Friday, August 9, 2013
Substituting the Bible for Brains
“It gets very frustrating when I try to initiate a conversation on a topic and people quote scripture after scripture after scripture,” writes David Hayward on his Naked Pastor blog at Patheos. “Then when I say I don’t agree with their view of scripture, they quote more scripture to support their view of scripture.” And on and on it goes. You’ll resonate with this post if you’ve ever felt trapped in such a loop by someone who is armed with Bible proof-texts and just wants to win an argument, whereas you had hoped you’d be engaging in an earnest, open-minded discussion based on critical thinking and information from various sources. (Those sources could, of course, include the Bible and its principles.) Related: We haven’t used one of David’s posts as a Link of the Day recently, so I thought you might also like to know about his new weekly podcast. In this first episode, he engages in a free-wheeling conversation with his co-host Pam Werner, who has a background in conservative Christianity where she was warned that reading Harry Potter was evil and where religious leaders used guilt, shame, fear, and manipulation to keep Christians in line.)
