Welcome PETE!
I can ask a few questions...
1. Why is belief a requirement?
1.1. Why believe in stories written long ago, in a time and place cluttered by different religious and mythological beliefs?
1.2. Why is your belief biased by your upbringing?
1.2.1. Had you been raised in China, or Indonesia.... do you think you'd come to hold the same belief you do now? why?
1.3. How much of belief is a psychological crutch?
1.3.1. Is religious belief more than a psychological state? If not, then how do you explain all religious beliefs that mankind has held throughout the ages?
1.3.2. What do you say to the possibility that belief became a desired trait in societies, thus became evolutionary selected in?... but it hasn't been around for enough time to clear out all the non-believing individuals... and is a trait now in decline...
2. Are you aware of the Essenes?
2.1. What do you say of the possibility that the historical Jesus was an Essene?
2.2. Why, would you say, are the Essenes never mentioned in the bible? They were located in the proverbial "road to Damascus", after all...
3. Why the KJV? Why not something better, like the Vulgate? If you want to go sola scriptura, you should go for the purest, closest to the original possible text.... at least, that's what I would go for. I'm not very fond of the result of the broken telephone game (chinese whispers?).
I can ask a few questions...
1. Why is belief a requirement?
1.1. Why believe in stories written long ago, in a time and place cluttered by different religious and mythological beliefs?
1.2. Why is your belief biased by your upbringing?
1.2.1. Had you been raised in China, or Indonesia.... do you think you'd come to hold the same belief you do now? why?
1.3. How much of belief is a psychological crutch?
1.3.1. Is religious belief more than a psychological state? If not, then how do you explain all religious beliefs that mankind has held throughout the ages?
1.3.2. What do you say to the possibility that belief became a desired trait in societies, thus became evolutionary selected in?... but it hasn't been around for enough time to clear out all the non-believing individuals... and is a trait now in decline...
2. Are you aware of the Essenes?
2.1. What do you say of the possibility that the historical Jesus was an Essene?
2.2. Why, would you say, are the Essenes never mentioned in the bible? They were located in the proverbial "road to Damascus", after all...
3. Why the KJV? Why not something better, like the Vulgate? If you want to go sola scriptura, you should go for the purest, closest to the original possible text.... at least, that's what I would go for. I'm not very fond of the result of the broken telephone game (chinese whispers?).
