(October 29, 2013 at 10:37 am)Esquilax Wrote:(October 29, 2013 at 10:33 am)Doubting Thomas Wrote: Circular logic based upon an unproven claim in a false dilemma. *yawn* Seen it. No wonder I'm an atheist, if this is their best evidence.
You ain't seen it to quite the mind bogglingly infuriating way you'll see it if you watch Sye Ten Bruggencate debate live. If you ever want a rage stroke, that's the way to do it.
I'll direct you to something that may bother you a bit more. I have a copy of The NIV Bible. In the outer margins, the company that makes these Bibles offers "Study Notes" that are intended to interpret the text for the lay Christian that is reading them. Any scripture is found saying something that is blatantly incompatible with the God of The Bible, a contradicting note in the margin is offered to reconcile it so that the reader can quickly swallow it and continue reading. I would find it insulting that somebody would even have the gull of writing these things with expectations that I'll just roll-over! Here's an example:
Scripture:
Exodus 21:20- If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished. But he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.
Note intended to smooth things over with the reader that has just been appalled at this evil rule given by God:
The Bible doesn't approve of or endorse slavery but regulates it as a harsh reality in a fallen world. Christ did not come to start a social or political revolution to change the world from the outside. Rather he led a spiritual revolution to change people from the inside out. People's circumstances are less important than their relationship to God and their eternal salvation.
Texas Sailor's Observation: This little gem of a scripture comes after God writes The Ten Commandments into stone. Why did God feel that slavery should take a back seat to the first 4? Were the things God wrote in the first 4 commandements a harsher reality that required God's immediate attention?
Don't worhip any other Gods
Don't make statues of any other Gods
Don't say "God damn it"
Don't work on Sundays
The last one is don't be jealous, which I find particularly amusing since the first 2 of these rules punishable by death depict God's jealousy. Imagine how much easier it would have been to abolish slavery in the south if the idiots that wrote this just replaced the first one with Don't have slaves, and perhaps a lot of the rape going on at that very moment may have also been avoided if they thought God's second rule was Don't rape. No? Perhaps that's because the people that wrote this liked their slaves? Perhaps the PEOPLE that wrote this liked their rape? PERHAPS IT'S PEOPLE THAT WROTE THIS, AND NOT A GOD? No? I guess it's just a matter of faith then...JESUS CHRIST!!!
