Philo, your gullibility - desperation? - is showing.

>>I've read scientic reports done on the exodus possibilities that coincides with the volcanic eruption that buried an island off the coast of Greece under the sea. The crossing of the Reed Sea was a Tsunami in his report<<

The volcano in question is Santorini. Unfortunately for your theory, the eruption took place between 1650BC and 1500BC, depending on whether you believe the tree-rings or the pottery. That's at least 200 years earlier than the date normally associated with the Exodus.

Also, a tsunami would operate in reverse of the generally-accepted pattern of the parting of the sea - the water receded, then returned. This pattern only occurs in tsunami when the trough reaches the shore first - unfortunately, even then the wave follows in a matter of seconds.

But why do you need to ascribe the event to naturally-occurring phenomena anyway? Surely the whole point was that it was only possible given the intervention of God?

The major shortcoming of the historicity of Jesus is the lack of contemporary sightings. Some enterprising reporter from the Nazareth Bugle would surely have noticed the goings-on and reported them. And that none of the books was written until well after the events they purport to describe... why didn't someone think it important enough at the time?

Your attempt to cover up the notorious Gadarene Swine incident does you no credit either, I'm afraid.

>>The man actually requested of Jesus that he drive the pigs over the cliff, demonstrating for the man that he was now self empowered above his opressors - the owners of the pigs. Jesus did not drive the pigs over the cliff<<

Not so in my version.

"So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.

And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters." Matt 8 31-32

Philo

The story of Eve and Adam, to you, is an allegory, to others, history. Both claim their version is correct. George W Bush, whose fingers have access to the red button, believes it to be the latter. That bothers Atheists and it should bother you and everyone.

There is no record of the alleged 3 million Israelites held captive in Egypt. There is no record of the alleged Exodus taking place outside the bible.

Scriptures are not so much unreliable because they were human inventions, but there is no cross referenced ex biblical record of the events and they are partisan reports. They are also unreliable because they tell of supposed supernatural acts, not recorded outside the bible.

Of course, some people only ‘believe’ they are possessed by demons. Others consider them real. Yours is an interesting, although convoluted interpretation of the Gadarene Swine storey, but just one interpretation.

I wonder who allegedly did drive the alleged pigs over the alleged cliff to their alleged deaths? And why didn’t the alleged Jesus defend part of his alleged creation, the alleged pigs?

Philo, with many interpretations of biblical myths and thousands of religions, do you think it wise or appropriate to indoctrinate children with any of them without a consensus based on fact. And do you think it wise or appropriate to make political decisions based on scriptural writings against the informed wishes of the majority population? I ask you to remember, when answering, that Australia still follows the democratic ideal and is not as of yet, a theocracy.

David

I'm now going to jump in again to this thread. Regarding the "indoctrination of children." It's not an easy task instilling traditional values.

I remember the evening my younger son came walking in with an outfit that gave new meaning to the word "colourful." We were about to have dinner with friends, and his outfit was not exactly what I had in mind. Using my best diplomatic skills, I asked him to change into something else. He was not enthusiastic. After ten minutes of getting nowhere, his older brother passed by and asked, "Mum, why does everything always have to be perfect?"

In a very real way, that question was a turning point in my life as a parent, and the ripples of that moment still affect me. Obviously, everything doesn't have to be perfect. Like many parents, I had been caught up in the external, the trivial. I was making a major flap about a shirt and a pair of trousers.

These days it's not surprising to find my children wearing odd clothes, but I'm no longer concerned. When my children reach old age, it probably won't matter what they wore or how fabulous their sixth birthday party was. If you think about it, a good portion of our efforts are as parents devoted to external matters that may not really matter at all.

What will be important is the content of our children's hearts and minds, or what is often described as character. When we say, "It's what's inside that counts," we speak a simple but profound truth.

We have growing agendas for raising our children. But while we are feverish about providing our children - every opportunity - from music lessons, tennis lessons, to a college or university degree, it seems that our job as parents is to raise a decent human being.

Decency might sound like a modest ambition, but in today's culture it's not so easy to achieve. Every parent I know lives with the uneasy sense that their children are growing up too fast, without clear values or a real code to live by.

to David again....

You said:

//There are many parts of Christian scriptures demonstrating they were written by people and not by (Or not inspired by) an all knowing god.//

David, I'm not aware of making the claim that our Scriptures were written by God... your understanding of 'Inspiration' seems a bit cloudy.
I suppose we tend to apply a rigid logic based reasoning to trying to understand the idea of Gods revelation.
i.e.

Thesis: //God is all knowing and all powerful.//

Implications:

If
God is all knowing and all powerful
then
Scriptures insired by Him will be absolutely perfect in every sense, and perfectly accurate in any statement made about any matter.

Lets subject this to the area of 'poetic language'. If a Psalm speaks of the 'pillars of the earth' or.. "God's nostrils, breath" etc.....we would be in trouble straight away.

So, the doctrine of 'Inspiration/Inerrancy' has room for such things.

The Bible contains works like Job which are said to pre-date even the record of Genesis (though not the truth or events of Genesis)

FAITH AND POLITICS. This seems to be a major concern of yours. But rest assured, we don't teach our children that because David killed Goliath we can therefore throw rocks at big threatening people :)
Teaching children about Christ and urging them to have faith in Him is not child abuse, but parental responsibility.

My experience HAS been that some things well meaning evangelical groups do re proclaiming the Gospel to children are naive and plain stupid, but not all.
So, while teaching about Christ CAN be done in an irresponsible way, it does not have to be so. Just like our leftoid Professors who will not entertain any other line than the socialist one at our Uni's (=abuse?)

cont'd ...

While we spin our wheels worrying about "reading, writing, and arithmetic," our children may be missing the "real basics" like respect, loyalty, and a sense of fair play. Survey after survey shows that children who will be the best educated and most privileged in human history, are too willing to do anything it takes to "get ahead."

Once I realised that collecting for the Red Cross once a year, and taking part in other "fund-raising" activities, was not going to add up to moral development, I started looking seriously for ways to help my children learn right from wrong, and to know that sometimes there is a decision to be made in the middle.

My children, growing up were facing tough choices and complicated situations that could not be addressed with simple lectures on the values of kindness or isolated chats about standing up for one's beliefs. I wanted to surround my children with a sturdy sensibility, a world view, and I wanted it to be different from the "Me" mentality of modern culture.

I believe that our role as parents is not to protect our children from the truth, but to protect them from something less than the truth!

BOAZ_David,

As someone who has a reverse conversion story to yours (i.e. Christian to Atheist), I'm curious about how, during your conversion, you managed to ignore overwhelming scientific evidence to accept inconceivable concepts such as a young Earth?

<<...Scriptures insired by Him will be absolutely perfect in every sense, and perfectly accurate in any statement made about any matter.>>

No, Sorry. The scriptures were written as a way of explaining the mysteries that we now have scientific evidence for.

Do you believe that an angry God still controls plagues and famines? Or was it just the plagues and famines back then?

<<FAITH AND POLITICS. This seems to be a major concern of yours. But rest assured, we don't teach our children that because David killed Goliath we can therefore throw rocks at big threatening people :)>>

I think you've missed the point entirely here.

Religion relies on interpretation, and some interpret it differently to others. There are Christians out there who are quite lax about the idea of large wars because they believe it will help to bring forward the date of Christ's return. These fundamentalists also believe that we don't need to look after the environment because there's no way we could possibly destroy the earth before the second coming of Christ.

These are dangerous beliefs to govern by. Not to mention that fact that they fly in the face of all reason, rationality and probability.

Moral guidance isn't an argument either because there are plenty of examples out there that suggest that morality is not dependent on Biblical foundations.

<<Teaching children about Christ and urging them to have faith in Him is not child abuse, but parental responsibility.>>

It most certainly is abuse!

I would know, my parents are Christians, and I resent the fact my childhood brainwashing lead me to feel guilty for many years for no good reason. A couple of examples:

1) Being intimate with a girl that I loved very much but was not married to (I hate to give such details on OLO but this needs to be said).

Continued...