After posting a link to my article, The Atheist and Their Stolen Morality, on the Christianity section on Reddit, an atheist took offense and posted an angry response. It was clear that he/she only had a superficial knowledge of the scriptures. This commenter was obviously angry with God, letting loose a barrage of blasphemous accusations.
You can view the comments here:
You can view the comments here:
I originally posted my response to the comment by YRM_DM on Reddit as a reply to the original remarks, but I decided to remove it. In 2 Timothy 2:16 it says, "But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness." I thought it would be best to post it here instead, where it would be less likely to engender more foul comments against the creator.
But the Bible also says in Proverbs 26:5, "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."
Without further ado, here is my answer.
"Believing that there isn't enough evidence to support belief in god and all the superstitious actions that go with, isn't a religion, it's a lack of any religion."
Atheism is a religion based on Dictionary.com's 2nd definition, "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects:" So your argument is with Dictionary.com, not with me.
"it's demonstrably beneficial to your own well being over a lifetime that you're a productive, reliable, safe, helpful member of society."
While I agree with you that it is mutually beneficial to a society for everyone to have good morals, you still have the issue of how those morals arose in the first place. You have no naturalistic reason to make any differential between good and evil. What do the terms "good" and "evil" even mean? Without the historical biblical account you have absolutely no foundation on which to base your whole modern-day concepts of "good" and "evil".
And if you have no foundation for defining good and evil, then you have no way of measuring what is beneficial or how it is beneficial to society. A belief in evolution is of no help in this area. William Provine, an evolutionist and Cornell University Professor was quoted saying, "No ultimate foundations for ethics exist, no ultimate meaning in life exists, and free will is merely a human myth."
We need God's holy and unchanging nature to set the standard for us.
"I can, however, name hundreds of so-called pastors who steal from their flocks... what's Creflo Dollar doing these days?"
This is a non-sequitor argument. Just because there are many hypocrites and false teachers gone out into the world doesn't disprove the idea that morality has no foundation without God. If anything, this proves the ugly nature in the heart of every man and demands a higher, more holy, and unchanging being to set the standard, and fulfills a clear Biblical teaching, lending credence to the notion that the standard comes from the Bible (as opposed to other religious teaching).
"the possible good of the act might bring it slightly more into balance."
Again, this statement and the ones preceding it may be true, but without a higher being to set the standard, you have no foundation from which to decide whether it would be more balanced on the scale of good/evil.
"God says murder is wrong, then orders people murdered"
God is the designer and creator of mankind. It is his right to decide which of his creation should be removed from the world. He isn't guilty of murder by taking away life that he gave in the first place. It's his sovereign right to decide who lives and dies. He is the only one qualified to do so because of his holy and unchanging nature. If I built two mousetraps (or whatever) and one of them constantly snaps my fingers every time I reach for it, it's my sovereign right as creator of those mouse traps to smash the offending one to pieces. It isn't murder.
Furthermore, God showed great mercy many times over to all those he sentenced to death, allowing them to come to him in submission, (i.e. Rahab in Joshua's time who was spared for conceding to the God of Israel, and others) but mankind has chosen over and over again to harden their hearts against God like Pharaoh did in Moses' day. For more info on this, see the Links section at the end of this article.
"If you only know murder is wrong because "God said so" in one part of his book, you are someone that scares me."
Actually, I knew murder was wrong because of my God-given conscience, long before I ever read God's word or came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.
God gave this same conscience to every man. That is why God holds men to such a high standard.
"Most Christians do good because they can put themselves in another person's shoes. Not because Moses came down from a mountain and threw a fit, smashed a bunch of rules, then went back up and did it again."
While this may be true for some people who profess Christianity, this kind of statement shows a lack of knowledge of the basic beliefs of orthodox, bible-believing Christians. The bible plainly teaches, "There is none righteous, no, not one" and as a Christian, I wholly believe this. Before I was saved, I had many opportunities to do good, many chances to show a shining example of goodness, but I didn't. Most human beings are self-serving. They have no reason to do good unless it serves them. And again this proves that we need a higher power to set the standard.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Psalm 14:1
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Links
- Morality and the Irrationality of an Evolutionary Worldview, Dr. Georgia Purdom/Dr. Jason Lisle, May 13, 2009 (AnswersInGenesis.org)
- Isn’t the God of the Old Testament Harsh, Brutal, and Downright Evil?, Bodie Hodge, March 27, 2015, (AnswersInGenesis.org)
