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How can you be sure that there are no mistakes in the Bible?

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I love this thread! My sister is a Mormon, and I am an Agnostic (that's greek for Fool, I believe) and I never understood religious belief. One of the reasons is because I don't understand the origin of the scriptures. Everyone is using the scriptures as a basis for what they believe (with some additional personal revelations thrown in in some cases) and everyone seems to believe that the scriptures are THE WORD OF GOD, without any flaws or misinterpretations. So here is my question:

How can you be sure that there are no mistakes or blatant, politically-motivated corruptions of the bible?

The "original texts" no longer exist and the document has been translated from Aramaic, to Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, to German and then every other language. There have been religious leaders and emperors with complete and total control of the words in that document at many periods in time. How can you POSSIBLY trust it as an absolute word of a deity? If I printed a book that approximated the Bible, but was very wrong at several critical points, the text would not just magically rewrite itself after the ink dried...It would still be wrong 100 years later.

Aren't there even several "versions" of the Bible in circulation right now? That is ridiculous! If you tried to teach a chemistry class where every student had a slightly different book, it would be pandemonium!

My question leads me to my biggest concerns about religion; If you can't be sure about where your information is coming from, then you must be VERY CAREFUL how far you are willing to go in following the beliefs you create from it. YOU are fallible, and you should understand that weakness in yourself and exercise a great deal of restraint and common sense when it comes to the practical application of your faith. This means no murdering people because you think God would want you to, or banning someone elses religion because you feel you have received THE ULTIMATE PROOF because God spoke to you. You may be experincing a sel-induced hallucination!

Someone help me out here. Explain to me why common sense seems to go out the window when it comes to this particular book. Thanks.