Simon said- The basic problem is that religious people believe that anything god does immediately makes it loving and right and proper. If he orders people be slaughtered right after commanding people not to kill ... well, that makes it right even though it contradicts his own edict.
Except "thou shalt not kill" applied ONLY to one's fellow members of the Mosaic covenant, i.e. members of the 12 tribes were NOT to kill EACH OTHER. Those who heard the reading of the 10 commandments in the Torah weren't confused or bothered at the idea of killing NON-Jews (Gentiles), since they didn't even think it appllied to all those nasty Canaanites and Philistines who's lands they "were promised" (pre-hoc rationalization?).
In fact, killing one's enemies in battle was NOT considered as bloodshed in the Torah, since it was justified killing which didn't incur bloodguilt on the individual OR the Nation of Israel in the eyes of God. The same concept applies to battlefields today: we don't hold soldiers liable for killing enemy combatants; instead, we decorate them as war heroes.
Of course, Xianity later broadened that concept of "thou shalt not kill" to apply to ALL humans, when that was not the original intent; it's moving the goalpost, a later addition of Xianity to clean up the onerous bigotry and racism found in the OT.
(and even when God caused someone's death (eg Ananias), it's ALSO justified by telling themselves 'God is love', and blaming the victim, so by definition anything God does is excused by circular logic, propped up with God's mysterious ways.)
Simon said- If he could but didn't chose to stop a natural disaster that kills hundreds of thousands ... well it's suddenly an act of love. If he allows millions of children under 5 to die every year, women to be raped and murdered and just watches it happen ... well, it's nuttin' but holy love.
Yup. The greatest act of natural evil in the Bible was CAUSED by God, wiping out BILLIONS of people in the Flood of Noah and justified in the name of eliminating evil-doers; it is excused as an act of love for the eight survivors (!). Hell, that's the ENTIRE POINT of the Flood account, using intimidation tactics to communicate implicitly that God rules by a Hobson's choice, using a "my way or the highway to Hell" approach.
It's undeniable that the Bible is filled with carnage and acts which show a lack of respect for life: that's HOW the Bible supports the "appeal to authority", creating a climate of terror and intimidation.
Heck, I recently thought of the case of Samson, the original prototype of a suicide bomber who is even mentioned by name as a "hero of faith" in Hebrews 11:32; Samson killed not only himself, but all the other evil ones in a suicidal act that killed the infidel pagans.
TEC, how do you excuse Samson's 'act of faith', the act of a "Jihadist for Jehovah"?
Simon said- The real problem is that religious people are totally amoral and have no real sense of right and wrong which is why they rely on someone else to tell them but they also lack the reasoning skills to realize that the explanations they are given make no sense.
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call believers "totally amoral" (my sister is a JW, and has the sweetest and most-innocent heart of anyone I've EVER met in MY life, bar none), but the Bible absolutely DISCOURAGES independent thinking and use of morality, polemicizing it as the folly of mankind. Morality and ethics tends to fail to flourish under such thought-stopping environment, which is the entire POINT of growing sheep, followers. But even that's a stretch, since many people leave the JWs and get along just fine without any fears of collapsing into a ball of fear of moral uncertainty.
Simon said- The rest of us have better developed sense of justice and a standard of right and wrong - basically, we're better and more loving than their god and of course they don't like that because despite what they lack, deep down they can see it
Agreed, except with a slight modification: the rest of us have a CHANCE of developing our sense of ethics: it's NOT guaranteed that the individual will develop their ethical sensibilities (many adopt a reactionary rebellious streak, living their lives by inverting their moral codes, as if the complete inverse of JW morality). Many JWs exit, and mistakenly tell themselves they were granted critical-thinking skills and a fully-developed ethical system as a parting gift from the JWs. Nope, as that takes active effort, giving it alot of time and effort (unlike the JW system were easy answers were delivered on a platter literally with someone knocking on their door, to be followed via obedience to authority).
Cofty said- In other words theism isn't condemned by external evidence by by its own internal contradictions.
To which the theist would respond YOU perceive "internal contradictions" in the Bible, based on YOUR unwillingness to hear the explanation, since you are completely unwilling to even contemplate.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your argument is an 'appeal to personal ignorance', the very same argument used by Perry (in the negative form) when he says that since HE doesn't see the signs of global climate change in his neighborhood, it isn't occuring. Obviously it's flawed logic, since you cannot extrapolate from a small region to the larger; you need to look at ALL the evidence (in this case, it's a common error encountered in scientific studies of 'insufficient sample size', which causes a lack of truly-representative data).
You are saying that what YOU perceive as an "internal contradiction" MUST apply to everyone else, too, which simply isn't the truth: many believers find these various theodicies perfectly able to satisfy the concerns that YOU find troublesome. You cannot overcome your biases to even consider that possibility, since you're projecting your beliefs onto others.
There's good reason to state that "no one magic bullet exists to kill theist beliefs", since people BELIEVE for MANY DIFFERENT REASONS, and hence there is no 'one-size-fits-all answer' to counter such beliefs.
Adam
