grose, Sol, and others...no one is telling you that you can't believe anything you wish! But the 'proof' routine doesn't go like that...

First, almost NO one here has made a definitive claim that there is no supreme being or creator...Yet some of you have made the claim that there is!. The rules say (yes, there ARE rules!) that the burden of proof lies with the assertor. In matters of this sort, neither side can possibly provide true "proof" in the strict sense; we can only give our subjective reasons.
   I and others have indicated why we are skeptical...why we have real doubts, about religious assertions. You and others simply assert, or make statements that imply assertions. When you offer stories about King Solomon, you have already made some assumption that the stories are TRUE! *I* do not accept that stories of this nature are absolutely true...or that if they are true stories, that they were reported accurately...or even if they were, that they show anything more than coincidence.
   Look at the whole series of things you must accept in order to believe that some 'power' capriciously saves specific individuals or condemns others!

"She was supposed to be on the faulty step, not him"....The reality is, NO ONE was "supposed" to be on a faulty step....it was a flaw in the step, and 'maybe' in poor maintenance, not some arcane way a god, G-d, or evil spirit had of picking one woman out of a crowd to die that day!

   grose...you say a lot of valuable things in your 1st paragraph about subjectivity and how ethics & values have changed over the years, but you don't extract from that the most important conclusions...that it IS mostly subjective; that people simply LIKE clear answers, and they prefer answers that make them feel good, or safe, or that favor themselves over 'others'. And they usually GET those answers from 'interesting' sources...like 'holy' books and stories that are very old and detailed and that are fed to them as children.....(children that are orphaned and adopted learn to 'believe' stories that may be very different than what they would have learned from their natural parents!)

so....as I say, everyone is free to believe whatever they wish, for whatever reasons make them comfortable, but when they are offered openly in a forum such as this, they WILL be examined and picked at by some of us who have a greater need for reason & consistency, rather than absolute answers and subjective guesses based on unprovable premises.

When this thread was new, I tried to say supportive things about the sad and upsetting problem of the non-kosher meats, as that was a terrible thing for one member of a group to do to others within his religious group & belief system!........Now, as the thread progressed, we have moved to statements being made that imply that some people of various groups were 'allowed' to die in a tragedy, while certain others were 'chosen' to live....and THAT sort of statement is fair game for public discussion and criticism!

It is well to examine closely the broad implications of one's beliefs, and to choose carefully where they are shared.