Atheists; what do you base your morals on?

[DeistPaladin]

Some more strident and literal minded Christians think that scriptures can only be trusted 100% or not at all. That means they believe that if one minor thing is in error then how can you know if parts critical to the faith are not also in error? I do not find 'biblical inerrency' a very helpful approach to have.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You have two options with the Bible:
1. It IS the Word of God
2. It IS NOT the Word of God.

There is no "sorta-kinda" option.

Anyone who disagrees can feel free to explain to me the supernatural powers you use to determine which parts are divine, which parts are divine but need decoding and which parts are human insertion.

I have no problem with considering Genesis as a collection of legends and parables well suited to conveying spiritual wisdom to an ancient story telling culture.

By what supernatural method can you determine that Genesis is allegory and the Gospels are not?

I think God was able to take existing folklore and fold a spiritual meaning into it.

And you have supernatural powers that tell you God was at work here and we should discard the simpler explanation that human beings heard the story and imported it into the Bible?

Then 400 years go by and you get Moses and that starts the written record. I think most of the things that happened starting with Moses happened pretty much the way they are described.

There is no evidence that the account of Exodus, or any of the other major historical milestones in the OT, actually happened. But you have supernatural powers that tell you otherwise, right?

But he still rounds some numbers, like 100,000 men went into battle, as opposed to say 983,532. Numbers have symbolic value, so when I see a number like that I don't think of it as a historic fact but a number pointing to some timeless spiritual principle.

Putting aside the supernatural powers you've used to pull this number out of the air...
You realize even 100,000 men is about 20 Roman Legions, right? You really think Moses managed to muster nearly the combined might of the Roman Empire? From what was a comparatively tiny Eastern Med kingdom?

Generally, I don't have a problem with someone who "made their home in...that fish's abdomen". Miracles are miracles. So, the Gospels happened pretty much as described, miracles and all. As for Revelations, I think that it is so obviously symbolic one would have to be insane to take it literally.

And what supernatural powers do you have at your disposal to tell you these things again? That making a home in a fish's abdomen is accepted as just another miracle but literally interpreting Revelation is just crazy?

It depends on what you mean by flaws. I understand the point though. Sometimes I think God puts those in there as prompts to remind us not to take the text literally and look for the meaning within the text.

Your supernatural powers tell you so, right?

If a God of infinite Love and Wisdom chose to communicate with hairless apes, I would think he would have to express Himself in analogy and parable because any thing else would be completely beyond our comprehension.

Luckily, we hairless apes have people like you who have supernatural powers that can tell us which parts are literal, which parts are parable and how to interpret what is parable.