User-Friendly

When we think of  "user-friendly", I'll wager that some of the words that come to mind for most of us are words such as "ergonomic", "convenient", "comfortable", and the like. In other words, we think easy-to-use.

Okay, let's take something like the driver's manual:

Operating a motorized vehicle is something that most every adult does at some point in their lives. But it's not quite as easy as it sounds, because if people got a hankerin' to go somewhere and they just hopped in the nearest car or truck and hit the gas, the intelligent among us know that this would prove to be a monumental disaster.

'Point being, we need rules and regulations in place if billions of people are going to be sharing the same roadways. For instance, if someone doesn't know what to do at a stop sign, it will only be a matter of time before someone gets T-boned, seriously injuring them, or possibly even resulting in death(s). Or, if someone doesn't know that driving while intoxicated is lethal and that it's therefore against the law to drink and drive, then someone's going to get hurt or killed. It's just a matter of time. And note, I'm not talking about whether or not laws are broken, here. They clearly are. There's no "debate" about that. I'm talking about consensus that DUI is breaking the law, and if you cannot understand that, your driving privilege is revoked.
 
So, it would seem that any manual or book that exists for the express purpose of delineating the "ins 'n outs" of driving would need to be concise, comprehensive, and thorough. Getting around is important, but public safety is more important. This, I contend, is one of the those instances where a "black 'n white" application is not only fine, but is completely necessary. We can't, on page 3, read that a complete halt should be made at all red, octagon-shaped signs with the letters "S T O P" on them, and then in chapter 7 read that we can circumnavigate that sign as long as it's on a Tuesday. If we read in chapter 11 that the laws don't apply to the law-makers, IOW, that the ones who make the laws don't have to follow them, we'd think something is totally screwy and amiss, and we could easily foresee HUGE problems.

That only makes sense, and speaking of which, if we can't agree that a book or manual as important as the driver's manual needs to make sense, then all discussion on the matter is utterly pointless. The idea of  "user-friendly" swiftly becomes disconbobulated mess. We instantly see that "intuition", while it can be useful at times, it has its limitations.

If all I've said makes sense so far, then let's proceed a bit more: What about something even more important than operating an automobile? What about, say, "spirituality", specifically, the religious claims of knowing what's important in life and how it will affect us in the next life? In Christianity, we see that it attempts to have a monopoly on such knowledge. If true, it is definitely more important that we understand the Christian philosophy than some measly ol' driver's manual.

So, by extension, there should be consensus that the Bible, which we are to believe is the most important, reliable source for learning about the Christian philosophy, be a user-friendly document and make complete sense. This is especially true and reasonable if we are to also believe that the Bible's redactors were inspired and overseen by the Bible's leading character, "Yahweh", aka, "God", a being that we are to believe is the most supremely intelligent entity in existence.

Well, a fellow blogger who also fairly recently deconverted from the faith wrote on the topic of  "healing", a topic that led to an exchange on "black'n white" thinking, and the defense of one of her Christian readership was that, since fallible man took the dictation, then the parts that don't make sense to us we can simply write-off as man getting "God" wrong. Conversely, the balance..i.e..whatever makes sense and resonates with us, we can safely conclude that man got "God" right. 

In other words, we were admonished to not read the Bible with a "black 'n white" mindset, and this reader further suggested that such thinking is "dangerous" in nearly every situation.

So, let's go back to the driver's manual for a second: Is it dangerous to read the driver's manual in "black'n white"? We've already established that, no, it's not only not dangerous, but if there's any real danger at all, it's to not read it in "black'n white". We don't get to pick and choose which rules of the road resonate with us, and throw out the rest. In other words, the danger, if any, is when we cherry pick the Bible or driver's manual, because any resultant interpretation is then indistinguishable from our own, subjective take on things. For instance, when it comes to the Bible and its claim to be an objective moral guide, what it boils down to is believers filtering the passages through their own innate sense of  "right" and "wrong", AKA, cherry picking. All believers do this.

There is evidently a thin line between "user-friendly" and recipe for disaster.