Pat Condell: "Your moral guide"

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Religious people often say that atheists have no morals because they have no moral guide. If you believe this, let me ask you something.

If you're a Christian, chances are the Bible is your moral guide, but is that all the Bible, or just some of it? It's just the good bits, isn't it? The bits you've cherrypicked because obviously if you wanted to live in a Leviticus-style society where people are stoned or mutilated for insane and trivial reasons, you could simply move to Iran.

But how do you decide which are the good bits and which are the bad in the Bible? What do you use as a moral guide? The Bible? Well, surely not. If so, you would simply accept the bad along with the good, which is clearly what the Bible wants you to do, otherwise the bad wouldn't be in there in the first place, would it? But no, you don't do that. You defy the Bible. You sift out the bad and discard it for the ignorant primitive barbarism it is. In short, you edit the Bible to suit your own sensibilities.

So where do you get the moral guidance to impose your authority on the word of the Bible? It has to come from a higher source, doesn't it? (These things usually do.) And it does, of course. It comes from you. You are a higher source than the Bible, a much higher source. The criminals who run religion don't want you to know or to act upon this because then their influence over you would be zero. Yet the evidence is clear. You sifted the good from the bad in the Bible without the Bible's help. You did it against the Bible's will, and you did it all on your own because, whether you like it or not, you have a conscience, which means that you are capable of distinguishing good from evil without the help of scripture, and you have just proven it beyond any shadow of doubt. So, in fact, the Bible is not your moral guide. You are. It doesn't provide you with a moral compass. You do. And the only faith you need is faith in yourself.

O happy day.

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The NT says not to do that OT stuff anymore. This clown needs to get his facts straight.

I'm an atheist, and this man makes me want to convert to something.

I'd LOVE to see the evidence for that statement. I don't ever remember reading an explicit rejection of the Old Testament rules in the New Testament. In fact Jesus repeatedly cites Old Testament laws AND specifically states he has not come to destroy the old laws. Maybe YOU need to get YOUR facts straight?

It's in essence the cherrypicking that is so common among religious people. Usually Christians will cite Jesus as the moral example, but neglect the fact that despite all the stoning and beating of children, forced marriage/rape, and such in the old Testament. Jesus actions are the most immoral because by taking responsibilities for "our" sins, he in fact denies us the ability to be morally accountable for our own actions.

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest part or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.” (Matthew 5:17)

“Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law” (John7:19)

“For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” — Matthew 5:18-19

“It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid.” (Luke 16:17)

But how do you decide which are the good bits and which are the bad in the Bible? What do you use as a moral guide? The Bible? Well, surely not.

For the holy spirit and we ourselves have favored adding no further burden to you, except these necessary things, to keep abstaining from things sacrificed to idols and from blood and from things strangled and from fornication. If you carefully keep yourselves from these things, you will prosper. Good health to you!”

If so, you would simply accept the bad along with the good, which is clearly what the Bible wants you to do, otherwise the bad wouldn't be in there in the first place, would it?

So if I'm getting this right, they're making a fairy story of a fairy story.

I'd LOVE to see the evidence for that statement. I don't ever remember reading an explicit rejection of the Old Testament rules in the New Testament. In fact Jesus repeatedly cites Old Testament laws AND specifically states he has not come to destroy the old laws. Maybe YOU need to get YOUR facts straight?

The NT says not to do that OT stuff anymore. This clown needs to get his facts straight.

Bread and Fish will come raining down from the sky.

Jhon 8 1-12
Matthew 15 10-13
Matthew 5 38-48
Matthew 12 1-8
Mark 7 14-16
Luke 6 1-10
Romans 3 19-31
Matthew 11 13
Matthew 12 10-13
Galatians chapters 3 and 4
Pretty much the entire epistle to the hebrews

I believe I mentioned explicit rejections of the laws of the Old Testament. None of those was a specific rejection of the body of OT law. So, Jesus rejected a couple of the OT laws in those passages you listed (at least 3 of them were about the Sabbath by the way which is hardly the kind of OT craziness we were talking about). In the passages I cited above Jesus EXPLICITLY states that the old laws are still in force. The fact that in other passages he redacts a handful of said laws does not contradict those statements.

So far all you have proved is that your holy book (and I am just talking the NT now) is internally inconsistent. That might be due to the fact that most of it was written by authors (and not even the same author within given books!) who lived more than a hundred years after the death of Jesus. Followed by an editorial process (because mortal beings can totally edit divinely inspired writings O_o).

Have the intellectual honesty to say "you're right, the Bible is as internally inconsistent as can be and doesn't make a lot of sense. My belief is based purely on faith". I might then gain an iota of respect for those beliefs. As long as you try defending the Bible through reason and argument you just look ridiculous.