In other words, once you decide that it must be perfect and refuse to see the holes in it you understand it? How convenient. And dishonest.

It's so funny that Christians want everyone to read the Bible, but then when they do read it and see all the contradictions and just plain ridiculous teachings, Christians snatch the Bible away and say, "You can't understand it if you don't have the Holy Spirit." So why let anyone read it? Make sure they're thoroughly indoctrinated first, then let them read only selected bits and tell them what it means first.

Of course if reading the text requires that much intervention, it means the text can't possibly be the work of a perfect god.

I think it's the caring part of the equation that keeps them from understanding, and it makes perfect sense to me how they could be so dull. God didn't want everybody, we are encountering what a person is like when thy don't care because God didn't give them the capacity to care. I care about God because he gave me the capacity to care.

10 As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

11 there is no one who understands;

there is no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned away,

they have together become worthless;

there is no one who does good,

Romans 3

He told us about that nature of sin and what it looks like. There it is. Worthless, not understanding, there is no one who does good when they encounter things about him. Instead they attack us, for answering them, and attack us when they ask questions. But they are attacking God, aren't they? They hated him first, Just like the scripture says.

Here's another thing, those Christians we know are only going to ask us why do we put up with it? Why do we put ourselves in the way of these ungrateful and abusive people. Why do our brethren talk that way about what we do here? Because they aren't in the battle themselves. I see God's word come alive here. The scriptures tells us this is a war and that's what is going on here. The world sees an offensive thing when we tell them about Jesus, so they come back at us. They blame us for everything about our religion. Yet we are supposed to have this conflict. And the people who are the few; those seeking after God are sometimes overlooked, when they are the ones to really pay attention to. When we remain steadfast in the Gospel and not lose sight of it when we are here, then we begin to see some fruits to our labor.

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means." George Bernard Shaw

FUNDAMENTALIST One who believes the Bible is literally true and must be followed exactly.

Therefore they are followers of the bible and not Jesus making them non Christians!

But worse is to follow it also makes them ideologists.

IDEOLOGY An idea that is false or held for the wrong reasons but is believed with such conviction as to be irrefutable.

So Christians have a loving and forgiving god and fundamentalist - well - Just are not Christians!

Fundamentalists turning Christianity from a religion to an ideology!

A very good question which I happen to agree with.There simply is no meaning to life without their being a Go.d.I am Christian,RC,however I believe all other religions are praying for the same thing.If an individual leads a good honest life I believe they are on their own pathway to Heaven.I am simplifying my beliefs because I could write on all day based upon this question.Many probably will disagree with me,good luck and best wishes to them.

Thank you for an excellent question.

Regards.

Dear Dick,

You answered your own question: "so why do people have the need to say they cant understand it, its full of holes, it contradicts itself..."

Your own answer--"when they don't have a relationship with Jesus."

Simple truth.

All the best.

Be patient, the LORD is merciful...

“The oldest surviving complete text of the New Testament is the Codex Sinaiticus, dating back to the middle of the fourth century. The oldest fragments, the Bodmer and Beatty Papyri and Papyrus 52, date back to the second century but only contain bits of the Gospel of John. All of these texts are Greek.

Jesus's native tongue was Aramaic, and even if he knew Greek, he certainly did not speak it to his apostles, many of whom were uneducated fishermen. Without any surviving Aramaic texts, the actual words of Christ are lost forever, mired in a sea of subjective translation by ancient scribes.

There are three hundred years between the composition of a text and our surviving copies. In a world without a printing press, texts would often undergo drastic evolution through centuries of handwritten duplication.

Our four canonical gospels did not begin their lives as the gospels of "Matthew," "Mark," "Luke" and "John." Different groups of early Christians maintained their own oral traditions of Jesus's wisdom, as writing was a specialized skill and not every fellowship enjoyed the services of a scribe. When written accounts of Jesus's teachings began to circulate (i.e., the theoretical "sayings" gospel Q and the Semeia or Signs source), the independent groups WOULD SUPPLEMENT THEM WITH THEIR OWN TRADITIONS about the savior, each believing their own versions to be "the Gospel." Eventually, as these expanded writings spread through other communities, some versions were viewed as having more authority than others. It was not until the pronouncement of Bishop Irenus (185 C.E.) that Christians began to accept only the four familiar gospels as authoritative, and to refer to them by their modern titles.

The rest of the canon was much slower to develop. For the next two centuries, the four gospels would be coupled with a myriad of different letters, epistles, stories and apocalypses, according to what a particular congregation JUDGED AS RELEVANT TO THEIR UNDERSTANDING of Jesus Christ and his message. Catholicism was only one of the dozens of "denominations" within the early church—Gnosticism was prevalent throughout Egypt, Montanism in Asia Minor, Marcionism in Syria.

Eventually, the Catholic church was adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire, and all other systems of belief were branded as heresies. Following the Epistle of Athanasius in 367 C.E., the Church finally reached agreement upon which writings were truly authentic and representative of apostolic tradition, thus forming what we know today as the canonical New Testament. Although factions of the Church continued to debate the merits of various books for centuries, and many even used other writings in their liturgy, most uncanonical writings were ordered to be destroyed. In many cases, possession of heretical literature was punishable by death.”

The first parts of Genesis, from the tale of Creation through the tales of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel, the Great Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Wars of the Kings in which Abraham was involved -- are all based on earlier Sumerian records.

The origin of the Biblical seven days of creation is almost certainly the seven tablets on which the Enuma Elish was written. This is evident from the contrast between the first six Babylonian tablets describing Marduk’s acts of creation and the seventh tablet which is dedicated to a general exaltation of the god (and thus a parallel to the Biblical seventh day when God rested).

During the last one hundred years, tens of thousands of clay tablets have been excavated in ancient Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) dating back to 6,000 years ago. Archaeological and linguistic studies trace the origin of the Elohim concept to a Babylonian epic text known as the Enuma Elish, which deals with the creation of the heavens and Earth by a Babylonian God named Marduk. The amazing similarity between Genesis and the Enuma Elish is that one credits the creation of heavens and Earth to God, whilst the other credits it to Marduk. The Hebrew exiled in Babylon, were influenced by the Enuma Elish, which had been the most sacred Babylonian ritual text for over a thousand years.”

“Even if we could read the Bible in Hebrew, we would still be reading a highly selective and edited version of events. It is not disputed that the bishops in the earliest Christian councils decided which texts should be included and which not. Texts which were considered unacceptable then, for whatever reasons, have always been regarded as outside the canon and therefore “apocryphal” rather than the canonised “holy” books.’ There is little doubt that the 39 books of the Old Testament were the result of a protracted process of editing and collation. The religions deny this of course, but the first five books, known as the Pentateuch represent a collation of heavily edited material.

Yes, mental illness is separate from reality. To experience irrational delusions, you do have to be irrational. People think that garbage is garbage because it IS garbage.

How do you have a relationship with someone that you have never met or spoken with. You basically have an imaginary friend and how old are you? Bit embarrassing don't you think?

HA HA his name is Dick! Oh how childish of me.

Talking snake, talking donkey, God can't stop iron chariots, the flood (rip off of the epic of Gilgamesh).

That's just a fancy way of saying "the Bible doesn't make sense".