About the Bible and Christianity

I have been studying Christianity and the history of the Bible and such for a number of years.
The following is my comprehension of what I have studied – this is not an annotated thesis, it is
my impression, heavily colored by my own viewpoint.

I grew up taking the Bible quite literally. I reached young adulthood believing in the young earth
(8000 year old earth) and in a worldwide flood. My science fiction book, “Doors” – posted on
Scribd and for sale through Amazon and other sources – has pink skies due to the fact that when
I asked my mother what color the skies were on earth prior to the flood, she answered, without
hesitation, “Pink”. The Creation Museums contend that the earth was a terrarium with a layer of
water in the atmosphere prior to the flood. At the time of the flood, there were volcanic
erruptions that broke the earth’s crust and released subterranean waters and also changed the
conditions so that the outer ring of water, that protected the earth from UV rays and led to the
long lives of the patriarchs, was released and flooded the earth.

I joined a scientific affiliation of Christians who contended that this ring of water would have
caused so much atmospheric pressure as to raise the temperature of the earth above the point
where life can exist. I hadn’t gotten that specific in my book, so I left in the pink skies.

Further research yielded a number of interesting facts:

1. People in the Biblical lands, even as late as the 20th century, portrayed numbers loosely.
Asking someone how old they were and then asking them in what year they were born
relative to current events at that time resulted in vastly different answers. Storytelling is an
art that permeates much of certain societies. Altering facts to improve the story is expected.
2. The Bible was a continuing work until the time of Jesus. At that time, a Jewish group met
and threw out the later books in order to cut off the Bible prior to the time of Jesus and
keep Him out. The early Christian churches had a wide variety of books that were pared
down in the 4th century. The rejected Hebrew literature, now considered the Apocrypha,
was included in the early Christian literature. It was much later that it was given a second
tier ranking and even later that certain Christian denominations rejected it. The basis of the
rejection was largely the fact that the Jews didn’t consider it scripture – but they most
probably rejected it for solely political reasons. This Apocrypha is still included in the
Catholic Bible. It reads like scripture to me.
3. Jesus and Joseph may have been construction worker carpenters instead of furniture
making carpenters. It would fit with history.
4. If someone says, “Are you coming with?” One would expect that they might be a German
speaking English. In the same way, the Bible can be tracked and found consistent or
inconsistent with certain times. References to historical events, ways of socializing,
wording of contracts and many other factors can place the time of the writing – which is a
separate issue from the time of the occurrence. The Bible is amazingly consistent.
5. Several Philistine camps were unearthed by a woman archeologist solely using the Bible as
a map. I find this amazingly impressive given the relative brevity of Biblical accounts. Up
to that point, many historians didn’t even believe the Philistines were even real.
6. Same with David. But proof of his existence has been unearthed. In fact, the more we find
out, the more of the Bible gets confirmed. (By the way, as near as I can tell, the Quran fares
pretty well by various tests as well.)
7. Jesus spoke in parables a lot. His point wasn’t to tell you how great Joe Schmoe was – it
was to illustrate concepts and teach how to live. So, why can’t Old Testament passages
have a similar purpose?
8. According to some very excellent biology I have read by Robert Shapiro, life can’t exist.
He is skeptical about the Bible and every other religious source. So, following his logic
through, we don’t exist. Here’s from one figment to another.  I always rejected evolution
mathematically. Devolution I could accept. I guess that biologists have actually tracked
evolution – but the time it would take to get to where we are contradicts other facts. And
that is assuming the original existence of life. Basically, I believe life is “God breathed”.
And I accept the analogy of the watchmaker.
9. Jesus hated religious hypocracy. Unfortunately, religious hypocracy appears to be
ubiquitous.
10. The Bible says that there is a father, a son and a Holy Ghost. What in the world does this
mean? Multiple Gods? I picture this more as if the one God, who is great and complicated
beyond our comprehension, broke off his finger (which of course isn’t a finger at all) and
made it into a man in order to have similar form with man to communicate better.
Personally, I don’t get the word “Trinity”. A finger isn’t equal to a whole person. And who
says that there are only three parts? Why can’t God be a quartet or an orchestra? There’s
this Priest called Melchizadek in the Bible. Couldn’t he be the fourth member of the
quartet? I think that this whole Trinity thing is an effort by man to define God’s
complicatedness in such a way that people can wrap their mind around it. One can’t wrap
one’s mind around God! Common!

What is my conclusion? The Bible says to love about a bejillion times. And it says to not
judge almost as often. That alone is my main conclusion.

The Bible says that everyone has to serve Jesus before entering heaven. But, let’s see – if a
devout anybody, Moslem, Jew, whomever – was welcomed into heaven by a ginormous
glowing person who looked right into their hearts and warmed them through and through and
then interviewed them – ummmm, well, wouldn’t that change a lot of perceptions? On
everybody’s part? I can just see the evil thinking Christians on the sidelines pursing their
faces so hard that they are turning inside out and then Jesus walking over and telling them to
get over themselves. That they’ve missed the point. What did they think “God is love” really
meant? And what did “Judge not lest ye be judged’ seem to mean to them? And the parable
of the Good Samaritan. What were they thinking? And then the scene changes and the pickle-
mouthed Christians are in court with this gigantic movie showing every mean, or shameful or
icky thing that they ever did. And Jesus is there saying, “If you hadn’t been judgemental, I
wouldn’t be showing your home video to the whole world. Have you decided to choose love
yet?” But the kind and loving non-Christian lover of God is introduced around with smiles
and charity and no home video.
I also believe that this life is school. And if we accept Jesus as our guide, then we have a very
real advantage in terms of being guided in order to get the most we can out of this existence.
Life isn’t all about being saved or not being saved. Accepting Jesus as Lord should mean
accepting Him as boss and guide. If it doesn’t, then is salvation real? And once “saved” the
learning is just beginning. The Bible talks about races, and earning the prize and crowns –
that isn’t talk consistent with just receiving the ticket of admission into heaven. Religion in
general and Christianity in particular has a lot more to it than that.

I do believe in the Bible and in salvation and baptism. I do believe in the Apostles Creed and
the Nicene Creed. I also believe that much of this is only part of the story.

I really love the parable of the blind men and the elephants – One blind man says that an
elephant is very like a rope, another like a sail, another like a sword, another like a snake,
another like a tree, and another like a wall. I add the blind men who say there is no elephant
because they cannot see it. The Bible says we all see through a glass darkly, but then face to
face. I taught math for years – I can tell you that you can teach addition and subtraction at
every level from Kindergarten through Grad school. Whole numbers, natural numbers,
rational numbers, irrational numbers, imaginary numbers…… infinite spaces – countably
infinite and non-countably infinite.

We don’t know much – we really, really don’t. What do we know? Love God, Love each
other and don’t judge. What you know to do, do. If you think it is a sin, don’t. God judges
the heart. We don’t. Love. First, last and in between: Love.

I haven’t really learned how to do that yet. My enormous id gets in the way. Id, ID, Ego –
Jesus washed feet. Jesus walked the extra mile. Jesus served.

And we have a great cloud of witnesses. And there are quite a few in your neighbor’s religion
that aren’t in your own. The Bible says that those who do right without the law exceed those
who do wrong with it. It says it a number of different ways.

I imagine I’ll add on to this monologue too. Just thoughts for right now.