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Never said "wholly." Said instead that we should not abandon our rational faculties and accept as the unvarnished truth whatever appears in those documents which happened to be "deemed worthy," e.g., by the Council of Nicaea. Said that we are entitled to be skeptical - whether it be of the "first-hand account" of an alien abduction - replete with "anal probing" - in the 1960s or the Kiplingesque story of a fig tree withering on command in A.D. 29. Said that we are justified in using the same standard of evidence.

And yet you said earlier:

Cannot even a True Believer decry the sorry state of the Bible?! Why can't even a True Believer lament the fact that the Bible has been distorted, heavily redacted, badly translated, etc.?... Don't you agree that the Bible is in a sorry state? (You have hitherto assiduously avoided responding to this point except to interpret it as evidence of "Disbelief.")...["as if the mss evidence for it, and its volume and scope surpasses anything of of like antiquity, it supports what I presented"] Sorry-not-sorry, but the assertion that the Bible is better to any other documents of comparable antiquity just doesn't cut it with me. I don't care that it's "better" than the Bhagavad-Gita, etc. Nor have you ever bothered to explain why other such "Holy Scriptures" as the Book of Mormon should be excluded.

What you are doing is attempting to argue by catching on the horns of a dilemma while abrogating to yourself, the privilege of rejecting or accepting one of the horns, as it suits you.

"The assertion that the Bible is better to any other documents just doesn't cut it with me" -- you don't know what you're talking about.

Apply the same skeptical standards which you like to pretend to use on the Bible, to secular sources; from the literary criticism / "higher criticism" perspective.

You'll find they can all be dismissed pretty easily if you set your mind to it.

(See for example the satirical essay "The Dates in the Red-Headed League" by Dorothy L. Sayers.)

Or, for a more contemporary example, try going to the microfilms and reading up on the news stories the day of Osama bin Laden's execution. Even with "modern instantaneous electronic communication" you find significant discrepancies all through the accounts: and these are newsmen Dedicated To The Truth™ and Keeping YOU Informed™. I wrote an article about it on FR when it happened, I don't know if I've saved it. But if you applied the critical techniques and standards, used to "disprove" the Bible, you'd actually come to the conclusion that bin Laden was never killed.

Clown nose on, clown nose off.

But if you applied the critical techniques and standards, used to "disprove" the Bible, you'd actually come to the conclusion that bin Laden was never killed.

I respect the man who proclaims: "I've examined all the evidence, read all the accounts, seen all the footage - and can't with certainty say that bin Laden was, indeed, killed that day (or any other day).

I would not damn any man to eternal torment because he was not convinced by the available evidence.

I wouldn't even insult him as "evil," a "demon," or a "cretin" if he refused to budge.

In an imperfect world, it is frequently necessary to make real-world decisions and consequently take real-world actions based on incomplete or less-than-forensic-level evidence, etc. I fault no man for doing so.

I would not damn him, nor indeed even insult him, for making the "wrong" (by my lights) decision or coming to the "wrong" conclusion, as long as it pertained only to his own Salvation.

Your vindictive God seems to view that matter differently.

Regards,