Actually it isn't meaningless. How exactly do you think ancient man passed down history, knowledge, information and wisdom 6,000 years ago? They told stories. The first 11 chapters of the Torah records the history that all nations have in common. These allegorical accounts of the history of the world had been passed down from generation to generation orally for thousands of years.I couldn't be happier to amuse you. You sound very secure in your beliefs.
The Bible is a collection of books written by many different men over a very long period of time. The men who wrote it came from all different walks of life and had different backgrounds. It was written with several different literary styles. So withing each book and sometimes within each chapter of each book, to gain the proper discernment one would need to identify which literary style was being employed. And as always a proper context of the times is needed for proper discernment.
So, was it meant to be read literal? Not the passages that were written allegorically or poetically or prophetically. But the passages that were historical accounts without allegorical narratives or the legal passages, sure. Do I think it is infallible? No, it was written by fallible men. But if one is reading for intent and not for bias there's a lot of truth and wisdom contained in the books. To me the problem is not the fallible men who wrote the Bible or what they wrote. To me the problem is the fallible men who read the Bible and how they read it. If you are one of those guys who reads it to confirm your bias, we probably won't get along very well as I don't like correcting the errors of people - who don't practice my faith - who think they know my faith better than I know my faith. But if you aren't one of those guys, we'll get along great.
Fine, it's not the literal word of the god and so it's fallible.
And in fact, that makes it meaningless.
The concept of a 'god' outside of christian beliefs in nonsense that isn't to be interpreted as literal is a question I can entertain with an open mind. Try me on anything that comes to mind for you.
From my POV and interest, do you subscribe to the 6000 to 10,000 year old earth or do you subscribe to Darwinian evolution?
Or I suppose, there are other possibilities you can imagine up for the conversation?
The universe began ~14 billion years ago being created from nothing. The evolution of space and time is not just limited to biology. Scientific evidence tells us that the universe started out as subatomic particles and very quickly formed hydrogen and helium. This is called cosmic evolution. The hydrogen and helium formed stellar structures such as galaxies. This is called stellar evolution. The supernovas of stars created all of the elements and compounds that we see through fusion. This is called chemical evolution. All of these stages or phases had to occur before inanimate matter could make the leap to life. An event we still do not fully understand although the best understanding is that it can only occur in hot, wet conditions with an atmosphere rich in certain chemical compounds. Even with these condition being present we do not know how these chemical compounds could fold themselves in just the correct sequence to create life capable of replicating itself. The amount of information required for life to replicate is staggering. But however life made this leap we know it had to begin from a single celled organism and evolved into evermore increasing complex life forms up to the point that beings that know and create eventually arose which began the evolution of consciousness.
