Re: Not me

"Christ himself spoke in allegories (parables) did he not? So why wouldn't God the Father? The problem was that no one else in my circle saw it that way; it was the literal Word of God, dammit, and you'd better believe it is so!"

Similar story in my life, though I held to the literal belief stage longer, probably because I was around people who had developed elaborate theories to explain how the Bible was literally true in spite of apparently contradictory evidence.

But as you say, the problem was that no one else in your circle saw it that way. The problem is not necessarily in the text, but in the mindset of those who read it. I am reminded of the joke about a man taking a Rorschach test, ending with his proclamation, "You think I've got a problem? You're the one showing me these pictures!"

But we should not allow such people to monopolize the text. Whether we look at the text as non-literalist Christians, Agnostics, Deists, Atheists, or followers of some other religion, we can still appreciate the parables, the history, the poetry, and the insights into human nature, even while rejecting such passages (or interpretations thereof) that are not applicable to the modern world.