Benevolent Creator God?

[pocaracas]

"The Bible is an Unreliable Source of Information... Let Alone Fact"

This is a premise several people on this thread have mentioned or would generally agree with, considering their conclusion (God is not a benevolent Creator). However, I beg to differ. 

Hi Grace. Welcome to the forums!

In your bio, it says that you are a biblical Christian... I guess that means you follow the letter of the bible to guide you through Christendom.
I wonder if you know anything about how Christianity arrived at the present day bible that you cherish?
How many letters and gospels were flying around at the time and the criteria used to select the ones that made it to the last cut?

There is insurmountable evidence proving the validity of the Bible. Consider any historical document that someone wants to prove to be inaccurate. What do they do? They look for other documents that are completely unrelated to the original text to see if claims (events, people, places, etc.) are being contradicted or supported. This is not only done with the Bible, we could take any historical document and analyze how it aligns with other texts. 

This is true.
However, do note that only mundane events are considered trustworthy on all those other texts.
Supernatural events are... let's put it... less reliable.

The New Testament's events, people, places, and much more have been mentioned and confirmed numerous times by non-christian writers. For example, Jesus, Caesar Augustus, Herod Philip, Tiberius Caesar, and countless others-- at least 32-- have been thoroughly analyzed for proof of existence and discussed by non-religious authors and historians. These authors and historians have in fact confirmed the truth of the people recorded in the Bible. 

True true. Many people and places in the Bible are factual people that existed more or less at the times reported in the Bible.

However, you must take into consideration that this may be a literary trick.
Spider-man stories take place in New York. You will find it hard to find someone who would claim that New York is not a real place... spider-man, on the other hand...

Harry Potter was born and raised in London.
Capt. James T. Kirk is from Iowa.
Forrest Gump shook Kennedy's hand at the White house.
Mr. Bean bowed to the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace.
Godzilla keeps attacking Tokyo and New York.
Achilles joined the army of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, to attack Troy.
Santa Claus lives in the North Pole.


Can you see the pattern?

This is only a small reason as to why we should trust the Bible. At the very least, the New Testament is very reliable with stating historical figures, events, and words.

Some things you can trust, some things you can't.
I've heard that some texts in the Bible disagree with other texts in the same bible in certain details that may or may not be important, but the mere existence of such disagreements does taint the trustworthiness of the Bible as a whole.

I know that, if you're used to trusting that text, it is difficult to shift focus and assume it's somehow not trustworthy. As such you will often shuffle around and try to find interpretations that allow you to keep your trust.
But the reality is, if it was a god inspired text, it should be self explanatory and require no interpretation.
Sure, "it's god inspired, but human written, so it does need interpretation because it was written by period-humans, not present-day-humans"... therein lies another fault which hints at it not even being god inspired in the first place, but rather the product of human inspiration.
When you understand the biblical texts as products of some of the beliefs that were floating around in the region, at that time, then you see how it is all man-made.
It doesn't detract from some actually good messages in it, but that doesn't mean that those messages came from the divine plane.