How Are Bible Readings Supposed To Be Taken?

To be honest...no. Many people read it in the wrong context, or fail to read the before and after texts which are key to understanding each verse. Some parts of the Bible from the Old Testament no longer apply to us now (what of the Ten Commandments?) while the later books of the Bible were written with the old church in mind. There is a verse whose reference slips my mind in which men are punished for keeping long hair, and women for having short hair, or braiding their hair. Do we follow that law now? No. There are reasons behind what was written, but they do not all apply to us in modern context. For this reason, many read it wrong, and once they have derived their interpretations, are reluctant to change their perspective.

 

This may have been said already but here I go...
Personally I dislike the idea of organised religion or the idea of praying but when I was watching my football team (Birmingham)nearly get relegated i'll admit I prayed silently every match for the last third of the season. Now I have never been to Church, often mock the bible bashing Christians and everything else that athiests/agnostics do to the point where none of my friends would believe I prayed. They've seen me in near tears at the matches but would still never think I would pray and my dad would most likely kick me out the house if i turned full on christian.
So I think what that shows us is that when we are truly scared, in over our heads or simply in a position where we cant control whats going on around us we tend to grasp for any sort of lifeline, one of them being religion. People don't like the idea of gay marriage, there has been surging popularity for it in the West, they cant do anything to stop that other than by grabbing onto religion (the higher power) and wielding it to take momentum from the event they cant stop alone.
So that's it in a nutshell - religion gives us the power to believe we can achieve the impossible by ourselves and in the case you're referring to it is stopping the increasing toleration for gays... in the case i'm referring to it was staying in the championship