Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Have you thrown away your Bible?


pandora

Recommended Posts

For the record, I haven't. I haven't touched my Bibles in three years, but occasionally I find myself looking through my old conservative apologetics books for laughs. Books like The Case for Christ and books about how wrong it is to be gay (and some Christian books supporting homosexuality).

 

I was wondering if I should pitch it all, but I can't bring myself to pitch them. Especially my Bibles. You know, I spend so much money on them! LOL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 98
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • pandora

    4

  • Totallyatpeace

    3

  • Ouroboros

    3

  • imageownershipproblem

    3

Nope, I have not rid myself of the bible nor the other books. I keep the Bibles, because I think it’s important to be able to go back, read and study for argumentative reasons. Even though I haven’t done much of reading yet, one day I might.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've kept them all. Now my bookshelves are more balanced.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have kept my Bible as a reference book, mainly because it has wide margins and I have about five years of personal notes written in those margins.

 

I have given away a few books and thrown many more into the trash.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I keep my bible for reference purposes. Besides, I bought it a month before I deconverted, so it's still kinda new. :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why? Save 'em for rolling papers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disposed of my Quran.......

 

 

 

 

:shrug:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's plenty of websites that have the entire bible and the skeptics annotated does a lot of your work for you. I see no need to keeping a bible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The printed page is alwayys valuable. I keep mine around, though it is now sitting comfortably on the "Myth and religions" shelf rather than in a seperate "Christianity" section of the library.

 

It was also very nice to clear space when I got rid of a lot of the apologetics and Christian Psych books that I've been accumulating for years through gifts and seminars and used bookstores. No longer need to keep things I didn't like to lend them out to those who are struggling in their faith. No more Cloud and Townsend, Dobson, or other such claptrap, and a thorough thinning of the theology section to historically imporant or literarily interesting works only (and the Christian Theology blended together with the other philosophy books).

 

Quite refreshing :)

-Lokmer

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have 2.

 

1 I've kept for reference.

 

And the other, a white KJV, was my "first" bible, a gift from my parents when I graduated kindergarten at my old christian school long...long ago. It's a personal keepsake.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hell no dont throw away bibles, I keep everything. I collect old bibles.

 

Except I throw any all my daughters childrens bibles and books.

 

 

although I am sick to death of the KJV, what a useless translation, makes great tiolet paper for the camping trips. the paper cuts like a two edged sword if your not careful

I love reading the bible. My oldest bible is a single page from the first edition of the KJV 1616 framed and hanging up on the wall.

The big rumour in my family is that a great Aunt has a Gutenburg Bible, that my mother claims to have seen, or at least a few pages of one. I have spent years trying to find where she may have put it. She was a pathological horder and everybody who may have known where it is are all dead. I still think it maybe somewhere in some attic of her many siblings and relatives.

 

When I deconverted the bible became a new book for me, I finds it much more intersting reading the bible from a nontheistic point of view.

When I was a christian the Old Testament was BORING, now I cant read enough of it. Expecially Genesis,Exodus, Ezekial, Daniel and the Solomon books.

The Latin Vulgate still gives me a hard on

I would still love to be a bibical scholar ( is there such a thing as an atheist biblical scholar?)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disposed of my Quran.......

:shrug:

I have a quite beautiful Quran (in Arabic) and several older bibles, including one in German that I bought while overseas. (Not a Gutenburg.) As a book person who loves book arts, some early bible are almost an expression of art and design. We studied the Illuminated Manuscripts in my type classes in college.

 

I have quite a collection of old books (middle to late 19th cent.) and to those that helped moved my ass around, know the boxes and boxes of them.

 

The crack about the bible as rolling papers comes from the EDMONTON SUN.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i plan to make art out of my old Babble, i want to lightly scorch the outside of it, cover the outside in stage blood, and shove a kris dagger right through the center of it, then mount it on a plaque to hang in my room. yeah.. i'm a little sick, so? :D

 

EDIT: i actually DO have more than one, i plan to keep them for fucks sake, and make art out of one of them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I bought one, wanted to finally get the references, as well as read the thing through.

 

You can't debate effectively without a grounding in the bible.

 

Merlin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I threw out a few books just a couple weeks ago. I have kept all my Bibles and many other books. Sometimes I keep them because the person who gave me the Bible/item is special to me. Maybe I like a particular story in another book. Maybe for some reason I'm just not ready to get rid of another. I've learned not to rush myself to get rid of it. There isn't a need even if I haven't looked at it in 3 years or more. That stuff basically sits in a garbage bag lined box in my garage rather then on my book shelf. But I know it's there and if I get the urge I can take a look at it. Can't say I've had the urge yet... but you know.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I was a christian the Old Testament was BORING, now I cant read enough of it. Expecially Genesis,Exodus, Ezekial, Daniel and the Solomon books.

Funny....I used to spend way more time in the OT the last few years of my xianity. I mean, you can only read the gospels so many hundreds of times, eh?

 

( is there such a thing as an atheist biblical scholar?)

Yes. :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I disposed of my Quran.......

:shrug:

 

You were Muslim?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i plan to make art out of my old Babble, i want to lightly scorch the outside of it, cover the outside in stage blood, and shove a kris dagger right through the center of it, then mount it on a plaque to hang in my room. yeah.. i'm a little sick, so? :D

 

EDIT: i actually DO have more than one, i plan to keep them for fucks sake, and make art out of one of them.

 

 

Making art out of it... that's a neat idea. Although I wouldn't torch mine, I could see being creative with it.. that could be fun as well as cathartic! I can't imagine my in laws reactions to this art, however... they freaked about the crucifix in piss ordeal.

 

 

I keep one of mine from my Catholic days (S pRecious Moments one from my mom) for sentimental reasons, and another scholarly one from school. It has very liberal and historical commentary... the rest... well I can't imagine throwing away an $80 book. I see myself using them for reference when I get more seriously into rebuttal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have keept my bibles and all my Christian books. Maybe some day, I will get rid of some of the books, but I do not need to hurry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Challenger

I have three of them.

 

In one of them I have a few verses marked--Proverbs 31:20, John 3:8 among others.

 

They remind me of a friend of mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm in the process.

 

The first to go was my bible software and three gigs of xtian music. I backed all of that shit up regularly, so it was more of a statement than anything when I removed it from my computer.

 

Throwing away the backups meant something.

 

The next to go was a box of 100 New Testaments I acquired for evangelizing purposes. I'm a bibliophile and I live in a small town where I am not well liked, so I went through a lot of soul searching about how to get rid of those.

 

Ultimately, it was the bottom of my garbage can. If I had put all of that paper in my open recycling bin for the whole neighborhood to see, it would have been an invitation for a lynching in this here red neck of the woods.

 

For a lifelong dumpster-diver who frequently pulled Harlequin romances out of trash cans and donated them to thrift stores, that was a hard thing to do, but I'll never forget that enormous sense of relief I felt when I brought my empty garbage can back to the curb.

 

Next came my Christian Homeschooling textbooks. Several thousand dollars worth, some of them with my precious babies' handwriting in them. That really hurt. The curriculum lending library that was one of the reasons why I moved to this particular town in the first place had been taken over by Christian Homeschoolers shortly after 9/11 so they wouldn't have taken them; there might have been magic I-don't-hate-fags dust on the pages, since I probably was only donating them because I want to sprinkle magic I-don't-hate-fags dust on their kids to make them stop hating fags.

 

My landlord pays my garbage and my garbage can isn't that big.

 

I could have freecycled them, but then I would have had to look at Christian Homeschoolers to give them away.

 

Ultimately, I donated them to my public library, which is open so infrequently that I had to come back three times and wait for an hour on the day that they were open. The Christian Homeschoolers do not need the $50 books for a buck, but the library sure needs the buck.

 

Left Behind was used to wipe my left behind.

 

I still keep finding things on my bookshelf that throw me into an uncontrollable rage. They go in the garbage. I'm sorry, but trash is trash no matter how much money you paid for it when you were stupid, and I don't want to feed the addictions of the kind of people who would want that crap.

 

My kid's new AP Psych book, fifth edition (the sixth is current) was available used on Amazon.com for $1.95 and he's totally understanding Algebra I in his circa 1976, rather shlocky cast-off. Saxon Math at $70 a year bored him half to death and convinced both of us that he was autistic. Apologia General Science at $60 used did help him to solidify his interest in Genetics and Evolution (next year's science course with college texts circa 1980s, which I got for a buck apiece from the same library bookstore that disposed of my Christian Homeschooling fiasco) and learn how to convincingly and rationally pop the poop of "Intelligent Design".

 

Think what you will of me, I was a homeschooling parent long before I was a fundy. This is what I have done with my life and my kids have turned out damned good.

 

I'd need to buy my own landfill to get rid of all these books in one fell swoop, though. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm in the process.

 

The first to go was my bible software and three gigs of xtian music. I backed all of that shit up regularly, so it was more of a statement than anything when I removed it from my computer.

 

Throwing away the backups meant something.

 

The next to go was a box of 100 New Testaments I acquired for evangelizing purposes. I'm a bibliophile and I live in a small town where I am not well liked, so I went through a lot of soul searching about how to get rid of those.

 

Ultimately, it was the bottom of my garbage can. If I had put all of that paper in my open recycling bin for the whole neighborhood to see, it would have been an invitation for a lynching in this here red neck of the woods.

 

For a lifelong dumpster-diver who frequently pulled Harlequin romances out of trash cans and donated them to thrift stores, that was a hard thing to do, but I'll never forget that enormous sense of relief I felt when I brought my empty garbage can back to the curb.

 

Next came my Christian Homeschooling textbooks. Several thousand dollars worth, some of them with my precious babies' handwriting in them. That really hurt. The curriculum lending library that was one of the reasons why I moved to this particular town in the first place had been taken over by Christian Homeschoolers shortly after 9/11 so they wouldn't have taken them; there might have been magic I-don't-hate-fags dust on the pages, since I probably was only donating them because I want to sprinkle magic I-don't-hate-fags dust on their kids to make them stop hating fags.

 

My landlord pays my garbage and my garbage can isn't that big.

 

I could have freecycled them, but then I would have had to look at Christian Homeschoolers to give them away.

 

Ultimately, I donated them to my public library, which is open so infrequently that I had to come back three times and wait for an hour on the day that they were open. The Christian Homeschoolers do not need the $50 books for a buck, but the library sure needs the buck.

 

Left Behind was used to wipe my left behind.

 

I still keep finding things on my bookshelf that throw me into an uncontrollable rage. They go in the garbage. I'm sorry, but trash is trash no matter how much money you paid for it when you were stupid, and I don't want to feed the addictions of the kind of people who would want that crap.

 

My kid's new AP Psych book, fifth edition (the sixth is current)  was available used on Amazon.com for $1.95 and he's totally understanding Algebra I in his circa 1976, rather shlocky cast-off. Saxon Math at $70 a year bored him half to death and convinced both of us that he was autistic. Apologia General Science at $60 used did help him to solidify his interest in Genetics and Evolution (next year's science course with college texts circa 1980s, which I got for a buck apiece from the same library bookstore that disposed of my Christian Homeschooling fiasco) and learn how to convincingly and rationally pop the poop of "Intelligent Design".

 

Think what you will of me, I was a homeschooling parent long before I was a fundy. This is what I have done with my life and my kids have turned out damned good.

 

I'd need to  buy my own landfill to get rid of all these books in one fell swoop, though. :(

 

It sounds like you teach your kids well about the tougher things of high school, science and such, but may I make a humble recommendation?

 

Please give your children more up to date science books. A lot of things have changed since the 80s, especially in evolutionary theory and in genetics. Supplement with Scientific American to keep them up to date on current issues. Science changes faster than any other subject. I am sure he is self motivated enough to learn the new stuff. But this stuff is essential to making the transition to college science eduation (if he chooses a science degree, otherwise he will just be learning the basics again).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually bought a Bible since my deconversion. I bought a New American Standard Version with a nice reddish cover to it. It's my favorite Bible and I value it immensely. It's the Bible I used in all my divinity studies. I grew up reading the New International Version but I was learned from an assistant professor of Greek at a Evangelical seminary that the NASV is a better word-for-word translation of the Hebrew and Greek and so I purchased one. I usually take a pen and carefully underline passages in the Bible where I think a contradiction exists or an error might be.

 

As for Christian apologetics books- I haven't thrown any of mine away for the simple reason that I can sell them on Amazon. I won't get every penny I spent on them, granted, but I think I can make some good money- $500.00 according to one estimate of mine. I have more than 100 Christian books and some of them I probably would never have read as a Christian. I only keep books around that I actually plan on reading or make use of!

 

If I do keep Christian books around- it's probably because I am quoting from them or writing a critique. I carry around the book The Case for Faith because I am still working on my critique of it and chances are when it's done, I will have to type up the entire book almost with my comments and criticisms injected in the actual text.

 

Matthew

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.