>>>>The thing I find most disturbing is the idea that somehow "God" - an anthropomorphic construction
>>>>in man's image - has "spoken" and created a users manual in a collection of disparate documents
>>>>assembled, deconstructed, mistranslated and rewritten over 2500 years by committee and that
>>>>ultimately this is the authority for questions of human existence, when the only authority for its
>>>>primacy or integrity is itself.
>>>
>>>
>>>The part that you're missing, Charles, is the acceptance or ability to accept that God is not like things we have or know here upon this Earth. He is Spirit. He is eternal. And He has purposes in the things He does which go along those lines (spiritual, eternal). And, being completely sovereign, He does not have limitations that are imposed by men or men's evil intents or deeds. What He wants to have happen will happen, no act of man or men withstanding.
>>>
>>>With regards to the Bible, there is one author. It is God, His Holy Spirit guiding men to write things which contain parts that are incomprehensible outside of being born again. God did this for His own purposes. "Ever hearing, yet never understanding. Ever seeing, but never perceiving," and so on.
>>>
>>>When a person seeks to know the truth, desiring honestly and truthfully to know the truth, they find it. It is God being sought in that case because God is truth -- literal truth.
>>>
>>>We come to faith by hearing the word of God and by seeking the truth. When you're willing to do that, God will have already been moving everything in your life toward that day because He sees outside of time. Until that day, no person can ever come to know faith, or God.
>>
>>Not missing it at all. Questioning the whole tautological premise. The Bible is the infallible word of God because the Bible says it is the word of God. God tells us the the Bible is his truth because it says so in the Bible. Everything else in your worldview is based on this and without accepting that the Bible is the center of the theological universe it all completely falls apart.
>>
>>All you are doing is using the Bible to explain "God's purpose" and the direction of history as it is laid out in the Bible and there is not a single reason outside the Bible to believe in its truth. It is the kind of logic that would be laughable if its ultimate effects were not so pernicious.
>>
>>Dianetics is the key to ultimate reality if you can get past the idea that Ron Hubbard was a mad charlatan and anyone who doesn't see that is a fool. Ron Hubbard said Scientology is Truth and Scientology thinks Ron Hubbard was Source.
>>
>>It is logical for 2 people who accept the premise that The Bible holds the word of an anthropomorphic God to use the Bible to debate the details. But in my experience one has to be pretty spiritually and intellectually lazy and needy to buy it.
>>
>>Two astrologers can argue about an astrological chart. Anyone who thinks astrology is nonsense is not going to be persuaded by either argument but just be bemused that either can so fully waste a human mind.
>>
>>The the Bible is an ethno-centric collection of documents with varying sources and authors and degrees of textual integrity from origin that represent what various committees have chosen to keep of the folk myths and ancestor stories of a certain segment of human history. It has great historical interest, both in its cultural impact whatever light it sheds on historical events, but in all these characteristics it is not unique.
>>
>>There is no compelling exogenous argument to accept the premise that it has any claim to truth other than its own claims to such.
>
>I like the clarity of your position, Charles.
>But, alas, things aren't that tidy and there's more to the story.
>
>In many respects a notion can be "true" if enough people say it's true.
>All men are created equal because a majority of the people in that room in 1776 thought that that was several self-evident.
>Before July 4, 1776 all men weren't created equal but now they are, at least until enough people say they aren't anymore.
>
>From another viewpoint a notion can be "true" if believing it produces positive effects for those who believe it.
>The scientific underpinnings of the South Beach Diet might be baseless, but if people who follow the diet lose weight and are otherwise healthy, in effect they're "true."
>
>So, for billions of people the bible is true because billions of people think that it's true.
>For many others it's true because they perceive that it has had a positive effect on their lives .
>
>Things become tacky when people think that something is so "true" that other people have to believe it.
>You get things like our exporting of democracy to Iraq, etc.
>We need to be vigilant about that.
>
>But arguing the validity of "believing" the bible won't get you very far.

Two of my favorite philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and Hans Vaihinger, wrote some great stuff on the idea of the "useful fiction". I often use the example in regard to the Book of Mormon which I personally find laughable, and yet Mormons for the most part with its guidance and inspiration conduct themselves in ways that are admirable and probably above the norm for the population as a whole.

The Bible indeed serves this function, as does the Qu'ran and any number of other sacred texts. The moral philosophy that came out of devout paganism and many of the mystery cults actually were often quite admirable, even it the societies in which they dominated might have been as barbarous as later Christian and Islamic societies could become.

But literalism, and the ceding of reason to textural interpretation has never turned out well and religion has always been most useful as a philosophical argument - the finger pointing at the moon. When it has been taken too seriously and steps out of the realm of metaphor it has become man creating a "god" - his own personal bully to beat up his enemies - in his own petty, vengeful, vain, violent and non-rational image. There is very little evidence in history that this has ever had anything but negative consequences.

I don't fear someone yearning for comfort or seeking solace in the unexplained. I grew up in that world and found most "believers" knew where to draw the line, how to hear the poetry and when an over ride based on human reason was required.

I do fear the willful ignorance of those who are so ready to give up all that makes us human to avoid the moral responsibility of trying to work it out themselves, and are so sure they are right in areas where that very assuredness proves they don't even understand the question.

( Hans Vaihinger is worth a read. Bentham of course is one of the more colorful characters of the 18th century and is on display at the University of London
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham )