god has no moral compass

First of all, let's keep the debate civil. I more than adequately addressed the verses you submitted (far more than 10) and if you are not going to pay attention to me, then there really isn't a debate. You're simply wanting to get on a soapbox and shout. Second, the hand dealt to me is not in the least monstrous. it is my hand and I accepted knowing my material well enough. Nor will I be squirming. I have nothing to hide from, but you seem to have ignored your requirement of proof of your claims. Third, you used verses, without context, to establish your challenge. The assumption is that these verses are true events as they are stated and thus must be refuted. Yet, your claim is that they are not truth, so you can't logically argue that the Bible is brutal unless you acknowledge the events are true. Also, God must be real, as your claim states, "God has no moral compass". You logically assert that God exists. You must keep to the debate you initiated. Yet, I am not one to back down from a good mental exercise and welcome any challenge you may bring :D. Now, to head you off at the pass, if your next claim is that God does not exist, there is no proof of that as well. Science nor reason establish such an irrefutable claim. Though people like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hutchins will claim so, their claims have been summarily answered and reasoned much like Henson's "Dossier of Reason". Therefore, I urge you to draw your own conclusions and points or we can just copy and paste all day long. However, and this is a big however, historians agree that there had to once exist the Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus of the Bible) who traveled the roads around Jerusalem and preached to the masses and did many amazing feats. This isn't up for debate because of how we authentic ancient manuscripts and history is through eye witness statements and harmony of texts. Jesus (Yeshua) is one of the most well established people in history due to this fact. Simon Gathercole has written on this fact over and over. If we change the rules of how we dictate historical figures and events to rule out Jesus due to the amount of writings, also beyond the Bible, the details of facts, and the harmony of the writers, then much of our ancient history will vanish as well. It has been said, "There is more evidence Jesus existed than any other figure more than a thousand years old." Fourth, let's take your reply, apart piece by piece. Yet, I feel the need to remind you of the rules of a truth statement. It must be beyond rational doubt. I) Text as the most unreliable -- uhm -- I'll just use my own logic here. Oldest known story ever, "Epic of Gilgamesh" we have multiple versions of it and they are all very similar and intact, couple thousand years old. Oldest known law, Hamurabi's code, also intact, thousands of years old, somewhere around 95% identical to each one we've found (maybe exaggerate yet still very close). Egyptian hieroglyphs still in tact. Homer's writings, though not all dated back to Homer's hand, largely intact, millenia old, and still largely in agreement with one another. The Torah of today and compared to those found in the Dead Sea Scrolls -- identical, centuries old. How do you mean unreliable? Please elaborate. Please provide an example that can be rationally examined. II) Discussion on the Bible's translation is, at best, spurious. Assuming that Henson's assertion is indeed the case, and we ignore voluminous studies to the contrary, then even your use of the verses to assert God has no moral compass is faulty because your own use of the verses would be inaccurate. Yet, I won't just make a claim and pretend it is fact, so let's look at what experts in the field have to say: (Concerning the New Testament) "Our modern translations have been based on older and even older manuscripts. For example, the King James is a fantastic translation - in its day a landmark translation of the Bible into English - but it was only based on a handful of Greek manuscripts and those were very late. Not to fault Erasmus or the King James translators who put that together - they were using the Greek manuscripts that they had. Modern translations of the Bible are going back even further into the history of the text because we now have available to us even older manuscripts, whereas Erasmus only had medieval manuscripts available to him. We have manuscripts that go all the way back to the 2nd century. We have fragments that go back to the early part of the 2nd century and all of those have been taken into account when new translations are made.The King James is not the foundation for any modern translation - ancient Greek manuscripts are. With modern English translations, you are getting a more reliable translation based on more data, based on more scientific discovery, and based on more available manuscripts which are older and which are considered by most experts to be even more reliable than the medieval manuscripts used by Erasmus." I could spend all day discussing Equivalence Translations and how they work, but at this point, it's safe to say your point, that one translation is based on another translation on another translation on another translation is faulty since modern translations use the oldest of materials available and not other translations for veracity (The Message not withstanding). We have over 24,000 copies of the New Testament books all within the first and second centuries, the earliest being dated to 68 AD and their harmony of text is almost perfect. Your claim is false. How about the Old Testament you say? Same story. We could even bust into a the concepts of ostensible truth versus perceived truth, but I think this piece is settled. The burden of proof is upon you now, as you claim the various copies disagree with one another, I can't think of a single scholar who has studied the texts and agrees with that statement. Bart Ehrman is perhaps the most critical of the translations and most well known, but even he acknowledges that the manuscripts we have are more than ostensibly accurate to today's manuscript. So this calls into question the entire Dossier of Reason at this point. His facts are ignorant as to how the translations exist and relate. Also, point to availability, are you now claiming more knowledge than God (remember your own premise assumes He exists) to say that you understand divine revelation (stories abound) as well as how God knows each person and what lies in their heart? Romans 3 suggests that those nations who have not had access to the God's law are not held accountable to the law, yet still have the availability to know God. I find it troubling that you refuse to respond to any philosophical problem posed. Is God subject to Human limitations and understanding? III) No, I would like for you address the questions posed to you and respond to the challenges. The burden of proof for your claim still lays heavily at your feet. At this point, my response to your host of verses stands quite prominent. You have moral quandaries for which you must answer and provide substantive replies to. IV) Uhm, again, texts have lasted the test of time. V) How is acknowledging that the Bible has some brutality in it means that morally it shouldn't exist? That is a non sequitur at best. Are humans plush toys and we all hop around in fields of rainbows? No! I've lived and worked in 3rd world nations. Life is brutal. Yet the Bible's purpose is about hope. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, perhaps, one of the defining pieces on this called the "Nature and Destiny of Man". "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness." These points by Niebuhr are the core topics of the Bible. Jesus's blood sacrifice which was outlined in Leviticus and the law set by God (which remember, you established that God exists and that the Bible is true in your initial claims) is about forgiveness and love. God's love, Jesus's love, gave us forgiveness and hope that the brutality of this life will cease and be made right in the end. VI) Last but not least, the burden of proof of your claims rests on you. You made the claim you must support it. At this point you have claimed that the Bible can't be trusted (refuted in this post) and yet used verses from the Bible to shout your accusation (faulty logic). Finally, your response does not forward your claim that God has no moral compass and you have even more points to engage. Again, I eagerly await your response. :)