Posted November 23, 2015
Gnostic: Well I saw your statement about the bible so I thought your belief is not rigidly in line with the bible, so I ask if your belief is something like what I describe. For you to be able to make the statement of a little right about some things and a lot wrong about a lot of things.
I don't really think about it either way, to be honest. Maybe it's full of a bunch of exaggerations made by superstitious old men, or maybe it's completely literal despite all odds and the occasional contradiction. Maybe the truth is somewhere between the two. It doesn't really matter so long as people can find a way to take away a message of peace and kindness from a book largely full of smiting and human ugliness. The validity/accuracy of the book isn't why so many branches end up having a lot wrong in my opinion. It's the original material and human ugliness. The preachers who convince people that God wants them to be rich and that the best way to become so is to buy their leader a plane, the people who spread "rapture" nonsense despite it being little more than fan fiction, the fire-and-brimstone hell scaremongers, the televangelists and miscellaneous commercial crap exploiting people. Don't even get me started on the insane fake fainting in some branches, or other such stupidity. I went to a religious camp when I was young, and they locked us in a room and forced us to babble incoherently, thinking that they were teaching us the language of tongues. Another time, I tried to leave a church, only for them to try and bribe me with a cute girl. You can't imagine the depths of my hatred toward some of these self-interested hypocrites.
But.
For all the zealotry and opportunism you can find, there are also well-meaning people who'd never do anything like that. Some of the best, most inspiring people I've ever met. It's just when religion becomes organized and "big" that good intentions go wrong and the snakes show up to make a buck, so yeah. You could say that those branches and I don't see eye to eye on much.
(My Internet went out and responding on a phone is a pain, so I think I'm calling it a night.)