I wrote a very popular piece a few weeks ago titled,
Christians Should Love and Accept Homosexuals. In that article, I made a connection with how slavery has been completely rejected in the common era
despite the fact that the Holy Bible encourages the act, never condemns it, and even sets up rules for how to do it correctly, including the notion that a slave's life is worth less than your cow's.
Well,
someone else made the connection, as well.
Of course, as
Steve Wells points out in his critique of the Dan Savage speech, Dan Savage talks about a few other items in the Bible that the men who wrote it got flat wrong. We have more knowledge than the people who wrote the Bible. We know that being jealous enough of our importance in the lives of those that should respect us is never a good reason to split their pregnant bellies open with a sword or feed them uranium laced chocolate chip cookies to give them tumors and heavy menstrual bleeding. Why would we even consider loving or worshiping a god like these men wrote about?
We look at tribes in Africa and wonder at how backwards their thinking is. We raise an eyebrow at how they attribute everything natural to "the gods". And yet, we hold dear the writings of a hunter/gatherer clan that tried their best to write the same ideas on a page. We just don't give that god credit for it anymore like they used to. We know better. We have science, knowledge, history...proof!
We watch as religion evolved in the Bible from polytheism to monotheism. From monotheistic hateful god that must be worshiped regardless of the abuse rained down on the worshiper. David's Psalms make me think of the housewife's "glow after the blow", where she falls madly and deeply in love with her abuser after he beats her and then wildly loves her. It's a psychological phenomenon that has always fascinated me and we get to watch it in living color throughout the Bible, especially the Psalms. We watch as the New Testament unfolds and reveals the newest evolution of religion - the movement out of hunter/gatherer god/s and into whatever it is the new religion was, borrowing from the pagan traditions of the area - much like the Catholic Church did to bring much of their conquered lands under the umbrella of the church. Religion became more palatable with the masses. It could now be argued on an intellectual level with the brilliant Greeks, rather than discarded as old fodder for humor.
Knowing what I know now about history, reality, logic, a bit of science, and how humanity works, I look at the evolution of religion in the Bible and walk away from it, gleaning what I deem profitable and discarding almost all of the rest. I challenge the reader who attempts to prove that there is only one interpretation of religion, basing that view upon the Bible, to reconsider what that book really is. Once you do, it is impossible to know what is truth and what is not.
Once you realize this, you will notice how it isn't possible for a god to condemn anyone to eternal hell because they didn't "get it right". Unless of course, that god
does require us to get it right. Then again, since he hasn't made it clear, do you really want a part of that god?
I know I don't. And I feel really good about it.
