Quotes from Dan Barker

if a miracle is defined as some kind of violation, suspension, overriding or punctuation of natural law, then miracles cannot be historical.

Pat Robertson

orthodox claim of scriptural inerrancy and reliability.

Massacring men, women, and children does not raise an eyebrow, but keeping a little war booty is "evil." Notice that throughout the Old Testament, "evil" and "wicked" are not moral judgments. Saul is called "evil" because he disobeyed orders.

When it comes to being eaten or slaughtered, the God of the Old Testament is egalitarian. Other than that, you are better off being born a male.

That was the birth of religion, a shameful covering to hide our true human nature and pretend that we don't know what we know.

There it is. That is the source of women's inequality in the Middle East, the Western world, and every country infected with biblical belief. In the New Testament, Paul (or someone pretending to be Paul) pounces on this pretext for patriarchy:

When Elizabeth Cady Stanton said that "The Bible and the Church have been the greatest stumbling blocks in the way of women's emancipation," she was obviously referring to the misogynistic God of the Old Testament.

This is evidence that goodness and wickedness in the bible have nothing to do with morality.

the bible is not a reliable source of truth.

evangelicals

The apologists have shot themselves in the foot.

evangelical translators are simply trying to paper over a discrepancy.

National Association of Evangelicals)

Holy Scriptures

T]he translators were united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the bible as God's Word in written form.

This is not the agenda of a team of objective scholars.

rigid evangelical position.

the translators of the NIV and the Living Bible and other evangelical apologists have dishonestly tampered with the meaning of scripture, using a phony argument (a phone argument!) in order to deceive the readers and disguise an embarrassing discrepancy in their so-called "holy book.

I took about a year to fully adjust. Like there's a death at the family or a divorce, you don't just snap your fingers and it's over.

Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.

Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it cant be taken on its own merits.

Scientists do not join hands every Sunday and sing "Yes gravity is real! I know gravity is real! I will have faith! I believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. Amen!" If they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about the concept.

Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. It is intellectual bankruptcy.