Charles Munroe wrote,
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Some stories in the Old Testament are breeding grounds for atheism.
I would say that most of the stories/myths in the Bible provide ample context to deny the reality of the Biblical Jehova, a deity that is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omnipresent..
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A God in the Passover story that torments and then kills people that have no power to release the Hebrew slaves; a God that drowns little children and infants to get rid of evil adults that he was responsible for creating by his massive screw up in the Garden of Eden.
A few of the hundreds of myths that present a vindictive, petty, and cruel deity.
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The atheist I have talked say these are examples of why they rejected the Bible; a God that acts like he is not quite all there.
This is not my reason. My reason for rejecting the assertion for a God, any God not just Jehova, is that there is insufficient evidence to support such a belief, and therefore non-belief is the default position. I reject the Bible as anything other than myth because none of it can be corroborated, and large portions of it defy natural law.
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In my book I try to show that many events in the Bible are real but have been exaggerated by the author.
Great. Which event can you show to have occurred by empirical evidence and not simply a priori belief..?
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The ten plagues were brought on by the eruption of Santorin in 1628 BCE; a natural event that God had nothing to do with.
But that's not evidence ten plagues actually occurred. Rather it is assuming the stories are true, and then looking for some causal event to support their historicity. This is blatant "after this, therefore because of this" reasoning.
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Interestingly the Bible tells the time of year the event took place, April-May, Read your Bible and see if you can spot the clues.
And how do we know the Bible tales are accurate as to the time of year..? If you accept some portions of the Bible as true and others as false or exaggerated or myth...then how do you tell which is which..?
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Did God murder the first born of the Passover story? Most likely it was disease caused by rotting carcasses.
How do you know there was ever any such event as proposed in the Passover story..? There are no Egyptian records of any such event, nor any other records from any extra-biblical source. The idea that 400,000 Israelites left Egypt at one time with their families, and no one took notice of it is ludicrous.
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If the events are carefully analyzed it could also suggest a mass poisoning arranged by Moses.
What extra-biblical evidence do you have that supports the existence of Moses, or the plaagues, or the exodus, or the wandering in the desert, or any of it..? So, you have selected to believe the myths in the Bible as true, but when the Bible says these cruel and inhumane actions were caused by God you think you've found an alibi..? Really..?
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I prefer the former.
I prefer to see myths for what they are...myths.
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Did God drown all of humanity in a worldwide flood?
Certainly not. There is no God, and there never was a world-wide flood.
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The Bible say no. Read Genesis 7:21, 7:24 and 8:11 and then ask what would the condition of the olive tree after five or more months submerged in water. Any arborist will inform you that the tree would be dead and leafless.
Genesis 6:20 "And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth."
The Bible says God caused a world-wide flood, which we know never happened. So, what does that tell you about the authors of this part of the Bible..maybe that they were making it up, and using flood myths from other cultures..?
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Want to understand the Bible?
I already do, and I don't need to create fallacious after this, therefore because of this reasoning to give Jehova a loophole. It's all myth, and not terribly coherent myth at that.
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Then learn to approach it like a detective.
I am a detective, it's what I do for a living.
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Gather evidence and let the evidence lead you to a conclusion rather than accepting literally what the author says.
Great. Are you going to provide your evidence for any of this at a later date, because so far you haven't provided any evidence of anything, just conjecture.
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The author is a human in an age of gross ignorance of the natural world.
Very true, but that doesn't mean some of it actually happened, and the author got confused. What evidence do you have that any of it happened..?
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