Biblical illiteracy

[Simon Moon]

Not very much I disagree with there apart from the last bit. And that's only because (leans in close and whispers)..

God didn't write the bible.

Actually, he's way to busy not existing to perform any act, let alone authoring a book.

But back on the subject at hand...

Oh, I completely understand that Christians don't claim that 'God' wrote the Bible.

But that's the problem I was pointing out.

Christians claim that there is this specific universe creating god, with the most important message, ever. And he wants to make sure that future generations are able to read it, understand it and do what it says.

He's allegedly omnipotent, so he could have recorded it himself in any form he wanted. He's allegedly omniscient, so he should have seen what would happen to his 'word'.

Yet, he made no provisions to assure it is communicated in a way as to be unambiguous. He could have authored it himself on titanium pages, in a language that would be understood in the future, prevent it from being edited and containing copy errors. He could have made many copies, scattered them around the world and protected them in some way. He could have had a primer in order to tell metaphor from literal passages, the laws that could be ignored (eating shellfish) and the ones that can't (homosexuality).

He could have even come back to correct mistakes. "Hey, remember when I said owning slaves was okay? I made a mistake. Don't do that.". The New Testament does not correct it.

But instead, we have over 30,000 sects, many with major doctrinal discrepancies (even as to the divinity of Jesus). We have 1000's of theologians unable to come up with one cohesive meaning. We have passages that some Christians believe are metaphor, but just as many Christians believe should be taken literally.

Then we have someone like me, that views the entire situation from the outside. I see an ancient text full of contradictions, superstitions, immoralities, talking animals, men living in giant fish, zombies leaving their graves and walking around Jerusalem, curing lepers with a brass rod and pigeon blood, etc, etc.

How am I supposed to tell that the Bible is the correct ancient text, but the Koran, The Vedas, The Avesta, etc are not. They all have the same general attributes.