I don’t know what it was that caused agent 509 to lose his faith but if I had to believe in the Christianity of Dawn and Buz I would quickly lose mine as well. In the first place they don’t actually believe the message of the Scriptures, but at the same time they claim intimate knowledge of them.
Does anyone actually believe that a God whose intelligence is responsible for all of creation would also be petty enough to worry about what we believe about how we came into existence, or about a supposed flood a few thousand years ago?
The fundamentalists/literalists are the modern day equivalent of the Pharisees. It becomes all about me and my salvation as opposed to the message of Jesus which is about being loving stewards of God’s creation. It is about sacrificial love. Instead of putting our focus on ourselves we are to put the focus on God and neighbour. If our whole point is only about our own salvation then we have totally lost the point of it all. The Bible is clear that it is not about head knowledge. It is about having hearts that love unselfishly.
If you notice the fundamentalists spend a great deal of time arguing against evolution or arguing about the flood. I really have to wonder if they really believe that the God of creation, the loving God we see in Jesus would think that this is a good use of the gift of time that they have been given.
That form of Christianity IMHO is not the Christianity espoused by either Jesus or Paul, nor is it the Christianity of Augustine or Lewis. As I mentioned before, it is closer to the religion of the Pharisees and the Temple money changers than it is to the teachings of Jesus.
He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8