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[SHAD0Wdump]

And yet we have the many cases of the Israelites not more than two generations later turning right back around and acting as if he didn't matter.

As for the flood? Do realize that these people weren't like your next door neighbor. It's entirely possible there was a critical mass of people just going off the deep end of asshattery and there was so little hope of whipping proper morals into them so long as they roamed the earth that he tried taking them off of it. I theorize it also didn't work too well with those people still being self-centered even after death, hence why he promised to never do it again.
 Do also note that this is one of the oldest stories in the bible, it could be incredibly difficult to know if it has been maintained well, let alone just how bad things were that God would have to do that.

[Lidku]

After the flood, how did the guy repopulate? Did he have countless incest with his wife and other daughters? Just as adam and eve did? It all just doesn't make sense! It's all over the place.

[SHAD0Wdump]

After the flood, how did the guy repopulate? Did he have countless incest with his wife and other daughters? Just as adam and eve did? It all just doesn't make sense! It's all over the place.

Yeah... That's Genesis for you...

 Honestly, there's only three ways to go about this stuff, either this stuff is real and you have to believe God allowed for all of this by preventing incest from being an issue or creating more life in the backdrop... Or this stuff is just so old that there's reason to doubt in its authenticity... Or finally consider Genesis as a poetical book since it was written by Moses and this stuff isn't really a perfectly accurate representation to begin with.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

After the flood, how did the guy repopulate? Did he have countless incest with his wife and other daughters? Just as adam and eve did? It all just doesn't make sense! It's all over the place.

Yeah... That's Genesis for you...

 Honestly, there's only three ways to go about this stuff, either this stuff is real and you have to believe God allowed for all of this by preventing incest from being an issue or creating more life in the backdrop... Or this stuff is just so old that there's reason to doubt in its authenticity... Or finally consider Genesis as a poetical book since it was written by Moses and this stuff isn't really a perfectly accurate representation to begin with.

... or that none of it happened and we all just evolved from a chance combination of particles. Which is the theory I support!

[freeformschooler]

After the flood, how did the guy repopulate? Did he have countless incest with his wife and other daughters? Just as adam and eve did? It all just doesn't make sense! It's all over the place.

Yeah... That's Genesis for you...

 Honestly, there's only three ways to go about this stuff, either this stuff is real and you have to believe God allowed for all of this by preventing incest from being an issue or creating more life in the backdrop... Or this stuff is just so old that there's reason to doubt in its authenticity... Or finally consider Genesis as a poetical book since it was written by Moses and this stuff isn't really a perfectly accurate representation to begin with.

... or that none of it happened and we all just evolved from a chance combination of particles. Which is the theory I support!

Yeah, once you hit the "passage X or Y is merely a poetical representation of an event that may or may not have happened, and if it did, there's no guarantee it would have been anything like the Bible says," you start on a downward spiral of well-what-about-this-passage and land face first on Charles Darwin's cold body.

Hey, since Orthodoxy was mentioned earlier in the thread, here's what Chesterton had to say about all this:

"IF evolution simply means that a positive thing called an ape turned very slowly into a positive thing called a man, then it is stingless for the most orthodox; for a personal God might just as well do things slowly as quickly, especially if, like the Christian God, he were outside time. But if it means anything more, it means that there is no such thing as an ape to change, and no such thing as a man for him to change into. It means that there is no such thing as a thing. At best, there is only one thing, and that is a flux of everything and anything. This is an attack not upon the faith, but upon the mind; you cannot think if there are no things to think about."

...You know what, I'm not sure what he meant by that. Never mind.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

lol, well put!

Honestly when it comes down to it, the only reason I have an intense hatred of religion is religious violence. I wouldn't mind it if everyone could just walk away, but for some reason dogma prevails or reason in some points! So is man a slave to religion? Some men and women are, others don't care, in my mind however it's the ultimate hypocrisy and institution of foolishness on this mortal plane.

[SHAD0Wdump]

 Just a note however... I'm not perfectly sure what's gone on with the old testament in the millennia it has been around. But when it comes to Christian faith, the focus is supposed to be on the new testament, The old testament is still there mostly for the sake of tying Christianity to its Jewish roots and keeping that, or what is left of it, available.

[MDFification]

If I may interject, more like religion is a slave to the tyranny of mankind. A religious person generally believes that their doctrine has divine origin or inspiration, but so far as I can tell the vast majority of it is distorted by generations of people twisting it for their own advantage - if not ignored for being inconvenient or used improperly to justify one's actions.

Take the bible, for example. The document as we know it originated 400 years after the death of Christ, when the church edited it heavily. Much was cut from it, much was undoubtedly altered in translation, and more simply ceased to be referenced  by mainstream Christianity (for example, the prohibition on shaving and the wearing of mixed cloth are not followed, despite being directly adjacent to the ban on homosexuality, which is followed and exceeded).

Nothing stops a person from desiring what they wish, and a person will almost always act towards fulfilling those desires if socially acceptable. Unfortunately, the human is not a perfectly rational animal, and frequently desires the irrational or harmful.

EDIT: In response to the OP, you have to ask yourself whether or not it's necessary to completely lose faith in the whole of Christianity due to its failings. I personally don't believe in the existence of god, and refuse to accept contradiction in my beliefs - I can't bring myself to interpret the bible literally. Still, I believe in the fundamntal principles of Christian morality (the basic virtues), and I follow it as best I can. I see no reason to exclude myself from church services in my community because I believe differently from my fellows - I enjoy the services and come out of them feeling spiritually strengthened. I'm probably weird for this.
I see religion as philosophy that takes its analogies at face value, basically.
Remember, if you feel like you still maintain your Christian values, there's always agnosticism. It's actually no laughing matter - it's a pretty deep philosophy. Doubt of god's existence allows you to question dogma while maintaining your core values. Being unsure is actually a pretty good choice IMO.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Take the bible, for example. The document as we know it originated 400 years after the death of Christ, when the church edited it heavily. Much was cut from it, much was undoubtedly altered in translation, and more simply ceased to be referenced  by mainstream Christianity (for example, the prohibition on shaving and the wearing of mixed cloth are not followed, despite being directly adjacent to the ban on homosexuality, which is followed and exceeded).

Now this is something I'm curious about. I've recently read a book titles 'The Case for Christ' by Lee Strobel, and in it he cites quite a few theologians about the authenticity of the new testament and the existence of Christ. They date the original texts to within a generation of Christs death, even down to as early as 30 years after.
 Is there any proof against this?

[Dutchling]

They date the original texts to within a generation of Christs death, even down to as early as 30 years after.
 Is there any proof against this?

This is probably the first time I've heard someone claim they're not from a generation or two after ~30 CE

[SHAD0Wdump]

They date the original texts to within a generation of Christs death, even down to as early as 30 years after.
 Is there any proof against this?

This is probably the first time I've heard someone claim they're not from a generation or two after ~30 CE

I still have the book with me, let me track down where they say it...

Spoiler: taken from the conclusion of The Case for Christ reciting Strobel's findings (click to show/hide)

"What clinched it for me was the famous study by A.N. Sherwin-White, the great classical historian from Oxford University, which William Lane Craig alluded to in our interview. Sherwin-White meticulously examined the rate at which legend accrued in the ancient world. His conclusion: not even two full generations was enough time for legend to develop and to wipe out a solid core of historical truth.
 Now consider the case of Jesus. Historically speaking, the news of his empty tomb, the eyewitness accounts of his post-Resurrection appearances, and the conviction that he was indeed God's unique Son emerged virtually instantaneously.
 The 1 Corintians 15 creed, affirming Jesus' death for our sins and listing his post-Resurrection appearances to named eyewitnesses, was already being recited by Christians as soon as twenty-four months after the crucifixion. Mark's account of the empty tomb was drawn from material that dates back to within a few years of the event itself.
 The gospels, attesting to Jesus' teachings, miracles, and resurrection, were circulating within the lifetimes of Jesus' contemporaries, who would have been only too glad to set the record straight if there had been embellishment or falsehood. The most primitive Christian hymns affirm Jesus' divine nature.
 Blomberg summed it up this way: "Within the first two years after his death, then, significant numbers of Jesus' followers seem to have formulated a doctrine of the atonement, were convinced that he had been raised from the dead in bodily form, associated Jesus with God, and believed they found support for all these convictions in the Old Testament."
 Concluded William Lane Craig, "The time span necessary for significant accrual of legend concerning the events of the gospels would place us in the second century A.D., just the time in fact when the legendary apocryphal gospels were born. These are the legendary accounts sought by the critics."
 There was simply nowhere near enough time for mythology to thoroughly corrupt the historical record of Jesus, especially in the midst of eyewitnesses who still had personal knowledge of him. When German theologian Julius Müller in 1844 challenged anyone to find a single example of legend developing that fast anywhere in history, the response from scholars of his day -and to the present time- was resounding silence."

Looking it over again my statement might be a little bullshit, might not. He does mention a fragment of John dated back to between 100-150 A.D.
 Though I do notice that you mention '~30 CE', which may be a number I mixed things up with.
 Besides that though there's very strongly worded statements in that book. I'd encourage people to read it and try to pick it apart if they can.

[BFEL]

As for the flood? Do realize that these people weren't like your next door neighbor. It's entirely possible there was a critical mass of people just going off the deep end of asshattery and there was so little hope of whipping proper morals into them so long as they roamed the earth that he tried taking them off of it. I theorize it also didn't work too well with those people still being self-centered even after death, hence why he promised to never do it again.
 Do also note that this is one of the oldest stories in the bible, it could be incredibly difficult to know if it has been maintained well, let alone just how bad things were that God would have to do that.

The problem I have with that is that we effectively only have Gods perspective on the matter. And "proper morals" is retardedly ambiguous and in my experience usually breaks down simply into "only things I agree with" which further breaks down into "things that serve my purposes" which since you brought up the idea that those people were "self-centered" I refute that they couldn't possibly be as self-centered as God is as written.

In short, my main conflict of belief with most "religious" people is the topic of divinity. I wholly reject the concept that one beings viewpoint can be inherently more right "just because"
I am very much an egalitarian and feel that all sentient beings have valid viewpoints. I certainly won't claim to AGREE with those viewpoints, but they should at least be acknowledged as more then "not what I believe and thus wrong"

Could God have been fully justified in his actions? Theoretically yes, but the reasoning given for that justification is thin enough to split atoms. And worse it is accompanied by the concept that God is ALWAYS right and ALWAYS justified, which is just positively baffling.
All we have is a singular account that openly flaunts the fact it was written by the victor. And that's not just from the Flood, but EVERY story in the Bible is like that.

Without sufficient alternate viewpoints of events all we have to compare these characters to are KNOWN characters from the rest of history and from our other stories.
And frankly God doesn't look too good in that light.

[SHAD0Wdump]

The problem I have with that is that we effectively only have Gods perspective on the matter. And "proper morals" is retardedly ambiguous and in my experience usually breaks down simply into "only things I agree with" which further breaks down into "things that serve my purposes" which since you brought up the idea that those people were "self-centered" I refute that they couldn't possibly be as self-centered as God is as written.

In short, my main conflict of belief with most "religious" people is the topic of divinity. I wholly reject the concept that one beings viewpoint can be inherently more right "just because"
I am very much an egalitarian and feel that all sentient beings have valid viewpoints. I certainly won't claim to AGREE with those viewpoints, but they should at least be acknowledged as more then "not what I believe and thus wrong"

Alright, I'm going to focus on this point for now if that's alright as there is alot of strong opinion and indeed both very little material(multiple sources for singular events) and lots of material(many sources of singular events) that you are trying to bring up, and it'll be very difficult for me to come up with answers if I'm trying to tackle everything at once, unfortunately I'm not sure how I can answer this without going into a rant of sorts so... Try to bear with me?

 For me, 'proper morals' is 'what most if not everyone agrees with'. Now... I want you to strongly consider this... If Genesis is to be taken at face value, we have mass rapists. Now in that situation, mass rape was considered by these people as perfectly acceptable, morally fine.
 Now the big trick here is even during that time there was people who were against it for some reason or another, perhaps knowing they'd be targets for this. Which side of the fence are you on in this case? Do you agree that mass rape is acceptable in this context?

 Of course, that is in the case that Genesis is literal, which is hard to believe at times. If it is poetic, then its use as proof that God is self-centered also starts to become questionable.
 I'd still believe that from my position the New Testament is a better source for us than the Old, because there's much more fresh material at hand.


 As for God being 'more right just because'... If God is to be believed as the creator of the universe, that'd apply to the mere concept of morals itself. He'd be defining what is right and what is wrong, and for us to define something as right when it is already defined in that matter as wrong would be on the same level as saying a stone should be weightless and float in the air.
 As it stands, we live in the same universe where stones do not float, and as for morals? We seem to be able to decide what is right and what is wrong for ourselves. The interesting thing there is we have that choice, if God created everything we know, he allowed us to make that choice, and it's possible that could be mere choice of interpretation, or active choice to define. It doesn't look like he allowed for the second at least in all ways, but never the less he allowed something there, which is interesting.

 Now that went off on a tangeant, but I'll admit I'm perhaps struggling to explain what I can.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

For me, 'proper morals' is 'what most if not everyone agrees with'. Now... I want you to strongly consider this... If Genesis is to be taken at face value, we have mass rapists. Now in that situation, mass rape was considered by these people as perfectly acceptable, morally fine.
 Now the big trick here is even during that time there was people who were against it for some reason or another, perhaps knowing they'd be targets for this. Which side of the fence are you on in this case? Do you agree that mass rape is acceptable in this context?

Only Sith deal in absolutes. Come on man, "with me or with mass rapists"? Not exactly a strong argument here, especially since killing almost the entire world in response to that is senseless if you're omnipotent. God could very well have used his power to nonlethally kept them from killing each other (don't even give me "that would violate free will", what the hell do you call a near-omnicide if not a violation of free will?) It's rather impossible for everybody to have been rapists anyway, so what of the fate of the people who weren't? There's also the rather obvious issue of the mass rape victims. What, am I supposed to believe they were all mass rapists as well, just existing in a society of endless prehistoric rape? In that case, what about children too young to rape anybody? The simple fact here is that even in the most depraved society, we're talking about the genocidal murder of many innocent people.

I'd still believe that from my position the New Testament is a better source for us than the Old, because there's much more fresh material at hand.

Jesus disagrees.

As for God being 'more right just because'... If God is to be believed as the creator of the universe, that'd apply to the mere concept of morals itself. He'd be defining what is right and what is wrong, and for us to define something as right when it is already defined in that matter as wrong would be on the same level as saying a stone should be weightless and float in the air.

DCT is a dark path to be going down. After all, if right and wrong are nothing more than the arbitrary whims of God, then we could consider all the actions of deranged cult leaders nothing more than misguided attempts to do the right thing. They thought God was speaking to them, after all. What if God spoke to you? Would you kill and torture if you thought it was what your deity wanted from you?

[BFEL]

As for God being 'more right just because'... If God is to be believed as the creator of the universe, that'd apply to the mere concept of morals itself. He'd be defining what is right and what is wrong, and for us to define something as right when it is already defined in that matter as wrong would be on the same level as saying a stone should be weightless and float in the air.

So because he started something that automatically means he is also directly responsible for every change that happens within that something for that entire something's lifetime?
Is a woman who gives birth automatically directly responsible for her child's successes? Their failures? Should we lock up the mothers of serial murderers because they created the murderer and thus DIRECTLY caused the murder to happen?

As it stands, we live in the same universe where stones do not float

Spoiler: A floating stone (click to show/hide)

I was gonna use an asteroid, because more stone like and higher chance of not being affected by any significant gravity (thus being "weightless") but this made my point more hilarious I believe.

WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?