Guest ex-jesusfreak Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Okay Guys, I am new to this board. Finally, after two years and visiting this brilliant web site for encouragement for just over a year I have fianlly left Christianity and orgnaised religion behind for good! Though strangely enough, I still look to the bible at ways of 'improving' myself in the moral sense. Somehow, Some of the morals such as 'love one another as yourself' and teachings about forgiveness still make sense to me and I do still think humanity could benefit from them. Note though, It is only a 'handul' of things from a book full of lies, fairytales and mindless violence and cruelty written by MAN and defiantely NOT by a so-called ' Christian God of Love and peace' or even 'inspired' by him! Anyone else know where i am coming from though? Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpcobe Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Sure. In my view, the bible and a host of other religious based texts/beliefs serve some use in defining morality. Most religions seem to be the result of some type of explanation for the "hows" and "whys" of life. Naturally, they lend themselves to moral stances that, at least in some manner, reflect the beliefs of their origins in time and society. (Did any of that make sense?) For me, the danger comes in when we see those claims as "moral absolutes" or TRUTH per se. I haven't figured it all out by any stretch, and likely never will, but I would not go so far as to say the Bible holds no truth. Surely some good has come out of it. Unfortunately for the Christians, so has a lot of bad. So, take the good and leave the bad. . .but carefully examine what you determine the good and the bad to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Oh yeah, I hear you. The Bible is just like any other work of fiction - loads of fantasy mixed with nuggets of truth. People are fully capable of discovering morality without any version of "God." Welcome! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparrow Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Okay Guys, I am new to this board. Finally, after two years and visiting this brilliant web site for encouragement for just over a year I have fianlly left Christianity and orgnaised religion behind for good! Though strangely enough, I still look to the bible at ways of 'improving' myself in the moral sense. Somehow, Some of the morals such as 'love one another as yourself' and teachings about forgiveness still make sense to me and I do still think humanity could benefit from them. Note though, It is only a 'handul' of things from a book full of lies, fairytales and mindless violence and cruelty written by MAN and defiantely NOT by a so-called ' Christian God of Love and peace' or even 'inspired' by him! Anyone else know where i am coming from though? Chris Hi! Welcome to the board. I'm Spatz. I'm not inspired by anything in the Bible anymore - there's nothing unique in the Bible that hasn't been said elsewhere in either another religious or philosophicl context, far earlier and in a much clearer way. In all honesty, being "nice" to each other, acting morally, being socially responsible and considerate, etc, etc, etc, have been discussed in nearly every major philosophy. There are no "amazing revelations" about morals, nor is there anything particularly useful in it in terms of entertainment. In my opinion, the bible is a waste of space and certainly not worth the paper, ink and effort to assemble it. If you find it good as a reflective medium then that's great, bu I'd suggest you expand your horizons and seek out information that not only shows you that the bible is hardly unique or useful, and discover some truely "useful" life philosphies that can be beneficial to you and your loved ones. Go and investigate - that's part of the fun – you’ll soon discover that the bible is, well, really quite juvenile and trivial, and there’s so much more interesting information. Enjoy Spatz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megara Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I don't believe I need a book to tell me what should be considered morally correct. I am set with a level and logical enough mind to figure that out myself. Further, if one followed biblical morals to a T, one would be a seriously confused individual. However, I do agree with reading as much as one can and listening to what people have to say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emme Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 If I get really, really, anxious for some reason and can't sleep, I read the bible. It's like a security blanket, I know I don't really need it, but I still regress sometimes when things get really bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upstarter Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I think I find personal truth in many places. Certain things in the bible still ring true for me, sure. I also find truth in the words of Yoda (as someone pointed out the other day). I find nuggets of truth in many works of fiction, so why not the bible. We left the guilt behind with xtianity. If you find moral truth in the bible you have no reason to feel guilty. Heather Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedah Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 I have yet to find one good moral in the bible that cant be found elsewhere like the tao or Buddhism. The bible also comes with alot of shit to wade through to get to the good stuff, so no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 I'd rather quote something from the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights are based upon truth, common sense, and real events. The Bible concerns itself with proving fables are true. Why not quote from the book of Santa and his elves? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrisonjj Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Okay Guys, I am new to this board. Finally, after two years and visiting this brilliant web site for encouragement for just over a year I have fianlly left Christianity and orgnaised religion behind for good! Though strangely enough, I still look to the bible at ways of 'improving' myself in the moral sense. Somehow, Some of the morals such as 'love one another as yourself' and teachings about forgiveness still make sense to me and I do still think humanity could benefit from them. Note though, It is only a 'handul' of things from a book full of lies, fairytales and mindless violence and cruelty written by MAN and defiantely NOT by a so-called ' Christian God of Love and peace' or even 'inspired' by him! Anyone else know where i am coming from though? Chris Why the Christ didn't god come down and personally dictate the babble? Why did it have to be written by men? Bad fiction at best in my opinion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 No, I no longer find the Bible of any value. There are other much more interesting and inspiring works in human history that i prefer to look at --like the Upanishads and quite a few Buddhist sutras. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 I do understand. There's a lot of crap in the bible with some "gems." In my opinion, the gems tend to be rather dull and I do not find them to be of any higher quality than those from other sources, both religious and non. In many cases the gems are really rudimentary and fairly universally held, e.g., don't kill (except when you're doing it for god). I'd pit the Wiccan Rede against the Golden Rule any day, or better than either, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure: "Be excellent to each other." There are some cool verses in Proverbs, and there is some poetry that makes an interesting read. Overall, though, the bible is an atrocity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sojourner Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 I guess I cherry pick I eat what I like and spit out the seed, thats just me. so yes, but if I were looking for ways to do all kinds of nasty stuff I could find that too. Like cutting women up and sending their body parts to all my relatives . That part in judges has always bothered me deeply. sojourner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Okay Guys, I am new to this board. Finally, after two years and visiting this brilliant web site for encouragement for just over a year I have fianlly left Christianity and orgnaised religion behind for good! Though strangely enough, I still look to the bible at ways of 'improving' myself in the moral sense. Somehow, Some of the morals such as 'love one another as yourself' and teachings about forgiveness still make sense to me and I do still think humanity could benefit from them. Note though, It is only a 'handul' of things from a book full of lies, fairytales and mindless violence and cruelty written by MAN and defiantely NOT by a so-called ' Christian God of Love and peace' or even 'inspired' by him! Anyone else know where i am coming from though? Chris Welcome Chris. Yes of course I still use a number of things like this from the Bible myself. Why shouldn't I? Afterall, I feel Jesus was a humanist hippie, who later got morphed into this idolatrous god-figure. Only half kidding there. Humans wrote the Bible and expressed humanisitic values in the language of myth. It has value mostly to Westerners because our culture and worldviews were deeply shaped by this system of thought, and naturally the language of it fits certain perspectives. Once you strip away the confusion of the myth symbols of another culture, the values are relatively humanistic. Not everywhere of course, some are just culture specific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Although, as others have said above, the bible doesn't contain anything amazing or anything you can't get from other religions, I do still find some things in it to be inspiring. But first, throw out Leviticus and everything Paul wrote, Revelations, Job, stuff like that. I really like Ecclesiates, which is great fun because most xtians hate it. But I think it cuts through a lot of the fluff about what's important in life and what isn't. Problem is, the author goes through what doesn't work first, so most people don't stick with it until they get the point. I also think some of what Jesus said (or is attributed to Jesus anyhow...) makes good sense., though - true - it's mostly pretty generic. I hang onto the story of the widow's mite, and the "separating the sheep from the goats" passage. But nix the parable of the bridegroom. That always disturbed me. And the walking on water thing. Really, now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 I have yet to find one good moral in the bible that cant be found elsewhere like the tao or Buddhism. The bible also comes with alot of shit to wade through to get to the good stuff, so no. You got that right! Read on... Okay Guys, I am new to this board. Finally, after two years and visiting this brilliant web site for encouragement for just over a year I have fianlly left Christianity and orgnaised religion behind for good! Though strangely enough, I still look to the bible at ways of 'improving' myself in the moral sense. Somehow, Some of the morals such as 'love one another as yourself' and teachings about forgiveness still make sense to me and I do still think humanity could benefit from them. Note though, It is only a 'handul' of things from a book full of lies, fairytales and mindless violence and cruelty written by MAN and defiantely NOT by a so-called ' Christian God of Love and peace' or even 'inspired' by him! Anyone else know where i am coming from though? Chris Personally, if I were going about this in the same manner as you, I wouldn't use an actual bible to get the good tid-bits... There's just too much other shit in there that fucks with your head. And it's all peppered around the good verses. A simpler way to do what you're doing would be to click on over to The Skeptics Annotated Bible site, and find the link that lists, "The Good Stuff" (at least I think that's what it's called). There you'll find a lot of the good verses from the bible listed and separated from all of the other fucked up shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Legend by David Gemmell would work as well (in fact better in some cases, since Druss would never kill a child) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1oddmanout Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 You know, thinking back on all my preaching and teaching, I have found very few Bible stories to help define and give structure to morals that weren't immediately contradictory within the same book, and I have never been comfortable teaching something that a student could say, "But, how about this?" "Hmmm, haww, I mean . . ." A few Psalms are nice as are some Proverbs (as is the Mount Sermon), but I have found more cohesiveness in the Tao. Basing good morals on the Bible contradicts the theme of the Bible (salvation through painful BLOODY SACRIFICE; death of a innocent - how moral is that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandatory Chaos Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Check out this article on the pagan origins of biblical morality: http://nosha.secularhumanism.net/essays/sierichs6.html Apparently the bible isn't as original as christians like to say it is.... Shocking, I know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Telesmith Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 I used the bible as a moral compass for over a decade and it did nothing but facilitate self-righteousness and encourage me to be three times that asshole I naturally am. Why would I go doing that again? Sure, there’s some moral meaning there, but most of it requires so much cleaning up and teasing out that, for real life, it’s just a waste of my time. Further, I spend too much of my time already beating back the massive ego that my biblical fundamentalism gave me in the first place. It’s hard to stop acting like you have a short cut to the truth after doing it for so long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Anyone else know where i am coming from though? Aye. There is some good stuff in that book for sure. If that was all there is, the world would have one Niflhel of a lot less problems. Wholly babble, koran, all the same crap. Whatever you want, whether you're a "moral saint" or a genocidal sadist, you can easily "justify" it with one of the "good" books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Check out this article on the pagan origins of biblical morality: http://nosha.secularhumanism.net/essays/sierichs6.html Apparently the bible isn't as original as christians like to say it is.... Shocking, I know. The latest fad in Christianity is that now a few churches are claiming Judaism is redundant, since the funny-mentals claim Jesus existed since time began. They view the Jewish religion as a place-holder and that Christianity has always been around. Where Christianity absorbed many of the old religions, they are now trying to absorb Judaism too. The Christian doctrine of stealing stuff of other faiths and lying about it is still going strong. I should write an article on Christian Doctrine of Theft Through Faith. I haven't read all the article you posted about. I have read in another site, where Moses took his laws from the Egyptian book of the dead, almost word for word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aynalhub Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Anything good in the bible can be had unadulterated from anywhere else. Of course, the bible is so deep in many of our minds that we have a downright pavlovian response to it. (sigh) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zefferus Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Although, as others have said above, the bible doesn't contain anything amazing or anything you can't get from other religions, I do still find some things in it to be inspiring. But first, throw out Leviticus and everything Paul wrote, Revelations, Job, stuff like that. I really like Ecclesiates, which is great fun because most xtians hate it. But I think it cuts through a lot of the fluff about what's important in life and what isn't. Problem is, the author goes through what doesn't work first, so most people don't stick with it until they get the point. I also think some of what Jesus said (or is attributed to Jesus anyhow...) makes good sense., though - true - it's mostly pretty generic. I hang onto the story of the widow's mite, and the "separating the sheep from the goats" passage. But nix the parable of the bridegroom. That always disturbed me. And the walking on water thing. Really, now. Thanks Max, as I was reading through the posts on this thread the only bible book I could recall having useful information was Ecclesiastes. So much for my memory. Anyway, I would agree with other comments. Any wisdom, or moral lessons the bible contains can be found elsewhere in more succinct and understandable form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ex-jesusfreak Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Hey Guys, Thank you for all the great non judgemetnal replies on this guys. It really has helped me alot. I completely agree with some of the replies posted on this topic. I do agree that I should expand my horizons and look elsewhere where morals cna be explained and especially without them being contradicted on the next page . I was also just thinking even though I now know that Christianity is false, just like every other religion, maybe I was 'subconciously holding on' I guess it takes a while to completely break free from the 'chains'. ' Thanks again, Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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