How can ANY moral, rational and kindhearted person justify the bible?

[MatureMcLeod]

I am anti-religion because all of the sadistic and cultish things in the bible, plus believers trying to justify it. In the bible, it talks about God creating evil (Isaiah 45:7), the Old Testament still applying today (Matthew 5:17-19), kind words and morals are like "dirty rags"  and "unclean things" (Isaiah 64:6), killing good and evil people (Ezekiel 21:3-5), dancing naked in public and making others childless for criticizing it (2 Samuel 6:14-23), making old men speechless for asking a question (Luke 1:18-20), God rewarding liars and killing people for believing in that lie (Genesis 20:2-3), God sending a lying spirit (1 Kings 22:22), God deceiving people (Jeremiah 4:10), eating your children (Leviticus 26:29 and 2 Kings 6:28-29), sacrificing your children (Genesis 22:1-2 and Judges 11:29-39), killing children who curse mother and father (Matthew 15:4), throwing innocent people off a cliff (2 Chronicles 25:12), cutting women in pieces and sending them across the country (Judges 19:29), buying wives for 15 pieces of silver and barely (Hosea 3:2), women can't talk in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), women can't teach (1 Timothy 2:12-15), women have to wear coverings just like Muslims (1 Corinthians 11:5-10), buying a wife with 200 d**ks cut off (1 Samuel 18:25-28), attempting to kill your followers for NOT cutting off the d**ks of little children (Exodus 4:24-26), killing gardeners (Isaiah 1:29), catching animals on fire (Judges 15:4-5), killing all the males and keeping the females as sex slaves (Numbers 31:17-18), God killing your child at birth and sending your wife to be gang raped (2 Samuel 12:11-15), stoning women who are not virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:13-21), calling a foreign woman "a dog" (Matthew 15:21-26), throwing a javelin through a interracial couple and also killing 24,000 innocent people (Numbers 25:6-9), giving people leprosy for following his laws (Numbers 12:1-10), sending demons into pigs and drowning them (Matthew 8:28-32), stealing from the poor to give to the rich (Matthew 13:12), followers have to commit suicide (Mathew 16:25), followers have to marry whores (Hosea 1:2), cutting off body parts (Matthew 5:29-30), followers have to hate family members (Luke 14:26), Jesus NOT bringing peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34-36), smashing babies against the rocks (Psalm 137:9), killing sons of sinners (Isaiah 14:21), forcing children to eat s**t (Ezekiel 4:12-13), beating children with a rod (Proverbs 23:13-14), sending children to burn forever if their parents were not married at birth (Deuteronomy 23:2), telling a person who just lost his father "let the dead bury their dead" (Matthew 8:21-22), killing disabled people (2 Samuel 5:, rejecting disabled people from worshiping him (Leviticus 21:16-23), killing people for trying to help (2 Samuel 6:6-7), killing people for turning around (Genesis 19:26), killing people for eating bacon (Isaiah 65:4), killing people for NOT striking prophets (1 Kings 20:35-36), killing people for picking up sticks (Numbers 15:32-36), killing people for working on a sunday (Exodus 35:2), killing people for going to church (Numbers 18:3), killing people when they are asleep (Judges 4:21), killing people for NOT having children with his brother's wife (Genesis 38:8-10), mauling little children with bears for making fun of a bald man (2 Kings 2:23-24), killing thousands because HE told them to take a census (2 Samuel 24:1-15), buying slaves from foreign countries, (Leviticus 25:44-46), beating slaves (Exodus 21:20-21), turning your grandson into a slave forever as well as his future children because your child tried to help (Genesis 9:20-26), buying your brother as a slave (Leviticus 25:39-46), selling your daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:7-11), sending your daughters to be gang raped (Genesis 19:4-8), forcing a rape victim to marry the rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), kidnapping little girls (Judges 21:20-24), kidnapping foreign women (Deuteronomy 21:10-14), sending innocent puppies to burn forever (Revelation 22:14-15), robbing animals (Matthew 21:1-3), stabbing random people (Jeremiah 48:10), hating some children before they were born (Romans 9:10-15), killing people for not washing hands (Exodus 30:20), pouring out water that someone walked miles to get (1 Chronicles 11:17-19).

I'm also using the KJV.
They changed some of these in newer versions.

[Recusant]

I am anti-religion because all of the sadistic and cultish things in the bible, plus believers trying to justify it. In the bible, it talks about God creating evil (Isaiah 45:7), the Old Testament still applying today (Matthew 5:17-19), kind words and morals are like "dirty rags"  and "unclean things" (Isaiah 64:6), killing good and evil people (Ezekiel 21:3-5), dancing naked in public and making others childless for criticizing it (2 Samuel 6:14-23), making old men speechless for asking a question (Luke 1:18-20), God rewarding liars and killing people for believing in that lie (Genesis 20:2-3), God sending a lying spirit (1 Kings 22:22), God deceiving people (Jeremiah 4:10), eating your children (Leviticus 26:29 and 2 Kings 6:28-29), sacrificing your children (Genesis 22:1-2 and Judges 11:29-39), killing children who curse mother and father (Matthew 15:4), throwing innocent people off a cliff (2 Chronicles 25:12), cutting women in pieces and sending them across the country (Judges 19:29), buying wives for 15 pieces of silver and barely (Hosea 3:2), women can't talk in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), women can't teach (1 Timothy 2:12-15), women have to wear coverings just like Muslims (1 Corinthians 11:5-10), buying a wife with 200 d**ks cut off (1 Samuel 18:25-28), attempting to kill your followers for NOT cutting off the d**ks of little children (Exodus 4:24-26), killing gardeners (Isaiah 1:29), catching animals on fire (Judges 15:4-5), killing all the males and keeping the females as sex slaves (Numbers 31:17-18), God killing your child at birth and sending your wife to be gang raped (2 Samuel 12:11-15), stoning women who are not virgins on their wedding night (Deuteronomy 22:13-21), calling a foreign woman "a dog" (Matthew 15:21-26), throwing a javelin through a interracial couple and also killing 24,000 innocent people (Numbers 25:6-9), giving people leprosy for following his laws (Numbers 12:1-10), sending demons into pigs and drowning them (Matthew 8:28-32), stealing from the poor to give to the rich (Matthew 13:12), followers have to commit suicide (Mathew 16:25), followers have to marry whores (Hosea 1:2), cutting off body parts (Matthew 5:29-30), followers have to hate family members (Luke 14:26), Jesus NOT bringing peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34-36), smashing babies against the rocks (Psalm 137:9), killing sons of sinners (Isaiah 14:21), forcing children to eat s**t (Ezekiel 4:12-13), beating children with a rod (Proverbs 23:13-14), sending children to burn forever if their parents were not married at birth (Deuteronomy 23:2), telling a person who just lost his father "let the dead bury their dead" (Matthew 8:21-22), killing disabled people (2 Samuel 5:, rejecting disabled people from worshiping him (Leviticus 21:16-23), killing people for trying to help (2 Samuel 6:6-7), killing people for turning around (Genesis 19:26), killing people for eating bacon (Isaiah 65:4), killing people for NOT striking prophets (1 Kings 20:35-36), killing people for picking up sticks (Numbers 15:32-36), killing people for working on a sunday (Exodus 35:2), killing people for going to church (Numbers 18:3), killing people when they are asleep (Judges 4:21), killing people for NOT having children with his brother's wife (Genesis 38:8-10), mauling little children with bears for making fun of a bald man (2 Kings 2:23-24), killing thousands because HE told them to take a census (2 Samuel 24:1-15), buying slaves from foreign countries, (Leviticus 25:44-46), beating slaves (Exodus 21:20-21), turning your grandson into a slave forever as well as his future children because your child tried to help (Genesis 9:20-26), buying your brother as a slave (Leviticus 25:39-46), selling your daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:7-11), sending your daughters to be gang raped (Genesis 19:4-8), forcing a rape victim to marry the rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), kidnapping little girls (Judges 21:20-24), kidnapping foreign women (Deuteronomy 21:10-14), sending innocent puppies to burn forever (Revelation 22:14-15), robbing animals (Matthew 21:1-3), stabbing random people (Jeremiah 48:10), hating some children before they were born (Romans 9:10-15), killing people for not washing hands (Exodus 30:20), pouring out water that someone walked miles to get (1 Chronicles 11:17-19).

I'm also using the KJV.
They changed some of these in newer versions.

Hello and welcome to HAF, MatureMcLeod. That's a very impressive listing some of the creepier parts of the Bible! I do wonder whether the softening of certain passages in the book in newer translations vs. the King James is legitimate, or motivated by a consideration of public relations.

I admit I had a deep antipathy to Christianity before I read the Bible and reading it didn't make that much difference, but I certainly agree that it can serve as a good reason to be anti-religion, or at least anti-Christian.

I'm glad you've decided to join the conversations here. 

Here are some threads you might find interesting:

Where did you get your username from?
10 Things About Yourself
Tell us A Bit About Where You're From
Photography
Non-religious pet peeves
Pets...what do you have?
How to tell your family you are an atheist
"Rules for Conducting a Discussion" by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler

. . . And of course, the Forum Rules.

I hope you enjoy your time reading and posting here! 

[MatureMcLeod]

Thanks, I learned about them using the Skeptic's Annotaded Bible and EvilBible.com.
I cannot unlearn what I learned.

[OldGit]

The bible is a mishmash of legends and primitive beliefs.  There's no need to criticise it unless people insist you believe every word and live by it.  So try to ignore it.

[Waski_the_Squirrel]

There is a lot of hate and evil in the Bible. There is also a lot of beauty and love. When I was a Christian, I cherrypicked, even though I claimed to follow the whole thing. After I became an atheist, I realized that I can still appreciate and even agree with the beauty and love. But, I don't believe in the supernatural stuff and certainly don't follow the evil parts.

In the end, it's a collection of myths and legends and a little bit of history (but be careful there about accuracy) that accrued over time.

Most Christians are harmless, but there is a subgroup that is scary. These are the ones who try to get creationism into schools, fight gay marriage, and so on.

[MariaEvri]

I am reading the bible currently (so far I am at ezekiel) and not only have I not seen wisdom but a lot of times I found myself saying wtf

[Asmodean]

Hm... Well... A rational, kind-hearted person would not need to justify the Bible - only the cherry-picked verses said person consciously adheres to, thus probably making them irrational and voiding the answer.

Trouble with religion is that when it itself is concerned, cherry-picking is perfectly everyday. In fact, you can pretty much be a fundamentalist without understanding or even being aware of any number of rules and regulations others consider to be corner stones of the "same" faith. For the rest, many religious people reserve the right to demand an ever-increasing amount of evidence ad infinitum.

There are as many gods as there are god-believers. There are as many Jesuses... Jesi... That damned name always gives me pause in plural. In any case, there are as many of those fuckers as there are Christians. Some of their justifications and rationalizations relating to truthfulness, wisdom or even morals in the scripture may well be weak when seen from the outside, but as long as they largely work for the believer in question, that person will continue believing.

The problem as I see it starts when those people attempt to inflict their faith on me. Then they do need to justify it and fail. That sometimes upsets them, which in turn pleases me, which upsets them more and suddenly we find ourselves happily carpet bombing each other's front lawns.

[Magdalena]

I am reading the bible currently (so far I am at ezekiel) and not only have I not seen wisdom but a lot of times I found myself saying wtf

Yes! Ezekiel is also my favorite wtf moment whenever I read the bible! 
The Spaceships of Ezekiel:

[Dave]

Problem is the Bible is a pair of books that have very little to do with each other!

The OT is all death and doom, it's the mythologisation of mankind's deepest fears and guilts, written by a bunch of Bronze Age Stephen Kings. The NT tends to have more sensible stuff in it - once you filter the magic bits out or find what they are allegories for.

[Pasta Chick]

Many people who acknowledge these types of passages view the Bible as allegory. There are so many different interpretations, it would be impossible to address them all, but in talking to people about it you can get a good grasp of it. This doesn't work for me personally, and is a large part of my non-religion. If everyone can make it up as they go, dafuq is the point of doing it at all?

Of course many prefer to cherry pick, bury their head in the sand and ignore those bits as well. In which case the answer is ignorance - they're good people who don't actually believe or even know what they're claiming to believe.

[gentle_dissident]

Rational? The religious are Schizophrenic by definition.

[Recusant]

Depends on the definition, of course.

Anyway, we try to keep the straight venom in check around these parts.

[gentle_dissident]

Depends on the definition, of course.

Anyway, we try to keep the straight venom in check around these parts.

No venom. I care for these people every day.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to understand what is real.[2] Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, hearing voices,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia

[gentle_dissident]

The real bad guys here are the religious leaders. Preachers will tell you that the best time for conversion is when a subject is destitute. Preachers will tell you that the only part of the Bible they don't consider allegorical is the divinity of Christ. Preachers and politicians take advantage of the religious. They make commands backed by god. That's two sources of authority the religious feel compelled to follow.

Shortly after CNN came on air, they held an interview with two members of the American Corp of Social Engineers. One of them said they like Christianity because it makes people easier to control. I can find no proof this organization existed, though. Perhaps CNN was producing fake news again.

[Recusant]

No venom. I care for these people every day.

OK. A religious person is equally justified in asserting that all atheists are suffering from a mental disorder. I just have trouble understanding what that accomplishes.