"You atheists don't understand what a sophisticated and intelligent Christian I am. I obviously don't take the Bible literally. At least not the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are a metaphor. I certainly don't believe in the literal six days of creation from nothing. The Garden of Eden story with Adam and Eve and the talking snake, Cain and Abel, the flood, the ark, the Tower of Babel, etc. But I still believe in Sodom and Gomorrah, a woman being turned into a pillar of salt, the plagues of Egypt, the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, God holding the Sun still in the sky, the bear assassins killing 42 children, a talking donkey, demons being cast into pigs, Jesus walking on water, the dead rising at Jesus' death, and the ascension of Jesus, who eventually got into heaven by by going through the door in the firmament, for which only he had the key."
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"
