Can anyone think of any other reason why this organisation (and I must state this is not the only organisation by a long shot) bends over backwards to change the meaning of bible passages other than to steer away from the (unimaginable it seems) conclusion that perhaps what the bible teaches is wrong?
They want their cake and to eat it too, plain and simple. They want all the good stuff, and will justify all the bad stuff. The bottom line is that there are misogynistic verses telling women to shut the hell up when they're in church. But these women are trying to find ways why God really doesn't care. They want to serve God, but they also want to speak and to lead, so they come up with reasons why God didn't really mean what's plain as day in the literature.
It's bullshit, and if they had any integrity, they'd give up one moral ground. You either have to abandon the notion that the bible is infallible or you have to realize that God doesn't want female leadership in the Church. Bottom line. You can't hold both positions simultaneously without contradicting yourself.
Furthermore, why is it (and perhaps this should be in a different thread) that religious minds can hold every single passage as so sacred that they cannot possibly come to the most obvious conclusion (i.e. the Bible is out dated and simply wrong)?
Well, they get it insofar as you see the kind of mental gymnastics they go through to make justifications for themselves and the bible. They just want all the lovey-dovey stuff without hearing about how God does not women to talk (let alone lead), does not want homosexuals to live, is all about smashing babies skulls on rocks, etc, etc.
They don't want to hear that shit because it fucks with their head.... As well, it should.
Finally how can the human brain mask the cognitive dissonance associated with such apologetic conclusions?
People will go to great lengths to justify what they choose to believe. But one day they'll realize that they've held on to this line that is getting thinner by the day, until the last thread finally snaps. Either they made a fairly smooth transition or it causes severe cognitive dissonance.
Edited by Hyroglyphx, : typos
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from mistaken conviction." — Blaise Pascal