Cool bit of writing from the team at Stargate SG-1

Ori Prior:  "The village will be destroyed."

Tobin:      "Why?"

Ori Prior:  "They have been touched by evil.  There is no salvation for them."

Tobin:      "But we eliminated all the unbelievers."

Ori Prior:   "Not all of them."

Tobin:       "I thought the village had capitulated.  If you'll allow me..."

Ori Prior:   (quoting Ori scripture) "Marcon walked away from the Ori to satisfy his hunger, but no matter how much he ate, he did not feel full.

               Realizing his mistake, he ran back to the Ori, but they denied his pleas, and struck down the village that welcomed him back."

Tobin:      "Forgive me, Prior, but I was reviewing that passage just this morning, and Marcon prayed for forgiveness and took the first

               step..."

Ori Prior:   (interrupting) "...and the hands of the Ori enveloped all those who welcomed him back.  The village was destroyed.  All those who

               stand by and accept transgressions must be punished."

Tobin:       "That is NOT the implication of the text, Prior.  The Ori granted forgiveness when Marcon reaslized his mistake, and blessed the

                village with their light for showing him the way back to the path."

Ori Prior:    (threateningly) "You dare question my judgement?"

Tobin:       "No, it's just...not how I was taught."

Ori Prior:    "There are many words, but only one truth."

How many of us have been there?  How many journeys to freedom of thought began with someone quoting scripture, and invoking Biblical authority for their own purposes?  How many of us set out to refute those who misrepresent scripture because of our belief in the goodness of our faith?  A belief that it was good, but just being twisted, so we picked at the loose thread, and it just kept unraveling until we realized that there was nothing there?

For me, it isn't anger at religion, or anger at God or faith.  Sometimes I have frustration for all the waste and misfortune, but in the end I just realized that the Bible means nothing by itself.  It's ALL subject to interpretation, and no matter which translation you use, no matter what school of thought, you are going to come up against something that's just WRONG.

And when you say "That's wrong", the faithful always answer "Oh, well, that's just a bad interpretation, you should read this book or this essay, and then you will understand how to interpret it correctly.

This expert has the correct interpretation of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he fails to adhere to Biblical truth on what "modesty" means in women.  Such-and-such translation is correct here, but fails there...well, if you go back to the GREEK it means...but in the Hebrew text...no, the Aramaic...

ugh.

By the time you get the human bias of the writing, the translation, the re-translation, the selection of what scriptures get picked to even be in the Bible, the different translations from there, and then the different ways you can interpret the translations, you have a document that has all the "authority" of a Bazooka Joe comic.

Mark Twain once said "Get your facts straight, then distort them however you'd like."

I realize that this can happen in science and reason, but the Biblical scholors can't even do that much.  And in the mean time, everything bad that happens is the fault of humans, everything good that happens is to God's credit, and anything bad that people do invoking "biblical authority" is due to "misinterpretation" and everything they do that is good, they couldn't have done without the Bible.

AND then people claim that bad things continue to happen because we don't give that logic enough authority and public sanction.

I have an idea.  How about if I respect and support your right to run your life by the Bible if you want to, and you refrain from insisting that you have a right to use it to run my life as well?