Are we now fighting a war about religion or a war about secular matters that uses religious terms? I vote for the latter, though many of our enemy's soldiers believe otherwise — it's what gets them up in the morning. (I call our enemy the "Mean without a Country," but I'm not sure how many will pick up the reference, though most baby-boomers probably read "The Man without a Country" in high school.) Either way, this fight revolves around scripture, in this case the Qur'an, but many fights have been driven by other holy books, especially when they are claimed to be "infallible." What's up with that? 

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"Perilous times!" How often have we heard such words? Surely, they pre-date writing for they're too human to have waited for history to begin. In the same way that nature preceded artifact, cause precedes the scripture that justifies it. These people want to lord it over those people, so they slap the labels "divine" and "inerrant" on their religious writings to give them an excuse to act the way they wanted to in the first place.

What other purpose does the claim of infallibility serve? Why else would you say that God has spoken directly to your people and that His Word has survived all the human clap-trap that has come between the original Dictation and that 21^st-century piece of paper you're reading from?

I grew up going to Protestant churches (usually Disciples of Christ) and still believe that Yeshua ("Jesus" in modern lingo) is the Son of God and took human form to demonstrate God's mercy.  My personal skepticism about scriptural infallibility began in 1983 when my first wife abruptly and without explanation walked away from our marriage (actually, I was the one who left the house because she claimed it and our two children). She insisted I take The New International Version of the New Testament¹ (because I needed it more than she did, I guess), and in that great personal crisis, I turned to my Bible for guidance and comfort. First, however, being of analytic mind, I read the frontmatter, including 10 pages of exegesis about the translation, which convinced me that in no way could I consider the English I was reading an accurate or even complete translation of the original Greek. If the translators and producers of a Bible backed off from a claim of infallibility, how could anybody else make it? Since then, I've fortified my skepticism with other observations². We don't even call Yeshua by the name He used; how can we rely on the other words?

Uneasy about this revelation, I nevertheless read the Gospels (and ignored all books after since they didn't deal with The Lamb even indirectly). In them, Yeshua says twice that a divorced man cannot marry again: it's adultery. I couldn't accept that I should live out my life alone just because my (ex-)wife decided she didn't want our marriage anymore. Why should I suffer any more than necessary for her decision? Bad enough to recover from the divorce. So, I modified my interpretation of the scriptures for my own purposes as have so many other people before and since.

But I have refrained from an interpretation that enables me to denigrate, discriminate against, and even kill other people.

Those who believe in scriptural infallibility say that God guided the minds of every translator all through the generations, that He also refreshed the memories of the disciples when they finally told their stories of Yeshua's life. These believers will also say that they ignore parts of this inerrant text for good reasons, such as historical context. Let's not get into how specious these and their other arguments³ are, but rather explore why they are put forth in the first place.

"God told me to!" Not only that, but "God told me I'm better than everyone else." And if you're better than everyone else, why, you get to mistreat them anyway you want — and God approves! Isn't life simpler when you're the Chosen People, a title adopted by many denominations? You don't have to tolerate those funny-looking (or -speaking or -thinking) people. You have permission to put them in their place, including unmarked graves.

Why else make the claim of infallibility in the face of so much evidence against it? Why else ignore parts of that self-same infallible text when such "insight" (aka hypocrisy) makes life easier or gives you convenient excuses? Don't say, "Because God says so, right there in His Word." Too many make that claim, & I cannot believe that God wants 1 part of his creation (oh, evolution is definitely 1 of His creative methods) to use His Words to justify bigotry, pillage, rape, and murder against others He created. Did He deliberately provide different versions of scripture just to watch us fight over them, especially since each & every version preaches love & charity?⁴  I cannot believe that — and won't!

I will accept that some part of all scripture did originate with God, but that origin is not exclusive to 1 set of words. I also accept that much scripture — across the board — gives us distilled wisdom, guided by great minds and even to some extent, by the Greatest Mind of All. I accept that people produce holy books as a way of capturing an imperfect impression of God & passing it on & around to others. I do not accept that any 1 book carries a greater insight to God than any other, and no book encourages or justifies lording it over others. If your scripture says it does provide these insights & does give you permission to hurt other people, then I invite you to turn your back on that part of it. Refuse to play that ancient game! After all, it might be a Test.

I end this by invoking my grandmother, a devout Methodist, 1 of the saintliest people I've ever known. She advised me during my divorce, supporting & soothing me as best she could, given her age & generation. When I told her about Jeanne, my wonderful wife, who is Jewish, Grandma did not kvetch at all, but quoted scripture to me: "In my father's are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you."⁵

¹The Zondervan Parallel New Testament in Greek and English, 1975, to be exact. I still own it.

²For instance, the disciples wrote the Gospels in Greek, not the Aramaic in which the original events were conducted, and they wrote them at least 20 years after the events occurred.

³Explain, then, the different translations. Explain the different renditions found in the Gospels, not to mention the books that didn't make it into the official Bible. Explain those who eat bacon while quoting verses against homosexuality — & if you don't understand the hypocrisy there, you don't know your Bible or ... you're 1 of them.

⁴If He did, does He deserve our devotion, or uppercased pronouns for that matter?

⁵King James Version from the Bible my other grandmother gave me.