Really, how do you know what the lord means? And what do you think faith is?

The lord is a Rorschach test and faith means that you don't believe that he is and then taking the blue pill.

I'd like a blue pill, are there any left?

I took it as precisely that and find that, too, quite simplistic. If his GF was taking Antigone very seriously, to a degree so that OP feels their relationship might suffer if he does not make an attempt to learn more about her way of thinking, would it be acceptable advice to say "It's a work of fiction - don't worry about it?" And if OP found a passage in Antigone that starkly contradicts his moral intuitions, yet his GF seems to value that particular tagedy very highly, would it suffice to say "It's a work of fiction - don't worry about it?"

Depends on your definition of "right". If I say "I almost died today" and you say "I gave fret a little scare today" - is one of us wrong? In what sense? It would - there we go again - take study to figure out what claims (plural!!) to "rightness" are actually being made by scripture, the religious groups that use them and which of those hold up in contemporary religious practice and theorizing.

If by fiction you mean "did not happen in the real world/does not conform to reality" - probably all of them contain fiction. So do, then, autobiographies, history books of any detail, the physics textbooks my father used in school etc. Some of scripture is likely entirely fictious (according to that rather simple definition). None of that, the religious will argue, tells you anything about its claim to being right.
Again - depends on what you associate with fiction. You will find comparably few central european christians claiming that the flood narrative is a historical account, if that's what you mean.

lol, I completely missed that. I gotta say, your point would look significantly less contrived if you hadn't posted it immediately underneath me giving a couple of specific book suggestions.

The red pill is so much better.

Possibly, relationships can work even with people who have fundamentally different views on life.

I already discounted this objection when I said "unless he fails to reconcile this issue and has a problem with his girlfriend worshiping such a jealous, petty god". (Or substitute whatever problem that he might conceivably have rather than my unwarranted specific example)

Surely they fail at the most fundamental level and that is their views on which gods exist? everything that follows from there, such as how those gods should be worshiped, how the intent and desires of those gods is interpreted etc etc, can only be wrong if the god(s) in question don't even exist.

Doesn't this raise numerous questions, among which are; How you can know which parts are accurate and which are fabricated? If that can't be known how can any parts be considered trustworthy or accurate? Why were the fabricated parts fabricated? What does fabrication say about how religions operate and what modern followers believe?

How can someone argue that the Noah story is clearly fabrication/exaggeration/myth and insist that the resurrection story isn't?

You're quite the marriage counselor, sir.
... not sure what exactly you're saying here, but if you mean to imply that, say, Christians deny that the God of Judaism/Islam is a God (and vice versa), you're wrong, obv. Furthermore, in antiquity, Gods were actually "translatable" from one culture to another. Claiming that another God doesn't exist was quite an alien concept to them. Third, while I can't speak for other religions, Catholicism accepts that other cultures reach God through other means (read: religious traditions). The church maintains that their way is the best way, but we've moved past extra ecclesiam nulla salus quite a while ago.

Sure it does. That's why it needs ... oh wait - I already mentioned that: STUDY!

Well I'm sure there's a chapter in the God Delusion on this?

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At least you finally did it right...

It seems like none of the the commentators ITT are defending the statement, as quoted, at face value. To me, it seems like a wicked claim. The type of claim, in fact, that makes me rather glad there is no reason to suspect such a god exists. Freteloo says that NIV might just be translating this foundational tenet of Christianity incorrectly and then goes on to suggest that perhaps it is not as bad as we think since the bible isn't actually logical and perhaps the 3rd and 4th generation wouldn't even be jews so it wouldn't apply. Not Ready first posts a different quote that seems contradictory, then posits that perhaps God is just lieing in this commandment to elicit some other good. Lemonzest points out the historical and cultural importance of such a passage. Perhaps it is only carlo who actually attempts to say that this surely seemingly bad thing might actually be a good thing, that it is good to punish 4 generations later for some tribal somethingorothers.

I suspect this pattern is largely do the indefensible nature of the statement, and so some form of "the statement isn't what it plainly appears to be" is the only way it can be defended. Sometimes a wicked statement is simply a wicked statement. Incidentally, many religions have such exclusivity clauses where there are incentives to worship just that deity, it is hardly just Christianity.

Context!

I think the general idea is that in the 10 commandments God is warning Israel that the nation will suffer if it commits idolatry - he is telling them of the consequences of turning from him and worshipping demons. But as with all of God's promises of judgement and wrath, there is a way of escape - stop doing it, turn to him, ask for forgiveness, etc.

From the larger perspective all of mankind is guilty before God - no one is innocent and all deserve his wrath. He deals with the matters of this life in ways that are difficult, sometimes impossible, to understand - see Job. In the end he is either just or unjust and you have to take a stand largely as a matter of faith.

The Bible is clear that God is just and a God of love, and also clear that we can't fully explain all that happens in this world. If the Bible said that God will punish someone who is completely innocent just because he wants to, I would not be a Christian. What it does say is that we can trust him. If we can't or if he doesn't exist, then there's no justice anyway. He is our only hope. But the fact that a nation will suffer if it turns from God and practices idolatry won't convince me that he is unjust - especially when, in the same verse, he explains how to avoid the consequences.

Have I missed some relevant point or does your argument indeed boil down to:

1) If the text is read literaly, it is indefensible
2) It is necessary to read the text literally
3) The text is indefensible

I think Uke is also pointing out that everyone ITT is coming up with different explanations in order to avoid what seems like a pretty nasty statement and there isn't even any consensus.

This is pretty standard ime though.

Ok, so what's the specific problem that you see here? That there are different explanations, that they avoid (or seem to avoid), that there is (or seems to be) a nasty statement or that there isn't any consensus?

A man holds a gun to another mans head, saying

"dont do X, or I will shoot you, and your children, and your childrens children. Of course, I am explaining to you how to avoid the consequences, by just not doing X. Oh, by the way, I love you"

God allegedly loving me lots and wanting to communicate with me yet being completely unable to do so effectively seems like a pretty big problem given his powerfulness.

Ok, do you care enough to put this into an actually coherent and respectable argument or do you just want to communicate some vague level of scepticism?

Basically all of the above. Could also add in the old chestnut about an omnipotent god clearly having problems with communication given the above. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he'd be better just sending his word down to our kindles and then updating or changing it as required.

Ok, but you do realize how incredibly silly (from a text linguistics point of view) it is to object to a text having multiple interpretations, don't you?

Or:

A man is going down a road where a band of murderous thieves is waiting for him, to rob and kill him, and his children, etc.

You do realise how incredibly silly (from almost any point of view) it is that an omnipotent god can't put out a clear, coherent message.

And how is that a counter to the argument that texts are by their very nature polysem?

Because I'm not referring to texts in general. I'm discussing what is supposed to be THE most important text there is, giving us the word of god and instructing us on how to live our lives. This is too important a text to be leaving us in any doubt as to the meaning of the words within it. As I've already said, an omnipotent god should be capable of providing a clearer message.