Questioning Christianity

FOR ALL OF YOU Jesus, guns, and money right wing Christians, permit me to recommend Bart Ehrman, chairperson of the religious studies department at the university of North Carolina. Ehrman knows more about the Bible, and the Christian religion, than anyone on the planet. A former evangelical christian, he is now a born again agnostic, leaning towards atheism. He claims that he became an agnostic due to his contemplation of human suffering, and the nature of any God who would permit so much of it. Permit me to question his reasoning, presumptuously. It seems to me far more likely that he lost his faith while earning his doctorate at the princeton theological seminary, but how would I know? At good academic institutions, nobody is forced to sign a document proclaiming their undying faith in Christianity, as they often are at low level bible schools, or their faith in the perfection of the Bible. This is because good schools understand that it is better to allow students to reach their own conclusions, and that they will do so in any event, no matter what they sign. Ehrman modestly points out that the Bible is full of contradictions and errors, and he proves it. He learned how to do this at Princeton, which approaches Christianity from the viewpoint of critical, scientific analysis, rather than from blind faith. Ehrman is often attacked, as you might suppose, by those to whom any criticism of their faith is unacceptable and nightmarish. The best criticism of Ehrman is that he does not agree with his critics, and that seems rather weak. As traditional religions all over the world decline in the face of oveerwheliming and obvious evidence that they are fabrications of the human mind, Ehrman will continue to suffer slings and arrows, but, as is the case now, none of them will reach their intended target.