CTS-Do not ignore OT

Charlotte is right here, the Old Testament is certainly not to be ignored. It shows the story of God pursuing man throughout history despite continual sin, and man's continual rejection because of convenience. That being said, this does not mean that the Law is still ruling over Christians, see below.

1-10) You must understand the purpose of the Law to understand why we no longer are required to follow all of it. Many parts of it address things that would be wrong in a practical sense during the time period. Modern advances has reduced the need for such guidelines because this has become common knowledge, such as mixing cotton and linen in clothes. The Law is still in effect, Salvation is based on a legal system. All human beings are subject to the Law, which is why it endures, unless they call on the name of Jesus Christ and have accepted Him during their lifetime. All humans are sinful, so none will pass the Law without Jesus. The reason that Christians are not longer under the Law is because Jesus fulfilled it for them and created a New Covenant. This New Covenant is between God and Jesus coming on our behalf, and Jesus fulfilled his side with the crucifixion. This puts Christians under grace, not the Law. However, the reason we are still called to do things like abstain from sexual immorality, gluttony, etc is because they hurt our relationship with the Lord. We are now called to spread the Gospel and grow in relationship with Christ, which is our ultimate purpose.

11) The first two are both examples of judgement commanded by God toward the Egyptians. It wasn't theft because the Israelites had been in unpaid slavery, this was at least some compensation. The next part was borrowing a colt, that's not stealing. Furthermore, it must be remembered that God created everything, so even that colt was ultimately His.

12) The judging being condemned here is the act of passing judgment on another person based on your limited knowledge of them. The phrase Jesus used in John 7 is actually used to provoke thought. People are limited many times by what they see, and if they allow themselves to be limited like that then they cannot make a right judgement. Jesus is telling them to get past mere appearances, not to judge people.

13) A better translation in 1 Corinthians is the one used in the NIV, it merely says earnestly desire. Coveting as used in Exodus is being jealous of another's possessions, rather than earnestly wanting. So, don't be jealous, but a holy desire is fine.

14) The lying spirit mentioned in 1 Kings was Satan, and God was allowing Satan to test Ahab. Satan makes requests of God to test people, and God allows it, such as the case with Job. It wasn't God that was forcing them to lie, it was Satan and God was testing their faith.

15) Charlotte made a mistake here. The commandment says "do not murder" meaning do not wrongfully kill other human beings. All of the instances of killing throughout the Bible are a result of war or capital punishment. For a complete list click here.

16) Here Charlotte attempts to play the card of slavery. Slavery in Biblical times was not as we understand it now. Then it was what we now call indentured servitude. Families would sell themselves or children into slavery for a period of time in order to pay a debt, like Jacob did in order to marry Rachel. They were also not treated as badly because of the Bible's laws governing it. For a complete explanation with examples click here.

17) First of all, Luke 12:3 says nothing about improvidence. The giving spoken of in Luke 6 is generosity, not improvidence. Jesus is telling the disciples to lend to those who need it because they need it, not because you will get something in return. This type of generosity is pleasing to God. The improvidence condemned later is actual improvidence. Verse 6 reads: "The widow who lives for pleasure even while she lives is dead". This places the verse into the context of selfishness, the family is not being provided before because of the satisfaction of sinful desires.

18) Anger is something acknowledged in the Bible, but not condemned. We are warned against it because it can cloud our judgement, but is not sinful in and of itself. We are told not be be well-acquainted with angry men because of their tendency to lack self control as well.

19) Jesus is acknowledging a careful boundary Christians have regarding our works. We are to do good works for the benefit of mankind and to show the kind of things God can do through people because of Jesus. This is being light for mankind. The other side is doing good works for the purpose of getting patted on the back by men. We are supposed to do good works for general benefit and for God, not for men. Also, this is outside of the Old Testament, so why is his here?

20) Charlotte did not incorporate the context into her interpretation of Matthew 6. Verse 5 reads: "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for the love to pray standing in the synagogues and on street corners to be seen by men". God enjoy public prayer, but not when it is simply, like #19, for the sake of being seen as righteous. Jesus says go into your rooms and pray privately so that you don't fall to the temptation of doing it for show, not sincerity. God enjoys it greatly when people gather together in order to pray and learn because it shows their love for Him.

21) Hair was important in ancient cultures as a sign of vitality and life. The Nazirites were a people God had set apart, like Sampson. He required them to grow out their hair in order to show their distinction, especially from priests who were forbidden to shave their heads but frequently trimmed it. This also showed their sanctity along with the other vows they had to take, prohibition from drinking wine and not being allowed to touch corpses. In the New Testament long hair was the modern day equivalent of cross dressing. Paul is prohibiting this because it encourages homosexuality and deciding you know better than God which gender you should be.

22) In the OT the Israelites were circumcised to show that God had set them apart. Modern medicine also shows that circumcision decreases chances of infection and diseases. It was because of this requirement that people began to see circumcised people as more holy than others because the Israelites were God's people. The Galatians passage was reminding them that just because they were once set apart as an Israelite does not make them any better than others. That was a passage condemning pride, rather than condemning circumcision.

23) It is not imperative that Christians keep kosher. Like I said, not every single law was intended to point out sin. There's a practical application here. The first source explains why we don't follow the Old Testament, but the reason for many of these laws of kosher were intended to preform a ceremony giving glory to God and to eat healthy foods. A new covenant is now in effect, so we don't need to keep these laws, and now our society has ways of making them more healthy. Peter's vision in Acts 10 was a metaphor used to remind Peter that God has now accepted all peoples. Peter understood the vision after he was given the opportunity to witness to a non-Jewish family. This fact is just a reminder of the intention of the verse, but Galatians and 1 Corinthians deal with kosher.

24) Oaths are allowed. Taking oaths in God's name is a method of worship and confession. What God was acting against when He condemned it was taking His name in vain or asking Him to confirm a lie. People throughout the Bible took oaths in God's name. In Matthew Jesus was telling people not to take oaths based on earthly things because they will eventually pass away. This would implie the oath is temporary.

25) Marriage is a good thing. This is a verse saying that God is impartial to couples versus single people. Marriage is a symbol of Christ and the church, and there are many metaphors of marriage throughout Scripture. 1 Corinthians 7:2 even states that it is good for every man to get married because of all the immorality around, namely fornication. This is prevalent even today, just turn on the TV.

26) This was already addressed in the article "Rape in the Bible". For that click here. Basically they have inserted a lot of words into the verse. To understand it you must understand the historical context. Virgins were considered "pure" and therefore allowed to live as a servant for the soldiers' households. Men were even allowed to marry them if they so chose, but never rape them.

27) The link from layhands.com posted below is really helpful. Drunkenness is a sin because your judgement is impaired and you are very prone to additional sin. Drinking in moderation is not a sin, but for it not to be you must examine your motive for drinking. Drinking for a "buzz" is an early stage of drunkenness, or and fitting in is dealt with in James 4:4. Proverbs 31 uses win and beer as a symbol, obvious if you keep in mind the genre of the book.

28) Women do have rights. Men were appointed by God to be leaders of their families. The relationship of man and woman is representative of Christ and the church. Men are called to love their wives like Christ does the church, which would mean men aer to show their wives respect. When women become the authority in the house it gives a lopsided view of Christ and the church. This relationship does not by any means require that God only use men. God uses women throughout history both to show the Israelites that He is not limited by their expectations and to speak to a different audience. God sees men and women as equal.

29) We are not to usurp authority unless they are going against God's will. All authority was put in place by God, be it to test our faith or to learn from them. God says "Be not servants of men". He is just clarifying that we are ultimately under His authority, no righteous authority can go against His will.

30) This was already answered in #1-#10 above.

31) Already answered in #24 above.

32) We are not required to keep the Sabbath day because of the New Covenant. Jesus had come to teach us the New Covenant and do away with the altered original Law that were keeping man from growing towards God because of fear of His commands. He came to save us, and didn't even violate the Sabbath. The Pharisees had messed up the Sabbath day with all kinds of restrictions, and Jesus was attacked for healing someone, not working for personal gain at all.

33) A graven image here means an idol. An idol is an object of worship. "You shall worship none but the Lord your God". The Cherubim on the Ark were never objects of worship, therefore they are not the graven images described. The rest were also not objects of worship, they were made for the temple for worship of God.

Sources:

www.lavistachurchofchrist.org/LVarticles/WhyWeDontFollowTheOldTestament.htm www.wcg.org/lit/law/otl/
www.conservapedia.com/Naziritewww.layhands.com/CanChristiansDrinkAlcohol.htm
www.hcna.us/columns/why_arent_christians_kosher.htm

CTS- End Times

Here Charlotte examines the many prophecies made by Jesus and His disciples concerning the End Times. Many are the same points reiterated by several people. Charlotte accused apologists as "weaseling out of it" by making the argument Jesus was speaking of His later apostles. Charlotte blatantly ignores the relative nature of the word "soon". She also interprets verses out of context in order to prove her point. She also uses phrases like "lives and dies on the resurrection and end times" which are nowhere to be found in the Bible. The Bible lives and dies on every verse disprove any one and it cannot be trusted. However, it has yet to really debunked, so that should say something. There's also a website which has a complete list of prophecies fulfilled modern day, for that click here.

In many of these examples the word that Charlotte points out time and time again is the word "soon". She neglects to mention the subjective nature of the word. Keep in mind any amount of time relative to eternity would seem short. Also, the knowledge of the time period and the nature of the followers of Jesus must be kept in mind. Because of the disciples' deep relationship with the Lord, they were able to look at it from an eternal standpoint. Jesus also called His followers to "make disciples of all nations". Keep in mind that the Americas and much of the world were not discovered then, so this prophecy could not have been fulfilled yet at this time, there were nations not yet made disciples of. Now, let's get started.

1) All Jesus said was "You will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and riding on the clouds of heaven". He never said you will live to see it, but even those in Hell will witness the End Times. He never said in his lifetime, either, merely "you will see". (Matthew 26:64 and Mark 14:62)

2) This first example could not be more out of context. Jesus is condemning the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and is prophesying that prophets and apostles will be crucified and flogged because of them. He finishes with "all things will come upon this generation" referring to these very Pharisees witnessing these acts against the church. (Matthew 23:36).

In the next part, Charlotte is fussing over the word roughly translated as generation. In fact, a more accurate translation would be tribe, meaning that Judah will never cease to exist as a distinct people, and they still have not. (Matthew 24:20-35)

3) The phrase Charlotte is now scrutinizing is the phrase "some who are standing here will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming into his kingdom". This is not referring to End Times at all, but rather to the Ascension that shortly followed the Crucifixion. Christ ascended into his kingdom to make ready a place for the church. (Matthew 16:28)

4) This is the same exact speech from Matthew 24 above. Jesus is referring to the line of Judas when he says generation, and they have yet to pass away. (Mark 13:30-31). Mark 9:1 is also the same thing as the verse in #3.

5) Apparently Charlotte is unaware that the four Gospels are all accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. This is the same phrase as Mark 9:1 and Matthew 16. There were 500 people who witness the resurrected Jesus before he ascended to heaven, plus 11 disciples. (Luke 9:27)

6) Jesus does not in any way imply that John will survive until the End Times. Peter asked about John and he replied "If I want him to remain alive, what is it to you?" This is essentially "don't worry about him, just worry about following me." (John 21:22)

7) Again Charlotte fails to realize that the different Gospels are all accounts of the life of Jesus Christ. This has been answers already. The word that is roughly translated as generation can also be translated more accurately to mean race. Clearly, the Jews have not passed away, have they? (Luke 21:25-33)

8) "Shortly" is a very subjective word. It is because of Jesus' influence on the disciples that they are able to see time through the knowledge of eternity. Eternity makes every other period time seem extremely short, hence the "soon" and "shortly". (Revelation 1:1-3)

9) This is essentially the same idea as above. John was able to see the world through the knowledge that the world would pass away, but there was an eternity afterwards. (Revelation 22:7, 12, & 20)

10) First of all, let's clear up who, or what, the antichrist is. The antichrist is Satan manifested as a human, much like Jesus was. He has done this throughout history in order to trip up God's people. John recognizes that Satan is doing this more often now because Satan's time is up on Judgment Day. Satan wants to stamp out the Christian faith, and does it in a number of ways including making it seem irrational, killing Christians, and twisting God's Word. No Christians means that Revelation's predictions cannot come true, and this is what Satan wants. (1 John 2:18)

11) Apparently Charlotte did not know the above statement, the fact that the antichrist is Satan. Satan has been around longer than humanity has. He is still around today, deceiving those he is able to and "seeking whom he may devour". The spirit of the antichrist is still around today. (1 John 4:3)

12) Again, Jesus is able to see time from an eternal standpoint. Everything would seem "soon", it's a subjective word. Soon is accurate as well because Jesus has called us to make disciples of all nations, and the more time we get the more people will end up in heaven. Because of the sheer number of non-Christians, we need time to accomplish this. (Revelation 3:11, 22:7, 12 & 20)

13) In Philippians Paul merely writes "the Lord is near". The Lord is always near to us, regardless of how close Judgment Day is. He is listening to our prayers and actively working in our society, so how could he be doing that and not be near? In fact, Judgement isn't even mentioned in Philippians 4. (Philippians 4:5)

14) Paul has deemed our time and his the "Last Days" because all that is left for God to do is to set everything in motion for Final Judgement. These are the days between Christ's 1st and 2nd coming, and the title is also meant to give us a sense of urgency, because we don't know the "time or dates the Father has set by His own accord". (Hebrews 1:2)

15) Again, from an eternal standpoint the time between the early days of the Church and Christ's 2nd coming is not a long time. This language is also thought to be used in order to create urgency within the Church because every minute people die, and it is up to us to make sure those people are going to heaven. (Hebrews 10:37)

16) Charlotte makes a large assumption here. Paul says "we who are still living" in the passage, and she interprets that to mean that Paul is sure he will be living when it happens. He merely means that he is alive at this moment in time, and, if it were to happen now, he would be brought into the sky with the saints. The rest of the passage is a prophecy. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

17) This is again one of Charlotte's arguments dealing with the word "soon". This subjective word must be understood in light of eternity. The only difference is that it is now James. (James 5:8)

18) This is dealing with the word "soon" again. The only difference is it is now Peter. (1 Peter 1:20 & 4:7)

Not even one of these can go without an explanation, yet more evidence for the inerrancy of the Bible. These "contradictions" are pointed out either because of the use of the word "soon" or something being unclear because of grammar or translation.

CTS-Evils of the Torah

This is Charlotte's first essay on the "evils" committed in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. To start off let us again point out that moral relativism, the belief that morals are subjective to the individual, is non-existent. This article in itself asserts that there are evils that cannot be denied as evil. For these to exist there must be a law that states as such, and for there to be a law there must be a law-giver. Any human created law will ultimately have flaws in it, which must leave the perfect law of a perfect God. Granted, if these turn out to actually be evil, that God will not be perfect, fragmenting the law, so let's take a look at a few of these examples.

Gen 2. 16-47: God did not create us with rebellion, that was a product of the Fall. Adam and Eve knew full well what they were doing by disobeying. They put a created thing over their relationship with God, and Satan played a vital role in this. Remember, God never said don't touch it. They actually even could have picked all of the fruit and burned it if they wanted, but they didn't. Adam and Eve knew exactly what they were doing.

Gen 3.16: This was a product of sin entering the world. Adam and Eve caused it, not God.

Gen 4.3-5: This "favoritism" came from Abel being the one following God's commands, Cain was offering whatever he had left over. Read Gen 3, God gives guidelines. He even pursued Cain in verses 6 and 7 and reminded him he could still please God.

Gen 7.23: Look back 1 chapter to Gen 6:5, "every inclination was evil to them". Every single person on earth, save Noah, had a heart that had no inclinations toward good any more. This revealed the need for a law, and to start again, they were beyond redemption.

Gen 16.7-9: God never told Hagai to have any children, Sarai told Abram to sleep with Hagai, her maidservant. He did this and Hagar got pregnant, so Sarai mistreated her. God told Hagai that if she went back he would turn her into a great nation, so he was rewarding her obedience. Nowhere did God tell Abram to sleep with her, else this wouldn't have happened.

Gen 19.23-25: Not only were they homosexual, the wanted to rape God's angels! They came to visit Lot in Gen 19.5 "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them to us so that we can have sex with them!" God is not a fan of rape.

Gen 38.7: Isn't "He was wicked in the sight of the Lord" enough? A perfect God wouldn't lie.

Gen 38.10: Incest is illegal sex within one's immediate family. This was only to take place because Er had no given Tamar a son, and that was seen as a dishonor, so it was fixed. Remember in the verse it says "to keep from producing offspring for his brother". He was killed for selfishness, not refusing to commit incest. He actually still had sex with her anyways, merely practiced birth control, defeating the purpose.

Ex 12.29: The Egyptians were enslaving, beating, and murdering the Israelites. God was judging them for this. Each plague was also aimed at showing the lack of power of the Egyptians gods that they were worshipping, so maybe they would turn to Him. Dr. Geisler, a prestigious scholar, even says that God did not harden Pharaoh's heart directly, Pharaoh initiated the process which God then facilitated. For a better explanation click here.

Ex 20.5 & 34.7: They apparently missed "forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin." in Exodus 34.7. Inherent sin is a doctrine well-explained within Scripture, for some information on sin click here. They don't have to be punished, God always provides a way out and that was denied.

Ex 21.2-6: This has already been explained, see "Slavery in the Bible" here.

Ex 21.7: Explained again. Daughters were sold in order to pay off debts, and slavery in Bible times was what we know today as indentured servitude, not the slavery of America's history.

Ex 22.18: God orders the death of these magicians because their powers come from Satan. They are relying on evil forces such as demons for their convenience, and manipulating the public.

Ex 32.27: Harsh? Arguing with opinions has no merit, capital punishment was understood by all of the Israelites, and yet the did it anyway.

Lev 20.9-10: Again, Charlotte is arguing with her opinions. They ignored the law and violated what God had commanded them, in spite of saving them from countless enemies and creating the very world we stand on. You can't validly argue against capital punishment with opinions.

Lev 20.13: This is violating the purpose of sex, and doing something very unnatural. Homosexuality is condemned throughout scripture, more about this here. Women were created as a completion of man, the two to become one and reproduce. This violates the sanctity of marriage.

Lev 21.16-23: First off all, let's clear things up. This is dealing with the duties of the High Priest. These blemishes are not allowed because people generally look down on those who have defects, thus injuring the influence of the High Priest. God simply knows how sinful people work.

Lev 26.29: Charlotte put verse 30, but the quoted part is verse 29. God was predicting one of the results of the judgements of Israel for unfaithfulness, and was fulfilled in 2 Kings 6:29. This is condemned, not condoned.

Lev 27.28-29: This was a capital punishment for completely giving oneself to Satan, not at all a human sacrifice. Also, I've already dealt with human sacrifice in the Bible, click here.

Num 16.31-32: Another verse issue. These men were punished for attempting a rebellion against Moses, God's chosen leader.

Num 16.35: The princes were killed for heavy involvement in the rebellion. The rest of the people directly went against God's judgement and tried to kill Moses and Aaron.

Num 21.1-3: The Israelites were migrating to a new land and were attacked by the Canaanites, who are frequently attacking them. God destroys them for attacking his chosen people, I suppose Charlotte objects to war?

Num 21.27-35: Again, Charlotte is objecting to war. These were nations committing the very acts the Bible condemns, such as human sacrifices, idolatry, sex slavery, etc. The Israelites were following God's commands of judgement, and the nations always could have joined the Israelites, there was a ritual established in which they could essentially become Jews, but they denied God's mercy.

Num 31.17-18: God had told the Israelites to attack the nation of Moab because they had been practicing idolatry and trying to force the Israelites to do so.This, again, was war. They had won and taken the spoils, including flocks. However, they had also taken the Midianite women, who they weren't supposed to. Throughout Scripture taking these women to be wives ended up in going against God and worshipping idols, like Solomon did. This is why God told them to kill the women. He spared the virgins because women captured through war were to be slaves, let free after a while. Virgins were, in God's eyes, considered clean. This was God showing mercy.


Deut 3.3-7: It is worth pointing out that when the word destroy is used, it means giving over to the Lord. This was God's judgement of cities doing all the things EB condemns so easily, sacrificing humans, raping sex slaves, and worshipping false idols and demons. They were utterly destroyed because to keep some and integrate them into your society leads to pressure into worshipping false idols, which the Israelites were prone to do.



Deut 7: This was, again, war. They were rival civilizations that hated the Israelites because of ties of their forefathers. The Lord ordered their total destruction because any sort of treaty and the cultures would begin to mix, and the other peoples would pressure the Israelites into worship of idols and false gods, resulting in things like human sacrifice. By the way, this is actually the beginning of chapter 7, not just verse 12. Verse 12 is actually talking about God's covenant of love with them.

Deut 20.16: This was for the exact same reasons as the last two examples. Other civilizations in the same area despised Israel because of how the nation was started, from a child branching of from lineages that can be traced through Genesis. See above.

Deut 23.2: The word "assembly" here means holding an office in Israel, not worshipping. Ruth was a Moabitess, and became a proselyte into the Jewish culture and was permitted to worship, wasn't she? Many Israelites weren't even permitted high offices, most were reserved for Levites.

So ends Charlotte's first article, the attempt on showing various acts of evil within the Torah. God's law was perfect, and, like EB's article on murder, most every killing here falls within Capital Punishment, a commonly debated idea which Charlotte cannot condemn with the emotional argument found here. Keep in mind "Got Questions", "Reformed Answers", and "Resources for growing Christians" all have answers to some of these as well, so check them out.

Introduction to "Church of Theists Suck"

This leads us to the second section of evilbible.com, a list of essays copied from a website entitled "Theists suck". The fact that this is entitled with a name slandering the belief in any god whatsoever should tell you something about the author, Charlotte. She is an atheist woman who's tone in each of her essays is one of very strong anger. The fact that she names some of her sermons (as she likes to call them) "Christians are hypocrites", "Christians are liars", and "evils of the Torah" show that she obviously has the same impression EB did when they posted "Top 10 Signs of Fundamentalist Christians".

This next section will be started with a CTS-(name of article here) to show that it is a "Church of Theist's suck" article. I'll be taking a look at all the articles, beginning from the top down.

Ritual Human Sacrifice in the Bible

Another much pointed at article when it comes to the inerrancy of the Bible: the occurrence of ritual human sacrifice. Remember, reader, that merely because it is mentioned in the Bible does not mean it is condoned by God. Frequently these are followed by judgment because of disobeying commands. The same goes for any wrongful act that Scripture in other areas condemns. This is the case with many acknowledgements of ritual human sacrifice in the Bible, mentioned here or not.

Like virtually everyone other article on evilbible.com, keep in mind that the author is arguing against something that is "unjust" in their own opinion. They are using opinions, and not even giving criteria, on what is considered unjust. Even more so, the commonly held atheist belief is that morality evolved as well along with civilization, so they cannot condemn these actions within their worldview, only express outrage! Here, however; I agree that ritual sacrifice of humans would be, in fact, unjust. Let's take a look and see how their examples stack up:

1) Isaac being offered (Genesis 22: 1-18): This, as is said in the verse, was a test of Abraham's faith. First of all, let's get some inaccuracies out of the way. Abraham never lied to Isaac, the ram was provided. Also, Abraham never put a knife to Isaac's throat. Verse 10 says "and took the knife to slay his son." When information not in the text is added, the meaning of scripture gets clouded. Now, moving on to the explanation. In early history every civilization had a god of some sort, and human sacrifice was extremely common. Abraham, having come from the pagan city of Ai, would not have thought this out of place. God used this to show that He was different from other gods; He does not accept human sacrifice. This also showed the trust that Abraham had for God, and rightly so. There is also a sort of logic to this from Abraham's perspective; God had promised "In Isaac your seed shall be called". This would show Abraham that even if he did have to sacrifice Isaac, he seed would continue. The only explanation would be God raising him from the dead, so either way he knew his son would live

2) Consecrations of children (Exodus 13:2): these talks about God's command to consecrate every man and beast out of the womb to God, for they are His. EB's commentary reads as follows: "It is clear from the context that consecrate means a burning sacrifice." WHAT!!?? The Hebrew word written here is qadash, meaning "sanctified, prepared, and dedicated". There is no burning involved. If they wanted to mean destroy or burn, the word chadam would have been used.

3) No redemption (Leviticus 27: 28-29): It is common for atheists to pull bits and pieces of different verses together in order to show a point, which is happening here. This was actually part of #2, so keep that in mind. EB says that this verse shows that those firstborns have no chance of redemption because they are being referred to as "doomed". Since ritual human sacrifice wasn't even a part of the Leviticus Law, those first born couldn't have been referred to. They weren't even sacrificed in the first place, look back at #2.

4) Jepthah Burns His Daughter (Judges 11: 29-40): Now, first of all, note that the NLT is used here. Mariano looked at 20 different translations and found not a single other that said she died, and the Hebrew (and Greek) doesn’t say that, either. Another funny thing worth noting about the NLT is when it says "I will give to the Lord the first thing that greets me when I return home in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering", it omits a very important word that appears in 18 other translations. That word is "and" (or in Robert Young's Literal Translation, "or"), and this completely changes the meaning of the verse. To offer a virgin to the Lord in the OT was to serve in the sanctuary as a nun, who was not to marry, hence, dying a virgin. This also draws a distinction between an animal and person, if a clean animal was to greet him, it would have been sacrificed, a person was to be consecrated (remember this doesn't mean burned!).

5) God commands burning humans (Joshua 7:15): Again EB makes a huge assumption. They see "burned with fire" and immediately think burnt offering. This is a verse talking about Capital Punishment, which has been a part of God's Law throughout the Old Testament. There is no sacrifice.

6) Josiah and human sacrifice (1 Kings 13:1-2 and 2 Kings 23:20-25): This was not a case of human sacrifice, but merely another case of Capital Punishment. Manasseh, the previous king, had built High Places all over Israel where pagan gods were worshipped. Josiah, full of zeal, killed all of the false priests who were worshipping these false gods. The meaning of talking to the altar in 1 Kings was that Josiah was mocking the false power of the idols by burning the dead priests on the altars, and during that time there is no way that would have been tolerated by gods. Obviously, there was nothing truly there with power.

7) Human sacrifice (Wisdom 3:5-7): The book Wisdom of Solomon is part of the Catholic Bible commonly known as 2nd Canon or Apocrypha. These books are treated by Jewish rabbis like we treat Bible commentaries, useful but not inspired by God. This stance is shared by Protestants. See more information here: www.lifeanddoctrinepurgatory.com/2005/11/apocryphageneral-commentsthe-books.html. Furthermore, does it really need to be pointed out that this is a psalm, and therefore its language uses frequent literary devices such as metaphors? This is the case here.

8) Child sacrifice (Wisdom 14:21-23): EvilBible here is quite correct about one thing; the passage does mention actual child sacrifice. EB even admits here that it was being condemned. The verse even says: "It was not enough for them to err in their knowledge of God, but they live in great strife due to ignorance." This was a case of people making massive errors by no fault of God's. That doesn't mean Scripture was by any means wrong. Also, this is also quoted from the apocrypha; see the link in #7 for an explanation of these books.

9) Humans are fuel for fire (Ezekiel 21:33-37): This is the same deal and number 6, this is a metaphor. I'm sure you have heard the expression "on fire for Christ". This means that you are excited about sharing Him and learning more about Him. This is the case here; the context does not lend any credibility to the idea of humans literally burning. The fire is spreading because of the Christian's call to share His word throughout the world, not literally.

10) Burn Nonbelievers (Deuteronomy 13:13-19): This was a messy time in Israel's history. The cycle of sin kept bringing the Israelites to turn away from God, and He would have a nation conquer them in order to get them to turn to Him again. They frequently had to attack and destroy nations that worshipped other gods and mocked the Lord in order to do His work and even to defend themselves. God put this law in place so that Israel would not continue to turn away from Him. EB assumes that it meant the town and its inhabitants, when in fact the inhabitants are mentioned earlier. The verse says "then you must pile all of the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the Lord." The inhabitants aren't mentioned. In fact, the NIV says this: "completely burn the town and its plunder as a burnt offering to the Lord". The inhabitants are not mentioned and were dealt with in an earlier verse. EB has assumed wrong.

The conclusion, more unfounded assumptions show EvilBible's neglect for the context and true meaning of Scripture. The Bible does not contain ritual human sacrifice any more than it contains rape or murder. For another look check this out:www.atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2009/06/atheism-ritual-human-sacrifice-in-bible.html Addendum: www.atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2009/07/addendum-to-atheism-ritual-human.html

Rape in the Bible

Again EB starts off an article with the claim that the Bible condones raping women. The writer presumes to think for its readers, entering in opinions about just how bad of a crime rape really is. It says "How anyone can get their moral guidance from a book that allows rape escapes me." Now, after butchering the English language, it again attacks the Bible using its own opinions, that the Bible condones rape, without looking at the actual text. Again it fails to realize that the Bible frequently tells stories of the Israelites' wrongful acts, but that by no means shows that the Bible is condoning what they are doing. Let's take at look at their so-called "examples":

1) Murder, rape, and pillage at Jabesh-Gilead (Judges 21. 10-24): First off I would like to ask a simple question: Where was the rape? It never says it outright in the verse, and therefore requires some very large assumptions from EvilBible in order to make this work for them, which they do without a thought. EB uses this syllogism: "The virgin's relatives were killed. The men who killed them took the virgins in. They got married, so it must have been equivalent to rape (notice EB also assumes the marriage was forced)" Syllogisms do not contain perfect logic, for example "fish can swim. I can swim. I must be a fish." Therefore, there is no reason to believe that this actually contained rape, let alone repeatedly. There were even regulations for how to deal with said regulation. Give them a peace offer (Deut 20.10-14). This verse even goes on to show how war captives were to be treated, as follows:

1. Provide them with housing (taking them in)
2. Allowing them 1 month to mourn.
3. Then allow marriage
4. If they divorce, no mistreatment.

Where's the rape? You should know by now.

2) Murder, rape, and pillage of the Midianites (Numbers 31.7-18): Almost the same thing as above. Again, they say "Clearly Moses approves of rape of virgins". Apparently EB sees the word virgin and immediately thinks rape. Rape, or even sex, is never mentioned in the entire verse. The process above still applies, as well.

3) More murder, rape, and pillage (Deuteronomy 20.10-14): Let's make a little checklist, shall we?

• Murder: This is war, and peace was rejected, God even commanded to offer peace.


• Rape: Still only says as much as the above two, rape's been inserted by EB.


• Slavery: The word that here was translated as forced slavery can also be translated to simply mean work, which here could easily be a form of indentured servitude. Also, I already talked about how slavery in the Bible's time, not the same as America's early history: http://debunkedevil.blogspot.com/2009/10/slavery-in-bible.html

4) Laws of rape (Deut 22.28-29): Here Mariano was a great resource by providing the etymology of the verse. The word used here, translated as rape, is the Hebrew word shakab, meaning lying down. Taphas is the Hebrew word for catching, handling, taking hold, and isn't used. If you look at most other translations it merely says "a virgin, who is not betrothed, and he lays hold of her and lies with her." Where in the verse does it say the intercourse was forced? The verse even ends with "and they were found". It doesn't say he was caught, THEY were caught. This shows that they were engaging in fornication, not rape. This made them have to get married because the woman was not even previously betrothed.

5) Death to the rape victim (Deut. 22. 23-24): Here it is interesting to note than EB has been citing the NLT, and now switches to the NAB for the remainder of the article. The NLT's verse is even farther away from citing rape, while the NAB is closer, and therefore suits EB's purpose, deliberate misinterpretation, better. The NLT says "suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin engaged to a man, and has sexual intercourse with her..." Again, no rape. This is fornication, and both are punished for it. They cannot get married like #4 because she is already engaged, so they must be punished, and God has rules set for that. Also, there is a part EB conveniently left out in the very next verse. It says "But if the man meets the engaged woman out in the country, and he rapes her, than only the man must die." Sound like condoning rape to you?

Also, for those who would point out the "but" to mean it meant it in the first part as well, literal translations of the first one say "but she did not cry out", and in the countryside crying out is far less likely to help at all. This shows that the woman was in fact raped, while if she didn't cry out people would know it wasn't rape.

6) David's punishment- Polygamy, rape, baby killing, and God's "forgiveness" (2 Samuel 12. 11-14): To start God is punishing David for polygamy and adultery, so condoning that is out of the question. Deuteronomy 17:15, 17 says: "You shall set a king over you...He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray." Let's try another checklist:

• Rape: Absent. Lying with the neighbor is his wives committing adultery, no rape.


• Polygamy: Present. God punished David for it.


• Baby Killing: Present. God judged David because David had made followers of God look like hypocrites for committing adultery with Bathsheba. Capital punishment, explained here: www.debunkedevil.blogspot.com/2009/10/murder-in-bible.html


• Forgiveness: Present. The punishment for adultery is death, but God forgave David. Funny thing is, for EB this should be a bad thing.

7) Rape of female captives (Deut 21. 10-14): This was cited earlier in order to show that there wasn't rape, see the process at the end of #1. The process showed that they must be married in order to have sexual relations. None of this was forced, including the marriage. There's not rape, once again EB inserts a very disturbing misinterpretation.

8) Rape and the Spoils of War (Judges 5. 30): Again there is rape inserted by EB's author. None actually in the verse. A girl for each man means as a slave, not a sex slave. Furthermore, this was actually a lyrical poem sang by Deborah, not meant to be interpreted literally like has been by EB.

9) Sex Slaves (Exodus 21. 7-11): I have already dealt with this in my slavery post: www.debunkedevil.blogspot.com/2009/10/slavery-in-bible.html. A quick refresher, this never says sex anywhere, nor implies it. These were laws handling the treatment of female slaves, nothing more. It even states that a man may marry her to one of his sons. This must occur for any sex; otherwise it would be fornication, which the Bible is patently against. Women were sold into slavery by their families or willingly went in order to pay off debts that they owed, which was more like indentured slavery, a term that didn't exist at the time. Apparently EB sees "woman" and "slave" and immediately thinks "sex slave".

10) God Assists Rape and Plunder (Zechariah 12:1-2): Again EB takes a verse out of context, and those who use biblegateway.com or another such site in reference to this (Good idea, by the way), pull up just one more verse after this. It reads: "Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against these nations". Another translation of verse one "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh." This verse has Israel being defeated for turning away from God, and then God will come to redeem them. The rape described here is the disgusting acts of other nations, and God punishes them for it when he redeems Israel. Hardly condoning rape.

Conclusion: Thus ends Evilbible.com's unfounded rant about the Bible condoning rape. It should be known by now that it clearly doesn't, in fact just the opposite. There is a clear difference between it being in the Bible, and the Bible condoning it. Also, massive assumptions aren't acceptable as evidence. It doesn't explicitly say rape in 90% of these verses, that part is inserted. It helps to understand the slavery side of this as well, so check it out. My link was posted in one of the answers above. Thanks!

My friend Mariano also has a thing or two to say about this, in a more detailed way than I: http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2009/04/atheism-bible-rape-evilbiblecom-and-dan.html
and for another perspective:
http://reformedanswers.org/answer.asp/file/99778.qna/category/ot/page/questions/site/
About fornication:
http://www.bible.ca/s-premarital-sex.htm

Murder in the Bible

One of the articles evilbible seems most proud of is the occurrence of "murder" in the Bible. First of all, a definition of murder is absent, so we must come up with one. No doubt the definition they intend to use will be "the unlawful killing of man". They also don't define absurd in this situation. But would it truly be absurd? Every man, women, and child bears the sin and guilt of Adam's sin because of the Great Fall, so the death penalty is exacted. EB is readily willing to enact it's own judgement of the laws of the culture, and this judgement is purely emotionally driven. The entire article is designed to play off of the human emotions associated with murder, but when we look past these it lacks substance. The laws of an ancient culture cannot be subject to our scrutiny, we have no personal knowledge of acts within the culture.

Now to move on, evilbible.com says that God continuously commits unfair killing, including genocide and killings making no sense at all. They have divided these verses into 4 parts:

1, Capital Punishment
Evilbible is very quick to judge here, and EB is attempting to use its own opinions as an argument. Most everyone even today has an opinion regarding capital punishment, and some culture have it within their law system. Apparently EB is against capital punishment, but there is no room in trying to disprove the inerrancy of the Bible for anachronistic judgement of another, completely difference, civilization's laws. Capital Punishment was the law at that time, and was understood by Israel, and all EB's examples are merely people disobeying the Law with the knowledge the capital punishment was in place. It is also worth mentioning that we must not look at the crimes at face value. Some of them, such as working on the Sabbath, seem like very minute offenses, but many times it is what the represent that shows the offense. The Sabbath was a representation of what God did for the Israelites throughout history, including Creation, and to desecrate it by working for personal gain is to put oneself above God, which is ultimately idolatry, in this case worshipping money or oneself.

2, Stupid Reasons

Kill Brats: Evilbible neglected to show what "Go up baldhead" meant, or else didn't bother to find out. Before this Elijah had gone up on the mountain and ascended, which of course made others think him dead. This band of teenagers are in effect saying "Go up and die like Elijah did". God punished them for wishing death upon one of His messengers. (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)

God Kills the Curious: The treatment and transport of the Ark of the Covenant was a topic covered thoroughly within the Law, and these were men who broke it even with the knowledge of the consequences. Ignorance of the Law doesn't mean you are excluded from it, does it? This blasphemous act was also done immediately following worship, showing some hypocrisy within the city. The other citizens must have understood this as well, otherwise they most likely would not have proclaimed God's holiness following His judgement. (1Samuel 6:19-20 ASV)

Killed by a Lion: This was a punishment for questioning the Word of God. The commanded man knew that the commander was a prophet, and should have known there would be a good reason for obeying God. Actually, right after the occurrence another man in their company was commanded to do the same thing, and he followed through. After this the prophet was able to disguise himself because of his wound and pursue God's Will, so God had a purpose for this act. (1 Kings 20:35-36)

Killing the Good Samaritan: Again, within the Law the transport of the Ark of the Covenant had specific instructions. The instructions are very clear, and in no part of it are oxen involved. Men were to carry it on poles, but in this case the reverence for God's Covenant were clearly lost. It was being carried precariously on an ox cart, by oxen, with a few men guiding it instead of the appropriate arrangements. God was simply punishing the men for ignorance of His Law, He couldn't have been clearer. (2 Samuel 6:3-7)

3, Murdering Children

Every single one of these examples is a prophecy of Israel's slavery to Babylon later on. The Israelites had been disobeying, blaspheming, and ignoring God for 100's of years, and this was Him setting his children right again. It was the same with with how Canaan and other civilizations were attacked by the Israelites under Joshua, and later on in the Bible. God had given them 100's of years so that they would have a chance to set things right, such as the time before the global flood, but ultimately the cycle of sin continued.

God Kills the Firstborn of Egypt: Did EB by chance miss the 400 years of brutal slavery and not allowing Israel to even worship their God? There were 9 plagues in front of this in which Pharaoh had a chance to let the Israelites go and worship. Also, God had directed these plagues towards showing the powerlessness of the Egyptian gods. I addressed all of these in the post of "Top Ten signs you're a Christian fundamentalist". This one was directed at 3 gods, one of which being Pharaoh who was considered a god.

God Will Kill the Children of Sinners: This is a warning, not a prediction. This was designed to get the Israelites attention so that they don't turn away from God's commands. Like I've said before, turning away from God's commands is ultimately putting yourself above God in your mind, the sin the caused the Fall of Lucifer. All good parents have a great love for their children, so it astounds me that Israel would still turn away when their children are mentioned.

4, Misc. Murders

Sampson's Murders: If you were to read this book, you could easily see that Israel and Philistia were at war. It's not a murder if you are defending your country, not absurd at all.

Peter Kills Two People: This was the very first sin in the new Church. God was showing people how seriously he takes sin by killing Ananias and Saphira. They had given what they said was all they had when it wasn't. They were lying in order to obtain a good reputation in the church. It is also worth noting that, assuming they were true believers, they still ended up with their Heavenly Father. Not a bad deal.

Mass Murder: This was a command to destroy Canaan, which had been one of Israel's enemies for a long time. They had been given lots of time by God to repent of their many sins and come back, but they didn't, that's all there is to it. They were told to kill all women in children so that the civilization would not end up rising again and threatening God's people once more.

You have to kill: This chapter was God's commands concerning the nation of Moab, another civilization given plenty of time to repent but did not. This verse was saying woe to he who disobeys God by keeping his hand from bloodshed because He had commanded the attack of Moab, not random killing like EB makes it out to be.

The Danites kill the next town: EB needs to try a different translation here. God had given the tribe a Dan a certain allotment of land, and currently there were civilizations who were occupying it and refused to move, so they simply claimed what God had given them as part of the promised land.

God kills some more: This was a righteous punishment of Israel by God. Manasseh was a ruler who rebuilt many places of idol worship that his father had destroyed. He ruled as an evil ruler who sacrificed his own children to false gods and ignored warnings from god. He continually sought the council of fortune tellers and mediums, and God sent the Assyrian army in order that Manasseh would come to his senses, which he did.

God promises more killing: This was a prophecy of the destruction of Edom. Edom was the civilization founded by Jacob's brother Esau. Edom had a great dislike of Israel because of Esau's great mistake, and therefore harassed Israel throughout history before their eventual destruction.

The Angel of Death: If Israel were to enter the promised land without any military help from God, they would have been wiped out. God was protecting His people while also keeping them from fraternizing with those who would cause them to again turn to worshipping false gods.

Destruction of Ai and Jericho: Everyone should know at this point that the promised land had been delivered to Israel by God, and that all of these cities that Israel destroyed in order to claim it had been participating in all manners of sins. I'll save the time of point them out again, just look up.

God kills an extended family: This starts off with a godly child dying of sickness so that God is able to punish the rest of the people for conforming to the worship of the calf the Jeroboam had set up. Pretty standard judgement for idolatry, not murder at all.

Mass Murder: There was a clan within the tribe of Benjamin that God knew needed to be punished, but the Benjamites weren't willing to accept it, so they were punished as well for disobeying the Word of God.

The Angel of Death: Israel and Assyria were at war during this time, and Israelites were dying of starvation because of the Assyrians siege. Apparently delivering one's own people from their sinful enemies is murder? I don't think so.

Kill your neighbors: Those neighbors happened to be the Israelites who forsook God and made a golden calf and engaged in an orgy while Moses was getting the 10 commandments. Righteous judgement again.

Kill the Family of Sinners: Achan had put himself above God by refusing God's command to destroy all of Jericho and had taken some of the plunder for himself. A lengthy process of unearthing his crime followed, which at any point he could have come out into the open with it and acquired a much less severe consequence, but he didn't. Instead he ended up involving his family in the punishment as well. You cannot hide as much treasure as this man did without his family knowing about it and helping, which caused them to share in the punishment as well.

Kill Followers of Other Religions: God punished the Israelites for worship of Baal once again. They continually gave up God for Baal, violating the very first commandment. Again we see that EB has neglected to mention that they had knowingly violated the Law, and even more so by previously sleeping with Moabite women, another law! Ignorance of the Law never excuses disobedience. Furthermore, Baal worship frequently entailed things such as idol worship, another law, and human sacrifice, another law.

Murder: They killed the prophets of Baal here, who were advocating all the law breaking mentioned just above. Capital punishment, not wrongful human killing.

Kill All of Babylon: Again, apparently EB objects to war? Babylon was following more religions going directly against the laws God had set in place. They also did enslaved to Israelites for 3 generations and treated them harshly. More punishment, not murder.

Micah Kills a Whole Town: For one thing, the Lord said the journey to find a place to settle had his approval, but the violent actions that happened later on. Furthermore, Micah and his men overtook and killed the Danites because they had stolen from his household. This, again, was violation God's law.

Closing Comments:
None of these examples was able to stand up to elementary examination. When you look at it, you can see that every single one of these could have fallen under the Capital Punishment category. EB is judging the nation of Israel's Law, something they have no right to do. Arguing based on your own opinions when talking about an issue of this magnitude is unacceptable to most skeptics. God enacted the Law for Israel which was ultimately fulfilled by Jesus Christ, and you cannot accurately judge something put in place by a Supreme Being based on our limited human knowledge. EB has failed to show any wrongful killing of humans. For another perspective, check out Rhoblogy's page:
http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2009/04/evilbiblecom-project-part-1-murder-in.html

Slavery in the Bible

In the Bible slavery is mentioned many times. Evilbible.com claims that these mentions are the Bible condoning slavery, such as Leviticus 25:44-46 where God allows the Israelites to purchase slaves from foreign countries. Evilbible portrays slavery as "one of the most evil things a person can do, save murder."

While this is true in the modern world, the argument that Evilbible makes comes from the fact that it is comparing what we think of slavery now, namely kidnapping Africans and selling them to do virtually free labor, to what slavery meant in cultural times. Slavery in the cultural context was not based on racism, cheap labor, or sex.

There's another big issue with a two words that begin every single one of these statement. Those words are "when" and "if", primarily "if". The Bible says IF x happens, you should do y. It never says Since I commanded you to do x, you should also do y. Evilbible is inserting words that are not in the text, and therefore changing the meaning into instructions on slavery into God condoning slavery, and it clearly doesn't say that. It's the same idea with the word "when". God knows it's going to happen, so he says uses when. It still never says anything about God commanding slavery, or encouraging slavery, etc.

They cite Exodus 21:2-6 which talks about men choosing to sell their daughters into slavery and how that daughter is to be treated while she is in bondage. What this means within the culture is a man selling his daughter as a BRIDE. She is to be treated as such, whether bought or not, which is what the point of the scripture is.

Also evilbible mentions Exodus 21: 20-21 talking about beating slaves. It says that if a slave lives more than 24 hours after a beating, and then dies, there is no punishment, but if it dies immediately you are to be punished. This verse seems to condone beating at first, but in the time period masters were not to be cruel like we here about in our nation's early history, but beatings were only given when the slave committed a crime.

Lastly, evilbible uses a parable of Jesus in Luke 12:47-48 to try to say that Jesus supported slavery. Again, in ancient culture slavery was an accepted practice, and much different than we know it today. He was acknowledging it and giving guidelines for how a master should act. Also, earlier in the verse it talked about the servant being beaten in these verses, that the servant knew his master would be awhile longer, and so he got drunk and beat the other slaves. Strengthening the point above, slaves were beaten only for CRIMES.

The last thing I would like to point out is the slavery we typically think of now is based on race, but the Bible clearly condemns this. The process of "man-stealing" is how people acquired slaves from Africa in America's early history, and that practices is condemned in the Bible. Exodus 13 says that the reason the Hebrews were enslaved was because they were Hebrews, and the following 10 Plagues should show how God feels about racial slavery. Exodus 21:16 “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death." Sounds like condoning slavery to you?

Sources: www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4896
www.gotquestions.org/Bible-slavery.html
www.allaboutworldview.org/slavery-in-the-bible.htm
www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/feedback/2007/0202.asp

Synthetic Life

"A common argument used by theists to support their belief in God, is that life is so complicated it can only have been made by God. Often this is accompanied with the assertion that there is a "vital force" that separates living things from non-living things, and that God is the source of this "vital force"

This article starts off with a HUGE claim, the claim that scientists have created life. The funny thing is, however; that right afterwards they spend some time making the argument that a virus is considered a life form. Even today this is still debated, so it's debatable whether or not, assuming they did in fact create a virus, it's considered a life form. Some arguments for why it couldn't be a life form:

• They do not grow


• They do not respond to stimuli


• They do not consume anything for energy


• They are not made up of cells


• They are not a member of any kingdom


• They do not have a metabolism


• They cannot replicated their genetic information without a host

(Found on http://www.wikianswers.com/ and www.beyondbooks.com/lif72/2c.asp)

Another thing that is somewhat ironic about this, is that they believe by creating it they have show evidence for evolution. To cite Rhoblogy:

intelligent agents working in a controlled (by intelligent agents) lab that was designed by intelligent agents and constructed by intelligent agents intelligently applied this and that chemical and environmental factor, intelligent learned from previous failures and intelligently tweaked this or that. The result? And intelligently-designed virus!

Interesting...

Now, there's one more point I'd like to make. There have been people who have created amino acids and organic compounds from inorganic substances, but there is a major issue. There is absolutely no reason to believe our atmosphere ever contained no oxygen, and when oxygen is present organic compounds cannot be formed. For example, the Miller-Urey experiment used what they thought was the atmosphere of early earth, but just took away oxygen in order to produce organic compounds. They even knew that there is no evidence for the earth having no oxygen originally, but believed we must simply not know how yet because evolution has already been proven correct. (Icons of Evolution)

Rhoblogy's take: http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2009/04/evilbiblecom-project-part-3-synthetic.html

Top 10 Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

Evilbible.com posted a top ten list of the ways to tell whether or not you are a fundamentalist Christian. Let's take a look:

10: You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

I don't feel outraged when someone denies the existence of God; it just makes me a little sad for them. I try to make people understand, not use the naive approach described here. That's the purpose of apologetics, to give reasons for our faith.

9: You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that we evolved from other life forms, but have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

I don't feel dehumanized with the Bible because it talks about how much God loves us and that he cares for us enough to send His Son to die for us, how could that dehumanize you?

8: You laugh at polytheists, but believe in a Triune God.

Shows what they know about the meaning of Triune. Also, I don't laugh at polytheists, I don't laugh at any other religion.

7: Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about when God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in the "Exodus" and ordered the extermination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including men, women, and trees!

For one, he killed firstborns, not all the babies, more research issues. Here's a link explaining these instances: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/notkill.html. I do have issues with atrocities attributed to Allah, and I also realize humanity has made mistakes in the name of God, but is by no means a reason to say Christianity is wrong, it means people mess up.

6: You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

The Holy Spirit did not have sexual relations with Mary likes it's implied here, God implanted a fetus. Again, I do not laugh at Hindus, somebody has a very ugly belief of who Christians are. The rest makes sense if you know the Bible, he was killed as a perfect sacrifice because he did not sin, and was willing to do this. He came back to life by conquering death, and ultimately sin. And he ascended because he had beaten death, he need not die again.

5: You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

They weren't Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents, they were witnesses to God's glory, and were definitely NOT guessing. I haven't spent my life doing this, but it'd be a good way to spend it. Atheists call evolution a fact, and if that were the case there would be no "loopholes". There are way too many for it to be a fact.

4: You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

For one I'm non-denominational, so I don't believe all rival sects will go to Hell. It's the most tolerant and loving because our God is infinitely Holy, and cannot be in the presence of imperfect beings. Jesus gave us the opportunity to become perfect, and if you don't accept it there's nothing more to be done. It's not our fault of how it is, and almost all other religions have the basic idea of a Hell as well.

3: While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

Very few people use speaking in tongues as proof for Christianity, first of all. Modern science does not contradict the Bible. The Bible deals with a God outside of time, matter, and space (aka Supernatural). Science deals with the observed natural. Science's boundaries are outside of the Bible. Furthermore, history affirms the events that happened in the Bible.

2: You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

For one the success rate is hardly that low, it doesn't always occur immediately. Also, God always has the final say, if you had a 2 year old child asking for a gun you wouldn't give it to him. We have extremely limited knowledge compared to the Almighty. Remember James 4:3 as well "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures".

1: "You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian."

For one this hardly has to do with Fundamentalism, but I'll play along. I find it personally sad that there are agnostics and atheists that have more knowledge than Christians do, and it really shouldn't be that way, but I don't believe that's the case with me and the evilbible.com staff.

A friend's view: http://rhoblogy.blogspot.com/2009/05/evilbiblecom-project-part-2-top-ten.html

And: http://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com/2009/09/top-ten-signs-you-are-christian-fundy.html

Jesus Never Lied

Another article on evilbible.com is a somewhat short one saying that Jesus lied about the power of prayer. It says if you look at these verses without adding anything to them, then they are blatant lies out of the mouth of Jesus. Unfortunately what those who read this usually don't realize, is that the thing they don't want added is the historical context, the "key" to understanding the meaning of the verse. The following are their examples:

1) Matthew 21:21-22. Taken out of context, of course it will sounds like a lie. In the cultural context moving a mountain is a common metaphor for doing something that is seemingly impossible, not literally moving one. Also, we submit our faith in prayer to God, so it is always He who has the final say. http://www.crivoice.org/commanding.html has a full article on this.

2) Matthew 7:7-8. Same idea

3) Matthew 18: 19-20. Same basic idea again, but slightly different. Of course it doesn't mean Jesus is literally with them, it's through Jesus we have the ability to come together and pray.

4) Mark 11:24-25. Exact same words as #1

5) Luke 11:9-13. Exact same words as #2

6) John 14:13-14. Same idea

7) John 15:7. Same idea

8) John 15:16. Same idea

9) John 16: 23-24. Same idea

Every single one of these is Jesus saying the EXACT, SAME, THING! This is actually one big example, shows a little about research again, doesn't it? I posted a link to a site which explains Jesus words in full, without unfairly adding to them.
Also, a great link from a friend more experienced in this than I am: http://atheismisdead.blogspot.com/2009/05/atheism-evilbiblecom-and-jesus-lied.html

"God Is Impossible"--The Conclusion of the Matter

Thus ends Chad Docterman's argument for God's impossibility. He says no rational and free-thinking individual could deny it. I think you, the reader, are a perfectly rational person that should now be able to see the many holes in Mr. Docterman's argument. If you do some serious research, you find out things Mr. Docterman didn't want to.

Of course, he has to end the article with a direct insult at the Christian community. He ends with saying that he chooses reality, when in fact he chooses a life without any obligation to any being greater than he is, and ultimately chooses death over life. As for my house and millions worldwide, we choose to serve the One And Only Yahweh, who was, is, and is to come, and is the only one who can redeem the entire human race from their sins. If you can believe in him, repent of your sins, and dedicate your life to Him you can experience the infinite joy those millions have, and live forever with God Almighty.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16

"God Is Impossible" Part 14--The Omniscient is Suprised

Evilbible.com says here that the omniscient Christian God has emotions such as anger and frustration that we only feel when there is something we cannot change. He also is suprised by new information, and there should be none if God is truly omniscient.

www.christianteenforums.com/God-emotionst62950.html has a small article about this. God had emotions and we experience them because we are made in His image. God's emotions, however; are different from ours in the sense that they are perfect, and do not need the same stimuli we do to provoke them. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways are not your ways, says the Lord" Isaiah 55:8. Even when anger is mentioned, it is always right behind the word righteous when referring to God.

"God Is Impossible" Part 13--The Omniscient Changes The Future

Evilbible.com's entire argument here is two sentences: A God who knows the future is powerless to change it. An omniscient, all-powerful, free-willed God is impossible.

How exactly does this make sense? Omniscient knows He knows all, that means He can see every possible outcome of a given situation based on his interference, so he can make a free-willed decision on what he'd like best, and the limits on what he can do with it are non-existent because of his omnipotence. Again Mr. Docterman's claims are unfounded.

"God Is Impossible" Part 12--Unfulfilled prophecy

Evilbible now states that there are prophecies in the Bible that haven't been fulfilled. This is a unfounded claim simply because many refer to end times, which obviously are still yet to come.

The only example they give is saying Isaiah 7's prophecy is not fulfilled in Matthew 1 like the author portrayed it. They say Jesus was never called Immanuel during his lifetime, and the two kingdoms it refers to don't make sense, so they couldn't be referring to Jesus.

Actually, Isaiah himself had a second son named Maher-shalal-Hashbaz. He came by a prophetess who Isaiah had married, but at the time he gave this prophecy to Ahaz she was unmarried and a virgin. The two kingdoms refer to Israel and Syria, two countries near Judah that Ahaz was afraid of. Part of the prophecy said that at the time his son could tell good from evil they would have new rulers, and that came true. Hence, they called the child Immanuel (God Is With Us).

This appears to merely show that it referred to Isaiah's son and not Jesus, but look up Isaiah 8:18. He states that his children are signs and wonders of the Lord almighty, so Maher-shalal-Hashbaz was a sign of Jesus yet to come in the same fashion!

Also, there is a youtube video that talks about the many prophecies that have been fulfilled throughout history. Check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gL7w2coR3g.

"God Is Impossible" Part 11--Contradictory History

This section of the article "God Is Impossible" makes the claim that the Bible contradicts itself on matters of history. They make general claims to hundreds of instances, none of which I've previously come across.

The only example they give is saying that the Bible doesn't say whether Timnah was a concubine or a son. Timna is mentioned as a son and a concubine, but that is because Timna is the concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz. Genesis 36 talks about her and even gives her full clan information.

Also, Esau's wives seem to have a contradiction between Genesis 26-28 and 36, but this is due to a word issue. It would take a long time to explain so go to http://www.rae.org/esauswives.html

The last example they gave was that it contradicts itself whether Jesus lineage is through Solomon or Nathan. It's actually Solomon, it seems to go both ways because Matthew traces it back through Mary and Luke traces it back through Joseph. Again, evilbible.com fails to show evidence of having done research. Joseph's lineage is through Nathan, but remember Joseph was not Jesus's biological father. Mary's line goes through David.

"God Is Impossible" Part 10--Contradictory Justice

This and the next are probably the hardest ones to debunk thoroughly because they make very vague accusations.  They say that God's justice changes throughout the Bible without any examples but 2, both of which are easy to answer.

First of all, they mention David's punishment for taking a census.  1 Chronicles 1:17 actually tells us the "He" is SATAN, not God.  This is easily found with a more literal reading in the original text.  Also, a census is generally to take account of something you own, and Israel was by no means David's, at that point it was a theocracy.

The only other one they mentioned was Jesus fixing God's imperfect creation.  I've already shown creation was perfect until we messed it up, so that point has already been answered.

God has an unchangeable nature, so his sense of Justice never has and never will contradict itself.  There are websites answering Bible "contradictions" people struggle with.  Try:

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/merrit01.html, comereason.org, or apologeticsindex.org/b08aa.html

"God Is Impossible" Part 9--Perfection's Imperfect Revelation

This part is one of the least researched parts I've encountered, the thought that Mr. Docterman has put into it is extremely small. He says that if God was truly all-knowing He would have just put the knowledge of Him into our own brains himself instead of composing an "indecipherable amalgam of books which is the Bible as a means for avoiding the hell which he has prepared for us. The perfect God has decided to reveal his wishes in this imperfect work, written in the imperfect language of imperfect man, translated, copied, interpreted, voted on, and related by imperfect man," to use its own words.

For one thing, it figures that it would call the Bible an indecipherable amalgam. The thing is, we all bring our own predetermined beliefs to it whenever we read the Bible, which leads to some wrongful interpretations. The Bible was written more than 1000 years ago, so it just makes sense for you to have to look back at the phrases and symbols that would have made perfect sense to people then. The historical context is of utmost importance when you are studying scripture, a point with Chad Docterman obviously overlooked.

While it is true that it takes more than one lifetime to fully understand the entire Bible, understanding every bit of it isn't necessary. I cringe a little at using the word necessary because every Christian should attempt to spend time in the Word every day, but what I'm saying is that the reason God hasn't revealed His nature to us individually and completely is because He wants to see people seeking after Him, and one of the ways Christians do that is through reading the Bible to find out more about their faith. Not every sentence in necessary to salvation, but it does give more insight into the true nature of our Heavenly Father.

"God Is Impossible" Part 8--Belief More Important than Action

This is one every Christian should feel strongly about. The Bible says that anyone who hasn't accepted Jesus into their hearts will go to Hell, and it's true. We are all sinners and actions, no matter how good, can't atone for what we've done. There are people in remote parts of the world who may never hear the Gospel, but that's what the Great Commission is for: "Go and make disciples of ALL NATIONS." Christians are charged to go out and spread the Word of Jesus to everyone who hasn't heard it and try to make them understand why they need forgiveness.

Evilbible.com says that this means God is judging people on their beliefs rather than their actions. The fact is, if you've truly accepted Christ as your savior that IS an action. Satan BELIEVES in God, but that doesn't mean he's going to heaven does it? Also, if you are truly a Christian that should bring about a radical enough transformation that actions go along with it, without actions you are not a true believer. This doesn't work both ways though, just because you do actions doesn't mean you are a believer.

"God Is Impossible" Part 7--Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins

This is probably one of the weakest arguments evilbible.com makes regarding God's existence. It is an extremely obvious misconception and shows how little research the article writer actually did before they wrote.

They say God cannot exist because He is perfectly just (again limiting with the word perfect) and yet he punishes people eternally for finite sins that happened during their mortal lifespan. Furthermore, God couldn't be fairly punishing them because he created them imperfectly.

Quite a few obvious issues, see them? For one, Hell is a place without God's presence which is why it causes such suffering. God's presence is always around us here on earth, and is able to be around sinful creation because of the possiblility of redemption. When you die there is no more possibility for redemption, so you must go to a place without God's presence because an entity that is perfectly holy cannot be in the presence of imperfection. If you simply accept Jesus your sins become covered and you acquire ultimate and eternal joy through Jesus Christ. Not too mention I've already shown He didn't create us imperfectly.

"God Is Impossible" Part 6--All-Good God Knowingly Creates Future Suffering

The next section of Evilbible.com's article on the impossibility of God is that God is defined as all good and all knowing, and yet we have all the suffering today. They say that He knew who would end up turning away from Him or not every hearing His Word, so it doesn't make sense that He can be all-compassionate and create the people he knew were going to suffer for eternity.

They conveniently leave out the part about what caused this. Nobody but Satan and the demons would end up in the Lake of Fire without the original sin of Adam and Eve. We brought this on ourselves because God is all-holy, and therefore cannot be in the presence of beings that are imperfect. Even when God was with people his physical being wasn't because of His holiness. This is also why high priests that hadn't repented and sacrificed to atone for their sins died when they entered the Holy of Holies. The closest anyone has every gotten to seeing God's full glory on earth is Isaiah seeing part of God, and Moses seeing His back. God is even described as being so mind-blowingly holy, powerful, and full of glory that a look at God's front would kill an imperfect human on the spot.

Now back to the matter at hand. Suffering and pain exist because of sin. This is a basic, yet very important, concept. I've already shown why God wanted free will for us, but the free will resulted in sin which brought about all the pain and suffering there is. He cannot simply prevent people being born because of how they will end up. This is because He works within the natural laws He set in place, and this would clearly violate them. People make their own choices for how they'll end up. That's why Christians have the charge to spread their beliefs as far and wide as they can, and to give answers for their faith.

Another option God had would have been to not create at all. All creation exists to please God, and he is still pleased by what he has created. Nothing in nature displeases God, although people's corruption of God's originally perfect creation has caused unnecessary bloodshed between species. While He could have not creates humans because of those who wouldn't end up in heaven, He did create because he is still very pleased with those who do follow him. It is their charge to bring His Word to those people who haven't heard it so that more of his children end up with Him.


God ultimately created because His creation pleased Him and eventually it will once again be made perfect. This time, however; humanity will not mess up for the will have been purged of their sinful nature by the acts of Jesus Christ. The original sin is what caused humanity's suffering, you cannot accurately blame God for that.

"God Is Impossible" Part 5--The Freewill Argument

Evilbible goes on to say that the only objection to their last point was that humans must have freewill to be happy. For one, that's not the only objection, as I have already shown, but for the sake of argument let's continue. They say this is a weak argument.

The first point is that God just as easily could have created robots that would be happy without freewill. In fact, that way the creation would have stayed perfect. This argument is weak because God finds delight in our everyday lives, including seeking after him because of trouble we are going through. If there are perfect robots, they have no reason to seek Him whatsoever.

Their second point is that God could have created freewill, but merely to choose between several good options. The example they use for this is the angels who haven't sinned. This shows a lack of knowledge of the Bible because Satan and the demons were originally angels who attempted to reach the same level as God. Angels CAN sin, but they lack a sin nature which is the reason that humans mess up so much. We will ultimately be elevated above the angels because of the faith we need to follow God in spite of that, and without a sin nature and free will such faith would be meaningless.

"God Is Impossible" Part 4--Perfection begets imperfection

The next section of evilbible.com's argument talks about how God created humans, who in turn ended up sinning. Therefore, God's creation was imperfect, and something imperfect can't come from something that is perfect, so God must not be perfect. There are a couple big things missing from this argument:

In order to show this, Evilbible must first show that the world is, in fact, imperfect due to a creative flaw. There is another kind of imperfect that Evilbible.com did not recognize, the state of being made perfect. Think about Revelation for a minute. Revelation is when God ultimately exalts His Creation and it is made perfect. The world is imperfect because of being in the process of being made perfect.

Why God chose this method, we can only speculate. The only thing we know is that Adam and Eve are the ones who messed up the original good (not perfect) creation. Satan's role is conveniently left out in this article. Satan is the one who began warping the good desire for knowledge that Adam and Eve had, and they decided to attempt to fulfill themselves rather than turning to God. The path that the world then went down allowed God to show that He keeps His promises, He is love, and He is always glorified. The world will be without sin once God is done with it, and Satan will not be able to interfere.

Again, it is also worth mentioning that you cannot limit God with a man-made world and attributes described in man's language. God is beyond perfect, so perfect cannot be made a limit.