offensive and outdated or just a belief

[PupsAndKittens]

The bible... believe in it or not, everyone knows it.

My question to all you lovely people, should it be censored ( particularly the homophobic section).

Personally I am really torn on this as I am both Bi and Christian.

For
Society has moved on and has realised that people are born LGBTQ plus and no one has control over it
It is also extremely sexist which also makes me uncomfortable

Against
I will always be an activist for freedom of speech and I believe that every human being should be able to believe what they want, no matter how un PC ( providing that they never physically hurt anyone)
Aren’t we then discriminating against Christians? For saying that their beliefs are wrong and should be made illegal?

So what do you think. is it time that this book is changed to meet current moral standards or are we all snowflakes and should just except beliefs of Christianity, that people have a right to believe if they want to.

Also, remember that Jesus chose social outcastes to deliver his message to. His first choice was the Samaritan woman by the well. Not just a social outcaste for being a Samaritan, but also a prostitute who was out collecting water in the daytime because she was not welcome in the cool early morning. He also had little time for the revered bureaucratic authority structures of his day - turning over the money chaining tables in the temple and telling the story of the religious leaders who put their ritual cleanliness ahead of the health and welfare of the man who had been attacked and left to die by the side of the road, while the Samaritan was willing to help him. It remains a radical message even now, regardless of whether someone believes in God.

You cant edit what is in the bible.

As the queen is head of state and church you could theoretically get her to approve an edited copy of the bible for CofE use. But there are other churches which would still use the current version (whichever of the thousands of translations they like) so what do you want to do about that op?

Op you have no idea of the scale of the thing you are suggesting, or the complexities needed to implement it. You gave no indication of how widespread it should be which makes people jump to world wide and total censorship (which would have to be agreed by every government in the world) with no idea about how to enforce the new version. Whats the point in the new version if you can't force everyone to use it.

It is quite possible for you to actually produce the version you want, there are modern translations into every dialect you can imagine, it would be one among thousands and you could market it to an LGBT audience. Good luck getting it accepted by the rest of the world.

The Bible has been revised and re-written numerous times. Wasn't there an earlier version that detailed Jesus slaying a dragon? And once a passage about nice forgiving Jesus getting bumped into at a market, and killing the perpetrator with his bare hands.

It's just an out-dated story tbh. I don't see why it gets such publicity. We don't read it as it's not our bag.

Despite a lot of misogyny and homophobia in the Bible To censor I think would be well nigh impossible.
I’m thinking particularly of Paul’s teaching in the New Testament and the descriptions of ancient Corinth.

It has a place in history but instead if you focus on the writings on Jesus himself he accepted each person for what he or she was . Might have had something to say about riches or cheating or adultery for sure but always accepted the person .
If every Christian followed that example we wouldn’t have any problems with the excesses of the OT . many of which should be consigned to history and not used for hate purposes . If I’m right Jesus came to turn that way of thinking around .

I do not believe in rewriting history but then I also do not believe that you can realistically live your life by a book that is 2000 years old. Common sense needs to be used. You will always get fanatics who want to rigidly adhere to anything. Most people who practice religion are sensible enough to understand that times have changed and moved on, and have mixed views and some tolerance. I don’t agree with religion for many of the reasons already outlined by others above

I have actually had this conversation with someone who made racist comments to me during a telephone call at work. I cannot stop you believing in how you feel, but I can ask you to stop verbalising it to me or anyone else. Some thoughts should just stay in your head as they are hurtful.

And I feel that too many bigots justify the homophobia with saying it’s not what I say it’s what God says

But censoring the Bible wouldn't stop the bigots saying this, it would just strengthen their belief that they were the only ones upholding the truth.

And, on a practical note, it would actually be impossible to do.

To really start to answer your question you need to ask yourself ‘what is the bible?’ and ‘how did the bible that you have on your shelf get there?’ I am talking about the historical journey through time not ordered from amazon!

Many Christians don’t know the answer and so rely on ‘received wisdom’ (if you can call it that) from other people.

It is a collection of writings that men (with their own bias) chose. There are other writings from the time that didn’t make the edit. What they show is that God is bigger than the narratives we create and then hold people to account for.

In addition look more closely at the symbolism and amazing act that is Jesus on the cross.

A good place to start is with Richard Rhor - his daily meditation is amazing!

The Bible has been revised and re-written numerous times. Wasn't there an earlier version that detailed Jesus slaying a dragon? And once a passage about nice forgiving Jesus getting bumped into at a market, and killing the perpetrator with his bare hands.

No, there really wasn't.

You might be thinking of some of the later writings sometimes called 'gospels' which certainly weren't in widespread use among the early church, hence not accepted in canon (they had very stringent rules about what was accepted - early, in widespread use and in full agreement with the gospel stories) - anything other was rejected. What you describe was never 'in the bible'.

The bible has been revised and rewritten many times

No it hasn't.

One of the most incredible things about the text we see today is the closeness to the original text. In terms of ancient writing it's completely unique in terms of the sheer number of manuscripts in circulation and what we have now, and how close they were to the time- we have copies dating from early c2 which is just unprecedented in terms of ancient writings. We know with certainty that what we read today is what was being read in the earliest Christian communities, not the stuff of embellished legend.

There is very little in the Bible which is anti-homosexual. And most of that is an issue of translation/interpretation.
The bluntest bit is leviticus about man lying with man - but this is the same place that condemns wearing a cloth made of two types of fabric.
There is far more apparent misogyny - but there are also bit which argue for the rights of women.

Nope the Bible shouldn't be censored. But similarly it shouldn't be used to unthinkingly attack people.

Who gave you the power to censor anything? You can't. You're indulging in counterfactual fantasy.

The Bible already was censored, I think, by the Council of Nicea? It has therefore already been tinkered with by a group of blokes. I'm not sure what further tinkering would achieve.

Who gave you the power to censor anything? You can't

Of course you can. I could pick up a copy of the bible and censor it right now. Whether that censored material reaches a wider audience is a more nuanced question!

Interestingly I suspect in the current climate a “modern day bible” would be of interest to publishers who favour a more controversial approach!

Freedom of speech, and an unpicking of the key liberal concept of toleration that ended wars about religion in Europe.

Not to mention historical manipulation and impoverishment of knowledge. Impossible to understand the last two thousand years of history without seeing the development of belief alongside undoctrinated texts.

Defeat the ideas you disagree with through discourse - this works for the most part otherwise we wouldn’t be having the
debate. OTOH maybe you’re right op, the Chinese dictatorship certainly views Christians as a threat to unfettered state control and consumerism.

Anything that hints of thought police should be strongly resisted.

They didn't have the knowledge (how testosterone acts on the developing brain of a foetus) and were concerned about their little tribes dying out.

Yet, the ideas behind Genesis Chapter 3 (on the essence of man) are mind-blowing. Sea plastic pollution (for example), denuding forests, is Genesis 3.

The bible is outdated by about 2000 years.
I tell my DC that its important to have some knowledge of the stories it contains but it’s only educational value is in understanding the development of art, history, literature etc.

I certainly wouldn’t want them to be taught it as some kind of handbook to modern living.

But there are already many versions of the Bible;
The King James Verion
The Revised Standard Version
New English Testament
Good News Bible (I was once given a copy )
How would you police which version was used?

You cannot censor the word of God, just because it's a bit out dated!

You cannot censor the word of God, just because it's a bit out dated!

You can make changes to any work of fiction.

Ah, you can't rewrite the Bible: nor any of the classic texts.

They had a go with 'Fairytale of New York': didn't end well

@Toddlerteaplease

‘Word of god’

The bible is written by men, not ‘God’

It’s just a fairy tale anyway