> 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

> 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.