2 ms·
> You follow a religion because you want to be given the word of God to follow. Not the word of a man who pretends he is at the same level as God so his reinter
by pdabbadabba 1y ago
> You follow a religion because you want to be given the word of God to follow. Not the word of a man who pretends he is at the same level as God so his reinterpretation weights the same.
. . .
> You take God's word at face value, no interpretation, no exceptions.
But your judgment that god's word must be understood in this way just reflects your own belief about how god has chosen to communicate with us.
And it's actually a belief that does not give god very much credit. Great books convey meaning in numerous different ways at the same time. Why would you assume that god has written a text that operates on the level of an Ikea instruction manual when he could have used all of the tools available to great literature — and, through his omniscience, used them perfectly to speak to the needs of different readers in different times and places?
Ask yourself this: when you read scripture, does does it seem more like an instruction manual or a piece of literature?
- buran77 1y ago> But your judgment that god's word must be understood in this way just reflects your own belief about how god has chosen to communicate with us. I'm trying to understand it in the most likely way it would have been understood by the first man who heard it, and put in that context (as much context as I can have from back then). > when you read scripture, does does it seem more like an instruction manual or a piece of literature? If you read them you know they very much sound like both. So the way I read it (and I read the "major" ones as a religious agnostic) is that if I take the freedom to interpret everything from that book always in a way that's aimed at making my life or religion more convenient, then I'm in it more for show. Something that's probably true for most religious people I've met.