Quote:
Originally Posted by Xujhan
Not quite. You believe that it doesn't matter what you believe. And you believe it matters what the bible says. But that's only true if the bible - and your personal interpretation of it - are correct. And since you don't take the entire bible literally - you use your personal judgement to determine how various passages should be interpreted, and which should be ignored - what makes your opinion any more valid than Sparkles' or anyone else's? She could take your word for it, and she could take mine, but she should decide for herself.
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I read the Bible literally as it was intended to be read. Regardless, it matters what the Bible says, not what my interpretation of it is. If you read where an Author of a science book wrote, "The Earth has gravity." Then after reading this you came to me and said, "Did you know the Earth has gravity?" If I responded, "That's only your interpretation of the Authors words, I believe the author meant the Earth has no gravity whatsoever." Therefore, by our own interpretations we come to conflict. It does not matter what your interpretation is, it matters what the original Author intended by it's context and many theologians and historians have gathered complex materials and studied these subject to find out what these passages mean. Therefore, you take the context, who it was written to, the gap in history, and find out what the AUTHOR INTENDED and NOT what your individual interpretation of something is. Another example, if my friend was working at a store and he messed up my order (or something) and I called him and idiot, perhaps if you were an onlooker you would assume I was being rude to him. However, my friend interprets the message differently, because he knows that I am simply messing around. Why is there a different in interpretation? Because he knows what the sender of the message intended. That's what important, not your own individual interpretation. If you study hermeneutics you learn to read the Bible properly, and not just a simple, "I think it means this this and this." That's not how you read the Bible. So what makes my opinion more valid? Well, technically, using your logic... it doesn't. But considering I take the Bible literally and have read more on what the authors intended, I'd say it makes a substantial difference.