What a long post.

I can agree with and understand some of your points, to some extent.

Yes, people have been manipulated through Church history. Leaders wanted people to remain ignorant. But that's nothing new.

Glad you can agree on that

Yes, anyone has the right to make an attempt and interpret the Bible and yes, we have better tools today. But despite this, I find it funny that Christian doctrine today is pretty much unchanged compared to the doctrine of 2nd century Church fathers. They had their differences on some doctrine, but so do we have between all our denominations and heretics today. But fact is that biblical scholar interpretation in modern days hasn't changed theological dogma in any significant way.

That's because the vast majority of people looking at the Bible through the predetermined lens that it is "The Good Book". Take that away, and say "read this book and tell me what you think it means" and you'll get a very different response.

I have no respect for Hitchens, Dawkins and all those politically correct rats who only dare to attack Christiany but are afraid of muslim rage.

Firstly, no they're not. Hitchens, Dawkins, and even Sam Harris blatantly point out the perceived evils of Islam in their respective books, and a quick search on YouTube will show you that they aren't afraid of "Muslim rage". They openly call out Islam all the time. Secondly, even if they were, it would be justified. The realm of debate and discussion should stay just as that: debate and discussion. But some Muslims don't like words. And they kill people over them. At least with Christianity, or rather, in Western Culture, we can discuss religion without their being physical confrontations.

Yes, I can understand how you, or an unbeliever in general, can regard the Bible and even Jesus as "not so very good", that some of it reminds of a brutal, tribal religion. But mostly those arguments are used by atheists as rethoric and strategic attacks to ridicule Christianity, rather than being a sincere and honest attempt at understanding and interpreting the God of the Bible. Just like you do above, you twist everything into directions I really think are farfetched (Abraham's sacrifice of Isak. Jesus and sword passages, Paul's opinions on women's roles in the Church).

Explain to me how I'm using God....to attack God? When God orders armies to wipe out entire nations because they don't believe in him...how is that a "strategic attack" instead of a sincere attempt to understand him? Why can't you concede that I am attempting to understand him, and the conclusion I came to is that he is capricious and petty? Is anything that deviates from "God is awesome!" an attack because they don't understand? Or is it that because people come to a different conclusion than you do, they are just fundamentally wrong? I mean, how am I "twisting" Paul's opinion on women's role in the church? The Catholic Church won't allow female bishops because of it! How am I twisting the story of Abraham? Didn't God know what Abraham would do? Why "test" Abraham, if God knows the answer? And nobody even takes Isaac into consideration. Imagine what a small child must be thinking when he's tied up and about to be killed because someone else believed it to be God's will. What did Isaac do to deserve being put in that situation, if God is all about love and caring? It's you that's doing the twisting because these are all bad things that you think must be inherently good by virtue of them being the word of God. It's not farfetched to say "women are not to have authority over man" means "women are not to have authority over man".

God allowed and even commanded very brutal and unhumane things in the history of the Jews. But that doesn't automatically mean he is a barbaric and evil God. That's the conclusion of Russel and Hitchens and the others. I don't come to that conclusion. The brutality had a function in a specific time for a specific group of people, you can't extend it to be God's relation to all of mankind for all time. The world is cursed, it's in a state of evil, suffering and death, ever since Adam and the fall of man. Salvation history is complex and not easy to understand in my opinion, and yes it can probably make even a Christian question the whole belief system under certain circumstances, but I don't demand to understand everything, I don't demand perfect harmony. It is what it is.

Commanding armies to exterminate nations (oh, but keep the virgin women to yourselves (Numbers 31)) is pretty barbaric and evil. What "function" does genocide have? Moreover, what function does it have in the presence of an omnipotent God who could choose any other route because, he is omnipotent, to get his way other than killing entire groups of people? And slavery...specific time for specific people? So it was cool then, but not now, is what you're saying? Because they, for some reason, needed to own people as property in order to progress towards whatever God's "plan" was for them? But God doesn't have that plan for the rest of mankind, only the Hebrews?

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But yes, from a worldly point of view Bhuddism seems much more innocent (at least in its Western form) than Christianity. I have no problem with that.

Glad you can agree with that. But, the point of all this (at least from my perspective) is that there's no reason to believe that Christianity is more logical than Buddhism (or rather, the concept of karma). So you shouldn't just dismiss it without regard

About Reza Aslan: those guys come dime a dozen. People who try to diminish the historical Jesus figure from all sorts of angles. His analysis is weak and his conclusions disturbingly biased.

So looking at Jesus in the context of his time dimishes him? We have NO evidence of Jesus, other than non-eyewitness testimony/manuscripts from decades after his supposed death. But we do have tons of evidence from that time period and area itsself. So, putting Jesus' story into a context we can actually backup with evidence somehow diminishes his historical figure? A conclusion such as "looking at the time, crucifixion was a punishment for sedition, and Jesus was going around saying he was the true king, and the Roman Empire didn't like that"...that diminishes him? I guess it props him up more to say "I knew I was going to die on this day, and I did it for you, humanity", but the former in no way "diminishes" him. You've just propped him up to high that anything else his "diminishes his historical figure"

Dawkins and Hitchens both have many debates about Islam with Muslims. While it's true that most of their time was spent on Christianity, that is a result of it being the dominant religion in the US (Hitchens) and England (Dawkins). Sam Harris too...maybe you should familiarize yourself with these people before spewing vitriolic nonsense...then again it's all you seem to bring to the table, hence the attachment to bible thumping arguments as opposed to rational ones.

I'm actually astonished BMaker has entertained you for as long as he has. The Bible is not an authority on anything. 

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I am familiar with them. So can you give me a quote where those men describe Islam or Allah in the derogatory way they describe Christianity and Yahwe? Not just in generic terms. I would love to hear such a quote, and I might actually gain a little respect for them.

Such hypocrites. Militantly depicting Christianity as barbaric but afraid of mentioning the real barbaric in fear of getting their throats cut off.

dsgrue3, are you really trying to be the archetype of the militant atheist?

Why can't you discuss in a civilized manner? You constantly demand people to stay on topic, you demand logic and rationality, but you can't help but delivering these insults and snide remarks in each and every post. It's really tiresome.

What a fine example of a Western liberal humanist you are.

Do you understand how cheap and small of a person you come across? You must be a very frustrated man.

I am familiar with them. So can you give me a quote where those men describe Islam or Allah in the derogatory way they describe Christianity and Yahwe? Not just in generic terms. I would love to hear such a quote, and I might actually gain a little respect for them.

Such hypocrites. Militantly depicting Christianity as barbaric but afraid of mentioning the real barbaric in fear of getting their throats cut off.

Dawkins:

• "I regard Islam as one of the great evils in the world, and I fear that we have a very difficult struggle there."
• "…..But let’s keep things in proportion. Christianity may be pretty bad, but isn’t Islam in a league of its own when it comes to sheer vicious nastiness?”
• “What is there left to say about Sharia Law? Who will defend it? Who can find something, anything, good to say about Islam?”

Hitchens:

• "The Hadith says...if someone becomes an apostate...they must be killed. The sentence is death: don't anyone be telling me that's a metaphor."
• "Islam in its origins is just as shady and approximate as those from which it took its borrowings. It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or "surrender" as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption."
• "If the Qur'an was the word of God, it had been dictated on a very bad day."
• "Islam in fact has one advantage over Christianity—it doesn't have a papacy. There is no center that can say "we condemn this" or "we support this," the way the church supported Franco Spain and said prayers in Germany on Hitler's birthday by order of the Vatican. But the centers of legislation and authority in the Islamic world, such as Al-Azhar University in Cairo, have a lot of difficulty condemning suicide bombing. In fact they've never got around to doing it. They can't seem to condemn even the blowing up of other Muslims—in Iraq, for instance, where they are blowing up each other's children and each other's holy places. No words seem to come from either Sunni or Shiite religious authorities there or elsewhere in the world saying "this is wrong." That's because they don't really think it is. If it's done for their cause, they surreptitiously sympathize with it, and you can detect that surreptitious sympathy if you read any of the statements from the Muslim authorities. That's a grave crisis for Islam—and for us, too."

I'm astonished you would make the comment that you're familiar with these men, while at the same time expressing such a profound ignorance of their criticisms. You need to stop thinking you know things, because you clearly do not. Next time do your due diligence and save both of us some time.

Dawkins and Hitchens both have many debates about Islam with Muslims. While it's true that most of their time was spent on Christianity, that is a result of it being the dominant religion in the US (Hitchens) and England (Dawkins). Sam Harris too...maybe you should familiarize yourself with these people before spewing vitriolic nonsense...then again it's all you seem to bring to the table, hence the attachment to bible thumping arguments as opposed to rational ones.

I'm actually astonished BMaker has entertained you for as long as he has. The Bible is not an authority on anything. 

Proof for Santa Claus as per Christian logic.

Damn what a long post.

I like to discuss on the internet, but it's a pity that it takes much more time and energy to type than it takes to talk. And since my native language isn't English it takes me twice as long.

I will probably reply to each paragraph above in more detail later, but I just wanna comment something in general here.

I understand the point you are trying to make, that the interpretation of the Bible becomes radically different depending on what preconceptions you go in with. Obviously if you are already a Christian more or less, you will interpret it differently than if you have a blank and open mind and just read and analyze this ancient book. Also your approcah might be not just purely theological but scientifical, historical and cultural. Of course, it's so obvious and natural, I am aware of all that. But instead, to me it seems that you take the other extreme. You come with a heavy preconception too (just like Reza Aslan and the myriad of religious and historical scholars with an agenda. Please don't refer to Reza Aslan as an authority, his analysis is piss poor even from a scholar POV).

Now I understand that this is a debate, everyone takes kind of the extreme stand to make a point, for clarity's sake. But even if I try to be aware of that and filter that out, you come across as someone who only wants to twist the Bible and Christianity into something negative, something that it is not. For every interpretation you automatically seem to assume the most unfavorable is true. And that just ain't intellectually honest. It's just not believable. It becomes far too easy to write off every atheist critic as an ignorant layman. Seldom I hear any sophisticated criticism being put forward from the non-theist side.