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

[Ben Davis]

...because the omnipotent, omniscient, perfect god in which GC believes is such a good communicator that he couldn't make his instructions easily understandable.

 I find nothing difficult about them.

GC

Yet others find them difficult to understand, ambiguous, open to wide and sometimes contradictory interpretation, highly contextual... For a 'perfect' being, trying to communicate (from a religious position) the most important message in existence, it's a slap-dash method.

[Redbeard The Pink]

...because the omnipotent, omniscient, perfect god in which GC believes is such a good communicator that he couldn't make his instructions easily understandable.

 I find nothing difficult about them.

GC

That is because you lack the critical thinking skills to objectively analyze your own beliefs.

[GrandizerII]

 I find nothing difficult about them.

GC

That is because you lack the critical thinking skills to objectively analyze your own beliefs.

I'm sure he has those skills. He just doesn't use them against his religious beliefs.

[Mudhammam]

Putting aside the fact that for every gem of wisdom the Bible contains there is an abundance of shoddily written folk lore one must be even wiser to ignore, the OP's rebuttal of the claim that "'There are so many interpretations of the Bible' claim is confused" is what I actually find confusing here. There's a simple explanation really: Human beings wrote, read, and interpret the Bible. And they tend to disagree. Now, if you must insist that God "inspired" men in the same way that rocks and grassy fields might inspire a painter, the onus still lies on humans to understand the divine inspiration correctly, and given the nature of subjectivity, disagreements are bound to ensue. One only runs into a communication problem on God's part if they insist on the incoherent notion that somehow, the eternal, immutable, immaterial mind entered into time and dictated the words through people's thoughts in the particular language they spoke. On its face, that's just silly. When one reads the Bible, which is so obviously a product of ancient man, it then comes to appear immensely moronic.

[Whateverist]

A common claim about Christianity is "There are so many interpretations of the Bible! How can you know if any of it is true!"

What people who make this claim don't realize is that the differences over interpretation account for a minuscule fraction of what the Bible really says. 

The entire bible is allegory or else it really is as absurd as you so often hear around here.  Either open it all up for interpretation or admit that you're running on rigid, unenlightened dogma.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

 I find nothing difficult about them.

GC

Yet others find them difficult to understand, ambiguous, open to wide and sometimes contradictory interpretation, highly contextual... For a 'perfect' being, trying to communicate (from a religious position) the most important message in existence, it's a slap-dash method.

The Bible is easy to understand.  The basic rule is that a person must believe and obey without exception.  All of the stories are based upon that basic rule.  It really doesn't matter what the story is about or if it conflicts with other stories.  A person "sins" when he doesn't believe and obey without exception.  

The second thing is that the stories are based on one of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 34:10-28.

Once you understand that then you can understand the Bible.  

And remember, it's an ethnocentric Middle Eastern Jewish religious fairy tale that was written by an English committee around the year 700.  And it's been revised countless times since then but the basic rule and theme hasn't changed.  But it also says that people shouldn't believe in Jewish fairy tales.

Titus 1:14 (CEV) =  "Don’t pay any attention to any of those senseless Jewish stories and human commands. These are made up by people who won’t obey the truth."

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...CV;NET;CEV

[Delicate]

What people who make this claim don't realize is that the differences over interpretation account for a minuscule fraction of what the Bible really says. So, while the Bible's stance on certain issues might not be wholly precise, the main claims are pretty clear. 

The main claims are the ones most fought over, dude. You've got christians asserting a literal, fire and brimstone hell, and christians asserting a "separation from god," and all manner of in between states. You've got christians for whom belief alone is all you need to get to heaven, or belief and works, or belief in a highly specific subset of christian claims... and meanwhile all of those christians have different positions on whether other christians can get to heaven, or atheists, followers of other religions, and so on. Is the bible inerrant? Is it to be taken literally? Is god okay with homosexuals or not? What did Jesus think was really important?

You'll find that every denomination has its own interpretation of these questions, and so simply dismissing the argument about the multitude of different christian faiths on the basis that really those disagreements only occupy a small percentage of the book is disingenuous, as the problem isn't how much of the book is disputed, but how important those disputed claims are to the overall narrative of the piece. It's like if you had two huge groups of Star Wars fans, one of which believed that the Rebels won and the other believing that the Empire won, and we atheists came to the conclusion that clearly, one or more groups is very wrong here. But then you come along and want to pretend that both groups believe the same thing because it's only one disagreement yet there's six whole movies.

I'll respond to this claim in lieu of many others, because it seems like the most substantive response managed by an atheist.

I don't think the exact nature of hell is anything near the most important claim in Christianity. I'll grant it might be the most arresting to those given to superficial theatrical portrayals of concepts- hell looks pretty dramatic. 

But it's not important. Hell doesn't figure as a motivator for Christian belief (people don't become Christians because they want to avoid hell, despite the misconceptions atheists have). Nonbelief is not motivated by hell (most people reject Christianity on the claim that they don't think God exists). And the primary distinction you draw, between fire and brimstone and "separation from God" can and are, in my view, different descriptive perspectives of the same thing, just as one might use different terms to refer to the same thing.

So obviously this particular distinction is exaggerated beyond reason. And I can bet if you look closely, other distinctions are likewise easily collapsible.

This whole thing about denominational differences is far bigger in the eyes on atheists than it is in reality.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

I'll respond to this claim in lieu of many others, because it seems like the most substantive response managed by an atheist.

I don't think the exact nature of hell is anything near the most important claim in Christianity. I'll grant it might be the most arresting to those given to superficial theatrical portrayals of concepts- hell looks pretty dramatic. 

But it's not important. Hell doesn't figure as a motivator for Christian belief (people don't become Christians because they want to avoid hell, despite the misconceptions atheists have). Nonbelief is not motivated by hell (most people reject Christianity on the claim that they don't think God exists). And the primary distinction you draw, between fire and brimstone and "separation from God" can and are, in my view, different descriptive perspectives of the same thing, just as one might use different terms to refer to the same thing.

So obviously this particular distinction is exaggerated beyond reason. And I can bet if you look closely, other distinctions are likewise easily collapsible.

This whole thing about denominational differences is far bigger in the eyes on atheists than it is in reality.

You know, Delicate, that's actually not a bad post. It has a few issues, though, in that you seem not to recognize that most of us are ex-Christians and have seen the religion from both sides of the fence. Also, you seem not to recognize that the other versions of Christianity we are told from the mouths of the Christians themselves are counter to the version of Christianity you allow yourself to see, based on your own personal experiences in the Christian social club. So you stereotype us atheist as "misunderstanding", when in fact we understand a broader version than you do because we listen more.

You're quite right that Hell doesn't figure as a motivator for most Christians to become "saved". Hell is primarily a motivator for people who doubt the faith to fear leaving; it also primarily plays as a motivating factor for evangelism, since the question is "now that you're going to heaven, do you really want your friends/relatives/loved ones to go to hell?" In that respect, the "separation from God" vs brimstone descriptions are trivial; however, that's not the context in which we were discussing them. 

The context was that any Being which creates a place of torture (regardless of the nature of that place of torture) to which it consigns any who do not worship it, when it is clearly within the power of this Being to allow those people to just die normally, is an immoral being. In other words, the story most Christians tell us of their God, in an attempt to warn us about the penalty for not accepting the salvation story, shows us that this God you claim is contrary to our own moral code-- we would consider this Being demonic, rather than holy, under your definition-set. Whether or not this hell factor is motivating for Christians is a red herring.

The demoninational difference is bigger in our eyes than yours because we have it pushed in our face constantly, in conversations with "Christians Who Are Not Username Delicate", and so we know those differences are deeper and more common than it probably seems to you from inside the circle of Christians with whom you associate in reality. In other words, from your point of view, they are mere discussion-points, perhaps worthy of kicking around a dinner table over beers (or sodas, if you're the anti-alcohol type of Christian fundamentalist, like my folks) to wonder aloud why the Methodists or Lutherans have the weird ideas they do about theology... 

To us, that "weird theology" is likely to be the reason the next Christian we talk to after you  tells us we "don't really understand Christianity because you're just atheists". Understanding those differences in theology is critical to understanding all of Christianity, not just the local variants (or common variants, even) with which we happen to be dealing, right at that moment.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]
This whole thing about denominational differences is far bigger in the eyes on atheists than it is in reality.

Especially if you compare it with the whole thing about all religions and denominations being utter bullsh*t, designed by morally bankrupt people in order to subdue, control and exploit intellectually deficient people.

Still - planet Uranus is waaaaaay bigger than a blue whale, but that doesn't mean blue whales are small. Relativity is a b*tch...

[Delicate]

I'll respond to this claim in lieu of many others, because it seems like the most substantive response managed by an atheist.

I don't think the exact nature of hell is anything near the most important claim in Christianity. I'll grant it might be the most arresting to those given to superficial theatrical portrayals of concepts- hell looks pretty dramatic. 

But it's not important. Hell doesn't figure as a motivator for Christian belief (people don't become Christians because they want to avoid hell, despite the misconceptions atheists have). Nonbelief is not motivated by hell (most people reject Christianity on the claim that they don't think God exists). And the primary distinction you draw, between fire and brimstone and "separation from God" can and are, in my view, different descriptive perspectives of the same thing, just as one might use different terms to refer to the same thing.

So obviously this particular distinction is exaggerated beyond reason. And I can bet if you look closely, other distinctions are likewise easily collapsible.

This whole thing about denominational differences is far bigger in the eyes on atheists than it is in reality.

You know, Delicate, that's actually not a bad post. It has a few issues, though, in that you seem not to recognize that most of us are ex-Christians and have seen the religion from both sides of the fence. Also, you seem not to recognize that the other versions of Christianity we are told from the mouths of the Christians themselves are counter to the version of Christianity you allow yourself to see, based on your own personal experiences in the Christian social club. So you stereotype us atheist as "misunderstanding", when in fact we understand a broader version than you do because we listen more.

You're quite right that Hell doesn't figure as a motivator for most Christians to become "saved". Hell is primarily a motivator for people who doubt the faith to fear leaving; it also primarily plays as a motivating factor for evangelism, since the question is "now that you're going to heaven, do you really want your friends/relatives/loved ones to go to hell?" In that respect, the "separation from God" vs brimstone descriptions are trivial; however, that's not the context in which we were discussing them. 

The context was that any Being which creates a place of torture (regardless of the nature of that place of torture) to which it consigns any who do not worship it, when it is clearly within the power of this Being to allow those people to just die normally, is an immoral being. In other words, the story most Christians tell us of their God, in an attempt to warn us about the penalty for not accepting the salvation story, shows us that this God you claim is contrary to our own moral code-- we would consider this Being demonic, rather than holy, under your definition-set. Whether or not this hell factor is motivating for Christians is a red herring.

The demoninational difference is bigger in our eyes than yours because we have it pushed in our face constantly, in conversations with "Christians Who Are Not Username Delicate", and so we know those differences are deeper and more common than it probably seems to you from inside the circle of Christians with whom you associate in reality. In other words, from your point of view, they are mere discussion-points, perhaps worthy of kicking around a dinner table over beers (or sodas, if you're the anti-alcohol type of Christian fundamentalist, like my folks) to wonder aloud why the Methodists or Lutherans have the weird ideas they do about theology... 

To us, that "weird theology" is likely to be the reason the next Christian we talk to after you  tells us we "don't really understand Christianity because you're just atheists". Understanding those differences in theology is critical to understanding all of Christianity, not just the local variants (or common variants, even) with which we happen to be dealing, right at that moment.

There's a slightly larger issue influencing many of the smaller issues we're discussing, and I appreciate you thinking hard about this, because your reflections are worth reading.

The larger issue I'll call the "hyperdiversity fallacy". People given to this fallacy believe that Christianity, unqualified, is enormously diverse and variegated. Like totally, so diverse, bro!

This is usually the result of defining Christianity via contemporary cultural Christian Americana. The focus here is not on the claims of religion, but on the cultural expressions of religion. I think that's a mistake.  It's a mistake because the diversity of Christian religious (cultural) expression doesn't rule out the uniformity (or truth) of Christian theology.

So I think this is what intellectually rigorous atheism needs to aim for: An analysis and critique of Christian claims, not the cultures that Christians are a part of. If you can disprove Christian claims, you've refuted Christianity.

And I'm glad you're going that route by questioning the moral character of God in creating hell. I mean, I think you're wrong there, but at least you're not trying to judge the truth of a claim by the behavior of its proponents. 

I can't imagine judging the field of medicine by the actions of Mengele or Gosnell.