Religious beliefs on bitcoin

[Abdussamad]

As for #5, if God knows everything that happened, is happening, and will happen, then everything that will happen is already predetermined, and despite the illusion of "free will," god already knows who will sin and go to hell, and who will not, even for those who aren't born yet. So why the charade? Why not just stop sinners from being born in the first place, if he knows he's just going to torture them for ever?

Who will fuel the fires of damnation then  ?

[Akka]

As for #5, if God knows everything that happened, is happening, and will happen, then everything that will happen is already predetermined, and despite the illusion of "free will," god already knows who will sin and go to hell, and who will not, even for those who aren't born yet. So why the charade? Why not just stop sinners from being born in the first place, if he knows he's just going to torture them for ever?

Who will fuel the fires of damnation then  ?

Christians, they want it that way 

[BitChick]

5) He gives man free will.

Not if you believe your god is omnipotent. If you believe your god is all-powerful then you do not have free will. If you believe he is not, then he is not a god.

God could force all of us to be perfect.  To be His "mindless" robots and all of us would then do exactly what He wanted, but then how would God know if we really loved him or not?  If you are in love with someone, wouldn't you at some point want to know if they truly loved you back or were just in the relationship because they had to be?  That is the way it is with us. We have the gift of free will.  We can choose God or not.  We can choose to hate or to love, to forgive or not, to accept God or not.  In some ways it is one of our greatest gifts but in that comes the fact that man is sinful and we end up hurting ourselves, each other and God too.  It pains him.  

Which led to my statement that God allows things to punish people.  God is patient but there does come a point when he does choose to move (such as in the flood).  We do not want to anger God.  When He gets angry and decides to act on that we don't stand a chance.  He chooses to punish when our hearts become so hard and so against Him that He has no other choice.

My personal experience: There was a guy that did horrible things to me as a very young child.  My parents did not believe me when I finally told them as a young teenager.  I felt powerless but I ended up praying that God would help me understand why it happened.  I was able, with God's help, to let go of my extreme anger and hate.  God showed me that the reason he abused me was because he was actually abused too (the guy's father was put in jail later).   One day, several years later, this guy was driving on the freeway and a large beam from a construction crew "accidentally" dropped on the front of his van instantly killing him.   Was it really an accident or God finally saying He had enough chances?  I don't really know.  You would think I would have been happy to see "justice" done.  I was actually sad.  It is heartbreaking when people choose destructive things.  God does not want to bring harm, but I think that the cries of His children does cause Him to move and He will intervene when His anger is aroused, out of His love for us.  

[Tekkna]

If one is all powerful then one has the power of omniscience.

Perhaps, although there are important distinctions. That is to say, is it possible one could be omnipotent, and not omniscient? Perhaps, I don't really know.

We know your god by his works, and according to christians he leaves a wake of woe and destruction. He's painted as evil because he is. There are no absolute morals, if for no other reason than that he breaks every single one himself and by default cannot be absolute.

There are absolute morals. God does not break the moral law, although he is certainly not bound by it.

Don't bother going down the absolute moral values road hand in hand with William Lane Craig. He's an intelligent solipsist who continually has his testicles crushed holding that opinion in debates with Sam Harris and Shelly Kagan.

I have no reason to back down from my argument, and I refuse to take "well these other people lose in debates" as an argument.

Morality: Using empathy as a guide for human interaction. AKA, "treat others the way you want to be treated" and "put yourself in my shoes". It has nothing inherently to do with the bible.

Only empathy will lead to utilitarianism. If Hitler thought what he was doing to the Jews would improve the life of everyone on the earth, and save them from the evil destructive Jews, on what basis do you criticize him?

• deny emergency medical aid to a child
• kill gays, children who misbehave, anyone who works on a particular day of the week, entire groups and races of peoples, and many others for equally capricious reasons
• buy and sell humans as chattel, including one's own family members

None of these are biblically supportable, most are simply twisted to make the bible seem like ...

a hateful book about imaginary people.

Empathy cannot be the basis for moral law. Even the laws of the US are absolute, sure we have jails, so we can decide who

If God is perfect then why did she create such imperfect beings that she has to threaten death constantly to get them to do what she wants? Was God bored and needed something to play with? God would know ahead of time how you would react to any situation. There is no choice or free will when you know everything that will happen, and created it to happen that way. So effectively she damned me to hell because she made me imperfect. There is only one way to make any of this make sense. Men fabricated the bible like any other ghastly horror novel and there is no God. Period.

God does not have a gender, however when God is referenced it is normally "he". I understand you are simply doing this to irritate me, but I digress.

The world was not initially created an imperfect world, but rather as a perfect world, however when Adam sinned he brought death into the world.

I'm sorry for assuming you were libertarian, you sig and name made me think you were.

Thank you for clarifying the bible. I see you've accidentally written your own bible thar. Your bible is RIGHT, Of course.
Yeah, thats cool. Very nice bible you have.
A BIBLE still says...dat... ribaldly evil stuff...ttho. so.. um. Still a problem?

... I suppose I should turn to athiests for my interpretations of the bible? I think not.
I have not mis-represented the bible in any way, you're just upset because you crap-posted a list of arguments you found on the internet, and I answered them.

This pick and choose is something that really annoys me.
The Bible is the word of god, but only as long as what is written there is socially acceptable. As soon as it isn't anymore, it just is "took out of context", "translated wrong " or isn't meant to be took literally.

Either all of it is the word of God and has to be took literally or none of it. This picking and choosing which parts I like and choose to interpret as right is just hypocritical.

There are flaws in translations, specifically the KJV which is a bible that was translated over 400 years ago. There are parts not meant to be taken literally, much of the bible is not socially acceptable. However the truth never makes everyone happy.

Btw. my favorite Psalm, completely took out of context and probably wrong translated:

Quote from: Psalm 137:9
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock

Interestingly enough, even the huffpost has answered this recently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/psalm-137-7-9-understandi_n_2550586.html

It's not my fault athiests go through the bible cherry picking verses to make an argument.

[Akka]

This pick and choose is something that really annoys me.
The Bible is the word of god, but only as long as what is written there is socially acceptable. As soon as it isn't anymore, it just is "took out of context", "translated wrong " or isn't meant to be took literally.

Either all of it is the word of God and has to be took literally or none of it. This picking and choosing which parts I like and choose to interpret as right is just hypocritical.

There are flaws in translations, specifically the KJV which is a bible that was translated over 400 years ago. There are parts not meant to be taken literally,

That was exactly my point. You pick and choose how things hafte be interpreted. This constantly changes (basically less and less should be taken literally) and if there is no way it can be "interpreted" OK, it's wronly translated. But stragley of the ~100 (made up number) english translation there is no right one.

much of the bible is not socially acceptable. However the truth never makes everyone happy.

Just wow.

But talking about "the truth ever makes everyone happy".

Would I be happy if there where an after live?

Would I be happy if good people get rewarded after death and bad punished?

Of course! But just that this would make me happy dosn't make it the truth.

Btw. my favorite Psalm, completely took out of context and probably wrong translated:

Quote from: Psalm 137:9
Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock

Interestingly enough, even the huffpost has answered this recently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/psalm-137-7-9-understandi_n_2550586.html

It's not my fault athiests go through the bible cherry picking verses to make an argument.

Like I said I completly took it out of context. But yet even in this artikle it's arguet again how it should be interpreted.

Or it is just what is written there: A ballad of blind rage.

It's you who is cherry picking.

[Tekkna]

That was exactly my point. You pick and choose how things hafte be interpreted. This constantly changes (basically less and less should be taken literally) and if there is no way it can be "interpreted" OK, it's wronly translated. But stragley of the ~100 (made up number) english translation there is no right one.

I do not pick and choose, if there its not literal then it's, and it's generally pretty obvious when the intent is literal.

Just wow.

But talking about "the truth ever makes everyone happy".

Would I be happy if there where an after live?

Would I be happy if good people get rewarded after death and bad punished?

Of course! But just that this would make me happy dosn't make it the truth.

You people have been complaining about the God of the bible for the entire thread. Don't give me this "oh it sure would be nice if ..." just after you get through raging about the bible.

Like I said I completly took it out of context. But yet even in this artikle it's arguet again how it should be interpreted.

Or it is just what is written there: A ballad of blind rage.

It's you who is cherry picking.

Ok, there's a lot of things about christianity that's argued, happy? But a ballad of blind rage, it is definitely not. It's basically describing the defeat of some of Israel's enemies. For that matter the Canaanites were fairly cruel people, the psalmist was not likely feeling sorry for them in the day of their demise.

Forgive me, but it sounded as if you were being sarcastic :p

[semaforo]

   Just to throw some opinions in-
    I've heard that it's pointless to try to understand the conscious sustaining force of the universe with our limited reason- akin to trying to contain the ocean in a coconut shell.
    In nature there are renewals- forest fires, or avalanches, which clear ground and allow new growth to spring up. I believe that bitcoin is such a force. It won't destroy the banking establishment, but it will clear some ground so that new growth can spring up. If we look at the history of evolution, there have been at least 5 mass extinctions in the earth's history. After these mass extinctions there have been explosions in biodiversity, or evolutionary leaps. Some people say humanity is the 6th mass extinction.
     When I first learned about bitcoin, I realized that the only way to shut it down would be to shut down the whole internet. ANd the only way to shut down the whole internet would be to conquer the whole world under one unified authority.  It then occurred to me that this is probably what the powers that be will try to do, rather than lose their grip.
       Time will tell. As for God being referred to as a he, it would be absurd for the creator of time to have gender, which is only necessary to reproduce. Reproduction is a process thoroughly rooted in time, and a trancendent and eternal creator would hence have no need to reproduce. I understand describing God with a dualistic concept like gender simply to be a reference to the apparent and hidden aspects of totality- the male corresponding to manifest phenomena or that which can be represented linguistically, and the female corresponding to the hidden or the ineffable. That's why people say He instead of She.

[semaforo]

And of course, an oldie, but always a goodie:

God doesn't prevent terrible things because:

1) He can't
2) He doesn't want to
3) He causes them
4) He doesn't exist.

Which one do you think is the right answer?

5) He gives man free will.
6) Some people deserve punishment.

#6 = #3. Also, fuck those starving African children. They never heard of God, so they deserve todie horrible deaths, right?

As for #5, if God knows everything that happened, is happening, and will happen, then everything that will happen is already predetermined, and despite the illusion of "free will," god already knows who will sin and go to hell, and who will not, even for those who aren't born yet. So why the charade? Why not just stop sinners from being born in the first place, if he knows he's just going to torture them for ever?

I believe God causes the things we consider as suffering or bad things. Sometimes something appears bad to us, but is actually better for us. For example a ship sinks, but the survivors make it to land, whereas if they'd continued something worse could have happened.
   As for starving African children, no one has sympathy for the people at Walmart drowning in fat because they are so addicted to twinkies- both are suffering, and all of the suffering makes sense in the afterlife- supposing all souls, including children, get credits in the other world for their suffering. But since we can't conceive of the afterlife with our brains and senses, the suffering doesn't make sense to us.  A good quote in the bible(though I believe the book has been extensively corrupted) is when some people as Jesus (peace be with him) about a blind guy and ask him if he is blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned. Jesus said he is blind that God's work will be manifest through him.

[KeyserSoze]

That is the way it is with us. We have the gift of free will.  We can choose God or not.  We can choose to hate or to love, to forgive or not, to accept God or not.

I just showed you that you do not have free will. I am sorry your delusion has disabled your rationality but it wasn't unexpected.

In some ways it is one of our greatest gifts but in that comes the fact that man is sinful and we end up hurting ourselves, each other and God too.  It pains him.

 

Classic christian redefinition. "Truth" and "fact" are concepts not within their comprehension. Feel free to flagellate yourself for your supposed transgressions, however I am sin free.

Which led to my statement that God allows things to punish people.  God is patient but there does come a point when he does choose to move (such as in the flood).  We do not want to anger God.  When He gets angry and decides to act on that we don't stand a chance.  He chooses to punish when our hearts become so hard and so against Him that He has no other choice.

I suppose it'd be pointless to inform you there is no empirical evidence for a worldwide flood. You do know that every single Creationist argument has been debunked, right? Before you reply with nonsense please go look it up here to find out why you're wrong:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

One day, several years later, this guy was driving on the freeway and a large beam from a construction crew "accidentally" dropped on the front of his van instantly killing him. 

I'm sorry you suffered abuse. Yes, his death was an accident. In case you hadn't noticed we all die.

God does not want to bring harm, but I think that the cries of His children does cause Him to move and He will intervene when His anger is aroused, out of His love for us.

You can't be serious... your god wants to kill every single one of us eventually. As for "intervening" Rassah paraphrased earlier:
"Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely." - Sam Harris

[KeyserSoze]

First, love your avatar!   

There are absolute morals.

Please list them all. Be sure not to list any your god has broken, otherwise it isn't absolute.

God does not break the moral law, although he is certainly not bound by it.

Your god is the most immoral being in the universe. Of course you want to place him somehow above the law, otherwise that troublesome cognitive dissonance starts buzzing away.

Only empathy will lead to utilitarianism. If Hitler thought what he was doing to the Jews would improve the life of everyone on the earth, and save them from the evil destructive Jews, on what basis do you criticize him?

I criticize him based on my rational, evolved, relative morals.

• deny emergency medical aid to a child
• kill gays, children who misbehave, anyone who works on a particular day of the week, entire groups and races of peoples, and many others for equally capricious reasons
• buy and sell humans as chattel, including one's own family members

None of these are biblically supportable, most are simply twisted to make the bible seem like ...

a hateful book about imaginary people.

First, I didn't say "bible" specifically, I said "religion" and of course some of them are supported in the bible. You'll simply say it was interpreted wrong. The bible is either literal or open to interpretation; if interpretable then either of our interpretations are equally? If he wants followers then stop with all the "interpretation games" and just lay down some laws, preferably not on papyrus since only someone of "ungodly intellect" would think that might last through the generations.

Denied medical attention:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1877352,00.html
http://thinkchristian.net/denying-medical-treatment-for-children

Commanding death of gays among many other arbitrary groups:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/lev/20.html
http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/70-year-old-stoned-to-death-because-the-bible-says-to-stone-gays/news/2011/03/18/18138

Stoning naughty kids (Deuteronomy 21:18):
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21&version=KJV
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message553954/pg1

Killing those who work on Sabbath:
'Tell the people of Israel to keep my Sabbath day, for the Sabbath is a sign of the covenant between me and you forever.  It helps you to remember that I am the LORD, who makes you holy.  Yes, keep the Sabbath day, for it is holy.  Anyone who desecrates it must die; anyone who works on that day will be cut off from the community.  Work six days only, but the seventh day must be a day of total rest.  I repeat: Because the LORD considers it a holy day, anyone who works on the Sabbath must be put to death.'  (Exodus 31:12-15 NLT)

You already mentioned the Canaanites so you know that evil bastard you call god is a fan of slaughtering entire peoples on a whim, including innocent children.

And slavery? Oh yeah, god wants you to have slaves. This endearing passage indoctrinates christian cultists into accepting slavery because their slaves are supposed to "serve them as they would christ." Sounds like slavery is a pretty sweet deal for cultists, eh? If god didn't think it was good and proper, why would he instruct the slave on how to behave for the cultist?

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear.  Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ."  (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)

---
There are several helpful passages which instruct christian cultists in the proper way to handle their slaves - even their own daughters! Why give instructions unless a cultist is expected to own slaves? God wants to be sure you're fully prepped for human subjugation. How thoughtful of him!

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property."  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

"When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again.  But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her.  And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter.  If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife.  If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment."  (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

Adam sinned he brought death into the world.

You can't tell me you're not aware Adam and Eve never existed, right? Mitochondrial Eve kinda puts that to rest (if you weren't already aware every Creationist argument has been thoroughly debunked).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

It's not my fault athiests go through the bible cherry picking verses to make an argument.

You're aware atheists do this because we try to speak to adherents on their own terms? This is the exact tactic most adherents begin with, tossing out a little out-of-context nugget to sound wise.

Cherry picking the bible and "proper interpretation" is exactly what religion *is* - that's why there are over 42,000 denominations. Each picks its favorite verses to interpret one way and interprets the other passages another way. The entire idea is preposterous, and so it can only be chalked up to delusion.

[ktttn]

Derr Christists, you are setting yourself up to be That Guy. Don't be that guy.
Derr Antichristist Atheists, you are also setting yourself up to be That Guy. Dont be that guy.
Mabye instead of re reciting this debate, a debate any internet user has seen at least twice, we should be applying the debate's contentions to bitcoin.
The role of the state and the role of god, the akashic record, personal freedom. Come on, y'all.

[LostDutchman]

http://www.evilbible.com/

[neurobox]

Jesus was totally That Guy. Thank God. I want to be That Guy.

Fancy avatar there, ktttn. Roughly translated I get: Taoist, balancing darkness with enlightenment. That's why you see the akashic records as being on neutral ground. I affirm to you, they are not what they seem.

So far so good?

Anyways, whether one believes in biblical prophecies or not, realize that there are a massive number of mystical/channelling groups and cults that people are getting into, usually involving ghosts, angels, gods, aliens, drugs, etc, and amazingly they all present essentially the same exact doomsday message, and it's exactly what the Bible suggests the antichrist would sell the world. "Unite for world peace and purge the absolutists, or { we won't give you free energy | you're going to kill each other | the planetary vibration will stay at a lower density [sic] }." Cite: Ashtar Command, Thrive Movement, Galactic Federation of Light, Zeitgeist, Raelians, Scientology, a thousand others, etc... and AFAIK anyone dabbling in mysticism (though initially considering it an objective pursuit) will find they can hardly object to their statements.

Sadly that message is spreading rapidly through a society that doesn't know any better. Whether you believe it is of spiritual or lunatic origin, the antichrist message works against the libertarian principle far more than the Christian message does.

At any rate, the world is absolutely primed for the fulfilment of end times prophecy, Bitcoin playing an uncredited role. Should the mark system come into effect, it would have to be quite generous but potentially exclusive, as it was with the Romans.

I'm also curious how one might explain how over 2000 years ago anyone could have supposed that the whole progressive world would be primed and ready to unite behind some irreverently charismatic leader who could actually bring world peace?

Can you imagine right now how popular someone like that would become, especially if he had the worship-inducing favor of the global media, hollywood, politicians, even muslims? There would literally be no limit to the damage he could do. Or so he may believe.

[Jaseph]

I am a Christian, believe in the Bible and own bitcoins. And as for all the mocking of things I hold dear, I am not going to respond.

[QuestionAuthority]

I am a Christian, believe in the Bible and own bitcoins. And as for all the mocking of things I hold dear, I am not going to respond.

Good for you! The one iron clad way to win every debate is to not debate.

[Rassah]

God could force all of us to be perfect.  To be His "mindless" robots and all of us would then do exactly what He wanted, but then how would God know if we really loved him or not?  If you are in love with someone, wouldn't you at some point want to know if the
y truly loved you back or were just in the relationship because they had to be?  That is the way it is with us.

Woah woah woah! Are you saying we can hide our thoughts and intentions from god? Awesome!

Morality: Using empathy as a guide for human interaction. AKA, "treat others the way you want to be treated" and "put yourself in my shoes". It has nothing inherently to do with the bible.

Only empathy will lead to utilitarianism. If Hitler thought what he was doing to the Jews would improve the life of everyone on the earth, and save them from the evil destructive Jews, on what basis do you criticize him?

Doesn't "everyone" include Jews? I would criticize him on assuming that Jews aren't included in the "everyone" group, and that he doesn't think they want their lives improved just like everyone else.

[Tekkna]

You can't be serious... your god wants to kill every single one of us eventually. As for "intervening" Rassah paraphrased earlier:
"Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely." - Sam Harris

Or perhaps it fits in a plan that you do not see.

First, love your avatar!    

Statler & Waldorf are indeed awesome

Please list them all. Be sure not to list any your god has broken, otherwise it isn't absolute.

The ten commandments are the foundation of biblical law and morals, God is not bound by his laws. However, God is also a good God, thus all the laws he created are generally followed by him.

e.g. Thou shalt not murder, athiests will contend that God has "murdered" people, however there is a separation between rightfully sentencing people to death, and a person deciding they want to kill somone.

Your god is the most immoral being in the universe. Of course you want to place him somehow above the law, otherwise that troublesome cognitive dissonance starts buzzing away.

Considering all athiests are amoral, I am surprised at the many times they call God immoral. It's quite obvious God would be above the law, God did not create the law for himself, but rather for the human race.

I criticize him based on my rational, evolved, relative morals.

Go on then, Hitler thought he was saving the human race by removing the scourge of Judaism.

and just lay down some laws, preferably not on papyrus since only someone of "ungodly intellect" would think that might last through the generations.

If you make one copy of anything, I suspect it would not last very long at all. The torah was however beautifully preserved, each scribe would copy from one book to the other one letter at a time, then they would count the letters, and if they were not the same count as the original, they would start over again. Your ratgher simplistic view of the preservation of the torah is very common.

Denied medical attention:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1877352,00.html
http://thinkchristian.net/denying-medical-treatment-for-children

Ironically the answer to the first is in the link you posted.

The creation and fall account indicate that death is a bad thing - not part of God's perfect will. So any (moral) means to sustain life is good. While death is inevitable, I think life is always better than death. I also think God gave us our minds to be creative in the pursuit and sustaining of life. So while the end of life is always in God's hands, I see no Biblical reason to think that we cannot intervene to continue life. If we are given the skills and the creative power to do so, there is no reason why we shouldn't use them.

There's this bad idea that says that by doing nothing we are showing our faith and dependence on God. But that is simply not true. While God is certainly free to intervene and work miracles, we are not called to sit around expecting Him to make His will happen. We are created in His image, with skills, with a mind, and a command to work (even before the curse of the fall). So whatever He has revealed to us so far, even if its just enough to get us through the day, act on it! We are given a privilege and responsibility to see His will carried on earth.

To deny medical treatment because "God told me not to" is very dangerous and should not be practiced by Christians.

I would like to hear the arguments in favor of "natural healing" that are so compelling that you conclude "there's no clear cut answer". That's not as much a challenge as an expression of my incredulity that such an argument exists.

It's parental negligence. Second degree murder is the appropriate charge. And I would be willing to hear arguments where churches that teach that nonsense have their tax-exempt status pulled and leaders that push those ideas on the parishioners face prosecution for child endangerment. Heck, prosecute them under the assisted suicide laws in states where those apply.

Commanding death of gays among many other arbitrary groups:

Such is the moral law, but it certainly not to be executed by random people. Vigilante justice is not biblical, I imagine that the apostles would have ran into homosexuality as they were going through Rome and Greece, I don't think their answer was to kill them.

Stoning naughty kids (Deuteronomy 21:18):

The bible does not condone stoning "naughty kids".

I will finish the others soon, brb.

[QuestionAuthority]

God could force all of us to be perfect.  To be His "mindless" robots and all of us would then do exactly what He wanted, but then how would God know if we really loved him or not?  If you are in love with someone, wouldn't you at some point want to know if the
y truly loved you back or were just in the relationship because they had to be?  That is the way it is with us.

Woah woah woah! Are you saying we can hide our thoughts and intentions from god? Awesome!

Morality: Using empathy as a guide for human interaction. AKA, "treat others the way you want to be treated" and "put yourself in my shoes". It has nothing inherently to do with the bible.

Only empathy will lead to utilitarianism. If Hitler thought what he was doing to the Jews would improve the life of everyone on the earth, and save them from the evil destructive Jews, on what basis do you criticize him?

Doesn't "everyone" include Jews? I would criticize him on assuming that Jews aren't included in the "everyone" group, and that he doesn't think they want their lives improved just like everyone else.

I thought Jews didn't care about creature comforts and thought they were "goyishe." Jews just want all the money. Not that they spend it on anything but they just want it. Or am I mixing up my stereotypes?

[Rassah]

Considering all athiests are amoral, I am surprised at the many times they call God immoral.

Why do you think atheists are immoral? Since they call god immoral, it would suggest that they do understand what is moral and what is immoral, even to the point that they believe some of the actions that are attributed to god or some of his commandments are immoral. Atheists are more moral than god.

[BitChick]

Considering all athiests are amoral, I am surprised at the many times they call God immoral.

Why do you think atheists are immoral? Since they call god immoral, it would suggest that they do understand what is moral and what is immoral, even to the point that they believe some of the actions that are attributed to god or some of his commandments are immoral. Atheists are more moral than god.

This is an honest question I have had.  Where do atheists get their moral compass from?  Is it based on society around them?  Do the laws of the land dictate what is moral?  Can they change their minds if they feel like it?  Society used to call many things immoral that are now called moral so is it based on the what others say is right or wrong?  Or do they have a "conscience" that tells them what is right and wrong?  If so, where does that conscience come from?