I just read a pretty big chunk of your writing on whether or not the Bible is the word of God, and I just wanted to share my input.
Just FYI, I am a woman, a Christian, and I believe in using common sense. I believe that women are very intelligent and intuitive, but I believe that we are equal to, not superior to men. There are places in the Bible that contradict the idea of women's equality, but the Bible was, after all, written by men, in a man's world, 2000 years ago. However, holy and inspired we may believe the bible to be, it was still written by men, fallible men, with their own ideas influenced by their social circumstances. These men were chosen by God, but not God, and therefore not perfect. I believe people try to attribute deity to these great men of ancient times and therefore refuse to use common sense when reading their writings.
I also believe that you have sorely mis-interpreted the bible. Every verse that I read your comments about, I understood in a very different way than you did. This is not unusual at all and I am sure you are aware of many different interpretations by different people. But this just proves our ignorance, not God's.
I believe that you are trying very hard to find falsehoods, contradictions, and negativity, because you do not understand. I also believe that mainstream Christianity has driven you away, by preaching at you, pointing fingers, and dictating every thing that you should or should not believe. This almost happened to me once and I think I understand a little of how you may feel. The difference for me was that I wasn't driven completely away, only into apathy.
There are many Christians who are against these methods and who believe in freedom to have a personal relationship with God, that is not dictated by anyone else, and who believe in sharing our beliefs through love and kindness, not preaching or pointing fingers at people. For many years, I was apathetic, but still a believer. And then I realized that the rigidity of my belief system -- my religion was keeping me away from God! I realized that God is not a Baptist, a Presbyterian, a Pentecostal, or any other denomination, nor does God expect us to be.
If you would use common sense and try to understand, it would all make much more sense. All of this negativity that you find, is not of God or of Jesus Christ, it is of man. If you find contradictions in the bible, it is because of man's shortcomings, not God's. Mankind is severely limited in his ability to read, write, understand, and communicate with others concerning God. God's very nature is beyond our limited scope. Take this limited ability and try to understand writings in ancient languages 2000 years ago that may lose something in translation after translation. Mankind's own ignorance creates a setting for misunderstanding.
Just because the bible doesn't make sense to you, that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. Just because many Christians and other religious groups have done many horrible things throughout history, that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. This is just evidence of mankind's shortcomings. Good Christians have done just as many or more good things.
Take another look, the real message is very simple. Love, God's love, and our love for one another. Jesus taught it. No ifs, ands, or buts. That is all you really need to know.
No need to reply to my email. Just wanted to share. Thanks and may God bless you and bring you wisdom to know the truth and the peace and freedom that it brings.
Sue,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my website. I appreciate your thoughts, and I understand where you are coming from. You need to understand where I'm coming from. My writings on the Bible are largely an attempt to debunk the fundamentalist view of the Bible (every word being inspired by God and a valid rule book to apply to every little detail of our lives). From what you have written I get the idea that you don't think that's a valid view either.
But I would like to reply to some of your statements:
"These men were chosen by God, but not God, and therefore not perfect. I believe people try to attribute deity to these great men of ancient times and therefore refuse to use common sense when reading their writings. I also believe that you have sorely mis-interpreted the bible. Every verse that I read your comments about, I understood in a very different way than you did."
I wouldn't call them "great" men. Nor does merely allowing that they "weren't perfect" come anywhere close to describing them. Moses and David were mass murderers. Both of them murdered innocent babies and pregnant women. Please show me how this is a "misinterpretation" on my part. Does it say that they killed women and children, or does it not? Does it say that God specifically ordered people not to feel pity for children, and to murder "sucklings"? Oh, sure we can say that God never said any such thing, and it was just men who wrote this. But that's my whole point! Barbaric men wrote the Bible. Given that, should it serve as a guide for our morals today?
I don't think my writings are interpretations at all: I have quoted the Bible at great length and attempted to let it speak for itself, merely pointing out where it contradicts itself, and where it contradicts common-sense and morality. I think people who try to force their preconceived notion on it that this is a holy book are the ones who have to "interpret" it (i.e. stoop to the "that doesn't mean what it says" argument).
"I believe that you are trying very hard to find falsehoods, contradictions, and negativity, because you do not understand."
The first time I read the Bible I was a believer, and so I had a preconceived notion that the Bible was the "good book". I was surprised at the amount of cruelty and violence, but I figured that was God's justice. I was very active in studying the Bible and preaching to others for years. So, yes, I do understand how to look at the Bible through a believer's eyes.
But now I am reading it with an OPEN mind. I am not trying to find negative things: they're just there popping out at me. I didn't put them there. No one's negative attitude put them there. The writers of the Bible put them there. The Bible says God ordered the slaughter of innocent children, the murdering of babies, and the ripping open of the bellies of pregnant women. Please tell me what it is that I don't understand about that.
"Just because the bible doesn't make sense to you, that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. Just because many Christians and other religious groups have done many horrible things throughout history, that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. This is just evidence of mankind's shortcomings. Good Christians have done just as many or more good things. Take another look, the real message is very simple. Love, God's love, and our love for one another."
I never claimed that because the Bible doesn't make sense therefore God doesn't exist. The existence or non-existence of God has absolutely nothing to do with whether the Bible makes sense. We are in total agreement there.
But Christians believe in the God of the Bible; claiming that it is a historical record of his dealings with mankind and that it outlines his divine plan. To the extent that Christians use the Bible to define their particular God it is relevant to question the existence of THAT God when examining the Bible. For instance, if Christians claim that God is a God of love, but the Bible shows him as a blood-thirsty fiend, then it is legitimate to point out this contradiction and ask for an explanation.
Yes, good Christians have done good things as well as bad. But so have non-Christians. It proves nothing.
The point is: Christians have committed atrocities BY FOLLOWING the examples found in the Bible, and by taking their belief in the God of the Bible to its logical conclusion (e.g. that God would rescue a woman from drowning if she really wasn't a witch).
I wish the message of the Bible WAS as simple as you say. If it was, we could certainly throw away more than 90 percent of it. But if we are told that God is love, and then we are presented with example after example of God's cruelty, then what are we to conclude that the Bible means by "love"? The Manson family talked a lot about having love for one another too. By "love" they meant killing people.
Here we have a book filled with one horrible atrocity after another, far outweighing the few verses which give lip-service to love. Love and gentleness and kindness and good were known about and practiced long before the Bible was ever written. The Bible does not hold a monopoly on these virtues: rather it taints them by taking its few simple platitudes and mixing them into a book filled with acts of outrageous immorality, injustice, and hatred. It is exactly as if somewhere in Hitler's Mein Kampf he had written, "love one another", and because of that people called it a holy book filled with a message of love, while in reality its main theme is one of genocide. The danger is if people who aren't intrinsically good should ever read the Bible for themselves (or have it read to them by someone like David Koresh) they may come across some of the deeds of its "great men" and emulate them in the name of "love"!
--Steve
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