Your plant analogy indeed mirrors your previous points on taking parts/ imagery from the Bible, and how you must take it all- I still feel you do this, anyway, with your Fear/Wrathful imagery of God, while leaving the loving, saving, friend imagery and text along the wayside. I also take issue with the point of the Bible not being used as a source of literature. Humans have been "inspired by parts and repulsed by others" for eons, and as a literary piece of work- no other source on earth has been used or relied upon more frequently.
Just as frequently, people have "craft[ed] a non-fundamentalist, non-literalist theology which downplays the fear-inducing parts of the Bible. Not in "theory," either; but literally. Whole doctrines and denominations have formed because of this precise act! Look at the plethora of Protestant denominations- Methodists, Lutherans- whose doctrine is guided by "Saved by Grace," to Quote Luther directly. This is huge, and it's it not "rather difficult for people to do" at all, and in fact is an easy and joyous task for them.
Your points of the imagery of damnation and Hell are both powerful and valid. It's what is stressed that matters. As you yourself point out, as a child, we are taught different things about the Bible and Jesus. "Jesus is my friend," "Jesus loves me," "Children of the Heavenly Father," to name a few. But a couple points emerge. One- God is also shown as angry, but he is shown as pleased, laughing, frustrated, and so on. In these traits, he exudes all the emotional spectrum of any other human. After all- Jesus showed this verity of emotion, and was God made man. What our denominations, parents, spiritual leaders, and others teach and emphasize greatly comes out in a child's image of God. I was a research assistant in studying different God Schema around the world (definitely a different topic for a different day), but God imagery is as varied and wide as those believing in his divinity and/or following his doctrine.
Even if you don't call it that outright, you touch upon Free Will. I read your arguments about laws of societies carefully, but I still do not see the difference in breaking social pacts to those of God's- fear is still a driving force between them. No matter how "discrete" you believe the acts to be, It's still between you and the state, or between you and God. Your emotions and feelings are certainly more addressed on the faith side of the house, and both Teresa and Luther wrestled with their faiths everyday (as you quoted). In addressing your thoughts and feelings about God, one should not feel compelled to act like in a robotical manner, always blindingly following and thinking about God without so much as a negative thought or animosity-filled feeling.
“Even those who are strictly secular, following the law of the State, think judgment on others who wrong…”
"No, we don’t -- at least not the kind of “judgment” championed by much Christian theology, where wrongdoing necessitates suffering. While I have certainly experienced a thirst to punish, to inflict harm and to feel righteous in doing so, I recognize that as a “bad” impulse to which I should not give in. I don’t know how the thought processes of a “wrongdoer” work. I can guess, but I can’t know. Thus, I can’t judge with any confidence whether someone is good or evil, better than me or worse. I do believe that I can say that acts which cause suffering are “bad” -- ie, undesirable -- and ideas which further those acts are bad."
- Congratulations. You just got done describing a Christian.
I don't believe anything about what Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did or will do is legitimized by any major religious doctrine; yet people still use doctrine to legitimize action all the time, one of my first points. The law of the land, the law of science, God's Law, Holy Writ, by-laws of any organization: they are used as mandate, in their various forms, to legitimize (in)action, ranging from daily living, to how they view others, to how they act against others- good or bad. I think once you get over how wide, varied, and broad the scope of these paradigms, you'll see they all share those major components of how people see the world and view their lives, and see it is just as broad. Faith and religion, like any other paradigm- is how you see it.
