Hitler Taught Me Right from Wrong

Much is made by atheists about the amount of violence in the Bible; punitive violence directed at people undeserving of scorn. Undeserving of scorn unless you think having a keen sense of fashion and maintaining a healthy physique deserves a few stones to the upper torso and head.

This violence wouldn't be so bothersome if Christians didn't constantly ask us non-believers, "How would human beings know right from wrong if no higher power existed to instill morality in us?"

They're basically saying, "An entity responsible for horrific violence is the same entity that tells me it's not okay to punch an old lady in the mouth and take her purse."

How can you say a deity, who called for the execution of homosexuals, is responsible for instilling in modern day humans a sense that harming homosexuals is immoral?

I understand the Bible goes on to preach against adultery and other deplorable behaviors, but it makes no mention of the violence in the Old Testament being a mistake, because God is perfect.

That would be akin to telling others they should admire an unrepentant Hitler because he once wrote that future generations should go easy on the Jew-killing.

I understand the faith angle. You assume God wouldn't want to make it obvious He existed and therefore decided to give a few contradictory messages and perform a few contradictory deeds.

But to disregard the most extreme acts in order to pretend He is the one teaching you right from wrong is simply ludicrous.

You're basically saying that anything modern day society considers to be, "good," God taught you to do. In the year 1800 God told people it was perfectly fine to enslave certain members of the human race. Now that most non-Neo-Nazis living in America frown on discrimination, He teaches you to view everyone as equal.

But maybe you are correct. Maybe if God didn't go out of His way to instill in all of us an inherent sense of right and wrong we'd all resemble the Seinfeld character George Costanza, who, after being accused of sleeping with the office cleaning lady, said to his boss, "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I tell you, I gotta plead ignorance on this thing, because if anyone had said anything to me at all when I first started here that that sort of thing is frowned upon..."