You gotta be careful with "you weren't there"... that argument can come back to bite you Out There. I mean, pull it out if you're ready, but it invites a reciprocal attack on the foundations of science ("you weren't there" at the big bang, watching the earth form, abiogenesis, dinosaurs, humans evolving from apes, blah, blah,blah...). If you understand how those things work and are ready to demonstrate your knowledge, you are equipped for that kind of battle (which will likely be fruitless). Otherwise, you'll end up looking like you have "faith" in something. Science isn't built on faith. It's built on practical knowledge and a self correcting methodology of skeptical inquiry and peer review.

We already know the words in to days bibles are not the same as the originals. We can assume the other scriptures are the same.

Men wrote the books that went into the Bible . Other men chose which books would be put into the Bible , and which would be left out . The Old Testament of the Jewish Torah , does not match the Old Testament of the Christian Bible . Translations of the Bible into today's languages , have changed the meanings from what they originally meant . The Red Sea scrolls , ancient Biblical texts , found , I believe in the early 1940's and translated , still have not been included in the Bible . Although there most likely are at least some historical facts covered by the Bible , there are some contradictions in the Bible . For instance , in the Old Testament there are places stating Moses went up on the mountain and saw God , yet in the New Testament , Jesus says , "For no man has seen God ." To this day , the Bible is used as a way to control people , by people who don't believe it themselves .

You don't know if your vote is counted let alone such an old book.

Abrahamic literature was entirely an irsl tradition. Undoubtedly there were changes in the stories told purely from memory over 100s of years. More changes would have been made in transition to print. It was likely like ancient Hinduism where every group had its own versions of the traditions. Many of these other stories never got into the bible. This is part of the reason why the Christian bible is so flawed.

We don't know...at least I can't believe that it is true! It looks to me like...a selection of accounts handed down one generation to another, as people struggled to know themselves and something greater than themselves! If I send down into the future, an account of my struggles to find myself and my fellow citizens ...I wonder what it would look like in a 1000 years?

This is a good question and I will put you in the general area to allow you to draw your own conclusions for the ressons why. The bible as we no it today was not written down until circa 400 B.C. The Jewish peoples were in captivity and the priestly class wanted to put the oral tradition on paper to preserve the Jewish faith.

You make an excellent postulation with satement in regards to a mad man writing down what was text. The biblical scholars have pretty much determined thay 3 or 4 sets of scribes composed the old testament at different time periods. Scholars also note that the Jewish biblical authors incorporated some elements of their captos mythology and or Religion.... however you wish to look at it. The first scripts were written in aramaic, classical hebrew, and Greek. The first books of the new testament were written starting circa 65 AD and composed in Latin Vulgate I believe.

The Muslim Quran, I am infant.... but can tell you that the Bible and Quran cross each other in history and biblical text. The Quran appears on the time line around 630 or so A.D. The two Religions are Abrahamic in origin. And both ethnicities understand and believe what I am stating. Abraham is a biblical patriach who fathered two sons. One son fathered the Islamic Nation. One son fathered the Hebrew Nation.

The Bhagavad Gita is much older, much older. The written syntax named Sanskrit. Sanskrit dates back to 2200 B.C. A key note here is that Tamil, a select Indian lanuage, also dated back to that era and is still spoke today.

The key to understanding the evolving nature of human civilization; their languages, ethinic diaspora, and mythology.... is they are all related and borrowed from each other.... I will give you a quick reference.... Inanna is one of the primary deities of the Summerian Civilizations. They are excepted as being the first established civilization in human history. Note(there are some counter arguments here with recent archeological discoveries.) Moving forward....its excepted that Summerian culture arived 4200 to 3800 B.C. Note(Evidence exists that push Summerian Civilization back as far as 9000 B.C.)(Their is a divide between scholars.) Now where were we... oh yea Inana... the next Great Civilization we get is Babylon. Ishtar was there Deity that possessed the same attributes as Inana. Next on the time line we come to the Egyptians. Who was their Great Female Deity, you guessed it.... Isis....since we are here(Isis's son Horace was born of a Virgin birth, did miracles, healed the sick, was crucified.) Incidently since we are here..... these godesses shared many of the same attributes... fertility is one example. It is well known that the ancient cults for the godess Ishtar used the egg as a symbol, and had a day of whorship that envolved the giving of egg. Ishtar say slow.... hear it.... easter you guessed it. The Catholic dogma give us our holidays.... see how the history was borrowed, changed, then covered up right in front of our very eyes.

In conclusion... lady liberty or the statue of liberty is a symbolic representation of the Goddess Columbia that was given to United States by French freemasons. Think District of Columbia... lady liberty is the godess Inana in her present form today.

Religion creates the disease so they can sell the cure

The problem is with all this stuff is there are "altered" states. And you have to experience them for yourself. Once you experience them, then where do you go to understand what is happening? Or you just want to share the experience and be with other people who have experienced similar things. Sooner or later you just have to make your own way though, make your own path, make your own belief system. You live with it. This place is NOT forever. Our physical bodies will die and rot back into the earth. There are plenty of testimonies on NDEs on YOUTUBE. There's plenty of testimonies on kundalini awakenings too. People have these experiences and maybe you haven't had one yet. When it happens to you, like it did to me in 1994, then your life changes....and it changes forever. Get Stevenson's book on reincarnation, wow....unbelievable stories. Wow.....if you think this is your only life you will live, you're in for a big surprise. Do I know why we are here? The answer = no!!! The mystery continues.

Short answer is no they're just stories mostly frammed to scare idiots.

Many of these texts are based on stories from oral history. Which is why there are similarities between religions of main characters and the stories they are in. The flood myth, for example, has been told in different religions for thousands of years. The idea of a Jesus or chosen prophet, etc, also transcends Abrahamic religions and goes back thousands of years as well. You can go back as far as Zoroastrianism to see similarities in modern religions. Maybe even older than that.

Tribes passing down thier ethics, laws, beliefs. Humans trying to make sense of the unknown and justify thier cruelty.
When you think and reason it out a bit, remove fear and embrace joy and understanding the realization hits what a crock of bull religion is.

1. Read all the scriptures, from all the cultures and religions (or as many as you can reasonably get to) with a critical eye
2. Compare and contrast: where do they differ? Where do they say the same thing?
3. To (mis?)quote Bruce Lee: "Keep what is useful, discard what is not, add what is uniquely your own."
4. Never stop doing this.

You may find, as I have, that some useful wisdom floats to the top. I'm not talking about gross contents of blatant allegories and myths, or outdated moral codes particular to Bronze-age cultures. I'm talking about philosophical distillations, regarding such themes as connectedness, transcendence, the "Golden Rule", etc. There is a lot of gold in that sewer, if you care to look.

"Wisdom is but one thing. The wise call it many names."

Even if the "right words" were passed down, which is in numerous instances not the case, it still would not mean it is true. And "divine inspiration" is a crock of you know what.

A friend of mine who used to be a preacher, and a very obnoxious one by his own claim. Became atheist and has now gone back to being a preacher. He has fully embraced the Bible and renewed his teachings and has become obnoxious again. He claims that the Bible is just a collection of stories that he gets inspiration from but not the word of God. Any suggestions as to how I might rebut this claim?

We actually know that they were not accurately passed down. There are many different versions of the bible for example and it is well documented that at different times bits were added or taken out.
In the theravaden buddhist tradition this openly acknoledged. When a talk from the texts ( known as the Tippitaka) is being given it will often start with the words 'Thus have I heard...' as an acknoldgement that they werent even written down untill some 200 years(? not entirely sure how long but...) after the Buddhas death

It's been proven that they were all made up . Studies of text and geology and other stuff from the same period of time and nothing matches .

You don't, but you can use your own logic to see the problems with the myths and suggested timelines. Most older scripture, regardless of the faith, it's based on oral tradition, politically manipulated at some point to support the actions of those in power. Other newer scripture, relying on the angel Maroni or alien thetans for their delivery, are just plain ridiculous on their face.

False premise.
None of that shit is true.