Refuting Christians with their Own Bible

[Minimalist]

So presumably Christians believe this?

Watch closely.  You'll find out that it doesn't mean what you think it means.

"God," it seems, is a piss-poor communicator!

[Veritas_Vincit]

Ok, here we go.  Let's start with Exodus 21.  Ready to receive excuses....

You're going to have to be more specific. There are 36 verses.

How about Leviticus 20 verse 13:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
...13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Jesus expressly says all of this is still binding:

Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

So surly Christians believe this? Or do they have the arrogance to presume to know better than God and Jesus Christ? Or are they saying that actually the Bible isn't the word of God after all?

[RozKek]

Christians LOVE to Cherry Pick the Bible

I hear all the time that Christians like to cherry pick the Bible and therefore...what?

What does that charge actually mean? That the Bible is not true? Are difficult passages evidence of something? If so what?

I agree there are many difficult passages to our modern sensibilities. But you seem to be saying that when a Christian quotes the Bible they should...what? quote OT passages rape laws just as often?...I don't know what you expect?

Therefore you're all irrational, you only believe and accept the parts that you want to be true and ignore all the horrifying shit that's in there. Thereafter when you spread "the word of god" you also spread all that horrible shit in the book. If you cherry pick the morally good parts of the bible in order to become a better person, alright. But if you cherry pick the bible and believe it really is the word of god, then you'll probably spread that peaceful book of yours.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Jesus expressly says all of this is still binding:

Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

It kinda all depends on what the phrase "...till all be fulfilled" (the resurrection or the second coming?), the time period covered by "till heaven and earth pass" (eternity, destruction of the temple, the New Jerusalem?) and what constitutes "the law" (the entire Torah, just the 613 mitzvah, the Hillel principle?), how it is applied in specific instances (age of conscience, the Mosaic theocracy, the Apostolic period?). You should also note that those who break the commandments are called "least in the kingdom of heaven" and not exiles from it. That in itself is fascinating. My point is that there is a lot going on in that particular verse and the simple minded objection by a contrarian using a wooden hermeneutic doesn't carry much weight with me.

[T.J.]

Some times they cherry pick without really knowing they're cherry picking.

When I believed I took the bible literal first, until people started noting all the different contradictions and things that made no sense whatsoever, and since I've always been a reasonable person even when still indoctrinated I changed to the non-literal camp, but once it was asked how you know what's literal and what not pretty soon it all fell apart.

It's like how you enjoy a movie when you first watch it, but once you look at it again and start paying attention to all the plot inconsistencies and things that don't work you realize it wasn't as great as you remembered.

Of course, the difference here is nobody ever committed murder over a movie.

[Veritas_Vincit]

Jesus expressly says all of this is still binding:

It kinda all depends on what the phrase "...till all be fulfilled" (the resurrection or the second coming?), the time period covered by "till heaven and earth pass" (eternity, destruction of the temple, the New Jerusalem?)  and what constitutes "the law" (the entire Torah, just the 613 mitzvah, the Hillel principle?), how it is applied in specific instances (age of conscience, the Mosaic theocracy, the Apostolic period?). You should also note that those who break the commandments are called "least in the kingdom of heaven" and not exiles from it. That in itself is fascinating. My point is that there is a lot going on in that particular verse and the simple minded objection by a contrarian using a wooden hermeneutic doesn't carry much weight with me.

I would agree that one of the inherent problems with the Bible is that it is very imprecise and ambiguous and open to interpretation. Having said that, I think that this passage is pretty clearly talking about the law of Moses (the 613). As for the time scale, "Till heaven and earth pass" could either mean until the end of the world, or never, since presumably Heaven will never pass. I don't see any reason to infer anything sooner. And if the law still stands then surely anyone commits these sins needs to be put to death. It seems like rather than joining all the dots to make the actual picture, you are selectively dot-joining to draw a picture of what you want to see. 

All of this is prevaricating around the burning bush of God's original, direct injunctions to commit all manner of immoral and horrible crimes - child sacrifice, murder, slavery, genocide etc. When was it EVER good to do such horrible things? The God of the Bible is clearly a psychopathic and barbaric monster.

[SteveII]

Since many of you brought up slavery, I thought this article was a good perspective:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html

[The Grand Nudger]

It's much easier than all of this to use the bible to refute christian claims.  Pick up a bible, find the word "god" in it...now watch...as long as it might take, for that word to flit off the page, into the air, and start miraculously doing shit that never happened.

[SteveII]

You're going to have to be more specific. There are 36 verses.

How about Leviticus 20 verse 13:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
...13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

Jesus expressly says all of this is still binding:

Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

So surly Christians believe this? Or do they have the arrogance to presume to know better than God and Jesus Christ? Or are they saying that actually the Bible isn't the word of God after all?

Since it is quite clear you think you understand the meaning, what do you think "fulfill" means?

[Veritas_Vincit]

Since many of you brought up slavery, I thought this article was a good perspective:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html

So I read this article and it makes some good points, however ultimately it doesn't get around the key issues that:

1) If you actually read those passages, God says you can hit your slaves with a rod and as long as they don't die within a couple of days, it's fine. This in itself is God directly sanctioning cruel treatment of humans, humans being owned as property and the lives of humans who are owned having less value. 

2) The main excuse given is that the people at that time thought slavery was fine, so this was a step in the right direction. So what?! God could easily have come down as said "No, it's not EVER OK to own another human being as property - this is a barbaric practice and you must stop it now." If he was a moral being and was capable of giving moral instructions, this is a glaring omission. However, sadly...

3) The keeping and beating of slaves is consistent with God's character according to the Bible and is a small offence compared to his injunction to sacrifice (IE Murder) children, to commit genocide, to use the death penalty for all manner of things. Plus he himself killed all the firstborn of Egypt, wiped out most of the world's population in a global flood, and was so inept in his creation that he had to come down bodily to sacrifice himself to himself to act as a loophole for a rule he created. 

So - interesting article, but sorry, the Bible is still a monstrously evil piece of work... and so is your God.

---

How about Leviticus 20 verse 13:

Jesus expressly says all of this is still binding:

So surly Christians believe this? Or do they have the arrogance to presume to know better than God and Jesus Christ? Or are they saying that actually the Bible isn't the word of God after all?

Since it is quite clear you think you understand the meaning, what do you think "fulfill" means?

I think that Jesus meant that he had come to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies and thus validate the law, rather than refuting the law and replacing it with a new doctrine.