I've been involved with the academic study of the biblical texts for a long time. I am the founder of 'Ask Bible Scholars'.
These texts are rife with bias, politics, metaphor etc. Furthermore, how these texts were understood and/or interpreted is heavily explored in what academia has named 'reception history'.
Personally, I am a 'theist' in the sense that I believe that there is something 'higher' or there is something going on that is outside of our earthly reality. To put it another way, I believe that consciousness continues past human existence.
All of that looks so good! I'm jealous.