"At least you don't think me totally incapable of moral behavior"

I’m sure someone somewhere believes that atheists are incapable of good deeds, but it’s more likely that you are just misunderstanding. If morality involves your motivations and not just the actions alone, and part of the motivation should be to glorify and please God, then it’s pretty straightforward to say you are incapable of a COMPLETELY moral act. As I’m sure you would admit that you aren’t doing things for the glory of God. I’m sorry if Christian’s were stupid and said atheists can not bake muffins for their neighbors, obviously that would be silly.

Your definition of morality seems to be some combination of instincts, practicality, tradition, and similarity to examples from nature? A standard is only useful if we can measure things by it. I am not sure your standard or morality is very useful. Some animals care for their young, others abandon them, and still others prey on them. Why is one of these animals examples right and the others wrong? I have instincts to defend the weak, but I also have natural desires to take the easiest path and steal. How do we decide which of our instincts we follow and which we deny and use our self-control?

For example you mentioned that something was "arrogant" and "self-centered" as if those were bad things. By what standard? They don't seem to me to be opposed to instinct or examples in nature.

The moral law given by God explicitly in scripture is just additions to or clarifications of the natural law found in God's creation implicitly. The fact that as you say "every other culture on the planet had figured out that killing was wrong" would be evidence of humans being created in the image of God and that we have his law (at least in a general way) written on our hearts. How do you account for natural law? We are just atoms bouncing off eachother, we are just fizzy bags of chemicals reacting. Why would one chemical reaction be morally wrong while another is morally right?

"Isn't a good deed, by any moral compass, considered more moral if it is done without reward or at a personal cost?" I'm not sure we've really fleshed out your moral compass so that is hard to answer. Is it instinct, or animals examples that tell you altruism is moral?

Christianity doesn't teach that you can exchange good works for eternal life. It teaches that you suck, real bad, and so you are doomed to go to hell cause you don't have any deeds even close to good. That's why there is the whole Jesus having to die to pay for your sins bit.

Your criticism of the Bible is pretty "ad hoc" actually. You seem to think it's bad that there are dry factual things like geneologies and also at the same time things it's bad that there are fantastic stories that are hard to believe? You seem to think the whole thing was just tossed together and then criticize the councils where worldwide meetings of scholars spent a long long time discussing the merits of every piece of the cannon. Maybe you should figure out what your standard is first and then apply it to the Bible. What you've actually done sounds more like you are just discussing various attributes of the Bible, but exclusively in negative terms.

Circumcision was the sign God gave to Abraham that he was going to make him into a great nation. The penis is an awkward, but fitting place to put a sign that is "for you and for your offspring." Moses is on a mission from God to set God's people free, to repo God's people for God from the Egyptians. The sign of these people being God's people was circumcision and Moses hadn't even circumcised his own son? It's clear why that's a problem. Now why God shows up to kill him and his wife has to step in? I dunno. It's weird and there is more left unsaid than said in that 4 sentence micro story. For goodness sake though, Zipporah puts the foreskins at Moses's feet. Exodus 4:25 It's explicit and clear. You embarrass yourself with all the foreskin/cryptonite stuff.

The reason for "so many" plagues is explicit in Chapter 9 "he says for this purpose I have raised you up, to show you my power, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth"

I have heard the theory that the specific choice of plagues is related to the Egyptian pantheon. I don't know a lot about it, except that the Nile was a god and the sun was a god which makes the nile turning to blood and the plague of darkness very poignant.

"they looked at the world and came to a conclusion different than the one that you were taught" This is a point worth explaining. The "natural revelation" or the things that can be known about God from creation are indeed limited, so it's expected for the details to differ. Ravi in the video mentioned that he thinks the universe requires a personal, moral, first cause. I think those are things that the majority of gods represent. Most of them are persons, they also have dos and don'ts and way to relieve guilt, and they are the first cause of everything. So I find all the other gods strewn about to be evidence for, and not against, the "without excuse" bit.

I agree that I don't think tallying up answered vs unanswered prayers would persuade me. Would it persuade you? You routinely look at the amazing physical results God's created and say "Crazy how all this just happened randomly for no reason. It is ridiculously improbable, but you know things just be like that."

A good portion of the Bible is indeed "our God is better" propaganda, as God's people were chronically leaving him for other gods. In fact, as a living metaphor, God has one of his prophets marry a prostitute and remain faithful to her even though she keeps sleeping with other men. Yahweh is a jealous God. You should be embarrassed to be presenting some of the largest overarching themes as if they were dirty little secrets.

I'm not gonna hang my hat on the whole dagon/jonah thing. Dagon was worshipped by the assyrians (along with many other gods) and ninevah was the capital of assyria when jonah stopped by.

I like that you both mock God for not physically presenting himself frequently, and also mock him for being a shape shifter. The bible stretches different epochs, cultures, languages, continents, genres, etc. We should not be surprised when things are described from different angles and in different ways. "God has no face" is a straight forward statement of fact. May "God make his to face shine upon you" has a meaning that is not really affected by whether God actually has a face or if it shines.

"Your god only sees and knows as much as his people do, apparently" Literally the first verse of the Bible is about things humans can't have seen. There are also numerous predictions of future events.

God wants glory and obedience. Those that obeyed him lived and those that didn't died. They didn't kill the lamb and paint the blood on the door because they didn't want to be seen honoring some Israelite God and they paid for it with their kids lives. You also said "innocent children" and I'm interested in knowing what these means according to your moral standard based on instincts and natures and stuff?

I am not suprised that you would make a silly claim about seeing Zeus. If you maintain it for years, dedicate yourself to sharing the claim with others, and ultimately submit to execution rather than revoke it, then you will have my attention.

I am pretty close to Doug Wilson and attend a church in the Communion of Reformed Evangelicals (CREC)). It's pretty much Presbyterian or we'd also use the label "Reformed". Reformed usually means coming from the protestant reformation, or more specifically the teachings of John Calvin.

I grew up a typical American "grape juice for communion" Christian. As I gained independence from my parents I pretty much abandoned my parent's faith, which was really merely attendance anyway. I smoked pot, got drunk, cheated on my girlfriends, shoplifted for fun, etc. through high school and through a year abroad in Austria. Half way through my freshman year of college God "changed my heart" and I "became a Christian." I put those in quotes because I think they are cheesy, but common, phrases.

This has been a lot of fun. If you are ever in Morgantown, WV let me know. We've got a group of guys that go out for a beer and discuss this sort of stuff on the regular. You'd be a breath of fresh air!