oh, you don't think the bible is real? let me throw some bible verses at you, that'll change your mind
This was one of my issues when I was a Christian. There is no external authority that the Bible was the inherent word of God and no way to ensure that the words within it were transcribed or even translated within the Authority of God.
There is a whole study of Bible hermeneutics that is about finding authority within the Bible.
You know how in the show Community Abed was always trying to meta the show? Imagine that, but really not funny and it's taken seriously.
Another problem with Bible (and other similar books) is that it doesn't make sense that omnipotent god would communicate to humans trough vague book that would have many different interpretations and possibly have it's meaning changed a bit with translations to different languages. At least there are Christians who accept that events from Bible never happened.
transcribed or even translated within the Authority of God.
on that topic, in case you haven't seen it, i recommend biblical scholar bart ehrman's presentation on problems with the bible.
book clubCult. It’s a cult.
Cults are small. Christianity is big. And it was Christians who, during the satanic panic, created a false association in pop culture between cults and abuse. See, back in the 60s, the hippie movement was turning young people away from Christianity and towards new age spiritualities like wicca and thelema. The christians had to put a stop to these cults, so they created a myth that cult=abuse.
Eh, I'm gonna go ahead and keep calling any group with charismatic authoritarian leaders/councils a cult. The word "cult" is inherently tied to worship which involves giving up some of your own agency or, at least, taking things on blind faith or admiration.
Any time you have adherents giving up their free will/agency, that's abuse and manipulation, to me.
The bible is real. And very useful, to roll blunts with in a pinch.
They knew what they were doing with those super thin pages. 😉
Stay away from the gilded edges, though.
...or so I've heard.
Yes, folks who don't read Bible don't realize how much bible says about money, trade and economy. Proverbs book is my favorite, the deuteronomy book I leave for older brothers in fath ( kidding :-) )
One of the most frustrating things of dealing with bible people is when the request for proof comes up. They just point at the Bible. Like it’s some text that has deep references to verifiable and cross referenced historical fact. Like Pontious Pilate’s administration leaving records of some guy doing magic on the regular, him getting in fights with rich people, or even just a criminal docket of hanging a magical guy.
Nope. They just point at their book as proof of itself.
what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence
And when they still point to that bible of theirs, start quoting your favorite incest story.
Which you can find in their book, BTW
Can't tell if Atheist or American Christian
Schizophrenic, Bronze Age, fan fiction has a lot to answer for.
So is new atheism back?
Amen!
No.
Ramen!
Wo
amen*
The Bible itself is never the problem.
The problem is always the subservient idiot that thinks Constantine himself is holding the fasces to their neck and telling them to submit.
Fix their relationship to the text and you can fix the Christian. 999/1000 they don't know Greek or Hebrew and don't know anything about the actual text anyways.
IMO, the Bible is really interesting and you can learn a lot about humanity through the study of it. You could give a fuck what it says and be a better, more rounded human for it (and there are lot of avenues for that).
And just to be clear about my point: the different religions the texts perpetuate are not anywhere near as compelling as a historical-critical examination of the texts themselves.
She forgot to address them as "you bitches".
