To think there’s actually so much wisdom in the bible

[Lardlizard]

I can see why it’s so popular
Almost like an early age self help book in some ways
Also hymns

CareBear this atheist holds all 'holy' books in equal contempt. Will that do?

I like it but like @peajotter says you need to understand the context and the time it was written for it to make sense. I think the problem arises when people try to take it at face value and don't recognize the underlying messages. And yes old testament - stop shagging everything that moves or killing it. New testament - don't be a sick to each other.

@CherryPavlova

1 Corinthians 13 provides good advice for marriage.

What that old chestnut ?

@Alittleodd - I love spotting continuity errors in the Bible, I really don’t think the editor was up to much. Cain and Abel -where did their wives come from (and the hoardes who told Cain he was a very naughty boy?) - you really don’t have to go very far. I think reading religious texts like you would Say Charles Dickinson is exactly the way to go, it’s written words with a meaning written at a certain point in time anc it’s important to understand the context in which the words were written. The trick is unravelling that meaning rather than just relying on someone else’s interpretation of it.

I like all things that resonate, songs/ poems, this came this week on an email for a Chinese restaurant !

“The more you praise and celebrate your life,
the more there is in life to celebrate.”

And I thought, how true

Oh! I've just remembered the time god told someone (Moses? I feel like it was Moses maybe, I'm too lazy to Google) to select soldiers for his army based on how they chose to drink from a stream.

Classic.

Yes therhubarbbrothers, since it’s biblical, it’s going to be old, isn’t it? The message remains true today.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

I love that one love is patient, love is kind

OK, if you think the kind of saying you get in an ad for a Chinese restaurant brims with age-old wisdom, that is probably illuminating about the level you’re approaching the bible at.

I’d recommend approaching the Old Testament as a Tarantino script, with an ego-maniacal, punitive deity with a personality disorder who throws regular tantrums, likes visiting plagues on those he disfavours, encourages his followers to kill their sons to demonstrate their trust in him, and issues detailed dietary edicts about not boiling kids in their mothers’ milk.

Is there a bit in Old Testament where a city is besieged. The Siegers say "Send out your daughters & we will let rest of you live!"

So the daughters are sent out to be raped & killed, but everyone else lives. In another passage, city is besieged, and the Siegers say "Send out your sons and we will let rest of you live!"

The besieged people refuse and fight to the death, coz, you know, they won't sacrifice their sons.

I read this contrast in a summary but don't know how true it is.

@CherryPavlova

Yes therhubarbbrothers, since it’s biblical, it’s going to be old, isn’t it? The message remains true today.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

Nice works but too cliched in my view.

Each to their own - I'm religious but not overly if that makes sense and find the thought of something after this life comforting

Well @lljkk there was Lot who wouldn't give some (angelic?) guests over to the rampaging hoardes but offered up his virgin daughters for (I am paraphrasing here) whatever said hoardes wanted to do with them. That was fun.

And then his wife got turned to salt, so.

@dillydallydollydaydream7

Each to their own - I'm religious but not overly if that makes sense and find the thought of something after this life comforting

I'm not religious and so don't believe in any after life. I can see how it's comforting if you do as the thing I struggle with most is that my parents don't exist in any form now, cremation and scattered at sea as requested so there is just nothing of them any more.

Smoting kills. That's the message in the old testament.

CareBear50
People are so dispariging of the Bible. Imagine if people did the same with the Koran or other revered religious texts.

None of them are revered by me, I feel the same way about all of them.

@therhubarbbrothers I agree with you on that, although I'm a chemist at heart and my comfort is knowing that every atom of the people I love will go back into the world and be woven into the fabric of something new and beautiful. We are all stardust etc.

I'm going to go back to trying to remember ridiculous Bible stories now because that was very serious and I think I must have something in my eye.

I like the bit about the massive spunking donkey schlongs.

Weird book tbh.

Absolutely at difficult times in my life the Bible is comforting.

[quote Alittleodd]@therhubarbbrothers I agree with you on that, although I'm a chemist at heart and my comfort is knowing that every atom of the people I love will go back into the world and be woven into the fabric of something new and beautiful. We are all stardust etc.

I'm going to go back to trying to remember ridiculous Bible stories now because that was very serious and I think I must have something in my eye.[/quote]
I like to think that but all I seem to be able to think is that they will have become fish food. I don't mean that as a joke, it's how I feel.

Umberto Eco wrote a book called 'Misreadings' which is set in a publishing house in Rome. They receive manuscripts daily and the editors write their responses down to each submission - the book is teh collection of responses. They cover the Bible - 'rejected - problems with multiple authors, will be a copyright nightmare' Joyce's Ulysses 'needs to sack his secretary, full of typos', etc, etc

Very funny.

I love a good hymn but The Bible is fictitious. There are some good principles but I don’t get the Chariots of Fire stuff or the loaves and fishes bits.
Don’t even get me started on the Book of Genesis!

It's a beautiful book of comfort but I may be bias as I'm a Christian!

Psalm 23 is my all time favourite!!!

Don’t even get me started on the Book of Genesis!
That’s the best bit of the Bible! I read it at school - loved the storytelling. That Joseph is such an arse.

Hang on a minute some PPs. So the bible should be read and understood in context and was applicable only to its time. So the word of god applied only when owning slaves, killing Male children and married women but keeping the untouched girls for yourselves, beating wives, chopping limbs off and stoning people to death was absolutely fine?
So god, being omnipotent, knowing everything that was, is and will come to pass was unable to comprehend that humans with the absolute basics of morality find the bible instructions abhorrent and disgusting? Is he omnipotent or not then? And why the NT revision? Is god in fact fallible? If so is he a god?

I'm sorry but the bible(s) are works of fiction written by MEN and men alone. Primitive, stupid, nasty men at that too. And the same goes for most of the other religious books too.