I've spent about 2 days reading sceptic stuff criticizing the Bible and have yet to find anything substantial from them.
I found this "god hates shrimp" site and ended up reading and researching more about the dietary laws in the Bible. Here are the parts I find relevant:
Old Testament Jewish Food Prohibitions:
(Leviticus 11:1-47)
(Deuteronomy 14:1-21)
New Testament Doing Away With Food Prohibitions:
(Matthew 15:10-20)
(Acts 10:9-16)
So I think these "skeptics" are Bible illiterate idiots that couldn't be bothered to actually read the whole bible and to do any serious research. The only thing that is making my mind meltdown right now is Matthew 5…
"For I tell you truly, until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished."
(Matthew 5:18)
biblehub.com
This part is quoted by skeptics a lot. I need help to understand it. I've thought about it in different ways and here are some interpretations I've come up with:
1. Jesus has already fulfilled the law so they can be changed now? I guess that would mean that in Matthew 15 and Acts 10 he must have already been crucified at that point?
2. The law is valid… except those parts that have been done away with, in which case, Matthew 5:18 is worded wrongly?
3. The Law means God's Law… which is not the same as that which is laid out in Leviticus. Leviticus is not entirely legit.
This is making me wonder if the Bible is in fact fallible. I am mostly leaning on the 2nd interpretation btw and thinking that Matthew 5:18 Jesus wasn't being serious there. I guess it's okay for someone to say "it's all valid except x, y, z" but the thing is he didn't immediately follow up saying that and then give the exceptions, the exceptions are given quite awhile later in Matthew 15.
I find it hard to believe that god actually wants us to restrict our diet. At least when I was studying Hinduism before when they suggest not to eat onions, they have an actual reason for it which is also supported by later scientific findings, which is that onions/garlic/etc. has a chemical in it that passes the blood-brain barrier, and makes your brain foggy; and you can confirm this by seeing how it's harder to meditate after eating such foods. There might be some kind of reason not to eat pigs and ravens and snakes and whatever else was prohibited under Leviticus 11:1 but I'm really not sure.
On a side note I'm starting to take notes about what Jesus says is sin. e.g. "Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca,’ will be subject to the Sanhedrin." (Raca being an expression of contempt). I've been wondering for quite awhile what is sin or not and totally lost about the matter and I'm thinking I should start to take the word of Jesus above everyone else in the Bible, so I'm trying to study what he said in the red text parts, and weighing it against everything else, and plan on doing an experiment of living by Jesus's word alone (which a lot of it is all about not even having impure thoughts) and see what happens in my life as a result of abstaining from sin in this way. I want to see if I can be even better than those Pharisees.