Burn,
Welll, I do know how to say this. This is the type of statement that should be discussed via PM. However, since you feel that it is appropriate, I’ll engage what you stated:
but maybe your faith is a little fragile?
Not at all fragile- rather, very strong, and grows stronger each day.
Your idiosyncratic and hard headed interpretation of several tough passages of Scripture could be considered damaging to the progress of your own walk with God.
Not so. My faith is built upon my decades of research and reading the Bible. In all those readings, over all those years, I have always found explanations for the passages that you and others may question. That you choose not to do so could impact your faith negatively.
To tie your faith to this interpretation so strongly risks spiritual shiprwreck for you if you ever become convinced that the interpretation is incorrect.
Again, not so. As new information comes across my radar, I consume it, digest it, and reason on it, based on my framework of belief, just as all of us, including you do. All of us have been incorrect before, some choose to throw the baby out with the bathwater, not I.
You posts tend to reveal your own infatuation with a particular interpretation more than they say anything about the veracity of the written deposit.
Not sure what "written deposit" you are discussing here. In reality, as I have repeatedly stated and will continue to state, we are given precious few indisputable facts, so we must use our knowledge, logic, reason, to come to an interpretation of the indisputable facts. That process ultimately requires faith that the interpretation we hold as most likely is the "correct one", the one that we incorporate into our individual belief system. All of us have an infatuation with our interpretations, that is human nature.
It's a mistake to pontificate without a due consideration of the facts.
True. I’ve given the facts due consideration. My interpretation is different from yours.
To do this alienates potential converts and obscures the more fundamental truths of Christianity.
You may think so, I disagree. I believe that the fundamental truths of Christianity revolve around the fact that God created us in His image, that we are in a fallen state, that he imbued us with knowledge of good and bad, that that the Bible is God-breathed, that Christ’s sacrifice can redeem us from our fallen state, that we must put faith in Him and His Son in order to be redeemed. You may choose to believe in the neo-darwinistic model of evolution, I do not. I feel it is designed to mislead my fellow humans and not bring praise or honor to their Father, their heavenly designer. There is much more I find wrong with the neo-darwinistic model of evolution, but for the sake of brvity, I’ll leave it at that.
Genesis is not about the HOWS, but the WHYS. Scripture is not so much about history or science but of the story of human redemption.
You know what they say about opinions, right? Everybody has one. I too agree that Scripture is primarily about mankind’s fall and redemption. I, however, feel that history and science that significantly differ from Scripture is junk history and junk science. Not all sciences are equal in veracity, some are more art than science, such as history, archaeology and neo-darwinistic evolution theory.
BA- Setting the record straight
PS- PM me next time, mmk? Cheers.