Have you read the Bible?

[arthwollipot]

Holy ****, folks, two pages and no comment abot Crumb's Book of Genesis Illustrated?

Personally I'm a fan of The Brick Testament.

 

[Stuart]

I was a Christian, and in an attempt to put to rest the doubts I was having, I read it in whole, twice. Reading it was a major factor in my no longer being a Christian.

Hear what you're saying Brother Zygote! I did three times.

 

[Stuart]

I think Randolph Churchill got it right when he was reading the Bible as a bet with Evelyn Waugh (£20 that Churchill couldn't read it in a fortnight) - "God, isn't God a s***!"

 

[Rincewind]

Actually, there's only one verse you really need to read - and follow...

From the "Wicked" Bible of 1632:

Thou shalt commit adultery

Nuff said?

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Steve Allen, the entertainer, also began to have doubts about the Christian God after reading the bible.

So much so that he wrote a book about it:

http://www.amazon.com/Steve-Allen-Bible-Religion-Morality/dp/0879756381

Which was followed by a sequel. Both worthwhile reading.

A very, very bright guy, he remained a believer in some sort of deity, admitting that that belief was absurd, but holding that a universe without some intelligence behind it was even more absurd.

 

[mgidm86]

I've read enough of it to determine that the antagonist is a really really bad guy. Gawd, I mean.

 

[Vic Vega]

I took a class called History of the Bible in college which was taught by a fabulous and enlightened Unitarian minister who was also a professor at my school. He really made the course interesting, though I have to say that as a literary work, the Bible really kind of sucks.

 

[Brainache]

This has been posted before, but I thought I'd post it here for anyone interested in learning a bit more about this "Bible" book the kids are all talking about:
http://www.bibledex.com/

Bibledex is a project by the University of Nottingham's Department of Theology and Religious Studies in conjunction with video journalist Brady Haran.

The videos are by no means comprehensive - rather they're a curious assortment of academic insights into what is probably the most famous collection of books in history.

Brady, who is not a scholar, produces similar video projects about Chemistry and Physics.

Filming with various biblical scholars and theological experts, he hopes the same "outsider's perspective" comes across in Bibledex.

It's quite informative.

 

[Craig B]

Emerods is KJV for hemorrhoids (piles)

1 Samuel 6:4 Then said they, What shall be the trespass offering which we shall return to him? They answered, Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines: for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.

The golden piles are a charming touch compared with the rest of the story, which is up to the usual Biblical standard.

1 Samuel 6:19 And he smote the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter. 20 And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who is able to stand before this holy Lord God? and to whom shall he go up from us? 21 And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kirjath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought again the ark of the Lord; come ye down, and fetch it up to you.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Well, have you?

By "read" let's assume that I mean that you have read the majority of it. I've read all of it, but I admit to skimming all of the boring begats. I consider this to be having read the Bible.

Select one of the "I am/have been a Christian" options if at any time in your life, including currently, you have been an active Christian churchgoer for any substantial period of time. Otherwise, select "I am not/have never been a Christian".

If you're not sure, please ask what I mean before voting.

Lapsed Lutheran, turned agnostic, then agnostic-atheist / secular humanist. I had to endure Bible study classes in church school, but I didn't read it cover to cover until I was an atheist. It took about 9 months. I read both my NIV Study Bible, and the Skeptic's Annotated Bible. Since then, I've studied it on and off, and taken university courses on it, which helped give me a more objective view of it. I came to see it, not as the perfect instruction manual that it is to many believers, and not as a wholly depraved, twisted, and violent book that it is to many nonbelievers, but as a written record of a specific culture's evolving relationship with their God and their faith.

 

[wrs]

I was a born-again type for 25 years, I read it all many times. I was raised Catholic and quit church at 15 and became agnostic. At 25 I was "born again" but soon had a lot of the same old issues I had with catholicism. It didn't do my kids any good to be raised in a church, it was a waste of effort and warped my thinking for a long time.

**** religion and the god it rides on.

 

[Leumas]

... I came to see it, not as the perfect instruction manual that it is to many believers, and not as a wholly depraved, twisted, and violent book that it is to many nonbelievers, but as a written record of a specific culture's evolving relationship with their God and their faith.

Except it was not.... it was and still is a written record of how to manipulate culture and folklore and history and reality to legitimize and sanctify the despotism of a caste of wily poltroons over the masses of sheep as well as over the wolves too.

No wonder the mantra of the Bible is (Psalms 23)

The Lord is my shepherd...​

I always ask people who bleat the above chant not even giving it a second thought....

what does a shepherd eventually do with the sheep?​

The Bible was written to make the sheep go on willingly tithing everything they produce and own to the “priestly” class who in turn give some of that wealth and resources to the wolves to pacify them and make them loyal dogs who help in corralling the sheep as well as in gathering more sheep.

Read Leviticus and you will see exactly whom the Bible serves…. Really seriously … I advise you to read Leviticus… it is only 26 pages long… boring like hell, but extremely revelatory as to who exactly benefits from instilling the Bible as the demands of God.

Have a look at these verses below and tell me if this kind of thing is for the benefit of the sheep or is it for the benefit of the people who wrote those verses in order to more readily fleece the poor dullards?

Exodus 30:11-16 God’s Divine Protection Racket

• 30:11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
• 30:12 When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them.
• 30:13 This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD.
• 30:14 Every one that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD.
• 30:15 The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.
• 30:16 And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.

I think the verses above are definitely not a written record of a people's faith... rather it is a written record of how to bamboozle people into willingly accepting their extortion and blackmail.

And lest anyone say that those are just a few verses then I suggest you have a look at the following verses (along with the rest of the Bible) for further proof of the Divine Mafioso Protection Racket (Leviticus 26:14-32

• 26:14 But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;
• 26:15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant:
• 26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.
• 26:17 And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies: they that hate you shall reign over you; and ye shall flee when none pursueth you.
• 26:18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.
• 26:19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:
• 26:20 And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.
• 26:21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.
• 26:22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children , and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.
• 26:23 And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me;
• 26:24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.
• 26:25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
• 26:26 And when I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.
• 26:27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me;
• 26:28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.
• 26:29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.
• 26:30 And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.
• 26:31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.
• 26:32 And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

 

[Leumas]

The golden piles are a charming touch compared with the rest of the story, which is up to the usual Biblical standard.

It really boggles my mind how anyone can read any one book of the Bible (above all Leviticus) and still keep on "thinking" that it is anything other than a vile contrivance.

What brain virus could vitiate the gray matter in such a manner so as to remain sane and yet accept this HEINOUS ASSAULT ON INTELLIGENCE of a myth as anything other than the product of vicious cruel benighted epochs of human infancy and preadolescence?

...
**** religion and the god it rides on.

It is a colossal shame on humanity that in this day and age of electronics and spaceflight and genome-deciphering and nuclear reactors and robotic-micro-surgery and internet and iGadgets, people are still wretched and benighted enough to even in the slightest believe in the ramblings and gobbledygook of bronze age self-acclaimed racist ethnic-cleansing genocidal myth-makers who at least had an excuse for their foul benightedness other than the pathetic WILLFULL IGNORANCE of modern sheep who have no excuse for being so utterly ignorant other than adamant refusal to educate themselves in rationality or even in the book itself.

The Tanakh (Old Testament)

God, the one and only almighty creator of the universe and everything in it.

God the hottest thing since freshly baked bread.

God the omnipotent omnipresent omniscient omnibenevolent god of all things and all existence... years after having himself killed every infant and newborn and gestating babies of everything living, decided one day that he loves above all humans and all things he ever created one Babylonian who turns out to be a cowardly liar who to save his own YELLOW UNMANLY hide convinced his half-sister who was also his wife to lie for him and say she was only his sister wherever they went so as to avoid fighting in defense of his and her honor.

Even more lowly and scoundrelly this peripatetic illegal immigrant CASHES IN from pimping his half-sister-wife and makes riches and gold and female slaves and male slaves and flocks of animals and CAMELS that were not even domesticated animals by the time he was supposed to have lived.

And out of all humanity this almighty all-knowing god who made everything in existence promises this cowardly pimp that he will be his SHIELD and FRIEND and that he will give him lands full of honey and milk.

So instead of zapping him off to Hawaii or North California or even Brazil, what does he do..... he orders him to WALK all the way from Babylon to a hellhole piece of dirt already full of people who are already too many for the resources of the land.

And what happens .... this man favored by the almighty god of the universe and given divine shielding has to trek all the way to Egypt because GOD CHEATED HIM and could not even guarantee that the land he ordered him to walk to had enough water and food.

And despite all those promises of DIVINE SHIELDING, the Babylonian coward did not trust his lying god to guarantee his safety while in Egypt and had to resort to lying and pimping his half-sister-wife.... and he did it again after yet another failure of the divine shielding.... and his son also took up the family business and pimped off his wife too....to the same King... after yet another reneging of the divine shielding.

Fortunately for this Babylonian Illegal Immigrant pimp his own wiles served him much better than any intervention from the almighty God of the universe and he made a lot more wealth and riches with the help of his wife's "beauty" than he managed with the help of his cheating GOD.

Furthermore, to add injury to the insult of this HEINOUS ASSAULT ON INTELLIGENCE of a myth, we are told that the almighty creator of the universe struck an eternal indissoluble real estate contract with this Babylonian pimp and to seal the contract he asked him to cut off the tip of his member and the members of his children and slaves and descendants instead of a handshake or signature or even thumbprint.
​

The New Testament

The almighty creator of the universe who is really 3 gods in 1 god (buy one get two more for free) harbors and lets fester for millennia a grudge against every single and all descendants of a couple who ate from the forbidden fruit of a magic tree after having been tricked by a talking snake.

And despite having previously ordered people to slaughter animals by the thousands almost daily to satisfy his lust for the aroma of burning flesh in order to atone for women having their menstrual cycles as one example among hundreds of other equally imbecilic "sins" that needed his forgiveness, these three but one almighty creator of everything one day decides that this method of appeasing him is not sufficiently dramatic for their liking.

So what scheme did this omnipotent omniscient friend of the above Babylonian coward devise in order to reprieve all those poor animals and let go of his festering grudge?

He committed adultery with and impregnated a 13 years old married girl from among the progeny of none other than the wife-pimping Babylonian and oozed out of her insides as his own son from her who was in fact none other than himself pretending to be a human so as to pretend to sacrifice himself to himself as a final human blood sacrifice so as to appease himself and let go of the grudge against humanity he has been harboring for 3761 years.

And why all this bloodshed of animals and human sacrifice? Because this almighty creator of the universe and all creation had no other choice.
​

 

[abaddon]

I suppose I go in option 1 then, since I was raised Catholic, albeit ever since I was a preteen I was pretty sure it was a big fat load. Even then, I didn't read it in full until later.

My father tried to introduce daily evening rosaries around the fireplace. It didn't catch on. He gave up after the "nur, nur, nur" responses of those few among my siblings and I who were unlucky enough to be nabbed for the occasion. The order of business was to arrange to simply not be present for some reason, and you got ribbed if you happened to be the one or two caught for the "droning borefest".

But that was the way it was in those days. I and my peers and my siblings and their peers understood the devout nature of our parents and understood that we did not share this view of the world with them. However, rather than confronting them, we simply skirted the issue.

 

[abaddon]

Also, the poll is flawed. It does not differentiate between who is and is not a christian now.

As the poll stands some 77% claim to have read the bible, but how many of those are christian now? How many are not?

 

[RickM]

It is a colossal shame on humanity that in this day and age of electronics and spaceflight and genome-deciphering and nuclear reactors and robotic-micro-surgery and internet and iGadgets, people are still wretched and benighted enough to even in the slightest believe in the ramblings and gobbledygook of bronze age self-acclaimed racist ethnic-cleansing genocidal myth-makers who at least had an excuse for their foul benightedness other than the pathetic WILLFULL IGNORANCE of modern sheep who have no excuse for being so utterly ignorant other than adamant refusal to educate themselves in rationality or even in the book itself.

Yup, the shoe fits. Good rant; made me smile.

Also, the poll is flawed. It does not differentiate between who is and is not a christian now.

I was hoping you didn't see me hiding behind the big rock.

Abrahamic Faiths:

Jewish/Protestant Old Testament (Tanakh): yes
Catholic Old Testament (includes Deuterocanonicals): yes
Eastern Orthodoxy Old Testament (includes Anagignoskomena): yes
New Testament: yes
Talmud (several books summarizing): yes
Qur’an: yes

Believer: yup
Nonbeliever: nope

 

[Delvo]

My vote was "not a Christian & haven't read it". But I have read many parts of it when those parts were mentioned in something else I heard/saw, and I was raised in a Christian environment where I saw & heard Christian stuff routinely. (I just never could take any of it seriously.) I presume that means I've read more of it than the people who act like I'd be a Christian if I would just read it.

 

[arthwollipot]

Also, the poll is flawed. It does not differentiate between who is and is not a christian now.

That isn't a flaw, that is deliberate.

As the poll stands some 77% claim to have read the bible, but how many of those are christian now? How many are not?

That's an entirely different question, which you are welcome to ask. It was not my intention to break it down.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Except it was not.... it was and still is a written record of how to manipulate culture and folklore and history and reality to legitimize and sanctify the despotism of a caste of wily poltroons over the masses of sheep as well as over the wolves too. (snip)

How does anything you wrote contradict what I said? Also, why do you act like you're the only one who has ever read the Bible?

I don't generalize, and neither should you. The Bible is only a tool for brainwashing if one chooses to interpret and use it that way. If every Christian read the Bible the way you do, we'd all be dead right now.

 

[Frozenwolf150]

Allow me to take this time to say that not once did I ever advocate a literal didactic reading of the Bible, just to clear that up. If anyone is arguing for taking the Bible literally, it's not me. That's what Christian fundamentalists do. They think in terms of black-and-white, prejudge people by their labels, blame the other side for all of society's ills, treat anyone who doesn't conform to them as an enemy, and think it's their mission to convert those who aren't like them. They are hardened bigots who are only interested in preaching at you, not having a dialogue with you.

Of course, they're not the only ones.

How do you explain the hard passages of the bible?

O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one, How blessed will be the one who repays you With the recompense with which you have repaid us. 9How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.

Israel was never a major power, or an advanced civilization. Keep in mind they were still in the bronze age while their neighbors were in the iron age. They were constantly being conquered and enslaved by greater powers, like the Babylonians. Passages like this, along with much of the Tanakh, were written while in captivity. Therefore, Israel wasn't very much in a position to commit the infanticide they boasted about in their writings. This Psalm pretty much amounts to a sentiment of revenge against the Babylonians. Notice it talks about payback? Killing their children is what their captors did to them, and is something the Israelites would very much have liked to do back to them.

I'm not saying revenge is morally justified. I'm not saying that taking life for life is right. I'm saying I understand why someone would have written something like this. They were angry, and had no weapons other than their words.

And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Unless one believes that Elisha could literally cast miracles and summon animals to attack his enemies, like a priest from AD&D, this could not have happened. More to the point though, one rendition of the dialogue is, "Go on up, you baldhead," which means the boys were telling Elisha to die and ascend to heaven like his predecessor. So he took this as a threat. The intended purpose of this passage was likely to show how seriously the Israelites took threats to their priesthood from outsiders or competing religions, which was the theme of 2 Kings.

Does it make it right? Of course not. They could have been a gang of teenagers, and called him a ****-sucker and thrown rocks at him, and that still wouldn't have justified killing forty-two of them. One should never turn words to violence. Nor does it justify a show of power from Elisha. If God was right there, his life was not in danger. God could have rendered the boys silent so they couldn't harass Elisha, if he wanted to get a point across.