Evidence God Exists: Part II

[Caecilian]

It's not really cherry picking because everything in the bible has its purpose. But the bible itself says that a lot of it is symbolic. Before Martin Luther, the bible was taught and studied symbolically. I do believe in God literally. But I believe that the bible was inspired by God, and written by man. So obviously a lot of cultural ideas made their way into the scriptures. The majority of Christians acknowledge this. I think it's fine for believers to decide, based on their individual convictions, which parts of the bible are symbolic, and which parts are more literal. That's why many different religions exist, and it's all okay. Think about it, if God meant for a lot of the bible to be symbolic, then obviously he wouldn't expect every single person to get everything in the exact same way.

So the Bible is partly metaphor, and partly literal truth. Unfortunately, it isn't at all clear which bits are which, and the meaning of the metaphors can always be disputed, so different people come to radically different conclusions about what is true and how they should lead their lives. Arguments about what the Bible means have, since at least the time of the Monophysite controversy (5th century AD), led to different groups of Christians killing each other over matters of doctrine.

Now you'd think that with the Bible being so important and all, God would've made sure that its meaning was nice and clear. Especially since, being omniscient, he could forsee all of the trouble that the lack of clarity would cause. But no. Its a mass (or maybe mess?) of ambiguity. As a way of communicating the truth of the True Faith its a fuck-up.

So maybe God is just naturally fuzzy-minded. Maybe he's been caning the celestial ganja for millenia and really can't think straight enough to put out a clear message. Or maybe he's just a callous fucker who doesn't care what trouble he causes. Or maybe he doesn't exist.

I think I'll go for the last option.