Great arguments to use against Bible Thumpers!

[GeezUS]

That's not the really the point. The validity of ideas, whether they are influenced by a bronze age text or not (which they aren't, but are rather at most influenced by a developed culturally determined understanding of the text), is independent of the virtue of its disparate influences. Whether the thinkers were agnostics, Calvanist, or Catholic is not a testament to the value of the Bible as moral guide in any sense.

i apply the same logic to reckoning value from the bible, and the abrahamic religions in general. Regardless of who support the ideas or the values of some of those that influenced it a good bit of it has value.

I think that is a trite tautology.

That wasn't really a tautology.

The Bible is plenty useful to help understand the cultural attitudes of people who have held it as an important text, unfortunately it's mostly useless in that task without the aid of secondary sources.

You can say that depending on what version is being read, if one is reading the Torah for example in the Hebrew, there is not so much need for secondary sources, but even then it is valuable to get such, and a good history of the people is needed to be understood as is of many ancient texts.

It is also of no inherent value as a source of ethical prescription. I hold ethical arguments to a standard that they should be defended without recourse to an appeal to some arbitrary authority of source. The Bible contains moral prescriptions which are defensible, but there is nothing about the Bible that suggests that its moral guidance is useful.

Its guidance has been, and it can be, unfortunately much of it is silly, the Torah is more reasonable. But it does have valuable morals, much of which either informed or gave increase to the morals we have today. Unfortunately for the most part it is out dated, I am mostly opposed to the dissonance to spirituality that is lead to by much of the associations brought out by Christians. And would prefer that the bible and what good is in it not be devalued for the sake of its misuse.

That wasn't the point, the point was that we do not look to Oedipus Rex or The Iliad, which both had religious purposes, for moral guidance merely because of the virtue of some Greek ideas.

I beg to defer, I know plenty of people that have read those things for the reason that they might learn many things including values. But regardless one cannot expect all texts of any culture to be equally respected. Unfortunately Plato and Aristotle are the shining stars that make it hard to see much else, at first glance.