I used to be a preacher and for 27 years was Christian (such as it exists in modern times, as it is almost nothing as it was before Rome become head roost). As an old Christian I was under COMMAND from Yahweh the War God to preach the word or face having the blood of the lost dripping from my soul. I too had a vast plexus of [it could have been this way]'s of sophistry to uphold the great dome of all the Biblical weak spots I was aware of that contradicted reality. (note that I still tend to capitalize Bible, as all preachers do) I even raised my own offspring on every known atheist argument aganist the 'B'ible and then some, since I had once been an atheist before my conversion. I did not come to the Faith ('F'aith) by way of being born into it or by way of simple emotional response - though in truth all converts are brought in by a leap of faith rather than mere logic. And having parents with a scientific back ground meant I had to construct a huge construct of excuses to explain away the weaknesses of the Bible - such as they were. My own children could out debate the atheists at their schools and as they entered college they were able to withstand the dogmas of the science professors with some ease. There were other more personal empirical evidences that helped me along this trail to holding on to the Faith that I won't mention here. But the upshot was that I could see no way I could ever lose my faith unless as I used to say: "A huge asteroid hit the earth and smashed it into two halves and as I spent my last 10 seconds seeing all this I might say, "Hmmm, I guess God's prophets were wong...."
But one day, not looking for anything against the Bible, I ran into an OT scripture that I had likely read scores of times. I was researching a medical question from the Bible's standpoint. Suddenly I saw it - the grand daddy of all Bible goof ups. And not only that - it was one that ALL atheists had never found and had always ignored. Even today on web sites - I find nothing about it. I spent 2 months researching the Hebrew, the Greek LXX, and every other book I could find and there was no question - this section of scripture was a Checkmate I could not get around (kind of like the poor Mormon DNA researchers who had to face the fact that genetic tests prove that the American Natives are in no way related to Semites.)
My faith was shattered and the vast dome of sophistry (which by the way I was always aware of, as I told my children, "ultimately I accept the Bible as true because I want it to be real, because a leap of faith was required, not circular logic") was falling in. I had studied geology and had been able to create my own version of excuses. But now all these fell in.
The end of all this was that I tried to show this deadly verse and its implications to other Christians. Each time a person saw it (and since it was really all about simple medical issue just about anyone above 21 years old could see and understand it) that person would within one day (about 24 hours max) lose their faith. It was a Christian killer. Could be a Jew killer too, since it was OT. One lady I told, later had to go on meds. Half of the people I mentioned this verse to ended up telling me years later that they had ended up feeling like a tree of leaves without branches or a trunk.
I realized about this time that mankind is not designed to live in objective reality. Man is a creature of the STORY, the myth, the CAUSE. This universe and its objective reality is like a caustic acid to the intellect of a super intelligent sentient being such as man. Only my old atheist Zen background and experience of Satori prevented me from caving in. Without a powerful story or cause most humans have to take pain killers, like Vodka, to dull the pain. One writer I liked stated that really it was inhumane to force an animal to live in this universe.
I stopped telling anyone else about this killer verse. Why should I? After all churches were like ice-chests, they weren't perfect but they tended to keep people from going totally rotten. Besides, I was no longer living under a LAW or the Mount or even the Law of Christ. Why should I go on a crusade to right the minds of people around me? Another question is, why do so many atheists feel the need to be on their crusade? has some deity told them he would hold them to account if they did not?
So if you are a Christian - I say stay one. "Its great for ME and OK for you." (A line adapted from the movie Judge Dread - let other readers understand).
PS
Chritianity is not an American religion. America does not own it nor did it create it. The NT was a creation of the Middle East and the Greek and Roman world, which shared few values with the USA. The American McReligion is really no different from my own beliefs now, since few if any church goers ever actually read the Bible and even fewer actually follow it. What they have is more like pagan religion and it tends to be: there is a Great Spirit, and he likes them personally and watches over them and answers prayer and most everyone, at least those the American individual might like or approve of, will go to a nice place called heaven. This is not NT. But it is fairly standard of a belief from ancient times from Asia to the American Indians.