You choose which rules you want to believe in. Some sects follow all of them, some follow none, some follow all the hateful ones, some follow the basic moral tenets. If your sect doesn’t care about something, you just kinda pretend it isn’t a part of the Bible until it fades into the background. If your sect does care about something, you drag it up as often as you can in sermons to hammer home its importance.
It’s not the Bible that’s the issue, but our current understanding of it.
The Bible is generally broken into the laws, the histories, the lamentations, and words of promise all in the Old Testament and then the words and actions of Jesus and His followers in the New Testament.
For Christians, the laws aren’t so much hard laws as much as they are “Tips for a Better Life, featuring the Prequel Stories”. The New Testament is what makes Christianity, and those texts primarily focus on the Grace of God, which is - hastily summarizing here - “All ‘sin’ requires the shedding blood, but I’ve already done that and forgiven everything, so just do your best”.
Different gospels say different things about the same events. Different letters are written to different ancient churches by different people about many different issues. Different texts and histories are included or discarded dependent upon how any particular sect of Christianity worships. The Bible is a collection of the words of people who are driven by God for their purpose at their time, and so it is always going to be subject to adaptable understandings.
All this is because mortal, imperfect people are in charge of interpreting, translating, and communicating the words of an entity that “exists” outside the confines of matter, energy, space, or time. As time continues, our understanding of the word adapts and changes.
Or seriously enough to think about it, not just swallow everything. Christianity is a religion who praised critical thinking for centuries because the Bible is a book which should be studied. It was written by intelligent people who made a point to let contradictions and diverse points of view in order to let the reader decide.
Only for as long as nobody knew any better. It’s also a religion that put people like Galileo in jail, for daring to think differently. And burn them alive at the stake. Unless we forget the Spanish inquisition, or the crusades?
The Bible isn’t the immutable word of God. The Word of God is Jesus-Christ. That’s what taught Christianity for 19 centuries before American evangelicalism invented the heresy of biblical inerrancy.
It also says that mixing meat and dairy is a sin.
The Old Testament says a lot of things; there’s also a New Testament that focuses on Grace and that the most important thing of all is love.
Those who focus on one “sin” over the actual purpose and teachings are those who are focused on hate.
It sounds confusing. How can we be sure which rules are rules and which aren’t?
You choose which rules you want to believe in. Some sects follow all of them, some follow none, some follow all the hateful ones, some follow the basic moral tenets. If your sect doesn’t care about something, you just kinda pretend it isn’t a part of the Bible until it fades into the background. If your sect does care about something, you drag it up as often as you can in sermons to hammer home its importance.
If the Bible is the immutable word of your god, then what sense does it make to be able to cherry pick what parts to follow and what not to?
It’s not the Bible that’s the issue, but our current understanding of it.
The Bible is generally broken into the laws, the histories, the lamentations, and words of promise all in the Old Testament and then the words and actions of Jesus and His followers in the New Testament.
For Christians, the laws aren’t so much hard laws as much as they are “Tips for a Better Life, featuring the Prequel Stories”. The New Testament is what makes Christianity, and those texts primarily focus on the Grace of God, which is - hastily summarizing here - “All ‘sin’ requires the shedding blood, but I’ve already done that and forgiven everything, so just do your best”.
Different gospels say different things about the same events. Different letters are written to different ancient churches by different people about many different issues. Different texts and histories are included or discarded dependent upon how any particular sect of Christianity worships. The Bible is a collection of the words of people who are driven by God for their purpose at their time, and so it is always going to be subject to adaptable understandings.
All this is because mortal, imperfect people are in charge of interpreting, translating, and communicating the words of an entity that “exists” outside the confines of matter, energy, space, or time. As time continues, our understanding of the word adapts and changes.
This sounds like a great argument for not taking anything the Bible says seriously at all.
There’s nothing that forces you to take anything spiritual “seriously”. It’s up to you to make that decision for yourself.
The Bible says you should, and most churches say you should.
Or seriously enough to think about it, not just swallow everything. Christianity is a religion who praised critical thinking for centuries because the Bible is a book which should be studied. It was written by intelligent people who made a point to let contradictions and diverse points of view in order to let the reader decide.
Only for as long as nobody knew any better. It’s also a religion that put people like Galileo in jail, for daring to think differently. And burn them alive at the stake. Unless we forget the Spanish inquisition, or the crusades?
Galileo was Christian as much as the Pope who condemned him.
The Bible isn’t the immutable word of God. The Word of God is Jesus-Christ. That’s what taught Christianity for 19 centuries before American evangelicalism invented the heresy of biblical inerrancy.