Positive Atheism - Cliff Walker : Relative Ethics and Absolute Condemnations

This Essay Consists of the Following Sections:
Absolute Relativism
A Quandary?
Arguments from Authority
Atrocious Outrage
Atrocious Lack of Resistance
Atrocious Slavery
Atrocious Genocide
Atrocious Human Sacrifice
Atrocious Male Chauvinism
The Filter of Human Reason
In Conclusion
Some Studies Studied

This essay is Part 2 in our critique of Positive Atheism’s Cliff Walker’s attempts to criticize the Bible. In Part 1 I dealt with his attempts to counteract “Bible Week.” In this case I will consider his writing on the issue of whether we can be ethical/moral without God.[1] Cliff Walker was responding to an inquiry from someone seeking to justify their presuppositions by “doing research for an Independent Study at Rutgers University, New Jersey, to provide empirical data showing that one can be ethical or moral without God.”

To his credit, Cliff Walker points out that various such studies are of questionable accuracy for various reasons. I have found that Vox Day has done a admirable job in both referring to such studies drawing out their details, as well as discussing their problems and referencing more balanced studies. These may be found in Vox Day’s book “The Irrational Atheist” (downloadable here) p. 19-20, 103, 119-120, 127, 145, 182, 188 to name a few (I will provide some examples below after the Conclusion under Some Studies Studied).

I would like to beging by pointing out one of those meaningless statements for which Cliff Walker has an apparent fondness, “if there is no God, then all who are ethical became that way without Him!” (italics in original). This is certainly true given certain materialistic presuppositions. However, may we not state, “if there is no God, then all who consider themselves ethical became that way by conveniently subjective definitions of what is ethical!” Or, given a certain set of theistic presuppositions we may state, “if there is a God, then all who are ethical became that way by Him!”

Cliff Walker also presents an alleged quandary, “Does God approve of something because it is right, or is something right because God approves of it?” Presupposing absolute materialism, may we also quandarize thusly, “Do atheists approve of something because it is right, or is something right because atheists approve of it?”

Absolute Relativism:
No, my friends my quandarizing is not farfetched. Consider that Cliff Walker wrote:

“I use the terms good and evil and right and wrong as shorthand, for the purpose of discussion, to describe how many people think. My current understanding of reality does not recognize any intrinsic good or evil.” [italics in original]

This statement is of crucial importance for various reasons. For instance, we must logically read “My current understanding of reality does not recognize any intrinsic good or evil” as “As an atheist I know that all we have in the way of ethics is personal opinion, what I referred to as ‘how many people think’ but I will use the terms good and evil and right and wrong anyhow since without them I could not besmirch the Bible, God, Christians, or religiosity in general. Thus, I will do so even while admitting to having no logical reasons but merely a convenient way to express my personal prejudices.”

Thus, given that there is no intrinsic good or evil, any condemnations of the Bible, God, Christians, or religiosity in general are based upon “how many people think” but if “many” other “people think” otherwise then Cliff Walker’s condemnations are either simply null and void being relegated to the realm of personal preference or perhaps outweighed by the number of many more people who think otherwise. He is arguing from relative ethics and therefore discredits his own condemnations (exactly as was done by Dan Barker as evidenced in my essay Dan Barker and the Alien Rape Voyeurs).

A Quandary?:
Cliff Walker presents an ethical quandary as follows:

“If the gods approve of things because they are pious, we still don't know why they are right. But if things are right because the gods approve of them, then morality is arbitrary, is it not? Would not incest and murder have been morally right if the gods had approved of it? To say that the gods would never approve of incest or murder is inadequate, because the point is that this alternative has the gods defining the pious, whereas the other has the gods merely acknowledging what is and is not de facto pious.”

Let us simply grant absolute materialism and reconsider the quandary based on this worldview:

“If the atheists approve of things because they are pious, we still don't know why they are right. But if things are right because atheists approve of them, then morality is arbitrary, is it not? Would not incest and murder have been morally right if atheists had approved of it? To say that atheist would never approve of incest or murder is inadequate, because the point is that this alternative has atheists defining the pious, whereas the other has atheists merely acknowledging what is and is not de facto pious.”

Interestingly enough, I shared some correspondence with an atheist about the issue of incest. Please pardon me for keeping this anonymous but I am not interested in embarrassing anyone. If you wish to disregard this admittedly one example of one discussion with one atheist, feel free to do so. Both of us agreed that incest was immoral. I asked why he considered incest immoral. He thought it odd that I was asking for his reason since we agreed on its immorality. I asked again why he thought it immoral. He was flummoxed and again answered by asking me why I was asking. Yet again I asked why and once again he did not answer but was still confused as to why I would ask why. Then, you guessed it, I asked why, to which he finally stated, in part but in substance, “I have a visceral dislike…”
Good, so do I. However, this is an argument from personal outrage. Moreover, people who commit incest do not have a “visceral dislike” and in fact, rather like it. Thus, we are in the realm of my visceral dislike can beat up your like. Clearly, there is nothing intrinsically immoral about incest rather, some people decide that they like it and some do not. Lastly, if you do not and they do then just who do you think you are to shove your subjective morality down their throats?

Arguments from Authority:
Before coming to the particular appeals to “Scriptural Atrocity” I would like to mention, perhaps as an aside but an aside that is important, that Cliff Walker makes a point by referring to Plato’s work Euthyphro. I drew out an argument in my essay What Happened to Reginald Finley’s Skepticism? to the effect of: why do atheists tend to appeal to the authority of an argument made by people who may have never existed and to texts which for all we know are fictionalized redactions? Mr. Finley had referred to Hippocrates while Cliff Walker refers to Plato, his work Euthyphro and by extension Socrates. But just how does Cliff Walker know that Plato and Socrates ever existed? How does he know that Plato and Socrates are not simply fictitious characters, mythical ancient wise prototypical philosophers?

More importantly are the following questions:

How do we know anything that Plato and Socrates said or wrote?
When did they make the statements quoted by Cliff Walker?
How do we know that?
When was the statement recorded?
Who recorded it?
How do we know that?
What is the span of time between the statement and the recording?
How do we know that?
What is the span of time from the recording to the first manuscript?
How do we know that?
How many manuscripts are there?
How do they compare?
How do we know that what is written is accurate?
Etc., etc., etc.

The point being that when it comes to the Bible, skeptics demand that all of these questions, and more, be answered to their satisfaction. Yet, the skeptic may quote anyone with full authority without providing a single shred of evidence. I understand very well that they will simply do away with my concerns and merely retort that none of that matters because they could simply state that, for instance, Plato and Socrates never did exist but the arguments attributed to them speak for themselves. Fine, but why appeal to apocrypha then? Just make your own arguments without appealing to potentially fictional characters.

Atrocious Outrage:
We now come to Cliff Walker’s arguments form outrage in a section entitled “Scriptural Atrocity.” We know that they are such arguments for at least two reasons:

1 - He admits that he is relying on personal opinion and therefore he defines, categorizes and reacts to the “atrocity” based on his opinion. If someone did not think that these were atrocities then they would not be. In fact, he prefaces this section thusly, “I will now venture into a brief examination of the Bible, which advocates or commands the following atrocities that many modern people find abhorrent.” Again, we find proof that he is appealing to the personal preference and outrage of “many modern people.”

2 - The texts to which he refers are conveniently selectively quoted. In fact, in this section he makes some 13 assertions, he gives the citation to 12 texts but he only quotes a mere 10 words (and I am counting “a,” “to,” and “the”). This amounts to Cliff Walker expressing his opinions and ending the sentence with a parenthesized citation. This gives the effect of, “Here is what the Bible states, in my own words, but here is the citation. Trust me, it’s there and states what I say it does.” I certainly appreciate the citations and hope that “many modern people” would actually look up the texts and read them with a consideration of immediate context, greater context, grammatical context, historical contexts, cultural context, etc.

It appears that Cliff Walker does not keep such considerations in mind and therefore constantly draws fallacious inferences. He appears to think that “followers of the Bible” follow the Bible because they are not as well informed as to what the Bible contains. In Part 1 I quoted him stating, “people think the Bible is good simply because they never read it.” [italics in original], in this case he wrote, “most adherents are oblivious to much of this material.” Rather, they do read it and are not oblivious but they read it in order to understand it and not simply in order to find pull quotes form which to premise unfounded allegations. Cliff Walker is constantly pulling texts out of context to make pretexts for prooftexts.

Before we consider each of the “atrocities that many modern people find abhorrent” let thou be reminded that there is no need to consider any of these texts since, according to Cliff Walker’s very own standards, I could simply respond by stating, “I do not view them as atrocious.” He could very well retort by stating, “Well, then you support atrocities and are therefore immoral/unethical.” I could respond thusly, “What, pray tell, are your definitions of good and evil and right and wrong?” He would then refer to personal and convenient preferences to which I would state that he has his and I have mine.

Now we will consider each of the “atrocities” as he has enumerated them:

Atrocious Lack of Resistance:

“(1) ‘resist not evil’ (Matthew 5:39)”

Well, there you have it, three words that encapsulate the whole of the Bible’s statements regarding evil (which does not intrinsically exist). If you venture beyond the three words that Cliff Walker quotes you will very quickly notice that the text refers to a slap in the face. Throughout human history this has been considered an insult. Thus, if someone insults you, do not insult them back.

Atrocious Slavery:

“(2) human slavery: e.g., selling one's daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7), beating one's slave to death (legal, as long as death lingers and is not immediate), condemning the opposition to human slavery in I Timothy 6:1-5 (consult King James or Douay readings: newer versions cover this up), keeping virgins of conquered tribes ‘for yourselves’ as sex slaves (Numbers 31:14-18)”

Let us take this one in turn:
Human slavery - I covered this topic in Part 1 in my section “Slavery: Spurns and Property.” The bottom line is that skeptics generally read the word “slavery” in the Bible and interpret it with the worse that Alex Haley wrote in “Roots.” While the Bible is dealing with something different which is typically better termed “servitude.” This is particularly so in the New Testament’s concept of willing servitude “doulos,” or servitude that was meant to allow one to repay a debt that they could not afford, a “bondservant.”

Selling one's daughter into slavery - Having the malevolent, malicious and inhumane concept of slavery firmly etched into our minds, as well it should be, it is very, very difficult to read this text of scripture in consideration of the historical and cultural context. Thus, were one to state that being sold into “slavery,” here referring to a “maidservant,” was beneficial for the daughter as well as the whole family, we simply recoil. However, she was being sold to live in a household that would care for her. To begin with, this form of servitude was not for life, or till death, but expired in the seventh year. In fact, Exodus 21:5 refers to a servant wanting to stay and would “plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my sons. I do not want to go out free.” Why would Kunta Kinte not want to leave the white devils who cut half of his foot off? Again, we are not dealing with the same concepts. The servant has a nice place for himself, his wife and his children and wants to keep his job.

There were more restrictions placed upon dealings with maidservants, “she shall not go out as the menservants do” (v. 7).
If her “master” agreed to marry her but does not then he had to “let her be redeemed” and could not “sell her to a strange nation” because “he has dealt deceitfully with her” (v. 8, consider that carefully: he was not allowed to deceive her).
If she was to marry the son then the “master” was to treat her as his own daughters (v. 9).
If the “master” married her and then practiced polygamy she was not to enjoy any less goods (food, clothing, etc.) than before, she was to remain well cared for (v. 10).
Finally, if the “master” did not marry her, and therefore did not care for her as a wife, or if his son did not marry her, and therefore was not cared for as a wife and daughter, or if she became part of a polygamous marriage and was not cared for properly, she was free to leave the household (v. 11).

Unfortunately, Cliff Walker did not provide a specific reference to his comment about “Beating one's slave to death (legal, as long as death lingers and is not immediate).” However, he may have been, mistakenly, referring to Exodus 21:12-13 since they are directly following the elucidation of the dealings with the maidservant. Incidentally, note that he certainly did not quote but nor did he even cite v. 7-11 but his selective comments were on a selective verse and given a selective citation, conveniently so.
In any case v. 12-13 read, “He that strikes a man, so that he dies, shall be surely put to death. And if a man does not lie in wait, but God delivers him into his hand, then I will appoint you a place where he shall flee.” Simply stated Cliff Walker is not recognizing the legal distinction between murder and manslaughter.

Condemning the opposition to human slavery - in I Timothy 6:1-5 (consult King James or Douay readings: newer versions cover this up) - Let us avoid the conspiracy and consult the recommended versions:

King James, “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.”

Douay, “Whosoever are servants under the yoke, let them count their master worthy of all honour; lest the name of the Lord and his doctrine be blasphemed. But they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but sever them the rather, who are partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to that doctrine which according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but sick about questions and strifes of words; from which arise envies, contentions, blasphemies, evil suspicions, conflicts of men corrupted in mind, and who are destitute of the truth, supposing gain to be godliness.”

What is the topic of the text? Note that it is not strictly slavery but how a Christian slave and a Christian slave owner are to comport themselves. Note that the text refers to “doulos,” willing bondservitude. Note that doulos is the way that Paul, James, Simon Peter and Jude refer to their service to Christ (Romans 1:1; James 1:1; 2nd Peter 1:1; Jude 1:1). Paul particularly describes this as “though I am free from all, yet I have made myself servant [doulos] to all” (1st Corinthians 9:19). Ultimately, we learn that Jesus Himself became a doulos, “For let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Himself the form of a servant [doulos], and was made in the likeness of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-8).

Keeping virgins of conquered tribes ‘for yourselves’ as sex slaves - Note what I stated before about Cliff Walker’s mixture of extremely selective and convenient quotations with fallacious inferences. In this case, it is clear to see that he quotes “for yourselves” and then simply invents the phrase “as sex slaves,” a Freudian slip perhaps. Regulations regarding war captives were very strict. In the case of a woman, if a man wanted to marry her he had to give her time to recover from the shock of war, she was to be taken into the home and “shall sorrow for her father and her mother a full month” (Deuteronomy 21:13). But if after marrying her he wanted to divorce her he was to “let her go where she will. But you shall not sell her at all for silver, you shall not make a slave of her, because you have humbled her” (v. 14). Here “humbling” appears to refer to her being depressed and or having lost her virginity (while married).

Atrocious Genocide:

“(3) genocide (Deuteronomy 31; Genesis 7; Deuteronomy 20:16; and especially Joshua 11:20, where God deliberately hardens the enemy's heart to war against Israel to the end that Israel can justify slaughtering them); slaughter of civilians during wartime – including infants and pregnant women (Isaiah 13:16-18; Hosea 13:16)” [italics in original]

Let us take this one in turn:
Genocide - This argument is tantamount to the “problem of evil” argument in that, to state it succinctly, if God has a reason or purpose for “allowing” evil then the problem is not so much the evil as our reaction to it, our misunderstanding of it and our condemnation of God for not revealing the reason or purpose for every evil that occurs. While we do not have detailed lists of reasons for such judgments against entire nations we do have some basic guidelines. For instance:
God judges entire nations when their practices were truly appalling such as: sacrificing children/humans to various gods by burning them alive, engaging in bestiality as a form of worship, using children as temple prostitutes, etc.
God gave these nations opportunity to repent. For instance, Jeremiah 18:8 states, “If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” The whole book of Jonah revolves around this concept. In fact, Jonah, “the reluctant prophet,” is actually disappointed with God’s mercy so that once God forgives the inhabitants of Ninevheh he states “I knew that you are a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity” (Jonah 4:1). God responds, in part, thusly, “Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who can not tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11). Also, you may have noted that above Cliff Walker cites Deuteronomy 20:16 while overlooking verses 10-11 which state, “When you go near a city to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it. And it shall be that if they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you.”

Moreover, God would perform marvelous miracles in order to get the attention of various nations so that they would turn from worshipping false gods and serve Him. Consider the plagues in Egypt which demonstrated, in turn, God’s overpowering of the various false gods associated with frogs, flies, etc. Thus, the Egyptian’s messenger was Moses. Assyrian’s (of Nivenveh) was Jonah. The Babylonian’s was Daniel, etc.

Furthermore, in Genesis 15:16 God tells Abraham, “In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” In other words, God did not just give Abraham the land of nations that we “not so bad after all” or as some term it “garden variety pagans.” God would not allow Abraham and the ever growing Jewish nation to conquer a peoples unless their sin had reached its full measure. Of course, in such cases we are dealing with a complex interaction between God’s omniscience, He did know that their sin would reach its full measure, and the human perspective, “Come on, give’em time to repent!” Keep in mind that four generations amounts to circa 300 years.

Especially Joshua 11:20, where God deliberately hardens the enemy's heart to war against Israel to the end that Israel can justify slaughtering them - Cliff Walker again neglects to mention or cite the fact that verse 19 mentions that these nations did not take the option of making peace, “There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, except the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon.”

The hardening of the heart refers to solidifying resolve. Or, as it is elucidated in Romans 1:24-28, it is when God gives people over to do that which they have their hearts intent on doing. Have you ever told your children, “Don’t do that. You are going to fall down and get a scrape.” Yet, upon their insistence you say, “Fine, go ahead and do it.” What happens next? They fall down and get scraped, which turns into a lesson for them and, most importantly here, others who witnessed the event.

In other words, these nations were so intent in nor only continuing their atrocities and atrocious worship systems but they refused to repent even after centuries of opportunity and finally warred against Israel with whom they could have made peace. Therefore, God “allowed” them to bring their sin to its full measure.

Atrocious Human Sacrifice:

“(4) human sacrifice: ‘a tribute to the Lord’ (Numbers 31:40), not to mention the whole concept of Jesus as a human sacrifice, plus Isaac's ‘sacrifice’ was ordered by God (Abraham's willingness is praised to this day) and the sacrifice of Jephthah's unnamed but not unsung daughter was never condemned in Scripture.”

Let us take this one in turn:
Human sacrifice - The claim that the Bible commands, encourages, or allows human sacrifice is a simple one claim manner by which to discredit anyone that would make such a fallacious assertion. It is indicative of the very depths of lack of knowledge to make such a claim—assertions, paraphrases, and half verses not withstanding. But I will not merely retort with assertions of my own but will respond to each in turn.

A tribute to the Lord - Let us make an attempt at understanding Cliff Walker’s rationale: he introduces the concept of “human sacrifice” quotes “a tribute to the Lord” and references Numbers 31:40 which reads, “And the persons were sixteen thousand; of which the LORD'S tribute was thirty and two persons.” This is simply a reference to, as Cliff Walker has stated “tribute,” and not human sacrifice. The Hebrew here is “mekes” and refers to enumeration, computation, proportion to be paid, tax. The reason that the LORD'S tribute was 32 persons(’s worth) is that while the congregation in general paid this tax calculated to one in fifty the soldiers paid one in five hundred.

Jesus as a human sacrifice - This argument is contrived because human beings did not offer Jesus as a human sacrifice in the Temple, on the altar, to God.

Isaac's ‘sacrifice’ was ordered by God - This was an order that God then ordered not to be carried out so how is this human sacrifice since no human was sacrificed?

Abraham's willingness is praised to this day - This is more complex than stating that his willingness to sacrifice Isaac is praised. One issue is that Abraham demonstrated his willingness to follow God. According to the customs of the various false gods of the time human sacrifice was a common everyday occurrence. Note that for some odd reason the skeptics never seem to condemn the actual human sacrifices conducted by the various ancients but only their contrived fallacies about the Jews. Next, after Abraham demonstrated his willingness to follow God in the customary manner, God makes it clear that human sacrifice is not something that He wants. Moreover, this text (Genesis 22) is saturated with prophetic symbolism as I have elucidated in the “Some Jewish Comments and Symbolism” section of my essay dealing with Islam entitled, Who Was Abraham Told to Sacrifice, Isaac or Ishmael?
Lastly, note that the New Testament states:

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, ‘In Isaac your seed shall be called,’ concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Abraham is said to have known that this God, whom he was getting to know, would raise Isaac from the dead if need be. Incidentally, note how different the Biblical use of the term and concept of “faith” is than that which some religious people and atheists alike have made it. Abraham offered Isaac by faith meaning: by basing his actions upon knowledge, rationale and intellect. But how so? Because it states that he was willing to offer him up with the foreknowledge that it had been promised to him that his descendants would be wrought though Isaac. How could this be if Isaac dies having produced no seed? Thus, Abraham reasoned that “God was able to raise him up, even from the dead.” Is it any wonder then that “Abraham said to his young men [who had traveled with him], You stay here with the ass. And I and the boy will go on to this way and worship, and come again to you” (Genesis 22:5). “I and the boy will go…and come again to you”—we both will go and we both will return.

The sacrifice of Jephthah's unnamed but not unsung daughter was never condemned in Scripture - Wait just a moment, if, as Cliff Walker claims, the Bible commands human sacrifice why would the sacrifice of Jephthah’s daughter be condemned in Scripture? I elucidated this text in detail in my essay about Prof. Richard Dawkins’ mishandling of it, Planting God More Firmly on His Throne (when you open the essay used the “control+f” function to search for “On page 243” which will take you to the relevant section). This text either states that Jephthah took it upon himself to sacrifice his daughter or, more likely and in keeping with the text’s immediate context as well as the Bible’s greater context, he sacrificed an animal in her place.
As for Cliff Walker’s comments, he offers the explanation without even knowing it. He states that Jephthah’s daughter was “unnamed but not unsung” and “never condemned.” Let us assume the worse and momentarily grant that she was sacrificed: the condemnation is in the fact that she was “not unsung.” Judges 11:40 states that “the daughters of Israel went yearly to tell again of [or “to lament”] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite, four days in a year.” Every single year Israeli women congregated in order to tell again of the event - the condemnation became a nationwide annual event.

Three of the texts that provide the Bible’s view on human sacrifice are as follows:

“When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying , ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way; for every abomination to the Lord which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods” (Deuteronomy 12:29-30).

“And you shall not let any of your seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shall you profane the name of your God. I am the LORD” (Leviticus 18:21).

“they built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin” (Jeremiah 32:35).

Atrocious Male Chauvinism:

“(5) the oppression of women through an institutionalized and systematic double-standard (an entire study, instituted throughout the Bible).”

This is quite interesting, Cliff Walker makes an enormous assertion and refers the skeptic to well, the entire Bible. So there you have it skeptic, if you want to double check his claims just read the entire Bible. Well, this fallacious assertion betrays a tremendous lack of knowledge of that which he seeks to condemn. Let us simply note a few texts:

+ The Bible states that both men and women were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27 also see Genesis 5:2).
+ New Testament teaches, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ…There is neither…male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26-28).
+ There are entire books in the Bible named after women (Esther and Ruth).
+ There were women Judges in the Old Testament (Judges 4:4).
+ In the Bible we find women prophetesses (Exodus 15:20; 2nd Kings 22:14; 2nd Chronicles 34:22; Isaiah 8:3; Luke 2:36; Acts 21:7-9).
+ Jesus showed Himself to be a servant of both men and women.
+ Jesus had male and female disciples.
+ In the New Testament we find women deacons (Romans 16:1-2).
+ We find women teachers, such as Priscilla who taught right along side of her husband Aquila (Acts 18:26).
+ Women taught the younger women (Titus 2:3-4).
+ The first disciples at the empty tomb were women (see Matthew 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1).

In this section Cliff Walker also states:

“Meanwhile, would you have the audacity to teach your five-year-old not to commit adultery, to bring even a ten-year-old to an understanding of that Commandment? Besides, is the burden of that Commandment equally distributed between an eighteen year old and an eighty year old? Does the Bible even apply this commandment equally between men and women?...most adherents are oblivious to much of this material, as are the alleged followers of the Bible — who would be shocked and dismayed if you showed them a passage like Ezekiel 23:20.”

Meanwhile, would you have the audacity to teach your five-year-old not to commit adultery, to bring even a ten-year-old to an understanding of that Commandment? - It would be interesting to hear what Cliff Walker has to say about today’s public school sex ed. classes wherein by the youngest age possible our children are made privy to every sort of sexual act in humanity’s arsenal. In any case, such commandments may very well be taught to very young children in manners that are generic until such time as they develop the maturity and cognitive abilities to deal with the concept as a whole. I know that this is shocking but it is beneficial for the individual, the marriage, the family and society in general to not commit adultery and to have such concepts as go along with it fully incorporated such as respect, gratefulness, lack of envy, not breaking up other people’s marriages or our own, etc., etc., etc.

Besides, is the burden of that Commandment equally distributed between an eighteen year old and an eighty year old? - I find this question difficult to decipher and so will answer it at face value: yes it is, neither an 18 yr old nor an 80 yrs young man should commit adultery.

Does the Bible even apply this commandment equally between men and women? - Yes, neither men nor women are to commit adultery. In fact, it is difficult to commit adultery unless a man and a woman are involved (recent rulings by California courts not withstanding).

...most adherents are oblivious to much of this material, as are the alleged followers of the Bible — who would be shocked and dismayed if you showed them a passage like Ezekiel 23:20 - Apparently, Cliff Walker is being prudish. The text, which he did not quote, reads, “For she lusted for her paramours, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses.” This chapter presents a metaphorical description of Jerusalem personified as “Oholibah” who was God’s but symbolically committed adultery with other nations/gods. As I also had to state in Part 1, skeptics cannot seem to decide whether to besmirch the Bible for being too prudish or two realistic, explicit or honest about sexuality (see my essay Too Sexy for My Theology? On the New Atheist Obsession with Sex).

The Filter of Human Reason:

“In short, the alleged Scriptures are all run through the filter of human reason, and always have been.”

This is how the premise of this section of Cliff Walker’s article is stated. This statement itself is actually premised upon various fallacies. Firstly, let us notice a false dichotomy in that he is juxtaposing “alleged Scriptures” on the one hand and “the filter of human reason” on the other. But from whence did he get the idea that the twain shall never meet? They were meant to meet, they were supposed to meet and they, as admitted, met. Considering life and logic as we know it, God could not make a statement that was not filtered through human reason since the manner in which we are designed makes it so that all information, from the conceptual to the sensual, is filtered through our minds/brains and therefore subject to human reason. Moreover, God is the very one who urges us thusly, “let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). In fact, Judaism considered illiteracy to be a sin. Having studied various Rabbinic writings it is no wonder to me that my people have always been known to be intellectual and became more than capable as scientists, businessmen, lawyers and all things analytical, technical and cerebral.

Cliff Walker continues his though thusly:

“Even the New Testament attests to the fact that the Pharisees, though much slandered by the Gospel accounts, had liberalized what is surely the most brutal of all the Mosaic laws: that requiring parents to haul a rebellious son out to the gates of the city and demand that the city elders stone him to death. The Pharisees, to their credit, interpreted this law so that it would be almost impossible to carry out – even if human standards might be tempted to suggest that the child had it coming to him!”

I have dealt with this in Part 1. The first thing to note is that while Cliff Walker, conveniently selects one verse while ignoring the various statements in the Bible about this issue, states that we are dealing with “a rebellious son,” which means just about every child ever born. However, the Bible refers to stubborn, rebellious, disobedient, gluttonous, drunkards who “smiteth” and curse their parents and have already been chastened (Exodus 21:15, Leviticus 20:9 and Deuteronomy 21:18). Thus, the references are to someone who is stubborn in their rebellious disobedience and is violently drunk to the point that they beat up their very own parents, lives off of their hard work in a gluttonous manner, then curses them, and has already been chastened. The term used by Cliff Walker “demand” is simply invented to give his condemnation strength. In fact, a stoning offense did not mean that you could simply execute people on the spot. Beginning at Exodus 18:13-26 we see a careful judicious system being established.

But Cliff Walker is not done yet, he continues the statement quoted above thusly:

“But Jesus denounces this humanitarian ‘filter-ing’ of the Mosaic law in Matthew 15:
[1] Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,[2] Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.[3] But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?[4] For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.[5] But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;[6] And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.[7] Ye hypocrites …
As ruthless as Christians have been and as bloody as their history reads (and even with this reminder from Jesus that the child-stoning law is still in effect, in that he sternly denounces the Pharisees for liberalizing it), I have not studied any era of Christian history where the orders of either Moses or Jesus were invoked to justify the execution of one's own son!”

Considering Cliff Walker’s falsely dichotomous juxtaposition between scripture and human reason it is no wonder that he fails to understand the point here.
The scribes and Pharisees, in essence, said to Jesus We have made up some rules, why do your disciples break them?
Jesus answers, in essence, Your rules? What about God’s rules? You break God’s rules by inventing and imposing your rules instead. God commanded that the father and mother be honored and that those who cursed their parents would be put to death. But you, in essence, allow parents to be cursed if and when it will profit you personally.

How? Because what is being dealt with here is a concept whereby something that would have been beneficial to the parents is being taken by the son and given to the Pharisees, for their profit. One might say that the gift was now going to, as it is contemporarily stated, “Doin’ the Lord’s work” so what is wrong with it? Because caring for one’s parents was more important. This is true even if a televangelist states that God will kill him if you do not send him a certain outrageous amount of money by a certain date (remember that?). Ergo, “ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites…”

Let us draw the thoughts together:
In one case we were dealing with hand washing (a very specific ritualistic sort).
In the other, judicious stoning.
Then the issue was the gift, known as Corban: a gift to God.

There were good reasons to restrict the judicious stoning since it was obviously meant to be a deterrent. It was the ultimate “Wait until you father gets home!” but since that did not work it became “Wait until the city elders hear about this!”
There was no good reason for redirecting something beneficial to the parents towards the Pharisees (no “good” reason but certainly selfish reasons).
Thus, the point is: Why do you condemn the breaking of your rules when you yourselves break God’s. With the conclusion being Just as you realize that God’s rules are sometimes meant to be deterrents so do we realize that yours are likewise not, so to speak, “set in stone.”

In Conclusion:
Overall, Cliff Walker does not present any serious argument’s against the Bible as a moral guide, particularly since he utterly ignores all of the Bible’s benevolence. Moreover, he utterly ignores the atheistic regimes who have not merely matched, but surpassed the Bible’s atrocities. And finally, he admits to basing his definition of, and condemnation of, the Bible’s atrocities on his personal preferences and thus, lacking any absolute moral standards, he end up only discrediting himself by demonstrating a lack of knowledge regarding that which he seeks to discredit as well as ending up voicing mere arguments form outrage.

Some Studies Studied:
I will now quote from Vox Day’s book “The Irrational Atheist” in regards to various studies regarding morality, charity, etc.[2]

Religious Wars:
It may be of interest to note that the Encyclopedia of Wars (New York: Facts on File, 2005) was compiled by nine history professors who specifically conducted research for the text for a decade in order to chronicle 1,763 wars. The survey of wars covers a time span from 8000 BC to 2003 AD. From over 10,000 years of war 123, which is 6.98 percent, are considered to have been religious wars - [gleaned from p. 103]

Misc.:

“there is a plethora of evidence that a comparison of all atheists to all Christians will not favor the former, whether one looks at crime rates, divorce rates, birth rates, democratic participation, or charitable giving.” [p. 182]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
“See chapters IV and XIII for evidence in support of this statement.”

Sexuality:

“[Sam] Harris claims that religious prudery contributes daily to the surplus of human misery while bemoaning the existence of AIDS in Africa and other sexually transmitted diseases in the United States. But this widespread disease is the direct result of the sexual promiscuity that Christians condemn as immoral and which Harris praises as the pursuit of happiness. More to the point, scientific research shows that religious individuals are both happier and more sexually satisfied than non-religious individuals.” [p. 119-120]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
“‘This kind of pattern is typical—religious involvement is associated with modest increases in happiness.’ Nielsen, M. E. (2006) “Religion and Happiness.” Retrieved 20 May 2007 from http://www.psywww.com/psyrelig/happy.htm.”
“‘Previous research has produced mixed results. Davidson et al. (1995) reported that religious commitment (as measured by frequency of church attendance) did impact on ‘physiological’ sexual satisfaction, but not ‘psychological’ satisfaction. Davidson and Moore (1996) found no relationship between sexual satisfaction and religiosity among female undergraduates. . . . The three items related to religiosity, when considered together, did account for a small, but statistically significant amount of the variation in sexual satisfaction.’ M. Young, G. Denny, T. Young, and R. Luquis. ‘Sexual Satisfaction in Married Women,’ American Journal of Health Studies, 2000.”

“Sam Harris cannot be trusted with statistics…Sometimes such deception is easy to detect. While talking about the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in The End of Faith, Harris cites a study showing that abstinence-pledged virgin teens were more likely to engage in oral and anal sex in an attempt to create the impression that those teens were more likely to contract an STD. What he neglected to mention was that while the study showed that 4.6 percent of the abstinence-pledged teens contracted an STD, this was 35 percent less than the 7 percent of non-pledged teens who also acquired one.” [p. 127]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
“Martin, Samuel, ‘A Two-Letter Word for Little Miss Pure: It Begins with N.’ The Times, 26 June, 2007”

Incarceration:

“I previously referenced the number of atheists being held by the prison system of England and Wales, where it is customary to record the religion of the prison population as part of the Inmate Information System. In the year 2000, there were 38,531 Christians of twenty-one different varieties imprisoned for their crimes, compared to only 122 atheists and sixty-two agnostics. As Europe in general and the United Kingdom in particular have become increasingly post-Christian, this would appear to be a damning piece of evidence proving the fundamentally criminal nature of theists while demonstrating that atheists are indeed more moral despite their lack of a sky god holding them to account.” [p. 19]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
“There are some silly bits of information floating around the Internet claiming to prove that Christians are fifty times more likely to go to prison than atheists. Of course, by cherry-picking this data, one could claim that English and Welsh Christians are 315 times more likely to go to prison than atheists and be superficially correct. One would have to be an intellectually dishonest ass to do so, though.”

“However, there also happened to be another 20,639 prisoners, 31.6 percent of the total prison population, who possessed ‘no religion.’ And this was not simply a case of people falling through the cracks or refusing to provide an answer; the Inmate Information System is specific enough to distinguish between Druids, Scientologists, and Zoroastrians as well as between the Celestial Church of God, the Welsh Independent church, and the Non-Conformist church. It also features separate categories for ‘other Christian religion,’ ‘other non-Christian religion,’ and ‘not known.’ At only two-tenths of a percent of the prison population, High Church atheists are, as previously suggested, extremely law-abiding. But when one compares the 31.6 percent of imprisoned no-religionists to the 15.1 percent of Britons who checked ‘none’ or wrote in Jedi Knight, agnostic, atheist, or heathen in the 2001 national survey, it becomes clear that their Low Church counterparts are nearly four times more likely to be convicted and jailed for committing a crime than a Christian.” [p. 20]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
“3.84 times more likely, to be precise. Census, April 2001, Office for National Statistics. While Christians account for 39.1 percent of the English and Welsh prison population, they make up 71.8 percent of the total population.”

Life Expectancy:

“Studies have shown that those without religion have life expectancies seven years shorter than the average churchgoer,[*] are more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol, and be depressed or obese,[**] and they are much less likely to marry or have children. Their criminal proclivities strongly suggest that they are less intelligent on average than theists and High Church atheists alike, and they also outnumber their High Church counterparts by a significant margin, as the following table of various polls demonstrates:” [the table to which he refers are found on p. 20]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
* “‘Religious attendance is associated with U.S. adult mortality in a graded fashion: People who never attend exhibit 1.87 times the risk of death in the follow-up period compared with people who attend more than once a week. ’ Hummer R., Rogers R., Nam C., Ellison C. G. ‘Religious Involvement and U.S. Adult Mortality:’ Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. 1999.”
** “Although it seems that Baptist women who read Left Behind novels but don’t go to church regularly are the most at risk for excess poundage. Krista M. C. Cline and Kenneth F. Ferraro, ‘Does Religion Increase the Prevalence and Incidence of Obesity in Adulthood?’ Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 2 (2006): 269”

Charity:

“It has been established that Christians give three times more to Charity[*] and are less criminal than the broad spectrum of atheists; experiments at the Economic Science Laboratory suggest that this might be because they believe that their actions are known to God. In variations on an envelope experiment designed to test random charity on the part of a subject who was given ten dollars as well as the opportunity to share it anonymously, the knowledge that the experimenter was watching increased the subject’s likelihood of giving by 142 percent and the amount given by 146 percent.[**]” [p. 145]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
* “‘In 2000, religious people gave about three and a half times as much as secular people—$2,210 versus $642.’ Ben Gose, ‘Charity’s Political Divide,’ The Chronicle of Philanthropy. 23 Nov. 2006”
** “Landsburg, Steven. ‘Stuffing Envelopes’: Reason, March 2001. The dollar difference increased from $1.08 to $2.66 if the subject thought the amount of his contribution would be known to the observer.”

Bright Family Values:

“Dennett further claims that ‘brights’ have better family values than born-again Christians based on ‘the lowest divorce rate in the United States’ which depends on the flawed 1999 Barna study instead of the 2001 ARIS study he makes use of later in the book, a much larger study that reaches precisely the opposite conclusion. It is certainly a quixotic assertion, considering that these family value atheists are half as likely to get married, twice as likely to divorce, and have fewer children than any other group in the United States. [p. 188]

Vox Day’s Footnotes:
“Barna calculated divorces as a percentage of the entire group, not as a percentage of marriages within that group. Since according to ARIS 2001 more than half of all atheists and agnostics don’t get married, this is an apple-orange comparison. If one correctly excludes the never-married from the calculation, then atheists are 58.7 percent more likely to get divorced than Pentecostals and Baptists, the two born-again Christian groups with the highest rate of divorce, and more than twice as likely to get divorced than Christians in general.”

[1] ©1995-2006 Positive Atheism’s Cliff Walker, One Can Be Ethical And Moral Without God
[2] Vox Day, The Irrational Atheist (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2008), p. 202