If only religion were so open-minded -- but that's not human nature. It reminds me of a great passage by Dostoyevsky from The Brothers Karamazov (from the Grand Inquisitor passage). It relates how mankind will strive for nothing as earnestly as finding someone to follow. So the figurehead is synonymized with the message -- and that's how religion is extended to the masses. Because humanity doesn't only want answers to eternal questions -- humanity wants a father figure, it wants protection, it wants to be safe.

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"How you get so big eating food of this kind?" -Yoda

I still need to read that book.

You're right - and people feel safe when the answers come from one source, when they are not responsible for investigating things for themselves.

Some faith traditions have a tendency to be more open minded than others. In organized Christianity, the adoption of new doctrines and ideas has been, almost exclusively, political. The Buddha famously taught to doubt everything you hear, even his words. Zen Buddhism is essentially Tibetan Buddhism informed by Taoist teachings, and the merger does not seem to be political - the Buddhists were not trying to make their beliefs appeal to a conquered people. Buddhist traditions also have a habit of elevating non-Buddhist teachers to divine status; Jesus is often considered a Bodhisattva. Baha'i doctrine is based on embracing a variety of spiritual teachers as a sort of progression of the same spiritual teaching over time, given to different peoples in different places.

Traditional Chinese and Japanese religious practices also seem, at least at some point in their history, open to new ideas. You can see this in the variety of deities commonly found in these temples.

DT,

Thanks for the tips; I've found some interesting stuff already. One thing I did read which could explain why, especially the early, Christians paid so much attention to Paul, is that it is believed that Paul's letters are older than the Gospels. If that's so, then many early Christians might have been exposed to Paul's teachings first, and Christ's teachings later.

If you want to know why some Christian perspectives thrived, and others were persecuted, look to the politics of the time. I'm sure the date these texts enter circulation had some influence, but the politics involved (the ability to persecute some and give power to others) are probably far more influential.

The dates of Biblical material is in dispute, some more than others. Paul's letters are, regardless of what side you take on those disputes, some of the earliest texts still available. Some scholars theorize that another Gospel existed, and is now lost, that provided the basis for some of the canonical Gospels (Q document) and this source would have existed prior to Paul's letters. Also, if we take the early date for the Gospel of Thomas, this text predates Paul's letters.

I'm going to have to find the Gospel of Thomas and give it a read.

There's a saying about this that goes; persecution makes us grow. No doubt some ideas were quashed via persecution, but it's likely that some ideas were brought into the public eye and thus found a wider audience because of persecution as well. Politics can be a two-edged sword I guess.

The Gospel of Thomas Collection -- The Gnostic Society Library

This statement holds more truth in today's world than it did in 50-400CE. Politics have changed a great deal, the transfer of information has changed a great deal, and, well, it's just more politically complicated to kill everyone now-a-days. At least for the most part.

Hey, this thread's still going...

A quick "hello", and to say I came across this thread and forum from the initial post which I stumbled across when researching "Brush Up Your Scripture", a parody to "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" by Cole Porter. Thanks to Mephistopheles for putting them all together in one place, made my job lots easier

Thread title sums it up beautifully: how on earth *do* Christians rationalize some of these really quite repellent bits of scripture?

Apologies for not reading the whole 16 pages of this thread. I've read the OP and the last 2 pages.

My reasoning and rationale regarding the scriptures is that I see the Bible as written by man, not God, which explains some of the odd parts of the scripture. It is man recording what he thinks God wants him to do. This also explains a lot of the contradictions between books. I know this view would be complete heresy to a lot of churches and is probably a big factor in why I'm not a member of a church. So, I not only take the non-literal approach to the Bible, but also see it as a work of man with warts & all.

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"Call on God, but row away from the rocks." H. S. Thompson

FatalMuse. The Catholic Church seems to agree with you. The Bible must be understood according to its literary form, never a purely historical and scientific account. If you wish you may read the document, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation - Dei Verbum,

It should also be noted that this view was actually develop by their Protestant counterparts. The confusion on how to interpret the Bible comes from, I think, the tendency of the common people to shun scholarly research which is essential in interpreting the Bible.

Literal interpretations of the Bible is a very modern development. In response to increased secularism, and the feeling that religion is losing it's place in society, some react by demanding extreme interpretations of religious texts. People fear losing their faith tradition and react by clinging to the tradition.