the rapture

[Scrybe]

A good historian also recognizes that a "true" account of what has taken place, as we get farther from whatever point in time, will never be compiled.

True.

 

The bible, on the other hand is not history, it is supposed to be the unerring word of god,

So say some.

and if it's not then why bother with it?.

You are making the same mistake the fundamentalists do when they use the words, "the" and "Bible" together.  As though there is only one, unanimously agreed upon text and translation.  I bother with "the" Bible because my personal experience lines up with what I read in many parts of it.  I live my life according to Christ's teachings, (As well as we can know what they are, and as far as my will can handle it.) and I find peace.  I've grown tremendously in maturity, love, and unselfishness as a result of believing these things.  I won't go any further because I know you weren't asking for an apologetic here.  I could just leave it as: I bother with "the" Bible because it's provides the best access to the teachings of Jesus that we have available.                    

The bible itself has been cherry-picked, why are some texts excluded or included?  and why is it murder or kill(10 commandments) depending on translation and version?

That's kind of my point.  "The" Bible is simply the best thing I've got.  It's not perfect, it doesn't claim to be.  It's a collection of a lot of different manuscripts in a lot of different styles with a lot of different validity and accuracy.                      

Could it be that it is NOT the word of god, and is a poorly compiled mishmash of archaic ideas and occasionaly useful, fictional,  parables?

Yeah…  could be.  My life experience with it has convinced me that the meta-story is true.  Yeah, a lot of the details, especially in the O.T. are interpreted by men who misunderstood God in a lot of ways.  The New Testament has some obvious tension between early Christian sects concerning the role of traditional Jewish religious forms, and the accounts of Jesus' life have a few inconsistencies.  But that's just the thing.  There is no preface that states: "This book is written by God as an inerrant document that you must believe 100% literally."  That's a fairly modern twist imposed by fundamentalists.

[donkeyhoty]

That's a fairly modern twist imposed by fundamentalists.

No, it's pretty much been "the word of god" since it's inception.  Saying it's not to be taken literally is the "new" way of interpretation designed to defend against the discrepencies amongst the verses and versions.

I live my life according to Christ's teachings

How do you know this?  As you admit it's the best you have, but also lacking in validity.  And this is the cherry-picking that Mre2me is talking about.  You accept the teachings of jesus in "the" Bible, literally, but not other parts of the bible.  How do you decide what to believe from the bible and what not?  If you consider some of it to be false, why do you consider some of it true?  If the details of the "O.T." are from misunderstandings, could the teachings of jesus also be from misunderstanding god?

[Tom62]

I live my life according to Christ's teachings, (As well as we can know what they are, and as far as my will can handle it.)

I truly believe that you can live a good life as a christian, but also as a non-christian. Just leaving God out of the equation, how would your life with Jesus' teachings  differ from that of let's say a humanist or buddhist who lives his live according to a quit similar moral code?

Jesus taught a lot of good things (like "Blessed are the peacemakers", "Love your enemies.", Judge not, that ye be not judged.", "Love thy neighbor as thyself.", etc., etc.).  What I don't understand though is why so many christians start to ignore these important teachings the more religious they become. For example when I listen to what the religious right has to say, I have feeling that they are NOT peacemakers, that they do NOT love their enemies, etc. etc. How does a true christian deal with a situation when other "christians" do or say things that are morally wrong?