This really boils down to a basic measure of sanity and/or intelligence for christians because in reality, it really doesn't matter to them whether the bible is true or not. They are so desperate for the false sense of comfort which they derive from their imaginary friend that they will go on believing even in the face of clear and irrefutable proofs that the bible is anything but a book of "truth", either by using false rationalizations in a vain attempt to explain the proofs away in a maze of logical fallacies or by just flatly ignoring the evidence which is what most delusionaries opt for.

As an example of the opt-out-of-the-truth christian, a few years ago I pointed out to a minister how much water it would take to flood the whole world using information and calculations accessible to anyone with a basic education and asked him where all the additional water required to flood the earth came from and where it is today. His answer was to simply cop out. "Well I just believe the bible" he said. That's not faith. That is pathological stupidity.

Even more telling are those who advise not to entertain such questions because they can cause one to lose faith. For them it would seem that there is little difference between faith in Tinkerbell and fear of the unknown. What a frightening world it would be to them if they had no imaginary friend. They wouldn't be able to function. Why they might even be forced to develop meaningful relationships with real people!

[edit on 15-3-2008 by Lilitu]

The bible is a fine and danddy book for those that chose to believe what it contains, literally or not. My beef is that it is injected into our constitution, our laws and individual freedoms, then of course the use of it to justify war and murder, all that eye for an eye stuff.

Lilutu, I am not sure how much water it would take to inundate the world but I do believe a global deluge is possible. Maybe not at biblical levels but enough to change known geography. If either the Greenland icecap or a section of Antarctica were to take a walk, the results would be catastrophic. Too many cultures record some sort of planetary deluge to just write it off. That one man could gather just two of every species to repopulate the world is fantasy. Highly entertaining on one level but impossible.

I believe some stuff in the bible happened, but the core has since then been changed over and over again by men throughout history. How wimen are spoken of in the bible is a very clear indication of how much power religion had before. The one who controlled religion controlled the people.

I have a sense that there may be more to this world than just the physical stuff, but I do not believe in a God which tells people what to do and then kills every sinner after 2000 years just because they didnt obey.

Then the ones who read the bible gets to live in a magical fairy land where everything is wonderful... dont you see the typical human characteristics in that story?



[edit on 15-3-2008 by Copernicus]