No one can answer this question.

Your definition of morality is wrong. Here is how the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines morality:

Or maybe you prefer Mirriam/Webster:

Maybe you are a Dictionary.com type person:

In any event, your definition is not even close to what morality is. Not only that, but you have made some major logical missteps.

You didn't define a a "societal ill" was.
A society following the morality of the Bible does not prove morality subjective, it just shows that society is based on the Bible.
How do you account for different religions with different moralities who all think that they are the "true" religion? You would think that a objective morality would be more universal.
A objective morality does not necessarily need to come from God.

 

The problem is that Atheists can't specifically define harm because they have no published list of morals from a higher power. Morality, for them, is relative to human behavior.

 

The Bible contradicts itself so damned often where issues of morality are concerned that that really would be an impossible question to answer.

Such as when YHWH's chosen are commanded not to kill, but are also told to kill people for disobeying arbitrary laws and to massacre other tribes through warfare. Then comes the "New Testament," in which people are apparently told to disregard those arbitrary laws and basically not to make war with anyone (Republicans love to ignore that, of course).

I can tell you this: Our society would be ill indeed (like, Sharia-level ill) if it actually based laws and morality on the Bible.

 

ISIS and Al Qaeda learned their tactics from the Catholic church during the crusades and inquisitions, when the "Christians" were killing, burning at the stake, and beheading anyone that didn't capitulate to the Catholic church. That went on for 1500 years, ISIS and Al Qaeda are just getting started.

American "Christians" killed a half million innocent civilians during the invasion of Iraq.

 

Are you yourself not using an ancient book to state your claim? Why yes, you are.

 

No societal ill is a direct result of the bible. Nothing.

 

Heh. You're the one who seems to be insinuating here that disobedience of the Bible causes societal ills.

The fact of the matter is that Christians also disobey quite a lot of the Bible, because they recognise that portions of it morally reprehensible and antithetical to a modern, tolerant, secular society. You'll notice that we haven't had any witch burnings since this nation went from being a collection of colonies headed by fundamentalist Christian nutters to being an independent, secular nation with a constitution and laws that are secular rather than religious in nature, and in no way based on the Bible or any other religious scripture.

The same sadly can't be said of modern theocratic crapholes where ancient superstition is still regarded as basis of government and society. People flee such places to come here precisely because we do not obey the Bible on such points as punishing apostasy.

 

Reminds me of a former poster, Qchan.

 

Context is everything, anytime. They take politics out of context, science out of context, you name it.

 

Morality is evolutionary as social animals with intelligence we are wired to get alone, the ones who don't get along with society tend to lose out while those that behave more often have advantages. I get along even as a disabled person getting benefits and a criminal goes to prison and gets butt raped.

 

Murder is not universal. In some places it can be justified or given a lesser crime, while in others, it could mean the death penalty.

 

Very easy: the Bible doesn't prohibit to drink alcoholic beverages [while the Koran does], so that the societal ills coming from the consume of alcohol are not a direct result of disobeying the Bible.

One could say: but the Bible prohibits the excess ... AH! Find me the verse where this "excess" of alcohol is stated, determined ... that is to say: how many glasses of wines or beers are an excess?

Substantially the Bible prohibits to get drunk, but we know that the effects of alcoholic drinks [also behavioral] begin before you get drunk, properly drunk ... so? Where is the Biblical limit?

More interesting:

is slavery a "societal ill"? In the Bible is legal and ruled ... so that in those countries where any form of slavery still exists, they are not disobeying the Bible ...


P.S. As any good Protestant should, being Protestant, I tend to reject the rhetoric usage of the Scriptures and this thread is merely rhetoric.

 

If morality only came via the Bible, that means God denied knowledge of morality to all of the people who lived prior to the writing of the Bible and all of the people who could never gain access to it due to limited communications and transport. That doesn’t seem very moral to me.

Witch burning? Various criminal and/or social punishments imposed for blasphemy? Slavery? Corporal punishment? Discrimination against Women? Banning abortion in any circumstance? A lot of this depends on which version of the Bible you’re reading and which interpretation you’re putting on it though.

Of course, how do you define “societal ill” without a reference to morality in the first place? How else do you say whether a specific outcome is “good” or “bad”?

 

The problem is not that the Bible has loopholes that allow wrongdoings, it is that it proclaims things to be immoral that are now considered basic human rights, things such as working on the sabbath and same sex relationships. Also, the universal wrongful acts stated in the Bible (stealing, killing, etc.) are also condemned in non-Christian cultures, some of which have never even heard of the Bible.

 

The real question is naming all the social ills that would occur by obeying the Bible. That list is LONG. Just the number of executions would be into the millions.

- - - Updated - - -

There is NO ban on abortion in the Bible. None.

 

Are you claiming that God didn't start being moral until recent history?

 

The "societal ill" of allowing gays to LIVE - which of course disobeys the Bible which says to kill them, of course shows that the Bible is highly immoral and not a good role model for 21st century humanity. Every time you see a gay person, like Elton John, etc., realize that Jesus is too immoral, in over 2000 years, to have spoken up enough for that travesty (kill gays) to have either not made it in the Bible in the first place or at least not have been brought forward for around 2000 years or so. Jesus would "know" that the main book about him says to slaughter innocent people (gays), and if he was moral and real then he'd have spoken up enough. Jesus, you've failed - just like Zeus and Thor failed.

 

Great point. Yes, the Bible specifically says that god does not change, so he's just as evil and sick as he was when he slaughtered 99.9999999% of all humanity and innocent animals in his "flood", because he couldn't find it in his heart to just forgive, and admit that he made a mistake (he could see the future, right?) in designing humanity not up to his apparent standards.

People deserve to not worship an evil god. They can do better than that.

 

God didn't write the bible, men did. They were trying to define the undefinable. Then Constantine ordered the priests at Nicaea to put the first bible together. Those priests took all the scriptures and decided which ones were true and which were false...according to them. They were actually using the scriptures to give power over the masses to Constantine, soon after, to the church, which became the all powerful ruler of the world for 1,500 years. Anyone that didn't capitulate to the church was burned at the stake or beheaded as heretics....Muslims use the the word infidels.

 

Considering that the Bible was written 1000's of years after 'societal' ills came into being it follows that the Bible has nothing to do with it.

 

So those terrorist who think what they are doing is moral...what is that then?


Some people kill others and laugh about it or brag about it. I know christians have.

In the dark ages, christians thought it was moral to burn pagans, heretic, witches, false prophets and gays.


What about that?

Your argument us the most retarded one I've seen yet.

Code of Hammurab is the first set of laws. This is what the 10 commandments are based of. It was BABALONIAN


It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to realive after few observations that killing at will is bad for a community. So let's not kill. They realized that stealing only promoted killing, so let's not steal. Etc, etc


You don't see any atheist commuting mass murder. There were the commies but that's all.


What about religion?

How many people have died as a result of religious conflic? Yeh, morality my arse

 

Even then, not so much. Communist despots ruled over highly religious peoples - that's why it was so easy for them to kick the old gods out and install themselves as deity. They then behaved as most deities do, and killed anyone who showed signs of dissent.

These old despotic regimes of the 20thC are about the worst possible examples of 'atheism' imaginable. They actually demonstrate very well, the dangers of indulging superstition and authority veneration (ie, religious ideation). The only legitimate examples of states in which genuine, voluntary atheism is embraced by the people are places like Denmark, Norway, Japan, Australia, etc.

It's no surprise to long term atheists that a move to majority atheism/secularism has resulted in incredibly good outcomes for social health, human welfare, and environmental responsibility - but I imagine that for theists who subscribe to the old notion that atheism is necessarily bad for society, such places must call for extra demonising, lest the inconvenient truth make liars of dear old mom & dad. I've seen a few funny efforts in this regard. Primarily "you'll see ... these places will eventually be taken over by (insert terrible religion/ideology of choice here)!". Some follow this up with "then we'll see who's laughing!", suggesting they apparently wish ill will towards countries audacious enough to make mom & dad look bad.

 

Cyber attacks. The Internet was created by human agents and it cannot be disobeying the Bible since the Internet was not around when the Bible was written by man.

 

Child marriage. Slavery. The refusal to allow freedom of religion.

 

. . . have you not read the Bible? The very first mention of slavery is when God sentences Canaan and his descendants to slavery for uncovering Noah's nakedness. The Bible doesn't condemn slavery; it says God personally invented it. And the NT is no exception, repeatedly supporting the institution.