more room for confusion

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=LeH49SVPj8I
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq0q4k_o11U&feature=related
just some videos, interesting.

I don't want to go and say it's becoming apparent, but the more I look into it, the more and more the bible makes less sense. Sure, every christian based resource points towards the "sense" that the bible is meant to make, but of course it does. it seems that when it's truely questioned, it doesn't stand up. if the only way you can make it stand up to trial is to allow contradictions and explain all abberrations as designed by using all sorts of queer responses, then to me, it doesn't add up.

is the reason we're not truely taught to objectively study and question the bible by the church because it may not stand up? I was told once that by definition the bible needs to be read by someone with the Holy Spirit, otherwise it just won't work, and that God needs to give something the HS, it's not something people can just get.. does questioning the bible make you lose this? I still find the concept of not allowing your faith to be questioned rather weird. I can personally hold the ideal that faith is so precious, that it's actually not strong enough to stand up to question, and because of that fact, you need to make sure it's not questioned, otherwise you'll lose it.

it's like sitting in a box and saying there's nothing outside the box, and to make sure that you're always right, you never allow yourself to open up the box and look outside it, just in case you "realise" you were wrong. of course the box people tell you that there still isn't anything outside the box, if you were to open it and look outside, and they'll say that you're believing a lie when you open your eyes, and use your own brain to determine what there really is, and see other things. how can I deal with this?

liberalism

so yeah, if I'm using the wikipedia definition of liberal in christianity
"The word liberal in liberal Christianity denotes a characteristic willingness to interpret scripture without any preconceived notion of inerrancy of scripture or the correctness of Church Dogma."
makes a lot of sense to me..

Random Quote

In a thread on the SA forums, a therad about christianity and fundamentalism in general, someone wrote this post about fundamentalists and I guess christians in general, about how they aren't really open to other ideas. Comes from my frustration at people asking "please give me proof of your evolution lies" but they don't want to hear what you have to say.

"I think at a fundamental level this debate is flawed, from Evolution vs. Creationism, to the whole gamut of God vs. Science. The reason is this: the believers don't argue in good faith. They can never be convinced they are wrong. No amount of evidence is good enough for them to say, "Well, shit, look at that, I guess the Bible is wrong."

Science is based on the premise that we have to accept new and occasionally unintuitive models that both describe observations and predict future observations. New observations that we make that don't match current models invalidate the models and we toss them out and look for new ones.

Fundamentalists are interested in none of this. They already have their model, the Bible. They are not interested at all in furthering thought by the generation of new models. Their model does not predict anything verifiable. Instead of utilizing observations to verify or negate their model, as scientists do, fundamentalists view observations as an inconvenience that they have to discard using flawed arguments.

Scientists move forward. Science is an ever-changing field; new technology allows us to make ever more accurate observations, and these often defy current models, and so we create new ones. Fundamentalists don't move forward. They have their answers.

I think this describes the situation best: scientists are open to being wrong, and in fact, aside from personal emotion attached to pet theories, scientists love being wrong. Having new observations stream in that show current models are broken is awesome--it's a challenge, a new way of thinking to create. Fundamentalists have based their entire lives on not being wrong. If one aspect of their book is wrong, than their whole belief system is shattered. Hence, they never argue in good faith--they will make no concessions, will never give an inch, will never agree that they might have been misled.

Therefore, it is stupid to debate fundamentalists, because no real debate is possible. "


another quote from here geocities lol

"After all, if we were to declare all questions about the Bible to be off limits, how would we ever know how the book would stand if questioned? If the book is indeed inerrant, shouldn't the case for the book be even stronger after it is questioned and found to stand firm?"

liberalism

christian liberalism I mean.. the whole notion that interpreting the bible literally may not be right.. the more time I spend thinking about it the more it makes sense. I used to be hardcore for bible literalism and also "sola scripture", but now it seems like an absurd theology, since why should it be this way? because the church says so? what about me? if only I knew how I really felt and could actually come to a conclusion