[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Fake Messiah]

As I indicated, I read the Bible on the nature of the style in which it was written, decipher it's meaning as I do language in general, or any other book, religious or otherwise. It's a result of this that I'm not a literalist, not because of my theism, or otherwise. I would read the Bible the same way even if I wasn't a theist, the way I'd expect an atheist to read it. Yet as the forum shows, this doesn't seem to be the case, that many atheists don't read the Bible with any more competency than the worst fundie.

There you go, you scoff on literalists and yet claim that you don't know what true Christian is.

The Bible fails because it doesn’t communicate a clear message or intent and that's why state of Christian unity is shattered. Bible is too dense, too convoluted, and too confusing. There is no way millions and then billions of Christians could remain united for long with the Bible as their ultimate source for what God wants of them. One could hardly come up with a more perfect blueprint for fracturing a religion.

I remember the public debate leading up to the Iraq War in 2003. Some Christians on both sides of the issue confidently stated what Jesus would want and then backed it up with the Bible. How can a divinely inspired message demand peace and war simultaneously? How can it justify extravagant wealth while also demanding poverty? How can it unite and divide those who believe it? Skeptics, observing all this from the sidelines, can only think that when a book says everything to everyone, perhaps it’s not really saying much at all.