The dark side of the Bible

[The Arizonan]

The Bible actually has verses about stoning adulterers and marrying rape victims to their rapists. Seriously, who wrote the Bible? I'm beginning to think it was actually written by homophobic, troglodytic HPs who were definitely NOT inspired by God.

[tik 🪀✨]

I was doing some research recently and came across this passage:

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The Bible was written by many different people at various points, all a very long time ago. They existed, lived within a community that had culture and traditions, beliefs, rituals. They ate food and told jokes, had squabbles, drank too much sometimes, slept with each other. They wrote with their context. There are things going on outside of the pages. The above passage is useful, to me, to show that taking most of the Bible literally is not helpful for personal growth or a healthy tightly knit community.

That doesn't excuse anything but it's important to keep in mind that the overall point is not the minute contents of the book itself, but the bigger picture and story its telling. It is not hard to find objectively bizarre horrifying things going on in the Bible.. but these things are not the purpose of Christianity, or its God. The Bible is a man made product. See in its weirdness a mirror of your own issues. There are good things hidden away in there, too.. very good things. Don't throw out the proverbial baby.

[tik 🪀✨]

I was doing some research recently and came across this passage:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The Bible was written by many different people at various points, all a very long time ago. They existed, lived within a community that had culture and traditions, beliefs, rituals. They ate food and told jokes, had squabbles, drank too much sometimes, slept with each other. They wrote with their context. There are things going on outside of the pages. The above passage is useful, to me, to show that taking most of the Bible literally is not helpful for personal growth or a healthy tightly knit community.

That doesn't excuse anything but it's important to keep in mind that the overall point is not the minute contents of the book itself, but the bigger picture and story its telling. It is not hard to find objectively bizarre horrifying things going on in the Bible.. but these things are not the purpose of Christianity, or its God. The Bible is a man made product. See in its weirdness a mirror of your own issues. There are good things hidden away in there, too.. very good things. Don't throw out the proverbial baby.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

As TiK said above, the Bible was written by various people at various times. Still, it's thousands years old and aside of fruitcakes no one takes these verses literally anymore.

Personally I call the Old Testament the greatest crime/gore book of all times.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Internet atheism has been passé for a decade. Content yourself with rewatching Religulous.

[RINO Tom]

Internet atheism has been passé for a decade. Content yourself with rewatching Religulous.

LOL, awesome post to read to start off my morning.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

At risk of being buried under the mounting outrage, there was no such concepts as "homophobia" or "misogyny" when the Bible was being written and adopted.

[afleitch]

At risk of being buried under the mounting outrage, there was no such concepts as "homophobia" or "misogyny" when the Bible was being written and adopted.

And wiping out tribes and taking women as spoils of war wasn't either. Not being facetious; we see that sort of mentality with ISIS.

[DC Al Fine]

Internet atheism has been passé for a decade. Content yourself with rewatching Religulous.

LOL, awesome post to read to start off my morning.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

At risk of being buried under the mounting outrage, there was no such concepts as "homophobia" or "misogyny" when the Bible was being written and adopted.

And wiping out tribes and taking women as spoils of war wasn't either. Not being facetious; we see that sort of mentality with ISIS.

Well, the Book of Jozue is explicitly about barbarian hordes exterminating entire cities just cause, sometimes sparing one person or family for the lulz. I haven't defended this, obviously, but they way of thinking back hundreds of years ago was diffrent than ours (fortunately), and that should be remembered when discussing the content and the context.

For sure taking such stuff as literal directions now is homophobic/misogynic etc.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Internet atheism has been passé for a decade.

Net Atheists like thunderf00t don't monopolize a strong dislike of Christianity.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Internet atheism has been passé for a decade.

Net Atheists like thunderf00t don't monopolize a strong dislike of Christianity.

Okay?

[Dr. MB]

I'm a nontraditional Christian because I don't believe the entire Bible was written (or inspired) by God. Some of the books, such as Deuteronomy, are just a recording of the (often barbaric) laws of that time.

[progressive85]

The Bible is a creation of men, whereas God is a creator of men, so its really an interpretation of what men believe God believes.  The Bible should be studied in the context of the time it was written in.  It was not written overnight and sections have likely been added, amended, and removed over time.

[RINO Tom]

The Bible is a creation of men, whereas God is a creator of men, so its really an interpretation of what men believe God believes.  The Bible should be studied in the context of the time it was written in.  It was not written overnight and sections have likely been added, amended, and removed over time.

Saying a sensible thing like this does not fit the narrative of both militantly religious and irreligious people, groups that comprise a depressing percent of people having these discussions.  Unfortunate.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Elisha and the she bears.

[The Mikado]

Elisha and the she bears.

What's dark about that? Elisha just watched his master Elijah be called up into Heaven. A bunch of kids see him after he comes into town and start chanting "Go up, baldy," a clear threat of "go join Elijah in Heaven," which is effectively a death threat. He defends himself by summoning bears to maul them.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

I always enjoyed the way the Bible is narrated: describing all these gross/scary/disturbing stuff in a truly deadpan tone. It's extremely climatic.

So many times Yahweh appears as simply the best-written villain of all times. To use a modern analogy, the entire Exodus is basically "the Chad Yahweh and the Virgin Pharaoh" meme personified.

And at the same time there is a lot of wisdom in the book I feel I can relate to. For example, I find Exodus 23:9 as particularly relevant today ("You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt").

[°Leprechaun]

I always enjoyed the way the Bible is narrated: describing all these gross/scary/disturbing stuff in a truly deadpan tone. It's extremely climatic.

So many times Yahweh appears as simply the best-written villain of all times. To use a modern analogy, the entire Exodus is basically "the Chad Yahweh and the Virgin Pharaoh" meme personified.

And at the same time there is a lot of wisdom in the book I feel I can relate to. For example, I find Exodus 23:9 as particularly relevant today ("You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt").

I wonder how many people have read the book of "Wisdom"? (in the Catholic, but not the Protestant Bible).

[The Mikado]

I always enjoyed the way the Bible is narrated: describing all these gross/scary/disturbing stuff in a truly deadpan tone. It's extremely climatic.

So many times Yahweh appears as simply the best-written villain of all times. To use a modern analogy, the entire Exodus is basically "the Chad Yahweh and the Virgin Pharaoh" meme personified.

And at the same time there is a lot of wisdom in the book I feel I can relate to. For example, I find Exodus 23:9 as particularly relevant today ("You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt").

I wonder how many people have read the book of "Wisdom"? (in the Catholic, but not the Protestant Bible).

Sirach? It's one of the nicer bits of Apocrypha (though Judith is the best of them).

Sirach does contain a really embarrassing foreward by Sirach's grandson saying "I translated this from Hebrew into Greek, and I know it's lost some of its meaning in translation, but that's true of every other book of the Law and the Prophets, so don't blame me" (paraphrasing), which would be a really embarrassing verse if it were in a book canonical to denominations that believed in Biblical literalism.