paul30

Dear Meritocrat:

I am by no means a Christian, but I know oceans about Christianity and about the Bible.

First, the Bible is a patchwork put together in 325 by a group of Christian bishops with a particular agenda. They took the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian writings that they liked, and tossed out the rest. But even the "books" they picked were patchworks: amalgams of oral tradition that had been sewn together over eons.

Second, even if you think this farrago has an important meaning, it is (understandably, given the huge number of centuries over which is was put together) full of self-contradictions and too many things to follow. For example, the decree in Leviticus that enjoins you to "love your neighbor" is right next door to another that forbids you to wear two kinds of cloth--no cotton/polyester for you. Are they equally important? Who can say? Also there are plenty of "laws" that no good capitalist--I mean, Christian--today would observe, like the absolute prohibition on charging interest. Jesus himself expressly forbids divorce, yet not even Catholics pay too much mind to that any more.

So I would submit that EVERY Christian picks and chooses.

Harumi

Some more sensibly than others.