Religious beliefs need to stop.

[Sword of Christ]

This in no way solved the dilemma that the Bible cannot stand on its own. Good non-answer.

It does stand up on its own but it was of course written by humans within a the context of a tribal warfare setting. Bear in mind that these were issues even early Christians were aware of and saw as a problem to deal with. So this is nothing new hasn't already been very well covered. These days of course we would point out things like slavery and so on but that's an argument that can be used against you if you think morality is some kind of objective reality. Apparently most atheists do think this as they're not saying "well it was moral for them at the time". Slavery wasn't moral back then and it's not moral now, only now we have a better understanding.

Also bear in mind that the Bible is not one book by one author it is a collection of 66 books written over 1500 years covering different historical eras and several different authors. The theme and thread of the book is consistent even if the views of the authors differed and at points even contradicted each other. This does not mean that the Bible is purely a work of man made fiction it contains the truth of God. There may well be some truth of God in other religious texts like the Bhagavad Gita as I appreciate the possibility that there is a common thread. Don't just read the Bible you can look at the other religions as well, broaden your scope a bit.