Sometimes I Need Things Spelt Out to me Over and Over

I seem to have it in my mind that the bible is some mysterious book that is not only extremely dull, but also incredibly confusing and convoluted. I'll read the Iliad just for kicks (ya, 'cause that's not dull, confusing, or convoluted,) but the bible? I'd rather just read a book by a Christian who quotes scripture every once in a while.

That's pretty dumb.

And the more that I actually just sit down and read the bible, the more I see how dumb it is. (You'd think that I'd have gotten it by now.) Although there are a lot of parts that I don't get or wish weren't in there, there are even more parts that get me pretty fired up, and make me think "gee, this guy seems to know what He's talking about."

Because God isn't just some guy who spent his whole life observing humans, studying psychology and neuroscience, and talking with people, and then said, "Okay, when you do this, it seems that it normally works out, so just keep doing that." 

He's made us and is actually telling us exactly how He has designed us to live; "Do this because it's the way you were made to act. Trust me, this is going to be awesome."

For this is what the Lord says—he who created the heavens, he is God; he who fashioned and made the earth, he founded it; he did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited— he says: “I am the Lord, and there is no other. I have not spoken in secret, from somewhere in a land of darkness; I have not said to Jacob’s descendants, ‘Seek me in vain.’ I, the Lord, speak the truth; I declare what is right.

-Isaiah 45:18-19