So this is for Margaret and others like her.

The bible: Fact or fiction? (Most of this was taken from the episode of Penn & Teller's Bulls--t! episode that I speak so highly of.)

It's full of inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and impossiblities. The bible is only good for faith. You cannot look to it for history or fact. It's mythic story-telling.

Genesis Chapter 1:
God creates Adam and Eve at the same time.
Genesis Chapter 2:
God creates Adam first, has him do things like name the animals, Adam gets lonely, and asks God to create Eve.
CONTRADICTION!
You can't take the bible literally when it contradicts itself. It's like saying the pen's ink is black and the pen's ink is red. It can't be both!

Genesis 6:11-13
No possible way Noah could have gathered all 10 billion species on 1 boat and distributed them where they all ended up in their own habitat. It is a story and to try to take it literally is missing the point of the story.
A flood really did happen on the Euphrates river about 125 miles southeast of modern-day Baghdad. Archaeologists have evidence that around 2900 B.C., a 6 day storm caused the river rise to extreme height and a lot of people died. A Sumarian king had a commercial boat and drifted down the river with various goods to the Persian golf. They landed on a hilltop. There is evidence of this. 6 other cultures in the region had similar flood stories.

Exodus 14:22-31 Parting of the Red Sea
Thousands of Jews are supposedly enslaved by the Egyptian pharoah. There is no evidence of that anywhere. There is also no evidence of Moses outside of the bible. Then Moses asks to let his people go, but instead of God appearing and telling the pharaoh to let Moses and his people go, he releases a set of inefficient and cruel 10 plagues. All water turns to blood. So all the fish and waterlife dies. So much for Noah rounding them up for the boat ride. Frogs infest Eqypt. In the desert they really couldn't survive for that long, and they can't recharge in water because it's blood now. But the granddaddy of them all is that the first born Egyptian child dies. What a caring and loving god he must be to kill not the ones who are responsible, but their innocent children?
Then the freed slaves spend 40 years wandering the desert, and yet they don't leave a shred or archaeological evidence. 40 years, and not one dead person or broken plate?
It is utterly impossible to part a sea. 50-60 miles wide in some parts? Besides being a long walk, that's a long time for water to not undergo cohesion.

New Testament, Any gospel
There's this guy that exists, claims he's the messiah, claims he's the son of god, claims he can heal the sick, raised the dead, walked through walls, brought to trial, crucified, ascended to heaven, and came back to his followers, but his name was Applonius.
Jesus may have actually existed. There are multiple stories written about this Jesus person a while after he died. Now you tell me how accurate your life story will be when someone write about you 25 years, mcuh less 2000 years, after you die. People still claim Elvis is alive. And what about the schizophrenics nowadays that claim they are the son of god? Did mental illness not exist back in the day? Now I'm not saying that this Jesus person was schizophrenic, but who's to say he wasn't?

Resurrection
Can a dead body come back to life? Ok, so the tomb was empty. That's your only defense? Well duh, because if it wasn't, then your story would kinda go down the poopchute.

Who wrote the bible?
Don't know. There are other gospels that didn't make the bible. Didn't make the bible!? Isn't this the word of god? The committee didn't put certain books in the bible. Committee!? Yeah, they actually voted what went into the bible, so it's obviously a human-edited version.

Here is the big problem for using the bible as a source for moral code: Which parts are you going to use and which parts aren't you going to use? The big one that conservatives always seem to use is the homosexual thing about a man lying down with another man and blah blah blah. Well, if you want to believe that, fine, but the bible also advocates...
-Stoning to death disobedient children
-Exodus 21 Verse 7: OK to sell your daughter into slavery
-Exodus 35 verse 2: Anyone working on the sabbath shall be put to death
-Corinthians 11:14 "If a man hath long hair, it is a shame onto him." Better get that haircut Jesus!
-and continuing verse 19-24, a man should not go near a woman when she is having her period
You cannot pick and choose what you believe. If your god is infallible, you can't throw out some of the rules/ideas just because you don't like them.

Smart people are good at rationalizing things they have come to believe for nonsmart reasons. You cannot link your faith in religion to actual factual things. The bible consists of stories of how people should live their lives. They are moral homilies. They are for one to determine what he/she can get out of the bible today. To take them literally is missing the point of the bible.

Don't read the bible for moral code. It preaches predjudice, cruelty, superstition, and murder.