No God - Moses was just a Smart Guy?

[AuntMartha]

Hi,
I was talking with the athiest relative tonight. I shared most of the points brought up on my previous thread about evil and answers to his idea that society made up morals (thanks to all who helped with that).

I was pointing out - How do you determine what is good if there is no standard of good and evil from a higher athority, that if man decides what is good and evil, even Hitler could say his ideas were “good”.

I pointed out that his ideas of what was truly good and evil just happened to match the 10 Commandments. He said that he thought Moses just thought up the 10 Commandments - that he thought about it for a long time and then put them on the stone tablets and gave them to the people, said it was from God, and it stayed with them. That Moses was deluded, not a liar, and heard “a voice” in his head that he must have thought was God.

What can I say to this, especially since he doesn’t believe the Bible?

Aunt Martha

 

[turboEDvo]

Moral relativism is a tough one. But, if there are absolute physical laws, then why is it hard to believe that there are absolute moral laws as well. All humans flee death as an instinct (and it is wrong to kill, there is a correlation). Humans protect their belongings instinctually (and it is a sin to steal, again, correlation). Some things are simply written on us even if we don’t want to admit it. Many people just need something more concrete to tell them right and wrong, because they don’t want to listen to what’s already inside them. If you look at the history of society, some things never change. That argument may be a starting point if he doesn’t believe in the Bible. If he starts to negate history, then he’s just gonna say whatever he must to keep from being proven wrong. No coherent argument will sway him.

Eamon

 

[Ecce_Homo]

Does your atheist relative have any evidence that Moses was “deluded”? If not, his argument is nothing but pure conjecture, and should not be taken seriously.

One thing that I find facinating is that Moses gave a rather accurate description of what is called the “Big Bang” (or the expansion of space-time) in the statement, “Let there be light.” How is it that Moses wrote definitively that light came first, even before the sun and stars that he would observe emitting light? Modern theories of the origin of the universe, after all, were not well known in 1500 B.C. nor were instruments in existance that could read such things as the cosmic background radiation or perform spectrum analysis.

Such a statement on the part of Moses does not sound like the remark of a “deluded” man. Nor does it seem likely that this statement was just a lucky guess on the part of Moses. Is it then possible that Moses was inspired by God?

 

[Gratias_Grace]

Did you atheist friend see Moses do it his own way?

 

[Steve_Andersen]

You’re probably out of luck with your relative
Skeptics usually want verifiable, independent proof

IIRC there is no extra-biblical reference to Moses
Even the Egyptians are silent on the events described in Exodus

So you’ll just have to tell him that you choose to believe…they usually respect intellectual honesty

 

[Maranatha]

I’m engaged with an atheist and I’ve asked the direct question: Do you believe that morals are relative or is there an absolute definition of good?

The Aztec culture practiced human, even child, sacrifices. Was this good? A relativist would say, it was accepted, even laudable, in that culture. I disagree. There is something in each person that tells us this is wrong.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Aztec
Bernardino de Sahagún, Juan Bautista de Pomar and Motolinía report that the Aztecs had 18 festivities each year. Motolinia and Pomar clearly state that only in those festivities sacrifices were made. Each god required a different kind of victim, young women were drowned for Xilonen, sick male children were sacrificed to Tlaloc (Juan Carlos Román: 2004 Museo del templo mayor), nahuatl speaking prisoners to Huitzilopochtli, or a volunteer for Tezcatlipoca. Not all these sacrifices were made on the great temple, a few were made in “Cerro del Peñon” an islet of the Texcoco lake . This could put a figure as low as 300 to 600 victims a year, but Marvin Harris multiplies it by 20, assuming that the same sacrifices were made in every one of the sections or Calpullis of the city. There is little agreement on the actual figure.