In my last post, I discussed one of two responses to the common complaint of the new Atheist resurgence. That response was to claim that Atheists who embrace physicalism/scientific materialism do not have the moral authority to claim that God is either non-existent or evil. My conclusion was that while I think this criticism is valid, to merely point out this is unsatisfying and serves to only make Christians look defensive. The reason is that merely pointing out the weakness in the moral claim does not answer the genuine moral objections atheists have when they look at events in the Bible. They are not just being snarky (okay some of them are) but most are sincerely puzzled by our irrational faith that God is, not just moral, but morally perfect in the face of seemingly gruesome evidence to the contrary. Continue reading …

One of the things that has become fashionable is for Christians and Atheists to discuss whether or not God is moral. I have blogged about this at length. At the risk of pummeling a certain deceased equine, I would like to give the loyal opposition their due. Usually the Atheists will produce a list of passages (mostly but not exclusively) from the Old Testament. Here’s a an example from Common Sense Atheism one of the many blogs talking about the immorality of the Old Testament God:

1. In Genesis 7:21-23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children, fetuses, and animals.
2. In Exodus 12:29, God the baby-killer slaughters all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.
3. In Numbers 16:41-49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.
4. In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant.
5. In Numbers 31:7-18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they are allowed to rape as spoils of war.
6. In 2 Kings 2:23-24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to dismember them

These passages are supposed to show that the God of Judaism and Christianity is evil, immoral, and sadistic in his ethics of war.

There are, of course, responses from believers. They fall mainly into two categories: Continue reading …

As most of you know by now, the Health Care Law Hits Supreme Court this week. The issue is obviously emotional and heated on both sides. One of the more common claims on the pro-healthcare law side is that healthcare is a basic human right. I was listening to one of our local talk shows, Bruce Wolf and Dan Proft, on WLS AMin Chicago and a caller raised an interesting perspective on this issue. Being an apologist I liked the caller’s idea of using the opposing side’s arguments and views against them. It is something I do and have done in many areas including the question of Darwinism and morality. The idea of “basic human rights” is a subset of the question of morality. Continue reading …

Being a student of history, I enjoy reading books, articles, poems and speeches, even technical works, in their historical/grammatical setting. This is true of the Bible as well as other historical works. Doing so gives me a real view into the lives and thinking of folks of yester year. Joy and I have spent a fair amount of time over the years going to Civil War battlefields and reading notes and letters from soldiers on both sides of that terrible conflict. How very human they were and befuddled about the obstinance of those on the other side. The commander of the Army of the Potomac, General George B. McClellan, held a low view of President Abraham Lincoln, referring to him as a baboon. Although McClellan was outstanding at training and preparing an army, he was fairly worthless as far as actually taking an army into battle. He was frozen into inaction by always believing he was outmanned by the other side. At one point, Lincoln sent him a note saying along the lines of: Continue reading …

“What you are doing speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying.”

Beside privacy issues in arguing for abortion, one of the reasons cited was child abuse. An unwanted child, it was argued, increased the instance of child abuse. So, by giving women “choice” that supposedly translated to “every child a wanted child.” That this policy hasn’t dimished child abuse but perhaps has permitted its increase is a discussion for another day. In Do Humans Have Rights That Can Be Violated? I demonstrated that in American law and legislation, humanness and personhood have traditionally been two different things. Human is a statement of biology not personhood. Someone could be biologically human but not legally a person. Since they are not legally a person they have no rights or protections under the law. The one who owns them as property have rights and can pretty much do what they want with their property. According to the Prolife Action League there has been 1.3 million abortions annually since 1973 and as of May 17, 2005 that brought the number to 46 million. This becomes important for two reasons. Economic and end of life questions. A majority of the aborted would have been wage earners and tax payers. By killing off these humans there are less persons available to support the aging cry-baby boomers. As the current administration embarked on “health care reform” one of the questions was how that would impact healthcare for the elderly. Assurances were given that the healthcare would be as good as or better at a lower cost than is currently being charged. Conservatives were firm this was untrue. Now that it has passed, unread by most in the House and Senate who voted for it, we see that conservatives were right, Medicare Reform Means Some Seniors Face Benefit Cuts. Continue reading …