The Christian Right Can't Read the Bible

[jaysunb]

After a study revealed that less than 10% of evangelicals were bible literate, James Dobson's Focus on the Family is desperately taking a two-day multi-media Bible boot camp on the road, selling "truth" for $179 a seat.

The thread that follows is pretty darn good too !

http://www.alternet.org/stories/44934/

[BOSSHOG]

1. Praise Jesus and give me money

Ole james is a doctor. I bet his "doctorate" cost about 179 bucks. Lord don't let me lose the lemmings. What will I do? I couldn't possibly flip hamburgers for a living, there are so many unwashed nonwhites in that industry. Please jesus save me.

And don't forget my fellow murkins, dobson and those like him are working to destroy the constitution and they are in a tax exempt status. What a gig. Certainly beats working for a living.

Learn the bible in just two days. For $200.00 more we will throw in some of them pills that will guarantee jesus like sex and a large cock to boot, praise the lord and keep the reverend dobson out of poverty.

[jaysunb]

9. You're killing me Bosshog

:rofl:

[ThomCat]

14. You've got that so right.

:rofl:

[Warpy]

16. Remember what a bargain Garner Ted Armostrong was?

He'd sell you a book for $3.95 plus shipping and handling that would get you into heaven, gay-rant-eed.

I thought he was a brilliant satirist when I was a kid. Imagine my horror when I found out he was SERIOUS and that there were a lot of people who bought the scam!

Of course, people will still be just as babble illiterate after the good doctor gets through with them. They'll just have more hateful stuff to misquote.

[jaysunb]

19. Didn't ole Garner Ted die not long ago ?

He and his Pappy had quite a presence here in Pasadena for many years...and then the shame and disgrace set in. :evilgrin: as it always does.

[MikeH]

20. Garner Ted Armstrong died in September 2003

I used to listen to him on the radio in the 60's and early 70's, and at one time sent in for some of his literature.

I was young at the time, and was pretty unhappy and was searching for something. For me at the time it seemed like someone like that must be really speaking for God.

As it turned out I would find that there were serious problems with what he was preaching, both from an orthodox Christian perspective and otherwise.

He insisted that we were wrong in observing Sunday as the sabbath, and in observing pagan holidays like Christmas and Easter. According to him we were supposed to observe the seventh day (Saturday) as the sabbath, and the holy days in the Old Testament.

Garner Ted Armstrong reminds me of the character Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man.

[twilight_sailing]

2. $179 a seat?

If Jesus had been able to make that kind of money he wouldn't have had to make his own wine.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. Hot damn! Only 179 dollars a seat!

God is gooder than hell!

[ThomCat]

15. Geez, all those people wasting money on Seminary

and all they really needed to spend was $179 and 2 days. :eyes:

[leftofthedial]

4. groups like Fucking Up Your Family are all about money and politics

Their "teaching" will be incredibly selective and propagandistic.

RW "christians" can't read the bible. It would destroy their world view.

[Megahurtz]

5. So Dobson Scams People at $179 a Pop

just to teach them his version of the Bible.:eyes:
I'm sure he will lecture them about additional "tithing". :puke:

This phony and some of his ilk are nothing but thieving crooked Con Artists.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. That's why they need Falwell, Robertson, Olsteen, Dobson, & Co

to tell them what it means and how they should arrange their lives according to their leader's interpretation of the Bible.

[stanwyck]

7. As a very lapsed Presbyterian

who hasn't read The Bible in decades, I'm always amazed at how well my Sunday school knowledge has held up in comparison to my fundy co-workers. Do they even read The Bible? Seriously. I know they attend church and Bible study. But when many of us bring up passages in The Bible which contradict their beliefs, they're totally ignorant of what we're saying. We have to show them where in The Bible their views are directly contradicted. And they cannot show us where in The Bible their views are sanctioned.
My suspicion is that ministers are interpreting The Bible for their flocks without the flocks doing any actual reading.
Thus, the widespread ignorance of what The Bible actually says. So, when a fundy says "It's in The Bible." Ask them to show you where.

[Az]

8. Religions are seldom if ever about the doctrine

Individuals may base their beliefs on doctrine. But a religion comes about via a shared set of beliefs typically instigated by an individual or group of individuals with a particular view perhaps based on a particular doctrine. This can be based on a narrow or broad reading of the doctrine and varies from religion to religion.

The issue of bible literacy is null anyway. Simply put we don't have the original texts. Everyone... and I mean everyone... is just guessing that the things written in the bible are the right things. The simple truth is even if the original text was inspired by God or even directly manifested by God in some way thats just not the text that has survived. Just from the fragments of ancient scrolls we have found we know there to be more discrepancies in the bible than there are words in the bible. So someone claiming they know the truth based on the bible doesn't quite grasp the enormity of the problem.

I would like to see more people made aware of the bible's history than just the words in it. But thats just me.

[jaysunb]

10. Here's a post from the thread that goes a little further

Ignorance
Posted by: LeeAnnG on Dec 4, 2006 7:17 AM

Anyone see Senator Westmoreland (R-Georgia) on the Colbert Report when he was asked to list the 10 commandments? He got three of them, and he is (was?) a sponsor of a bill that would require the commandments to be posted in government buildings because, in his (paraphrased) words, "without the 10 commandments, we lose our moral compass." I guess to be a True Believing Christian, you don't really have to know what the Bible actually teaches or what the commandments actually say, you just have to believe that whatever it is, it's true.

I've talked to any number of Christians who consider themselves to be Fundamentalists, and more often than not, they have either no idea or a very limited understanding of what's in the Bible. I have a good friend who is a Christian who told me he believes the Bible literally. I asked him if he really thought Noah put two of every creature in the world in an ark roughly the size of a football field and how he thought Noah got to Australia to get the kangaroos. He said that it didn't matter, that this was not the point of the Bible and that he believes its essence. Hm. This is an intelligent guy, and he didn't understand the literal meaning of the word "literal."

When people say they literally believe in everything in the Bible, they usually do not even know what the English word "literally" means. They also don't know that the Bible says that touching pigskin is an abomination, that it's OK to sell your daughter into sexual slavery, or any number of other ideas that would be offensive to them. (See Sam Harris's "Letter to a Christian Nation.)

So football is out (pigskin), sexual slavery is in, and multiple wives are sanctioned by God. Wow. It's amazing how anyone can "literally" believe in words that have been translated numerous times from ancient texts and ideas from ancient cultures that are truly alien to our society. It's like thousands of years of whisper down the alley.

Speaking of translations, if you translate a modern Italian novel into English and back again, the content will be quite different from the original. It is nearly impossible to take the phrases, nuances, and peculiarities of one language and culture and get an exact fit into another. The King James version of the Bible, so beloved by the "traditionalists," was not ever intended to be an exact translation of the Biblical texts; it was written in large part for the poetry of the language. It is, in fact, quite lovely in many parts, but it's not the words from the mouth of God that many would like to believe.

[Az]

13. They have been told it is "literally" true

And that is all that matters.

Here is the thing of it. I can present a person with the most compelling and well founded reasoned argument about why they are wrong about a particular issue. But if that argument does not latch onto any of their prefounded ideas then it cannot dislodge a belief they currently posess.

I could present you with a stellar argument that since matter is mostly empty space and that we never actually touch atom to atom you should be able to walk through a wall without bumping into it. I could give you charts and diagrams. I could tell you the physics behind it. I could present everything you need to know to convince you that you can walk through walls. But even if I get you to try it you are going to brace yourself for impact because you don't believe it.

There is an irony in the atheist community. Many of our members became atheists because they pursued a carreer in the clergy. But after close study of the doctrine they found they just couldn't accept it any more.

For centuries the bible was not allowed to be read by lay people. But once Gutenberg turned his little machine loose on it religion exploded and fractured like an egg in the hands of the Swedish Chef (appologies to any actual swedish chefs). Even now the fracturing and splintering continues. Once the doctrine was decentralized from the clergy anyone was able to interpret it as they saw fit.

And again there is that nasty little matter of translations and not having the original source material and all the pesky other little issues.

[alfredo]

11. For your money you will receive a Tijuana Bible.

http://tijuanabibles.org/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi/faq.html

Warning: Adult Content
http://tijuanabibles.org/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi/hzpi/u/HzSt031GttsN.9mVq.4/hazel.cgi?action=detail&item=TB065

[Arkansas Granny]

12. They don't need to read the Bible. Their pastor will tell them

what they are supposed to think. Isn't that easier, after all?

[xchrom]

17. may i be obvious here?

reading the bible is one thing -- comprehending it another.

literalism is just an excuse for a dull mind -- whether they've read it or not.

[zreosumgame]

18. not true at all

they simply REFUSE to read anything except the parts they can twist until they agree with so long as it can be used against someone else. bunch of hypocrits.

[sweetheart]

21. spare the rod, spoil the child

so are these folks unspaired?