Greg Welty says nothing that embarrasses bible critics

James Anderson has a post about Greg Welty's book Why Is There Evil In The World (And So Much Of It?) (Christian Focus Publications, 2018).  I reply to this review:

Why Is There Evil In The World (And So Much Of It)?

Posted on 8 June 2018  

Having been closely involved in the editing process, I’m thrilled to see this book finally in print. The title reflects what may be the most common reason people give for rejecting the Christian faith and doubting the existence of God. It is indeed a critical question that demands an answer.

If you know any atheists who cite God's allegedly evil acts as reason to think he doesn't exist, count me out.  Being evil hardly implies non-existence.  There is an exception for the god that is hawked by specifically Christianity, since the god of the bible is defined with logically incompatible properties (i.e., he calls himself good, but does things that qualify as evil under any other definition, and the "his mysterious ways" and the "as, creator he has the right to do whatever he wants" excuses, pretending that God is always the special exception to human reasoning whenever you think it convenient to say so, do not suffice.

The appeal to mysterious ways is not accepted when the Christian hears it from a Christian 'heretic' or "heterodox brother",  so fairness demands they be consistent, and not expect us atheists to find the excuse very compelling either.  The appeal to God's rights as creator is fallacious, as we would not hesitate to call a man evil if he exercised his "right" to throw away all of his 17 year old son's possessions merely because yes, he had the right to do so.  As father he had the "right", but if he didn't explain himself and show that doing so was necessary to preeempt evil or achieve a greater good, and if the possesions were typical things like clothes, radio, bed, etc, the mere fact that he had the "right" to toss them out would not stop us from concluding such father is an asshole (one of modern America's many euphemisms for "you are evil").  You will say God is the special exception to the rules of human reasoning whenever you deem it expedient to carpt that way, but in doing so you a) aren't showing atheists to be fools and b) you foist no intellectual obligation upon the atheist to agree that "god" is indeed an exception to all reasoning that would otherwise make him look evil.

But isn’t it one Christians have been answering for centuries? Yes, of course.

No, they have simply appealed to God's mysterious ways, and Frank Turek pushes the ripple-effect answer, not realizing that in moral analysis, anything at all that helped create a moral good is therefore also "good", or at least logically qualifies as such whether we wish it so or not.  I'm pretty sure America's general stupidity in the moral department means they are still a long way from being willing to be consistent and honestly admit where moral relativism logically leads.   Nobody said typical American morality was the least bit consistent.

There are many fine works already available on this issue, both ancient and modern, and Welty acknowledges his debt to them. But I think this book fills a particular niche at this time. So many contemporary books on the problem of evil fall down in one or more of the following areas:
 They don’t pay close attention to what the Bible actually says about the nature and origin of evil and suffering in the world, and how they fit into God’s purposes for his creation.

The only mystery in the problem of evil is how so many Christians can read their bibles for decades and still miss what's obviously implied by God causing horrific evils in Deuteronomy 28:15-63.  Moses sure doesn't talk about God's relation to evil the way your local Christian pastor does, amen?

They end up taking positions that aren’t theologically orthodox (e.g., denying God’s omnipotence or omniscience).

I would advise Christians to worry whether a theological proposition is biblically justified, not whether it happens to harmonize with "orthodoxy".  As open-theist Christians have shown, there are biblical texts that contradict the "orthodox" doctrines of God's omnipotence and omniscience.  This notion you carry aaround that you "need" to reject any interpretation of a bible verse that would cause it to contradict something else in the bible, merely arises from your belief that the bible is inerrant.  Since even most Christian scholars deny bible inerrancy, and since needing to harmonize anything a person said with everything else they said is not even considered a justifiable hermeneutic by anybody outside those involved in funamentalist religious, I have intellectual justification to accept Deuteronomy 28:15-63 on its own terms, deny the interpretation that harmonizes it with anything Jesus taught, and conclude that such passage really does contradict other biblical teachings.

And don't even get me started on how Copan and Flannagan's "semitic exaggeration" excuse (to get away from God's commanding his people to kill "everybody"), opens the door to the genuine possibility that the tendency of Semitic exaggeration also infects those bible verses that declare God to be omnipotent.  How do you know, admitting the ancient Semitic mind exaggerated things, whether their statements about God were also somewhat exaggerated from what they truly believed?  Perhaps the laudatory nature of the Psalms on God's wonderfulness was never meant to be taken any more literally than the husband's expression that his wife is the most beautiful woman in the world.  Well gee, classical theism requires all such biblical phrases to be taken in a plain literal sense.  Are you quite sure these ancient Semitic biblical authors weren't speaking in an exaggerated sense when extolling god's alleged virtues?  Do you have criteria for knowing when an ancient semitic author is speaking in exaggerated terms about his god and when he isn't?  NO.

They engage in philosophical speculations that aren’t tethered to (and sometimes go against) the teachings of the Bible and the creeds of the Christian church.

That can only be a good thing.  Get out while you can, fool, especially given that christianity's "danger" alarm can be proven to be about as dangerous as kittens playing with bubbles in Candyland.  Why put yourself through the torture of fundamentalism when there is no compelling reason to?

They lack clarity and precision at the very points where clarity and precision are needed. They serve up a big fat waffle-burger instead of a lean filet.

No doubt having something to do with the fact that they are genuinely born-again and sincerely ask God to guide them as they research biblical theology, right?  In other words, not even being born-again and sincerely seeking god's will, is any guarantee that you will avoid drawing heretical conclusions.  You'll excuse me if I don't want to be employed with a game-playing asshole boss like that.

They’re written by authors who lack theological and philosophical training, and who aren’t conversant with the vast scholarly literature on the problem of evil.

No brain-training needed.  See Luke 12:11-12. Just start babbling, and the Holy Spirit will move through thee.

They’re preaching to the choir: helpful for those who already believe, but failing to grapple with real concerns of skeptics.

And whether Christians have any divine obligation to worry about answering "skeptics" is fairly debatable, since because nobody in the NT is debating a "skeptic" or "atheist", it could very well be that Jude 3 carries an implicit qualification, consistent with the rest of the NT, that you are only obligated to defend the faith from other false "believers".  Paul's blind presumption of the divine nature of scripture is all over the NT, and gives the impression he never had anything of a scholarly nature to argue in front of 'skeptics' or "atheists".  I dare you to try and refute me from Acts 17.  Gee, I never knew that running away from a debate challenge after you give your first speech (Acts 17:33) constituted giving "scholarly" argument.   Nothing in Paul's Acts 17 speeches would qualify as scholarly; but they certainly qualifies as preaching to the choir.  You either agree with Paul's presumptions, or he moves on to other people.  Going back and forth would likely create a dispute about the meaning of words, and thus is probably what he would consider "word-wrangling" which he forbade (2nd Timothy 2:14).

They’re either too long-winded to keep the reader’s attention or too cursory to satisfy the reader’s concerns.

Blame it on the Holy Spirit, who can allegedly "cause" any Christian believer to pay attention to anything He thinks they need to pay attention to.  See God exercising similar overriding power in Ezra 1:1. Blame it on God.

And I'm sorry that you appear to believe that the modern Christian's ADHD is something that cannot be solved by anybody except Christian authors employing attention-getting methods of discourse and other known psycholoical tricks intended to keep one's attention.  One wonders how Christians before the age of electricity manged to be edified by those long boring sermons we see in the church fathers.  They couldn't watch it YouTube, so apparently, all hope was lost.

They’re too dry and technical for the layperson.

same answer

Why Is There Evil In The World? avoids all these pitfalls.

You could have simply directed the reader to Deuteronomy 28:15-63, that's the end of the debate about why your kids get kidnapped, or you suffer a mental abnormality, or you become so hungry you start viewing your kids as tasty treats.  This idea you have in your head about how God cries his eyes out because you got lost in the forest and can't find your way home, is total bullshit.  The god who might be planning to let your daughter be raped to death next week, has no plans to tell you in advance, and wants you to continue being happy about him in the present.  What would you do if god gave you an inspired glimpse into his infallible foreknowledge, and you saw that rape happening (i.e., because it is "infallible", what you foresaw is "incapable of failing", see dictionary)?  Would you try to thwart it when that day and time finally arrive, and therefore attempt the logically impossible feat of surprising god, yes or no?  Something tell sme the ONLY reason you love god is because you DON'T know about the evil that he knows you are going to experience in the future.  Keeping you ignorant is apparently the key to keeping you obedient.

Moreover, Greg is ideally qualified to have written this book. He wasn’t raised in a Christian home, so he knows what it’s like to be a skeptical unbeliever. He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of California, an MDiv degree from Westminster Seminary California, and MPhil and DPhil degrees in philosophical theology from the University of Oxford, and he has taught seminary courses in Christian apologetics and philosophy of religion for 15 years. He also serves as one of the pastors at Grace Baptist Church in Wake Forest, so he doesn’t live up in the ivory tower!
 Here’s the table of contents for the book, which should give you a good idea of how Welty tackles the issue:
 1. What is the Problem of Evil?

Easy:  God instructed his people to burn to death the girl who has sex before marriage in her fathers house.  Leviticus 21:9.  Since even spiritually alive people cringe at this thought, there is a very good probability, assuming Christianity is true, that this cringing arises from the Spirit's witness to their heart, not their environmental conditioning, and therefore, it is God himself in the present who is encouraging Christians to hate and despite most of the absurd Mosaic laws.  And if you carp that spiritually alive people can be decieved on this, you are a fool to pretend spiritually dead people can understand this dreck any better, and we have a rational excuse, under your own theology, to dismiss your arguments from consideration.

2. The Greater-Good Theodicy: A Threefold Argument for Three Biblical Themes

Nah, that's merely a Nazi, who, having concluded Hitler can do no wrong, therefore trifles that the holocaust it only bad when seen from a temporal perspective...an argument that would not convince those outside of Nazism.  But probably deemed a clever argument anyway by the Nazis.

3. Licensing the Greater-Good Theodicy: God’s Sovereignty over Evil

Deuteronomy 28:15-63.  he is not merely "sovereign over" evil.  He "CAUSES" evil.

4. Limiting the Greater-Good Theodicy: The Inscrutability of God’s Purposes

You don't know everything about Hitler, so you cannot really say for sure whether he might have had a greater moral good in mind in slaughtering the Jews.

5. Can Free Will or the Laws of Nature Solve the Problem of Evil?

No, for since there is no evidence the will is "free" from the laws of physics, and efforts to show otherwise are absurd trifles motivated by absolutely nothing but blind commitment to just anything and everything the bible might say.  (i.e., if you have no problem saying the purely physical nature of muscles is why damage to the muscle inhibits the muscle's power, why do you have a problem saying the purely physical nature of the brain is why damage to the brain inhibits the mind?  oh, I forgot...the bible doesn't say muscular power comes into the muscle from another dimension, therefore, you don't really care whether muscular power is purely physical or otherwise.  But if the bible says the mind can be separate from the brain, you will go the rest of your life insisting the mind can be separate from the brain, despite the fact that you violate Occam's Razor with that theory more than the naturalistic theory because you now have to allege further absurdities like other dimensions, and words like "spirit" whose definitions tie to nothing physical and are thus forced to remain in fantasyland.

When you have a thought, where do you perceive it taking place?  In your elbow, or inside your skull?  Gee, only fools would ever say the mind and brain are equal, amen?

Answering cerebral faith on the absurdity of "before time"

Evan Minton admits his beliefs about god violate human language, but his case for blaming the limitations of human language, sucks.  The problem is with the concept, not the language used to convey it.

See here.   If the post gets deleted, here's how I replied:

barryJuly 22, 2019 at 11:13 AM

You say

"I suspect the biblical writers also struggled to convey God in the state of timelessness prior to (whoops!) creating all things."

------I find it quite revealing that you admit you cannot describe your god without violating language. As you struggle to maintain your god's existence as logically coherent, you are missing the point: If you cannot describe your god's existence without violating language, you cannot blame a skeptic for taking the language-violation to be a logic violation and concluding your view about God in this matter is illogical.

Secondly, you simply pontificate that the bible passages creating this problem shouldn't be interpreted too literally. But you give no grammatical or contextual justification for a less than literal interpretation. It appears you insist on it for no other reason than the fact that it is your only hope of surviving a fatal philosophical attack on what you believe. Regardless, its pretty clear the biblical authors believed in a logically invalid way about God, you cannot make that go away by merely pounding your fist and screaming that this would be too literal of an interpretation. Otherwise, gee, maybe the bible passages that say god has eternal love for us, are also not to be interpreted too literally...maybe they are just another of the many alleged cases of Semitic exaggeration?

Finally, your beliefs about God are indeed illogical:

Premise One: the phrase "before time began" is illogical.
Premise Two: you believe god existed "before time began"
Conclusion: therefore, this belief you have about god is illogical.

It doesn't matter if there really is some higher reality out there which goes "beyond" logic: You cannot fulfill the apologetics goal of "demonstrating" such "reality" if the only way you can do it is by violating logic. If language fails you as you try to "describe" your theology, you need to be open to the possibility that the confusion exists for the same reason that square circles also fail the language test.

No, none of your arguments for god's basic existence work, so you cannot fall back on a basic existence of some god and then pretend like the fault is with the limitations of human language.

Furthermore, I'm only interested in what the bible says. Every biblical description of god is most objectively interpreted in light of how the originally intended and pre-enlightenment audience would have understood it. Every biblical description of god in heaven indicates events there take place with no less a sense of temporal progression than they do on earth, and there is on textual evidence whatsoever in the bible that such descriptions are merely accommodating. You have no textual basis to justify arguing that the writer is merely using "language of accommodation" in such texts any more than you could argue they use that device when describing people talking to each other down here on earth.

Sorry, but you cannot blame a person for giving your theology the middle finger after they have successfully identified its language-violations. If there is a reality out there that is beyond the ability of human language to describe, that's your problem.

You might consider that your obsession with apologetics constitutes your implicit belief that the Holy Spirit does nothing in your ministry...you either prove it all with human argument like a lawyer in a trial, or you fear the jury will have no reason to think your case is sound. The Holy Spirit is nothing but a gratuitous afterthought, you only add it in because the bible says so...not because the evidence indicates there's any Holy Spirit doing anything whatsoever to convince people of Christianity. A lawyer may as well tell the jury that no matter how convincing his case is, the jury won't be able to appreciate its strength unless the tooth-fairy opens their eyes.

God and Genocide: An atheist answers Matthew Flannagan's trifles about Numbers 31

Atheist bible critics like myself constantly confront Christian "apologists" with disturbing stories in the bible in which God or his followers committed some type of moral atrocity that we are pretty sure the apologist would never try to morally justify, such as child massacre.  We do this in the effort to use the apologists common sense as a tool to get him or her to give up the bible or take a liberal position on it.

In Numbers 25, the Israelites fall into sexual sin with the Midianite, in a place called Peor.

6 chapters later, God tells Moses to take "full" vengeance on the Midianites because they had tempted Israel into sexual sin.  The following quote is long, but the part about killing children for the sake of convenience is found in v. 15-18:

 1 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
 2 "Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people."
 3 Moses spoke to the people, saying, "Arm men from among you for the war, that they may go against Midian to execute the LORD'S vengeance on Midian.
 4 "A thousand from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel you shall send to the war."
 5 So there were furnished from the thousands of Israel, a thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
 6 Moses sent them, a thousand from each tribe, to the war, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to the war with them, and the holy vessels and the trumpets for the alarm in his hand.
 7 So they made war against Midian, just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed every male.
 8 They killed the kings of Midian along with the rest of their slain: Evi and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba, the five kings of Midian; they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.
 9 The sons of Israel captured the women of Midian and their little ones; and all their cattle and all their flocks and all their goods they plundered.
 10 Then they burned all their cities where they lived and all their camps with fire.
 11 They took all the spoil and all the prey, both of man and of beast.
 12 They brought the captives and the prey and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan opposite Jericho.
 13 Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp.
 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
 15 And Moses said to them, "Have you spared all the women?
 16 "Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD. 17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
 18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.
 19 "And you, camp outside the camp seven days; whoever has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify yourselves, you and your captives, on the third day and on the seventh (Num. 31:1-19 NAU)

Most Christians are justifiably scared of this biblical bullshit, and quickly change the subject by talking about how the new covenant in Christ is one of Grace and we are not commanded to kill each other any more, etc.  Many Christians personally hate the OT.  We grant the concession of defeat.

But some Christians are die-hard apologists and would rather be slowly burned alive, than admit their bible-god was an unconscionably barbaric petulant asshole.  They will split hairs all day long like a jailhouse lawyer, just to get away from the obvious meaning of a biblical text.  Jesus is not found in scripture, he is found in playing word-games, and telling yourself that splitting hairs about what should be inferred or not inferred from what God didn't say, is what the seriously Holy Spirit filled Christians spend most of their daily lives doing.

Two such apologists would be Matthew Flannagan and Paul Copan, evangelical Christian philosophers and co-authors of Did God Really Command Genocide?: Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (2014, Baker Books).

In that book, Flannagan wastes the readers time with some trifling sophistry in the effort to arrive at the conclusion that the actions of Moses in Numbers 31 were more more barbaric than God had intended.  I reply to these absurd trifles in point-by-point fashion:

Number 31:15: “Have You Allowed All the Women to Live?”

The third example Morriston cites to make his point is the defeat of Midian as recorded in Numbers 31. The Israelites fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man (v. 7). After the battle, however, Moses commanded Israel to kill all the boys and every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. Morriston says Yahweh was angered by the fact that some young Israelite men had worshiped Baal alongside their new Midianite brides, writing, “Not only must the Israelites be punished, but the Midianites must be punished for causing the Israelites to be punished.” God’s stated reasons, according to Morriston’s thinking, are inadequate.

But Morriston appears to have misread the text. First, consider his claim that the text explicitly states that God’s reason for commanding the killing of the Midianite women and boys was “spiritual infection” because “some young Israelite men had worshiped Baal alongside their new Midianite brides.” There are several problems with this.

First is the fact that, in the text Morriston cites (Num. 31:17-18), God himself does not explicitly command Israel to kill all the Midianite women and boys. God’s command to Moses regarding the Midianites is actually recorded in Numbers 25:17-18 and 31:1-2. God explicitly commands Israel to respond to the Midianites’ spiritual subterfuge by fighting against the Midianites and defeating them. The reasons why Israel is to obey isn’t the spiritual infection of women as Morriston says, but rather the fact that Midian has been hostile toward and deceived Israel.

The Numbers 31 text does not explicitly attribute the command to kill the women and boys to God, but to Moses.

 Then maybe you missed the word "full" in Numbers 31:2?  Was that a superfluous word?

Morriston acknowledges this, but suggests three reasons why this observation doesn’t come to much. (1) Moses is regularly characterized as being very close to Yahweh, faithfully obeying his instructions most of the time; (2) Yahweh expresses no disapproval of anything Moses does in this story; and (3) Yahweh himself is the principal instigator of the attack on Midian.

I can give a better reason: first, the "full" in 31:2, as already argued.  Second, the fact that the Midianites successfully enticed the Israelites into sexual sin, just proves the Midianites were not one of the far away nations for whom Mose' rules of warfare allowed to be spared/enslaved, rather the Midianites were one of those "nearby" nations that must, under Moses' rules of war, be "totally" destroyed, since they proved to achieve the sin-enticement result that the mass-annihilation commanded was intended to preempt:

 10 "When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace.
 11 "If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you.
 12 "However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
 13 "When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword.
 14 "Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you.
 15 "Thus you shall do to all the cities that are very far from you, which are not of the cities of these nations nearby.
 16 "Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes.
 17 "But you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the LORD your God has commanded you,
 18 so that they may not teach you to do according to all their detestable things which they have done for their gods, so that you would sin against the LORD your God. (Deut. 20:10-18 NAU)

Since the Midianites certainly did teach the Israelites to commit idolatry and other sexual sins, only a fool would trifle that because "Midian" isn't specified in the war-book's list of condemned nations, Moses "should have known" that 99% extinction of the Midianites was more than what God wanted.

Flannagan continues:

These responses, however, are inadequate. Consider the last point first. The fact that someone is the “principal instigator” of an attack doesn’t entail that he approves of every single action that takes place within the battle in question.

The fact that a woman is the mother of a 3 year old girl doesn't necessarily mean she loves the girl, but we are reasonable to presume this would usually be the case and require viewing of good evidence before we are obligated to think that any specific mother/daughter case is an exception.

Similarly with 2: the lack of explicit disapproval in the text does not entail approval.

 But the lack of approval also doesn't entail disapproval.  If you wish to claim God disapproved of the higher level of slaughter Moses called for, that is your burden to prove.  Your view of the text is hardly a priori.

31:2 has God saying Moses should take "full" vengeance on the Midianites.  If the result of the war comports nicely with "full" vengeance, then the burden of proof is on the apologist to argue that the the way Moses carried out the attack order was "too full". 

Morriston’s argument is an appeal to ignorance; absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

There is no reason, other than fear of one's god looking stupid and sadistic, for pretending the "full" of 31:2 meant something less than the full-scale destruction Moses actually carried out.

It is not uncommon in biblical narratives for authors to describe sinful behavior without expressing explicit disapproval.

But the burden of showing the way Moses carried out this command of God was more extensive and sinful than God wanted, is on YOU.

In most cases, no doubt, the author expects the reader to know certain actions are right and wrong.

Not likely; the originally intended recipients were mostly illiterate, they weren't "readers".  Hence, they likely would accept the story at face value, like every Christian commentator on it did between the 1st and the 18th centuries,  and not trifle about what can be implied by God's failure to condemn something.

Finally, regarding 1, the fact that someone is portrayed in the text as close to God or faithful to him does not mean that every action he is recorded as doing is commanded or endorsed by God. Consider David, or Abraham.

Consider Jesus too.  Do Flannagan's trifles here justify a person's refusal to believe Jesus was always in conformity to the will of God?  After all, just because he was the son of God doesn't necessarily...and so you see the desperation in Flannagan's atomistic analysis.

A second instance of Morriston misreading the text is that not only does he attribute Moses’s reasons to God; he also misstates the reasons Moses does give in the context. The real issue is that the Midianite women had been following the devious advice of the pagan seer, Balaam, who had been explicitly commanded by God not to curse Israel. Balaam had led the Israelites into acting treacherously at Baal-Peor. This is the clearly stated issue (31:16). What occurs, when the background is taken into account, is not that some Israelites marry Midianite women, but rather these women use sex to seduce Israel into violating the terms of their covenant with God—an event that threatened Israel’s very national identity, calling, and destiny. This act was in fact deliberate.

 Then what's your problem with Moses' refusal to spare any except the virgin girls?  

So Morriston’s comments are far off the mark when he insists that the Midianites could not have been trying to harm the Israelites by inviting them to participate in the worship of a god in whom they obviously believed. The whole point of the exercise was to get God to curse Israel so that a military attack could be launched by Moab and Midian. The picture isn’t one of innocent Midianite brides, but acts tantamount to treason and treacherous double agents carrying on wicked subterfuge.

Sounds pretty serious.  But your trifles are still pointless:  If you are claiming Moses required more destruction than what God intended in 31:2, then say so and explain why, quit pussy-footing around with trifles about how God can condemn something without explicitly saying so.  What textual evidence is there to suggest God disagreed with the degree of death and destruction Moses called for? 

And Flannagan's skepticism seems more extreme than is warranted for a Christian bible believer.  n Numbers 31:14, Moses is "angry" with his military leaders for sparing the women.

Shouldn't a Christian believer in bible inerrancy like Flannagan first assume that Moses had expected his men to inflict total destruction?

Once again, if 31:2 has God decreeing "full" vengeance on the Midianites, what textual evidence makes Flannagan so positively certain that the full manner Moses carried out God's orders, effected more death than God wished?

Didn't this Moses and his Hebrews believe in corporate solidarity, the doctrine that holds you responsible for sins of your leader even if you were not personally guilty?  

Didn't this god hold entire cities responsible for murders that went unsolved or idolotry committed by a few (Deut 13:12-18; 21:1-9)?

Didn't the Israelites manifest the same observation of corporate solidarity when willing to spare anybody that might come under Rahab's roof (Josh 2:12-14; 6:22-25)?

Didn't this god refrain from revealing Achan as guilty of stealing the wedge of gold, until after God decided this sin, unknown to Joshua, should cause Joshua to suffer more than the expected number of battle casualties (Joshua 7, i.e., only Achan sinned this way, but God spreads the guilt to the entire nation saying "Israel has sinned...they have taken some forbidden things..." v. 11-12)?

Didn't this god kill off seventy thousand men of the people from Dan to Beersheba, all because David had chosen to take a census of Israel (2 Sam. 24:15 NAU)?

Doesn't this god condition his grace on the children confessing both their own and their fathers' sins (Leviticus 26:40)?

 

Didn't the god Moses served kill a bunch of toddlers and babies with a flood in the days of Noah?  Or maybe Flannagan will trifle that the flood waters  inflicted no harm on anybody below the age of accountability?

Didn't the god Moses served decree that the sin of Adam and Eve should inflict all of their descendants?

 Didn't this god visit the iniquity of the fathers up to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:5,6)?

Why should anybody think the killing of the babies in 31:17 was against the will of a god who routinely killed babies for other people's sins?

 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick. (2 Sam. 12:13-15 NAU)

There are solid reasons for saying Moses' actions in Numbers 31 didn't inflict more death than God intended in 31:2:

• Christians automatically presume the sinful human leader correctly conveys God's sentiments, always placing the burden on those who would cry for an exception (i.e., Flannagan blindly presumes just whatever the biblical prophets credited to God, really was from God, and requires liberals or skeptics to overcome that presumption).  So Flannagan cannot coherently pretend that an assumption of Moses' consistency with God is too speculative.
• Moses' god routinely killed children for the sins of their parents, so the call to take "full" vengeance, without further qualification, would naturally be taken to mean the children shall share in the guilt of the parents.
• Moses himself adhered to corporate solidarity.   God should have specified this case was exceptional and limited, if He didn't want somebody who believed in corporate solidarity to get the wrong impression about how extensive the vengeance should be.
• God obviously wanted the Midianite men to die, since he called for battle despite knowing the Midianite men would rise to the defense of their nation. 
• it would be stupid and foolish to suggest maybe God only wanted the guilty adult Midianites killed, and the Hebrews should just walk away from their war victory leaving the orphaned Midianite kids to fend for themselves
• God obviously wanted the death of the adult women who were personally guilty of the sexual sin at issue.  If he didn't what sense would it make to say God wanted Moses to make war with the Midianite men, but not the women who were instrumental in causing the idolatry to take place?
• God or Moses was the author of a war-book that included instructions on how to justify impregnating the female war captives (Deut. 21:10-14).  Moses' sparing of the virgin girls was in harmony with what Moses or God allowed elsewhere.
• God obviously wanted the male Midianite children to be killed, since a) raising them as foster children would likely give rise to possible blood-feud after they grew up (an excuse many Christian apologists hide under), and b) God never makes good on his promises, therefore, God's promises that kids will not depart from proper Jewish teaching if they are raised in it (Proverbs 22:6) could not possibly be taken seriously by anybody faced with such a foster care situation.

Flannagan has no basis whatsoever for his trifling suggestion that the massacre in Numbers 31 was somehow more extensive than God intended.

Therefore, the inerrantist who compares Moses' actions in Numbers 31 to everything else that can be known about him, his god, and his ideas about just war, has no other option but to admit the massacre of innocent children and babies in this dreadful story was the will of God.

My challenge to Lee Strobel: Isaiah 13:13-18, God causes rape

Here's my challenge to Lee Strobel at one of his Youtube videos:

Barry Jones1 second ago

Dear Mr. Strobel, Read Isaiah 13:13-18. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, And the earth will be shaken from its place At the fury of the LORD of hosts In the day of His burning anger. 14 And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather them, They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land. 15 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished. 17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children. (Isa. 13:13-18 NAU) Has God ever caused men to rape women, yes or no? In the context, who is responsible for causing men to rape women? Is it not the "fury of the Lord" (v. 13)? Is it not God's having "stirred up" the pagans to commit this atrocity (v. 16-17)? Does blaming God for these men raping Hebrew women, violate anything in the grammar or immediate context? Can you think of a convincing reason why you don't feel comfortable limiting yourself to the exact wording of the OT prophets, when you comment about God's relation to evil? If Isaiah 13 is better than anything a sinner like you could possibly say about God's sovereignty, why do you feel compelled to "explain" God's perfect choice of words with your own sinful commentary, especially given that you don't claim to be inspired by God to anywhere near the extent you think OT prophets were? Could it be that the reason you refuse to speak as simply and plainly as the biblical prophets did on such matters, is because you care more about making the bible-god attractive to modern western audiences, and care somewhat less about honoring your alleged belief that God's word, without your commentary, is **sufficient** for faith and practice?

  

My questions to Dr. Craig Keener concerning atheist investigations of miracles

Over at Keener's contact page at Asbury Theological Seminary, I sent him the following questions
-----------------
Dr.  Keener,

I'd like to get your comments on a couple of issues related to miracles:

1 - Which modern day miracle claim do you believe is most difficult to explain on naturalistic grounds?  Amateur Christian apologists who support you abound on the internet, yet I cannot find any who are willing to direct atheists to any specific modern-day miracle mentioned in your books.  They mostly choose to just sit on the sidelines and carp about the fallacies of of naturalism.

2 - What is your advice to atheists who say that the only reasonable miracle investigation is the one that takes apologist J. Warner Wallace's advice and guides the process by the rules of evidence used in American courts of law (i.e. documents must be authenticated by witnesses, hearsay excluded in most cases, eyewitnesses subjecting themselves to cross-examination,  etc, etc.)?

3 - At what point in the miracle investigation has the atheist done enough research to justify drawing ultimate conclusions about the event?  Does that point come after he has downloaded all supporting materials the miracle-claimant made available on the internet (if so, that's difficult to believe, you don't authenticate documents by simply downloading them from the internet)?  Does that point come sometime after a certain amount of exchange between investigator and miracle-claimant via email?   Does that point come only when he has personally interviewed the alleged eyewitnesses?

4 - Does the plethora of confirmed false miracle claims in the world and in history justify the atheist to insist on using only the highest standards of investigation when analyzing miracle claims (i.e., the standard of evidence used in American courts of law)?    Does the seriousness of the spiritual issues at stake allow any room to say that a less intensive investigation is acceptable?

5 - What is your opinion of the atheist who gets so worried about going to hell, that he divorces his wife, quits his job, never sees his wife or kids again, and does little more in life than sleep, eat at a bum shelter and spend all day at his local library using the internet and library services to examine and investigate Christian miracle claims?   Does the bible allow you to say that an atheist "should" decide where in the day to stop worrying about God and transfer his attentions to his family?  Isn't it true that spiritual concerns are infinitely more important than the concerns of this life?  Didn't Jesus encourage parents to give up houses and kids with a promise that such parents would receive salvation and more (Matthew 19:29)?

6 - Some atheists say refusal to investigate miracles is reasonable, because full comprehensive investigation of them requires a quantity of time, money and resources that the average atheist simply doesn't have.   What is your response to such excuse?   Is there anything irrational about the atheist's desire to investigate miracle claims equally as thoroughly as a criminal investigator, so as to avoid the possibility of being deceived by fraud or mistake?  If you get rid of the cost-problem by suggesting a less stringent investigation, the possibility of successful deception increases.  If you agree the highest standards of investigation are reasonable, you agree that atheists have an excuse, since they simply don't have the time, money and resources to do such comprehensive inquiry.   I don't see any way to balance these concerns in a way that allows for objective investigation within the limits of the average family man's income.

7 - What is your advice to atheists who say that because even spiritually alive Christians cannot agree on the biblical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, nor on whether and to what extent miracles happen today (charismatics v.  cessationists), it is most certain that spiritually dead atheists are only going to fare worse should they join the fray?   If conservative NT scholars like James White, Norman Geisler and Mike Licona cannot agree on how best to argue the miracles of Jesus' resurrection and biblical inerrancy, doesn't it make sense to say that those with even less connection to God are only going to fumble the ball worse if they dare try to run with it?

Thank you,

Barry Jones
barryjoneswhat@gmail.com

Cold Case Christianity: Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Why Doesn’t God Reform People Rather Than Punish Them in Hell?

Posted: 01 Sep 2017 01:00 AM PDT

 258Some struggle to understand how a loving God could create a place like Hell.

Your spiritually alive brothers and sisters called 5-Point Calvinists don't.  They believe God secretly wills the teenager to steal a candy bar while telling her through the bible "thou shalt not steal".  That is, they believe God causes people to sin.  Apparently, your bible is not quite as clear on the "Christian" answer to the problem of hell, as you pretend it is.  So unless you claim all 5-Point Calvinist Christians aren't truly born again, spiritual deadness cannot be the reason somebody thinks your brand of Christianity is total bullshit.

And the fundamentalists who struggle with how a loving god could create a place like hell probably struggle because they haven't seriously considered the arguments of the liberal Christian scholars who do a fine job showing that hell "fire" in the NT is mere metaphor.  Also they probably struggle with the question since if Deuteronomy 28:30, 63 be true, their "loving" God takes just as much delight in causing women to be raped as he takes in causing prosperity to others.  I recommend that fundie Christians first make sure the biblical portrayal of God is consistent, before they start asking the larger questions. 

Either way, viewing the bible as the inerrant word of God does not appear to generate any more positive change in life than when one starts believing the Book of Mormon is the word of God. 

 Others, while understanding and accepting the relationship between mercy and justice, freedom and consequence, victory and punishment, still imagine a better way. If God is all-loving, why doesn’t He simply “reform” people rather than allow them to continue in their sin and eventually punish them in Hell? Even human prison systems understand the value of reform; isn’t a God who punishes his children in Hell a sadistic and vengeful God?

Isn't your God vengeful and sadistic for not only causing women to be raped (Deut. 28:30) but in taking "delight" to see this happen (v. 63)?

We expect that a loving God would care enough about us to offer a chance to change rather than simply punish us vindictively for something we’ve done in the past.

Then you apparently never read Romans 9, where Paul pushes the analogy of God/potter sinner/clay to such an extreme that concerns about freewill are preempted:

 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
 19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Rom. 9:18-21 NAU)

Which marketing strategy makes more money?  Providing the proper interpretation of Romans 9 to a modern audience who think human freewill is a foregone conclusion?  Or providing arguments about God's respect for human freewill, to a modern audience who think human freewill is a foregone conclusion?

As it turns out, God (as he is described in the Bible) understands the difference between discipline and punishment,

Yes, for example, his causing sickness and suffering to a baby born to David and Bathsheba, so that the child suffered several days before finally dying.  God causing babies to suffer when he can just instantly take their souls with no suffering, is the god you serve: 

2nd Samuel 12:11-18
10 'Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.'
 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die."
 15 So Nathan went to his house. Then the LORD struck the child that Uriah's widow bore to David, so that he was very sick.
 16 David therefore inquired of God for the child; and David fasted and went and lay all night on the ground.
 17 The elders of his household stood beside him in order to raise him up from the ground, but he was unwilling and would not eat food with them.
 18 Then it happened on the seventh day that the child died. And the servants of David were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they said, "Behold, while the child was still alive, we spoke to him and he did not listen to our voice. How then can we tell him that the child is dead, since he might do himself harm!"
 

Oh, did I forget?  God did this to the baby despite telling David that David's sin had been put away, see last clause of v. 13.   The lesson we learn here is that even if God himself tells you that your sin of adultery has been "put away", that does not prevent God from punishing you and your children for it anyway.

Oh yeah, the bible god sure does know the different between suffering and punishment.

and He is incredibly patient with us,

Which is rather stupid given that if God is smarter than a con artist, he can quickly convince us, without violating our freewill, that Christianity is true, and any need for patience will be foreclosed.  Even if you read divine respect for human freewill into Ezekiel 38:4, still, the whole idea that god is like a best friend who is trying to convince you of the error of your ways, is childish and unrealistic.  If God really wanted you to do something, he could infallibly cause it to come to pass, whether to make you sin or do good.  Notice what God says about two future armies, gog and magog, through Ezekiel.  You'd think they were nothing but puppets on strings in God's hands:

 3 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Gog, prince of Rosh, Meshech and Tubal.
 4 "I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them splendidly attired, a great company with buckler and shield, all of them wielding swords; (Ezek. 38:3-4 NAU)

It doesn't matter if this is mere metaphor, which it is:  the metaphor still puts images in your mind of God forcing other people to sin or do whatever he wants them to do, images that are wholly inconsistent with your childish pandering to modern society's individualist cult mentality that says God respects our freewill.

But it was never any secret that you are doing Christianity mostly because of the money you can make convincing people that God wasn't able in the past to do as much as he wished until you came along with your "forensic faith" marketing gimmick.

And if God is eternal, than his attributes will be eternal as must logically be the case in any other situation, which means his attribute of patience is no less eternal than his attribute of love.  Feel free to trifle that an infinite being his a finite trait all because the bible presents him that way, but remember that you only sound convincing to your religious fanatic friends, nobody else.   But that assumes you care about being wrong, when in fact it is clear you are more concerned with making money off of Christianity than you are in being correct

allowing us an entire lifetime to change our minds and reform our lives.

Not true, plenty of children die less than year after they reached the age of accountability, whatever you think that age is.  Only a fool makes the generalized statement that God allows people a lifetime to change.

This is easier to understand when we think carefully about the definitions of “discipline” and “punishment”:

Discipline Looks Forward

All of us understand the occasional necessity of disciplining our children. When we discipline, we are motivated by love rather than vengeance.

That might be the politically correct party line, but the truth is some parents discipline their devil-children out of sheer exasperation, and desire to see the child suffer punishment and discipline at the same time.

We hope to change the future behavior of our kids by nudging them in a new direction with a little discomfort.

Most modern Christians think the the biblical model of beating kids with rods constitutes something more than a "nudge":

NAU Prov. 22:15  Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.
 13 Do not hold back discipline from the child, Although you strike him with the rod, he will not die.
NAU Prov. 29:15  The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.

Wallace continues:

God also loves His children in this way and allows them the opportunity to reform under his discipline.

Which makes no sense once you remember that kids die at all ages all the time, and therefore, their dying shortly after the age of accountability occurs statistically just as often as kids dying in any other age-group.  Your generalization is too hasty, you wouldn't be talking that way to a Christian family who just lost their rebellious 9 year old daughter in a bus accident.  You'd have to tell them you believe that since he lived past the age of accountability and still wasn't a Christian, she is in hell right now...and that means you won't be achieving record sales of your books in her town any time soon.

This takes place during our mortal lifetime; God disciplines those He loves in this life because He is concerned with eternity.

Then he is stupid, because he has an infallible way of making sure they avoid hell:  killing them within a month after they are born.  If aborted babies go to heaven by default, then you need to remember infant death brings eternal good, as you sob about how abortion "kills".  And abortions doctors cannot do any wrong:  when they abort a baby, God takes the credit, because God takes personal responsibility for all murder:

 39 'See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can deliver from My hand. (Deut. 32:39 NAU)

Discipline, by its very definition, is “forward-looking” and must therefore occur in this world with an eye toward our eternal destiny:

Hebrews 12:9-11

Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Punishment Looks Backward

There are times as a parent, however, when our loving efforts to discipline and reform are unsuccessful; our kids are sometimes rebellious to the point of exhaustion. In these times, our love requires us to deliver on our repeated warnings. Our loving sense of justice requires us to be firm, even when it hurts us to do so.

yeah, but you would never cause your rebellious teen daughter to be raped just because she is rebellious...but God causes women to be raped, and takes "delight" in this, in Deut. 28:30, 63.  So your attempted analogy to human instances fails miserably, your God's ways are too extreme to permit analogy to any human instance, except perhaps deranged lunatics.

Our other children are watching us as well, and our future acts of mercy will be meaningless if we fail to act justly on wrongdoing. In times like these, we have no alternative but to punish acts that have occurred in the past. Punishment need not be vindictive or vengeful. It is simply the sad but deserving consequence awaiting those who are unwilling to be reformed in this life.

Hebrews 10:28-29

Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?

God is patient.

If so, it's only because sinful Moses talking some sense into the divine head:

 9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.
 10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."
 11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?
 12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.
 13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"
 14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people. (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU)

He’s given each of us a lifetime to respond to His discipline and change our mind. It cannot be said that God failed to give us the opportunity to repent.

But it can certainly be said that God did not do everything he could possibly have done, to convince freewilled humans to do what he says.  If he was willing to part the Red Sea in face of faithless Israelites and skeptical Egyptians, then God doesn't think doing monster-miracles violates anybody's freewill.  Or he doesn't respect freewill the way you think he does.

And it is rather difficult to believe that after this particular miracle, the Israelites continued to complain against god (Exodus 16:3).  If this part of the story is historically true, then God is stupid for "expecting" such human beings to materialize a strong faith on the basis of the 10 plagues and parting of the Red Sea, especially when he infallibly foreknow these miracles would not produce such a faith.  Don't you worry though, these stories are just religiously embellished kernels of historical truth, for not more more purpose than religious edification of the tribes.

When we are rebellious to the point of exhaustion, however, God has no choice but to deliver on His warnings.

Not true, according to you and the bible, the Canaanites were sinful to the point of exhaustion for 400 years before god punished them:

13 God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
 14 "But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
 15 "As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
 16 "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete." (Gen. 15:13-16 NAU)

 In other words, God recognizes the Amorites as sinful to the point of exhaustion, both in reality and in his allegedly infallible foreknowledge, and yet doesn't act there and then, but waits 400 years, not for the Amorites to change their ways, but so their sinful iniquity will become "complete".

Sort of like you knowing you have a devil child who hurts others, but you still put him in the same room with other kids and then don't immediately punish him when he hurts other kids, because you don't think he iniquity is yet complete.

Let's just say that J.Warner Wallace's apologetics argument don't exactly cause me to break out in nervous sweats.  And I say that after multiple demonstrations that his arguments are wrong and inconclusive on the merits.

Cold Case Christianity: Is “Right” and “Wrong” Simply a Matter of “Human Flourishing”?

  J. Warner Wallace, author of "Cold Case Christianity", banned me from his Facebook page despite the fact that I did not engage in any rule violations, and so it would appear that he simply got fed up with the fact that informed bible critics like myself find it rather easy to point out the flaws in the arguments he expects his followers to be amazed at.    

I also emailed Warner, twice, with an offer to engage in a written debate with him about any apologetics topic he wished.  He never answered.

In light of this, and in light of his relentless promotion of his books, I am forced to conclude that Mr. Wallace is dishonest in the sense that he will stifle criticism of his views, where possible, if he feels that criticism is likely to reduce sales of his books.  
My answer to J. Warner Wallace's Article entitled

 Cold Case Christianity: Is “Right” and “Wrong” Simply a Matter of “HumanFlourishing”?   Posted: 24 May 2017 01:02AM PDT 

 When it comes to moral truth, where do we get our notions of right and wrong?

 Answer: Since the bible says you should raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and everybody agrees you can warp a child’s mind and morals by raising them wrong, its perfectly reasonable to conclude that we get our notions of right and wrong from the environment we were raised in.  And because all mothers will insist their babies showed unique personality characteristics as far back as birth, it would appear that some of the way we determine morals comes from our genetic predispositions.

Can we generate binding, obligatory concepts without grounding them in the nature of a Holy God?

No, what we do is talk to each other, find out who agrees with our morals, organize ourselves into cities and nations, elect leaders to pass laws consistent with the morality in our group, then tell everybody that you either conform, or face civil and criminal penalties.  On the other hand, it is the belief that obligatory moral absolutes come from God, that is precisely why fundamentalists can never resolve their disagreements with each other.  Calvinists have no problem believing it is consistent with God's love and justice for some people who die in infancy to end up in hell, while most other Christians are instinctively repelled by it.   This would provide a rational basis for dismissing the biblical view of God and thus dismissing the concept of absolute morals.  Worse, the God of the bible manifests conflicting morals within himself.  His first moral inclination is to go down the mountain and kill the disobedient Israelites, but he changes his mind after Moses talks some sense into His head:

 9 The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.

 10 "Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."

 11 Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

 12 "Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.

 13 "Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"

 14 So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

 (Exod. 32:9-14 NAU)

  

As an atheist, I thought so for many years. Like Sam Harris (author of The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values), I argued that we can establish the moral value of any particular action by simply evaluating its impact on human well-being (something Harris typically refers to as “human flourishing”). Harris, a committed and vocal atheist, accepts the existence of objective moral truths but likens the establishment of such truths to a game of chess.

I am an atheist and I do not believe in objective morality, that is, that any morals are absolute.  I don’t know why you would ask me whether I think torturing babies for fun should is immoral.  Yes, I believe it is, but I am a human being, and a human being’s opinion does not an absolute moral make. 

In any particular game, each player must decide how to move based on the resulting effect. If you are trying to win the game, some moves are “good” and some moves are “bad”; some will lead you to victory and some will lead you to defeat. “Good” and “bad” then, are evaluated based on whether or not they accomplish the goal of winning the game. Harris redefines “good” (in the context of human beings) as whatever supports or encourages the well-being of conscious creatures; if an action increases human well-being (human “flourishing”) it is “good”, if it decreases well-being, it is “bad”.

An excellent reason to say Harris is wrong and that objective morality doesn’t exist, since obviously, what’s “good” to one person is “bad” to another, and if humans are the highest standard possible (as atheism would require), then the fact that human beings disagree on what’s good and bad is proof positive that there are no objective morals.  But lets not forget that even if we allow that Christianity is true, the god of the bible manifests conflicting morals.  In the NT, sex itself, not “illicit” sex, is still considered to be defiling and less than God’s highest good, when in fact sex is believed by most Christians to be a gift from a perfect god:

4 These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. (Rev. 14:4 NAU)

They didn’t remain undefiled from prostitutes, but undefiled from “women”, i.e., the sex act itself, regardless of whether it takes place inside or outside the marital bond, is still considered by this biblical author to be something that “defiles” a man to a certain extent, a view totally opposed to most modern Christians who think sex within a Christian marriage is a blessing from God, and therefore hardly "defiling".  Here the Revelation-author seems to be contradicting the forthright statement in Hebrews 13:4 that marital sex does not defile.

 What, however, do we mean when we talk about “flourishing”? It’s one thing to evaluate a behavior in terms of its impact on survival, and if we are honest with one another, this is really what drives Natural Selection. But Harris recognizes survival, as a singular goal, can lead to all kinds of morally condemnable misbehavior. History is replete with examples of actions that secured the survival of one group at the immoral expense of another. Harris suggests the goal is something more; the goal is “flourishing”. Human well-being involves more than simply living, it involves living a particular way. Human flourishing comprises a particular quality of life; one in which we honor the rights of others and seek a certain kind of character in order to become a particular kind of human group that has maximized its potential. See the problem here?  Harris has already imported moral values into his model, even as he seeks to explain where these values come from in the first place. One can hardly define the “maximization” of human wellbeing without asserting a number of moral values. What, beyond mere survival, achieves our “maximization” as humans?

I agree with you that Harris is wrong to believe in objective moral values, given that atheism would logically preclude objective morals.  But I deny that the last question above is legitimate.  The whole idea that we should strive for “maximization” stems from a greedy capitalist predisposition, which has manifested its true fruits clearly for the last 100 years.  It is enough to live life where we find ourselves and solve problems in our personal circumstances (i.e., paying debts, resolving family issues).  The drive of most people to “maximize” is precisely what has turned America into the ridiculous cesspool of hedonism it is.  I say chop wood, carry water, and put down that fucking cell phone.

 What does this even mean? The minute we move from mere survival to a particular kind of “worthy” survival, we have to employ moral principles and ideas. Concepts of sacrifice, nobility and honor must be assumed foundationally, but these are not morally neutral notions. Human “flourishing” assumes a number of virtues and priorities (depending on who is defining it), and these values and characteristics precede the enterprise Harris seeks to describe. Harris cannot articulate the formation of moral truths without first assuming some of these truths to establish his definition of “flourishing”. He’s borrowing pre-existent, objective moral notions about worth, value and purpose, while holding a worldview that argues against any pre-existing moral notions.  If, as a police officer, if I was watching Harris’ chess game and observed one of the players make a “bad” move, could I arrest the player? No. the definitions of “good” and “bad” Harris offers here are morally neutral. On the other hand, if one of the players was able to successfully cheat (without detection) and managed to win the game in this manner, could we call this behavior bad? He did, after all accomplish the goal of winning the game. We can only call this behavior “bad” if we begin with a notion about winning that identifies undetected cheating as a prohibited act; a moral truth that pre-exists the “chess game” and ought to govern its moves. Even though there are times when cheating can help us win (or survive) without any physical or emotional consequence, we theists recognize we’ve done something that “damages our soul” and offends the Holy nature of God (even if our behavior goes undetected by our peers).

Again, I disagree with my fellow atheists who think objective moral values exist.  Harris is just as wrong as Barker. 

When the atheist recognizes human flourishing as something more than mere physical or emotional survival, he too acknowledges the spiritual and moral nature of our existence, as he borrows from our theistic view to construct his own.

That is perfect nonsense.  Human “flourishing” is a very subjective thing, with greedy prosperity preachers saying you aren’t really flourishing unless you are rich, and the other Christians who contend that flourishing does not involve ease and comfort in this world.  My suggestion is that it is unreasonable for Christians to think spiritually blind atheists are obligated to figure out which of the spiritually alive people got the bible wrong.  Let God's likeminded one's get their act together, THEN they can have a hope of morally obligating non-Christians to see things their way.