I go to Bible Study (Actually we call it Torah Study, but we also think that IS the Bible give or take Kings, Psalms, Prophets, etc. (The Tanach), and there's a lot of nastiness therein. Our heroes have feet of clay, wives of wandering feet. Lies get told, brothers get sold, Bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people (Never mind Job). And that capturing of human character, from best to worst cultivates my belief. I have no resonance with rosy colored glasses. The Torah captures a people in development in what we now call primitive times. stone age to bronze age. Yet their cares and motivations are ours. God offers a blessing AND a curse. We ignore the vital human message therein at our peril.

One can find the message in Gilgamesh, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Greek Myths, and many other earlier works of our common human history. I have only perused the Koran and found a lot of diatribe in it, but I can't be fair without spending a lot more time in it. The New Testament is a somewhat gladsome follow-on to Scripture, and spends too much time IMHO trying to establish the divinity of Jesus, which I do not accept, yet there are some great quotes in it, such as the one about putting away childish things upon adulthood, and the one about: "Be ye not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind". That quote was included in a college math text about transforming equations and I love it!

I once succeeded in getting my girlfriend, a religious person, to freeze solid in the midst of a hug when I said: "If there is a God, He's got a lot to answer for." (And God DOES answer, after a fashion, in Job).

While I have us on the story of Job, I must recommend a movie called "The Revolt of Job" about a Jewish couple living in Hungary. They go to an orphanage and adopt a vigorous young boy who is NOT Jewish. The object being to have someone to leave their culture and property to. That orphan was the writer/director of the movie. It is not only a decent movie but the title captures the theme perfectly.

My overall thought is that to think things through REQUIRES blasphemy.