Hello, some very serious questions from an Athiest - absolutely NO mocking inside.

JustMike1964 said:

It's ... nothing was offensive in there!

Mike

Click to expand...

While you are a non-believer you don't sound like an unbeliever to me. Unbelievers are the insincere cynical mockers / manipulators who undermine religion from positions of influence within.

1 - Genesis ch 1 does not describe either creation or evolution, but serves as icon to hang the meaning of creation on.
2 - Adam was the furthest back person that was being remembered. He may have been escaping the Black Sea bed that was filling up?
3 - The story of the rib is a complex witticism.
4 - Dogger Bank may have sunk at around the same times as some other low lying areas were inundated (e.g off western India), after the Ice Ages ended. (Land also rises all the time as well.)
5 - All words (on any subject) allude, and when we have several intersecting allusions we can discern meanings. Intersectionality is very profound. It makes our lives meaningful.
6 - Only a sovereign God could create us in His image namely capable of safeguarding the integrity of our peers in a contingent universe.
7 - Sadly most religious people are too lazy to explore the sounder parts of philosophy, semiotics, etc which we may share with certain secular agnostics.

Larnievc said:

There is no through line to give it any consistency.

Click to expand...

Monotheism and the preparation for Christ is the proverbial silver thread behind those ancient texts.

JustMike1964 said:

It's such a long story, but I am 59 and had a LOT of problems with religion growing up. Spent a larger portion of my life having it forced down my throat than I care to recall, mostly because when I tell someone I am not interested, they can't respect me. But anyway, that's not why I'm here.

I have some serious questions, and having asked SO many believers/followers over the decades, not ONE of them was able to give me an answer.
It would be appreciated if someone could actually answer these questions. Thank you.

As mentioned in the subject, there is no joking, mocking or anything negative. These are all questions I have wondered for years, and some information about past girlfriends.

1a. If we are all supposedly from Adam and Eve, and for lack of a better work Adam "gave birth" to Eve from a rib, why isn't it still done that way?
1b. When did it "switch" to a woman giving birth?

Click to expand...

Assuming a literal reading of the account--which not all Christians do--the creation of Eve from Adam's rib isn't a birth at all. It is speaking of Eve as an extension of Adam, that Adam and Eve are co-partners in the program of being human. The Hebrew word translated as "helper" when it says that man should not be alone but needs a helper is a word that carries the sense of one who walks beside and shoulders and helps carry with someone else--a partner, a companion.

The first human birth recorded in Genesis is when Eve gave birth to Cain.

JustMike1964 said:

2a. Also, if we're all from Adam and Eve, wouldn't/shouldn't we all be related? (We've all heard during incestuous birth, the newborn often has some medical issues.)
2b. Also also, if we're all from Adam and Eve, why are there several blood types?

Click to expand...

Regardless of whether one holds to Adam and Eve as literally the first two human beings, and that they existed sometime between 6-10k years ago, or to another view it's demonstrable that all human beings are related. That's just what we've learned through genetic studies. Evolution means that not only do all humans share a common ancestor, but that all life on this planet shares a common ancestor. More specifically, genetic studies have shown that we can trace the Y-chromosome to a single male individual living in Africa about 275,000 years ago. Following mitochondrial DNA, we can trace it back to a single female individual in Africa to about 150-180,000 years ago. We literally are, genetically speaking, all related--we're all human beings.

The evolution of blood types isn't a subject with which I have any familiarity, so I can't offer anything.

JustMike1964 said:

In 1990, I had a girlfriend who was relentless is trying to get me to "convert." I honestly have no interest in that, in any way, shape or form. Before she started buying me bibles, trying to get to to go see Billy Graham and trying to get me to go to church with her, she knew from day 1 that I was an Athiest and all of that. But like I said she was relentless. Why can't people just live and let live? So I was driving my ex-girlfriend and I to dinner one night and out of the blue, she says, "If it's not in the bible it doesn't exist." So I looked at her with a "stunned" look on my face and asked her, "Well then how in the world are we getting to dinner?" She said nothing. She also said, "There is no such thing as dinosaurs." Later that week we went to the Museum of Natural History in New York City. I pointed to the T-Rex and said, "See that? THAT is a dinosaur."

3a. Why would she (or anyone) say that if it isn't in the bible it doesn't exist? Obviously that is not correct.
3b. Why in the world would she say there's no such thing as dinosaurs when you can clearly with your own eyes see them in pretty much any museum?

Click to expand...

General ignorance. Christians are hardly immune from thinking and saying silly things.

JustMike1964 said:

One day we went on a long ride somewhere, I forget where. About an hour or so into the trip she realized she forgot her Insulin. So, I turned right around and went back to she could get it. She actually got MAD at me, because I DIDN'T get mad at her. Can someone PLEASE explain that one to me? So after all that and maybe a few months later, when she got fed up trying to get me to convert, she gave me an ultimatum one day and said, "If you don't convert, it's over." I was pretty much out the door by the end of the sentence and never talked to her again.

Click to expand...

I don't think anyone but her could explain why she got mad at you for not getting mad at her.

JustMike1964 said:

4a. If Noah's Ark was real, can someone please explain to me how the kangaroos were able to get to Australia?

Click to expand...

As I don't take the story of the flood literally, I don't think kangaroos had to travel from Australia to the Middle East to get on the ark.

JustMike1964 said:

4b. And on the subject of Noah, if he entire world was flooded and destroyed ALL life, didn't the fish survive?

Click to expand...

The story doesn't concern itself with that question. But like I said, I don't read the story literally, and so I think those details are actually beside the point in the story. The story has a point--what happened to this or that animal, or how could a boat hold all these animals, are all questions the text doesn't address because that's actually not the point of the story.

JustMike1964 said:

5. For those who may not be familiar, the late comedian George Carlin has a video on YouTube about praying. (I'll leave out the expletives,) but he said that if your god has a "divine plan" for everyone that cannot be changed, why do people pray?

Click to expand...

Fatalism--the idea that everything is already per-determined, from what you'll eat for breakfast or who you'll marry, is actually something which Christian theologians have rejected since antiquity.

That said, the point of prayer isn't to treat God as a cosmic genie who grants our wishes and thus have the world bend to our will. In Christianity prayer is about communion with God, bringing ourselves before God and allowing God to affect us. I don't pray to try and change God's mind on something (that idea sounds silly to me), and I don't pray to try and make the world like what I want; I pray because I believe that through prayer God can change me.

JustMike1964 said:

6. When my father was in the hospital in 2003, 7 years after his heart transplant, with a diabetic issue, so many people said, "I'll pray for him." He died from the bacteria from a bedsore, which the hospital denied. The point there is, praying did absolutely nothing to help. Many people will say it "was his will." Yeah, but if he was already supposed to die because of the "divine plan," again, why bother praying?

Click to expand...

In August of 2000 my mother died from cancer. We had been praying for years, and some people at our church even claimed that God said she was going to be healed.

I'm not going to pretend to offer some pithy or spiritual sounding explanation. It just sucks.

--continued

JustMike1964 said:

7. If the bible is supposed to be the "word of god," then why was so much removed from it in various version of the bible? There should be ONE version, with no contradictions. Can someone help me with that?

Click to expand...

It's not entirely clear what you are referring to when you say "so much removed from it in various version of the bible"

This is really a topic that could be a conversation in itself, because there's a lot of important information that I believe is relevant and should be covered with some depth; but for brevity's sake I'm going to simply provide two key points of information.

1. We talk about a "Biblical Canon", that is, an agreed set of books which Christians have, by consensus over time, regarded as our authoritative books. How that consensus was reached is somewhat complex and nuanced. And there are two sub-discussions, one involving the Old Testament and one involving the New Testament. By and large the Old Testament has been received from our Jewish forebearers, those books which Jews regarded as sacred. But there is a distinction between the Jewish Bible (aka the Tanakh) and the Christian Old Testament, because the development of both followed different trajectories with different influences after the destruction of the Jewish Temple. Christians, primarily, relied on the Septuagint, a Greek translation of Jewish Scripture made a couple hundred years before Jesus in Egypt; the Septuagint contained books and a different ordering of books than what would become the Jewish Bible in the later post-Temple rabbinic period. However, even among Christians there were disagreements on certain books, and there still remains a disagreement among Christians even today. That disagreement is this: Most Protestants do not accept those books which are found in the Septuagint but not found in the Jewish Tanakh, these books are traditionally called "Deuterocanonical" in the West, but beginning with Martin Luther were given the name "The Apocrypha" in Protestant Bible translations. Which is why the Catholic/Orthodox Old Testament looks different than the modern Protestant Old Testament.

The development of the New Testament is a different story. From very early on--about as early as we can look in the historical record--there arose what we can call a kind of "core New Testament", certain books which were received and accepted universally. The technical term for these books is Homolegoumena, a Greek term that roughly translates to "same writings" because they were the same everywhere. Whether you were going to church in Spain or going to church in Egypt or Persia, these books were accepted universally and everywhere. But in addition to these core books of the New Testament (the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the thirteen Epistles of Paul, along with 1 John and 1 Peter) there were some disputed books. We call these disputed books Antilegoumena, they are the "contested writings". The books of the Antilegoumena are actually a rather short list, these include the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 & 3 John, 2 Peter, the Revelation of John; all of which are found in the New Testament today; but also a handful of books which have ultimately not been retained in the New Testament Canon. These include The Didache, The Shepherd of Hermas, The Epistle of Barnabas, 1 Clement, and in some ancient book lists also includes the Revelation of Peter and Acts of Paul. Even today many consider some of these works to be valuable and important works, not Scripture, but still having value; in particular the Didache and Epistle of Clement (1 Clement) are regarded as valuable early Christian literature. The reason why these books didn't eventually gain full acceptance as books of the Bible isn't because they were bad, or said anything necessarily disagreeable (though the Shepherd of Hermas did raise some eyebrows), but largely came down to other reasons. Certain criteria came to be adopted to help determine a book's canonical value and status, including when it was written and who wrote it. So books deemed too late, or whose authorship was questionable were held suspect--which is why 1 Clement and 2 Peter were both contested, Clement wasn't an apostle and wrote his letter after the death of the last apostle, and there were many doubts about whether 2 Peter was written by Peter. Same with Hebrews, the author of Hebrews is unknown; though arguments which said Paul wrote it helped get it fully accepted, same with 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and the Revelation of John.

So from that we can know that the Bible really does have exactly the number of books it should have--because the evolution of the Biblical Canon has taken place over a long period of time, with an ever-emerging consensus. When Christians, historically, say the Bible is the word of God, we are saying that the Bible bears divine witness and that the books which make up the Bible stand as a divine witness to Jesus--that it is Jesus who is the Theme and Subject of the entire Bible. As Jesus is, Himself, the Word of God (John 1:1, John 1:14) thus the Bible proclaims that Word (Jesus) for our good within the Church. It's not because, historically, Christians are confused about how the Bible came about; rather it's because the Church as God's people regard our consensus and conviction about these books are the Christ-bearing books, they bear in their witness Jesus Christ for us. It is Jesus who ultimately makes the Bible holy.

2. Since you spoke about versions, this comes down more to academic disciplines involving the research and study of manuscripts. Taking just the manuscripts of the New Testament together, there are literally thousands of Greek New Testament manuscripts (Greek being the original language) sot hat isn't even including ancient translated manuscripts into Latin, Coptic, or Syriac. These manuscripts range from thumbnail fragments of papyrus to full biblical codices written elaborately on parchment. The oldest of these manuscripts are dated around the early-mid 2nd century, and are found in every century afterward, from many different places of the ancient world. Since books deteriorate over time, especially in humid conditions (the oldest and best preserved manuscripts were preserved by dry conditions) it was necessary that in order to preserve any piece of writing it had to be hand-copied. Well, naturally, it's always possible that a copyist might flub, or might feel the need to add a little note in the margins of the text. Whatever the case, this means that we can find textual variations across manuscripts. Now these variations are nearly universally so minor that they barely matter at all except to nerdy academics who make it their job to care about things like this. But in modern times scholars have, by poring over thousands of manuscripts across centuries, largely categorized these manuscripts into broad "families". So you might see things like "Byzantine text type" or "Alexandrian text type" when referring to these. You might also see "Majority Text" and "Minority Text". Text-types, like Byzantine and Alexandrian are simply large groups of manuscripts which share more details with others in that group than others. That means those manuscripts called "Byzantine" tend to look more like other Byzantine texts than they do, say, Alexandrian texts. In the modern era, scholars have created "Critical Editions" or "Critical Texts" which means going through a host of the manuscript material and producing a complete reproduction of the Greek New Testament, which can then be used for study, and also as a basis for translation. Over the last few centuries several major Critical Texts have been produced for the New Testament, and modern English Bibles usually rely on one or the other, or use multiple of these Critical Texts. Translators won't rely exclusively on Critical Texts, but also look at variant sources (which is why lots of Bibles have marginal notes saying that some sources read differently here and there).

It's not that anything is ever "lost", it's that different Bible translators use different translation philosophies, work with different source materials, and sometimes that means there can be subtle differences between translations. But two translations working with the same and identical source text can still read slightly differently because of differences of opinion in how to translate something. Anyone who has studied languages knows that translation is often more interpretation than an exact science.

JustMike1964 said:

8a. If we're "all made in god's image," who is supposed to be a loving god, all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. Why was Hitler allowed to kill over 6 million people?
8b. Why is Putin allowed to do what he is doing?

Click to expand...

The Christian understanding is that, while made in God's image, the problem of sin and death has distorted and twisted that image and we live in a broken world and that we, ourselves, are in some sense fundamentally broken--right down to the core of ourselves. People like Hitler or Putin are simply examples of what happens when evil people are given a lot of power.

The problem of sin, of death, of suffering, and all the deep wrongs are seen in Christianity as a deep wound both in the universe as a whole, and also specifically in ourselves. And it is this deep wound, this deep wrong, which makes us all both victims of evil and perpetrators of evil, that Christ came to fix. That is a massive conversation about the core doctrines of Christianity which is difficult to give summary here. But an incomplete brief statement would be: The world is in a state of deep wrongness, this is contrary to God's will, and so God's will is to fix all that wrongness by reconciling people to Himself and, in the end, put the entire universe back together as it should be.

JustMike1964 said:

9. I have been told SO many times that I ma not interpreting the bible correctly. While I have never and will never read it, I have of course, seen parts, many times. My question to the people who DO read it is, "How do you know YOU are interpreting it correctly?" Just because you believe/follow, there is nothing concrete in here. It's ALL open to interpretation." So what makes THEM right?

Click to expand...

To some extent we will all have our own biases when we read the Bible. So it's, of course, possible that in many cases nobody is interpreting is 100% correctly. But it's also not just some game of guesswork. There are insights, and important toolsets that one can employ when working with understanding any text. This applies to any written work, not just the Bible. So there are good and bad ways to read the Bible, just as there are good and bad ways to read anything. And there can be degrees here, a less-wrong interpretation for example.

Interpretation does not mean "what I think it means", though unfortunately that is often how the idea of interpretation is presented. Interpretation is a methodological approach of making sense of something. For example when scientists interpret data, they look at raw data and employ certain methodologies to interpret that data in such a way as to talk about it. The same thing is true when it comes to interpreting what someone says, so for example interpreting a piece of media or art--questions like what was the author of this trying to say, why were they saying it? A painting, a sculpture, a poem, etc. Or, a phrase in a biographical work about Abraham Lincoln or Julius Caesar. Or the words of the Bible.

Interpretation involves discipline, study, and the employment of methodologies to create toolsets to make the best effort to understand what is being communicated in the text.

So while there may not be some totally perfect interpreter; there certainly are good and bad interpretive methods.

JustMike1964 said:

10. I thought long and hard about posting this question. I in NO way want to bring up politics (my other least favorite thing in the world) in this post, but I do have a question. I've heard there is a state that wants to bring the bible into the school and teach it. Isn't that what Sunday school is for? If it is an "elective" course, then sure. But if they are planning on making it part of the standard curriculum, then my children (if I had any) would pull them from there instantly and home schooled. Why are some people so adamant about this and not respecting the fact that not everyone follows the same thing? I never understood that.

Click to expand...

I can only give my view: I think there is an academic value to studying the Bible, so a course of academic study about the Bible could be interesting. But when certain Christians talk about having the Bible in a classroom that isn't what they have in mind; they aren't talking about an academic study of the Bible, but something closer to what would be given in a Sunday School or in Catechism or a sermon--a religious application of the Bible as the authoritative religious text of Christianity. I don't believe that belongs in a public education setting, that belongs in a church. It is a church's responsibility to provide religious and spiritual formation for the parishoners/congregation. The secular government, in the institution of a public school, has no business pretending to be church.

JustMike1964 said:

11. It's a known fact that religion is a VERY large cause of many murders. Why? Why would someone kill someone just because they don't believe in the same thing? What happened to "Love thy neighbor?" Also going back to us all being related - why are you killing a "family member?"

Click to expand...

1) That whole sin problem I mentioned earlier.
2) People are very adept at finding anything to justify their behavior, religion is a common excuse because people can attempt to use religion to rationalize their evil behavior and try and make themselves think they are doing it for a higher or more noble cause. Which, again, from a Christian POV, gets back to that whole sin problem.

We're broken, our thought patterns are broken, we act selfishly and can rationalize even the worst possible behavior by finding some kind of justification for it--race, religion, politics, power, food, water, --anything. People will do bad things for almost any reason, and for no reason at all.

JustMike1964 said:

There's many more questions, but this is a good start, Following are just some of the things I have gone through. Interested in others' take on these experiences.

While I do not celebrate or practice anything, if anything I guess I should be Jewish, as my ancestors were, mostly coming from Eastern Europe. My paternal grandmother actually survived the holocaust by putting blood from the murdered on herself and "playing dead" amongst the other murdered people. I had HOURS of her talking about this recorded on cassette in the 1970's, but sadly those were ruined in a basement flood.
...

Click to expand...

All I can say here is that I have a distaste for the commercialization of my religion's sacred observances, such as Christmas. And I have a distaste for them being used in a silly "culture war". For me Christmas is a holy time, and I don't expect people outside of my religion to see it that way. I no more expect non-Christians to take Christmas the way I do then I'd expect them to take Lent, Epiphany, or the Feast of the Annunciation. These are part of the Christian religious calendar, and are meant to regulate Christian liturgical life. Not make stores sell plastic trees in September and force store employees to say "Merry Christmas".

-CryptoLutheran

JustMike1964 said:

It's such a long story, but I am 59 and had a LOT of problems with religion growing up. Spent a larger portion of my life having it forced down my throat than I care to recall, mostly because when I tell someone I am not interested, they can't respect me. But anyway, that's not why I'm here.

I have some serious questions, and having asked SO many believers/followers over the decades, not ONE of them was able to give me an answer.It would be appreciated if someone could actually answer these questions. Thank you...

Click to expand...

Understand Mike that your post of complex, difficult questions is too long and intimidating for any reasonable person to tackle, yet alone dedicate the immense time to providing adequate answers. I will however attempt an answer to some of your questions because it's my mission today to reach out and help someone.

If we are all supposedly from Adam and Eve, and for lack of a better work Adam "gave birth" to Eve from a rib, why isn't it still done that way?

God apparently created the entire universe and all life supernaturally but imposed scientific laws upon it in order for it to function afterwards naturalistically. We can't know why He blended this mix of natural vs supernatural parameters but its evidence is consistent with both scientific laws and the Bible. God consequently designed humans to reproduce through a naturalistic, biological process that necessitates the transfer of DNA coding information from a set of man/woman parents to a child. Obviously that required the first man and woman to be created by some other supernatural means - in the same manner that the first pairs of all other living beings had to be created supernaturally.

When did it "switch" to a woman giving birth?

Obviously after Adam and Eve's creation, upon Eve's first conception of Cain.

If we're all from Adam and Eve, wouldn't/shouldn't we all be related?

Yes, and I believe current ancestral DNA studies support this conclusion.

If we're all from Adam and Eve, why are there several blood types?

We can only speculate, but Creation Ministries International offers a reasonable explanation. When God created Adam and Eve, He could have created them with great genetic variety. This means Adam and Eve could have possessed all three blood types between them. However, blood type O appears to be due to a mutated or damaged version of blood type A, which suggests it arose later in human history. This means Adam and Eve would only need to possess blood types A and B between them.

In 1990, I had a girlfriend who was relentless in trying to get me to "convert." ... Why can't people just live and let live?

There are many reasons why people try to influence, change or exert control over others. For the (genuine) Christian though, it's a two-fold incentive. First, is the Bible's command for us to spread the Gospel message of Jesus. Second, is our loving, genuine concern to save others' souls from judgment, damnation, and hell. Consider, if you found the most amazing truth in the world that affected people's lives more than anything else, would you not want to share it with others? To not do so would be unloving, uncaring, and unconscionable.

I was driving my ex-girlfriend and I to dinner one night and out of the blue, she says, "If it's not in the bible it doesn't exist." ... Why would she (or anyone) say that if it isn't in the bible it doesn't exist?

Obviously the Bible does not include specific details on everything existing past and present in this world since we know that cars, computers, and cell phones are real. I can only speculate her meaning, but she's probably drawing from the premise that the Bible is the ultimate source of truth in all matters.

Why in the world would she say there's no such thing as dinosaurs when you can clearly with your own eyes see them in pretty much any museum?

I was shocked to hear my own Christian girlfriend make a similar statement. Though I reject the evolutionary theory old aging of dinosaurs, I don't think any rational, educated person can dismiss the tens of thousands of dinosaur bones found to date by paleontologists. I might speculate though the reason for her statement. Like most Christians today, she's probably trying to reconcile the supposed contradiction between science and the Bible. And rather than believe that man lived with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago as Genesis implies, she may have chosen to deny the existence of dinosaurs altogether. I'd maintain the right approach is to embrace both the Bible and science while rejecting the prevalent, false conclusions of today's secular scientists and culture.

One day we went on a long ride somewhere, I forget where. About an hour or so into the trip she realized she forgot her Insulin. So, I turned right around and went back to she could get it. She actually got MAD at me, because I DIDN'T get mad at her. Can someone PLEASE explain that one to me?

No, but I can affirm that we'll never fully understand the minds, words, and works of women. Don't let that affect your decision on religious matters though. Many people are irrational about certain things but that that doesn't discredit everything they think or do. When it comes to religion, truth exists despite the worldwide confusion over matters.

So after all that and maybe a few months later, when she got fed up trying to get me to convert, she gave me an ultimatum one day and said, "If you don't convert, it's over." I was pretty much out the door by the end of the sentence and never talked to her again.

I understand how an unbeliever could live with a believer since the former can simply ignore, not participate, or not feel the beliefs of the latter. It doesn't work well the other way though because the believer needs a partner that shares the same Biblical world view and values. Consider, the Christian marriage is for the glory of God which requires both parties to show love for each other in the same way that Christ shows love for his church.

If Noah's Ark was real, can someone please explain to me how the kangaroos were able to get to Australia?

Current creation models pose a separation of the continents during the flood, allowing all animals to reach the ark before the catastrophic event. An ice age and lower sea levels right after the flood would provide land bridges between the continents. Looking at a sea floor map between Australia and SE Asia supports this as a reasonable explanation for the kickeroos migration. There's also reasonable plausibility that huge, floating debris mats would enable continental migration as well.

On the subject of Noah, if the entire world was flooded and destroyed ALL life, didn't the fish survive?

Answered well by another here.

If your god has a "divine plan" for everyone that cannot be changed, why do people pray?

I'd suggest first that man has an innate awareness of God in his heart and a desire for connection with his Creator. Consider, even Atheists get caught praying when circumstances require it. It's understandable then that those who know and love God choose to share their thoughts with him even though they know he already fully knows them. Why do that? Because communication is part of any loving relationship. A Christian talks to God by praying, and that praying can be for guidance, help, thankfulness, praise, or just sharing one's thoughts. And regardless of whether or how prayers are answered, it strengthens the relational bond between God and man just as intimate conversation does between two spouses. Even more so, prayer helps the Christian focus on God and less on oneself.

When my father was in the hospital in 2003, 7 years after his heart transplant, with a diabetic issue, so many people said, "I'll pray for him." He died from the bacteria from a bedsore, which the hospital denied. The point there is, praying did absolutely nothing to help. Many people will say it "was his will." Yeah, but if he was already supposed to die because of the "divine plan," again, why bother praying?

As detailed above, praying should draw us closer to God and that's His priority concern since He's more concerned about our souls and spiritual relationship with Him than our comfort.

If the bible is supposed to be the "word of god," then why was so much removed from it in various version of the bible? There should be ONE version, with no contradictions. Can someone help me with that?

The charge from skeptics that books have been kept out or removed from the Bible is simply not true. The Bible grew organically with each writing that was deemed to be Divinely inspired. What we have today as canonical is what the earliest Jews and church fathers accepted as scriptural. Other books touted by The History Channel or YouTube videos as lost books of the Bible were never accepted as Divine inspirational writings but have been promulgated for certain heretical teachings they contain. As for contradictions, there are hundreds that are alleged on skeptic websites, but there are also legitimate answers countering each of these. I have several excellent video sermons on this whole Bible authority issue if you or someone else is willing to spend the time studying it.

If we're "all made in god's image," who is supposed to be a loving god, all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. Why was Hitler allowed to kill over 6 million people? Why is Putin allowed to do what he is doing?

I'm sure you've heard it before that God gave us free will and man has chosen to exercise that choice by serving himself rather submitting to God. Thus evil exists. God didn't create it but clearly allows it. The Bible even says that Satan is the current, temporary prince of this fallen world. But, don't judge the game that's only half over, because in the end judgement and justice will be done for all. The issue of evil and suffering in the world is a legitimate challenge by both skeptics and believers. There are numerous books on the subject and at least one excellent video I can recommend if you have a genuine interest in the matter. Know though that evil and suffering in the world is far less damaging with a Biblical world view than a secular world view. In other words, the world's past and current events all change significance when one considers the eternity of souls and an afterlife.

I have been told SO many times that I ma not interpreting the bible correctly. While I have never and will never read it, I have of course, seen parts, many times. My question to the people who DO read it is, "How do you know YOU are interpreting it correctly?"

Thus, the reason for so many interpretations and denominations. In reality, the principles of Christianity are pretty clear in the Bible, and if one respects the authority of the Bible enough to read it literally where appropriate, that leaves a limited number of doctrinal disputes. What happens throughout history and today is cultural pressure to change God's word to suit man's word. People do that by allegorizing scripture in order to get the Bible to suit their preferred meaning. While much of the Bible's Old Testament history and prophesy can be tedious or confusing, any sane adult should be able to read, interpret, and understand the Bible's Gospel message quite easily just by reading the text literally where appropriate. We now have numerous excellent translations to suit every person's reading level, along with Bible commentaries to give interpretive insight. As for entrusting another person or source for help with interpretation, a literal (correct) reading of Genesis 1 should serve as a good litmus test.

I've heard there is a state that wants to bring the bible into the school and teach it. Isn't that what Sunday school is for?

The vast majority of Americans today would agree with you since they've accepted the misguided notion of separation of church and state. Few today are even aware of America's Christian heritage that prevailed up to the mid 20th century. For 300 years, we were a nation guided by Christian beliefs and moral values, with the Bible (and later, McGuffey Reader and Blue Back Speller, both being full of Bible teachings) being the primary textbook of schools and basis for laws and government. I have two excellent series of video sermons on this subject that I'd be glad to share with anyone interested. Meanwhile, let me defer to just one quote from Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution, considered 1 of the top 3 founding fathers of the nation, and credited with establishing the nation's public school system. In 1791 he authored a publication titled "A Defense of the Use of the Bible as a School Book." In it he said "The only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government is the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible." This view of America's security and prosperity being entirely dependent upon society's belief in God and Christian virtue permeated our country's government and cultural history up to the mid 20th century. I don't think the 1963 Supreme Court ruling will ever allow us to go back to Bible reading in the public schools, but consider this: our country's moral values and civil culture have clearly degraded over the past 50-75 years. Could there be a connection with what we teach - or not teach in this case - our youth these days in school?

It's a known fact that religion is a VERY large cause of many murders. Why? Why would someone kill someone just because they don't believe in the same thing? What happened to "Love thy neighbor?" Also going back to us all being related - why are you killing a "family member?"

Your premise is more often applied to wars, where Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars proved it not to be true at all. Less than 7% of the past 1763 wars of recorded world history can be accurately attributed to religion, with power and control over land and resources being the overwhelming cause. Does religion cause more murders now? Only if you count Atheism as a religion, where secular governments like China and North Korea are killing Christians because they view the faith as a threat to their tyrannical control. Otherwise, the vast majority of murders being committed in the name of religion today are by Muslims and Hindus against Christians - particularly in India and Africa.

Love thy neighbor? That's a Christian moral value not justifiable by evolutionists or relativist Atheists. Where's that concept come from? I'd answer that it comes from God, who above all things, directs us to love Him and to love others.

I've given you over 8 hours of my time and attention and am worn out. I understand you don't want God's blessing wished upon you, but I'll pray here and now that he convict your heart enough to do more research on the matter. It's the most important thing in life to get right, finding one's place with God.

JustMike1964 said:

1a. If we are all supposedly from Adam and Eve, and for lack of a better work Adam "gave birth" to Eve from a rib, why isn't it still done that way?
1b. When did it "switch" to a woman giving birth?

Click to expand...

It is made to be an "automatic" process such no God's intervention is required. Our world is a self-running environment, God's only job here is save His sheep. It's a wilderness with His sheep scattered. God doesn't maintain 'wilderness'. So the bone stuff only applies to the first pair of humans. You know, ancient humans lack the ability to convey a historical fact. That's how all the flood myths in the different cultures. Before humans can seriously record history, they pass historical information as stories till facts are twisted into myths. Ancient stories of Bible on the other hand, is enforced by God though conveyed in story for the sake that humans' maximum capability can only convey facts in story form.

JustMike1964 said:

2a. Also, if we're all from Adam and Eve, wouldn't/shouldn't we all be related? (We've all heard during incestuous birth, the newborn often has some medical issues.)
2b. Also also, if we're all from Adam and Eve, why are there several blood types?

Click to expand...

Today, our science said that humans have Neandathal genes inside us. The Bible also recorded that the sons of God married human women to give birth to the "giants" and such. God doesn't maintain physical existence in this world, including our genome. Thing are in a self-running manner. You are identified as a human because you have a human soul which is the only part which is purely human. And God is to save your soul.

JustMike1964 said:

4a. If Noah's Ark was real, can someone please explain to me how the kangaroos were able to get to Australia?
4b. And on the subject of Noah, if he entire world was flooded and destroyed ALL life, didn't the fish survive?

Click to expand...

Also there are scientists speculate that long ago Austrialia is connected to the continent. However, the surface of earth never stopped moving, along with earthquakes, that it disconnected from the main continent at some point.

God never asked Noah to catch fishes. Please re-read Genesis. The story is prophetic, God possibly asked Noah to catch whatever he can (excluding the fishes), then God promosed Noah those species will for sure re-appear in the future New Earth and New Heaven. Naturally the sea fishes have no chance to exist as it is said that "there is no sea" in the future New Earth (book of Revelation). Added that, God respawns everything needed to establish today's world, including bacteria, insects and such. So we may have misunderstood the promise. God may promise Noah that whatever he can catch will re-appear not for today's world but for the New World to come.

JustMike1964 said:

5. For those who may not be familiar, the late comedian George Carlin has a video on YouTube about praying. (I'll leave out the expletives,) but he said that if your god has a "divine plan" for everyone that cannot be changed, why do people pray?

Click to expand...

Praying remains the only for a normal person to have contact with God. Through prayers God forms a individually recognizable pattern to strengthen the faith of that person. Though we don't know how, but things to Christians could well be pre-destined.

Aussie Pete said:

6. Some things are difficult to understand. When things go wrong in my life, I simply trust God anyway. He sent Jesus to die in my place. That's love that is beyond understanding.

Click to expand...

The Bible said that you need to spiritually grow up. You may need to identify a good church and join its Sunday services, and better Sunday school to learn more what the Bible is trying to say.

JustMike1964 said:

6. When my father was in the hospital in 2003, 7 years after his heart transplant, with a diabetic issue, so many people said, "I'll pray for him." He died from the bacteria from a bedsore, which the hospital denied. The point there is, praying did absolutely nothing to help. Many people will say it "was his will." Yeah, but if he was already supposed to die because of the "divine plan," again, why bother praying?

Click to expand...

Prayers don't hit 100% for you to have the evidence that God exists. They rather form a kind of pattern for you to recognize to strengthen your faith. A 100% hit can only destruct your faith, as God is made evident to you. Without faith then, you can't be saved. It is in a reversed way. When your faith grows extradinarily strong that nothing can stop you from being saved (by the current Covenant in place which specifies that humans need to be saved by faith and faith alone), then God would consider to grant you a 100% hit on your prayers. This however seems to be something modern people can hardly achieve, consider that Jesus refers to the faith of His direct disciples as the size of the smallest seeds.

JustMike1964 said:

7. If the bible is supposed to be the "word of god," then why was so much removed from it in various version of the bible? There should be ONE version, with no contradictions. Can someone help me with that?

Click to expand...

You may need to study how both NT and OT are compiled from God's perspective.
Humans lack the ability to keep original documents, especially when we are talking about a whole theology. God trained up Israel, it's called to be God's chosen people, to be His loyal agent for the purpose of carrying forward God's message of salvation. The Jews have written Law and Oral Law and such for them to learn to pass God's message generation by generation. It is all because the Jews are loyal and dedicated to God that the OT canonization can be completed. God even preserved the Red Sea Scrolls such that we can tell that the OT Bible we read today is as accurate as 2000 years ago largely and at the theological level.

We can also tell how loyal the Jews are. They remain the only ethnicity preserving their own customs and religion after a 2000 year exile without their own homeland. They are just as loyal as that.

NT is totally another story. It's all because the Jews failed to do the job. Ancient Judaism is enforced by the Pharisees, they however went corrupt. They can't be close to God and thus failed to recognize Jesus their Messiah. God can no longer go through the Jews for His good news (gospel) to reach all mankind. God has to quickly establish another agent for the conveying of His truth of salvation. Christianity is established for the purpose, and as a legitimate replacement of the ancient Judaism (modern Judaism is yet another different story).

However, the same old issue exists. Humans lack the ability to convey original documents, especially in terms of a theology. As a matter of fact, the earlest manuscripts of the NT Bible can only be traced to the 4th (at best 3rd) century. Nothing about the NT Bible can be considered original. On the one hand, humans lack the ability to pass historical information precisely, on the other a lot of manuscripts are lost as a result of Roman-wide persecution. God can't rely on human capability or the lack thereof for the crafting of the NT Bible.

In NT era, God the Holy Spirit is poured to all Christians. We have God the Holy Spirit with us all. God also left mass of ancient manuscripts though the earliest and legit ones can only be traced back to the 4th century. Christians can harmonize the mass of manuscripts, under the leading of the Holy Spirit, to form an NT Canon which God wants us to have. Different groups of Christians with different efforts and from different perspectives to compose the NT in a slidely different way. Of course, inevitably, there are groups of Christians, possibly out of their own pride may have produced some sub-standard version. That's rather rare occasions from my own speculation. You need guidance from the Holy Spirit and from the church (you need to carefully choose one) to get to the translation which can be deemed as a better version or rather a version more suitable for you.

Even though the contexts of the different translations are different, they mostly remain theologically identical.

JustMike1964 said:

8a. If we're "all made in god's image," who is supposed to be a loving god, all-knowing, all-powerful, etc. Why was Hitler allowed to kill over 6 million people?
8b. Why is Putin allowed to do what he is doing?

Click to expand...

Earth is never meant to be built as a paradise. Like I said, ever since Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden, Earth is literally a wilderness. It's not yet a hell simply because God's sheep are still here.

On the other hand, earth is a place (i.e., wilderness) for all kinds of evil to show up openly, such that evil will be eradicated once and for all by the process known as the Final Judgment, in order to facilitate the building of an evil-free Heaven.

JustMike1964 said:

9. I have been told SO many times that I ma not interpreting the bible correctly. While I have never and will never read it, I have of course, seen parts, many times. My question to the people who DO read it is, "How do you know YOU are interpreting it correctly?" Just because you believe/follow, there is nothing concrete in here. It's ALL open to interpretation." So what makes THEM right?

Click to expand...

The Bible can usually be divided into two categories. The message of salvation, and the theological knowledge about what is behind the scene. People are dividing whenever knowledge is concerned. However the salvation message remains simple, that is, you need to believe in Jesus Christ to be saved.

You need to choose a church which can be deemed good, if you would further understanding the theological parts of the Bible. Pray more, and ask other Christians to pray for you more. Obviously you need to attend a church, instead of fighting alone. Fighting alone may risk yourself into traps prepared by the devil.

Aussie Pete said:

11. Christianity is not a religion. It's a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Jesus died and rose again to save mankind from their worst enemy - themselves. We do not need a new set of rules or a new guru to tell us how to live. People know what's right and wrong. The problem is how to live the right way. For that, we need a new nature, one that is able not to sin. That's what God offers us through Christ. We can leave the human race and become new beings. I've been a Christian for 50 years. I was dead until then, even though I was breathing. Now I am alive forever. You can be too.

Click to expand...

Yes, you need to follow Christ's teaching more closely. You need guidance from the Holy Spirit. You need to pray more and need more prayers from fellow Christians. To start with, you need to attend a good church.

JustMike1964 said:

I just don't understand why we all can't just get along. This world would be a MUCH better place.

Click to expand...

Okay, it worked out to start with the last, or almost last , and work from there.
If everyone just got along, there would be no righteousness, no truth in most places, since the world hates the truth and opposes the Creator.

JustMike1964 said:

If something is supposed to be the WORD, then there should be ZERO changes to the original text.

Click to expand...

This is correct, but man is dirty and selfish and self-centered overall, even or in spite of any religion (Yahweh hates religion, but He Loves men). When it profits to change something, man may not hesitate to change it, and might not even be able to control himself not to change it, especially to get more attention as well as power and money.

JustMike1964 said:

Except for maybe the Muslims and the Orthodox or Hassidic Jewish people, it's not easy to tell what people do or do not believe it.

Click to expand...

This is a huge problem at times.

JustMike1964 said:

If I had a nickel for every time someone tried to force their religion down my throat or disrespected my wishes, I would have choked to death decades ago. Literally.

Click to expand...

Yep. Maybe the Creator allowed that to let you see for yourself the errors, the gross and harmful errors of man and religion?

JustMike1964 said:

if anything I guess I should be Jewish, as my ancestors were

Click to expand...

So you are one of Yahweh's chosen people, according to His Own Word.
Whoever blesses you He Blesses. Whoever seeks to harm you, He curses.

JustMike1964 said:

6. When my father was in the hospital in 2003, 7 years after his heart transplant, with a diabetic issue, so many people said, "I'll pray for him." He died from the bacteria from a bedsore, which the hospital denied. The point there is, praying did absolutely nothing to help. Many people will say it "was his will." Yeah, but if he was already supposed to die because of the "divine plan," again, why bother praying?

Click to expand...

Pray and obey, don't obey fallible men when they are wrong. Obey God and men who are right. When doing things man's way, a wrong way, harm ensues.

JustMike1964 said:

11. It's a known fact that religion is a VERY large cause of many murders. Why? Why would someone kill someone just because they don't believe in the same thing? What happened to "Love thy neighbor?" Also going back to us all being related - why are you killing a "family member?"

Click to expand...

Selfishness basically. False teachers, false teachings, .... self centered instead of seeking the Creator ....

JustMike1964 said:

1a. If we are all supposedly from Adam and Eve, and for lack of a better work Adam "gave birth" to Eve from a rib, why isn't it still done that way?
1b. When did it "switch" to a woman giving birth?

Click to expand...

It never switched. Eve was a perfect woman, the most healthy mom physically ever on earth. Yahweh Created her to multiply , to have children. And she did.
Hopefully someone corrected your strange idea about Adam.

JustMike1964 said:

2a. Also, if we're all from Adam and Eve, wouldn't/shouldn't we all be related? (We've all heard during incestuous birth, the newborn often has some medical issues.)
2b. Also also, if we're all from Adam and Eve, why are there several blood types?

Click to expand...

We are all related.
The Creator With Infinite and Perfect Wisdom (His first creation Wisdom),
made it so. It is usually best to ignore man when man starts talking about genes or chromosomes or stuff like that - they almost never obey nor honor the Creator.

JustMike1964 said:

3a. Why would she (or anyone) say that if it isn't in the bible it doesn't exist? Obviously that is not correct.
3b. Why in the world would she say there's no such thing as dinosaurs when you can clearly with your own eyes see them in pretty much any museum?

Click to expand...

Brainwashed by religion ?

JustMike1964 said:

4a. If Noah's Ark was real, can someone please explain to me how the kangaroos were able to get to Australia?
4b. And on the subject of Noah, if he entire world was flooded and destroyed ALL life, didn't the fish survive?

Click to expand...

I think I saw one of your posts you realize the Creator did not try to kill all the fish.
Kangaroos were one of His Favorite animals so when it was time He may have had a fiery chariot deliver them ... ? (haha for this one)

JustMike1964 said:

5. For those who may not be familiar, the late comedian George Carlin has a video on YouTube about praying. (I'll leave out the expletives,) but he said that if your god has a "divine plan" for everyone that cannot be changed, why do people pray?

Click to expand...

Most people do not pray. They are condemned already for their unbelief while still on earth.