Wow, I love an engaging conversation. Mind if I join in?
I've been a Christian for nearly 20 years. Raised in the church, schooled in the church, gone through all my "gotta find out for myself" rebellions, attended nearly every denomination under the sun as well as years of no church at all, and I gotta say I hate the term "Religion". It seems so many have things so backwards. I don't go to church because I hope it will get me into Heaven some day, I go because I want to learn more about Jesus and be around others who genuinely care for others (which I'll admit not every church has). I don't pray or read my Bible or go about good deeds because I want to satiate guilt or impress God or satisfy some religious organization... I do it because Jesus did and I believe he was easily the most genuine, loving person to ever live! Empty, meaningless, insincere routine is exactly why people have grown to hate "religion". If you go back to Genesis before sin entered the picture you find God walking with Adam and Eve in the garden, having a RELATIONSHIP with His creation. He's not a system of do's and don't's, He's a personality you can get to know. I have, and continue to (there's a lot there to get to know //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif ).
As a side note, people have been debating the validity of the Bible for centuries, the problem is the evidence for it's validity has only increased with science, archeology and discovery in general. Evidence against it has only dwindled. There is so much evidence in fact there's no way I could touch on it all here, but I'll give you a few thought provokers.
Today there exists more copies of the original texts the Bible is translated from then ever before; over 5000 currently. That is unprecidented compared to other ancient writtings; the nearest runner up it's age being the Illad; having 11 copies. On top of that our understanding of the original languages (Hebrew, Greek & Aramaic) are substaintially improved. The most critical eye witness accounts of Jesus' life can now be traced back to within decades of the actual events they record. Proven events recorded not only by Jesus' followers but Roman & Jewish historians as well. Again unprecidented, most ancient writtings are considered accurate if they can be traced back to a few hundred years of the events they record. The Bible has been generally accepted by the scientific community as accurate historical fact due to the over-whelming amount of archeological & astrological evidence, among others, it has behind it. It's biggest bolsters have been the areas that were previously disputed as being "impossible" yet later findings proved it to be correct after all. Scientist's model for how the earth came to be has come to resemble the Biblical account more and more to that point where the differences are minimal (Big Bang, just different reasons believed to be behind it). Many of it's disputers have openly admitted their biggest barrier to accepting Intelligent design over the sheer chance of evolution is the Bible's "religious" stand. When you add to this the fact it it was written over the course of 1300 years by 40 some different authors and yet has no real conflicts, but is unified (and we can't even get 2 people from the same time and culture to agree on major issues in a forum! LOL!) AND is the ONLY book containing prophecy that has NEVER BEEN WRONG. I'm afraid the burden of proof is no longer on the book but on it's disputers. To make the blanket statement that the Bible has no credibility or authenticity today is in my opinion an ignorant, unstudied statement (no offence //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif ). If you want to read a book that cross examines experts in every field from astrology to psychology then check out "The Case For Christ". A best seller from Lee Strobel, former Chief Legal Editor for the Chicago Tribune. It takes the leading aetheist's cases and presents them to experts in 21 different fields. A good read.
Now I've written a volume of my own, I'll hush for a while. Looking forward to feedback. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/ready2go.gif.6557fa3d88b9eaca9c7b8efb9cbd02ed.gif
