> There’s a lot that comes from people who claim to be Christian that’s not supported by the Bible at all.
I think this may be too reductionist. The Bible contradicts itself on a lot of topics (ie, the age-old dichotomy between the fire-and-brimstone Old Testament God vs the turn-the-other-cheek New Testament teachings). It's hard to reconcile God telling the Israelites to murder the women and children of Canaan with "love thy neighbor as thyself" unless you adopt a pretty cold-hearted standard for who your neighbors are.
That's the problem with religious fundamentalism: there's text available to support all sorts of terrible stuff.
There's a pop culture narrative of this Old/New testament divide regarding "Fire and Brimstone"... but you don't see "Fire and Brimstone" sermons coming out of the Jewish history of teaching. The old testament is also not particularly concerned with the impact our actions have on an after life (again, Jewish religious groups are almost never concerned with "heaven" or an after life). If anything the most important theme of the old testament is the struggle to do what is right. After all Jacob becomes Israel (meaning "wrestles with God") by literally wrestling with a divine being, against impossible odds, in order to receive a blessing. In many ways all of the complexity and contradictions of the old testament can be summed up by that one act.
The real divide is all in the New Testament, it boils down to Paul vs. pretty much everything else. The strong sexual purity and aggressive condemnation of moral transgressions pretty much all comes from Paul. This is also where you get the strong imperative to proselytize.
Of course Paul himself is full of interesting "contradictions" (I use quotes because it's theologically a bit more interesting). Especially considering the wildly different tones between Corinthians and the "faith to eat all things" aspects of Romans. Contemporary American Christian extremism can be pretty easily found by just reading Corinthians.
The thing about Paul is that there are a lot of supposed Paulisms that are actually him quoting some other viewpoint and responding to it; ancient Greek didn't really have good syntax for quoting, so nearly all translations lost that. 1 Corinthians is full of these, including the context surrounding the oft-quoted 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; the whole chapter (really, the whole letter) consists of him calling out the Corinthian church for judging others for ostensible sins despite themselves being sinners by their own standards - a classic invocation of Matthew 7:5.
> the age-old dichotomy between the fire-and-brimstone Old Testament God vs the turn-the-other-cheek New Testament teachings
There are heterodox Christian sects who believe the Old Testament God and the New Testament God are two completely different entities. In some cases, with the Old Testament God having polar opposite morality. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism#Beliefs
> There's a lot of violence in the Bible, just as there in in the world today.
You make it sound like there's no causal link here. But a lot of the violence and bigotry in the world today is being explicitly propped up by religious texts. Many people crave certainty and a black-and-white moral fundamentalism, and there are sizable passages of the Bible that cater directly to that.
My point is that there's a difference between "the Bible doesn't support it" and saying, "Hey, if you take it in its entirety, and throw out the problematic bits, and apply a Gaussian filter, and average it all out, well... then it no longer supports it in spirit..."
So, again, going back to your original post:
> There’s a lot that comes from people who claim to be Christian that’s not supported by the Bible at all. It’s just something they were told and repeated.
That's not the problem. The problem is that a lot of it IS literally supported by the Bible, if one doesn't do that complicated Gaussian blur beforehand to paper over the problematic parts.
Your explanation seems to be that if something "exists in the Bible" it is "supported by the Bible". Correct me if I'm wrong in that of course, but that is how what you wrote reads to me.
As causal links go, what causes are you suggesting? I don't want to attempt to put words in your mouth here, but your references are too abstract to discuss so far.
I will touch on this though:
> You make it sound like there's no causal link here. But a lot of the violence and bigotry in the world today is being explicitly propped up by religious texts. Many people crave certainty and a black-and-white moral fundamentalism, and there are sizable passages of the Bible that cater directly to that.
Violence and bigotry is a part of human nature. There's plenty of it that isn't propped up by religious texts at all that's most based in raw tribalism.
Sure, there are people who attempt to claim that their views are Biblically based...but they simply aren't. It makes people feel like they have something to hide behind. At least not if a person is going to attempt any level of logical consistency. Most likely a single verse or passage was selected and then used as some sort of justification.
> Your explanation seems to be that if something "exists in the Bible" it is "supported by the Bible"
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I guess we're arguing semantics in this case. If something exists as a literal passage in the Bible, then someone can use that to support their views on the matter.
> At least not if a person is going to attempt any level of logical consistency. Most likely a single verse or passage was selected and then used as some sort of justification.
I think this hits the nail on the head: the Bible, taken literally, is logically inconsistent, and requires subjective synthesis in order to draw the useful moral messages from the allegorical stone.
But why not just denounce the problematic parts as problematic?
I think this may be too reductionist. The Bible contradicts itself on a lot of topics (ie, the age-old dichotomy between the fire-and-brimstone Old Testament God vs the turn-the-other-cheek New Testament teachings). It's hard to reconcile God telling the Israelites to murder the women and children of Canaan with "love thy neighbor as thyself" unless you adopt a pretty cold-hearted standard for who your neighbors are.
That's the problem with religious fundamentalism: there's text available to support all sorts of terrible stuff.