I like to think I know more about the beliefs and motives of religious fundamentalists than most people. After all, I have some serious education, having spent all but three years of my pre-college education in Catholic schools which ranged from conservative to surprisingly liberal in atmosphere. Then I went to Grove City College, the American equivalent of Teheran School of the Young Jihad. It was this school where I learned what true religious fanaticism was, where I got hounded for daring to think free, where the majority of students took the Bible word per word (or at least pretended to), and conversion attempts were as fervent as during the height of the Inquisition. Yeah, I know how they think and the depths of their escapist philosophy. I certainly know more than my coworker, who didn't know who Jesus's dad was (that's the same one I made a prostitute in Minneapolis for a day).
Now to clarify: religious people are fine as long as they're not killing and embezzling (which happens a lot), but all of the self-righteous self-delusion gets annoying, particularly when they deny all common sense.
My NEWEST attack on the brain-dead denizens of God's Secret Fan Club is the basis of their belief: the literal infallibility of the Bible. Well, any person with more than 2 fluid ounces of sense and the capacity for free thought knows that that is simply impossible. First, the good old Genesis story defies every once of physical evidence with got. Second, the rest of the books, if you've ever read them, have oodles of truly glaring holes, contradictions, and complete incongruity, making God sound like a psychotic. Third, many of the books were written centuries after the stories supposedly happened. Finally, they have been translated and re-translated so many times, it probably barely resembles the original version. In spite of all this, people insist that absolutely every word was dictated by the Almighty.
OK, so let's just ASSUME, for argument's sake, that the Bible WAS written by God. Let's assume that the ol' Jehovah whispered into the ears of the writers and translators to make sure that every word, every inflection, every meaning was transferred perfectly from God's unfathomable mind to paper. Let's assume that what we read is exactly what he intended and is absolute, inviolable truth. Even so, it STILL can't be taken literally. Why?
The Bible says that man made God in His own image. In reality, the opposite is true. When Martin "I'll come up with five more Theses tomorrow" Luther nailed his revolutionary document to the Church in Thingamaburg, he fully intended to have the Bible available to everyone in the vernacular so that they will be free to read and interpret it themselves. The problem was, he assumed that everyone would interpret it the same way he had. Hundreds of splinter groups later, we realize that this was a forlorn hope. How is it possible that two people can look at the same document and read the same Divine words and come up with radically different meetings?
I'll tell you how. People pick and choose what they want to believe. In doing so, they'll emphasize some verses, conveniently forget others, try to twist the meanings of still others by digging up archaic and obscure meanings of certain words, or, when all else fails, they make shit up. Purgatory, The Rapture, and the idea of some big mysterious Trinity are all examples of strongly held beliefs that have little or no Biblical basis, and those are BIG beliefs. God only knows what little tweaks people make in their minds, thinking to themselves, "God really meant this, even though He says that." People have already decided what they're going to believe, and if they need a Biblical basis to back it up, they'll find it. It's not just Christianity, of course. Every other religion has the same sectarian properties, but few, like Hinduism with its ten billion gods, admit it.
Some fun sites: The Bible Decoded (Unreal; if you can understand this guy's ramblings, you're as mad as he is), Jesus Was A Vegetarian (What? The Bible doesn't say that Jesus was a vegetarian? Don't worry about that. This guy sure doesn't.), or The Church of the Aryan Nation (which proves that Jesus, who was at least half-Jewish, hates Jews). When you're done with that, you may be ready for The Church of the SubGenius, the only thing that will make sense.
So is the Bible the true, inspired word of God? What difference does it make? People read what they want to, as proven by the extreme examples above, and the less extreme fact that no two people, even in the same sect, will have the same beliefs, even if they've both memorized the entire Bible.
People are so stupid.
