Back after a weekend away - good to see we've reached the second page!
Iaccus - If man is ignorant, and therefore does a lot of stupid and harmful things, then why is God's response to punish, and not to help?
After all - aren't we made in His likeness? Therefore our stupid and harmful things we do must come from a design flaw? His design?
BJQ87 - thanks for the clarification regarding the 70 maimed kings - I had read the passage quickly, and it turns out I misread it.
However how is maiming a king in the same way as he used to somehow acceptable? Do two wrongs in this case make a right?
And - yes these people were enemies of Israel - primarily because Israel was invading and stealing their countries!
I confess that my Bible reading is very sparse - though I am trying to get as balanced a viewpoint as possible - so - when I'm interested in a subject, I'll search out what both Atheist and Christian websites are quoting.
At present, I'm very curious about the whole "Intelligent Design" controversy, so have spent some hours at Talk Origins and Ebon Musings, as well as the Creation Research Society, Answers in Genesis and Kent Hovind's site.
Frankly, so far, every claim I've read by the Creationists have been comprehensively proved wrong by scientist, so at present my "belief" in the Bible (Old Testament) is nothing other than:
An attempt by the ancient people to describe the universe, clearly without any idea of how it really happened, and
Writings aimed at providing a non-descript bunch with a (mythical) glorious and heroic past. I'd assume that as scribes would be educated by the religious bodies back then, they would automatically put a religious slant on this "history" - king "A" was religious, therefore his people prospered, but king "B" wasn't, so they didn't. Recently I read a book by (I think) Asher & Silberman, where they compare archeaology with the Bible, and in virtually every case where there ought to have been evidence, nothing was found.
I forget the title, but will get it for tomorrow if you're interested.
In the New Testament - the Gospels - all I see is very contradictory accounts of a man who may or may not have existed - as far as I understand, there's no contemporary evidence, and given the miracles there really ought to have been. These accounts would appear to have been written to justify, and provide background for the new religion that was being touted at the time.
So - I can't see point of the Bible, in other words.
Comments, please?
YBW
