It Depends On How You Look At It

QUESTION: Today's comes from SL...
"A friend of mine says you can prove anything from the Bible, and therefore it doesn't make any sense to believe it. To prove her point, she claimed the Bible even says in one place that there is no God. I don't agree with her, but I didn't know what to say."

IRRELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE:
There are many denominations of Christianity. Wikipedia catalogues a myriad of these, and they exist because each has their own interpretation of the bible. If the bible were clear in its message there would only be one denomination, but it patently is a very interpretational text. There are several groups in my neighbourhood who lead radically different lifestyles based around the same bible. It's not hard to find justification for extreme views from a book in which the divine being takes extreme action such as: listing the rules for slavery; destroying whole towns (men, women, children, babies, animals); treating women as possessions; requesting animal sacrifices; and drowning the whole world's population except the eight on the ark. What tends to happen is that the reader already has their view of life and then scours the bible to find corroborating verses, and disregards the rest. If they can't find justification then they twist the text to suit their ends.
Also bible followers claim it to be the ultimate source of life guidance, however, this task can also be fulfilled from other works such as Aesop's Fables or the Laws of Hammurabi. Furthermore the bible makes claim to successful prophesy, but so do the writings of Nostradamus if you interpret them favourably. The bible is a very interpretational text and there are many sources of moral guidance, so read them all and selectively draw inspiration from all of them.

BILL GRAHAM'S ANSWER:
http://www.billygraham.org/articlepage.asp?articleid=6173