Knowledge Vs Belief

Breaking news: Christians know what the Bible says.

In other words, forget that "think" and "believe" junk; Christians don't merely think and believe that what the Bible says is true. No, they know it's true.

Okay, so, the problems are many, but let's begin here:

Even if Christians know what the Bible says, then, without committing the fallacy of begging the question, aka, a circular argument, can someone tell me how they know that the Bible is an accurate, infallible document? I mean, we can all sit here and claim to know what all sorts of things "say". For instance, we can all know what "Jack and the Beanstalk" says by reading the story, and we would more than likely all agree on what it says, provided that the story didn't inform our moral views or political views, because if that was the case, you can wager a lot of money that there wouldn't be any consensus on what it says. But that's for later.

An encounter with a believer awarded me the following response.....

“Christians do not merely think we know what the Bible says. Because we place such high value on it as God’s Holy Word, we study it; we employ methods, such as reading whole passages in context; we investigate possible interpretations then pray for insight for the correct interpretation.”

Okay, so, yes, Christians place such high value on the Bible as to believe it really is "God's Holy Word".

Nothing really new there, right? Right, we "get" that part.

Here's the part I don't "get": What about all of the parts of the Bible that are demonstrably false and that directly conflict with what we know today about how the world really works via modern scientific discovery??? For instance, we know that the earth revolves around the sun, not the other way around, but yet, the Bible "SAYS" the latter.

So, sure, I can look at it from the perspective that Christians might very well know what the Bible says, but then I guess they'd have to not mind looking in error about the position of the earth in relationship to the sun should they believe what the Bible "says".

And of course, that is just one of myriad scientific blunders found in "God's Holy Word". We know that "demons" don't cause mental illness; we know that the sun never "stood still"; we know that a domestic ass cannot speak Hebrew; we know that people cannot camp out in the digestive tract of a whale and live to tell about it. We know these things, just like we know that a boy never went gallivanting around the sky by shimmying up an over-grown beanstalk that reached into the clouds.

These are legends, and no matter how much "value" we place on legends, it will never make them true.

Next up is asking for insight as to what the Bible says, which, at face-value, you'd have to admit that this sort of looks like you don't really "know" what the Bible "says", after all.

But once more, let's put appearances aside and assume for sake of discussion that the "correct interpretation" can be gleaned by "praying".

Okay, done.

The first obvious question - well, at least to me it's a very obvious question - is why isn't there consensus on what the Bible "says", if insight and proper discernment is presumably given to all those who pray for it? What's going on, here? Does the receiver of these pleas for insight get a cheap thrill out of steering some of his followers in the right direction, while deliberately misleading others??? It seems perverted, at best. 'Definitely not convincing in my mind.

But here's the interesting part in all of this:  All of these difficulties seem to mysteriously vanish if one just entertains the notion that there is no receiver of "prayer". Think about it: If there was no "God" providing "insight" as to what the Bible really "says", we'd totally expect to see Christians divided on matters, and lo and behold, that's precisely what we see. If the Bible wasn't the "Holy Word of God", but instead, just the words of man, and on top that, ancient man, we'd totally expect to see numerous scientific blunders in it. And? Again, this is precisely what we see. 'Coincidence?