Great article

[safeinOhio]

I am suggesting that if people acknowledge that the Bible doesn't actually say anything, but that every claim is their own interpretation, heavily filtered through their own life experiences, there won't be a diversion of engagement; people will actually be able to communicate person to person, about their own opinions. As soon as the shift from "The Bible says" to "I interpret the Bible as" happens, it puts the conversationalists into a dialogue about their own actual thoughts and opinions.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-austin-fitzgerald/the-bible-doesnt-say-anyt_b_8822834.html?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000592

Individuals read it and put it in their own context. I've always called it loopholes. There are around 33,000 Christian sects that read the Bible, that never agree on what it says. It doesn't say anything.

[Promethean]

1. Oh it says some things.

People just don't look at the parts that aren't obscure anymore. The rules for dealing with slaves, including the precise instructions on how much you can beat them, are a great example of what the bible says.

[uriel1972]

2. I just lurv the part...

Where it specifies an allowable mourning period for a twelve year old girl before you can marry and rape her after you have killed the rest of her family. Please note I am being sarcastic. The Bible, however, not so much.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Well even for huff post that was amazingly idiotic.

[edhopper]

4. As long as they think

it is shit God actually said, reason won't apply.

[Igel]

5. The same can be said of the US Constitution.

The problem is the premise and the eternal lure of confirmation bias.

The legal traditions that we've come to respect (esp. among those who say they don't respect tradition) don't help.


Note that for the most part the 33,000 Christian sects (a number I find ridiculously high) do agree on most things.

The problem is in how you quantify the variables. Do you insist that for something to be agreed upon the quantification must be exhaustive, all or none? So that if 1/33000 disagrees on what something means there's a complete lack of agreement? Or do you say that there's widespread agreement on that point?

Do you let 1 disagreement out of 1000 different points count as "they can't agree on what the Bible says" or do you let agreement on the other 999 points count as widespread agreement in general?

Do you worry about what the systematic theology of a sect says and stop there--for those that have a systematic theology, a rare thing for many smaller groups--or do you insist on uniformity of opinion by all the members of that sect? "9999 members of that group abide by the fundamentals of belief, but 1 person disagrees."

These are ground rules that need to be ironed out before you can even make the claim that they "never agree on what it says." In other words, it reduces that claim to not saying anything. Or at least not making an assertion apart from emotion or fact-free belief.