Over the years I have heard too darned many times a complaint like this from less informed Skeptics: "If God wanted us to believe the Bible (or maybe, 'if He wanted His church to be unified') then why didn't he make the Bible more CLEAR?"

It's not clear? Strangely it only seems to be lower-rent Skeptics who have this problem, though I admit to having seen a couple of the higher rank repeat it; I'd guess out of force of habit. I have said many times here that the Bible is clear to anyone who wants to invest the tiniest smidgen of effort in coming to it on its own terms, and laziness (or what's on TV) will not work as an excuse for not trying.

That said, the core of the complaint seems to be, "If only God had made it clear, I'd believe, there'd be no denominations, etc."

Oh, really.

If that's the case, then I have to ask a question: Why is it that when complainers DO get perfectly clear messages, they can't seem to make sense of them?

Complainer case #1: John F. Till, apostate preacher and all-around incompetent, has complained time and again, and beat "me English teacher" into his chest so often, when ranting about the Bible's lack of being "clear" that the impressions from his temper tantrums can be seen from high-altitude spy planes. And yet, one day I said this:

I pay for this site, so correspondent with the 90% fluff ratio I demand that Till pay for 90% of the costs of hosting any item he submits -- whether he meets challenge #1 above or not. Obviously the amount would have to be determined based on going rates for server space and the length of the article written. I also want payment for 8 years in advance (about the time I have the tektonics.org name reserved). Based on Till's behavior I am not so sure he'll be around that long before giving himself a coronary, and I think the security is a good idea.

And somehow, John Till got THAT:

One condition was that I would have to pay 90% of the cost of maintaining his website, which would be 90% of $35 per month or $378 per year...in other words, [Holding] was saying that he would debate me on my site and his if I would just agree to pay him $3024 before the debate begins.

John Till offered a series of skilled rationalizations for his mistake, but there's no missing "any item" in the above, and that's as clear as day.

Complainer case #2: John W. "the Liar" Loftus admits in his tell-all biography that while a professing Christian, he had an adulterous affair. He also has complained that the Bible is not clear on certain points. Yet when I asked him on the forum what he found "unclear" about this commandment:

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

...he had no answer. (See all of this in the thread here, starting after the 275th message or so.)

Complainer case #3: Matthew Green, an atheist person for whom the words "highly disturbed individual" don't do much justice, has recently complained:

Why would any deity wait for years, decades, or even well over a century or more to finally reveal the solution to a long standing and thorny issue in theology?

...if Yahweh had been tidier in inspiring the authors of the original autographs, Holding wouldn't need to be speculating on different number-reckoning methods and which one might apply (remember, Holding and Co. can only speculate on "reasonable assumptions". Apparently Yahweh didn't seem fit to bless humanity all this time with the totality of relevant facts in regards to the original autograph of the Bible like he didn't see fit to bless humanity with the real meaning of "paqad" in Hosea 1:4 until the research of McComisky and pals....

And yet, in the very same place he says all of this, he misses a clear-as-glass authorial attribution on one of this site's articles, and repeatedly criticizes ME for writing something that was obviously authored by one of our guest authors, Eric Vestrup.

If the real problem with the Bible is "lack of clarity," then it seems that all of these complaints are misplaced, because it seems that many Skeptics aren't helped much by crystal-clear statements. Perhaps the real problem is stupidity. Or perhaps laziness.

But then I suppose, they'd just use the excuse that a recent emailer did:

If God loves all of us, then certainly he loves "the lazy" too. God's love and the perfection of his Holy Word should be obvious even to the lazy.

Uh HUH.

One of these days I'll have to market a bumper sticker like this:

Who wants to buy one?