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> 76% of Black Protestants, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat, think the Bible should have at least some influence on US laws This is kind of a vague opinion. T

by jmyeet 4y ago

> 76% of Black Protestants, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat, think the Bible should have at least some influence on US laws This is kind of a vague opinion. The Bible says many things, many of them contradictory and some of them just outright ridiculous. Let's just pick one gem, Exodus 21:7-11 [1]: > When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. But if the slave’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave but as a daughter. > If a man who has married a slave wife takes another wife for himself, he must not neglect the rights of the first wife to food, clothing, and sexual intimacy. If he fails in any of these three obligations, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. Here we have slavery, selling your daughter into slavery and polygamy all in one. Should this influence the law? If the answer is "yes", well you're crazy. If the answer is "no" then you've conceded the Bible isn't an authority and you can freely choose to ignore what pats of it you want. There are others such as putting people to death who work on the Sabbath. The issue of the Bible is most brought up when it comes to abortion (and gay marriage). The Bible is in fact silent on the issue. Up until the 1970s, white evangelicals didn't actually care about abortion [2]. Catholics had some opposition but it wasn't front and center. What mobilized evangelicals against abortion was actually a deliberate political movement to opposed racial desegregation, as sparked by whites-only schools in Mississippi and Bob Jones University. So my point is that I don't put a lot of stock on statements like "the Bible should have at least some influence" on US laws because it doesn't mean anything. The question itself is a form of manipulation. I mean the Bible says "Thou shalt not kill" and murder is a crime. Does that meet the standard of "some influence?" [1]: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%3A7-11&version=NLT https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%3A7... [2]: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-history-right-white-evangelical-1970s-00031480 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/10/abortion-h...

Clubber 4y ago
>Does that meet the standard of "some influence?" I would argue that all of western culture and civilization has been influenced heavily, almost exclusively by Christianity (including the Hebrew Bible), at least since Constantine.
Karunamon 4y ago
If the answer is "no" then you've conceded the Bible isn't an authority and you can freely choose to ignore what pats of it you want. That is not how the Bible works. It is a book of history, stories, laws, information, and other things. No Christian denomination on the planet, not even the most straw fundamentalist fringe sect you can imagine, takes this reductive view that because it is in the text it is automatically a command to be followed by the modern day reader. Failure to make that distinction when interpreting a volume of such history absent its context does not mean that distinction is nonexistent or arbitrary.
dane-pgp 4y ago
To be fair, when people answer yes to "should the Bible have some influence on US laws" what they mean is "the Bible, as interpreted by my particular sect". Fortunately the number of members of the Republican party who belong to sects that approve of selling your own daughter into slavery is approximately zero, so it is possible to support Biblical influence without being "crazy" or "freely choos[ing] to ignore what pa[r]ts of it you want". Actually a more neutrally phrased question to ask people would be "Does your opinion of the Bible have at least some influence on how you vote?", although there would be no point running that poll as the only possible answer to that question is "Yes". Either you think the Bible is a valid source of moral wisdom, in which case you are more likely to vote for policies which support that morality; or you think it isn't a valid source, in which case you vote for policies which (in at least some cases) oppose that morality. In both cases, the person is voting consistently with their opinion of the Bible, which means believers and non-believers aren't so different after all.

by jmyeet 4y ago

Clubber 4y ago

>Does that meet the standard of "some influence?" I would argue that all of western culture and civilization has been influenced heavily, almost exclusively by Christianity (including the Hebrew Bible), at least since Constantine.

Karunamon 4y ago

If the answer is "no" then you've conceded the Bible isn't an authority and you can freely choose to ignore what pats of it you want. That is not how the Bible works. It is a book of history, stories, laws, information, and other things. No Christian denomination on the planet, not even the most straw fundamentalist fringe sect you can imagine, takes this reductive view that because it is in the text it is automatically a command to be followed by the modern day reader. Failure to make that distinction when interpreting a volume of such history absent its context does not mean that distinction is nonexistent or arbitrary.

dane-pgp 4y ago

To be fair, when people answer yes to "should the Bible have some influence on US laws" what they mean is "the Bible, as interpreted by my particular sect". Fortunately the number of members of the Republican party who belong to sects that approve of selling your own daughter into slavery is approximately zero, so it is possible to support Biblical influence without being "crazy" or "freely choos[ing] to ignore what pa[r]ts of it you want". Actually a more neutrally phrased question to ask people would be "Does your opinion of the Bible have at least some influence on how you vote?", although there would be no point running that poll as the only possible answer to that question is "Yes". Either you think the Bible is a valid source of moral wisdom, in which case you are more likely to vote for policies which support that morality; or you think it isn't a valid source, in which case you vote for policies which (in at least some cases) oppose that morality. In both cases, the person is voting consistently with their opinion of the Bible, which means believers and non-believers aren't so different after all.