MHF

Haran,

It is not very important if this story is literally true, approximately true, or not true. What is important is whether the Bible's moral lessons are good, since the Bible is used as a moral guide by many.

And it is here, on moral values, where the errors in the Bible are by far the most obvious and most severe. The bible contains more attrocities than my stomach can handle, including genocides ordered by God.

People can literally justify anything. No matter how grave the crime, someone will be able to justify it for themselves. Sadly, this is even true for genocide. More sadly still, we don't even have to go back far in history for that. But moral values is not about what can be justified. Some things simply should not be justified. Genocide should never be justified, one has to take a firm stand on that, because otherwise moral values mean nothing. If I were to accept any argument that justified genocide, then I can not look at myself in the mirror and tell myself that had I lived in Nazi Germany that I would not have supported these murderous Nazi's.

For these reasons, I must reject the Bible from a moral point of view. If there exists a good God, then He would have to think that what's written in the Bible is blasphemy of the gravest kind. There is simply no way that a good God could have done what the Bible says He did, no way.

I conclude that the Bible must be false. I really don't see any way around this argument. You may try to argue that even though God ordered genocide and other cruelties in the OT, that there was a good reason for doing those things. But like I explained, everything can be justified. Good moral values means that even when you can find a justification for a wrongful act, you nevertheless don't commit that act.

If on top of these serious moral flaws there are scientific/historical errors as well, it does not make matters worse from my point of view.

MHF

Haran

For the militant atheist drones addressing my other posts in droves...please start a thread somewhere else where we can debate. I don't care to do it here other than to say that I've been on your side of the fence and it ain't any better and it also involves faith. If you want to hear more of my views on the subject, then open your own minds, begin a new thread somewhere else, briefly put the link here in this thread, and lets talk. I have nothing further to say on that here.

Haran

Thanks for these links, Anat. Good, good info.

Here is something that I would propose, keeping in mind that I'm not sure I understand the numbers of people given in the Bible for the Exodus, what if the earlier layers of this tell were stripped away before the subsequent layers were built (assuming the site truly is the Kadesh-Barnea)? I have often wondered how we know if we are simply missing layers in a tell because they were virtually stripped for one reason or another. How do we know?

Kosh

When you were on our side of the fence?

Are you referring to a couple years ago when you created the sock puppet "King Arthur" and masqueraded as an "athest", claimed to be in some position of a renowned scholar who dismissed all the arguments at IIDB as uninformed and invalid? (casual lurkers are instructed to search the archives for "King Arthur") Is that when you were on our side of fence? Or do you mean some other time that you pretended to be an atheist? :devil3:

Haran

The other time... :angel: (Some <edit> sure can hold a grudge...for years and for no good reason...)

Feel free to join in any discussion that the borg may happen to start. They will need a large cheering section to mask their downfall.

xaxxat

Now that's interesting... I'll take a look. The duplicity of xians never ceases to amaze me.

Haran

Since the moderators will probably do nothing about Kosh's <edit> rehashing of an old event, I will simply say that there is a lot to this story (much of which will not be found in the archives). I do not lie in these forums, although this is exactly how Kosh wishes to paint me. Kosh pops in every once in a while to poison the well and add worthless and annoying comments <edit>.

Kosh

Who's poisoning the well?

Haran

Got me there... :huh:

Doug Shaver

Among all the people who don't trust the Bible, I think atheists are far numbered by theists.