A theist took issue with my reading of the bible, saying that if I just gave my heart to god I would be made to understand what I was reading. Otherwise, he assured me, I would never understand it, and I wold be be doomed to eternal punishment. My response to him follows:

It's interesting that you begin with what amounts to a threat, and then tell me I should seek, and meditate on, and revere the individual who would torture me forever if I do not. You aren't in the advertising business, are you! "Love this god, or he will burn you forever!" 

People who belive in Craters

Few things are eviler than scientists that invented all those pesky asteroid craters which are supposedly found all over the planet, throughout all geological strata. The Bible is silent on such devastating impacts as Meteor Crater in Arizona, the Ring Lakes in Quebec, and that biggie that they claim dusted off the dinosaurs and created all that my beautiful beachfront property on the Yucatan peninsula. Scientists even clain there was a "Chicxulub event" creating a 170 km crater, which had to have caused worldwide devastation, and thus would have at least been noted in passing by some biblical patriarch or another. In short, those "craters" are typical frauds.

Let's see how the theists try and wriggle their way out another silly teaching from primitive men 1000's of years ago, people that most likely did not have much to give up anyway. This will be another Theist cherry picking episode. Matthew 19:21.

See link: http://bible.cc/matthew/19-21.htm

The teaching of Jesus suggests that we should give up all our riches to follow him and give to the poor. Right! Given Jesus / God's word is eternal, this statement is as relevant now as it was back then and literally means you give up your comfortable life for that of poverty and only follow Christ & help the poor.

Ok Theists, I don't expect you to be back online once you GIVE your computer to a poor person. In fact I expect you to give a homeless person shelter in your home or give the house to them. Sell your car and give the cash to charity. By doing this you are gathering riches in heaven... so crack on.

Another biblical errancy.

Ummm, okay.

But didn't you just say that man won't live longer than one hundred-twenty years three chapters ago?

Hi folks, I'm a newb, but a big time atheist and would especially like to know the thoughts of Christians (or anyone really) on what I feel is an example of a god abusing his power for amusement purposes.

In the book of Job, the character Job is a wealthy and religious man, blessed with children, wealth & land etc. One day it appears the devil tempts god into a bet against how faithful Job would be if all his belongings were taken away.

Apparently his kids are killed, 500 yoke of oxen & 500 donkeys carried off by Sabeans, 7000 sheep were burned up by 'The fire of God which fell from the sky,' 3000 camels were stolen by the Chaldeans and the house of the firstborn collapsed, due to a mighty wind. (Note: copied from wikipedia for quickness). Then the devil has a go at him and give him boils and whatever else he sees fit. I fail to see why destroying this mans life has done anything except appeal to a gods vanity.

My questions:

1. Why would a loving & caring god do this to his own creation, someone that has worshiped and loved him? This is beyond a test of faith, it's horrendous.

2. Did the devil tempt god and win? Maybe the devil thought, "i can't believe the big guy fell for that and abused one of his own".

3. Is god just a megalomaniac & bully who enjoys abusing the little people?

ScienceDaily (Oct. 12, 2011) — In both Jewish and Christian traditions, Moses is considered the author of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Scholars have furnished evidence that multiple writers had a hand in composing the text of the Torah. Other books of the Hebrew Bible and of the New Testament are also thought to be composites. However, delineating these multiple sources has been a laborious task.

Now researchers have developed an algorithm that could help to unravel the different sources that contributed to individual books of the Bible. Prof. Nachum Dershowitz of Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Science, who worked in collaboration with his son, Bible scholar Idan Dershowitz of Hebrew University, and Prof. Moshe Koppel and Ph.D. student Navot Akiva of Bar-Ilan University, says that their computer algorithm recognizes linguistic cues, such as word preference, to divide texts into probable author groupings.

Jason Rosenhouse, author of EvolutionBlog, is like a steamroller. Doesn't seem so threatening from far away, but as he steadily approaches the theists' arguments, the crushing power of his methodically progressing counter-arguments become more and more obvious. The aftermath doesn't look pretty if you're the theist. But Rosenhouse's juggernaut just rolls on, unresisted. It is a sight to behold!

Excerpt from Original Sin, Again:

...

The problem, though, is that people like Shea do not treat the early books of Genesis as purely figurative. Instead they tell us that parts of the stories are historical (Adam and Eve were actual people, whose actual sin had major repercussions for humanity) while other parts are merely metaphorical (contrary to the seemingly clear statements of the Biblical text, Adam and Eve were not the first two humans and their sin did not consist of eating a forbidden fruit.) Those of us on the skeptical side are merely asking how we can distinguish the historical bits from the figurative bits.

Reach for the spew bucket before reading this!  It's standard bible cherry-picking.

What I want to know is has someone come up with one that shows all the evil sides of God?  Christians have cherry picked the good bits, now we should cherry pick all the bad bits of the bible and arrange it in a similar fashion.

Has this been done already?  Anyone interested in helping me?

My Child,

You may not know me,
but I know everything about you.
Psalm 139:1

I know when you sit down and when you rise up.
Psalm 139:2

I am familiar with all your ways.
Psalm 139:3