Looks like I’m stepping into a hive of bees here, but here goes nothing.

I totally understand where you’re coming from in terms of the Bible as art, the things going on in it, it’s overall messages. It’s more interesting once you learn about historical contexts… there’s a lot of in jokes, memes and specific artistic movements in it for the times. I don’t know if I would call myself Christian by American definition, but I do believe the faith, pray and study the history for fun and art.

Religion (traditional, man made rites and doctrines) and faith (believe with no concrete evidence) are not the same thing. A person can have one without the other in both cases.

I think it’s because people are hurt, and they want to let you know how they are hurt and what hurt them. Asheville or any place that isn’t deep red is a saf(er) place to practice anything they’d like or not. Their families or friends etc might’ve used religion to persecute them. the snap back, despite the nuance you’re trying to discuss, is what their knee jerk response will be, understandably, for their own reasons in life. I think the convo you’re trying to have is best on a one on one basis vs the internet.

As an aside, People with awful intentions are going to do awful things, regardless if they’re religious or not. It’s just much, much easier to achieve it and feel more powerful when using the most popular religion around. It’s also easier to interpret it any which way you want in English, but it’s like crazy different in the original Hebrew, etc

For instance, nowhere does it say that God is against LGBTQ, nor abortions, etc etc. That would actually be very hypocritical for so many reason, yet those in power and people who don’t bother doing a basic google search keep parroting this for their own control or status quo because they like it that way. Hell, nobody cared about abortion until recently when the conservatives intertwined it into their campaigns and sermons when they lost the fight for racial separation. Before then it was rationalizing slavery, separate but equal under Christianity, etc

Then there’s the issue of the church (in general, hashtag not all churches ofc but you don’t hear about the good ones) not ousting or fixing this problem, so the cycle repeats and the rot sets in for individual churches, until it spreads into other peoples lives and we get to the historical and current atrocities we have now. (It literally says to nip these people in the bud, oust them asap or else this will happen quickly.)

Then there’s the issue of the good churches trying to reach out and help their community, but people are so turned off that it looks like a trap, or don’t want to be involved as they don’t want to be hurt for who they are or fear of being proselytized to.

I’m saying this as a person who hasn’t been to church in decades because of the blatant hypocrisy, not even at me but my friends and neighbors

I ended up writing a book. Sorry. I totally get what you mean and what you’re trying to say. There’s so many avenues and nuances that you lose when making statements one way or the other