I’ve wanted to join some of the debates re: religion because I see the names of some interesting and respected posters there. But honestly, as soon as I start reading I get so angry that the letters start to swim before my eyes. Inevitably people start throwing Biblical quotes into the mix and it drives me batshit.
I just don’t see the point deriving one’s understanding of God from an old book that’s been rewritten and revised approximately a jillion times. It’s just a book. It’s not God. There’s a lot of wonderful prose and wisdom contained therein, but it’s also full of contradictions, factual errors, prejudices and false beliefs. It’s been translated and reinterpreted repeatedly. It was written by people - human beings - not God. Some of the authors had divine things to say, and some of them were schmucks.
It would be terrific if the Bible were God. It would be lovely if life came with an instruction manual or a set of clear rules. The truth is there are a lot of instructions and rules that we can choose to follow. It’s a question of what works. I really disagree with people who abdicate responsibility for their own choices by deferring to the Bible.
I respect the Bible as a historical document containing the accumulated knowledge and beliefs of several hundred years’ of human history. I would no more worship the Bible than the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
As to knowing God, there are a lot of other (easier, IMHO) ways of getting there.