My parents are devout Southern Baptists and fundamentalist in their approach to the Bible. I'm a religious skeptic, and I don't relish the idea of putting my parents in a bad light, but they are hardly alone in the way they read the Scripture.

My dad reads the Bible every day. He's a deacon in his church and I reckon he's probably read the Bible several times over the course of his life. But there is something very different about the way he and other fundamentalists read it. There is no objective distance between himself and the text. Most fundamentalists don't question what they're reading. They don't bother to ponder the motives of this character or that, and they never question the actions of God. Suggest that David's slaughter of every man, woman, and child of the Amelikites (in one of the Samuels, I don't remember which) amounted to genocide, and you get astonished looks from the true believers. If God orders it, it can't be evil, they'll insist.

I posted earlier that everybody ought to have some knowledge of the Bible, and I stand by that. But I also agree with many posters that if you read the Bible thoroughly with an objective mind, it is all but impossible to make any sense of God's will or the supposed tenets of the faith promulgated within it. So many passages describe behaviors that we would normally find appalling, yet they are justified within the context of the Bible itself.

This is why I can't be religious, and I suspect why so many others expressed the same thing. Is this a trick? Are we being played here? What's the catch? Is this why we need to have faith when we read it? So we can gloss over the inconsistencies and reason away the contradictions?

Anse:

My parents are devout Southern Baptists and fundamentalist in their approach to the Bible. I'm a religious skeptic, and I don't relish the idea of putting my parents in a bad light, but they are hardly alone in the way they read the Scripture.

My dad reads the Bible every day. He's a deacon in his church and I reckon he's probably read the Bible several times over the course of his life. But there is something very different about the way he and other fundamentalists read it. There is no objective distance between himself and the text.

There are very few contexts in which one has objective distance between oneself and any text. You yourself admit as much that you are unable to esape your morality and unable to impose objective distance upon yourself and the text when you later say "So many passages describe behaviors that we would normally find appalling...". You and your father are doing the exact same thing.

Most fundamentalists don't question what they're reading.

Perhaps they've moved past that point of questioning. At some point you stop test driving and decided to go with the vehicle or not.

They don't bother to ponder the motives of this character or that, and they never question the actions of God. Suggest that David's slaughter of every man, woman, and child of the Amelikites (in one of the Samuels, I don't remember which) amounted to genocide, and you get astonished looks from the true believers. If God orders it, it can't be evil, they'll insist.

Are you certain that it MUST be evil? By whose reckoning? Yours? If so, then you're not reading the text objectively.

I posted earlier that everybody ought to have some knowledge of the Bible, and I stand by that. But I also agree with many posters that if you read the Bible thoroughly with an objective mind, it is all but impossible to make any sense of God's will or the supposed tenets of the faith promulgated within it. So many passages describe behaviors that we would normally find appalling, yet they are justified within the context of the Bible itself.

In essence, if a person reads the Bible and they are as smart as you or as moral as you, they must come to the exact same conclusion about it as you. Doesn't that strike you as the least bit arrogant?

This is why I can't be religious, and I suspect why so many others expressed the same thing. Is this a trick? Are we being played here? What's the catch? Is this why we need to have faith when we read it? So we can gloss over the inconsistencies and reason away the contradictions?

Perhaps it is that some people don't find inconsistencies or contradictions in the text the same way you do. Is your reading of the text the true reading of the text?

Our basic concept of justice depends on the concept of guilt or innocence. Killing children indiscriminantly goes against that ideal. Note that in the passage, there is nothing to suggest that killing children may be a sad consequence of war; there's no acknowledgment of "collateral damage." God literally orders their deaths.

You would justify the intentional murder of children? This makes sense to you?

If so, I don't think I need to bother answering the rest of it, because we're on totally different planets.

But I would like to ask you this: would your God order YOU to murder innocent children? And if he did, would you do it? If you would, then what exactly do you base your morality on? Whatever God tells you to do?

Christians--including my parents--tell me that without faith in God, you cannot have any basis for morality. But if that's true, then your morality isn't based on principles; it's based on the will of one deity that's little better than an autocratic dictator.

Anse:

Our basic concept of justice depends on the concept of guilt or innocence. Killing children indiscriminantly goes against that ideal. Note that in the passage, there is nothing to suggest that killing children may be a sad consequence of war; there's no acknowledgment of "collateral damage." God literally orders their deaths.

You would justify the intentional murder of children? This makes sense to you?

If so, I don't think I need to bother answering the rest of it, because we're on totally different planets.

You haven't thought this through. Your asking me to take the God who literally ordains the deaths of billions of people each year and get upset that he orders the killing of some tens of thousands? Why should your objection make sense in light of God's role as death-bringer and destroyer. Everyone dies. What big fat meanie that God is.

But I would like to ask you this: would your God order YOU to murder innocent children? And if he did, would you do it? If you would, then what exactly do you base your morality on? Whatever God tells you to do?

Are you asserting that if the God of all the universe, who knows all good or ill, who knows the ways and means of all things spoke to you, and gave you a command, you would willing disobey it based on your limited conceptions of morality and wisdom, on your frail human logic? I doubt it. If God spoke to you from the whirl-wind, you'd be as much a zealot as Joshua if that were the case. You and I both. Every person on this board would kill innocent children if God commanded them to. If God is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do, it would be stupid not to.

Christians--including my parents--tell me that without faith in God, you cannot have any basis for morality. But if that's true, then your morality isn't based on principles; it's based on the will of one deity that's little better than an autocratic dictator.

So? If he is who he says he is, then he's right.

How do you know that the voice you hear isn't just your own insanity?

What you say is dangerous.

Do you consider yourself to be a compassionate being?

I doubt it.

Thoughtful Ted:

How do you know that the voice you hear isn't just your own insanity?

That's not the scenario that was presented. If there was any chance that it wasn't God, then I couldn't act.

What you say is dangerous.

Do you consider yourself to be a compassionate being?

I doubt it.

What you say is unrealistic and, frankly, immoral. If God is good and what he does is for the best, then if you get in the way of that, you do harm.

Really? Explain. Let's see how big of a fool you really are.

IF god is good? IF what he does is for the best? IF god exists? Very big IFs. IF those concepts are true, then, yes, your logic would be correct. If they are fiction, then they are very terrible justifications for horrific behavior.

In this country, if you kill anyone and say in court that you were commanded by god to do so, you'd be sent to the psych ward. No one, except maybe the more fanatical religious zealots out there, evidently as yourself, considers your comments as sane.

We've heard this line of thinking before, obviously - that since god is perfectly moral and perfectly wise and perfect in every way that anything it does is perfect and we can pass no judgment upon it.

Bullshit. It is no wonder that "morality" is so twisted and convoluted when the deities that supposedly underpin it behave in such despicable ways. Or, so the stories go.

What a con job.

You can't exclaim that an "If" argument isn't cogent, and then pose one yourself. I do not believe you got Krakauer's message in 'Banner.' On its face, the work concerns itself with the investigation into Fundamentalist Mormonism. You got that part. The nuances and grander detail, which you seem to have missed, is precisely the relationship between modern governments and the social pacts therein with faith and religion.

Exactly how does one address these two brothers killing a woman and her child when they both profess that God told them to commit the act? The answer from a jurisprudence stance is obvious; but there are other, more salient questions to ask than that. Namely, why do you see those who see morality through a fundamentally religious lens any different than those seeing it through other types? Is there one you see as perfect and right, while others found lacking? You just came out of an argument of objectivity, so I am curious to get the skinny on this one.

You characterize morality to be "twisted and convoluted," but in terms of enigmatic, I would take 10 grand laws over the law of man any day of the week. Whether your "convoluted" pertains to a specific group or not, I am not sure, but the question posed is which part of other paradigms of morality are any less convoluted?