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I was on one of those "Welfare cases" I seem to get sent across my desk. The client is a member of a local Baptist Congregation that I have had little dealing with except for when I crossed paths with a few members during a city council meeting. The pastor especially seems like a most unpleasant and uncharismatic person.
Anyway I do not ever breech the subject of religion with clients other than to determine their involvement so that if need be we can refer them to relgious charities as needed. IF a person is highly religious, we point them to local congregations that may be able to help them get their basic needs met. If not, we do not go that route with them.
The guy asked ME if I was into Bible Study and I told him no......
he asked "Why not?" I told him because I have read and studied it many times in the past and it does nothing more for me so I moved on.
Then I explained that well, I am sort of into Bible Study. I am intereted in for example, the motivation and activities of the council of Nicea, About the life of Emperor Constantine and his motivation behind assembling it, about certain persons especially the agendas of Athanasius, the Council of Carthage, to name just a few etc.
He had no idea what I was talking about.
According to him, God just handed the thing down to man.
OK So he reads it he quotes from it (Frequently as I found out) and he lives by it but he has no idea how it came into being.
Somehow, I bet everyone on this forum has had an encounter like this. (Hopefully you were getting paid more than me if was at work too)
yes, someone sent out an email to vote yes on prop 8 and quoted something from the bible that gays were going to hell or something like that. I find it funny that some people just assume that the people who they come into contact with think or believe in the same exact things as other people(I not talking about religion, more so about society and political views).
Anyways she had a divorce many years ago that most people don't know about so I found a quote from the bible about how divorcing is evil or something like that. I am not Christian, I just quoted the bible to get her mad.
I was on one of those "Welfare cases" I seem to get sent across my desk. The client is a member of a local Baptist Congregation that I have had little dealing with except for when I crossed paths with a few members during a city council meeting. The pastor especially seems like a most unpleasant and uncharismatic person.
The guy asked ME if I was into Bible Study and I told him no......
he asked "Why not?" I told him because I have read and studied it many times in the past and it does nothing more for me so I moved on.
Then I explained that well, I am sort of into Bible Study. I am intereted in for example, (etc. etc, etc. snipped for brevity)
He had no idea what I was talking about.
According to him, God just handed the thing down to man.
OK So he reads it he quotes from it (Frequently as I found out) and he lives by it but he has no idea how it came into being.
Vast historical ignorance is no excuse, eh, LKC?
Quote:
Originally Posted by stillkit
I teach a Sunday School class full of them.
Question to stillkitModerator cut: deleted off topic
As to LKC's excellent question, the answer would seem to be an almost universal and resounding YES. It's apparent that to a lot of fundies, there is no questioning, no evaluation, no logical review, no alternative logical metaphorical of allegorical explanations.
And no historical understanding of it's origins. Just a literal and absolute belief in whatever their particular (but highly variant and frequently translated) version of the bible tells them to believe.
King James obviously had it figured out: re-write it and they will believe. Oh, and the simpler the better.
Well, I haven't read the Bible, nor do I care to. How can I put this? Some of the things in the Bible have passed into "common knowledge". Somewhere in the Bible, probably in Genesis, is the story of Cain and Abel. I don't know what chapter or verse, but there's a phrase that I myself like to use, about not being my "brother's keeper". Yeah, it's from the Bible, but I couldn't find it for you in a Bible.
There are other phrases people might think are in the Bible, but aren't. (Because I'm interested in false attributions of sayings as well). A good example is "God helps them that help themselves." Not in the Bible anywhere, but some people would believe that it is.
So have I ever quoted it? Undoubtedly. But I couldn't give you chapter and verse on it.
By the same token, I told someone the other day that life was nasty, brutish, and short. That doesn't imply that I've read Leviathan or anything else by Thomas Hobbes. It's just something I picked up.
Question to stillkit: why do you continue? Doesn't this erode your Christianity? To see abject un-thinking and blind faith versus common sense? I'm just curious you understand.
Why wouldn't I continue? They have much to learn and I have much to teach. It's a happy situation for us all!
And, it's not so much a case of un-thinking or blind faith as it is simply a case of a lack of knowledge. Their faith is fine and soundly based; they just don't know all of the particulars.
I suppose an analogy would be a person learning from a set of encyclopedia's. Just because he doesn't know why the set is in what order, or how it was printed, doesn't mean the knowledge he gleaned is worthless.
Just a sideline. Although, in our discussions, Moderator cut: deleted has implied that the Bible isn't that importants in his (religious) view, I do find that there is this tendency to refer to it as Final Authority.
I go out of my way to find quotes in the bible to counter the selective quotes of the bible beaters.
For example, there are quotes in the bible about death shall come to those who are blasphemous and my reply is, "whatever happened to turn the other cheek?"
I know the quotes in the bible apply to certain situations but the bible beaters don’t seem to know that (selective manipulation?) so I give them the same Moderator cut: edit
I go out of my way to find quotes in the bible to counter the selective quotes of the bible beaters.
For example, there are quotes in the bible about death shall come to those who are blasphemous and my reply is, "whatever happened to turn the other cheek?"
I know the quotes in the bible apply to certain situations but the bible beaters don’t seem to know that (selective manipulation?) so I give them the same crap!
How tolerant of you. That's behaving no better than they do.
In any case, few verses from the Bible will actually stand alone. They have to be considered in context to find the real meanings.
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"Let's not think too much here, OK?"
