Poll: What do you think the bible is in a nutshell?
EDIT: This is a public poll plus I've actually put the poll up now:p
If you want a poll in your thread the best thing to do is actually have poll in your thread. Lesson learned. Lol.

There is no poll...

(November 3, 2008 at 1:30 pm)Tiberius Wrote: There is no poll...

Updated, I deleted it and re-did it because I did it wrong.

I had to go with the most simple (and most correct) statement.

(November 3, 2008 at 1:56 pm)Tiberius Wrote: I had to go with the most simple (and most correct) statement.

Perhaps a good one to have put would be "A pile of rubbish but also can have its uses. In understanding language and culture and arguing with Christians etc."

(November 3, 2008 at 1:56 pm)Tiberius Wrote: I had to go with the most simple (and most correct) statement.

I had to go with the same

There are a few contradictions in the Bible that we can see going back to the earliest manuscripts, most of them from copyists errors involving numbers which are difficult to transcribe in context. There are also a couple spurious verses that are often noted in more accurate translations. Ye who has sinned cast the first stone, for example, is a very famous but spurious example. Never happened and doesn't appear in earlier translations.

I would have put "A collection of myths trying to unify the Judean cults with the best data they had available at the time". It is pretty easy for non believers to make fun of it, but I have no doubt the writers genuinely believed what they where putting in writing. Just like the Egyptians believed it when they chiseled their hieroglyphics and the Muslims wrote their Qura'n.

There people didn't have the luxury of having so much knowledge as we do now. Likewise 2000 years from know humans will probably wonder how we got by with so little knowledge and might laugh at our attempts of forming a unifying theory.

(November 3, 2008 at 5:13 pm)leo-rcc Wrote: I would have put "A collection of myths trying to unify the Judean cults with the best data they had available at the time". It is pretty easy for non believers to make fun of it, but I have no doubt the writers genuinely believed what they where putting in writing. Just like the Egyptians believed it when they chiseled their hieroglyphics and the Muslims wrote their Qura'n.

There people didn't have the luxury of having so much knowledge as we do now. Likewise 2000 years from know humans will probably wonder how we got by with so little knowledge and might laugh at our attempts of forming a unifying theory.

Yeah, I think its a work of fiction because it isn't fact, not because the authors designed it to be fiction - they probably believed the whole thing, if not, at least most of it.
I guess I should have also put something like "A primitive attempt at trying to understand the wonderful aspects of the universe. And also having the need to think that everything or at least most things have intentions. Even things that do not contain a mind or thoughts"
I was simplifying, generalizing and perhaps stereotyping the options a bit, perhaps I should try and do a more serious one but still try and keep the responses short?
I guess its because I don't really know much about the intelligent theist's explanations, only the typical ones, so I had to sort of stereotype the atheistic explanations a bit too otherwise it wouldn't really be fair. I could do an atheistic only version perhaps, different atheistic interpretations of the bible, and you pick the best one, even if you're not atheist

I couldn't find the option 'It's damn good when you run out of toilet paper to wipe your arse with'.

Also very good for when you have run out of cigarette papers for your roll ups.

(November 5, 2008 at 9:46 pm)H3rod Wrote: I couldn't find the option 'It's damn good when you run out of toilet paper to wipe your arse with'.

Also very good for when you have run out of cigarette papers for your roll ups.

Perhaps "a pile of rubbish" would include that option if you wanted to use it as rubbish in that way, rather than just wasting it by throwing it in the bin.