I guess I somewhat geared these questions more towards those who are also Christians, but as you all have answered I think anyone could answer them (except possibly the last one which wouldn't matter much to non-Christians).
Ahhh, I disagree. I find myths highly entertaining, and appreciate biblical scholarship(most likely, more than any christian).
hnumpah, I think that part of that stems from some very anti-intellectual tendencies found in certain sects of Christianity. That is an interesting topic actually.
On a whole, most western religions demand unquestioning obedience. Certainly the Jewish faith allows questions, and encourage it, and they have demonstrated that courage throughout history; but even they will excommunicate anyone who pushes the envelope(Spinoza) too far. So then it becomes a matter of belief at the expense of reality and objective truth; and so I offer the following quotes, as the authors have far more confidence than I on this topic:
Ingersoll:
They say the religion of your fathers is good enough. Why should a father object to your inventing a better plow than he had? They say to me, do you know more than all the theologians dead? Being a perfectly modest man I say I think I do. Now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.
I do not regard religious opinions or political opinions as exotics that have to be kept under glass, protected from the frosts of common sense or the tyrannous north wind of logic. Such plants are hardly worth preserving. They certainly ought to be hardy enough to stand the climate of free discussion, and if they cannot, the sooner they die the better.
Steve Allen:
The problem is that once the untrained mind has made a formal commitment to a religious philosophy -- and it does not matter whether that philosophy is generally reasonable and high-minded or utterly bizarre and irrational -- the powers of reason are suprisingly ineffective in changing the believer's mind.
...and no philosophy, sadly, has all the answers. No matter how assured
we may be about certain aspects of our belief, there are always painful
inconsistencies, exceptions, and contradictions. This is true in
religion as it is in politics, and is self-evident to all except
fanatics and the naive. As for the fanatics, whose number is legion in
our own time, we might be advised to leave them to heaven. They will
not, unfortunately, do us the same courtesy. They attack us and each
other, and whatever their protestations to peaceful intent, the bloody
record of history makes clear that they are easily disposed to resort to
the sword. My own belief in God, then, is just that -- a matter of
belief, not knowledge. My respect for Jesus Christ arises from the fact
that He seems to have been the most virtuous inhabitant of Planet Earth.
But even well-educated Christians are frustrated in their thirst for
certainty about the beloved figure of Jesus because of the undeniable
ambiguity of the scriptural record. Such ambiguity is not apparent to
children or fanatics, but every recognized Bible scholar is perfectly
aware of it. Some Christians, alas, resort to formal lying to obscure
such reality.
