The Bible Problem - Short Version

I wrote this in response to a theist making the assertion that we don't need God to prove himself to us because we have the Bible.  I was so happy with it that I figured I would share it here as well, slightly edited to make contextual sense.


The fundamental flaw with the Bible is when it is considered the official record of who and what God is.  First, the reports within the Bible are conflicting and contradictory; Second, the authorship of virtually every word of text is questionable (at best, and it is even mentioned in the Bible itself that forgeries of some letters and books do exist), and was most certainly written by humans; Third, the Bible in it's current form was decided on by a committee called the Council of Nicaea, made up also of only humans, who literally picked and chose which documents would be considered 'canon' and which ones would not - this is particularly interesting because there are several 'scriptures' which are referenced in the Bible but which no longer exist.

Finally, there is absolutely no empirical, repeatable way for any of us to determine the difference between 'inspired' and 'non-inspired' text, and I challenge anyone to explain just how it can be done. We simply have to believe that nobody has made any mistakes, nobody has knowingly changed the text (ahem, King James Version, ahem), and nobody has kept hidden any useful or important information (such as the aforementioned 'missing scriptures').

Can we have faith in the Bible regardless of all of this? Of course we can, but who the heck would want to? Even if we take it on faith that the book is completely and utterly infallible, we then have to contend with a God who condones rape, slavery, and other atrocities. How is this better than having no God at all?

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