I was cursed with growing up having the big family bible living right next to 36 encyclopedias.

I was cursed with growing up having the big family bible living right next to 36 encyclopedias.
The encyclopedias regularly contradicted the good book I'm sorry to say.
China never mentioned a global flood in centuries of existence. kangaroos? dinos?
Also it was pretty clear that the plagues described by the Moses story were actually volcanic activity.
My favorite was the people turning into pillars of salt in a place where everything routinely gets covered in salt.
When I was a kid some priests pulled me aside and we all discussed ancient Mediterranean public affairs.
They were saying
"The spirit is strong in the youth, he should join the clergy."
I will never forget that day. I wish I possessed the words back then to properly explain myself.
To make them happy I studied harder but what I should have said was
"I just appear to be enlightened, actually you just suck at Iron/Bronze age. It's terrifying that I have to inform you about the existence of the Silk road."
Maybe they should have read more than just the one book.
It was stressful when all the adults believed in a petty, vengeful, invisible space monster. Even more scary to learn that presidents and school principals actually believe in hell. How can you steward an organization when you think all the folks who don't subscribe to your religion are lost and or going to Hell? Disqualified! lol
That was in Texas. It happened again for the same reasons 7 years later in Tennessee. I was gonna be a clergy.
I guess I studied too much.
My takeaway was "Why aren't we following the Romans. They had representative govt. A military run by command and control with tactics, engineering and specialists, a path to citizenship, didn't demonize sex.
Why are we stuck in this Hebrew/Bedouin comic book?
The Romans actually existed and very well could have know what happens to the sun when it sets (unlike their superstitious counterparts).