My problem with the Bible

#1. Even if it were the word of God, you're still dependent upon human translators. I doubt many of us read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek - except Mel Gibson, who is Blessed Among All Hollywood Actors :freak: . We're at the mercy of their whims, political ambitions, etc.

#2. How do we even know the Bible is the correct Bible? There are many books that were written back in the day that were left out. The Gnostic gospels, for instance. Plus quite a few from the Old Testament that never found their way in the Bible.

It just kills me when right-wingnuts accept the Bible blindly, not even daring to question it.

You believe it or you don't. To take it as the word of God you take that the God spoke to the prophets and apostles knowing that they would convey the message He intended. If you don't believe this explanation probably won't mean much. Much of the interpretations have to be looked at based on what was happening at the time. There have been several rumors of missing books of the Old Testament, but not factual evidence. Until something is produced that can be verified it's hard to argue the point that books were left out and what impact it had/has on the rest of the Bible.

still exist and more were discovered over the last century. Also as number of anecdotes about which and why certain books were excluded from the assemblage that became the king James bible. Pretty interesting bit of history, there, and most of it googlable.

Including some in the Dead Sea Scrolls that weren't included. In addition, many books of the Old Testament themselves make references to books that aren't in the Bible. I forget which channel it was, History or Discovery, that did a special on "missing" books of the Bible. It talked about the Gnostic gospels, as well as the Gospel of Thomas, the Revelations of Peter, and the Gospel of Mary (Mary Magdalen, who may have been Jesus' wife).

God wont send a book of riddles....

btw...every book is inspired by god...if your a believer

n/t

interpreters and printers etc etc etc

If there was ever a tome assembled by committee, this is it.

The Gospel of Stephen, Gospel of Mary Magdalene -- it's all true. Putting the canon together was VERY political, and Jerome was greatly influenced and manipulated. Many scholars say John and Revelation should NOT be in there, period. And, the KJV translations was inherently flawed due to political, religious, and personal agendas. These are facts.

is just a re-edited and re-translated version of various Jewish scriptures.

So, wouldn't it just be better to read these in the original Hebrew?

...in a week or two. It takes years of study, that most of us just don't have the time for. That's why there are translations.

They went too far in allowing people to commune directly with God, without requiring the good offices of the first century church. Oh, and these gospels were much too equitable for women. I think their excision was all about getting, keeping, and maintaining power for the church.

Now you know why most theologians become agnostics. The more you know about the discrepancies between history and the bible the more confused a person becomes. That is why belief in the bible is a matter of faith, blind faith.

If you follow the primary tenets: love thy neighbor as thyself, judge not lest ye be judged yourself, giving to the poor, etc. Even some of the stories in the Old Testament make for some interesting reading - the Bible can be quite graphic in some places.

many of which predate the bible by centuries if not millenia.

Christians who regard the Bible as a combination of History and Allegory have no problems with this.

they'd be best used as fuel, and it may come to that under bush.

I agree, there have been far too many who have used God to elevate themselves into a position of power, and coerce others into following them.

Check out this Web site.

http://www.evilbible.com/

you find.

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com

Read that, then you can go on with life knowing the bible is just a story book and not in any way a religious text from a divine being.

history, a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of 10,000 lies." - Mark Twain

Plenty of gory bloodshed, wild sex of all kinds, magic tricks, villains and heroes galore, family feuds, vengeance, human sacrifices, torture, love stories, everything imaginable...they oughta make a movie.

I always wonder if the so-called simple God-fearing folk have actually read it because it has some of the most bizarre and fantastical monsters and events, a hundred times stranger than any Harry Potter book.

Many believe it was "inspired" by God, but written down by fallible humans. Some parts are definitely symbolic. "Bible Study" can, indeed, involve learning some of the original languages--for the truly dedicated.

How could there be one "correct" Bible--unless you believe it was directly written by God? It's an anthology, with the Catholic Old Testament including some books the Protestants regard as apocryphal.

If you're seriously interested in writings that may have been "left out" of the Bible, here's a good place to begin your research. www.webcom.com/~gnosis/library.html

(Not all Gnostic were Christian.)

An ecumenical council would vote on some dogma, like the divinity of Jesus or the virginity of Mary, and whatever view won was declared "true". From that moment on, anyone who believed otherwise was condemned as a heretic.

Interestingly, the Mormons reject this idea:

"The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rejects the early ecumenical councils for what they see as misguided human attempts without divine assistance to decide matters of doctrine as though doctrine were to be handed down by democratic debate or politics rather than by revelation. That convening such councils was even considered is evidence enough to them that the original Christian church had fallen into apostasy and was no longer directly led by divine authority. They see the calling of such councils, for example, by an unbaptized (let alone unordained) Roman Emperor as preposterous and assert that the emperors used the councils to exercise their influence to shape and institute Christianity to their liking."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecumenical_council

...when they had only Mormons going to heaven in South Park.

if you add up all of what Jesus said in the bible, it would amount to a whopping 2 hours. 2 hours. hardly enough to base a religion on ;)

You act as if the translators were a single, coordinated group. Actually, there are multiple translations from different time periods and different sets of translators. Compare one translation to another. I have found no significant differences.

New Testament: The books that the Christian churches are large accept as inspired is the result of consensus developed over hundreds of years in the early days. During the first 250 years of the church there was no dictatorial power that controlled the entire church. Each person had to decide for themselves what books were actually inspired. Slowly a consensus formed. Some people like to claim that some books were suppressed, but actually they just were not generally accepted. The gnostic works simply were not believed by people.

The Old Testament grouping history is a bit different. The Jewish wisdom works were translated into Greek in Alexandria about 200 years BC. At the time each person decided for himself which were inspired. The translators translated ALL the works. Those became the Old Testament of the church. Shortly after Christ, as Christian writings began to circulate, the Jewish religious leaders held a council at Jamnia to decide what books were inspired and what weren't. Later, some American protestant groups reopened the question of the canon, disposed of certain of the works of the OT, which are not called the Apocrypha. In fairness, even the Catholics has begun to refer to those books as duetro-canonical. Those Protestant reached back to the Jewish Council of Jamnia and accepted their decision as definitive of the list for the Old Testament.

Of course, you must decide for yourself the question of what, if any, are inspired.

Why would any god, if there is one, ever need to have a "word," and why would it have to be somehow special? Why not silence?

Grandma got runned over by a reindeer
Walking home from our house Christmas Eve.
You can say there's no such thing as Santa,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

-- --
The Bible got wrote over by some strangers,
Copying the tome from within their Personal Bias.
You can say there's no such inspiration (divine),
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

The Church claims the words are inerrant,
Though they know there's no way it makes any Sense.
You can say there's no truth in it's Pages,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

We've given up on knowing what truth is,
Thinking Rationally just takes so much Hard Work.
You can say we've learned to believe Anything,
But as for me and Grandpa, we believe.

And, so on.

And, so it goes.

So let it be written, So let it be done.

So it was written, So it is believed.

Hey, if millions can believe Sci-Fi writer L.Ron Hubbard created a valid New World Religion, "Scientology", by authoring the book upon which it's based; their Bible, "Dianetics". No doubt they already think his words are "inerrant"; even though their followers need anti-depressants by the truckload, it is written they are so healthy now that they don't need such things.

With apparently little effort, people, it seems, can train themselves to believe in fantasies to the exclusion of reality (truth, practicality or common sense). The infantile desire to explain the world through imagination and "magic" still runs strong. The only cure is a comprehensive education where critical thinking skills are valued above memorizing rote facts.

The fastest, easiest or laziest path to self-empowerment and self-aggrandizement is by means of self-delusion and the belief in magic... even if that magic is wielded by some invisible God--so long as that God is willing to concentrate on making a personal relationship and taking care of you and your life.

Reality and the rational acceptance of it, by comparison, is scary. When bad thing happen you can't just *poof* make it different or conclude that it's really okay, part of the personal plan God has for you. One might say reality is a harsh mistress, but I'd much rather see the truth and react to it in whatever ways are available in the real world, than to react by praying to an imaginary diety even if doing so gives me something to do (and/or has the benefit of receiving social support/comfort of other people whose connection to me is merely that they suffer from the same delusions). Of course, that's just me.

Why does it bother me that other people, so many other people, are comforted by their delusions? Why would I choose, if I had the power to, to take their delusions away when they are happy to believe? The answer is that it's a waste. A waste of time, money, creativity, people and resources. Enormous resources. Billions of annual "man-hours" of work and thought... that might otherwise be invested in finding "real" solutions to the problems we all face. From economics 101, it's called "Opportunity Costs"... by deciding to spend your time and resources one way, you've incurred the cost of what you could have, but didn't, accomplish otherwise.

So, "Religion" is a terrible cost to mankind, and that's without even considering the actual damage or harm done in the name of their religions. Alas, even though the "faithful" would likely claim atheism is a religion or belief system of it's own--it fails to organize, stand up for itself, and even more, it fails to proselytize. Athiest Evangelists would be doing mankind a real service.

Though most of us realists/rational subscribers find "evangelism" to be annoying and perhaps even look down upon it... it seems to me there's some value to it. I can see how the Democratic Party could use a plan to evangelize others in order to spread the word of enlightened political thought. Likewise, atheists and secular humanists could evangelize and so spread the goodness that is honesty, compassion, fairness, realism and rational thinking... The point being that many people, especially those suffering the worst from their current delusional world views (memes), are those who are in the greatest need of hearing the alternatives--and even if they are beyond hope, at least by proselytizing, we might save a few minds and we all see the reality of the statement: "a mind is a terrible thing to waste". We also see clear evidence of a similar statement: "a mind is a terrible waste", at least, "when it's been infected with religion, bad political beliefs and other counter-productive ways of thinking**".

**for lack of a better word, I'll refer to communicable belief systems as "memes". Negative forms would include: religions, certain political ideologies, criminality, as well as attitudes/approaches/emotional thinking such as: selfishness, deceit, hate.

If these corrupted minds are never, at least exposed to better ways of thinking, believing, behaving, interacting with others--we can't expect them to have much of a chance to evolve or improve. We all need to communicate the existence of better personal philosophies and then act to set examples... this would be most important as characteristics of those we let teach our children.


Mis apologias... it seems everywhere I turn lately I find myself stepping up onto my soapbox. Still, I hope it's been helpful or at least food for thought.