"The Bible is a lot of things to a lot of people, but to Christians, especially, it is a source of inspiration and a guide to daily living.

To others, the Bible is a historical document and a source of controversy.

To others still, the Bible is a self-contradictory mish-mash of arcane rules and proscriptions, mostly relevant to long-dead cultures in far away places.

What is the truth in all of this?

The reality is that it is all true to an extent, and equally nonsensical at the same time. The Bible has meaning to all its readers, but it is important to consider that the meaning it has is informed by the prejudices the reader brings to it.

To really understand the Bible and what it intends to say to present generations, it is necessary to understand who wrote it and why, and the cultural context in which it was written. The story is an interesting one, in no small part because the story is so much messier than most of its advocates would have you to believe. And its very messiness is why it is a story rarely told in any completeness to Christian audiences.

The overriding theme of the Bible storylines is the theme of cultural conquest. Conquest by the Hebrews over their enemy neighbors, culturally by the Jews over the Israelites (used here to mean members of the ten "lost" tribes), the Christians over the Jews, the Catholics over the Gnostics, Marcionites, and other pre-Catholic factions, and on and on. In some cases, the conquest is recorded as a historical, often military event. In others, it merely is recorded as a change in content and context, an alteration of the storyline and outlook and worldview.

And the story of the editing and translation of the final form of the Bible into what today is regarded as holy scripture is a story not just of cultural conquest, but of political intrigues, and not just between competing bishops, but with secular political authority itself. It is as if the U.S. congress or president were to decide what constituted Christian doctrine and scripture, and everyone went along - at the peril of their lives - until no one even questioned the accuracy of the official viewpoint.

The effect of its origins as selected parts of whole bodies of scripture, written by at least a hundred and fifty different people in dozens of different places at different times, many centuries apart, and for different reasons, colors what its authors wrote. Yet that simple fact is widely ignored, both by people who naively follow what they read in it as the inerrant word of God, and by more liberal scholastic theologians, who seek to understand its historical context as well as a body of doctrinal scripture, which they often blindly follow, even though they know full well its messy origins."

http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

The day and month names have pagan origins so it cancels out :-}

http://www.therefinersfire.org/days_months2.htm

I think you're taking bits and pieces of some things you've read and assembling them as necessary to present yourself as an informed individual. That takes courage in this day and age when the archeological record of the period you propose to present with biblical defense testimony beckons you to look just a little bit harder at what you bring. Besides bringing your own prejudices to defend the biblical argument, which is normal for most people who choose to make such a defense, you do not present the entire work in context here. I doubt you've taken on the burden of proving to yourself the context of the bible relative to the archeological record. Do that and then come back here with your views. It's that very grounding in context that has created the path to atheism. The bible itself is the proof and logical source of atheism. Give it a good examination against the archeological record and then report back here.

1) Governments formulate laws (which set absolute limits), not morals. It is possible for people to live within the law yet have vastly different moral codes.

2) The bible is an evil book. I would not want to live near anyone who used it for moral guidance.

3) Morality is a result of evolution.

"Morality is an evolved repertoire of cognitive and emotional mechanisms with distinct biological underpinnings, as modified by experience acquired throughout the human lifespan."

http://www.the-brights.net/action/activities/organized/arenas/1/area_b/s...

@thetruth1120

"This government was built off of religion"

Where in gods name did you learn your history?? (irony :)
I'm not an American and don't live in the US, but still know better!

Some collected quotes:

"The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy."
~ George Washington

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
- James Madison

"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"Religions are all alike — founded upon fables and mythologies."
~ Thomas Jefferson."

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
~ Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to John Adams (April 11, 1823)

"The Christian god is a three-headed monster, cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three-headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."
~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"It is from the bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder, for the belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man, and the bible is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind"
~ Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

"All national institutions of churches whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. … My own mind is my own church."
~ Thomas Paine 'The Age of Reason' (1794)

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
~ Tripoli of Barbary. Art. 11. – Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion".
~ Thomas Paine

"The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church and the State."
~ James Madison a.k.a. 'The Father of the Constitution of the United States of America'

“I can not conceive otherwise than that He, the Intimate Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.”
~ Ben Franklin

“In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“The Judeo-Christian religion is the most bloody religion that ever existed.” Adams’ treaty with Tripoli specified that the American government “is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.”
~ John Adams

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”
~ James Madison

“Of all the systems of religion that were ever invented, nothing is more … repugnant to reason … than this thing called Christianity.”
~ Thomas Paine

A near-contemporary, the Rev. Dr. Bird Wilson, “perused every line that (President George) Washington ever gave to the public and (did) not find one expression in which he pledges himself as a believer in Christianity. … He was a Deist and nothing more.” Wilson judged all of the first six presidents to be “infidels.”

Thomas Paine noted in “The rights of Man,” “Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all law-religions, or religions established by law.”