""I believe the Bible because it was written by eyewitnesses during the lifetime of other eyewitnesses.""

If you truly believe that the old testament is a truthful and accurate collection of facts, then you have obviously never heard of, let alone played, the childhood game of Chinese whispers. It is not known at what point it became a written, as opposed to verbally transmitted, entity and there is no reason to suppose that there were no alterations due to the personal bias, prejudice, or intentions of the many scribes who must in 6000 years have been involved in its transmission.

As to the New Testament, being based on the gospels which were written a hundred years or more after the death of Jesus, and exposed once more (as was the Old Testament too) to the machinations of generations of MEN with widely divergent ideals and interpretations of meaning.

To regard it as the definitive word of "GOD" is at the very least naive, and at worst self deluding dishonesty.

Assuming that there were a God, omnipresent and omnipotent, he would surely find a better broadcasting medium than several thousand years of mere men with a generous helping of bigotted control freaks, zealots, and genocidal murderers, wouldn't you think?

I believe in a deity, and I believe that he found a much better and more direct method, which is IMO why Atheists and Agnostics, Muslims and Christians, can all exhibit the highest moral and ethical compass without needing to subscribe to the bible, the Torah, or the Koran.

Don T.

Don T.