Faith is not a good way to assess reality. It's really more like wishful thinking, and subscribing to the claims and values of those living in the Bronze Age is not very prudent.
On the other hand, that risks falling into the "ancients were stupid" fallacy. If you're dealing with any matter of the material world or any technological matter, with items that are physically verifiable, then absolutely I am going to be looking to the cutting edge of modern science for an explanation. On the other hand, basic principles as to how we
should treat each other have not changed. (Now, how people actually DO treat each other--that has changed, big time.)
An interesting thing I have noticed is that the Bible actually contains a lot of what I would call "subversive" material, and anyone looking to base worldly authority upon it, laws, and so forth, should be very uneasy. While the Bible does not put forward
violent opposition to said social institutions (and I think that to some, the fact that there's not an immediate, violent overthrow of those institutions is something they criticize), especially once you get to the New Testament there's a whole lot of this sort of thing, where there may be instructions on how to cope with a particular institution for a time, but the core principles make it very clear that said institution has no moral authority to last.
Slavery is one (practical instructions do detail how to live where this is a day-to-day reality, but people took these instructions as an
excuse). The core principles of the Bible--not to mention other statements, most particularly in the book of Galatians--make it very clear that slavery has no moral standing in a society run according to the ideals of Christ.
Treatment of women is another, though this one is harder to see. There are instructions asking women to submit, yes. But there are also instructions telling men to do the exact same thing, even though they're phrased differently. Men are to love sacrificially as Christ did...and it's very interesting to note that one thing Christ did was to
refuse worldly authority the society around Him said He would be perfectly justified in taking! Society was all for giving men terrible powers over women, but a Christian man was to step down from all of that, refuse to accept that worldly "crown." (Regarding the comments about women keeping quiet in church, etc., the issue there was that they needed to get caught up on the religious education that had until then been denied them, and then once they were qualified, would be perfectly capable of speaking on par with men. But again, people used this as an excuse instead of seeing the point.)
But easily the most striking example actually comes from the Old Testament, and I posted it last night from the Book of Micah. Usually when those either inside or outside the faith think of subversiveness, they tend to associate that sort of thing with Jesus, who was most definitely interested in (NONviolently) upending corrupt social institutions. This is the material I was talking about with sacrifices last night, where one of the prophets outright states the following:
With what shall I approach the Lord,
Do homage to God on high?
Shall I approach Him with burnt offerings,
With calves a year old?
Would the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
With myriads of streams of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for my sins?
Man has told you what is good.
But what does the Lord require of you?
Only to do justice
And to love goodness,
And to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:6-8)
The fact that there would actually be something in the Bible itself--even before Jesus' day where calling out the Pharisees was frequent--calling out the institutions of the day in such a blunt fashion is very striking. Even more stunning that it would be couched as directly as that, marking out a CLEAR difference between man-created institutions and the desires of God! This well pre-exists the break between Christianity and Judaism, so we have a very clear tie between this prophecy (and other statements I could pull up as well, including statements in the first person from God, though I did so way back on pg. 11 of this thread already) and the attitude it shows, and the attitude demonstrated in the NT.
But the other point I wanted to make with it was the fact that if the Bible were simply a lie meant to create an institution for the sake of power (not to say some didn't DO that in spite of the warnings, because they did, and flagrantly), this kind of "check" upon such self-aggrandizement would have been omitted to ensure that the priestly class could get away with whatever it wished. Anyone who tries to base a claim to worldly power or institutional power based on the Bible is on very uneasy ground indeed. While offices are established, those holding those offices can get called out in a heartbeat if they misuse authority. (Lording it over other people actually seems to be one of the most frequent things that people get called out for, in the Bible--though I do not have a number for it.)
NO ONE expects the Spanish Inquisition! 
