The Bible is the Foundation for Objective Morals.

My responses will be my arguments that the Pro will have to deal with, I will tag them with A-H. 1. My first contention is that the Pro believes that the Bible is the foundation for ALL objective morality. A) Slavery is condoned by the Bible (Leviticus 25:44-46;Exodus 21:20-21;Luke 12:46-47;1 Timothy 6:1-2). Certainly the Pro would agree that slavery is wrong, yet in the Ten Commandments we have God dictating laws in owning slaves. Exodus 20 If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. 21 If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property. Christians try to explain this away as indentured servitude as if that is not slavery, but owning (property) any human being is considered slavery and is not right on any logical moral foundation. 2. The Pro insists that the Ten Commandments are a source of objective morality minus the first three. I do not deny that there are some moral principles in the Ten Commandments, but they hardly stand up to today's moral values and don't even stand up to the bibles examples by God and those He commands through out scripture. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy". B) How can this be objective morality? The Sabbath was a Saturday and in the New Testament you have Christians worshiping on the first day of the week which is a Sunday. If this is a law that the Pro must keep, does he observe the Sabbath (Saturday) or the does he worship on the first day of the week (Sunday)? If he does not follow the Saturday Sabbath requirement then how objective is the commandment in accordance with his belief today? Besides if the Pro claims to observe the Sabbath, then does he follow all the Sabbath restrictions? 3. The 5th commandment: "Honour thy father and thy mother". C) This cannot be objective, there are cases where horrible things are done to children by their parents, are they to honor their parents even then? Is a child that is raped by her father to continue to honor her father, or better yet how about a daughter that is sold as a slave: "When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. "( Exodus 21:7) Now is she suppose to honor her father, would you honor your father if he sold you into slavery, I don't think so? Secondly, if this was an objective moral law then why does Jesus say this: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple"? (Luke 14:26 ESV ) This does not sound like honoring your father and mother. 4. The 6th Commandment: " Thou shalt not kill". D) God commands man to not kill, yet commands mankind to kill homosexuals: "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives. " (Leviticus 20:13 NAB) I wonder if the Pro feels that killing homosexuals is okay since God commands it even though God said to not kill, which is it? The Pro must answer these questions, why doesn't he kill homosexuals today, God commands that he should! "Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. " (Exodus 21:15 NAB) To kill or not to kill, this is the question. It is obvious that our own morality in this present day is much higher than that of the Old Testament, now I have never been struck by my children, but even if they did I would not kill them for it. Does the Pro really think that children should be killed for this? God says do not kill then says kill your children, this is more like objective chaos! 5. Thou shalt not bear false witness: E) God says don't lie, but then makes other people lie. 1 Kings 22:23 Now, therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. 2 Chronicles 18:22 Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets. Jeremiah 4:10 Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people. Jeremiah 20:7 O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived. Ezekiel 14:9 And if a prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet. 2 Thessalonians 2:11 For this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie. F) As a punishment for killing Abel, God says Cain will be "a fugitive and a vagabond. " Yet in just a few verses (4:16-17) Cain will settle down, marry, have a son, and build a city. This is not the activity one would expect from a fugitive and a vagabond. Sounds like God told a lie here, again in Gen.4:12 God promises to bring Jacob safely back from Egypt, but Jacob dies in Egypt. (Gen.47:28-29) A promise not keep is just a lie. This is enough for the Ten commandments, it very exhausting to go through all this but it simply shows that the Ten Commandments are not as objectively moral as the Pro has stated. 6. The Pro states that all the commandments can be summed up in "You shall love your neighbor as yourself". G) So then what do we do with a passage like this: "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you . .. Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die. " (Deuteronomy 13:6-10) So which is it love them or kill them? 7. The Pro said speaking from a Christian view, your argument is easily shot down, however from a Christian world view your argument makes no sense and how can someone know right and wrong objectively when the Bible doesn't know what message it wants to extend? 8. Pro: " If all things came to be through God's Word, which is spoken through the Bible and is alive as the person we know as Jesus, then He is the center of all righteous, good, love, and morality. " H) Then according to the Bible and it's craziness, God is also the author of evil, hate, and immorality. The Bible is clearly not the foundation for objective morals. The Bible is contradictory in its moral teaching and is not the foundation for what is deemed objective. If the Bible is the source of objective morality then it is okay to have and beat slaves, to sell our daughters into slavery, to kill homosexuals, and to do all the other things that the Bible dictates that we can do. Morality has evolved far beyond the Bible, it does not take much to see that objective morals cannot come from the Bible and do not come from the Bible.