"Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn’t care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely." - Sam Harris
Or perhaps it fits in a plan that you do not see.
So you've chosen #2, that your god is evil. And yet you still follow him. Nice.
The ten commandments are the foundation of biblical law and morals, God is not bound by his laws. However, God is also a good God, thus all the laws he created are generally followed by him.
Well now you're just descending into fundamentalist pamphlet talk. If his laws are what make morality and he doesn't follow them, then he is immoral. You're just gonna state "god is good" while all evidence points to the contrary? This is just about checkmate it seems.
e.g. Thou shalt not murder, athiests will contend that God has "murdered" people, however there is a separation between rightfully sentencing people to death, and a person deciding they want to kill somone.
I'm confused. You're describing relative morality, where sometimes murder is OK. I'm looking for your examples of absolute morality.
Considering all athiests are amoral, I am surprised at the many times they call God immoral. It's quite obvious God would be above the law, God did not create the law for himself, but rather for the human race.
The whole use of the word moral is a religious shell game. People use it as a weapon; those with morals know what is right and those without do not. Of course that is complete horseshit.
Your god, if he did exist, would be the most capriciously violent and vengeful being in the universe yet somehow he's great to worship because "might makes right" for you, whether the lich you worship is actually "evil" or not. It doesn't matter if he's a vile bastard to you, and that is twisted. Along your line of reasoning, if inside your mythology Satan had cast God out of Heaven you'd follow Satan just as gladly, as long as people sang songs calling Satan's torture of others "love".
Meanwhile you deem atheists amoral because you believe they don't follow any of the "moral laws" in your book of rules. Again, horseshit. We don't need a book to tell us not to kill people, not to steal from others, etc.
I criticize him based on my rational, evolved, relative morals.
Go on then, Hitler thought he was saving the human race by removing the scourge of Judaism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_lawI was trying to avoid Godwin's law however you've opened the can of worms, not me. Your argument concerning the "danger" of relative moralism with regard to Hitler falls flat. The point of relative morals is NOT "whatever each individual finds right is A-OK", it is that while we each individually need to determine right from wrong in our own loves (personal morals), these will continually be evaluated and adjusted against family (clan) morals, social, government and worldwide morals. And all of these morals continue to evolve worldwide as the various groups employ empathy to hopefully understand one another, groups and cultures.
What we don't need is religion imposing arbitrary and piss-poor "morals" on that system of growth. I mean, your god had the chance to really make the world a wonderful place and his first commandment is the jealous, "don't worship anybody but me, or else!" Wow... swing and a miss.
Thankfully he followed it up with the ultra-important "no graven images" commandment. Ouch. Strike two.
And the humiliating strike out comes with the third waste of commandment, "don't you dare call me names." By the time he gets to anything of importance we're already not listening to this turkey. As I said earlier, any 10th grader could come up with a better list of commandments, and her list could hardly be less loving and righteous no matter what was on it.
If you make one copy of anything, I suspect it would not last very long at all.
The Code of Hammurabi, which came well before the bible, was carved into stone to preserve it longer. You'd think a god would know that, eh? I love that people claim prophecy and omnipotence for this god and the dude can't even stop his "revelation" for a second to say, "oh yeah, before I forget, papyrus might not be a good idea to record this. Try stone."
Commanding death of gays among many other arbitrary groups:
Such is the moral law, but it certainly not to be executed by random people.
There's just no way around it -- anyone who thinks 2 consenting adults pile driving the Hershey highway requires death is quite simply a big juicy turd of a human. It's a completely irrational belief, has zero to do with right or wrong, and is miles away from anything worthy of such a punishment. But what more can we expect from the most immoral book on the planet?
Stoning naughty kids (Deuteronomy 21:18):
The bible does not condone stoning "naughty kids".
18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.