Close the Book and Open Your Heart

• Posted by radar pangaean March 25, 2011 - #  - 697 views

  Michael, i love you too, but i disagree with your underlying thesis. I just read your blog post, which is both scholarly and logical. For those who use the Bible as their source, it may be quite persuasive that they can stop hating and still be OK :-).
  
  But i will also say a few things here since *i* waa the one who first called the poster on his comment. I have a different take on all of this, as you may have guessed.
  
  Whether you can find a translation which doesn't condemn homosexuality or not, makes NO difference. The Bible also tells parents to stone an unruly child. No mistake in that translation, is there? Yet i'm pretty sure you don't condone that verse's message, in fact you have devoted your life to SAVING the 'unruly child'. I also suspect that, unlike the Apostle Paul, you don't think people should castrate themselves if they disagree with you about the value of circumcision, right? You seem to me to be a very righteous man who is saddled with explaining away far too much nonsense in a book just because many people revere it. Far better ***to me*** if you could just renounce it and start clean, but i'm not suggesting that YOU should, or would want to do that :-). 
  
  There is NO excuse for bigotry and hate. 50 yeas ago, good little Christian boys and girs were being taught that the Bible condoned 2nd class status for blacks because they had 'the mark or Cain' or the 'mark of Ham'. 150 years ago, those who believed that rationalization broke away from the Baptist denomination to form the Southern Baptists, exactly over the question of whether the Bible afforded 2nd class status to black people. They thought they were biblically correct just as their modern day equivalents think their homophobic crap is 'correct'..

  Well, it ISN'T. Scouring one's holy texts to find justification for doing evil sounds to me much like the way JC described the Pharisees. I've heard it said that one can prove ANY position from the Bible. I've seen enough evil done in its name even in the short course of my life to believe that's probably true. When someone goes back to earlier translations to show that the Bible isn't REALLY condoning the evil done in its name, i chuckle. They don't do that for EVERY passage, just the inconvenient ones.
  
  But heres the thing: the common person doesn't have access to those ancient texts, and doesn't speak aramaic or ancient greek anyway, so it wouldn't matter if he/she did have access. The common person doesn't revere the original text, they revere their KJV. having been told that the Bible is the inerrant word of god, divinely inspired, kept correct by some kind of magic, etc., it's NOT unreasonable for that person to expect that the translation he/she has is also correct and inerrant. 
  
  Christians claim to have access to the 'Holy Spirit'. This entity is supposed to bring righteousness, grace, wisdom etc., depending on which specific denomination one learns about it from. Well, WHERE THE HECK IS IT then? There's no righteousness, grace, or wisdom in many of today's Christian churches. Someone posted a condemnation of the Westboro baptist church here, but people often overlook that Westboro may be the screaming their message of hate and intolerance, but they are supported by all the other Christian churches who are whispering it every day from their own pews. 
  
  If the 'Holy Spirit' is real, then Christians who find any reason to hassle another human being in any way on ANY subject need to shut their book for a while and listen to what it has to say. The book says that if thy eye offends thee, pluck it out. Why can't they apply that same standard to their book? If the teachings of the Bible lead you to anything but love for your fellow man, then you need to pluck that book out of your life.
  
  Going back to Michael's post, i must also say this. Many Christians want to separate themselves from their more obviously incorrect  brethren. I've heard them say "Those aren't true Christians" when confronted with Fred Phelps' type. Michael tried to make a similar point in his post, but it doesn't fly for me. Please look up the "No True Scottman" fallacy... It's a simple Google search on that term. I'll wait. 
  
  There's NO universally recognized certifying authority for what makes one a Christian. This is where the Bible worshippers will quote one or another passage, but i said 'universally recognized', not a personal opinion. Even Christians disagree on what it takes to be one, and those of us who aren't don't care about that level of hair splitting. Being a Christian in actual practice is much like being a ULC minister. You believe what you want to believe, without having to justify or prove it, and you are just as entitled to be called a 'true Christian' as anyone else as long as 'Jesus Christ' s is an integral part of your beliefs. Whether you think he's your savior and a god, or a man who was a great teacher, you are all equally entitled to be called Christians. 
  
  And i also note that the book says: By their fruits you will know them. Fred Phelps is an outlier, but he's still a Christian, no matter how much the more righteous Christians want to deny him. The abortion clinic bombers, the KKK, and all the other haters-in-the-name-of-god are just as much fruits of Christianity and Bible-worship as was the selfless life of service practiced by Mother Teresa, the courage of Martin Luther King, or... more locally... the charity operated by our own Michael.
  
  That tree bears a decidedly mixed fruit.  Like some of the trees in my garden, it has had many grafts. I would not cut the tree down to remove the bad grafts, but if they take over the tree and choke out the branches that yield sweet fruit, that may be the proper course in the end.