The only failure here, is on your part -- and other skeptics -- to honestly try to understand it.
I think that the unbeliever understands scripture better because he is able to consider it discompassionately and without the need to reconcile its apparent contradictions, moral errors, and errors in science and history. When the unbeliever reads the Genesis creation story, for example, he sees an ancient myth that, like all creation stories, is almost entirely incorrect. The believer will inject something not evident in the scripture to attempt to reconcile what appears to be an error, since he believes that the story comes from God and can't be wrong.
For that reason, the skeptic should trust his own analyses over those of the believer when they differ, and not defer to the believer's claim of authoritative knowledge, nor heed his effort to disqualify the opinions of the unbeliever.
In the past, I collected several of these efforts to explain to me or others why our opinions were not as good as theirs:
[1] You are not filled with the Holy Spirit
[2] You were obviously never a "true christian"
[3] You don't have enough faith. You have to believe to understand.
[4] Sorry, but attending a church for a few years doesn't make you any sort of Biblical expert.
[5] You have to be familiar with the technical terminologies in the bible before you can comprehend it.
[6] In any other field, like medicine, engineering, technology, electronics, software, computer, unless you have qualifications and experience, you are not allowed to open you mouth.
[7] Don't fall in the trap of being a one verse wonder. You need to understand the passage and true meaning of the verse.
[8] You're only making a fool out of yourself trying to argue over something that you are not Blessed to understand.
[9] I would question the person who thinks that you understand even one page of any Bible. Without first learning the language how could you.
[10] You and others like you can't understand because you're not permitted to unless/until you repent and confess Christ as LORD.
[11] It's so damn cute when atheists reach for their Bible to make their point. I love it!
[12] You are a heretic with little if any understanding of Scripture. If you did study the Bible it was in a Laurel and Hardy College in Tijuana
[13] Like I say there are no errors in the bible only skeptics that can't read and comprehend.
[14] You need Jehovah’s approval to understand His word.
Naturally, we reject these pronouncements and go on deciding for ourselves what the Bible says and what it means. A vague or ambiguous passage has no definite meaning at all, like much poetry and song lyrics that are deliberately vague, making pronouncements by believers about what such passages mean of as little value to the skeptic as what this Beatle fan or that one says that Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds means to him or her. Imagine one of these people telling you or me that we aren't qualified to disagree because we aren't Beatles fans and haven't spent the tens of thousands of hours listening to them that they have, and there we should defer to their preferred interpretation.
Really, how would any skeptics ever hope to accurately understand it's lessons, in light of
Matthew 11:25-26 &
Hebrews 4:12?
Matthew 11:25 - "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."
This is yet another effort to disqualify skeptics, and an ancient one at that - this time for being wise and prudent instead of thinking like babes.
My assessment would be the other way around - thinking like a babe is less desirable that being wise and prudent. Babes believe what they are told uncritically, whereas the wise and prudent evaluate claims on their merits after the application of reason to evidence, a method with a far greater track record for achieving hoped for or expected outcomes..
Babes don't actually use a sense of right and wrong like the wise and prudent to make what should be moral decisions, but rather, make them according to perceived rewards and punishments meted out by a watchful, judgmental authority figure.
The wise and the prudent don't engage in magical thinking like the babes, who think that their wishes can effect how the universe responds.
Christianity considers foolish that which secular humanists consider wise, but the reverse is true as well. The only things I want to carry from childhood into adulthood is a sense of wonder, playfulness, and the ability to laugh heartily. The rest is best left behind.
I hope that your choice is bringing you satisfaction. Mine has for me.
Newton did...he 'studied it daily', and thought it was the greatest book ever written.
In my opinion, Newton wrote a better book - one that provided guidance getting man to the moon and back centuries after it was written, and one which mankind was hard-pressed to improve upon for centuries. Shouldn't also be true for the Bible if it were the greatest book ever written? There's nothing in it that couldn't have been written by someone from the first century, and most people today could go through it and make tons of corrections and improvements. What does that say when almost anyone can improve on the Bible (and Qur'an), but very few can improve on a book by Newton?
