Watching Religions Duke it Out

I'm no fan of religions, but, I have to say the field of battle is again heating up as of late, with rival Christian groups claiming that only THEY have the answers, God is on THEIR side, and all others will either be condemned to Hell or left behind, etc, etc.

OK, so much for the Body of Christ, I guess! It seems as if there are so many who would claim to have the absolute truth that I again find myself lost in a sea of the bible says this, or the bible really means that. Who can really tell what the bible actually says? I have no experience in the original languages of the bible, but I have friends who have struggled through those languages and become quite proficient. And what do they generally tell me?

Well, most modern translations are somewhat accurate, but have lost meaning in the pursuit of literal verbal accuracy. So, what does that mean? In Spain people mostly speak Spanish. I am a native-born English speaker, so Spanish is not my first language. I speak Spanish very well, thank you, but at times I understand the words but do not understand the actual meaning of the sentence. In other words, I get the individual words loud and clear, but I struggle at understanding the nuances behind the words, the subtle meaning of what they, together, actually mean.

This is common with people who speak second languages. It is a cultural thing, as well as an historical thing. I can speak German, and German is in the same root language as Old English, but does speaking German and Modern English give me any understanding of Old English?  Well, no, it does not. OK, I have looked at some Old English prose, Beowulf, etc. I do catch a few words that are either the same or close in spelling, but do the words mean the same thing today as they did 1,000 years ago?  Hardly, as my one friend who studies Old English documents informs me.  He has spent decades working with the language, the language which is the root of his own English (he is from England) and he tells me he still struggles with meanings, and even all the experts in the field do not translate the Old English text in the same way, especially if they are trying to make it understandable to people living in the year 2009.  Some do take the text very literally, and what comes out makes little sense when translated that way.  However, when one translates so as to be understood by a modern English speaking words, the meaning of the the text, the idea and the feeling it once conveyed, gets very quickly muddied up.

Since the bible was written in languages that once meant something vital to the people who lived back then, and fit a culture which no longer exists, how could people a few hundred years ago hope to make sense of what is written there?  I often challenge my King James reading friends that the language of Shakespeare, while generally comprehensible, is not the same English we speak today,and therefore something is lost in the translation.  Yes, I get it that Macbeth is a lowlife grabbing for power and I understand Hamlet is a no-win, self-absorbed loser, but the nuances of the speech cause a need in me to study deeper, to make myself more knowledgeable in the actual usage of the language from the 1500 and 1600 hundreds.  King James was written close enough to that time that words used there have very different meanings than they would now, and especially so to Americans, because unlike the English, the U.S. version of English, aka American English, differ by isolation from the mother tongue.

So why, then, do so many people who claim their bible is written under God's inspiration not just do what the Muslim world does, and learn the original languages instead of relying upon flawed (yes, the bible translations are flawed)????  If one is truly to be a Christian, then take the time and make the effort to learn the literal meaning of the original words and phrases. I am frankly tired of people telling me that Peter said this, when people I know who have actually learned the original anguage tell me, no, Peter did not exactly say that, his words mean this ina 1st century context.

Now many Christians today use translated copies of the bible, and few defend their holy book more fanatically than do the fundamentalists, and the Catholics.  We rarely debate religion here in Spain in the public forum, mostly just in the private among friends.  But in any church here on any Sunday people are being told that the bible is the true source of God's instructions to us.  The bible the Catholics use is different in some ways from the version Protestants use, having a few more books, placing emphasis on certain books over others, etc.  Here there is a battle for the souls of human being, with some protestant churches, mainly the Latter Day Saints making some headway, with the Jehovah's Witnesses farther behind but slowly growing.  Among expats from other nations Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc. also have some churches, but these remain mostly the churches of foreigners.

In the U.S. there seems to be a much more serious struggle for converts, and it seems odd to me, as an outsider, that a doctrinal or biblical interpretation makes for such great divisiveness among the faithful over there.  So far I have heard many explanations for what is in the bible, and each explanation only confuses me more. Some say believe it all as literal truth.  Well, I can't in all honesty do that.  I would be lying if I claimed to believe that Genesis provides an accurate description of how everything came into existence. I would be lying if I claimed that Revelations showed me exactly what was going to occur, or even that it relates to our times, as many people claim.

But again, I watch with interest as religious groups, faithful believers all, I have no doubt, tear each other apart over questions of faith.  Once the Protestant Reformation began, the can of worm was opened. (Some would say the Can of Wurms, after Martin Luther's famous statement.)  It seems to be getting worse out there even as I write.  Christians are verbally, and at times physically at each other's throats over interpretation of this passage or that chapter, and so on.

I don't really know if people would call me an atheist or an agnostic.  I do not believe in what the bible has written in it, and I do not believe in god, gods or goddesses.  Yet if something were to occur, such as what happened to Saul of Tarsus, I imagine I would be convinced and convert.  I remain open to such a possibility, even if the probability of it happening seems very remote.

I will end for now, and allow people to comment if they wish to.  But in ending this I have to wonder, if there are supposedly about 1,000,000,000 Christians in the world, how many are really Christians and how many are not?  According to some groups, these Christians are imposters, lost souls who have the wrong doctrine, message and put their faith in the wrong place.  So does that mean that only a few are REAL Christians?  How do you truly know that YOU have the right message and no one else does?  And why is this vital message only being given to a very few of you?  Why would god condemn 99% of the human species to Hell when a simple showing of the truth would suffice to save us all? 

So I end saying, if there are only a few of you real Christians out there, then Heaven, for those who believe in such a place, will be very empty and Hell, for those who believe in that, will be very full.