Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Unseen on August 31, 2011 at 9:58pm

Because they can (rightly) be fired for reading it AT work.

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on September 6, 2011 at 8:45pm

Naaaah. ...if they're on the clock, sure, but not on break.

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Permalink Reply by Heather Spoonheim on September 1, 2011 at 8:09am

I have a young man on my Saturday morning bus who is always reading very attentively.  I honestly believe he is gay and trying to resolve his sexuality with scripture.  I don't like to be accused of stereotyping, because I know stereotypes do not reflect reality, but some people have very obvious traits of sexuality and gender that clearly indicate they are not typically 'straight' or 'gender-conformed'.

 

I had a gay man working for me once who reverted to his Catholic faith because of immense family pressure.  He was instructed to just read scripture when he had 'impure thoughts'; if you are taught that your sexuality is 'impure' and you live a sexually repressed life, then that means reading a LOT of scripture.  It serves as nothing more than a distraction for them, but I assume many of them hope to receive some revelation that will make them 'normal'.  It's sad, really.

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Permalink Reply by Kairan Nierde on September 6, 2011 at 8:52pm

Is that really how they tell you to cope with it?  Benedict's Balls, I'm glad I left The Church!  I can't read more than a few pages of that rot before I go cross-eyed.  I would have covered hundreds of two page passages by now though.

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Permalink Reply by Brad Reddekopp on September 4, 2011 at 5:22am

Many Christians believe that God speaks to them through the Holy Spirit using the Bible as a vehicle.  They will read, expecting that the Spirit will "quicken" a passage to them.  That is, they'll experience some sort of epiphany while reading the Bible and they'll take a personal meaning from it that may or may not have something to do with what the text was actually about.

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Permalink Reply by Garrett Taffer on September 6, 2011 at 4:48pm

People read the bible for different reasons. Guilt, to make themselves feel better, & forgetfulness over the wide variety of confusing texts. The bible isn't linear, it's all over the place with rules, texts that go on forever describing sons and fathers, and quite a lot of talk about penis.

But another reason why I think it's read is out of fear. They don't want to go to hell. It's a great motivator.

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Permalink Reply by Boatman on September 7, 2011 at 8:01am

I think people read the Bible on the way to work because they have too.  Face it, if anyone in MY line of work read the Bible during working hours, there would be Hell to pay!

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