The other problem, if we assume an atheist world view and assume for the argument that we are limiting our critique to the moral code created by that culture… is that the ancient Israelites had just as much right to invent their own moral code, and therefore judge your moral code as problematic. You can say their morality is evil, they can say the same about yours.
And they have as much right to develop their moral code, based on their priorities, society, evolution, as you have to develop yours, no? Is there some external or (dare I say) objective standard, independent from each of your human-developed moralities, that you can appeal to in order to determine, objectively, that yours is the “correct” morality and that theirs is in the wrong?
On the other hand, one needn’t believe in an objective moral code to note that God as portrayed in the Bible frequently violates multiple aspects of the objective moral code that many Christians claim exists (and in many cases claim can be derived from the Bible).
Exactly. So why follow the orders of a deity who doesn’t share your same sense of morality? This would mean that a deity, if they do exist, would not be an appropriate source of morality without first comparing the morality of the deity against human based morality.
We, as humans, also hold humans morally responsible for their own actions. At the trials held in Nuremburg after WW II we didn’t excuse people from immoral behavior because they were following orders. We expected them to judge the morality of the orders they were given.
We could say that aliens could live how they deem it moral within their own culture, and us the same. Issues would arise if humans started taking orders from those aliens and violating what is considered moral within human society.
On what basis would we adopt the alien morality as our own? Why would we adopt this alien morality if it goes against everything we believe to be moral?
Just as Christians can criticize Muslims for what they deem is immoral practices, even if those actions are supported by the Koran.
But I would agree that any culture should be the product of moral debate and consent. Morality is something we should argue over and delve into. My ideas of what is moral could be wrong, and the way to figure it out is to discuss and debate, letting the best ideas win. We should always be looking to improve how our cultures work, and the only way to do that is to understand what we are getting wrong.
Where problems can arise is when someone claims that a moral code is unquestionable and should be accepted as dogma. This is where morality is replaced by obedience. This is where people abandon their own moral sense. This is where they say they were only following orders.
This is another problematic critique I have often seen used, and a bit of a straw man fallacy misrepresenting what any Christian that I know actually asserts…
The God as portrayed in the Bible is the giver of said human law, and is not bound himself to follow the specific commands he gave humans to abide by. Those laws aren’t arbitrary, but they are the specific application of said universal objective moral law that God command for humans to follow. The critique that he doesn’t follow the laws he told humans to follow is a bit of an empty critique.
Wisdom could bridge the gap between the concepts of objective and subjective morality. God could create humans (by whatever process) with a subjective sense of morality, and then use his wisdom to help guide humans in the best ways of adapting to a subjective morality. In other words, just like how our families and generations work.
If God violates the actual commands and morality (which is demonstrable) and also the principles behind those (your universal object moral law) is not an empty critique. God in our current bible, says that He cannot lie. You are divorcing that from not bearing false witness in its entirety? While God did not recquire rest for the Sabbath and Jesus even says that He is still working so it is a much more complex case than you are making. Mistreating and poor and vulnerable are things that God hates; yet with your reading, God, Himself, does.
Rabbi Yoḥanan then explained to them: Why are gentiles ethically contaminated? It is because they did not stand on Mount Sinai. As when the snake came upon Eve, i.e., when it seduced her to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, it infected her with moral contamination, and this contamination remained in all human beings. When the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai, their contamination ceased, whereas gentiles did not stand at Mount Sinai, and their contamination never ceased. Rav Aḥa, the son of Rava, said to Rav Ashi: What about converts? How do you explain the cessation of their moral contamination? Rav Ashi said to him: Even though they themselves were not at Mount Sinai, their guardian angels were present, as it is written: “It is not with you alone that I make this covenant and this oath, but with he that stands here with us today before the Lord our God, and with he that is not here with us today” (Deuteronomy 29:13–14), and this includes converts.
Sotah 9b:
And, so too, we found with regard to the primeval snake who seduced Eve, for he placed his eyes on that which was unfit for him, as he wanted to marry Eve. Consequently, that which he desired was not given to him, and that which was in his possession was taken from him. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: I initially said that the snake will be king over every domesticated animal and non-domesticated animal, but now he is cursed more than all the domesticated animals and all the non-domesticated animals of the field, as it is stated: “And the Lord God said unto the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed from among all cattle, and from among all beasts of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:14).
Yevamot 103b:
The Gemara answers: He implants filth in her and contaminates her, as her body accepts his semen. As Rabbi Yoḥanan also said, based on his understanding that the serpent seduced Eve into having sexual relations with him: When the serpent came upon Eve, he infected her with moral contamination, and this contamination remained in all human beings. When the Jewish people stood at Mount Sinai their contamination ceased, whereas with regard to gentiles, who did not stand at Mount Sinai, their contamination never ceased. Therefore, Yael was repulsed by the contamination that she allowed into her body, and she did not benefit from relations with Sisera.
Avodah Zarah 22b:
And if you wish, say instead: Even when he finds the wife, he also engages in bestiality with the animal, as the Master said: The animal of a Jew is more appealing to gentiles than their own wives, as Rabbi Yoḥanan says: At the time when the snake came upon Eve, at the time of the sin of her eating from the Tree of Knowledge, it infected her with moral contamination, and this contamination lingers in all human beings. The Gemara asks: If that is so, a Jew should also be suspected of engaging in bestiality. The Gemara answers: With regard to the Jewish people, who stood at Mount Sinai and received the Torah, their contamination ended, whereas in the case of gentiles, who did not stand at Mount Sinai and receive the Torah, their contamination has not ended.
Bottom line: The distinction between Israel and the other nations seems clearly to have been that the Jews had “stood at Sinai”, i.e. received the Torah at Sinai,. Converts were included because their guardian angels had stood at Sinai on their behalf.
It is only many years later that Noachides became, and are today", tolerable/acceptable 2nd-best alternatives to “genetic Jews” and “converts”.
Edomites were reputed “descendants of Abraham and Isaac’s son, Esau”, and not among Jacob;s descendants “who stood at Sinai.”
Moabites and Amonites were reputed "descendants of Abraham’s nephew, Lot and his two daughters’ incestuous relationship, and also not among the nations “who stood at Sinai.”
Exactly. Specific laws obviously directed at humans are not important. A supposedly loving God endorsing slavery and commanding the slaughter of children is a problem. As a Christian, I find these aspects of the Bible deeply problematic.
You are welcome to demur, but it doesn’t change the fact that this simply is not what Christian theology has ever embraced. God is simply not bound to follow the specific laws he had commanded humans to follow, even if they derive from the same universal moral principles.
An obvious example - If any one of us had the thought, “I am the most important being in the universe and all other beings should worship me”, this would be wrong for me, and for you, and for everyone else.
If God had that same thought (which he does), it would be right and holy and just. The first commandment says that essentially. the laws simply apply differently when we’re talking about a being of such a different category.
If you honestly, really can’t perceive that there is some categorical difference between our obligation to obey certain laws, and the fact that God, having created the very universe and the nature of life itself and human relationships and the possibility of suffering and has all authority over all these things, that the same specific laws given to humans simply don’t apply to him in identical ways, then we are at an impasse. I can only say that it remains a straw man simply in the fact that Christian theology has historically never held such beliefs, even if you think we Christians are being logically inconsistent for not believing this, it remains the fact that we don’t believe it, and hence the argument does remain a straw man.
A good question, but before we shift the subject to that related topic… do we agree then that an atheist, or anyone else who does not believe in objective/universal/absolute morality, has no basis to criticize the morality of the God described in the Bible as objectively wrong, immoral, or evil, but rather, said deity is perfectly within his rights (just like my hypothetical alien) to have his own morality?
Not sure why you are gravitating towards a 1:1 human to divine law restriction.
I extended this to the universal moral principle argument that you made.
I then brought up the relationship between the scriptural principle of God not being able to lie and that of a God to human commandment. You stuck to some idea that I was insinuating identical ways.
No atheist would ever say that, because atheists don’t share your concept of God, and most if not all recognise that there are many different concepts of what God is, as well as many non-Abrahamic deities.
They would be much more likely to say ‘your God is…’.
Your false claim is no more convincing the second time than it was the first.
You are. You did. And you just avoided chattel slavery again, by talking about POWs.
I’m not avoiding talking about it, go right ahead, it is authorized in Leviticus and there’s no avoiding or sugarcoating it… I was just observing that one category of those foreign slaves would have been those captives during war, and that they may well have preferred life servitude to immediate death. But slaves were part of the larger ANE society and Leviticus authorizes the Israelites to participate in that. And that I personally find that instructive, as even under current modern laws of war, forced labor of POWs as essentially unpaid slave labor is approved and authorized under even our modern treaties and coventions. We apparently don’t find the very concept that inherently immoral…
but you are correct regarding chattel slavery that there’s no avoiding the clear language in Leviticus: " ‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly."
Even so, I’d still caution that since even foreign slaves could be brought into the family of Israel, participating in circumcision and subsequently also in the Passover (which was forbidden for “foreigners” to participate), I tend to suspect that continuing to identify these previously-foreign as foreign slaves and not as a “brother Israelites” (with all the limits and boundaries established, which ceases them as being chattel), is at least a bit dubious.
Minor point: If your God set the laws, they are subjective, not objective. If they apply differently to some people then others, they are subjective not objective.
Major point: Even if you exempt your God from following the laws he set for humans, he still, as portrayed in the Bible, frequently orders people to break those laws; and orders people to order other people to break them.
Final point: You cannot possibly know whether the laws are arbitrary or not, or the application of an objective standard or not, since you are not your God and do not have his supposed knowledge…
I don’t see this in any context. we have plenty of objective laws in this country that apply differently to some people than others. Some laws allow some people to vote while prohibiting others, some laws allow some people to buy alcohol while prohibiting others. Some laws allow people in certain professions to forcibly detain citizens while I cannot similarly legally do so. The fact that objective laws can and do apply differently to different people is beyond obvious.
I’d be interested in your specific example, but I’d suggest that he never orders people to break eternal moral laws that he has established… rather, I think it is more that he knows what is and isn’t a violation of those laws. For instance, he established laws against murder (not killing), for instance, and then orders people to kill under certain circumstances wherein they would not be a violation of his command.
But perhaps you’re thinking of another specific example? What specific law, that God commanded to be adhered to universally by humans as a reflection of an eternal moral principle, does he later command humans to violate?
Of course this is true, of course my knowledge is fallible and limited.
Neither I nor my culture/society can be trusted to be the final arbiter of all that is or isn’t moral. At some point I must trust God’s commands and character, especially at those times when what he commands seems to conflict with my own understanding of morality.
But that’s exactly the point of this discussion in general, right? If we recognize that we aren’t God, and don’t have his knowledge, then we cannot possibly know whether or not those laws or commands that seem to conflict with our understanding of morality may well indeed be right, just, and holy?
Even if we look at other species on this planet we don’t judge the morality of those other species. For example, chimp culture in natural habitats can be quite violent. However, we aren’t throwing chimps in jail for murder even if a human would be incarcerated for the same behavior. We recognize that they aren’t moral agents like we are, or if they have a system of morality it isn’t appropriate for us to get involved.
This would also apply to an alien species. It wouldn’t be appropriate to insert ourselves into that alien culture and enforce our rules of morality. However, it is entirely appropriate to defend ourselves from attacks by alien species. It is also appropriate to state that it would be immoral for humans to adopt the alien system of morality if it violates human morality.
I could easily conceive of a deity who is like an alien species. It could hold to a moral system that is antithetical to human morality. The same rules would apply. The deity is free to hold to whatever moral system it deems fit, but humans have a say in how it affects humans. We can judge how that moral system affects us.