Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote:
> "Try reading the Bible honestly, cover to cover, 
> without someone 'helping' you interpret it, then read some stuff from 
> other religions too. That is how most of us lost all faith in it."

  Quite ironically, that's probably the easiest way of understanding it
in the wrong way in many parts.

  You just can't go and simply read such a book out of the blue, from a
*modern* background, without first understanding the culture and customs
of the time, without having the correct perspective. For example, there
are many sayings and similes which were normal and common at the time and
the place, but which can be completely misunderstood when read without
understanding that historical context, from a purely modern western point
of view, especially if the simile is taken literally.

  Unlike many want to think of it, the Bible is not a completely
self-contained text. In order to fully understand it you need to know
something else as well. You just can't approach it from the scratch, without
"someone 'helping' you to interpret it" and expect to understand it
correctly. Doing that will only lead to misinterpretations and wrong
conclusions.

  But of course radical atheists like that. They have a marvelously good
excuse: "But I *have* read the Bible, from cover to cover, with an open
attitude and without preconceptions, without anyone telling me how I should
or shouldn't interpret it. And I have came to the conclusion that it's
bollocks." Then they love to quote random passages, taken out of context
(both the textual context and the historical/cultural context) to show how
screwed the Bible is. Then they will ignore any attempt at an explanation
and dismiss it as a "rationalization".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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