Reading the Bible

[williemack]

Is it weird that I enjoy reading the Bible more now than I did as a Christian? I find it fascinating as a cultural and historic text.

[Mike Cl]

I agree, willie--I feel the same.  Only when I started to pay attention to the oddities and contradictions of that book that I read it.  I have probably read it more than  95% of those who go to church every week.   

[stromboli]

Read 50 Shades of Gray. You'll get all the good stuff without the "thees, thous, verilies and thus sayeth the laird"

[PickelledEggs]

I wanted to read the Bible, but I had a hard time getting through all the snuff

Sent from your mom

[stromboli]

This is my bible



There are pages missing because I carry it with me camping and use the pages to start fires with. I'm about halfway through Psalms.

[PickelledEggs]

This is my bible



There are pages missing because I carry it with me camping and use the pages to start fires with. I'm about halfway through Psalms.

Is this what you meant in that other thread about always keeping toilet paper with you?

Sent from your mom

[AllPurposeAtheist]

I lose it every single time in the part where everyone is begotting everyone.
Ichm begot schlokm who begot Rachime who begot the guy whose name sounds like phlegm who begot the one who sounds like a fart from god who begot...oh! Sarah! Who begot some other fuck who begot who fucking cares?

[Mr.Obvious]

I tossed it away after the third book, it being the final straw to calling myself an agnostic.
But now without what felt like a horrible realization to blow my ignorant noodle, I should pick it up again. If only so I can say, why yes, I have read the bible. Are you sure we talking about the same scripture when you say 'the good book'?

[AllPurposeAtheist]

You know..I was thinking about the formal debates about the buybull and such nonsense and wonder if we can have a formal debate on the merits of a Bugs Bunny coloring book.. Will Marvin indeed blow up the earth? Will Bugs save us all from Armageddon?

[SGOS]

I lose it every single time in the part where everyone is begotting everyone.
Ichm begot schlokm who begot Rachime who begot the guy whose name sounds like phlegm who begot the one who sounds like a fart from god who begot...oh! Sarah! Who begot some other fuck who begot who fucking cares?

When I was much too young, I undertook a reading of the Bible, because my grandmother told me I should.  But when I got to the Begats, I labored over it as if somehow learning the names and who fathered who was important.

First of all, it's not important.  There is no lesson in morality and no personal enlightenment contained therein. 

Second, it's utterly boring.  It's a stupid thing to put at the beginning of a book, even a book of mythology if it's expected to inspire anyone.

Of course, being disappointed in myself for experiencing utter boredom and a lack of inspirational enlightenment did nothing but make me feel inadequate and unworthy of entrance into Heaven.  For being the word of God, even written by men who are inspired by God, it's a poor testament, filled with violence, tall tales, and second rate writing.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

When I was much too young, I undertook a reading of the Bible, because my grandmother told me I should.  But when I got to the Begats, I labored over it as if somehow learning the names and who fathered who was important.

First of all, it's not important.  There is no lesson in morality and no personal enlightenment contained therein. 

Second, it's utterly boring.  It's a stupid thing to put at the beginning of a book, even a book of mythology if it's expected to inspire anyone.

Of course, being disappointed in myself for experiencing utter boredom and a lack of inspirational enlightenment did nothing but make me feel inadequate and unworthy of entrance into Heaven.  For being the word of God, even written by men who are inspired by God, it's a poor testament, filled with violence, tall tales, and second rate writing.

Kind of like trying to memorize your entire family genealogy back to the stone age and getting beaten over the head with stones for forgetting Uncle Ugg..   Well thank GOD for the comic strip BC..

[Hakurei Reimu]

You enjoy it more because you don't have to take it seriously anymore. It's like the difference between studying a textbook because you have a test tomorrow and reading it once you're out of the class. (Yes, sometimes textbooks have some interesting stuff. Leave me alone.)

[williemack]

You enjoy it more because you don't have to take it seriously anymore. It's like the difference between studying a textbook because you have a test tomorrow and reading it once you're out of the class. (Yes, sometimes textbooks have some interesting stuff. Leave me alone.)

Yea that is probably true.

[Mike Cl]

I like to read it to try and understand where each part came from and what the purpose that part played.  What hooked me even more was the study of what is called lower criticism--studying the various fragments of the earliest bibles and then comparing what the extent passages are for each line of the bible.  And fully understanding that there is no one 'the bible'--there are literally thousands of them, and each one different.

[SGOS]

Yea that is probably true.

I enjoyed studying other religions in Philosophy of Religion in college, although it did not require reading the holy books of other religions, so I can understand that  studying the Bible from that perspective could be enjoyable.  Not for me.  I've read it, and I don't care to do it again.  My Aunt had a Bible setting out a few years ago.  She had it bookmarked on the story of David and Goliath, so I picked it up and reread the episode.  God it was boring, mostly because it was written in such an uninteresting way: 

Goliath said unto David, "I will smite thee," and David said unto Goliath, "I will smite thee.  And David smote Goliath.

There's the account; That's it.   And I was left wondering why it seemed so much more exciting when my Sunday school teacher told us the story using the felt board.  Seemed like the story was longer than that and engendered at least a modicum of emotion.  Walt Disney would have done a better job with it, I suppose.