Armchair dissident

The catholic church is a good example why cherry-picking christians can be at least as bad as fundamentalists. This very "liberal christianty" refuses to allow women as priests in it's churches, refuses to allow gays in as priests, because the bible says so. Similarly it refuses to prosecute peadophilic priests, and utterly condems birth control, not to mention abortion - because the bible says so.

Cherry picking simply gives a church, or christian, a sense of moral foundation to protect their own bigotry while providing a smoke screen to cover up their own questionable morality; all the while you're required to gently overlook the fact that this cherry picking still comes from a work of fiction.

Rational BAC

I would not say the Bible is a total work of fiction. It is definitely errant. Certainly not to be taken literally. A composite of oral tradition based on (what I think anyway) to be some things that actually occurred. Added on to later on, greatly corrupted, much of it tossed out for reasons known only to long ago committees.

Divinely inspired as the Word of God?---------NAAAH. The Bible is the word about God-------written down by very fallible humans with most probably no divine intervention at all in its creation.

For me anyway-------I believe by faith (and some amount of reason------but when push comes to shove by faith)-------

That Jesus did live, that He was half human half God, that He was resurrected after death.

As far as the rest of it--What it all means--what is garbage and what is most likely true---that is up to me to determine for myself as best I can. That is all anyone can do unless you want to take the word of other very fallible men from long ago. Ridiculous to even think that those who lived 1700 years ago plus were any smarter or more "divinely inspired" than you or I.

Call it circular reasoning if you want to --the fact that deep down inside me I do believe in a very few simple things concerning Christianity-----based on faith and not subject to rational argument. ---Again --tough luck, too bad.

I can't help believing (openly irrationally) those very few things. And I can't help using reason to determine the rest of what Christianity is all about.