Exploiting The Ambiguous Case™

AntiXtians LOOOOOOOOOOOVE to exploit The Ambiguous Case™. Take for example the idea that God actually endorsed child sacrifice, despite reams upon reams of passages condemning the practice. Not only that, but God Himself going so far as to say in Jeremiah 7:31 that HE had never commanded such a practice, let alone thought of it (or that it was a good idea!)

Yes, there is evidence that the Israelites sacrificed children. Dude, I'd be surprised if there WASN'T. After all, the Bible is FULL of instances where the Israelites turned away from God and started following Other Gods™--such as Baal/Ashtaroth, etc. However, the skeptics like to seize on the Old Testament requirement to "redeem" the Firstborn, and make it sound like they were to be sacrificed.

In light of all the other passages, such an interpretation makes 0 sense. God laid out DETAILED instructions on what to do how and where, and when it came to sacrifices, only specific clean things were permissible. HUMANS were NOT on that list. The major reason being? Humans are sinful and they're the ones that need redeeming! Sacrificing a human (imperfect, at that) to redeem a human is futility.com. (This is also why Jesus was an exception to the No Human Sacrifice Rule™, because Jesus was perfect and sinless).

Similar exploits of the Ambiguous Case by skeptics:

-Jepthah's Daughter (Judges). Sorry, people don't cry over never being married if they're going to die. They cry over never getting married if they're going to LIVE CELIBATE. see here: http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jepthah.html

-Wolves "evolved" into dogs, therefore microbes evolved into Man. That's a huge leap there, and they make it sound so simple, but in actuality the logistics of a single-celled organism giving rise (eventually) to everything from Arthropods to Vertebrates is quite staggering. Completely new genes had to have somehow poofed into existence. Evolutionists like to take the tack of replicated (doubled) genes, thus freeing up one gene to mutate into something "new." That only goes so far, not to mention all the various combinations that are made of EPIC FAIL (and thus instant death) that would have to be weeded through. You know, there's a reason there's something called Haldane's Dilemma...

-Genesis 1&2 allegedly contradict. Umm, no. Person is listening to noobs or people that think they know Hebrew. In any case, whoever it is never learned what Toledoth is. Genesis 2 is a recap of 1 and it's focusing mainly on Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden--not Earth in general.
Genesis contradictions?
First published:Creation 18(4):44–45September 1996
Browse this issue
by Don Batten
Between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve, the KJV/AV Bible says (Genesis 2:19) ‘out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air’. On the surface, this seems to say that the land beasts and birds were created between Adam and Eve. However, Jewish scholars apparently did not recognize any such conflict with the account in chapter 1, where Adam and Eve were both created after the beasts and birds (Genesis 1:23–25). Why is this? Because in Hebrew the precise tense of a verb is determined by the context. It is clear from chapter 1 that the beasts and birds were created before Adam, so Jewish scholars would have understood the verb ‘formed’ in Genesis 2:19 to mean ‘had formed’ or ‘having formed’. If we translate verse 19 as follows (as one widely used translation1 does), ‘Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field …’, the apparent disagreement with Genesis 1 disappears completely.
The question also stems from the wrong assumption that the second chapter of Genesis is just a different account of creation to that in chapter 1. It should be evident that chapter 2 is not just ‘another’ account of creation because chapter 2 says nothing about the creation of the heavens and the earth, the atmosphere, the seas, the land, the sun, the stars, the moon, the sea creatures, etc. Chapter 2 mentions only things directly relevant to the creation of Adam and Eve and their life in the garden God prepared specially for them. Chapter 1 may be understood as creation from God’s perspective; it is ‘the big picture’, an overview of the whole. Chapter 2 views the more important aspects from man’s perspective.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v18/i4/genesis.asp

-The whole business about "slavery" in the Bible and how God condones it--therefore he condones New World (black) slavery.
Well, "slavery-as-we-know-it" (i.e. that which occurred in the Western World, notably enslavement of African peoples, but not limited to such--the origin of the word "Slav" (Slovakians) means "slave.") is not the "slavery" of Ancient Times. The "slavery" encountered in the Bible specifically fell into two groups: those captured in war/sold by foreigners, and those who sold THEMSELVES (voluntary servitude). This was a survival mechanism, and God Himself forbade the capture of a fellow Israelite for selling into slavery--in fact imposing the death penalty for such (Deut 24:7 If a man be found stealing any of his brethren of the children of Israel, and maketh merchandise of him, or selleth him; then that thief shall die; and thou shalt put evil away from among you.) Apparently this isn't even good enough for SAB (Skeptic's Annotated Bible), as the dude marks this as "injustice". Umm, WTH? No pleasing you is there?

-murder-death-kill
All Demolition Man kidding aside, Skeptics seem to have a problem with context when it comes to whether "Thou Shalt not Kill" means "murder" or is more broad. It certainly can't extend to all killing, logically speaking. For the most part, it's logical that the word (ratsah) means unjustifiable killing. Most Jewish scholars hold that in the context of the commandment, this is pretty much what ratsah means. There are other places that ratsah is used which does not refer to murder. But this is like complaining about the definition of the word "is." It all depends on the context. The true "kill" word (all-encompassing meaning) in Hebrew is harag, however. The elasticity of the term ratsah, however, can apply to someone merely wishing death upon another person. In any case, it is clear that any killing of human beings is to be avoided where possible. Manslaughter is not murder, but the commandment seems to indicate then that actions should be taken to prevent accidental death of another person. After all, God gave instructions on how to make roofs safer to make sure people don't accidentally fall off them and break their neck.

There are more instances of Exploiting the Ambiguous Case™, many many more...