Summations Only

That's it exactly.

Actually, there are two separate questons: "Were they inspired by some outside source?" and if so, "Did that source have knowledge and insight superior to themselves?"It's clear that the Bible is not inerrant, so either the inspiration was faulty or the message itself was faulty. Either way, the problem appears to be at the source.

It's pretty simple, isn't it? If it goes well, you give God the credit. If it goes badly, you give people the blame. It's a flawless copout.

It was people who captured Long John Silver and it was God who helped him escape.No, wait. It was Jim Hawkins. That would be more plausible, wouldn't it?

Then who inspired Long John Silver?

Science is basically a matter of one step forward and two steps back; every question we answer provokes two more questions. That's why science-minded people tend to be leery of any claims that a book has all the answers.I used to have as my signature, "People who have all the answers usually don't understand the questions." That's the problem with the Bible.

How do you know the intentions of the authors?Why did Ian Fleming write Casino Royale? Did he need the money? Was he trying to prove he could write as well as Tolstoy? Did he do it on a bet? I'm sure he told people why he did it in interviews, etc. but how do we know he was telling the truth? He was a fiction writer, after all. How do we know that anything he said wasn't fiction?And if we can't tell the intentions of somebody in our own lifetime, how much harder is it to tell the intentions of somebody thousands of years ago?

Similar is not the same as "the same". There are similarities between myths around the world but there are also great differences. There is a variety of evidence that George Washington et al. existed. Volumes were written about them during their own lifetimes and shortly after by people who actually knew them. No single piece of evidence is conclusive but the body of evidence is persuasive. That seems to be your logic, that the gods "must" be real because people all over the world believed in them. The bottom line is that they didn't know "the truth". They only knew what they believed to be true. That's why beliefs all around the world are different, because nobody knows "the truth".

If somebody else knew "the truth", how would you know they knew? If you could know that what they know is "the truth", wouldn't you know "the truth" too?

So you need to know the answer before you can read the question correctly? You need to know whodunit so you can decide what clues to look for?You need to know that the Bible is inerrant before you can sweep the errancies under the rug?

Who sez so? The Bible? If you have to assume the truth to conclude the truth, that isn't just circular; it's a maelstrom.

That's what I said. And we are to understand oxygen by breathing. It's a lot cheaper than those pesky laboratories. And His name is Allah.

It's a pyramid.

The problem is that your theology implodes if it is nothing but self-reference. You could build such a theology on any book.

You don't know the Bible.