The Morality of the Bible is Outdated

For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith. -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf) [3] A) Hitler grew up a Catholic, received communion, and never publically abandoned his Catholic identity. I would agree with those who say that he was not adhering to Christian values when he committed his atrocities, and even that he privately despised the doctrines of the Church even as he admired and emulated its organization hierarchy and propaganda strategies. There was considerable Catholic opposition to Nazism, and so I don’t want to give readers a false impression that I blame the Church directly for Nazism. Nevertheless, I am not nearly as quick as you are to absolve Catholicism from answering for its fair share of responsibility for what happened during the Third Reich. [4] B) Christians, including Catholics, had been pouring hatred atop Jews like fuel for centuries through Blood libel [5], combined with popular Christian interpretation of the scripture Matthew 27:24-25 [6]. Hitler used Catholic religious tyranny as the model for his brand of Nazi political tyranny, as his own quote above supports. Sadly, even today there are high-profile and influential Catholics that still struggle with anti-Semitism [7][8][9]. C) Catholicism doesn’t simply get to spill the gasoline, light the match, and walk away with its finger pointed at Richard Dawkins for the holocaust, as if it were his fault. [10] By your “worst atrocities are by atheists” argument, you are basically implying that Secular Humanists are the same as Nazis, simply because neither group believes in a God. This is just as absurd as claiming that pacifist Pennsylvania Quakers are the same thing as Al Qaeda jihadists because they both do believe in a God. Voters should hold you accountable for this. D) Your commentary on DCT fares no better. People are not lifeless paintings, so your comparison is an obvious Faulty Comparison fallacy [11]. I wonder how it would play out if later today, you came across an old man standing over his son, who is tied up on an alter. The old man raises his knife high, about to plunge it into the young man - would you decide to confront him? Call the police? If you did demand an answer as to what he’s doing and why, suppose he replies back, “Oh, it’s okay, I’m his father, I can do whatever I want with him. Besides, God told me to.” Somehow I doubt you’d be more satisfied with his answer than I would be. Compare the story I describe to the one in Genesis 22:5 – 22:8 and then tell me if moral understanding has not evolved over the past few thousand years. E) Humans have come up with all sorts of explanations for why reality is the way it is. In ancient times, if cities were destroyed, it was assumed that it must have been God’s wrath against the gays (compare to the story of Lot in the book of Genesis). A modern, scientific understanding of the world does not rely on the premise that homosexuals cause volcanic destruction. Instead we attribute this kind of phenomenon to the shifting of tectonic plates. Which set of beliefs someone subscribes to will lead to different action plans. I submit to the reader that the approach of modern science better explains the situation than the Bible, and that the implied strategy of science, which is to avoid the construction of cities near volcanoes or fault lines is a more effective strategy for avoiding fiery catastrophe than the implied strategy of the Bible, which is to keep God cheery by killing gays (Leviticus 20:13). If it seems that I’m being satirical, let me point to the unfortunate truth that many, especially in America, do still believe that toleration of gays has a causal relationship with natural disaster [12][13] F) What probability do I attribute to your suggestion that maybe I’m wrong and the Israelite war god called YHWH exists, and somehow evolved from a nasty jerk in the Old Testament into a hippie Trinity in the New Testament? Well, I imagine that such a probability might be well approximated by whatever probability you assign to the statement “Zeus exists.” They do, after all, have the same epistemological standing. G) You've asked me to establish what particular parts of the Bible I think have become obsolete. Just to review what was raised so far in this round: I) the scripture in Matthew which was vague enough to allow for an interperetation that contributed to the death of 6 million Jews II) the idea that children are property of parents, and can be killed at their discretion (story of Abraham and Isaac, but also see Deuteronomy 21:18-21). III) the story of Lot combined with Levitical laws demanding the death of homosexuals But for your reading enjoyment, I will provide additional objections that demonstrate the Bible's obsolescence that were not covered earlier in the round: IV) Jesus' hippie-sytle hostility towards wealth and economic prosperity [14] V) Slavery was viewed as acceptable, and there were laws governing its administration. We generally agree today that it is never okay in any circumstance [15] That should be enough for the time being. There's a lot on the table for you work with. Readers, please note that Con never objected to my assertion that the Humanist Manifesto III advocates a morality which is more likely than Biblical morality to lead to prosperous and harmonious society. If not countered, then the moral superiority of the Humanist Manifesto III would necessarily mean that the Bible is outdated in the same way that a computer with superior processing power makes older models obsolete. Since he's new, I'll still give him an extra round to refute this instead of considering the argument dropped. Note: For my opponent's convenience, paragraphs are lettered to allow for easier identification of the arguments he'd like to rebut. 3) http://www.nobeliefs.com... 4) http://anarchistcoloringbook.files.wordpress.com... 5) http://www.adl.org... 6) http://www.levitt.com... 7) http://www.ncregister.com... 8) http://www.cnn.com... 9) http://www.youtube.com... 10) http://www.aolnews.com... 11) http://www.logicallyfallacious.com... 12) http://www.huffingtonpost.com... 13) http://www.advocate.com... 14) http://tryingtofollow.com... 15) http://www.evilbible.com...