I call myself a "Biblicist". Meaning i believe the Bible is the word of God, and if ANY religion adds to or takes away from it, they are wrong, period.
Most of what the Bible says is pretty straight forward, but mankind has a way of messing it up when he tries too hard to "overthink" it..
"Cheesey" wrote:
{Before I start.. I would like to make sure that Cheesey and anyone else take this as a global statement.. not directed toward anyone specific or individually..more so at the forms of religion and their teachings themselves.}
But it isn't the word of God, it is the transcripts of the prophets, which were gathered and transcribed by man, and that process itself is left for personal bias.
Which leads to the contradictions that are clear in the bible.. yet forms of religion and believers want to take only what fits their scope and leave out the rest to the voids of gray area and deemed unimportant or ambiguous in nature. Then pointing back at another script and rendering this one as lost.
So now.. as a believer need to witness to them, and try to help them.
Really... what about the scripture that talks directly gay behavior? It is in the bible.. it is part of the scripture.. yet the people practicing the behavior are condemned because yet another part of the bible calls it a sin? Never mind that contradiction.. your doomed!
That has always been my issue with the bible, the Catholic church, heck most any religion I have seen.. not addressing the ambiguous scriptures in the bible yet holding the select parts that they deem as "the word" and running with it as that damning judgment or a pulpit to preach from.
And I use homosexuality out as an example because of the OP.. beyond the 10 commandments really where is it clearly defined what sin is without contradiction? Wait.. cancel that.. even the 10 commandments have contradictions.
Another 'Thy shall not kill'... yet in the bible, in history, in today's world we kill everyday on the word of God.. point to another part of the bible where it is okay to defend oneself.. in war, whom decides the aggressor or defender? Where in the bible does it forgive a president to go to war over a trumped up proof of WMD? Or Oil? Or religion itself? Or revenge for 9/11? Over defending our way of life... is our way of life really the correct way according to the bible?
I have faith that there is a God, even though he has never spoken or communicated directly with me.. but I will be damned if I am going to tell another they are doomed for the pits of hell because of what the believe based on a bible that is full of contradictions transcribed by man and cherry picked by religion that can't admit the contradiction in the good book.
Again.. I believe in God.. and I will be judged accordingly. by him or his appointed... not by another flawed human basing their views on written word but ignoring what they don't want to accept.
I believe, just not in man's created forms of religion and the stigma's that they cast.
Yet I am a hypocrite because I attend church to expand my understanding of the bible.. even though not fully explored there.. because it is too uncomfortable or taboo of some sort.
"The oranges are dry; the apples are mealy; and the papayas... I don't know what's going on with the papayas!"