A halved lemon pushed under the skin . <| sep |> I would say conservative Christians interpret scripture far more backwards than most others . Scriptural Literalism is in no way the traditional way to interpret the Bible . It ' s only as old as America , if not less so . Determining a point of view in a piece from scripture as well as its context and metaphorical vs literal nature dates back to the Hebrew Bible before Christ was even born . It is conservative Christians in modern America that are reading their cultural bias into the Bible without even acknowledging it . Look at Genesis 1 and 2 . Two completely different stories . Two completely different sequences of events . Conservatives refuse to acknowledge this though , because they refuse to allow any other interpretation of scripture than factual inerrancy . The character of God changes in scripture . It ' s blatantly obvious . How do you say He drowned the world and destroyed cities , but then focuses in peace and healing without acknowledging a change ? Another point is gay marriage . The conservative Christian is against gay marriage because some preacher told them to be against it . They didnt get that from in depth interpretation of scripture . When scripture was written , there was no such thing as gay marriage . That sexual model did not exist . Same sex relations existed , but that isn ' t the same thing . You can ' t condemn a sexual model because you think it is preached against in a book that was written before that sexual model even existed . That ' s like saying the Bible told you not to play Xbox . Sex in the Bible is a lot more complicated than plucking a verse from Leviticus or a letter that Paul wrote to some little church almost 2000 years ago . The word homosexuality didnt even exist until the 19 th Century , so you can ' t legitimately use the Bible against homosexuality because the Bible doesn ' t even know what homosexuality is . The Bible doesn ' t have everything you need for modern life . It doesn ' t , at least on the surface , have an answer to every issue . Conservatives don ' t like that , but it ' s true . That ' s why you need interpretation .