Hey all.
I don't know if it's my current mood, or if it's a lot of things that have built up over time, but currently I am struggling with my faith, mainly with the Bible being the inspired, inerrant word of God.
I just can't understand how the Bible can be true, if it really preaches some of the things it preaches. I don't want to sound blasphemous, and no doubt some of you will just tell me to submit to God and be silent, but honestly, I doubt very much the legitimacy of the Bible.
First, it is such a complicated book. If every man was left to his own to read it, everyone would form a different understanding of who God is. How can this be? Why is "the word of God" so complex, so difficult to understand? Why does God care to reveal himself in a book? Many people in the world can't even read...
I find it so very, very hard to accept that those people who haven't heard of Christ are damned to Hell... I also have a hard time accepting that man "deserves" Hell, simply by being born. If the Bible is God's infallible word, why do we all disagree on what it means? And why do we not want to accept some of the things it says - namely things that we don't like?
When I step outside the Bible, and do not take it as authoritative to begin with, I see many things that I would not consider "moral". I feel almost blasphemous saying this, but I would be lying to myself if I said otherwise. When I ask: "Should people go to Hell just because they don't believe in the Bible?" I am almost repulsed that I even consider the answer to be yes.
Think how many religious books there are out there, how many prophets and "gods" there are... If I was born Muslim, I'd be a Muslim... If I was born in India, I'd be a Hindu, etc. We are all products of our environment in terms of religion.
*sigh* I don't know. It just doesn't seem right to me, to venerate a book... something written by man, that can't be fully understood or agreed upon by even most brilliant men in history. And what does that mean for the common man? Then there are things which just seem completely irrelevant to life... things like the doctrine of the Trinity; the "divine attribute of God"; the book of revelation. How does this have anything to do with God? How will these things better our lives in any way, or make us better people? Why are we to read and believe another's understanding of God? If there is a God, won't he reveal himself to us each individually?
Thanks for your time