YouTube - Morality Without God - A Response

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I found a suggested video from a tweeter who goes by Cherokee_autumn who suggested this video from the ThinkingAtheist.com as proof that you can can Morality without God. The video says that atheists are often asked where there morality comes from. I was expecting a compelling argument and was disappointed. Instead of giving an answer to how you can have Morality without God it attempts a red hering argument trying to show that God is not moral. The video doesn't even make an attempt to use any new arguments. I'm going to put my responses in red and list the points I understood being made in the video .

1. Provides proof that God endorses Rape because Lot offered up his virgin daughters to a mob rather than allow them to rape his male guests that were really angels. Genesis 19:6
2. Argue that God condones rape and incest because Lot's daughters got Lot drunk and used him to impregnate themselves. Genesis 19:33-34
3. Argue that God endorses human sacrifice because Jephthah sacrificed his daughter because He won a battle. Judges 11:30-39

Points 1 -3 have the same answer. In trying to make it appear that God is immoral because these acts really took place in the Bible, the video is not being honest. If you agree that the Bible is true then you must agree that these things happened. It's not a translation issue or a mistake.  Check the scriptural references for yourself and you will see that God had nothing to do with what Lot did,  or what his daughters did, or Jephthah did. God did not command them to do any of it. In Jephthah's case God never asked for a sacrifice...he wanted to make sure and thought a vow would make a difference and he never thought he would have to sacrifice someone he loved. In that day it was their culture that you can't break a vow when you make one - to anyone especially God.

4. Argue that God condoned slavery because guidelines were given in Exodus 21:20-21

This one I actually find insulting.  First the video uses one of the worst images of an American black man bearing the scars of a scourging he had gotten while he was a slave. The video attempts to imply that the treatment the man had experienced is the same kind of treatment prescribed in the Bible for slaves. Several errors here. First and foremost the slavery that is prescribed in the Bible for ancient Israel is nothing at all like the slavery my forebearers endured in America. To equate them is an insult to my ancestors and to Israel and to God. Go ahead and look at the laws in the Bible. If the white slave holders had followed them, the man in the picture would never had been beaten like that.  Those laws in the Bible restricted and defined the rights of slaves which were more  fair and kind than any other civilization's slave laws that I have studied. In ancient Israel, as much as it pains me to admit it, slavery allowed people who would have otherwise been destitute to still earn a living. Also don't forget that slaves in ancient Israel had to be free every 70 years and there are so many other ways they could be freed. Not like my ancestors who were freed through a civil war that killed thousands and we still live with the repercussions today. The slave system as defined in the Bible is not immoral and does not legitimate slavery anywhere at any time because it's not the same thing..

5. Argue that God endorses Kidnapping because God rewarded the Israelites with 32,000 virgin women. Numbers 31:35
6. Argue that God condoned stealing plunder including women. Deuteronomy 20:10-13
7. Argue that God condoned animal abuse because Joshua hamstrung horses Joshua 11:6
8. Argue that God condoned killing babies because all of enemies including Babies were slaughtered. Joshua 6:21-27; 1 Samuel 15:2

 Numbers 5-6, and 8 go together also. The idea is that all these things are immoral and God is immoral because he commanded Israel to do these things. The interesting thing is that what is not discussed in the video is the reason behind the command. One of the best examples of how to discuss this can be found from William Lane Craig and I discussed an article in which he discussed this at this link. 

As for number 7, the Joshua hamstrung the horses because God directed him to do so. Don't forget that in context, this was an act of war. Horses were a weapon being using in a war with Israel in which they were outnumbered and outgunned. The only way I can explain Israel victory is the God handed their enemies over to Joshua on a platter. Of course Joshua obeyed God. It was an accepted war tactic not immorality.

One more comment about number 8 - the "What about the poor babies" argument. It crack me up. Many Atheists are "pro-choice" when it comes to abortion but when God does it it's immoral.

9. Argue that God is immoral because he executes people for making innocent mistakes - referring to Uzzah in 2 Samuel 6:6-7

This point assumes that God was just being a bully, picking on Uzzah who was innocent of wrong doing. But go back and look at the context. The only ones who were authorized to touch the Ark were priests who were of the Levi tribe. At this point, Israel was trying to move the Ark of the Covenant but they weren't doing it the way their law prescribed. Although Uzzah was only trying to keep the Ark from falling, he was wrong and knew he was wrong to touch the Ark because he was not a priest. God chose to bring justice and send a message to everyone. That was God's sovereign right - not immorality.

10. Claim that God is immoral because the Bible says he is responsible for people dying followed by a laundry list (Ex 12:29;37:27;Numbers 16:35;16:49;21:3;31:17-18;Deu 2:33-34; Joshua 10:10-28;30;32-37; Judges 1:4; 3:29;7:19-25;20:43-45; 2 Kings 19:25;Revelation 6:8

This point tries to make it appear that God is responsible of killing innocent people out of spite or selfishness or some immorality in God. There is no context given. There is no discussion of why these things happened. So I will give a summary answer: They deserved it. And as much we do not want to hear it...so do we.  Like them and every human being we are sinners deserving of death. And most of the examples cited were people being executed for something they specifically did and for the others, they like us deserved to die just on principle. As for the last reference from Revelations - that one is yet to come. When something bad happens to us - that is justice. When something good happens - that is mercy

What Jesus said in Luke 13:1-5 applies!

 ¹Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. ²Jesus answered, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? ³I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. ⁴Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? ⁵I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."

11. The the video offers the three basic surface level most-used Christian responses.
a. The passages are being taken out of context.
b. It was a "different time"
c. They are using the wrong translation
d. The rules are different for God.

I agree that these answers are not satisfying and only surface level. They really don't answer the question fully. So let me blunt:

Is God better than you so much that He is not beholden or accountable to you for anything he does? Yes. It's a good thing that He loves us because if He treated us like we treat ourselves we would have nothing to go back to...no recourse. Nothing.

⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found;
       call on him while he is near.

 ⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way
       and the evil man his thoughts.
       Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
       and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

 ⁸ "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
       neither are your ways my ways,"
       declares the LORD.

 ⁹ "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
       so are my ways higher than your ways
       and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 ¹⁰ As the rain and the snow
       come down from heaven,
       and do not return to it
       without watering the earth
       and making it bud and flourish,
       so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

 ¹¹ so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
       It will not return to me empty,
       but will accomplish what I desire
       and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

 ¹² You will go out in joy
       and be led forth in peace;
       the mountains and hills
       will burst into song before you,
       and all the trees of the field
       will clap their hands.

 ¹³ Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
       and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
       This will be for the LORD's renown,
       for an everlasting sign,
       which will not be destroyed." - Isaiah 55:6-13

12. Then the video gives one of the most famous quotes of Richard Dawkins.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

Dawkins should stick to Biology and stay out of exegeting scripture because he is better at reading in his own fears and bias into scripture. The video attempts to use this as a capstone to the dilapidated edifice that it tries to build against God. Utter failure. Only serves to show that Dawkins knows nothing about God.


13. The video then ends with the mantra "Morality is a choice...not a church".

Is that it? Dodging the question. Hem and hawing. Real pathetic. No explanation as to where an atheistic's worldview's moral authority comes from or how an atheist proves  his/her morality is objectively true and has a right to insist on it. If "morality is a choice", then who makes the choices? Based on what? I don't want it based on my thinking or any other human being's to be honest. Look at Jeremiah 17:5-11

⁵ This is what the LORD says:
       "Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
       who depends on flesh for his strength
       and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

 ⁶ He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
       he will not see prosperity when it comes.
       He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
       in a salt land where no one lives.

 ⁷ "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
       whose confidence is in him.

 ⁸ He will be like a tree planted by the water
       that sends out its roots by the stream.
       It does not fear when heat comes;
       its leaves are always green.
       It has no worries in a year of drought
       and never fails to bear fruit."

 ⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things
       and beyond cure.
       Who can understand it?

 ¹⁰ "I the LORD search the heart
       and examine the mind,
       to reward a man according to his conduct,
       according to what his deeds deserve."

 ¹¹ Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay
       is the man who gains riches by unjust means.
       When his life is half gone, they will desert him,
       and in the end he will prove to be a fool.

Here is the video



It's a well done video - tugs at the heart strings but in the end it's empty of any real value. A subjective, relative morality is no morality at all.


YouTube - Morality Without God