I am not trying to down God I am just trying to understand... I broke away from it when I started to think for my self (teens 15)
Yeah, my gramps was a baptist preacher in a rural area in Oregon and during the summers I would have to go to bible camp. When I was around ten I kept noticing that I could never get an answer to my questions that satisfied me. Everything kept coming back to "that's the miracle."
Me: how did Noah fit all those animals on the ark?
Them: that's the miracle.
Me: how did sampson kill 1,000 Philistines with a jawbone of an ass
them: he did, the bible says so
me: but that's like 1 Philistine per minute for almost 17 hours?
them: that's the miracle.
The two that finally got me were:
me: where do dinasaurs come from?
them: satan put those bones there to trick us.
me: why can't I read my Dungeons & Dragons stuff?
them: because Sunday is the Lord's day.
So I agree with you, the bible is book written by men, and as such, prone to error. You can trust it as much as you could trust any other media with a particular agenda. Some of
Leni Reifenstahl's films depicted reality, and some were absolute propaganda.
I guess it's like the previous poster said, Christians have to pick and choose; however, I find it inconsistent how they do that.
Finally, I think many people just want to trust in something - a parent figure if you will, so they have something to turn to. Various reasons for this: shirking personal responsibility, sense of purpose, vanity, anthropomorphizing what is difficult to understand (nature). I think that's why they gloss over biblical inconsistencies, errors, and doctrine we find abhorrent today (slavery); because the good parts, the parts they trust, make them feel secure and better about themselves.