[alehander42]

this is a problem: your interpretations contradict.

Yes, if it was only about hygiene, this would seem strange. But the actual passages are more complex: and naturally, ignoring symbolism, ignoring the whole context, the huge difference between Law and human rules, the giant focus on sin in thousands of years of Scripture, Christ's ministry and the Law, Israel society, one can leap to any interpretation he wants.

We can also add James epistle , James 4:8-9: "Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world."

[alexvoda]

> one can leap to any interpretation he wants.

That is the very point of dogma beeing incoherent. Any interpretation can be derived. Therefore you need a profitable hierarchical beurocracy to tell the people the right interpretation. Every cult new and old has worked the same way.

[alehander42]

Not really. The Scripture is very good at showing what's in our heart: we have freedom to interpret some non-obvious things wrongly, to not put effort at actually understanding it and into deluding ourselves. However especially the Gospels have a lot of very obvious spiritual teachings.

But very often the truth reason that we don't like them is not because of our intelligence(you can find genius people believing in almost every kind of faith or ideology), but because of trauma, misunderstanding or the fact that often deep down we want to be our own gods, but we just end up being slaves to our own fragility and animal-like passions.

Hebrews 4:12

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. "

(edit: also, my point is: if you ignore all the things you shouldn't ignore, it's easy to leap to wrong interpretations. you shouldn't ignore them! end of edit)