They may be “loosely” quoted, but they are facts of the bible. God did kill 50 kids with bears. God did split the languages. etc.

If parts of the bible are fallible, then accepting it as a whole is fallible. Sure, there are some good things like “don’t steal/rape/murder” but I’m attacking the god story they are suggesting, not every moral teaching.

You say “from it”. I can only assume you’re referring to “the tree of knowledge”. If this tree were to grant knowledge, what problem would the TOL (tree of life) being separate from the TOK (tree of knowledge) present? The TOK just gives knowledge in this case. The TOL gives life. Their functionality isn’t dependent on unity.

#checkmate

Unfortunately they didn’t realize it.
The only way that a “free will given” robot can make a decision is with the components it is built from and the information it receives from its environment.

If we are nothing more than our components (which is the case) then the only way for Satan to become evil was because something influenced him from god’s “perfect” environment.

Here is one interesting sequence I went through:

“Why did satan do the first bad thing?”
“Because he had a bad heart that wanted god’s position”
“Isn’t the want a bad thing? Ok, that was the first bad thing, what started that?”
“He was letting his emotions out of control”
“Ok, so wait, that was the first bad thing… How in the world did his emotions get out of control?”
“Free will”
“Is free will just random? If so, wouldn’t that mean that god subjected everyone to random chance of screwing up and being damned as the ultimate evil?”
“No, it was Satan’s choice…”
“Satan’s choice are developed somehow… HOW IS THAT?”
“free will”
“How does free will work if it’s not random and it’s not based on anything predictable?”
“It’s what you want it to be”
“Do you understand that our entire brain is the sum of it’s components?”
“Yes”
“If we make a bad decision, it’s because those components were in a bad order”
“Right”
“Who made our brains and satan’s ability to think?”
“God”
“So did he make them out of order?”
“No, it was free will”
… need I go on?

#todo
ask : “When did those components of the brain get out of order?”
Most likely response “when Satan wanted them to”
“Those components are what dictate his decision, so how can he want them to if his want is derived from those components?”

I’ve gotten this before: “everything is so technical with you? it’s not that complex!”
And so I’ve said: “it’s not complex, you just don’t understand how things work”

Let’s say you damage an embryo before it became (what you’ll personally have to consider) “human”. The (now) “Human” has defective parts. Should you be held responsible for your actions? Could the creature have been aborted though? Would you still have to be punished?

So long as you ignore the references to “the four corners of the earth” (easily exchangeable with “the cardinal directions”) and “the pillars of the earth” the bible was pretty right on when it talks about the earth hanging from nothing and being round. Though some may humanize this and say that the stated fact was an easy guess because everything else they saw in the sky was round, and hanging upon nothing.

Jeremiah 23:27 talks about god knowing how people will try to erase his name. No, it’s not completely eradicated. But it’s quite curious as to why it was stripped out during translation.
“Don’t use my name in vein” doesn’t mean don’t use it at all, in fact not using it is more damaging to his desire to be worshiped.

Rabbits are chewers of the Cud.

All of these things are mostly out of human reach. I doubt anyone studied rabbits that much and then decided to put that in the bible.
A lot of non-believers will also try to insist that the Hebrew word describing the earth meant STRICTLY like a disc or flat circle. To this, I say “spare me”. But at the same time I’ll have to admit, “Where the hell are these pillars coming from?”. I can understand 4 corners = 4 cardinal directions. But “pillars” is really beyond me.
I also think it’s quite a stretch to insist that “Don’t use my name in vein” is what really battered away god’s name (Jehovah)
The phrase itself is saying “Don’t use my name wastefully” which REALLY DOES imply USE IT EFFECTIVELY… which means USE IT.

Figured I’d write this just to let others know I’m not neglecting due credit.

—————————————————————————————————-

BTW: I’m not saying that the bible was right about the picture. I’m just putting that up there because that’s what I’ve come from.

Even when I left that faith, for a short while I hesitated to speak against them simply because I would be labeled an apostate. And the social consequences of that were immense; not just for me, but my family also.

I met some JW’s at the clinic this morning. Previously someone had placed a watchtower in the magazine bin. I picked it up and looked at it. I haven’t seen one in a long time. That was the conversation starter. I eventually got to the point where I told them I was raised one but dropped out when I was 18.

They talked about the time of the end, the prophecies and talked about the evil people of today.
I let them talk for the most part. I’ve always wanted to see what it was like on the other side of the fence.
I had gotten what I came for at the clinic (some receipts) and they were more than welcome to keep talking. And I wanted them to, because I was about to bust out in debate mode. I addressed the vague qualities of the Nebuchadnezzar statue Prophecy (the only one mentioned at the time) , I also addressed the “why the world is so full of mean people” .

Then they had to go.

Earlier in this blog, I think I’ve countered many Christian supports. I’m not going to go in depth with debating religion anymore because the educational process has a side effect of deteriorating it’s existence anyway. Engaging in technology, philosophy and the sciences also help expose the individual to the logical fallacies associated with theistic religions.

It was an interesting experience.