The Danger Of Treating Religious Books As Historical Texts.

For those of us that have grown up in families that are religious to any extent, the average person regardless of which religion or denomination you fall into may have an idea of God and the devil.

We are taught that God punishes and rewards according to our actions. Most religions have some idea of judgement day though and have all embraced some form of human desire, wishes and dreams within these religions.

We believe in a supreme being that is susceptible to praise, flattery and all the desires of people. A being that punishes when he is angry and loves us at the same time unconditionally.

On the surface, the statement above contradicts itself immediately. How can God love you unconditionally and at the same time only when you do good but when you error knowingly or unknowingly, that same God wants to cast you in burning fire for eternity?

When I was a seminarian, I always battled with questions like this and it made me think of the bible as useless but I was wrong. My error lay in looking at the bible as a book of historical events with God’s commands and how God punished those that violated them.

I don’t know whether or not all events in the bible actually happened but I do believe that they did but the point was not that they happened but rather the lessons that each of those events had to teach us.

The religious books have truths that are the same in each of them. They all…