He claims that religious fictions (Bible) are held more strongly to be true. These are more difficult to free people from because of the mystical dispositions. The fiction does not hold now because of terms of usage. The stories of Jesus of Nazareth are quickly becoming hypothetically based stories according to Funk. The solution is to produce a liberating fiction that is common to the best information we can amass; one that goes beyond egocentric creeds. Satisfaction of this according to Funk will not be easy.
The voting system was set according to Seminar guidelines. The members used colored beads for voting. The four colors used were red, pink, gray and black. Each color represented levels of opinions. The understanding was that going from the highest degree (red) the premise being voting on it is true, to the lowest (black) to not be included as true. This would be representative of the degrees of the four colors.
A more colorful explanation has been given by the Seminar regarding the significance of the colored beads. It states that they relate to the following:.
Red: Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it.
Pink: Jesus probably said something like this.
Gray: Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own.
Black: Jesus did not say this; it represents the perspective or content of a later or .
different tradition. .
.
Since the Seminar used a weighted measurement, the acceptance or red is difficult to achieve. The colors of the beads in the voting are multiplied by their weighted number (red-3, pink-2, gray-1, black-0) and the number voting to determine the average, then divide by this number. The number is then converted to a percentage by dividing by three. This number is compared to the scale that is divided into percentage quadrants. The red (acceptance) percentage must be .7501 and up. According to the Seminar, by using the weighted averages, all votes can be counted rather than a simple yes/no vote where it is winner and loser only with just winning votes counting.