Scenario 1:

You walk into a library to do some research on an idea or belief you have, and you can’t find an author/book in the library that clearly teaches the idea you have.

Feeling unsatisfied, you flip through a bunch of books in the library from different authors(or even the same author) and pull a few words or concepts out of each book, and cobble them together to form sentences that none of the books contain alone and none of the authors taught, and you end with a nice paragraph that teaches and affirms your original idea or belief.

Then you claim, “The library teaches this, and these authors believed this!”

Is this good practice?

Scenario 2:

You read the Bible to do some research on an idea or belief you have, and you can’t find an author/book in that Bible that clearly teaches the idea you have.

Feeling unsatisfied, you flip through a bunch of books in the Bible from different authors(or even the same author) and pull a few words or concepts out of each book, and cobble them together to form sentences that none of the books contain alone and none of the authors taught, and you end with a paragraph that teaches and affirms your original idea or belief.

Then you claim, “The Bible teaches this, and these authors believed this!”

Is this good practice? What say you?