I write this time to address some of the reasons given for considering the Bible to be nothing but a collection of stories people have told themselves about the world, themselves and God.  I speak of events deemed unbelievable to the unbeliever - such as Eve being made from Adam's rib, Jonah surviving for three days and three nights inside a whale or big fish, the sun standing still in the sky so the Israelites would be able to defeat their enemies, Jesus' raising of Lazarus or resurrecting himself and the like.  These events, violating one law of nature or another, are said to be beyond believing by a modern, thinking person, and thus call into question God's existence in general or his responsibility for the content of this collection of books.

I've come across objections to the truth of these accounts from two sorts of Bible critics - those who give them as some of the reasons they don't believe in God (or the God of the Bible), and those who claim to be Christians but not to believe the Bible to be a message from God.  My answer to both is the same, or at least similar.  To the self-proclaimed Christian I address the following:  As a Christian, or even as a Deist, you hold that God created the world and everything in it; is that not true?  Then how is it that you believe in the huge and unexplainable miracle of creation from nothing by divine fiat while at the same time raising objections about little stuff such as Jonah and Eve and Joshua's exploits or Jesus' physical resurrection from the dead?

For the person who finds these unexplainable events reasons not to believe in God, the question is similar.  Do you believe what science tells us about the origin of the universe - that some seventeen billion years ago or so, nothing exploded into something in a singular event that was itself uncaused?  If it is possible to believe that's how we and everything else came into being, isn't it a bit disingenuous to refuse to give credence to Biblical miracles not nearly so mind-blowing as that?

The title says it all.  It seems to me that both sorts of "unbelievers" are just as much believers as am I, for what's so difficult about a bit of this or that meddling with the way you've made a thing when you are the one who made it in the first place?  Even I create and recreate, change and polish the words I use in writing.  How much more fine-tuning and beginning again is involved in composing a poem or a symphony or a science experiment?  What we can do is a poor imitation of the creativity of our Creator, our freedom is but a copy of that of God, and our pride at what we can think and do ought to give us appreciation and a little bit of awe for the unlimited capabilities of the One who made us.  Or so it seems to me. 

And you?