Why is belief in a higher power required?

[Godscreated]

You know nothing about scriptures

You'd be right in saying that about this particular subject. During my time as a Christian, not once did I hear these verses being talked about at church. I knew nothing of God's sickening acts against humanity.

It's to bad they did not teach you about God's justice, then you would see that what happens when people disobey God, I know it sounds severe but, the omniscient God knows best.

and you use a biased interpretation instead of reading with an open mind

2 Samuel 12:11-14
Thus says the Lord: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house. I will take your wives [plural] while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor. He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight. You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down.'
Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord." Nathan answered David: "The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die. But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die." [The child dies seven days later.]

A DIRECT command from your god to rape other people's wives.

So please show me the word rape in those scripture verses, I seemed to have missed it, or maybe it's hidden in the Hebrew or Greek, which I'm sure you can point out, right.
So how do you know that God did not allow these wives an eye for David's neighbor, and the neighbor for the wives, this would be a worse punishment, David's pride would be torn apart.

Numbers 31
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.

A DIRECT command from your god to slay innocent people.

Before I get into these verses I have a question for you specifically, why do you not object to other nations during that time of destroying cities and people in the same or even worse manner, you would call them great battles but never an atrocity. Never once have you mentioned such atrocities by other nations, why pick only on the Israelites? You call me biased.
Yes they attacked as God directed, but what makes you believe these people were innocent, do you have some historical records that call the Midianites the most innocent people, if so please share it with us? How about the five kings and Balaam son of Beor, do you have history on them no one is privy too?
Here's what happened go to numbers 25:16-18 and you will see that God said to Moses to destroy the Midianites, because through Balaam they lead Israel into Baal worship. So these innocent people you speak so highly of actually are guilty of trying to destroy Israel through the worship of the false god Baal of Peor. The five kings were leaders of Midianite tribes that wandered these lands near Caanan to find grass for their flocks of sheep and goats. The Israelites were to have killed all the people even the women and children, however the Israelite men disobeyed and Moses rebuked them. Moses allowed only the virgin women to survive.

and determining for yourself what scriptures say, you allow these people to lead you around like a pig with a ring in his nose.

Are we reading the same book?? Your Holy Scriptures couldn't be more definitive on the evils God commands. There's *no* possible loopholes for interpretation when the LORD says... let me reiterate that... when the LORD speaks out to humanity and says "take their wives and sleep with them".

Just where does it say that in the scripture verses you've given, I read them several times just to make sure I did not miss that quote you made, are you parroting again. You have not given any Biblical proof God is evil or even commanded evil, you have given only your thoughts and they do not match the verses you have given.

You need to prove to us that God commanded murder and rape and it would be refreshing to see a nonbeliever think for himself instead of parroting others.

Enough of your games! Explain right now how the killing, slavery and sleeping with people's wives is in any way justified. These atrocities are *in* your book, that's fact. But you know why you won't explain yourself? Because you have a two-fold problem:

I do not play games when it comes to God and His word, that is exactly what you practice and you've allowed others to form your opinions about what scripture says. You have nothing original but I understand that is how narrow minds work, they follow others without seeking out the truth.
"Right now," is that a demand from you, gracious calm down, don't work yourself into a frenzied state and have a heart attack.
When God calls for something to happen to people whither He directly does it or works through man to cause it, there is a judgement God issues against said person/s and the pronounced punishment. God does nothing arbitrarily, God is not a despotic tyrant.

(1) God allowed/commanded these things to happen. Naturally, there would be a damn good reason if that's the case, because we're talking about *God*. You haven't given Esquilax a single reason why the Word of God is filled with bloodshed, slavery and sexually immoral acts. This silence on your part leads me to think you're on this boat:

You mean you're beginning to see the light or did I misunderstand what you meant by "a good reason." What boat? The reason the Bible has bloodshed, slavery and sexually immoral act in it is because it's about God dealing with a sinful world. Tell me why is the world full of bloodshed, slavery that surpasses anytime in the past and sexually immoral acts, can you tell me why? I gave Esquilax all the reasons necessary for our conversation, actually I went as far as to reread the scriptures to make sure I had not forgotten things. Then showed him what actually took place.

(2) If you so boldly believe God had *nothing* to do with these evils (despite some of these acts being brought about explicitly by him... your cognitive dissonance must be through the roof by the way) then that can only mean what we are reading is *literally* the word of man; stories of bloodshed and slavery purely dictated by man where no divine entity ever associated itself with said men.

Oh we are reading the word of God and God did command punishment upon people after His judgement upon them, how many times must I say that, I mean really can't you understand. God does no evil and if you see that He does then that's on you. I can take most of scripture literally (some is parables and prophecy) and see the loving God of creation, why you can't is not a mystery to me I understand, it's within scripture.

Take your pick already. Either explain to us what's so good about genocide etc *OR* admit that the Bible contains non-supernaturally inspired content. Either choose to defend horrid acts against your fellow man *OR* admit what will undeniably be the beginning of the end for your beliefs; no god was associated in writing these "Holy" Scriptures.

It's a tough spot to be in, so I can see why you've been dancing around the issue in this thread post after post. But enough's enough. Take your pick.

Here you go again demanding I do something, you want to guide me into admitting your right and I'm wrong. Well, guess what I'm not a pig with a ring in my nose to be guided around by you or any other human. My guidance comes from the loving hand of God. You and Esquilax refuse to read scripture and try with an open mind to understand it, I know it is hard, even difficult at times and sometimes it takes years of study to find answers to questions, they are there though. God's proven Himself to me numerous times, so when I find a subject difficult to understand I trust in Him, in time He will answer, in His perfect timing, but like I said until then He's got my respect and I'll trust Him.

I have God and Heaven's Army on my side, so your threats are meaningless, God reigns on high, praise Him forever.

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How so?

Your interpretation of the Bible differs in some important ways from, say, Waldorf's. Waldorf insists his interpretation is the true one. You say your interpretation is the true one. fr0d0 has his own. Wooters has his. ronedee, BettyG, and every single Christian in existence has a different version of what is true. Not a single one of you agrees on everything.

The problem isn't that Christian interpretation is biased, it's that there are 2.5 billion Christian interpretations and only through the sheer weight of numbers and dumb circumstance might any two of them coincide 100%. That's a terrific amount of variation for a message that is supposed to have a single, unifying truth.

The question is, why should we think that a single one of you is 'right'?

There is one unifying truth among all of use, God is the creator who gave His son Jesus Christ to be our hope in salvation, and we all except this. Christ died for our sins, to redeem us to the Father to live eternally with the One we choose, yes we choose Him freely to become slaves to an almighty God who loved us enough to give His son as the atonement for our sin, something we are incapable of doing, He freed us to LIVE and all of us believe this and are unified in this.
The rest, well are what we as individuals see, and everyone of us are wrong about some of it, that's our human nature. We will find out one day and as Chad said, we'll probably be laughing at how wrong we were about some things.