I don't think anyone here would refute your claim that the bible contains many truths, just as does the q'uaran, the talmud, etc. To reject and ignore the whole thing just because you don't believe parts of it is regrettable because it contains some very valuable lessons.
But it's equally regrettable to embrace the whole thing just because you find some parts of it true. There are just too many blatant contradictions and inconsistencies for anyone capable of rational thought to overlook.
You didn't say what flavor of christian you became, so I'm not sure to what extent you had to suspend logic and reason in order to claim such a strong belief in the bible. A lot of modern christians get around some of the contradictions by choosing to interpret certain scriptures allegorically vs. literally. Maybe I'm just playing some of my old fundamentalist tapes, but I've never understood what objective standard is applied to make that distinction. Do you just label anything that appears absurd, e.g. the genesis account of creation, as allegorical? After all, it's not presented as a figurative vision like the revelation of John, or as a parable. There's no evidence in either the bible or secular science to indicate that a day, as characterized by the rising and setting of the sun observed in genesis, has ever consisted of anything other than one 24-hour revolution of the earth.
My personal experience with such dilemmas, which I encountered head-on in college biology and astronomy courses, involved initially falling back on biblical cautions about trusting "science falsely so called" and stressing that god's wisdom is higher than man's wisdom. In short, I had faith that Darwin's theory would be refuted given a sufficient passage of time, as would carbon dating techniques and emerging developments in physics. But the evidence against the genesis account just kept mounting until it was virtually impossible to "keep the faith" without completely ignoring some very well documented peer-reviewed discoveries.
In the meantime, probably attributable to heretically overlooking gospel admonitions to avoid questioning my faith, I started coming to grips with some of the aforementioned contradictions and inconsistencies, all of which had more to do with philosophy vs. empirical science.
Finally, about 20 years ago, I found myself compelled to decide whether my faith would be invested in nebulous biblical teachings that made no sense to me, or in documented science, which did, and I chose the latter.
If you're sufficiently convinced that the bible contains all truth, then I'd encourage you to completely reject any information that would call it into question, without even thinking about it. I think that's the essence of faith.
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"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."
Clarence Darrow |