irreligious at best.

There is a difference between accuracy and precision. See, precision is defined when measurements are taken that all line up. The closer the measurements are to each other, the more accurate the information is believed to be precise. Accuracy simply has to do with how close to a known value the measurements are. The classic example is a game of darts. If all the darts are thrown and land closely together on the board, you are said to have had a reasonably good precision. However, the cluster of darts could be on the very rim of the dartboard, far from the center where the highest points are. Therefore this is not accurate. You can also have the darts reasonably close to the center, but not landing close together, say, all darts roughly three inches from center. They are clearly more accurate than the darts on the very edge of the board, but not terribly precise. Yet another example is to have the darts scattered all through the dartboard. This is the worst case scenario (in our example, of course depending on the placement you may have a reasonably acceptable score) as they are neither accurate nor are they precise. The best case scenario (both points wise and example wise) is to peg all the darts dead center. In this example you have been both precise and accurate. 

How does this apply to truth? Well again, there are different kinds of truth. Truth can be moral or relating to accuracy of a story. Moral truths are important to christians. From examples in our daily lives and even through scripture we learn moral truths. Through many other means we can learn about accuracy of events or other such objective truths. There's even a third qualification I could make here called subjective truth in which something is true to you but possibly not someone else. This is rather philosophical in nature, but some examples that help me define these might help you as well so I'll share them with you.

Take for example, the living room of my home. I am sitting at my computer right now, obviously, typing away furiously at this blog entry postponing my homework a little longer because when the mood to write hits and I ignore it, I get frustrated. Objectively, I can state that this room is 70 degrees Fahrenheit. It is an objective statement because given the tools at hand (simply a thermostat on my wall), I can see that it reads 70 degrees and it is calibrated in Fahrenheit and not Celsius. Subjectively, I can say this room is clean. It is subjective because given my experience and having seen a messy room, I can conclude that this is not that messy of an area to be in. However, if my room mate needed an emergency tracheotomy, not only would I freak out and probably do much more damage then good in this situation from panic and not calling 911, I would prefer to have it done somewhere else as this room may be clean, but certainly not that clean. It hasn't been vacuumed in several days, let alone properly sanitized for surgical procedures. With the standard of an operating room we can see that my living is clearly not clean; given the standard of say a frat house, this place is easily considered clean; and given the standard of say, a saloon from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, this living arrangement is pristine. This is a good way to view subjective truth. Now, a moral truth would be I should live cleaner since we have not vacuumed in two or three days. With sanitation raised to nearly moral levels, this is not a far stretch. Or maybe another moral judgment would be I should lower my standards since my room mates are all very busy individuals and I should be more tolerant and forgiving. Though I'm not a neat freak, I certainly have standards of cleanliness.

This said, I have been taking a class in which we are studying the history, culture, and text of the Christian New Testament. There are several examples where the books contradict each other. Immediately, most Christians who would read this have a visceral reaction. Many would even go so far to say that I am heretical for holding this view. These people haven't payed close enough to their Bibles or have a very loose and tenuous hold on their faith and are immediately threatened by any insinuation that they believe something that is false. These people will someday be the subject of another blog, but that's unimportant right now. 

I was once one of these people. I have spent much time trying to reconcile my faith with this fact and I was very recently reminded of a certain fact that in ancient times it didn't matter that something was objectively true. See, the gospels were written almost a century after the death of Christ, so while they could have been written by eye witnesses to his life, it's more likely that they were not. At this point I'm just regurgitating information I've just been reminded of, but I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of this information is readily available in this day of Google. The people of the day were more concerned with moral truth. This is why the contradictions of the scripture and the possibility it hints at (being these stories were possibly made up or were at the very least altered for the sake of conveying the author's bias. What is important is the truth conveyed by the stories.

This leads me to my point. To me, it does not matter that the scriptures can be put at odds with each other. Objective truth is rapidly losing it's importance to me when it comes to the scriptures. The teachings of this man Jesus are simply too important to throw out because of inaccuracies of scripture's authors. I long ago gave up the inerrancy of scripture doctrine that many cling to. Does that mean that I believe the teachings are faulty? Absolutely not. For any flaws that you can find in this book written by the hands of men (and possibly in some cases women), the power of the teachings have the possibility to impact so many in such meaningful and intangible ways. I do not believe that you could say that there are no errors in the scriptures, but I do believe that you can say that about the principals and teachings of the scripture. That is why I am not threatened when someone points out the flaws of my holy book. Indeed, when viewed through the social context in which it was written, it makes it that much more powerful because the authors were so concerned about the truth of the situations that they were not overly concerned about the discrepancies inherent in committing an oral account to paper.

Do I then think it isn't important to be accurate? Nothing could be further from the truth. But between being one hundred percent accurate and the discrepancies we find in scripture is a wealth of healthy dialogue amongst believers. This is why we debate free will and determinism in the church. This is why we argue over the line between being in the world and relating to it and compromising our message and becoming a part of a faulty system. This is why some don't drink and others think it is ok to have a beer amongst friends. This also indicates that the most important part of our faith is applying the principals of it to our daily lives and not the literal letter. Even Ghandi was able to level a serious indictment on the church when he said that he would love to be a christian if he found one that followed the teachings of Christ.