Here's a good video from NonStampCollector on Youtube. It's one of the most frustrating arguments we encounter when we're tabling - any atrocious or despicable excerpt from the Bible or any "holy" book is brushed off and explained away as obviously being out of context, misunderstood, mistranslated, etc. The argument is terribly transparent, of course, betraying an obvious double standard when no cries foul are heard when one of the few nice places of the Bible are quoted.

This is one of the most insidious ideas that takes hold in religionists' minds - it's like they just decide that anything conflicting with what their pastor/youth leader/religious counselor tells them must be wrong somehow, ignoring that what they're deciding is wrong comes directly from the book that's supposed to be the root of their religion. It's much easier and less annoying to argue with someone that concedes the "bad stuff" in the Bible than it is to argue with someone who simply ignores it. It's like, isn't this stuff central to what you believe? If you've changed it so much as to deviate so far from what your religion actually says, why do you still worship it above any other idea that you've had? Why is it still holy if you've applied your own morality to it, distorting it beyond recognition past its name and its most contemporary teachings?

Looking at it objectively, the collection of bronze-age ravings of backwards men that is the Bible really is atrocious, and it's a shame and a danger that it's still taken seriously.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation has released its first RDF TV video, The Baloney Detection Kit, in which Michael Shermer of Skeptic Magazine describes the ten point skepticism kit:



RDF TV is off to a great start! This is a nice little kit for examining claims using a scientific and skeptical toolbox, together with good commentary from Shermer.

This kind of reasoning is a very important skill to practice, especially with the all too commonplace "baloney" being slung at consumers and other targets touting miracle supplements, magnet cures, other alternative medicines, free energy, intelligent design, etc.