Discussing Morality with an Atheist

For some reason I get hooked into talking with angry atheists.  I don't know what it is...  maybe it is just that I see so many holes in their argument, or maybe it is because I just really want them to lay down their pride and come to the Savior.  I guess it is a combination of both.  Allow me to let you in on a brief episode of one conversation.  I hope it will benefit you.


I am getting a little tired of your pride, but I guess that is to be expected - you did once claim to be all-knowing.  (The quote was, "I KNOW God does not exist.")
Let me help you see where you are going off-

First, the Old Testament has never approved of people doing the things you mentioned. David and Solomon had concubines, but God's law had always said that people should not multiply wives. Slavery was never allowed in the way that we understand the term today. "Slaves" were indentured servants that were to be treated fairly and provided for with care and respect - even foreigners. In fact, when Saul, in a tirade killed some of the slaves (the Gibeonites), God got very angry and punished him directly for it. The back drop is Genesis 1:27 - people are made in the image of God, and therefore people (yes YOU) have EXTREME value. We can see that in America's founding documents even today. We are given "unalienable rights". That is the foundation for the western society that you enjoy today.

Of course genocide is the big one that many people bring up. However, people were never condoned to kill a whole nation of people, only God Himself, who had made these people, and who had sole rights as their creator, had the right to wipe them out - and he did it through the his chosen people, the Isrealites. Life is a gift, not something we deserve. Eventually God takes back every earthly life he gives because of our own sin. All sin deserves the death penalty, because we are offending an infinitely good and perfect God. When and where and how people die are God's to decide, not us.

Going back to the law, even killing ONE man (or baby - in or out of the womb) was to be punished by death! These were GOD'S creatures, not man's. Man (of course that includes women) is made in the image of God, and therefore were to be highly respected and cared for. Men never have the right to kill anyone for any reason. This is the teaching of the New Testament. I am very sad for our "consensus" today, that doesn't respect the life of babies. It is much worse than slavery ever was. It is a brutal slaughter of millions.

Jesus said, "You have heard it said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, 'love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,"

Now you said you have read the New Testament, but it isn't clear from what you are saying here. The N.T. has a higher morality than is around anywhere today. Why are we de-evolving as time goes on? Why are we going further from the highest morality we have yet to see? Jesus said, "Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you." He said to forgive, even if someone sins against you 77 times! I don't see that anywhere today. The basic consensus is to divorce as soon as you "don't feel the flame anymore." I see retaliation and revenge against other (as long as it is within the law) to be the norm. So the consensus approach is not working, and it surely is not getting better or more homogenous as time goes on. There is more conflict and strife and wars and death in the last century than all the others combined! Things are definitely not getting better.

Finally, consensus approaches are what leads to the majority persecuting the minority. Because there is no outside moral standard, morality becomes completely relative - only based on the majority. There is no right and wrong, truly. It is just what the majority (in this case) of Americans think. That is scary.

Now what are the basic "facts" I do not accept? I haven't heard one. And please don't make judgments on my hold on reality. Soon I am going to have to ask you why I could trust judgment of any kind coming from a completely irrational chance assemblage of molecules. I wouldn't expect any rationality to come through complete chance and time. I would never expect to read Shakespeare after throwing thousands of letters into the air or after having monkeys type on a computer for millions of years. The probability of ANY rational thing happening in the universe is 0, and yet we go ahead and trust these brains of ours like they actually can make sense of reality! Not only do we HAVE reality, but we can understand it correctly?

Don't you realize how much faith you have in the impossible? It is much bigger leap than I am taking. I think it comes down to this: You don't WANT to believe in God. Just like Dawkins and Hitchens, you have been turned off by the church. That is the reason you are fighting so hard against truth. But listen - God loves you - and he is not to be defined by a church or by sinful men. He defines himself in the Bible - his own inspired Word. I encourage you to go there and seek Him.

Your friend,
Mark