4 ms·
As an exercise, try and read the different translations of the bible, you'll notice that it's easy to have different meanings just because different translators
by nicolas_t 6y ago
As an exercise, try and read the different translations of the bible, you'll notice that it's easy to have different meanings just because different translators interpreted the text differently. Even with a single translation, it's completely possible to interpret different parts of the bible in different ways. Fundamentalists take one extreme interpretation and tend to only acknowledge the parts of the text that seem to agree with them and ignore the ones that don't.
It's the same with the Quran, the Torah, the Bardo Thodol. Religious text tend to have a lot of allegories and ambiguous texts that are ripe for different interpretations...
And someone who is religious could always easily claim that god may be perfect and omniscient but men are fallible and that the text has been imperfectly re transcribed over time (the oldest copy of the complete Bible, the Codex Vaticanus is from the 4th century for example).
But then again, I don't think in absolutes and that's why I'm an agnostic... I don't find any religion likely but I can't claim to know everything and be completely sure that there is no god, or entity or whatever.
- thatguy0900 6y agoIt doesn't seem like some of it is different interpretations to me but just disregarding some things. Like how jesus said when asked that rich people don't go to heaven. I have alot of religious friends who weren't aware of that part, which seems extremely important to me.
- nicolas_t 6y agoOne of the famous quote is "I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" but then you also have scholars who claim that the eye of the needle was a gate in Jerusalem, others who claim that "camel" is a Greek misspelling and that kamêlos (camel) was written in place of kamilos, meaning "rope" or "cable". Then of course you have quotes like "The LORD makes poor and makes rich; he brings low and he exalts.”... It's not like any religion is completely self-consistent.