Given your views of scriptures and historicity I don't think there is any objective argument you would accept. :)
FK: By your reasoning all I would have to do to destroy Orthodoxy would be to adopt the same claims, but add that it is fine to have sex with small children.
May I ask you why do you accept the OT?
Because Jesus did and the Holy Spirit put it into my heart to accept it. There may even be one or two other Christians on the planet who might agree with that. :)
It doesn't teach sex with little children, but it certainly has its share of cruelty, slavery, massacres, murdering children, and a host of other things we find morally reprehensible.
God does not teach us in general to do any of those things either. God specifically ordered certain people to commit massacres at specific times. He does not say that we should do the same "whenever". Other men are not ours to do with as we please, but it's different with God.
You are telling me that if the OT said it was OK to have sex with little children you would accept that?
Yes, either for them then or for me now if it remained into the New Covenant. However, the OT teaches against doing that. I ACCEPT God's word. I do not hold it up to needing to pass my test of what I think is right and wrong. If I did that, I would define my own God instead of God defining me.
That takes us back to the Exodus and God killing all the Egyptian firstborn as something that was "just?" Doesn't the OT imply that massacres are "just" if they are Theopneumatos (God-breathed)?!?
I don't think it implies it at all, it says it plainly. :) Of course God's wrath is just. Who are we to complain about it? God-breathed means something much more than someone's best guess at an interpretation.
In which case, how does one know for sure that it is? Of course, every side "justifies" its atrocities by a subjective belief that their God is true and that they are providentially guided to destroy the enemies of their God.
Well, I certainly do not feel free to go out and kill someone because I had an inkling that God might have wanted me to do it. From the Biblical descriptions of God's direct contacts with individuals, I get the strong idea that if something like that actually happened to me, I would know it. :) God contacts me every day, but not like that.
Let me know if you wish to use any of the ‘head against brick wall’ giffs.
Try me. :) I consider objective arguments. It's just when they morph into pink unicorns on Jupiter based on faith alone that I begin to disregard such "objective" arguments.
God specifically ordered certain people to commit massacres at specific times
Like that psycho who drowned her five children? Anyone can make such a claim, especially when it is politically desirable or when you need a divine "justification" for your conquests, crimes, whatever.
I ACCEPT God's word. I do not hold it up to needing to pass my test of what I think is right and wrong
But your acceptance that it is God's word is based on your own conviction, as it is that the Koran is not. Muslims would believe just the opposite. It all defaults to us individually. Maybe one day you will realize that the world starts with us and that what is true to us is not necessarily the objective truth.
Kosta: Doesn't the OT imply that massacres are "just" if they are Theopneumatos (God-breathed)?!?
FK: I don't think it implies it at all...
Oh yeah? I think it makes it very clear that they are "just" because they were God-inspired. That's not what Jesus taught, however. John the Baptist maybe would have, but not Jesus.
God contacts me every day, but not like that
Really? Why would that be necessary if there is an "indwelling Spirit" inside of you? Isn't that presence always "on?"