Monday, August 21, 2006

In which I quite unusually take a stand on a religious issue that makes me annoyed and try to describe why

Church dumbness.
I know there's a lot of disagreement about this subject, but I dislike how people interpret the Bible one way, then argue against one's disagreements in a way that actually, ultimately, should apply to their own arguments, which is ignored, or, even worse, argue in logic that one cannot successfully argue against. Logic is like that sometimes...we can all be argued to that genocide, for example, is for the best of the world, but that doesn't mean it's on principles that you inherently can get behind. It presents an either/or situation that is inaccurate and misleading. Essentially, I've seen arguments that depend on a certain interpretation, for instance, here, when that very interpretation may fall into question, or ignores other quite obvious and salient facts and ideas.
Anyway, Romans 16, anyone? You can't have it one way and not the other. Some argue that Phoebe was not necessarily a teacher, and so women shouldn't teach in church, but the argument as described in the aforelinked article is actually that women shouldn't have any job in church that sets them over men, which contradicts many New Testament verses.
This verse from Timothy strikes me as one that has oft been interpreted poorly...in addition, it strikes me, as translated, as being Paul's ideas. They are his representation of what God wants, but they are a letter, an epistle to someone else. Should that be taken with more weight than, say, the Gospels? Or other words of Paul that go against this particular verse, as interpreted in the aforelinked article? Obviously, Phoebe's duties, along with others of her like, are not well defined in the Bible, which in itself makes me annoyed when such literal interpretations are adopted. I don't think it's right for us to assume we have all the information we are allowed to have, or that God wants us to have, or whatever.
Let us never forget that the first people in the Bible to report the ascension were women. I insist that women can be the bearers of the message to anyone, male or female.
Anyway, that's a bit of very unusual religious discussion from me.

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