quote:
Originally posted by RedVento:
What I don't understand is how they rectify the inconsitencies in the bible? How can they say part is literal, part is not? Who decides what is literal then? It always seems to come back to the bible decides what the bible decides. And that is what doesn't sit well with me. For all their search for evidence they still have to rely on a foundation that cannot be validated as a literal truth.
How can they do all of these things? Because it is a lot easier to believe things that make us feel important, or good, or right, than it is to be intellectually-honest.
It is a great deal easier to take a simplistic, literal view of the stories in the Bible than it is to think hard about what the symbolic messages are. It takes study and research to understand context, and it is simply easier to not bother with all of that.
Thinking is hard, and we all know that Americans are much more interested in being entertained than in having their intellect stimulated.
We would rather feel good than think well. We are trained to be that way.
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"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."
-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"
™ Version 4.2