Re: RE: Without citing the bible, what marks the bible as the one book with God's message?
January 4, 2013 at 6:17 am
(January 3, 2013 at 10:35 pm)whateverist Wrote: Well part of what I mean is the young earth theory but why some Christians insist God's creation cannot include everything science is finding out about evolution and embryo development is also part of what I mean by a literalist interpretation. In the U.S. fundamentalist Christians use the bible to single out gays for discrimination owing to the way they read it. I really don't know why the bible can't be read as literature or poetry, rather than as a how-to-please-god manual. For that matter, I don't see why all the holy books can't be studied interchangeably. Do we really think God was only interested in the people living in Israel? Has that changed? Who is to say God, correctly understood, hasn't been behind all the holy books?
For fundamentalist read superficial/ I'll informed.
Literature or poetry?? How about religious text!? The bible is primarily that, and anything else incidently. It never is a science text book.
Also, it is for everyone. That's how it applies to me. The OT happened to be revealed to the Jews. We have to do our best to understand the archaic cultural references.
The endeavour is towards the divine. When it hits the spot we call it divinely inspired. Lots of religious texts hit the spot in places. The imperfection of the whole makes them unsatisfying.
