One skeptic to another?

Good Morning Friend. I am looking for skeptic who might help me complete my religious education. From childhood I was exposed to Christian thoughts. When I reached college age I discovered some of these were quite complicated. I then attempted to read the Bible but bogged down with the irrelevant stuff.

There were tales of huge families, strange events, bloody wars and hard-to-believe miracles. Some were interesting and some not. I began to question what was fiction and what was fact and found reasons to doubt much of what I had been taught. I accepted the concept of God but rejected a lot of the mythology that surrounds Christianity.

.....As the story goes, in the beginning there was God. He designed and created the entire universe. To accept this requires logic, not the "leap of faith" that evangelists like to talk about. It's easy to understand that what a person sees would not exist if it was not created. Thousands of years ago they understood this idea, but couldn't leave it alone. They were compelled to explain it. Time passed and the explanations became more and more elaborate. The original thoughts were (accidentally) modified as they were passed down from parents to children. Scholars, teachers and prophets added their opinions along the way.

.....Several ideas of nature's origin were well established before Jesus arrived. As a young man he preached his version, and asked people to turn from animism, idols or other gods and worship his one God. Jesus made a significant impact on what was then a very small part of the world. He never travelled far - but his preaching was persuasive and far reaching. He entrusted his followers to carry his words to the limits of the world.

.....The known world at that time was the land surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Most of it was governed by the Romans who resented the rising influence of Jesus and believed he and his movement were a potential threat. Finally they arrested, judged and killed him.

.....By that time Jesus was known as the "Christ", and his followers as "Christians". From the moment he died on the cross until the present time, religious scholars have been interpreting and trying to explaining his teachings. Before and after he died, scribes recorded what was the known history. It was translated and passed from one generation to another, often translated from one language to another. Fictions and facts were made written documents. Despite the uneven scholarship many of the original documents can still be read today. The Dead Sea Scrolls for example.

.....Christians and Jews collected these stories, histories, legends, and mysteries, and from them all they produced the Holy Bible. There is evidence that many many people influenced biblical information before it was assembled. The Holy Bible includes all of this and, despite the circuitous gathering of the biblical components, a large number of Christians believe it to be the actual words of God. I am not in that number.

.....My skepticism has led me to think that the religious scholars who assembled the first bible interpreted the words AS IF they were SPOKEN by God.

.....Once I got that settled in my mind, I found it easy to accept the Bible as an interpreted record of history, logic, reasoning, philosophy, morals, ethics and so forth - and the written authority for the Christian religion. The Holy Bible has come to us from antiquity and it's pages offer comfort to troubled minds. I believe the Bible conveys what God MAY have said or intended - but perhaps not the exact, literal, words.

.....Miracles are difficult for me to accept.

• Did Moses ACTUALLY come down the mountain with stone tablets etched with the "Ten Commandments"? It's makes a great story but it probably didn't happen. I suspect a craftsman chiseled the Ten Commandments at the direction of one or more prophets, and gave them to Moses.

• JESUS may have actually died on the cross, but did he actually come back to life and rise to heaven? I think not. All experience tells us that death is final, and the physical body once dead can not move by itself. In my rationalization I believe the essence or soul of Jesus may have ascended to heaven, but not the body.

• CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY tells us that every human being has a soul. It is sometimes described as the spirit of man, and it seems to be unprovable. Yet, I accept that every person has a deeply religious component (spirit), but still wonder if the idea was first conceived by a theologian to describe the superiority or the mystery of mankind? This is an unresolved question with me.

• DIVIDING THE FISH. My favorite Sunday School story. Did Jesus actually divide one small fish into enough pieces to feed the multitude? If he did it would have been a miracle. The Holy Bible is full of miracles and I question every one. In the case of the fish, I suspect that the story is a parable used to teach a Christian lesson, and no miracle at all.

• Did JESUS actually heal people that had incurable disabilities or illnesses? The Bible tells us that Jesus could cure blindness, for example, by simply laying his hands on the person. Granted, modern medicine has learned that attitude and desire can have an effect on physical ailments and infirmities. However, it is not our experience that the laying of hands on a person can cure blindness, or repair a crippled body, or make a person who has lost a limb whole again.

These questions can go on forever but I am going to end this blog right here. My skepticism is stated, and despite all of these conflicts, I believe in Jesus Christ, God, and the Holy Bible. But obviously, I am not yet ready to accept ALL of the Christian theology.

END