# Chapter 318

I don’t think discussing these matters we disagree on is helpful at all. All our premises are different as well as our starting points and the conclusions can not coincide when their beginnings are so varied. And not only that, but “this conversation” follows different rules than any other conversation. Special rules apply that grant exceptions to logic, gravity and other forces of the universe, that the person under discussion created in the first place. And this is inevitable when you decide that the book you are reading is no longer a memoir and bio of ancient people and their lives and interactions and understandings of how they invoked, involved and interacted with God and what He chose to do in or chose not to do in all these histories - and decide that this important book of Jewish narratives is now a science text, an instruction manual, and a detailed book of rules and fines for those who don’t follow Alice down the rabbit hole. That is making Rhinold Niehbur’s tome on Ethics a narrative of Goldilocks and the three bears, and it is making Green Eggs and Ham the definitive singular text on nuclear physics.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not disputing Scripture here, quite the opposite, but I am trying to let it be what it is, and allow it to opt out of what it was never intended to be. Set it free to be the amazing narrative and story of people pursuing life and finding God. To unburden it from all the cultural and crap that we place on it here in the West thousands of years later. Let it be what it is - that is beautiful and thrilling.