""God, as seen through the eyes of the biblical account cannot exist."

"The literal meaning. Implications, interpretations, context, all that is all well and good in it's time and place. That place is not here." "By making Christianity from the "poems" of the Bible, they become more than poetry, they become the only pillar upholding an entire supernaturalist philosophical system. Serious philosophy can only be investigated on it's literal meaning, not it's literary. This debate is not about the value of the Bible's poetry, it is about the value of the Bible's facts." "Um... reading something "logically" MEANS reading it literally." It surprises me because you seem very intelligent, logical and intellectual. However, you want to chuck logic at the door by stating that in order for something to be read logically it must be literal and nothing could be farther from the truth. Take for example George Orwell's criticism of communism in the book "Animal Farm" This was not a literal book yet made a very strong logical case against communism. How about Homer's "iliad and the odyssey" did they not give a logical examination of human nature through literary elements? Ultimately, logic in and of itself is a incomplete discipline because it cannot examine matters of experiential knowledge, metaphysics, and intangibles. Logic in it's western form only has limited application to biblical studies. Deductive reasoning can't be used to pick apart eastern logic nor can it be used to interpret the scriptures. Regardless of where you have tried to take this debate, this debate is about what the Bible says about God. To state that you believe that God as seen through the scriptures cannot exist you have to KNOW WHAT THE BIBLE IS SAYING! Your sophomoric attempts at interpreting a 2000 year old document by taking one verse from here and another from there and putting them together and saying they contradict, is absolutely logically absurd. To think that the only way to logically read something is literally is to go against what every professor of literature in the entire world would say. Some of the greatest pieces of philosophy ever written were not written literal (according to you, not logical). They were satire, they were comedy, tragedy, or a discourse narrative. You honestly cannot win this debate because you view the bible a list of quotes and not as a document that must be handled with the same literary criticism that all literature must come under. Also you are dealing with a divide between the western mindset and the eastern mindset (the mindset by which most of the Bible was written.) To understand the value of the bible as literature you have to understand the mindset of an ancient Jew. You take one verse from a book of poetry and say that contradicts with a book of prophecy and think that you have seen something that all Christian Theologians have put there head in the sand about? I don't think so. It is illogical to think that you can read a book from ancient Israel like you would read a book from America. Finally, who defines what logic is? Westernized America? No. I submit to you that the logic of the east, while it is not linear in nature, makes as much sense when it analyzed from the mindset of an easterner (a non-linear fashion). You act as though logic means that it must be broken down into a linear, outlined, progression but leave no room for non-linear elements. Your analysis of the biblical text you have presented is incorrect because of the rigidity of your logic. Your analysis has not given credence to the fact that the bible is a collection of books from the east. If you are going to say that the God that it claims exists doesn't, then you would have to know the framework by which it is written. You are essentially arguing that something written in Chinese (might as well be) is making claims it's making without knowing Chinese If I am going to criticize a book written by a Atheist claiming Christianity isn't real, I am going to read the entirety of what he says and analyze it from a holistic perspective taking into account the time period in which it was written, the writer himself, and the philosophy background he comes from. "By making Christianity from the "poems" of the Bible, they become more than poetry, they become the only pillar upholding an entire supernaturalist philosophical system." Incorrect. In fact I don't know one theologian who would take one passage from a book of poetry and build an entire theology off of it. Church Doctrines are formed off of themes as seen through scripture. This is the discipline of hermeneutics. I could make anyone sound contradictory by taking one sentence they wrote and comparing it to another sentence they wrote somewhere else. They may not have been contradictory though I falsely made them look contradictory by ignoring context. You have not proved that the God of the Bible cannot exist because you haven't made a good case for your interpretations of the biblical passages. Thank you for Debating