Does the Bible Inspire Hate and Intolerance?

So Fred Phelps, Sr. is continuing his tireless efforts by promulgating hate and intolerance toward anyone who does not obey God's word -- at least in the way Phelps interprets God's word, according to the Bible. I've written about this extremist in the past, but since I just finished reading Bart D. Ehrman's Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them) it was confirmed for me once more how misguided and dangerous Phelps and those like him are. As a former believer in the Bible's inerrancy, I found Ehrman's book to be invaluable and helpful in understanding how that book came to be and if Phelps grasped this, quite likely he and his followers would behave more humane toward their fellowman.

Years ago, the deeper I got into studying the Bible, the more difficulty I had accepting it as gospel. However, not being equipped to sort it out in depth, unlike Ehrman, who is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and a leading authority on the Bible, I was left with more questions than answers. After reading Jesus, Interrupted, I still have questions, but they deal more with those who do not bother to understand just how the Bible was collated, while lacking knowledge of its contents, save for a few verses they rely upon to justify their misogynistic, homophobic, and xenophobic attitude, not to mention their lack of humility.

There's often the belief by fundamentalists that those who don't believe in the Bible are doing so out of blatant disobedience or arrogance. Naturally, I cannot speak for anyone other than myself, but I believe the Bible offers great historical material, but is not and cannot be credited with any Supreme Being as its author, and after reading Erhman's book, I feel even more confident by that conclusion. Yet, Phelps and others like him use the Bible as their right not only to be God's spokesperson, but to dole out judgment, which sometimes includes murder.

Without a doubt, the Bible is going to remain on people's shelves and be quoted from for centuries to come. Sadly and tragically, put in the wrong hands, it will also be the tool implemented to defend extremism.

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Comments

[JohnFromCensornati]

"Without a doubt, the Bible is going to remain on people's shelves and be quoted from for centuries to come."

And it will still include Leviticus. Yes, it does inspire hate.

[wondering]

There would seem to be four possible positions for Christians to take :

Position 1 : At least some of the supernatural aspects of the Bible are literally true and Jesus is divine.
Problem : Actually this is the traditional stance. But then you are a literalist.

Position 2 : None of the supernatural aspects should be taken literally but Jesus is divine.
Problem : Then on what evidence do you accept the divinity of Jesus? Given this position, what would the divinity of Jesus even mean? Notice that you would be rejecting from the Bible any mention of Jesus as the son of God - unless you interpret that as meaning we are all children of God, but then we are all divine and how is Jesus special?

Position 3 : None of the supernatural aspects should be taken literally and Jesus is not divine.
Problem : Then Christianity is reduced to a secular cult-of-pe­rsonality. (This is not a small problem. Many other non-divine humans can lay claim to being at least as great as Jesus - Gandhi, MLK, Albert Schweizer, the list goes on and on.)

Position 4 : At least some of the supernatural aspects are literally true but Jesus is not divine.
Problem : Absurd on its face. Plus it combines the problems of Positions 1 and 3.

If you think there is a fifth way, explain it. If you fit one of these positions but disagree with the problem, explain that.

.

[Zanti]

Wondering, you keep demanding that Christians like myself (I'm sorry, self-loathing atheists) justify our different take on the Bible. Different than yours, that is.

You're obviously passionately convinced that the Bible must be the perfect, divinely-inspired document it pretends to be if it is to have any value. Otherwise, it becomes something dangerous and evil. Or its followers do. Or maybe both.

But, clearly, C.'s like myself do not require the Bible to be flawless and divinely-inspired. So what is there to explain? I mean, it's pretty clear-cut--if I accept the Bible as a great and inspired document but one filled with inconsistencies and antiquated values and views, then there's nothing I have to reckon with. To wit, the issues you raise in numbered fashion are irrelevant unless we presume the Bible is (or somehow must be) inerrant. In short, what's the need to verify which parts of the Bible are true vs. untrue? Or what aspects are valid and what aren't? That's an extraordinarily literal-minded way to approach a text, and, again, it PRESUMES that a requirement exists for that text to be perfect. Take away that requirement, and such nit-picking loses any point.

You're also very apparently under the impression that Christians follow the Bible as one would follow a set of instructions when building a home stereo amplifier. But even fundies don't follow the Bible that way.

[wondering]

So you fall under either Position 2 or Position 3. I'm guessing 3.

Here's the problem : for Christians, the only real source of understanding is the Bible. And be assured that throughout most of its existence, Christians thought of the Bible as the unerring Word of God.

Now perhaps you are right that no one takes the Bible literally today. But then what is this ancient tome? A mere work of fiction? Then it is really no different from Harry Potter.

I'm not trying to be flip. The New Testament boils down to one message - Jesus died for our sins, came back for a while, and is gonna come back for good to kick some serious butt.

Is this what you believe? This core message requires True Believers to accept the notion of sin as a substance we carry around with us that can be taken away by an act of martyrdom, and to accept that a person can return from death. If you disagree, then either you are not a Christian or Chrisianity is just a cult of personality surrounding a human philosopher of dubious merits. And by "you" I don't mean only Zanti - I mean anyone who fails to acknowledge the core message.

See, what you are really saying by insisting that you do not view the Bible literally, is that you are interpretting it through your own PRE-EXISTING worldview. You find what you want to find. But you can do that with any text.

[minimalist syntax]

Hah. I like your point Zanti: "You're also very apparently under the impression that Christians follow the Bible as one would follow a set of instructions when building a home stereo amplifier.­" That sums up a lot of the criticism against the Bible that neo-atheists put out. Christians do not use the Bible as a rule book (but are you sure that fundies don't? I'm not sure about them.) In fact, I don't think Christians in general primarily understand the Bible as a set of moral instructions (excluding fundies). Instead, it is a place to encounter Christ.

[Zanti]

Position 3, by the way, is ridiculous and entirely subjective. The if-Jesus-w­as-only-a-­man routine is a staple of the fundie argument for the Bible as a perfect document and Jesus as divine. So, the next time I suggest your point of view is a fundie point of view, there's one of the reasons.

[wondering]

You know, I've had a bit of an epiphany. I realize now that I am a Christian. Oh, I still don't believe in god(s), I don't think there is anything special about Jesus (if he even lived), and obviously the Bible is a work of fiction. But I am a Christian.

From now on I would like it if you did not tar me with the onerous neo-atheist label. They are clearly hateful, intolerant fundamentalists, unlike you and me.

I feel so much better.

.

[Zanti]

"As a former believer in the Bible's inerrancy.­..."

I never believed it to be inerrant, and most mainline Protestant Christians of our day do not. I guess I've never understood why anyone would regard the Bible as anything except a document authored by humans. That the Bible is neither perfect nor literally the word of God is yesterday's news, really.

[elmerfude]

After being in a church for over 60 years and reading the Bible a number of times, I finally realized that the Old Testament God does not exist and is not a moral example for anyone. The OTG orders, condones or directly causes just about every genocidal, deviant and environmentally destructive act imaginable. Jesus in the New Testament is much better. Of course there is some great poetry in the Bible and the parables of Jesus are helpful. As far as inerrancy there are four different creation stories in the Old Testament all inconsistent with each other not to mention inconsistent with modern science.

I also don't buy the tired argument that religion is not the problem but that the people in the religion are the problem. If religion has not worked for 2,000 years to perfect human beings despite it being everywhere and into everything, then it is either ineffective or part of the problem.

[Zanti]

Religion is one of many cultural features that have, through the ages, failed to "perfect human beings." Democracy hasn't made us perfect. Neither has art, neither has sports, neither has literature, neither have mass media, and so on. Are they part of the problem?

[JohnFromCensornati]

Since elmer said that religion is "part" of the problem, he implied that something else is certainly also part of the problem. Give it a break.

[martymartymarty]

The Bible itself is not responsible for the hatred spewed forth in its name. People who have hate in their hearts will find a means to justify it. They so often choose The Bible because it has to be taken on faith and is not easily proven nor disproved. It presents an unreality that people can then interpret and communicate how they wish, stopping any arguments or interruptive realities with proclaiming it as "God's Word" or something similar. People forget that Jesus Christ is but a major character in The Bible, there are many very dark, violent sections that a weak mind can take away and run with. Using The Bible to hate really misses its point, and aggressively maintaining that hatred is justified by The Divine when its behaviors are primarily borne out of human failings fogs over its true source. Humans need to justify the ugly aspects of our nature, and the way The Bible is written allows them to do that.

[MzTexas]

No, the Bible does not inspire hatred and intolerance. The entire tenet of true Christianity can be boiled down into one passage:

34(A) But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced(B) the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35(C) And one of them,(D) a lawyer, asked him a question(E) to test him. 36"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37And he said to him, (F) "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38This is the great and first commandment. 39And(G) a second is like it:(H) You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40(I) On these two commandments depend(J) all the Law and the Prophets."

If you love God and you love your neighbor, you aren't going to want to hurt either of them.

Literalists are believing teachings of man, not God.