I have to admit: I am fascinated by The Conservative Bible Project. I have literally read every diary that's been posted on the subject on DK, have discussed it with my friends endlessly, and gone over - word for word - the actual Conservapedia description of the undertaking. For a couple of days now, I've been trying to discern what the fascination of this is for me. Just now, I figured it out: It pisses me off.
In my life, I've struggled to read the Bible critically. Maybe it's because I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. Or maybe it's because I grew up in the South, where preachers are treated like rockstars. Who knows? But the fact is, for most of my 36 years, I have been afraid to examine the Bible objectively. I don't know if I thought to do so was somehow dangerous in itself or if I was afraid that my faith - and therefore my immortal soul - wouldn't survive that level of review. Whatever the reason, it's only within the last couple of years that I have been able to look at this verse or that parable and say "Does this make any sense to me?"
What I've found is that I don't understand most of it. But this I can say for an absolute certainty: I may not really know shit about the Bible. But most Christians know even less than I do. For over three decades, I listened to preachers, Sunday School teachers, Bible study leaders, et al. tell me what the Bible really says. You know, it's fire and death and judgment and fear. To this day, I can remeber being 7 years old and having a preacher tell me, "Son, you could walk out these doors and get run over by car. Are you ready?" I'm not even kidding.
And I believed them. Most of these morons I wouldn't trust to tell me how to get the nearest 7-11. But I trusted these people, most of them with vastly less education that I have, to explain to me the wisdom of an ancient document written thousands of years ago by men who lived in places that these people likely couldn't find on a map. Now that, my friends, is stupid. But, eventually, it dawned on me. My life experience has taught me that most people are morons. Why should that general principle apply any less to religious figures than any other? It doesn't. They're still fucking morons.
But at the end of the day, I feel drawn to a spiritual life of sorts. And Christianity is what I know. I get the main concepts, I know a lot of the music. It's a good place to start. And, when you cut away a lot of the bullshit, it's really a pretty good belief system and one that's entirely consistent with my own views about the life and the responsibilities we have to each other as human beings. You know, justice and love and peace all that liberal stuff. You know stuff like:
If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. Deuteronomy 15:7.
and
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. John 15:12-13
and, finally,
Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. Psalm 34:14.
I think that's why I'm so interested in The Conservative Bible Project. Finally, I managed to summon the nerve to examine the Bible for what it is. Turns out, there's a lot of good stuff in there. And now these bastards want to screw it up even further with their racist, homophobic, sexist, and capitalist propaganda. Jesus, forgive me, but I say fuck them. Leave the Bible alone, assholes.
I know, right? How Christ-like. Praise the Lord.