Today's religious and secular moral systems:There are thousands of religious group in North America alone which promote systems of morality derived from their sacred texts and tradition; these are primarily Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. There are also dozens of non-religious, secular organizations which promote their own ethical and moral belief systems, as derived from social sciences and logic. Examples are the Agnostics, Atheists, and Humanists. There are many conflicts among this great diversity of beliefs over specific "hot" religious topics like equal rights for gays and lesbians, abortion access, physician assisted suicide, etc. However, there are many fundamental moral themes where the vast majority of these North American groups has reached a consensus:
Based on this consensus, there are many incidences in the Bible -- some ordered by God; others perpetrated by humans -- which are profoundly immoral. This has led some people -- particularly religious liberals and secularists -- to conclude that there are passages in the Bible that conflict with the will of God.
Hard Passages:There are many "hard passages" in the Bible which appear to conflict with today's moral consensus. Some verses describe what appear to be unjust instructions or actions by God to commit genocide. Others involve the murder of innocent, defenseless individuals, including the elderly, children, infants and newborns. Still others involve the murdering of a person for a minor transgression. Some are single murders; others are instances of mass murder. Hard passages in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) convinced the ancient Gnostic Christians to believe that Jehovah was a defective, inferior Creator-God. (The Gnostic Christians were one of the three main groups in the early Christian movement. They are undergoing a revival today). They named the Creator-God the Demiurge, and viewed him as fundamentally evil, jealous, rigid, lacking in compassion, and prone to genocide. Gnostics worshiped a different deity, called the Supreme Father God or Supreme God of Truth who is remote from human affairs; he was seen as unknowable and undetectable by human senses. This essay describes some horrific Biblical events, as they appear in the King James Version of the Bible. It contrasts these occurrences with today's secular and religious standards of morality.
Interpreting hard passages from different Biblical viewpoints:Protestant Christianity is deeply divided into conservative, mainline, and liberal wings. A great gulf also exists between Protestant and Roman Catholic/Orthodox beliefs. Many of these differences can be traced to the ways in which different Christian faith groups interpret the Bible:
Both conservatives and liberals agree on one factor: these "hard passages" are rarely cited in church or religious writings. They appear to teach a system of ethics that is profoundly evil by today's religious and secular standards. A sampling of these passages from the Hebrew Scriptures follows. If you have the stomach for more, "The born-again skeptic's guide to the Bible" contains brief descriptions of about 70 "mass killings ordered, committed or approved by God." See our book list.
See also Part 2 of "Bible passages that appear immoral today"
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