I'm not sure just where to start... but this has been increasingly bothering me for quite a while and, if nothing else, trying to put it into words here - and any comments from you folks - may help better than thrashing around in my own mind.

I am a lifelong Christian. I've studied much of religion, both Christian and other, and have given much thought to it all. I've gone through a number of churches, having been a Catholic for nearly 25 years until recently, and so made a good faith effort to be part of that community in a number of ways.

I met and worked with a lot of good people. Most are sincere and there is a lot of love and integrity in most of them. That there are every other kind of people involved is no surprise, and the fact has little or nothing to do with my dilemma here.

The basic premise for the church seems very simple: those of like mind who come together to be a community. But I never found one that would work for me because every church I've ever come in contact with makes that essentially impossible because of Bible worship.

The Bible has replaced the creator, for all intents and purposes. And, totally ignoring endless inconsistencies and contradictions, they insist that IT is the infallible, unchangeable, literal, absolutely accurate history and final "word of God" as if He wrote it with his own ten fingers. Having read the entire thing at least once a year for nearly 40 years, I have to call that insane nonsense.

I've read much other Jewish and Semantic literature. They make extensive use of stories, metaphors, analogies, comparisons, parables, and so forth... so why would anyone think the Bible stories are accounts of absolute history of actual happenings I don't know. Based on the rest of Jewish history and literature it seems clear that the scriptures (what few we have) were never intended to be science books or strict history accounts, though there are elements of the latter present, of course.

It's a wonderful book, and a valuable guide, but it's not magic.

But nobody will talk about it in those terms, not even a little. Some only cover their ears and scream, NO at the top of their lungs. Others have no use for the Bible at all and only offer scorn or hate of it and what it stands for.

Wish I could find someone who wanted to talk about it as relevant literature - inconsistencies, contradictions and all.