Bart asks a question: if God wanted us to have his words (Bible) why did he allow people to change them so that we don't know which are his and which are made up by humans?
God made a stupid plan when he expected people to know him only by the Bible because he also let this huge mishap to happen, so now we don't have his words.
Even believers in historical Jesus don't know which words are his and which were added later. Some are known to be later additions, like the story of an adulterous woman, but none can be said with certainty to be said by Jesus.
God made a stupid plan when he expected people to know him only by the Bible because he also let this huge mishap to happen, so now we don't have his words.
Even believers in historical Jesus don't know which words are his and which were added later. Some are known to be later additions, like the story of an adulterous woman, but none can be said with certainty to be said by Jesus.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
