I looked at the christian view point on how to "interpret" the Bible and how all of us atheist get it wrong. He said you have to look at a passage with three things in mind. 1) the context in other words the whole story behind the passage. 2) the genre or the literary style of the writer. 3) the history at the time.
Of course the speaker then goes on to do some mental gymnastics about what passage was presented and at least he had some in depth knowledge of the subject. How ever what struck me about all of this was that any one of the four things (the passage, the context, the genre, the history) involved with each passage could vary from person to person and scholar to scholar. How do i know this mistake is being made? Because at last count there are over 30,000 denominations of Chistianity alone. Each claiming to be the "true" version of Christ. To add to this every religion has denominations of some sort.
If this isn't proof enough for a thinking person to see that religion is nothing more than a man made tool then you may want to examine who's arguments truly come from ignorance.
It's okay I know you won't.
Of course the speaker then goes on to do some mental gymnastics about what passage was presented and at least he had some in depth knowledge of the subject. How ever what struck me about all of this was that any one of the four things (the passage, the context, the genre, the history) involved with each passage could vary from person to person and scholar to scholar. How do i know this mistake is being made? Because at last count there are over 30,000 denominations of Chistianity alone. Each claiming to be the "true" version of Christ. To add to this every religion has denominations of some sort.
If this isn't proof enough for a thinking person to see that religion is nothing more than a man made tool then you may want to examine who's arguments truly come from ignorance.
It's okay I know you won't.
