Brian, to me, the Bible cannot be qualified as an objective moral standard. There are many verses containing seemingly impossible tasks for a human. For instance, Jesus tells us to offer your left cheek if someone hits your right cheek. My survival instinct would kick in before Jesus' teaching would come to my mind. One may say it's supposed to be a guideline for moral living(?). Well, there are other moral teachers besides Christ, such as Buddha, Confucius, etc. Whatever is doubtable is not the truth (the Bible included). The Bible is created by humans (with subjective minds), although inspired by God. I personally accept John Searle's "External Realism". He states that objective reality exists independently of minded [human]beings and their[our] representations. I do not deny that any good intentioned scriptures for they were the result of people's experiences and observations. But the REAL, REAL, reality is out there and you scientists may find the formulas one day(?).