Summations Only

Something reasonable and logical, there is always outside evidence.
One can apply reason and logic to the bible and it leads to complete debunking.

I am not convinced the ridiculous laws were universally applied. More likely, they were conveniently applied according to some other motivation. But I granted you those anyway.
If one can identify a parable or allegory and have it accepted as such, if it's not too stupid, maybe there is a lesson. Like Noah is a lesson that if god is pissed at a few people, he kills everybody. So they don't always say what Christian cult of ignorance want them to say, even if it's a parable or allegory and there is never agreement on that anyway.

Casting lots is essentially rolling dice and god determines the outcome. If you believe god use to do that and no longer does- you are going to have prove that one. ))You are now making up excuses for superstition, that you claim the writers weren't. )) Incidentally, there is fortune telling, astrology, necromancy in the bible. Does this also follow the made up logic, that god use to work like that but doesn't anymore? If you can just make up anything in your noodle, you could go through Harry Potter and clearly show it really happened.
The ancient people were very superstitious.

This sums up the problem. A natural conclusion to an eye witness claiming to be abducted by aliens is that person was hallucinating, deluded or lying. We start with the most logical and await evidence. You on the other hand assume the story is true until someone disproves it. That is what is referred to as gullible.

It's not arrogance it's simply a lack of gullibility and unwillingness to believe superstitious ancients with no collaborating evidence. I am not calling Peter, John and Luke liars. You mention that. I would call them..making a habit out of being often wrong. :-)) But that is true of any biblical writer hence the justification for mis-trust.Luke, Peter, John likely did not write the books attributed to them. But I'll ignore that. These all have many contradictions in them. By that I mean, they say the opposite of other areas in the bible. Or they say something so different, that two different statements can not both be true. Which is true of every biblical writer and the habit of being often mistaken.
If often mistaken is too difficult to swallow, you can take solace in the fact that John, Peter, Luke, likely never wrote them anyway.

If you think Jonah and the whale is true, how do you determine if "Jack and the Beanstock" is true or a fairy tale?

The bible says god did it. I don't trust the book but Christians do. I don't believe the intent of the bible was for everything to require fact checking because it's often BS. I don't believe it was written that way. By that I mean, we have to do detective work to figure out what is true. Does that make logical sense? So you're grabbing at straws trying to say it was just the bears doing it with no god direction. And left with the fact a bear has never attacked a group of 9 or larger in recorded history ( except the bible). You are trying to rephrase what is clearly written so it makes more sense. Wouldn't it be easier, than trying to justify this, if you just said. "Look the author here was telling a wee bit of a tale". I mean that is the logical conclusion.
It doesn't make sense and well, you have to get over that inconvenience. Nor do many other biblical tales. Frankly, there is no way to tell the difference between a biblical tale and a fairy tale. Likely because there is no difference.
So once Pat and Jerry have a holy book, inspired by god and a couple billion believers in their religion. they will be in the same category as the bible.

[qs=ringo] The writer[s] of that particular story said that (they believed that) God did it. There's no God character in the story claiming to do it. [/qs]If the point is the writer is superstitious and made an error thinking god did it.. I agree, he's very superstitious and unreliable.
If the point is two bears can naturally maul 42 kids.. then that is the only time in recorded history.The point, that I can't seem to make here, is either god is a nut or the writer is writing myth. I submit the later is likely.

What difference does it make if the writer "thinks" god did it or god "claims" to have done it?It's not god writing this. So if god claims to do it, all that is, is the writer claiming god did it.
How is that realistically different that the writer thinking god is responsible.
In both cases we rely on the writer. One case "claiming" god did it in writing. The other "thinking" god did it because that seems like a logical thing to do to kids teasing a bald headed guy.Either way we rely on the writer.
I am suggesting he isn't offering truthful statements. The other argument is, there is no natural evidence of this happening in modern history of bears.
If we want to suggest rules were different for animals 2000 plus years ago, that needs some evidence. Otherwise the evidence we have suggest this simply doesn't happen.

Golffly writes:
The point, that I can't seem to make here, is either god is a nut or the writer is writing myth. I submit the later is likely. I need to mention it because no nukes is certainly not wanting to say it's myth. Nor will be say the god depicted is nuts. But I agree it shouldn't need stating.

Data seems to indicate that this type of thing never happens.
So either the writers is making the tale up, or god did some directing to make an event that naturally doesn't happen to happen.
I think a god doing something this juvenile insults the sensibilities of readers and a god.
Thus likely the writer is weaving a tale and we have many precedents for tale weaving in the bible, so it's not unreasonable to suspect another here. I don't think another logical conclusion is possible.
If we want to ignore what nature has shown or if we want to believe in a stupid god, then anything becomes possible.

Well, we could say 500 mauled. Or a thousand mauled. There is a point where rational has to factor in.
If in recorded history no bear as ever attacked a group with 9 or more it sounds suspect.
If we think hmm, did the boys all lay down and wait for their turn to get mauled? Then maybe you can say two bears mauled 42 kids. But if we think logically as a bear is mauling the shit out of one boy, the others are running away. I think we might be closer to a rational and logical thought.

Faith,
Just show where god decried casting lots wasn't all random chance and when he decided from now on they are random chance.
Then we get....you believe the Jonah fairy tale.
There are planes of logic and if a person chooses to dismiss all logic, then it's impossible to discuss.
Casting lots not being all random chance at one undetermined time, but now are random chance. Then Jonah being a true story. These cross a logic line for me.
You waved goodbye to logic. As a point of note. Every evil spirit with a known cause in the bible comes from god. And the biblical god is doing all the killing and satan has a hand in very little. Are you sure you don't have the two mixed up?Edited by Golffly, : No reason given.

Faith,
You have a tenuous grasp on reality.
That long diatribe you just wrote comes without a shred of evidence, nor does it come with the embarrassment a rational person would have stating that type of absurdity.
The whole point of the "casting lots" was to show biblical writers are superstitious. Every other god/religion of the time believed in casting lots as well. So the superstition was typical of any non-existent god. The bible is not unique that way but typical that way.
The fact ancients also bought into fortune telling, astrology and necromancy ( says nothing about god by the way) but merely shows they were clearly superstitious.
So unknowingly, superstitious ancients are who you want to believe. And you'd be hilarious playing a board game with! This type of absurd thinking makes me ponder how people function on a day to day basis.

Data in regards to what exactly?
You might have to restate your question somehow because I really think I have answered. The fact "absolutely nothing" is related to the question you ask.... well I don't understand the question.