DogGone,
My apologies where my lack of abilities in writing have caused you confusion. Note that in my comments, while I make reference to the type of "faith" generally being argued against here, I also state that the majority of religious people in the Judeo-Christian tradition, namely the Orthodox-Catholics, do not employ such a view. These are the same which adhere to a very strict practice of reading Scripture in light of critical analysis. "Many" have the views we argue against here, but they are outnumbered by a far larger and better-equipped majority.
No one wins a game of chess by merely knocking over the opponent's pawns. Those are the little guys. They don't carry the power. If our skills at chess allow us to always knock over the pawns but little more, we can't say we are effective at playing chess.
The same is true when it comes to attacking the "faith" of Christians. We might have very good arguments for knocking down the beliefs of the "little guys," and if you read through this and many other threads on this site I admit that they are very good. We have very, very good thinkers on this forum.
But we kid ourselves if we think this does anything at making us successful against the views of Christianity.
The recently released (2011) NABRE is one of the most respected Bibles in academia today. It is not only the official Catholic Bible used in the USA, it also contains one of the most critical apparatuses found in a modern Bible version. Agreed, it is not at a level that a Jehovah's Witness could understand, but if we are to be successful at our arguments against faith, religion, and the Bible, we need to go after the big guys on the board, not the pawns.
Our arguments need to be effective enough to argue against what you read in the many lengthy introductions and footnotes throughout. The entire work is freely available on the web. Just go through two of the books, namely Genesis and Daniel and read the many explanatory footnotes to the various verses throughout in each chapter. Believe me, you can't do it in just a few hours. Their arguments and views are highly complex. That is the arsenal in the deposit of the big players on the board.
And that's just two of their Bible books, only what is found in the basic text of the NABRE, and that does not mention the study notes that come with the newly released Oxford Study edition of this translation, or the Little Rock edition. Not to mention other translations used by this denomination, such as the NRSV, it's Oxford study edition, and the New Jerusalem Bible (editions with full translator's footnotes). This is just some of the English language versions in one religion. They don't even pay attention with what the little guys on the board believe, so our best arguments here don't even register.
A war is not one when all you have is matches when the other guy has WMDs in its pockets. Our arguments are nothing if they don't compete with the big dogs. Running with the pups doesn't count. For us to be a success at taking down the beliefs of religion, we have to run at the speed of their top players, know their strengths inside and out, and take down their views and arguments. Otherwise, we've done nothing but take out the little guys who will just run for protection from the big guns who we have left standing.
"Faith" as we are arguing here, may be a crutch for many. But so is believing we have accomplished something by disproving arguments for religion that in the end don't really matter. Anyone can knock over a pawn. You are only successful when you can knock down the big guys. That's what it will take if we want to be successful at this argument.
