in short i would not right off Bible as a useless pile of sh!t, but rather an excellent literary work of the time. the only value it has, however, is strictly from academical viewpoint. greek mythology makes a great topic for an ancient history / literare class, but to actually believe in something written there would make you seem lunatic to most 'ordinary' people. IMO it just so happens that the Europeans with christian belief of all sorts delegated the dominance in political / military / economic realms to americans, and chrstianity is flavor of past few centuries. i would not be surprised if it gets surpassed by another emergining power in the future, if there is a such thing. aside from my stand on christianity and its popularity, i am open to ideas as i am with most other things. just because you cannot prove God does not exist does not somehow give you a basis to claim he must exist; show me a convincing reason he does and maybe i will change my view then. merely stating the world is too complex to be explained by a series of coincidental events is nothing more than a blanket statement showing unwillingness to remain open minded and accept new discoveries.