How can Christians not admit Christianity is all a pile of garbage when ...?

[Abracadabra]

Which arguments did you find convincing when you were a christian?

In truth, I don't think I ever found any arguments "convincing".

There are a few things you need to understand.

1. I was very young and naive at the time.
2. My parents told me that the Bible is true.
3. The pastor of our church told me that the Bible is true.
4. Everyone going to our church acted like they believed it too.

I was naive. I was also 'convinced' that since so many seemingly sensible adults believed in it, then it must have some merit. All these people can't be that stupid (that was my thinking at the time). But unfortunately that was erroneous reasoning.

It was clearly erroneous on a much larger scale which I confess that I did not even perceive at that young age. In other words, on the larger scale of humanity there were many people who did not believe in the Christian bible. That was no readily apparent to me, plus I was taught that people who don't believe are simply non-believer who will eventually come around to believing in the end. (in other words I was being scammed even by other naive Christian who had themselves been scammed in this very same way).

Not only are there people who don't believe in the bible or the Abrahamic religions at all. But even the Abrahamic religions themselves are at each others throats over their own fairy tales. The significance of these thing was not apparent to me at a young naive and "brainwashed" age.

I was taught that the Bible is the word of God.

So I wasn't truly even considering arguments of whether or not the bible was actually "God's Word". I was more focused on arguments concerning the correct interpretations of those words.

It became crystal clear to me almost immediately that a strict verbatim approach could not stand. But I was born into a FREE METHODIST Christian family. Our whole entire extended family were basically FREE METHODISTS. And they do take a very liberal abstract view of the scriptures, favoring a metaphorical approach. They focus on the New Testament and Jesus and point out that Jesus taught in parables thus it makes sense that the Old Testament is also merely parables as well.

So that made some sense to me at the time. Free Methodists view the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament and the ideals taught by Jesus. So it's natural for them to accept the Old Testament as merely metaphors and parables not to be taken too literally.

That was the basis for even trying to keep the thing afloat.

But like I say, even as metaphors and parables it still ultimately fails to stand. Because ultimately even if the things didn't actually happen precisely as they are stated in the scriptures, the bottom line is that the God would still basically be saying the same things anyway, even if only through parables and metaphors.

In other words, even as metaphors and parables, you still end up with a God who supports violence as a means of solving problems and supports male-chauvinism toward woman.

Even as metaphors and parables, you still end up with a God who's ignorant violent "solutions" to problems NEVER solve anything!

So even as metaphors and parables it's a lost cause.

Trying to demand that it's taken verbatim, is even worse.

But neither approach can save it. It's stupid in all cases.

Trying to salvage this Hebrew Mythology is no different from trying to salvage Greek Mythology. They are both utterly stupid.