Atheism, a dangerous idea?

I assume you are saying that one is written in the Bible (God's absolute standard) and the other is not set (Athiest's mallable standard).Absolute standards like:
Exodus 20:13 "You shall not murder"
Deuteronomy 5:17 "You shall not murder"However, God does allow and agree with killing as seen below.Joshua 7:24-26

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24 Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold wedge, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. 25 Joshua said, "Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today."
Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. 26 Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the LORD turned from his fierce anger.

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or Joshua 8:24-26

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24 When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it. 25 Twelve thousand men and women fell that day”all the people of Ai. 26 For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.

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how about I Samuel 15

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1 Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD. 2 This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. 3 Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [a] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.' "

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It appears that killing is required, in fact absolutely necessary in some situations. After seeing these examples, I would like to know just what the limits are. I would not want my lack of knowledge to stay my hand when action is required.
So, could you provide me with the Bible's definition of "murder"? Please give the passages that describe the absolute line where killing actually becomes murder and is therefore sin/transgression/disobedient.Since this is an absolute standard, I assume that you believe all Christian denominations also agree with the Biblical definition that you have provided. Can you provide some evidence to that?

Does this mean that there is no Bible-based definition for murder? If not, then how can the prohibition against it be considered absolute? Especially, since God considers the killing of innocents (infants) tho proper thing to do at times. I would think that absolute morality rules would be well defined enough for anyone to be able to follow them exactly. By this quote you seem to be saying that killing or fighting is not to be done at all. It seems that a "Christian" nation should have no need for armed forces since they should always turn the other cheek. And how many of these enemies were trying to end your life or enslave you?

I didn't expect you to "sum it up in one rule". What I did expect was that you could at least use the Bible to provide me with the limits of authorized killing. Some sort of line where it is no longer mere killing but actually a sin.
Perhaps expounding on the morals-not-being-physical-butl-of-the-heart statement would get us closer to this absolute moral standard that Christians have and Athiests lack.The killing of the OT is not completely understood by me. That's why I was asking you to provide some instruction here. Clearly, killing other humans is not always catagorized as murder regardless of their manevolence or history of bad behavior. So the question is still out there for those who claim that there is an absolute morality displayed in the Bible.What constitutes murder according to the Bible? It seems that if I want to follow that absolute law, I need to know what killing of other human beings would be labled as murder by the Biblical Standard. I never claimed the higher ground here. Of course I don't like innocent people being killed by our country's warfighting. That's part of war and is called collateral damage. If our soldiers deliberately killed someone and knew that person was a noncombatant then I believe those soldiers should be treated as if they committed murder in our own country. But if they were mistaken and killed a noncombatant then I think wide latitude should be given because of the grave situation that they were in.
I pay taxes because Jesus said I have to.

Harm in what capacity? Christians could argue that atheism harms each person that accepts it by pulling them away from Jesus.Each example of Christianity causing "harm" could be catagorized the same way as you catagorized Bolshevism...incorporation into other ideology. Inquisition was just power-hungry politicos misusing the call by Jesus to convert all nations, for example.Have the basic principles of Christianity caused any actual harm?

Actually, the OP only implied harm.... The stock answer is that the very idea that people would be persuaded that there is no God is harmful in that less would commit their lives to Christ and would spend eternity in torment. Both of those are likely to lead to the belief or professing that there is no God in order for the person to justify such selfishness. The religion is not necessarily fully consistent with the intent of the founder's teachings. There is much evidence that the Inquisition and the Crusades were caused by, at best, misconstrued ideas about Christ's teachings or, at worst, cruelly bigoted sadists and land-grabbing divine-right rulers respectively.

deerbreh stated

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And to what would you attribute these statements by Martin Luther?

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followed by disparaging statements about the Jews by Martin Luther.I would not attribute them to Jesus The Christ who, by the way, was the founder of Christianity, NOT Martin Luther.I would attribute these statements to a misconstrued notion, prevalent in Christian Europe at that time, that people who did not accept Jesus as their savior were beguiled by Satan himself. Since they were deceived, they deserved nothing but scorn.
It definitely is not the ideas of the person who is quoted as saying "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."Edited by LinearAq, : No reason given.

My statement was the one of the stock answers from the repertoire of fundementalist answers to tricky questions. I am not prepared to defend it, just making you aware of the thoughts in that community on that particular subject.

Are you saying that any killing is a sin? Then the new Testament makes no distinction between killing and murder? What is your Biblical basis for this? Is it the "turn the other cheek" stuff?
What about the Ananias and Sapphira? What about the end times when the believers are supposed to fight the unbelievers in the last battle? Obviously, God has plans to use his chosen people to exact punishment upon the heathens in the future. He has done so in the past. What makes this time in between different? Most of all, how does this apparent variability get me closer to understanding the absolute morals of this God? Yeah-yeah...those babies hearts were so hard that I'm suprised they could pump any blood at all. It wasn't like that was colateral damage from a bomb. Those Hebrew soldiers had to look the baby in the eye and stab it with a sword.

What point does it prove? That Christians have a better moral center because they follow a book that can be, and is, subjectively interpreted in wildly varying ways to justify the moral CHOICES of those who claim to follow Christ?How is this any better than the subjective moral choices made by athiests based on the society that they grew up in and the parents that they had?The whole point of the discussion on murder was to show that there is no moral absolute that Christians can define in detail based only on the Bible. The most abhorant act that we can do to another human being, murder, is not even defined adequately enough to know what it is. There are even examples of what I would consider murder lauded as great deeds. God may as well have said "Thou shalt not mebecafix" for all the understanding that we can glean from His Word.
Even the "Do unto others...." is completely subjective, it depends on what you want not what the other person wants.As far as this relates to the "harm" that athiest beliefs do, I think it pretty much tosses out the idea that subjective morals are a harm to society. Everyone's morals seem to be subjective.

We are moving far off topic. Do not reply to this post

The golden rule sounds good in theory but kinda falls short in the way it is applied.Ex. 1: I have a friend who has MS. She is at the stage where attacks occur with little warning and she will collapse. She has a lot of bruises and bumps lately. She has expressed that when things get bad enough she would like her husband to help her end everything....basically to kill her. Is he following the golden rule if he does kill her or is he following it if he doesn't?Ex 2: My brother-in-law is an alcoholic. He recently went off the wagon and spends most of his free time drinking until he passes out. He has stated that he likes being drunk and does not want to quit again. Is my organizing an intervention following the golden rule or not?Ex 3: I have a friend at work who doesn't believe in God. I have made statements about my Christianity and invited him to my church. He has said that our relationship would go much more smoothly if I didn't try to convert him. Is my continuing to proseltyze him following the golden rule or not?I believe Biblical quotes to support your answers are necessary so that we can agree on the absolutism of the answer.I believe that Christians cannot claim superior morality without being able to show superior morality. As an aside, why is soliciting a prostitute wrong? I mean, besides the fact that you would be disobeying the rules of the government that God put into place. Would it be okay to do it in Nevada?Edited by AdminJar, : Off topic

I thought I was countering riVeRrat's contention, from msg 34 that Atheism was dangerous because of its moral relativism. I was just pointing out that even the "golden rule" does not really seem to be an absolute or at least different Christians would apply it differently in the same situation.Or was I only supposed to only address the OP directly?

This is confusing to me. You have stated several times that athiests have no moral standard to go on, yet you have failed to make a case for that. In fact, you have not even tried to beyond the statement that the athiest's morality standard (none) is inferior to your standard (Bible).
Since you are saying that the Bible's standard is superior to no standard at all, you should be able to show us that it is. The least you could do is show us that it is a consistent standard.In what way is the moral standard of the Bible, superior to the subjective moral standard of Athiests?If you say it is superior because it is an absolute standard, please provide an example from the Bible of that absolute moral standard.Do you have some examples of unambiguous moral rules that every Christian church professes to follow today?

Well, yes you did. Here, you say that athiests are not dangerous but imply that the lack of a "moral standard" is dangerous. That's my interpretation of what you wrote. If that is not what you meant then please explain what you meant by "...no moral standard..." leading to "...anything goes...".By implying that the lack of a supposedly non-relative moral standard is dangerous for society, and by your following the Christian "non-relative" moral standard, you ARE saying that your standard is "better" than that of athiests.So how about some support for this assertion.1. Do athiests really have "no moral standard" or is it merely a relative moral standard?2. Does Jesus actually provide an absolute moral standard or is it a relative? Please provide substantiation that the absolute standard is actually absolute.3. Assuming the moral standard provided by Jesus is absolute, does every Christian act in the same manner in a particular situation, when they feel they are following this absolute moral standard?4. If not, then how do you explain differing actions in similar situations by people claiming to follow the same standards? Please forgive my oversight. What was your original statement and which message was it in?(so I can place it in context)

The entire statement is a mini-soliloquy on the lack of standards for athiest morality.You state a number of questions that point to the relative nature of "the greater good" and the athiest set of morals. Although you write that you don't automatically claim that athiests are bad, you certainly imply that the morals athiests follow are a problem. Right here you imply that without God the morals cannot be standardized.

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...if God is love, then God is part of it. Atheist don't believe in God so where does that leave us, that is my point. The morals of an atheist are not defined at all.

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How about the moral standard of the society in which they grew up and live?The moral standards of their parents?The moral standards they obtained from their journey through life? And the method by which we tell who is deceived or liars is...? Here you are claiming that there is a Christian standard when you have refused provide Biblical quotes to substantiate this claim.
Besides, athiests are still part of society and must follow that society's standard or risk removal from it.Additionally, you provide a Bible example of Christians working in unison but don't address the problems that Paul and Peter had in working together because each had a different stance on what laws applied to believers.

I am reasonably sure everyone has a bit of a guilty conscience about something.Regardless...So, you are saying that because the morals within the Bible are written, they can be discussed. However, the morals of athiests cannot be discussed because they are not written down? I think I am getting an inkling of what you are saying. A few questions though to round out my understanding...1. Because they are not written down, do you feel that the morals that guide different athiests are more widely varying that those morals presented in the Bible that guide different Christians?2. Do you have any evidence to support your belief that the morals of athiests vary more from person to person than the morals of Christians?3. Do you feel this widely varying set of morals is a danger to society or the human race? Why? Agreed.
However, the laws of a society typically reflect the morals of that society and tend to shape the morals of those who are born into that society.