The Bible

[Giff]

Never really read the bible. Tried to, but it was quite boring.

But in school at high school did I learn more about it and we were studieng some parts of it in a more easy read version.

What struck was that there where to nearly exact stories beside eachother. The first where of Jesus when he came to a village and magically fed them all with just a basket of fish and such.

The other story just right of this where a story where is came to another village, a larger one, and fed people with a even smaller basket. Just a few changes but nearly the same story.

It goes to show that the stories in the bible is myths. It's so obvious that it's nearly frightening that fundemantalists don't see it that way.

[Atheismo]

What a way to evaluate it (on kill count)? Love it!!!

Welcome to the forum BTW.

Kyu

Thank you very much, Kyu!

Growing up in a semi-extreme Christian family, it is truly a great feeling to be part of a family such as this forum!

---

And just to add to the thread, my favorite story in the whole bible comes out of 2 Kings -- the story of Elijah.

[Eilonnwy]

Yeah I have to say I'm not currently bored with the Bible, just extremely limited on time. It's actually fascinating in a way to read the stories and remember what I was told vs what's in there. I'm sure the fascination won't last though.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Actually,as a teen,I was rather fond of "The Song of Solomon".We had a mildly erotic verse from it at my wedding. Made more than a few people squirm..

MY wife put her foot down when I said I wanted "Air On A G String" as the recessional music.(which sounds suspiciously like Procul Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale) We had "Song of Joy" from Beethoven's 9th.



I also like the Sermon On The Mount, especially "blessed are the cheesemakers". An interesting bit of trivia; In the C1st CE,the place traditionally associated with the Sermon On The Mount was called "The valley of the cheesemakers" I kid you not.

[athoughtfulman]

I'm sick of christians believing in the bible absolutely, when they have no good reason to believe it is inspired by god. It was written by man, preserved by man, printed by man, read by man, etc, etc, etc, so god would have to be 'inspiring' at every point in the process, and humans would lose free will.

Also, does anyone have a website which makes a good case backed up with evidence about why the bible is not the word of god? Things like contradictions, history proving it wrong, etc.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Actually I have some "sympathy" with the literalists ... not, of course that I believe a word (and I'm sure Frodo will leap in to exploit that one), more that I think the ONLY tenable positions on the bible are that it is true or not, if claimed true then the argument can easily be destroyed, if fiction then fine but the half-way house is seriously problematic because Christians open themselves up to criticism as to how they decide what is/is not true and why.

Kyu

[athoughtfulman]

Exactly.

If you take the whole thing as literal, then everything is generally straightforward. You don't have to spend time figuring out context, cultural issues and so on. But as soon as you say that one part is allegorical or a metaphor (genesis for example), you're immediately left with the vast problem of how to interpret the rest of it. If one part isn't literal, why in the world should the rest of it be literal?

[chatpilot]

As stated several times in the forum the bible was written,preserved by oral traditions, and finally printed by man.There is nothing divine about its authorship and looking at it from an objective point of view it is obviously historical facts at times embellished with ancient mythology.Some of its tales in both OT and NT are so rediculous that you would actually have to suspend reason in favor of blind belief (faith).Not to mention the fact that the so called scriptures that we have now are nothing more than mere copies of copies who knows how many times over since none of the original scripts are extant today.

There are so many factors regarding scripture that if it were divinely inspired the human factor alone would make it worthless.There are such dangers as interpretation,and not to mention the various barriers presented in translation into other languages.Then you have to trust this panel of so called learned men otherwise known as the Canon to tell you which books they consider inspired by their christian god.In my view if you want to read some good mythology the bible is the best place to go.

[Kyuuketsuki]

As stated several times in the forum the bible was written,preserved by oral traditions, and finally printed by man.

There are many, many reasons why one is led to believe that is true, however none of us can actually PROVE that a god wasn't in some way involved can we? When the god in question won't come out to play we cannot prove it is or is not.

Kyu

[chatpilot]

Kyu if that were the case then we would have to accept that all so called holy literature was inspired by God and if we do that then we would have to accept that since all of their messages are so different that there is more than one god.God is a creation of man and not the other way around you dont need a degree in anthropology,theology or any other ology to figure this out this is the part where common sense and and reason prevail.