'all seeing' and totally
'benevolent' supreme being doesn't seem to be all that bright and he
certainly isn't the source for morality.
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