Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?

[Asmodee]

Yeah, I have a JW friend try to convert me every month or two and he has often given me the "It was a different time" BS explanation.

Ugh, don't remind me... I was raised a JW.

My response to the notion that God allowed cultural identities to keep him from acting is to point out that there were plenty of times when God took decisive and brutal action for all kinds of reasons.  He struck down a man whose only crime was to try and steady the ark of the covenant when the oxen carrying it stumbled.  He slaughtered 70,000 Israelites because their king took a census.  He wiped out 99.99% of all life on the planet because he was angry with how they were behaving.

But slavery?  Equality for women?  Newp.  I guess that --for a person whose method of dealing with things was usually to kill first and ask questions later-- he simply lacked the quality of nuance.

First of all, my condolences.  My parents returned to their old Pentecostal church when I was a teen, so I feel your pain.

Second, that Ark story is one of my favorite examples!  I've never seen anyone else bring it up before.  EVERYONE in the story was doing something wrong but God chose to kill ONLY the guy who tried to stop the Ark from physically falling onto the ground.  Everyone else got a pass.  Just the guy who cared enough to try to save it was slaughtered.

And yeah, I wasn't buying that explanation either, especially from people who believe God's law is absolute...except when it's not, apparently.