Also i have to question the cannon in which the bible was pulled together...why were other gospels not included...what gave constantine the authority to disregard the gospels of say thomas? also how do we know what is written in the bible you hold has any relevance to the bible written in 100AD? my parents collect them and i have read large sections of many and i know the bible is not to be taken literally but even still there are huge differences from one version to the next.yes they all tell the same teaching of love, but the laws/rules/guideline differ dramtacially...so how can one build a 'religion' on this?
Quick reply as im about to go out....
It depends firstly on whether you believe that the bible is inspired of God. If you do then you would have complete confidence that its been preserved up to our day as it intended to be, after all it has great meaning and application for us today, more so than ever before in history.
The so called bible book of Thomas for instance doesnt harmonise like the rest of the bible does, its not even written like a Gospel and quotes Jesus as saying things which are just strange in comparison with other gospels dont even match with how a rabbi at that time would speak. Its quite obvious upon study of books that some say should be included in the bible, that they just dont match with the the rest of the bibles intricate and harmonious nature from its beginning to end.
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas describes young Jesus as a mean-spirited child who deliberately caused another child’s death. The apocryphal Acts of Paul and Acts of Peter emphasize complete abstinence from sexual relations and even depict the apostles as urging women to separate from their husbands. The Gospel of Judas depicts Jesus as laughing at his disciples for praying to God in connection with a meal.
Such notions are at odds with what is found in the canonical books.—Mark 14:22; 1 Corinthians 7:3-5; Galatians 3:28; Hebrews 7:26.
There is no question of any one’s having excluded them from the New Testament: they have done that for themselves.
Also the discovery of the dead sea scrolls between 1947 and 1955 and other archeological finds enabled bible translators not only to compare with the translations of the time to prove their accuracy but also to enable even more accurate translations in modern day, for example the restoration of Gods name as it appeared over 7000 times in holy writings but had been removed either completely or other than a few places like at Psalms 83:18
The scrolls are also important because they have enabled scholars to gather an immense amount of information about how the Bible was written and how it was transmitted from generation to generation. These old scrolls include copies of books of the Hebrew Scriptures. They date from 100 to 200 years before Jesus was born. One of the scrolls is a copy of the book of Isaiah. Before this was found the oldest copy of the book of Isaiah available in Hebrew was one that had been made nearly 1,000 years after Jesus was born. When these two copies of Isaiah were compared there were only very small differences in them, most of which were small variations in spelling! This means that in more than 1,000 years of copying there had been no real change!
There are more than 1,700 ancient copies of the various portions of the Hebrew Scriptures available. By carefully comparing these many very old copies, even the few mistakes copyists made can be found and corrected (likewise comparing many translations eliminates disrepencies)Also, there are thousands of very old copies of the Greek Scriptures, some of which copies date back nearly to the time of Jesus and his apostles.
The Bible is also historically accurate and reliable. Its accounts are specific. They include not only the names but also the ancestry of individuals
Much of the bible is to be taken literally. Its an historical record and full of past, present and future prophecies but you are right contains dreams and visions given to faithful servants of God, many of which have fulfillment in our day. Of course the bible book of Revelation is very symbolic but has a message we are yet to see fulfilled.
Jesus main teaching corinthians 13 (sorry prob most well known bible verse) teaches of love and respect and yet the chrisitians shown in the media seem to be the most judgemental people...instead of loving those who have been divorced, are Gay, struggling with life challenges they judge.
Absolutely, and God is the ultimate judge not us, so we need to concentrate on ourselves and make sure we are doing the right thing but Jesus knew that salvation depended on us upholding gods moral standards, he didnt accept all lifestyles.
It's quite fascinating to see where everyone stands, as a believer, non-believer or in-betweener, and that it really doesn't matter when we're asking for advice in other areas like parenting etc. 
