The Jewish Existentialist Lev Shestov made an insightful remark on the issue:
modern day 'reform' Judaism is practically a secular religion... (they make no comment on eschatology, they dont follow all of their own rules anymore, God is now all of the sudden not an asshole, even though they stopped making sacrifices...etc)
Alright then, but let's also get scrap the erronous philosophy of scientism in order to achieve that.
you know what your problem is? you're putting the HISTORICAL method above the method of science.
There are 10 steps to showing why science is a superior method to reading out of a 2000 year old book:
1. Religious people wish to make "Gods Word", the most undeniable truth there is (ahead of scientific studies, etc).
2. However, even in a world where God's words were true, his *word* couldn't be the most undeniable thing there is because you have to be *here* *experiencing* the *reading/seeing* in order to read the word.
3. The most *fundamental* anything is actually the fact that we are experiencing something.... right... *NOW*
4. Math and Logic are the best truth seeking methods because they are the least ambiguous and have component simplicity.
5.
Science methodology attempts to apply these methods to repeatable experiences in the *now* in order to determine what is *NOW*
6.
Historical methodology attempts to determine what *NOW* was way back in the past.
7. The two methods, when at their best, really have no difference! They both strive for convergence and consistency and make use of logic and math when possible, due to component simplicity and lack of ambiguity.
8. The difference is that
history has the disadvantage of trying to determine and work with *NOW*,
LONG AFTER its already happened!
9. You were not there to see if Jesus actually performed miracles (ie you are relying on the
historical method to actually discern this)
10. As methods go, the science method trumps the historical method simply because the farther you get from *NOW*, the more issues arise with accurately describing that moment.
(PS - evolution of the past can be inferred because we can perform radio carbon dating *NOW* and observe virus/bacteria evolution *NOW* ... you cant exactly go see the burning bush *NOW*)
Faulting the method of science is laughable when your proposed alternative is reliance on the historical method.