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Replying to marco]
I don't think "humanistic" is the word you're looking for to describe Genesis. Humanistic would mean looking after humans, keeping them safe from being turned into pillars of salt, or having cities smashed to pieces around them.
No, it's the right word. The goal is quite clearly human beings taking care of human beings (being our "brother's keeper" kind of thing), as well as the rest of creation. Again, the supreme calling of human beings is to have dominion, take responsibility, and fill the world with life of every kind.
It is quite explicit.
But we are approaching this with different assumptions. You refuse to let go of this notion of an all-powerful, all-controlling super-being of a god that turns everything into a moral atrocity and robs humankind of this serious position. Great! Keep beating your drum to turn people away from such a god! It is a ridiculous one that needs to be put down. We need to recognize the extreme humanism of the bible and the only way to do that is to destroy this foolish notion.
But again, if you take a more literary approach to the text, maybe you'll see things a little differently. The fact that Lot's wife turns to salt is more properly the fate of those who look back on the evil of Sodom. It is not so much the action of an evil god-being as you contend but the logical consequence of following that path to its ultimate end. The philosophical point made through this piece of mythic literature is that there is nothing but death in the ways of Sodom, and to look back and long for or want to preserve anything of it will lead only to death. (Or more precisely, as salt signifies, a barren ground from which no life can come, which again is contrary to our purpose in this world.)
Again you've chosen badly to illustrate your point. It is certainly not the function of a human to sail on clouds. A man sitting on a cloud would fall through it and gravity being what it is he'd accelerate to his death.
Have you read literature before? Are you seriously suggesting that legitimate philosophy cannot be conveyed through the fictional or fantastic? What kind of argument is this except against an extreme literal reading of the bible, which nobody here tried to make in the first place?
Say no more. I regard Revelation as impervious to any assault by a human brain. Where I live dragons don't happen. Go well.
I have no idea who you are arguing against but good job knocking down your straw man targets. You're absolutely right: dragons don't happen where we live.