CP3S said:
Essentially, what we have here is a book that claims itself to be the word of god, and it makes further claims that everything written in it is from god (2 Timothy 3:16), and even further claims that everything from god is perfect. You take these things and willingly accept them to be false claims, but still find great merit in this book regardless. What???
Like a feces laced batch of brownies, how can you pick out the good stuff from the bad? Clearly, you'd have to assume any and all claims made about scripture and gods word being perfect, or about the Bible being god's word, are themselves corruptions and blatant falsehoods. It is now a ridiculously slippery slope. And this book is the bases, the very foundation, of the Christian religion.
I think the Bible is actually very clear that not everything from God is perfect. In specific, what the Bible implies in various places God's greatest creation, that being mankind, is also clearly pointed out to be quite flawed. And if his greatest creations are flawed, why is it so hard to believe that the message given to and received by and interpreted by those flawed creatures is imperfect?
That said, picking the good out of the bad, I could take this more specifically into LDS doctrine, but allow me to say in more general terms that the Bible tells us that those who have testimonies of Christ have the "spirit of prophecy." This means that we each have some degree of access to the mind of God. Obviously, we have been commanded to disregard certain laws in our day. But on things that are more vague, I think that the humble seeker can gain some understanding of what is right and what is wrong.
And now, for preemptive purpose:
What about those fundamentalists who feel God wants them to bomb abortion clinics? What about those who believe God commanded them to rape or murder someone? Etc., etc.
Well, it gets harder for me to defend general Christian doctrine when I'm coming from a very specific and unique perspective which actually IMO provides clearer answers. But again I'll simply say that a God of mercy clearly does not authorize specific individuals to engage in terrorist activities. Again, see my earlier post about God working with modern man. Our standards today, which are based largely on Christian beliefs and morals, clearly indicate that such is wrong. But man, I've already put more effort into this than I should, and sadly, I probably will have to let you have the last word because I can't spend the time to keep up the interesting debate.