During a discussions on a forum debating creationism and evolutionism  the believers often quoted the bible insisting that this ancient manuscript, although written and translated by humans, were inspired by god and therefor it was god’s word and must be taken literally, then used the literal text to “proof” creationism was real.  My point was that the bible, after many translations and retold myths was interesting but could not be taken literally. I used the example of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. If we take that literally then all killing is  immoral. A debater with the pen-name ‘keepyoureyespeeled” challenced that opinion. Here is the exchange:

Keepyoureyespeeled:"Now lets us look at one of the ten commandments “thou shalt not kill’"
-More correctly "murder".

Ben Andrews: WHY the "correction" because you want to say that not all killing is murder? Wars, for example? or people burned at the stake who didn't "believe"? Also if "killing" doesn't fit your view and have no answer to my statement that makes sense, you change it to "murder" because that was actually meant (God told you so) After all the original translation said so (since you are an ancient language specialist who can translate the original text). If non-believers use such arguments then they are dismissed with: “You can't do that, you have to take the bible literally, not only the original writers but subsequent translators are all God-inspired”. If this was not a correct explanation for "correcting" killing to murder, then the comment was totally irrelevant to the discussion
so why is it there? So just use "Thou shalt not Kill" literary, no exception mentioned in your always literally true bible

WHY the "correction" because you want to say that not all killing is murder?"
It is correct that not all killing is murder, regardless of what I want. Killing is a neutral act without
moral or lawful implications...murder goes against morality or law. That commandment is more correctly translated as "murder" rather than "kill". This is all simple dictionary definitions...and quick research
into the Bible."Wars, for example?"-Depends on the rules for war...right? Are you saying that law does not allow for killing in war time? If killing is deemed lawful, it is not murder. If killing is unlawful, it can become murder.Though, without objective moral values, why is killing in war wrong?"or people burned at the stake who didn't "believe"?-I think this is wrong (and I am justified in my belief)...and that was deemed right by people at that time...reminiscent of the Nazis, eh? Though in your view, without objective moral values, why is any of this wrong?

If "killing" doesn't fit your view and have no answer to my statement that makes sense, you change it to "murder" because that was actually meant (God told you so)"



-Not sure what you are getting at here. The translation is "you shall not murder"...the Hebrew word being used for murder is "ratsach "."After all the original translation said so ( since you are an ancient language specialist who can translate the original text)."
-I make no such claim that I am a specialist in anything whatsoever. The facts do not rely on me being a specialist. I can easily cite them from reliable sources. Here's an excerpt from the Theological Wordbook of the OT.>ratsach pronounce:rä·tsakh
root (rasah) murder, slay, kill. Rasah is a purely Hebrew term. It has no clear cognate in any of the contemporary tongues. The root occurs thirty-eight times in the OT, with fourteen occurrences in Num 35. The initial use of the root appears in the Ten Commandments (Ex 20:13). In that important text it appears in the simple Qal stem with the negative adverb, "You shall not murder," being a more precise reading than the too-general KJV "thou shalt not kill." <

"So just use "Thou shalt not Kill" literary, no exception mentioned in your always literally true bible."

-That would be less-accurate. Why are you supporting the view of being less accurate in your studies? Don't you follow science? In science,shouldn't you try to be as accurate and learn as accurately as possible, while presenting the facts as accurately as possible?
You must also study contexts and word meanings..however, it certainly says "murder" in typical everyday used Bibles such as:
http://www.biblegateway.com/pa...and http://www.biblegateway.com/pa...and http://www.biblegateway.com/pa...etc...

Yes as you probably noticed in my statement, I foresaw your answer. Let me point out to you, that you agree the King James bible was not translated accurately. Thank you. Proved my point. If the bible was not  always translated accurately as in the Kings James version then how many times did this happen? If God wrote the bible through his inspired humans why are there inaccurate translations that must be corrected if they don' fit well and must be re-interpreted to fit. Sorry to be so picky, but how can I take the bible literally if that, as you admit, is the case. Deafening silence since then.

Is religion still the major factor in the western world? I got an interesting letter from an Australian Gentleman commenting on that topic during a internet debate on Evolution vs creationism an ID (Intelligent Design). i will explore that topic later but I like to pass his observations, about the relevance of religion in modern times, onto you.

The debate about evolution is basically a done deal. A lot of us do understand it to various levels and concur with it, others merely accept it without having a crisis of conscience. The rest don't really care one way or another. A very few but noisy people actively campaign against it (even in a perfect society there are always a few nutbags). Schools teach the facts, and guess what, even some privately funded schools owned and operated by religious organizations teach evolution as a science subject. I don't know of any school of any flavour that exclusively teaches Creationism/ID, but if so it would be rare. In case you are wondering where this nirvana exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion_in_Australia The TL:DR, ~30% unbelievers or no religious affiliation. one study "52 per cent of Australians born between 1976 and 1990 have no belief in a god." Poll: "Would the world be better off without religion?" Eighty-one per cent responded in the affirmative. There's plenty more data there. As I said, I am unable to find anyone locally (in the bush) to have a discussion about this topic to the level of intensity as is frequently argued here. My compatriots either generally concur with me or they really 'couldn't give a stuff' as we say.
People will identify as being a certain religion mainly out of habit or residual societal expectations or maybe even Pascal's Wager, but will rarely if ever attend a church. Only about 8% of the population attend regularly. Of my half dozen or so near neighbours, none attend a church, nor do any of my family members - even in the extended family group - who are also unbelievers. God just isn't important to any of us in our daily lives. I have worked in organizations with as many as a hundred people or so, maybe 4 or 5 of those people did routinely attend church, but they were never in your face about it. Discussions about religion were very infrequent and proselytizing just doesn't happen (except for Mormons and Jehovahs door knocking once every few years). Only one person that I have worked with was ever heard to spout such things as "Lord our Saviour" or even God bless. A lot of people shunned him .

I think that the statistics in Canada would be much similar, but in the USA it is a different kettle of fish. The non-elected Leaders of the fundamentalist Mega Churches have a very strong influence on right wing politics. They want to destroy the separation between Church and State to force their religious laws on every one, cynically under the banner of "religious freedom". We must fight this ominous trend and promote "Freedom From Religion".

Recently  I was taking part in a debate on evolution vs creationism on another website.  The creationist believe the bible literally and claim that the world is about 8000 years old, based on Genesis 5, The generation of Adam, outlining who begat who and so on.
I responded that one can claim the Earth is much older, without conflict with the Genesis story, if we interpret other parts of Genesis as follows:

Here is my interpretation of Genesis 2 vs 21:  “and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam” (during which he created Eve). There is no time specified so therefor this time might have been a minute or a billion years during which the earth evolved. Also there is no time specified how long Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden. This could also be a long, long time since before they ate the forbidden fruit life was eternal. Problem solved: The earth could have been billions of years old before the "fall' where ignorant Adam and Eve became knowledgeable by eating from the tree of knowledge. Now the count of years start in Genesis 5: The generation of Adam, on which the creationists base their estimate of the age of the earth. The creationists are just estimating the time period AFTER the fall!

My point? The bible can be interpreted in many ways. It is full of contradictions and conflicting statements, precisely what one would expect of an assembly of 66 books written by some 40 different people in a time span of more than a thousand years. It is a valuable historical document but not inspired by god (God’s Word). If it was, it would be totally consistent.  I like to follow this up with a letter I received from one of the debaters at the same website.

Hi all. It's me, Daffyduck325. I was posting on Alex Jones' Info Wars website, in the forum underneath the Bill Nye article. I had a total of 2000 comments over 7 days, and ALL of them were just deleted 5 minutes ago by a Moderator. All in all, it was fun debating with everybody. I really learned a lot about religion, and I got to see some good arguments for both sides. Remember, debate is good for democracy. That being said, I just have some things to say. 1) Evolution is true; the evidence is everywhere 2) Science is a Just Cause and worth defending. 3) Atheism is not evil, and should be renamed Unbeliever 4) Enlightened Existentialism can create a perfectly good moral code 5) I personally respect religious people of upright character. 6) Jesus taught you to love your neighbor 7) Evolution is a concept that can further the idea of Human Oneness, not Social Darwinism 8) The Modern Synthesis of Biology since around he 1980s is much more sophisticated than the "strawman" Darwinism that creationists use. 9) The Bible was man-made. 10) The universe is about 14 Billion years old. 11) Nye is not a scientist. The Nye/Ham debate was a shoddy debate, and did little to push either platform forward. More importantly, Ben's website is awesome! It is thoughtful and a great read. There are plenty of good resources like this one for understanding true science based on evidence and scientific method. God bless all.  

I think that Daffyduck325 is not a “Unbeliever” like myself, and I did not always agree with  hin but he made several great points which I want to pass on to you. I welcome  a dignified  healthy and well-informed debate especially about the positive and negative aspects of religion in modern society.

The Monotheistic Abrahamic religions, Muslim, Hebrew and Christian, describe God, Allah, Jehova, in detail .Some people have questioned why the Bible, Koran and Talmut describe a vengeful and cruel god who demanded ultimate loyalty and sacrifice by his followers and dictated that their enemies be utterly destroyed. Upon closer examination this “god” strongly reminds one of the ancient emperors in Asia. They were almighty, their power unlimited, their judgment absolute and their decisions could not be questioned. These ancient emperors were typically well known warriors and conquerors, and their wisdom was beheld as legendary. If natural disasters helped destroy the enemies of these rulers, they could easily be accredited with supernatural powers.

By reading such passages  in the ancient texts, one cannot deny that this comparison is justified and should be regarded as the source of the original god concept. And by the time that such stories about past leaders were written down (leaders who by most accounts were considered gods anyway) the picture of the modern day "god” emerges.

 Let us quote a passage of the Bible describing god in just this way.

nahum 1:2-8 Common English Bible

 2 The LORD is a jealous and vengeful God; the LORD is vengeful and strong in wrath. The LORD is vengeful against his foes; he rages against his enemies.
3 The LORD is very patient but great in power; the LORD punishes. His way is in whirlwind and storm; clouds are the dust of his feet.
 4 He can blast the sea and make it dry up; he can dry up all the rivers. Bashan and Carmel wither; the bud of Lebanon withers.
 5 The mountains quake because of him; the hills melt away. The earth heaves before him— the world and all who dwell in it.
 6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can confront the heat of his fury? His wrath pours out like fire; the rocks are shattered because of him.
 7 The LORD is good, a haven in a day of distress. He acknowledges those who take refuge in him.
 8 With a rushing flood, he will utterly destroy her place and pursue his enemies into darkness.

Many of today’s monotheistic religions tend to ignore these parts of their ancient texts since they do not fit the picture created by the concept of an all loving god.  Those who take these writings to be the absolute truth also often ignore the parts which are not compatible with their current life style (some do however, and that can become extremely dangerous).
I cannot understand that these very interesting ancient texts written by humans (allegedly inspired by a supernatural being) are singled out from among so many other interesting ancient writings, only to have so many of its passages ignored. After all, we do not believe that stories about Zeus, Horus, and all the other gods are literary true.

The purpose of my website has always been to help the Closet Unbeliever and the Fence Sitter understand that, although the development of religion is understandable and has been useful to a tribe, in many instances, in the past, it has become a detriment in the modern world by not adapting to the reality of today were many tribes have to live together in a finite world.. We  now have the knowledge to reject the belief in supernatural forces and adapt our morals to improve the way we live together in peace and prosperity.

We must get rid of the “fear of  God” and the archaic laws, described in the ancient books. When we look at the world's conflicts, mostly based on religious intolerance and see the fundamentalists’ attitude in North America, we realize it is most urgent to develop moral standards on a non-believers base. Some readers have argued that humans have a choice to believe or non-believe in a God and that therefor it is “safer” to believe and avoid eternal damnation than it is not to believe. This line of reasoning is called “Pascal’s Wager.

In Wikipedia:

Pascal's Wager is an argument in apologetic philosophy which was devised by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician, and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or does not exist. Given the possibility that God actually does exist and assuming the infinite gain or loss associated with belief in God or with unbelief, a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.).

See also www.arc-t.org/arc-tiquities/debates-pascal.html

There are several fallacies to this argument, and it is considered one of the weakest reasons to believe, both by non-Christians as well as some Christians. Please note that not all of these fallacies will necessarily apply in every case.

Fallacy One: It assumes that there is only one god which can be believed in, the Christian one. This is not true, since there are a plethora of gods that have been believed throughout the millennia. This would have to be applied to each and every one of those gods to be true, and this would clearly be impossible, due to the clashing natures of many of the said gods.

Fallacy Two: It assumes that simply wagering on [the Christian] God will buy one entrance into Heaven. While this may be so, the Wager does not instill a belief, it instills an appearance of a belief. Since the god in question is presumed to be all-knowing, he would be able to tell a false from a true belief. Therefore, the belief from the Wager would not qualify should belief be the requirement for entrance into Heaven.

Fallacy Three: It creates a moral dilemma. You, by using this, are sending the most dedicated humanitarians, who just happen to not be Christian, to Hell, while you set a place in Heaven for those mass-murders who happen to be Christian. Since [the Christian] God is supposed to be a loving god, how then could he entertain the embodiment of hatred, yet turn away the embodiment of love?

Fallacy Four: It ignores too many alternate possibilities - some of which are addressed by existing religions, and some which are not. Some examples: A God could reward on criteria which seem meaningless to us - hair colour, taste in clothes, music etc. or A God might not be concerned with humans at all - the universe could be here for hydrogen for all we know. Or God may even reward those who don't believe.

Fallacy Five: It assumes any person is overly fearful of death to be worried about it being a conclusion to their life.

Fallacy Six: It assumes that a belief in God is all that is needed, when many Christians would disagree and would suggest that there are "guidelines" that you should live by (and that God requires you to live by if your belief is sincere). If these guidelines require a change on your part (for example: No sex before marriage, no smoking, denying you are a homosexual, not marrying a non-Christian, etc.), then it could be argued that you have lost something if the Christian God turns out to not exist.

  www.arc-t.org/arc-tiquities/debates-pascal.html

Hope this has been helpful and get more people on the bandwagon of getting rid of the belief in the supernatural and help to develop a better world based on reality and not fantasy.