This is where the newbie jumps in:
God's character
God's character huh? Of course, the article goes on and on about the “love” of God. What about the dark side of this same God? This same God, throughout the OT, commanded the deaths of all homosexuals, witches, fortunetellers, women who are found not to be virgins on their wedding night, fornicators, nonbelievers, blasphemers, people who work on the Sabbath, and many others. And what about all those times in the OT where God orders the wholesale genocide of thousands of “enemies” - men, women, and children (ex.1 Sam. 15:2-3)! Oh, but before you kill them, don't forget to rape their wives (Isaiah 13:15-16)! I could go on and on about the “character” of God!
Claims of divine authorship
This is basically an exercise in circular reasoning. The bible was authored by God because the bible says it was authored by God. Oh, okay, well now I'm convinced! Every religion claims divine authorship of their sacred texts. Should we believe them all? In order to assess whether or not a text is divinely authored, one has to go beyond mere claims. One has to dig deeper and try to find anything in the bible (or any other sacred text), anything at all, that cannot be explained away as being anything other than supernaturally explainable, and in that respect, all sacred texts fail miserably.
Unity of the bible
This one is just downright laughable! There is NO unity in the bible! The bible was written by many different authors over many hundred of years, each of whom had their own views on things, and those views often clash with the views of other writers. This is why the bible can be used to justify almost anything. If you are pro-abortion, for example, there are ample bible passages that can be used to justify that position. The same is true if you are pro-abortion. This is also true of slavery and many other things.
For a good example of this, one need look no further than the synoptic gospels – Matthew, Mark and Luke. These gospels are very similar, using much of the same material, and yet in other respects they are very different. Almost all scholars agree that Mark was written first, and that Matthew and Luke used Mark's gospel as their primary source material. Yet Matthew and Luke don't just quote Mark. In many instances, they 'change' the words of Mark in order to make Mark's words fit into their own particular theological viewpoints! If Mark's gospel was literally “God's words”, why would they have felt the need to change them?
Fulfilled prophecy
There are NO instances anywhere in the bible where prophecy fulfillment can be proven, and most can be dis-proven. But let's get right to the so-called “prophecies” that really matter to Christians – the prophecies that relate to Jesus and his messiahship being prophesied about in the OT. There are a couple of excellent articles on the web that address this much better than I could, and I would highly encourage anybody who interested to read them. But since I am a newbie and have not yet made 15 posts, I cannot link to those articles (at least according to this message boards' rules and guidelines). Because of that, I will merely post the URLs, rather than an actual link. At least I hope it doesn't post as a link. I'm still green about linking on this board. Here they are:
Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled:
Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled
The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah:
The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah
Scientific accuracy
I won't spend much time on this one, other than to point out the obvious absurdity of it. The bible is the least scientific book you can possibly read. It amazed me that otherwise intelligent people can deny the scientifically proven facts of climate change, evolution, and many other things, while finding it perfectly reasonable to believe that humans were made out of dirt, that donkeys can talk, that a flood myth borrowed from earlier flood myths literally happened, etc., etc., etc.
Archaeological finds
There was a time when biblical archaeology was just that – archaeology conduction by Christian men with preconceived ideas who set out to find archaeological “proof” of the bible. But that was then, this is now. Most of those people themselves now admit that archaeology doesn't prove the bible. In fact, quite the opposite. Archaeology has proven, for example, that the Hebrew people were never slaves in Egypt, that the exodus never happened, and the conquest of Canaan never happened, just to name a few things (In fact, archaeology has shown that the Hebrew people themselves were originally Canaanites.)
Life-changing power
This one I'll save for another time. I myself had a powerful born-again experience when I was twenty. I know what it's like. I was a fanatical Christian for the next 15-to-20 years. Now I'm a deconverted former Christian. Why do I care about this stuff if I don't believe it? Because it is a huge part of my personal history. I can't help but still be fascinated by the whole subject.