Christians

[Darth]

Enjoy your proof-texting, slick. I prefer exegesis, so you are on your own.

You’re actions belie your words. To cast me as the one wholly interested in ‘proof-texting’ is disingenuous. In your response to my original post three points were picked up: Monotheism in Christianity, monotheism in Hinduism, and Judges 1:19. The Hinduism one we can discount, I had originally qualified it with “could the argument not be made that…” I was uncertain and was asking. As well as the need for further research, asking some people of the Hindu faith (Philosophical Hinduism). The Christianity being monotheistic I still disagree with. I think the monotheistic trinity can be left alone as mysterious garbage, but the dualistic idea of Satan, cast as a powerful enemy, with many powers conceded to him, I feel discounts Christianity as monotheistic. The Jewish ideas of an accuser, a ‘devils advocate’ in Yahweh’s employ are much closer to monotheism.

In picking me up for the use of Judges 1:19 you yourself ended up picking 2 nearly sequential verses, judges 4:13 and 4:15 and then later selected judges 2:3 (or 21?). You ignored the ‘exegetic’ points in my original post such as the my claiming the characteristics he is attributed with are internally incosistant, the immorality and illogicality of original sin and crucifixion, Yahweh’s overall kill count, his malevolence, not being fit for worship, and the creation story and flood story being at odds with evidence.

The part of your repsonce calling me up on my use of judges 1:19 (an aside) was the least respectful part of an otherwise polite reply (Not that my original post was particularly polite itself, but then again it wasn't aimed at you in particular), and the ellipses left out vital, contextual information (What was that about proof texting again?). Thus, it became the focus, and I still maintain that you are completely wrong.

Trying to insert the proclamations in judges 2 does nothing to explain away the problems of judges 1.

Judges 1: Character X and followers, were unable to do Y, because of W
Judges 2: Character X proclaims that he will not do Y, because of Z

Judges 1 does not say: Character X was unable and unwilling
Nor does it say anything about will, it only talks of inability, inability due to W. It's simple grammar.

Claiming that it is of little or no interest to you once you have entered the debate, and belittling your opponent for arguing those points, is poor form.

*Reading through judges, (and no I had not read through the whole thing in a while, nausea inducing as it is), a bit repetitious don’t you think? Predictable? The Israelites forget or rebel and worship some other god. Yahweh sells them into the hands of (Insert enemy here). Lets them suffer under cruel (Even by the bible’s standards?) oppression for x amount of time. Then he rescues them, usually through appointing someone, bit of a battle, resulting in a huge loss of life, many people massacred, and sometimes some body parts being removed and blood sacrifices offered. A bit of rumpy pumpy perhaps. Repeat ad nauseam. Follow it up with the story of Sampson and there you go. Oh yeah, and a repeat of the situation in Lot where an ‘honourable’ bloke offers up his concubine to a bisexual raping mob, shortly followed by the dismemberment of a corpse. Throw in some mutilation, round it all off with a bit of sexual slavery and you’ve got one truly horrific ‘innerant’ book.

Lets look at the characters. The Israelites have had the misfortune to attract the attention of this Yahweh chap. Let’s just say you wouldn’t be bringing him home to show mom anytime soon. He’s violent, malicious, vengeful, and jealous. He thinks little of selling entire peoples off into oppression and slavery. Who can blame them for rebelling, worshiping any other god that comes their way, no doubt in the hopes it will rescue them from this rather unpleasant Yahweh fellow. My exegetic analysis? Your god is a dick.

*Can't really be bothered qualifying everything here with "were he real", taken for granted.

The free dictionary:
Prooftexting is the practice of using quotations from a document (often, but not always, a book of the Bible) to establish a proposition. Using discrete quotations is generally seen as decontextualised. Critics of the technique note that often a document quoted in such a manner, when read as a whole, may not in fact support the proposition for which it was cited.

Oxford:
noun
Prooftext
a passage of the Bible to which appeal is made in support of an argument or position in theology.

Oxford:
noun (plural exegeses /-siːz/)
[mass noun]
critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially of scripture:
the task of biblical exegesis

Oxford:
could   
[kood; unstressed kuhd] Show IPA
–verb
1.
a simple past tense of can1 .

Oxford
can1    
[kan; unstressed kuhn] Show IPA
auxiliary verb and verb, present singular 1st person can, 2nd can or ( Archaic ) canst, 3rd can, present plural can; past singular 1st person could, 2nd could or ( Archaic ) couldst, 3rd could, past plural could. For auxiliary verb: imperative, infinitive, and participles lacking. For verb (Obsolete): imperative can; infinitive can; past participle could; present participle cun·ning.
–auxiliary verb
1.
to be able to; have the ability, power, or skill to: She can solve the problem easily, I'm sure.
2.
to know how to: He can play chess, although he's not particularly good at it.
3.
to have the power or means to: A dictator can impose his will on the people.
4.
to have the right or qualifications to: He can change whatever he wishes in the script.
5.
may; have permission to: Can I speak to you for a moment?
6.
to have the possibility: A coin can land on either side.

Your's faithfully
-'Slick'

Edit: Oh Deistpaladin, sent you a Pm a while ago, (i think), did it get through?