Bending Over Backward

They should just rename their religion "BOB" because it is a constant "Bending Over Backward" that they must do in order to explain away the inconsistencies and atrocities of their Holy Book and history. William Lane Craig is explaining how our silly, "naturalistic" morality isn't sufficient to judge God for commanding children to be killed and trying to empathize with the Israeli soldiers who were commanded to do so.

This is just disgusting, no matter what your religious influence is, and PZ nails it on the head when he says,  "If I station myself outside a church door with an AK-47 and murder all the happy saved Christians exiting the service, I am doing the Lord's work." This type of twisted logic doesn't belong in a civil society, period. William Lane Craig should be ashamed of himself.

Well Said

This video here sums up the morality debate very well.
Link

The Voice of God

No one can agree on everything in the Bible. It's why there are 30,000 different sects and denominations in Christianity, all claiming have the "correct" interpretation of the Holy Book. There are obviously things in there people today wouldn't agree with. The majority (I say majority, because who knows, maybe some do) of Christians aren't going to sell all of their possessions to join the church. They aren't going to stone Gay people to death. They don't sell their daughters into slavery. If someone today was telling them God commanded them to sacrifice their child on an alter, even the most fundamentalist Christians would call the police, and yet Abraham is revered for nearly killing his own son in the name of God.

So obviously some other morality is involved in Christian lives if it's so clear that they aren't getting all their values and ethical judgements from the Bible. How, then, do they know what is God and what is their own imaginings? I'm not going to take any "feeling" or "just knowing what's right" as an answer, because crazy-ass people who drown their children also had a "feeling" God was telling them it was "right." I also won't accept the "Well, if what you think God is telling you to do is abominable, it probably isn't God," because obviously, Abraham would have been 5150'd by those standards.

I'm asking for someone to draw out a definitive, clear standard for determining whether or not a voice, feeling, intuition-whatever- is actually from God and not an internal delusion. If you can do it without relying on the examples above, by all means. If not, what, then, is the difference between a secular morality  and conscience inspired solely by the divine?

Happy Easter Everyone!

Think you know well the story of the Lord? All day today, I plan on checking facebook as little as possible so I don't have to keep being reminded, "He is Risen!" Because we all know they've been waiting since 33AD for him to come back. (1 Thessolonians 4:15-17).

If you really think you know the story by heart, though, I welcome you to take this quiz! Test your knowledge! What really happened on that Monday? (Yes, Monday. How Christians still think that you get three days and three nights from Friday to Sunday beats the hell out of me). Go ahead! I dare you!