Dear Sophia,
I love you. I’ve been reading lots all day to try and understand some things.
There’s always been a big old bible next to the fireplace in the living room. It’s kind of impressive. I remember looking at it as a kid and thinking nobody must have ever been able to read it all. I could hardly even pick it up. It didn’t seem like a real thing.
I pulled it out and looked up some guides online to make it easier to find out what I wanted. I can’t just sit down and read the whole thing in order. I tried to first of all but it doesn’t really read like a continuous story so I don’t think you’re meant to read it like that anyway.
There are lots of arguments you learn at school about how it doesn’t make sense for God to be all powerful and all loving as then bad things wouldn’t be able to happen because if he loved us he’d want to stop bad things happening and if he was all powerful he’d be able to. I understood the logic but I always thought it seemed a bit childish because there must be more to being God than just a description of what he’s like. It must be difficult for normal people to understand what being God would be like.
The thing that’s always confused me is the idea that God or Jesus really cares and loves everyone because religious people seem to be so full of hate against gay people and other people who are different to them. Then I found out there are bits in the bible about slavery. It’s not condemning slavery either. It says you can buy slaves from other countries around you or from foreign people who live in the same country as you. That sounds like it’s saying people from other countries aren’t as important as people from the same country as you. It’s like football all over again.
It says you can give slaves to your kids. I don’t really understand how that can be in the bible because I thought it was about loving everyone.
It even says women must be quiet and submit to men and must not teach them. That’s wrong as well. I think everyone especially men could learn lots from you and I definitely don’t want you to submit to me.
It says women should treat their husbands the way they treat God but then it says you shouldn’t treat anyone else the way you treat God. That’s confusing to me. I want to be allowed to love you more than anything because I do love you more than anything else. I know some people say the older bits of the bible don’t matter as much anymore but if I can’t trust the bible to find out what Christians should do then I don’t know where I can look.
It even says if a man rapes a woman he has to marry her. I don’t really understand how anyone can ever think a woman should be forced together with a man who hurts her like that. It just doesn’t make any sense at all.
The more I read the more I find bits that confuse me. I don’t mean to get confused by it I really do want to understand. There are some nice bits too and some moral bits that I think if everyone followed the world would definitely be a better place. It’s not all bad.
I’ll keep reading to try and understand a bit better. I feel like I’m missing something at the moment. I know you wouldn’t agree with those bits that confused me.
I love you.
Yours,
Andrew