Naturally, the SWORD team has the ability to be careful about what it publishes. If a work is trash, then it is trash, whether it be a text module or a filter for a module. In that case, it should be tossed out. If a work is useful, even if it is not 100% provably correct, it is still something that the users should be allowed to use and thus ought to be included. This is the very *nature* of Biblical scholarship. I know some certain denominations have it in their head that they have figured out everything completely and know exactly what everthing means and so on. But if we are 100% honest with ourselves and refrain from theological spin doctoring, then we must admit that this is not a perfect science and live with it, right? i think everything that has been expressed on this topic has been in agreement with *this* philosophy.
I agree with that philosophy, but it was suggested by another that there should be no philosophies stopping the addition of features that give users power. That opinion was stated unconditionally. I am just pointing out that we need philosophies that set some limits. As I said before I really don't care about red-lettering. That was just how this topic got started by others. However, why not blue-letter all the words and phrases that are mistranslated? Or better yet, provide a toggle to toggle translation error correcting on or off. :-) Perhaps we would need to be more careful than those making red-lettering, and copyright holders may not like it, but it would give the user power.
The logical conclusion then is to give up trying to have perfection, and trust the users. You are not going to stop a user who wants to blaspheme from blaspheming, or a user who takes passages out of context out of context. Nor are you going to stop a user who has a low amout of intelligence or literacy from misreading scripture. If you believe in the Holy Spirit, i think you should let Him handle this aspect. You can have a high quality standard for modules and filters, but in the end there is a certain about of confidence that you must assume in your users, and forget about those who have evil intentions in their hearts.
Perhaps there should be a non-restrictive philosophy which says "filters which add new presentation information (written by Sword programmers, as opposed to being from a previously published material) must show good faith to signify all dubious renderings of the text." These filters could somehow cause a message to be shown somewhere in the GUIs that says "Warning: filter is not necessarily 100% reliable." in taskbars, etc.
For example, in places where it is difficult to discern whether Jesus or someone else is talking, the text could be some other non-red color in a red-letter filter. Additionally, the user would see something in a taskbar, or somewhere else, a red bar that says the warning message. If the user *still* wants to say that Jesus said something that He didn't, that user is going to do so anyway. But for other legitimate users, the red-letter filter is useful for the eyes, even if it is not 100% reliable.
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