Stop Sugarcoating the Bible!

[gustava]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/2 ... ?hpt=hp_c2

 

After all, it's got murder, rape, mass slaughter, animal sacrifice....and that's just for starters.

[treemom]

Mass infanticide, mass murder of children.

[finleeport]

So what was his point in all that? to show that the Abrahamic religion is a terrible religion from its creation?

[hagia sophia]

I'm a bible college graduate, :oops:, and one of the many things in the bible that put me on the road to atheism was the verse in the book of Joshua where god tells them to hamstring their enemies horses.

I heard a preacher say once that was equivalent to letting the air out of tires.

Umm, no. It isn't.

[treemom]

I'm a bible college graduate, :oops:, and one of the many things in the bible that put me on the road to atheism was the verse in the book of Joshua where god tells them to hamstring their enemies horses.

I heard a preacher say once that was equivalent to letting the air out of tires.

Umm, no. It isn't.

I became uncomfortable with lots of things about religions of all stripes, but yes that is something that bothered me.

[debrand]

So what was his point in all that? to show that the Abrahamic religion is a terrible religion from its creation?

The article was apparently written by a Christian so acknowledging the bad parts did not ruin his faith.

[Elle]

I'm a bible college graduate, :oops:, and one of the many things in the bible that put me on the road to atheism was the verse in the book of Joshua where god tells them to hamstring their enemies horses.

I heard a preacher say once that was equivalent to letting the air out of tires.

Umm, no. It isn't.

It is...in that is makes it harder for the enemies to get around. But it's not because letting the air out of the tires not only doesn't permanently damage, but doesn't torture living creatures. That piece there is god acting like a snotty preteen brat. "Hey, let's switch the sugar with salt and blame it on someone else! *snicker*"

[bananacat]

The thing that horrified me the most about the Bible is when the horrors were mentioned casually. The way that virgin girls were literally counted as spoils of war among cattle, gold, etc was just really horrifying. It wasn't even something that they called attention to because it was just taken for granted that women would be worth nothing more than property. War and genocide are terrible, but at least it's done during extreme emotions. The way they treated women just an everyday fact of life. I just can't even imagine it.

As for the enemy horses, why not just kill them outright? They'll die anyway; what's the point of torturing them? Wouldn't it be just as easy to slit the throats instead of the hamstrings? That's some creepy sadistic animal cruelty.

[meow139]

The thing that horrified me the most about the Bible is when the horrors were mentioned casually. The way that virgin girls were literally counted as spoils of war among cattle, gold, etc was just really horrifying. It wasn't even something that they called attention to because it was just taken for granted that women would be worth nothing more than property. War and genocide are terrible, but at least it's done during extreme emotions. The way they treated women just an everyday fact of life. I just can't even imagine it.

As for the enemy horses, why not just kill them outright? They'll die anyway; what's the point of torturing them? Wouldn't it be just as easy to slit the throats instead of the hamstrings? That's some creepy sadistic animal cruelty.

No slitting throats, you can feel a lot of pain before death. A swift low to the head will do just fine, at the very least knock them out before you slit them.

[reds]

I started reading my childrens bible from start to finish when i was around 9 or 10. I was on a mission.

Then I ran across the story of moses (i think) being circumcised.. and i never read any more.

I have read the Gospels but i leave the old testament alone.

[Mais Pourquoi]

What bothers me is when people say "But that's in the Old Testament" in regards to most of the things modern society tends to disagree with in the Bible. You know what's also in the Old Testament? All of that shit the same people use to say that homosexuality is a sin.

[WanderingStar]

The funny thing is, I think I might've used the more gory parts of the Bible at one time to demonstrate to my parents that some of the things I watch on TV or read aren't that bad. :P

[O Latin]

Maybe it's because virtually every book I read for class (as a history major) is full of war, torture, famine, plague, violence, disaster, and just general death, but the Bible doesn't seem that bad to me (not that I have read a lot of it). I also don't understand why the fact that it has lots of violence means it can't be any good. Lots of my favorite books/movies/TV shows/etc are quite violent, but still good.

FWIW, I don't believe that the Bible is the Ultimate Answer to Everything, but I don't think it's the most awful, violent thing out there, either.

[Arete]

The Bronze Age was an ugly time and people did ugly things. The Roman Empire was no peach either. You can look at the bible as a written collection of some of the earliest memories of mankind. The good, the bad, the ugly. Not just early memories, but their earliest emotional and spiritual struggles. How and why were we created? (Genesis), why do the innocent suffer? (Job) the wonder of sexual love (Song of Solomon), what will become of my community? (Ezekiel), where is God, does he remember me, care about me (some of the Psalms), how shall we live, what do we owe each other (various part of Torah and New Testament). Animal sacrifice was a normal part of the authors' world, as was the spoils of war, the ahnialation of your enemy, etc. I think we get so disturbed by it because we have a hard time accepting that this is what society evolved from. It should make us think, we should recoil at a lot of the things described. But we should also be humbled that people who were fighting day to day for life and death survival and who were seeing unspeakable tragedies from childhood on still thought it was important to articulate our responsibilities to each other, to celebrate love and human resilience, and to show kindness and mercy in a world that had very little of either.

It was never meant to answer all the questions, it was ASKING the questions.

Edited to fix up some of the messy grammar.

[figuring it out]

Likewise, the modern era has its share of nastiness and cruelty. I'm sure the bronze age writers would blanch at a retelling of the twentieth century and the scale of its violence. We are still asking the same questions. I love religious texts of all sorts, I think they tell us more about what it means to be human than who, or what god is or wants. But, I also classify all sorts of things as religious texts that would disturb religious folks.

[Guest Anonymous]

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/25/my-take-stop-sugarcoating-the-bible/?hpt=hp_c2

After all, it's got murder, rape, mass slaughter, animal sacrifice....and that's just for starters.

You're absolutely right. The problem isn't really with the Bible itself, it's the cherry picking of verses to prove or disprove something.

[valsa]

While there are lots of violent books out there, most of those other books don't claim that the author (or would it be the narrator?) of those books are the end-all-and-be-all of deciding morality.

The Bible doesn't just describe the harsh and merciless realities of life back then, it both claims moral superiority and often demands the implementation of even more harsh and merciless practices.

[debrand]

Maybe it's because virtually every book I read for class (as a history major) is full of war, torture, famine, plague, violence, disaster, and just general death, but the Bible doesn't seem that bad to me (not that I have read a lot of it). I also don't understand why the fact that it has lots of violence means it can't be any good. Lots of my favorite books/movies/TV shows/etc are quite violent, but still good.

FWIW, I don't believe that the Bible is the Ultimate Answer to Everything, but I don't think it's the most awful, violent thing out there, either.

I actually like some of the biblical stories and believe there is a lot of beauty in the book. However, I look at the bible as a literary and historical work, not a book created by an all perfect god.

[debrand]

What bothers me is when people say "But that's in the Old Testament" in regards to most of the things modern society tends to disagree with in the Bible. You know what's also in the Old Testament? All of that shit the same people use to say that homosexuality is a sin.

Somewhere the bible states that God is the same today, yesterday and forever. It is hard to dismiss the Old Testament as being a product of its times when the follower also believes their god doesn't change.

[darareaksmey]

Years ago there used to be a local preacher with a radio program that I'd sometimes listen to. He would rant and rave over how wrong it was for parents to decorate their nurseries in Noah's Ark themes, because he said that diluted the message of the story. For him, the message was not that God ended the destruction of the Flood with a promise to mankind. For him, the message was that the world was so evil in the first place that God had to unleash his wrath and destroy practically everything except for two of every species and Noah's family. I was dumbfounded that he and I could read the same bood and get two entirely different messages out of it.

[FundiesInMyFamily]

I look at the bible as a literary and historical work, not a book created by an all perfect god.

Yes! I see the Bible as a fascinating book of history, an eye to how things were back then. There are great lessons in the stories, just as there are great lessons in other literary works. But I don't see it as "the word of God".

[genericJname]

the wonder of sexual love (Song of Solomon)

Absolutely, reading about Solomon screwing his 500th or so concubine is so special and romantic. :-D