I was raised in a Quaker meeting and the Sunday school teacher was a debate coach at the local college. We read and discussed the Bible, Koran, Lao Tsu, Socrates and Alfred e. Newman with the same critical intent.
One of my favorite habits now is looking for bizarre comments penciled into the margins of bibles in hotel rooms or noting which pages or sections have been ripped out.
Most strangely, I once found a bible at a sleep cheap that looked like it came from the local swap meet - very well used. It had loads of drawings in the margins of one section. Leviticus illustrated is really very interesting
I never paid much attention to the hotel room Bibles. Now I'm going to need to check this out. I guess Leviticus could get 'colorful' (had to check wiki on the content).
BTW, we attended a Quaker wedding a few years ago - it was basically an hour of meditation, with reflections/comments thrown in from time to time. Interesting. I like the fact that your teachers approached things critically, I think there is a lot of value in that. The leader (I forget the proper term) explained that their church council (board? whatever they are called), had to reach unanimous agreement on any issue before them - while that would seem to really slow things down, it makes me wonder how it changes the whole dynamic of negotiations?
Not enough interest to find the time to read it, but time to make *7* posts responding to the thread about reading the Bible?
Or even eight posts, but who's counting ( I guess you are
)?
I think I said this before, but I find the *topic* interesting - I just like hearing how people deal with the issue. I have an old friend that has some pretty strong religious ties, and recently we have been (very respectfully) discussing the whole agnostic/faith issue. Talking it out in a forum like this helps me to focus my thoughts, and it might help me from making a slip that might offend him. So I post away.
Now, maybe I'm going way off the deep end of amateur psycho-analysis, but I find your comments on *my* posts interesting. You seem to imply that my posting is a sign of doubt of my own position? I can't help but see your questioning of my position as some kind of need to affirm your own beliefs. Like 'Ah! I take this as a sign that ERD50 must not be comfortable with his position - so that helps prove that RR must be right!'.
It's hard to put into words, but I am 'comfortable' with saying that I do not understand things. It seems that other people must have something to latch onto, in order to be comfortable. Nothing right or wrong with that IMO, whatever works for someone is fine by me. If it helps you to lead a better life, that is great.
Also, you may have misunderstood my reply to Bigritchie about seeing Noah's ark. Regardless of whether I think Noah and/or the ark ever existed or not, what I was questioning is why he believed that that specific thing was the remains of Noah's ark. I am unaware of any scholars who agree with that premise. But that may be ignorance on my part. But it did strike me as a 'tourist trap' kind of thing, maybe based on the idea that people want to believe what they want to believe? I'd be interested to see sources of respected theologic historians who think that artifact is the real deal.
-ERD50
), but it sounds nice enough to suit me. Softer and more supple would be terrific. 
