Why the "There are so many interpretations of the Bible" claim is confused

[TheRocketSurgeon]

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I concur. The questions of Christian theology and Christian culture are unrelated, and one does not reflect upon the other except in the sense that it's trivial to demonstrate that the latter rarely has much to do with the former.

The reason we deal primarily with the latter is because we don't honestly care what you believe in, on any serious level, except where your beliefs begin to influence our cultures, and thereby our lives. In other cases, the bigotry (culture) of Christians impacts us much more directly and personally. Small surprise that we tend to focus upon it.

This issue of like diversity, dude emerges because you are not the only Christian with whom we debate, dude, and the next one will likely make different claims about anything other than the "core claims" you meantion. It's also worth pointing out that those "core claims" are actually the result of an internal conflict between Orthodoxy (as it's now called), which came to dominate the religion utterly (often by force), and the other theologies within the groups of people who thought that Jesus was the Annointed One.

You tend to ignore these factors; we do not, and cannot. You prefer to speak of your settled theology as if it is the only point that was ever made, and your particular denomination's view as if it is settled theology. It is not, in either case.

If you wish to set such parameters, it is as simple as saying, "For the purposes of this debate, here are my positions on theology (followed by a list thereof), and I would appreciate it if we stay within these parameters during the debate, rather than dealing with unrelated versions of Christianity, which are not under examination in this particular debate." Most of us would be okay with that.

Except that, almost without fail, a debate about a specific brand of Christian theology tends to venture into the realm of, "And that's why it's unquestionably Not Okay According to God, for you to ________", at which point the fact that many others disagree with you on what God's claims on that subject (especially others within your own religion) may become relevant, as a way of showing that your claim to unequivocal knowledge of the Will of God is contestable, from the point of view of anyone not in your particular faith (including other Christians, other religions, and deniers of both... us).

In other words, we are not claiming the fault in the field medicine lies with Mengele, but the moment you repeat one of Mengele's claims, or you claim that doctors never did something like that, we are likely to point out to you that not only is it within the realm of medicine for such things to occur, we know historically that they did occur, as in the example of Mengele. A related point would be to show how Communism twisted the ideas of naturalism/materialism into a system which caused untold suffering, if atheists claimed in a debate that only Secular Humanist ideas were valid views of atheists (I am a S.H., so I used my own philosophy as an example, here). If I were to claim that only Humanism was a valid atheist point of view, you would be quite right to point out that others have disagreed strongly with the meaning of materialist outlooks, and that in historically-known examples, we have atheism leading to terrible outcomes completely different from the ones I am presenting. Of course, that's when I'd counter by pointing out that it was his demi-religious views on Communism, not his atheism, that led to those abuses, but the point about "all atheists believe ____" would have been debunked successfully.

As long as Christians continue to disagree about what, exactly, constitutes your theology, we're going to point to differences when you claim you have the right one. If you think we are presenting a version of your theology that is inaccurate, say so and say why, specifically, that you think it is so, and you will find us more amenable to your suggestions of inaccuracy.

Simply saying "you atheists don't get it" is just being an asshole, as far as we can tell, a blanket form of bigotry that accomplishes nothing other than telling us that you're dismissing our arguments without serious consideration, simply because you feel they do not agree with your (still hidden to me) exact ideas about theology.

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What exactly in your post is supposed to be a problem for me, and why?

I'm not very impressed with "we honestly don't care what you believe except when you influence our cultures." It doesn't seem to speak to the question of whether if Christianity is true, it ought to influence culture or not. Same for the question of whether one cares about what Christians believe.

You claim other Christians make different claims other than "core claims". But this is exactly my point, and that non-core diversity is not problematic. As for your claim that Orthodoxy came to dominate the religion by force, so what? Isn't what matters in the end the question of whether this orthodoxy is true or not, rather than that it took over? Likewise with the view of settled theology. Sure there are different views, but so what? As long as this view is meritorious, who cares?

I'm seeing a lot of rhetoric here, but no real arguments. What is your argument?

I thought it was obvious; my apologies. I was saying that I, too, think that non-core diversity is non-problematic, except when speaking about particular issues that arise from Christian culture's influence on individuals or in our society, a topic which frequently arises here because it's the part we're forced to care about most. If Christians were content to practice their religious beliefs in absolute privacy and "better" only their own lives as a result, I'm sure most of us would be content to never discuss it, and it's quite possible that boards like ours would be unnecessary. Meanwhile, here in the real world, such definitions do influence us, so they do matter, and we will discuss them. Learn to cope with this basic fact.

If Christianity is true, then it still should not influence culture, as this is a secular nation. However, I'd like to see more people acting as if the teachings of Jesus, not Paul or the Old Testament, mattered most... but again, that's just a matter of practical living.

That said, the above is a huge "IF". Many of us are quite happy to discuss issues we see in your core doctrines, such as what Abaris just raised about problems fitting the literalist version of your faith into a billions-of-years-old planet, in which we humans feature as a mere moment of that history, of the problem of "free gift" salvation that is effectively at gunpoint, the issues of things the "eternal" God-as-moral-lawgiver supposedly wants from us (according to the faithful) which seem so obviously to be the prejudices of the Bronze Age which we find to be immoral by modern standards, or the issues in general with the moral concept of vicarious salvation. We do talk about all of that, so your contentions here about "core" beliefs seem to be somewhat lacking.

In fact, name a "core" belief, and we'll show you a group that disagrees with it, all within your own faith (especially if we include the heretics who have been wiped out throughout history, which is why I pointed to the issue of Orthodoxy's violent and suppressive rise to the top), likely in a discussion we've had right here on this board. I know you think they are simply wrong, but the point is that they hold those views of the "true core of the faith" as strongly as you hold your own views, and you cannot all be right. If you would like to make a case for why your particular version is right, we'd love to have that conversation...

...but as I said, just sitting back and saying "none of you atheists get it" is disingenuous and contemptible.