What if you have never heard of God, Jesus, or the Holy Bible?

This is my justification for this off topic post, but the thread is either off topic, anyway, or it's such a general topic that this fits into it, too.I'd like to try to answer Pogo's questions with some very old answers, as I think the very early Christians would have answered them, and as I would now. Depends on what God says by his Spirit. Right. One, science has proven it's not literal; two, the people who think it's literal have terrible fruit ("You shall know a prophet by his fruit"); and three, we've never had to address its literalness in any practical way, so we wouldn't know ourselves outside of the help of points one and two.God rarely speaks about any Biblical subject until there's some practical purpose for doing so, as he tends to be much more concerned about action than talk. "Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient..." (1 Tim 1:9).Rules and regulations are for those of us who are not in tune enough with God to do his will all the time. Where we are, they do not apply. Where we aren't, we obtain help wherever we can. The Holy Spirit, as judged by the church.In the end, the faith of Christ and his apostles was supposed to be a spiritual faith, not one obtained from a book. "As many as are led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God." "The anointing remains with you (plural, y'all), and you know all things...The anointing which you have received from him remains in you, and you do not need any man to teach you."The writings of our faith, some of which have been gathered into a book called by moderns "The Holy Bible," are a tool and an aid to us. They are not the rule of life. That is given to us by the Spirit of God as we learn from God *together*.

Schraf,When contra was getting on me in another thread, you said you wish you'd have said something. I rarely bother saying anything when the shoes on the other foot, because creationist/Christians say the darndest things so often, it hardly seems worth bothering. But, I thought I would at least make one effort. It's hard for me to think of something more rude, unless someone were simply purposely insulting someone else. It's funny, but I think it's entirely possible that in that "apologetic fervor" (as in defensive, not as in repentant) I think many Christians really aren't intending to be that insulting. They're just "standing up for the faith."There should be a Guiness world record category for "Most Insulting Religious Statement." Of course, it happens so often that the above probably wouldn't be able to compete, but it's way up there.It's embarrassing. I apologize if he/she doesn't.Oh, and I think you're way off on those 600 Christian denominations. A 1984 US News & World Report article stated there were over 22,000 registered in the US. I found the reference in the book _Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up_ by David Bercot.