(November 2, 2016 at 5:06 pm)Emzap Wrote: I do mean all of it. Yes, the Old Testament in particular is full, FULL of gruesome and brutal things. Human sin is a hideous thing. Please read the entire Bible in context with all of Scripture before judging the God who acted and continues to act out of justice and love then just as he does today.
I'm a little fuzzy on the whole 'in context' angle. Am I not to trust what the Bible says? Do I need to possess a secret decoder ring to read it 'in context'? Case in point...
From the start, Genesis severely fucks up and betrays a massive ignorance of creation, irrefutable. Earth before the Sun? Separated night and day? Divided the water above from the water below with a dome? Curious. All this light with plants growing and such and then God gets around to creating the Sun on the fourth day. It's also explicit that God (or the divinely inspired author of Genesis, Moses?) considers the moon a source of light. No misinterpretation or loss of context, that's what your book claims...and yet you accept it. This is just a summary of the first 19 verses of the first chapter of the first book.
You imploring others to read the Bible in context is a sad admission that you know the book is full of shit and no reasoning human can take it's proclamations at face value. Context then takes the meaning that it has to be interpreted in a special way to reconcile its teachings with modern understanding of our surroundings and history. This of course will be provided to the gullible for a donation in a local collection plate, the price of a special prayer cloth, overpriced armageddon food storage, or contribution to the prosperity gospel which only seems to serve the one preaching it.
If the word of God (directly written or divinely inspired) requires a secret decoder ring for proper context and interpretation, then I take serious issue with your god's ability to communicate. I then must wonder what special kind of gullibility is required to accept such blatant error as infallible. A person pushing this obvious claptrap as sincere is either a blithering idiot or intentionally malicious. Which are you? I of course ask this 'in context'.
