Dealing with the bible's hate speech

[Vixentrox]

"Hell, my name is Jane Doe. I'm here to give you a message of love. Fuckity fuck, murder torture, rape, women suck and don't swallow. Blah blah blah" 30 minuttes later. "Oh how I love you. Rainbows and butterflies. Peace to all. None shall want". Continues for 30 minutes. "The end".

 

Xtian listener having seemingly total amnesia about the first half of the speech, "That Jane Doe is so awesome. She has all the answers. Just follow her guidance and all will be well".

 

This is what Xtians do everyday when they try to ignore almost the entire first half of thier holy book. How can they be so intellectually dishonest? Good question but I suppose that's what being brainwashed and wanting to feel accepted does to people.

[Merlinfmct87]

Zoe, TFT... brilliant posts.

 

Merlin

[duderonomy]

Vixentrox...

You err, my friend. I would NEVER forget the ones who don't swallow. That's why there's a Hell!

 

OK...before I get flamed...what I'm really saying is...good point.

Like God not only changes His mind from OT to NT, but He STILL holds a grudge against the OT enemies.

 

Consider king Saul, who spared ONE Amelekite, and was bumped out of office and killed (by God) for it. But Christians are to turn the other cheek, forgive our enemies, and over come evil with good?

 

Looks like King Saul, while trying to obey Gods devilish orders, actually had a spark of First Baptist in him. So why did God replace him with David, the adulterer, murderer, deceptive leader guy?

Oh, and as for David's sins, was he punished? Of course... but not himself, because HE WAS A MAN AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART (i.e. rape, murder, kill your enemies, kill your friends that trust you because they may expose your treachery, etc.). So God killed Davids child, and had the Saviour come through Dave's loins (although you can't see that in the NT begats).

 

Makes perfect sense to me...you just need to see it through the eye of faith.

 

Sorry if this seems to be a herky jerky post, but it is Friday ;-), and I sometimes get so heated reading these posts that my brain outruns my typing.

 

[GiantBear]

Hey all!

 

Great topic and posts. Loving it!

 

When I was Christian.....

 

the things that came to mind when I pondered O.T. horrors were....

 

1. If I didn't become Christian, this stuff would just piss me off

(I needed to repress this feeling to survive.)

 

2. Everybody deserves to be tortured forever anyways, so atrocities have to be acceptable in the meantime.

(I'm reminded of hanging out with some Christians when I was a Christian. Just listening to them talk. One was blind. One had a horrible illness that was worse than blindness. They complained. Spiritual sounding complaints, of course. My best friend was saying that he wonders how they deal with God allowing that. I was thinking to myself .....'well if we all deserve eternal torture, then it is weird to complain about anything.' Don't worry. I didn't say it out loud.)

 

3. There is a N.T. verse about the law being part punishment.

(God is pissed so he will have some unbearable laws for those Jews as part of his punishment-plan.)

 

4. The WTF-ish quote (maybe from Karl Barth) about "God operates above the law, yet within the law."

(What a splendid mystery! Haha. God squeezed unlawful acts into the law just like he squeezed himself into the form of a man)

 

These kind of thoughts held me over for a while. But.. now I'm on Ex-C. *shrug*

 

Peace,

GiantBear

[narcissist]

The christian declares: "God/God's word is the same yesterday, today and forever", "God never changes", "God is immutable" "God's word is as relevant today as it was when written" etc, etc. Someone then points out biblical attrocities perpetrated by God, to which the christian responds "Those were different times."

 

Compare/contrast some christians' support for the death penalty. Point out to them biblical commands not to kill, turn the other cheek, etc to which they respond, "Those were different times."

 

No wonder I am no longer a christian.

[duderonomy]

You know what bums me out?

This thread is called 'Debating with Christians', yet 99% of the posts are us ex-Christians ranting. Where are the defenders of the faith?

We're preaching to the ex-choir (c'mon, that's Funny!).

I'd love a good debate about most of the issues here. Maybe the Christians have written me/us off as reprobates? After all, doesn't the 'Word' say don't get involved with unbeilevers (reprobates, those who argue genealogies, philosophies, science...falsely so called, etc...)?

All the Christians who troll/lurk here must be obeying the Word of their God. They are like Angels, who can see the evil in the world, but aren't allowed to preach the Gospel as they fly through the skies in these last days.

Even though these Christians are instructed to pull our *sses out of the fire, while our very clothing may smell like Hellfire, they do nothing!

Easier, I guess, to let us swill in our unbelief and hatred and bitterness.

Not a daring one among them here?

They would do well to remember that at the end of the book the cowardly and fearful are also left out (let the reader understand).

 

If I'm wrong, fallen, a weaker brother, or even just a bitter man in chains...please, if you're a representative of God, come and get me. Rescue me. Beware, though, you who think you stand! Tomorrow, you, too might fall.

 

I do know this though... if you, or even an Angel from Heaven preach another Gospel (which is not another), then YOU are Anathema!

 

So when you come to rescue me, please be careful. I'd hate to see you preach the wrong thing, and thus go to Hell forever, despite your best efforts towards me.

[Lokmer]

I don't like what I'm reading in the Old Testament in many parts but I'm still going to see it in it's totality rather than verse by verse or story by story. If the total message fails......then there's a problem.

This "total message" approach seems erroneous to me.

....

More importantly, I don't understand how a large number of "positive" statements can cancel out evil, immoral ones.

 

Well said, TF...

 

"Don’t you know that a little yeast affects the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough." I Corinthians 5:6b-7a

 

-Lokmer

[Lokmer]

This is what Xtians do everyday when they try to ignore almost the entire first half of thier holy book.  How can they be so intellectually dishonest?

 

IIRC, it's actually more like 3/4 of the book...

 

For all his faults, you must give credit where credit is due to people like John Calvin, who had the "courage" to put the "full message" of the "love" of God into practice in Geneva.

 

All Protestant theology is based on Calvin, but they don't demonstrate the courage of their convictions as a rule. And thank (whoever) for that!

 

"Most Christians are good people. They are more moral than the God of the Bible. They are kinder and more generous than Jesus." -Dan Barker

 

-Lokmer

[shy1680]

You know what bums me out?

This thread is called 'Debating with Christians', yet 99% of the posts are us ex-Christians ranting. Where are the defenders of the faith?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

They are too busy on CF telling the Muslims about the evils of the Quran and ranting about how Satan created all other religions and how everyone is going to hell, even damning each other to hell. I posted a thank you note to Satan and all his other religions because the majority of his spawns are pretty cool people, they arent wishing me to hell for not believing in their God, dont think they liked that too much.

[Guest Son of Belial]

Just thought I would use this opportunity to repost these...

 

 

 

[crazy-tiger]

Just thought I would use this opportunity to repost these...

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Wade]

When I was a Xtian....I either just "didnt think about it".....or I wasn't aware of all the horrible things in the bible.

 

Like many others... actually reading the bible was one of the reasons for my de-conversion.

 

 

It's not like these things were ever actually discussed in church. (at least the ones I went to)

 

 

When discussing these type of things with my Xtian friends I try to remember my frame of mind when I was still brainwashed.

[indoctrinated]

Interesting stuff.

 

I'm not really interested in "defending" Christianity. I may well be on my way out myself.

 

But not all Christians are fundamentalists.

 

I haven't quite given up on Christianity yet, but I haven't thought that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God for a long time. I'm not sure I ever did, really. I see it as a record of the early years of my religious tradition. As such, I am at liberty to agree with some parts and think some parts are wrong. I can also explore the historical context and try to read between the lines.

 

 

So I can agree with the parable of the book of Jonah that God cares about "foreigners" just as much as the "chosen" people. Or I can side with the "holy war" stuff. I can agree with the story of Ruth that it's okay to intermarry with other races, or I can go with the polemic against intermarriage that occurs in Ezra.

 

And I can try to understand the different cultural and political contexts which produced those two responses.

 

One way of looking at it is that there is a debate going on within its pages.

 

I also have to take into account genre, rhetoric etc.

 

It is a book written by lots of different people. There are actually different viewpoints which disagree with each other. Which is one reason why you can find a verse to support any viewpoint you like!

 

 

Some of it is obviously propaganda. A lot of the "holy war" stuff actually didn't happen according to the archaeologists. Doesn't make it "nice" propaganda, of course! They were a tiny unimportant nation in the midst of poweful empires. And they indulged in some nationalistic propaganda. It wouldn't be a big deal if people didn't try to apply it literalistically to today's very different world situation!

 

As a Christian I can also say that Jesus or Paul were part of their culture so that they could obviously get some things wrong. Paul, in particular was theologising on his feet and his thought obviously changed and developed. He was responding to events as they unfolded.

 

The bit in Romans about unnatural acts or whatever is part of a longer rhetorical piece where he is obviously playing on his Jewish readers prejudices building up to the "Yeh, but none of us can afford to be self-righteous. It's about grace not law, stupid!".

 

Just thought I'd rally for the cause, since as you say, it seems that most of the people posting are non-christians!

 

Bottom line. The Bible is a human book. It is not obligatory for Christians to think otherwise. It is not part of our belief that it was written by automatic writing or dictated by God. Maybe the ten commandments on the two tablets. But not the rest!

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

Welcome Indoctrinated.

 

I realize that not all christians are fundamentalists, and therefore don't believe that every word of the bible is inspired by god, nor meant to be followed.

 

What level of reverance, if any, do you give to the bible as a whole? Is it strictly a history book, is it deserving of respect and/or honor, etc?

[indoctrinated]

Welcome Indoctrinated.

 

I realize that not all christians are fundamentalists, and therefore don't believe that every word of the bible is inspired by god, nor meant to be followed.

 

What level of reverance, if any, do you give to the bible as a whole?  Is it strictly a history book, is it deserving of respect and/or honor, etc?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hi, thanks for the welcome!

 

I have a great affection for the Bible, strange as it may sound. I grew up in a house with very few books and my church encouraged me to read and memorise the KJV. It gave me an appreciation of language, and to some extent protected me against the worst excesses of fundamentalist interpretation. I instinctively recognised for instance that the first chapters of Genesis were poetic and metaphorical.

 

That doesn't mean I wasn't damaged by my indoctrination by that church, as well as by coming from a dysfunctional family. I suppose it means I don't blame the Bible for that. (In fact I think it's pointless blaming anybody. It happened! I have to deal with it. Of course I often feel angry about it; of course I want to understand why people acted and still act the way they do.)

 

So, I think the Bible is religious literature, a part of my cultural heritage. After all, allusions to it are all around in art and literature. I think it is instructive in the sense that it contains people's ideas about God, the universe and everything. I don't think it is historically accurate, but it is a primary text which historians can use to gain information. In most cases it tells us more about what people thought about events than what actually happened.

 

I think it is dangerous and absurd when people use it in the wrong way. I particularly find it sad that otherwise well educated and intelligent people switch off their critical faculties when they approach the Bible.

 

But that's how I feel now. It's been a long journey which isn't finished yet!

[Eponymic]

I have a great affection for the Bible, strange as it may sound. I grew up in a house with very few books and my church encouraged me to read and memorise the KJV. It gave me an appreciation of language, and to some extent protected me against the worst excesses of fundamentalist interpretation. I instinctively recognised for instance that the first chapters of Genesis were poetic and metaphorical.

 

 

That's often the hardest part for people to resolve when they are trying to reconcile their religion. Especially if you are thinking about leaving the religion.

 

It's not so much the religion itself sometimes, it's all the positive memories of growing up & your history with it that people think they are giving up or are devalued because they leave their old religion.

 

When in fact its not lessening, it's just learning & moving forward. But it's always hard to see that when you have so much emotionally invested in something.

 

All the best on your individual journey, Indoctrinated.

[willybilly30]

this is something i dont think ill ever understand about the bible.

 

ok god knows everything right he knows past, present, future?

 

he puts a tree of knowledge in the garden knowing adam and eve will eat it, he created an angel lucifer knowing he will be satan and tempt everyone. and creates people he knows will reject him and creates hell for these people.

 

if you hate someone so much you wanna burn them forever why create them?

 

and then he sends his ongly begotten son too die on the cross so whoever beleaves in him will not perish but have ever lasting life.

 

he send him too forgive sins. why god couldnt of just appeared and said everyone beleave in me besides torturing his son on a cross ill never understand.

 

how many of yall need too crucify your son too forgive someone?

 

whyd god create sin, evil and all that stuff hed send people too hell for i dont get it?

 

iv asked christians and they say cause god wanted people too have a choice.

 

hmm lets see either i be christian or burn in hell. yea god makes damn shure your choice is him. sorta like a street mugger putting a gun too your head and saying give me alll your money or i shoot ya. thats called a threat! not a choice.

 

too show my point more lets use homosexuals for example.

 

they say their born that way. so you was made gay.

 

god knew youd be gay when he created you because he knows everything.

 

he gives you a choice quit being like i made you and be this other way a christian or go too hell forever.

 

lets face it he made you gay just so he could stick you in hell.

 

and you gotta beleave a man you never met who supposedly lived 2000 years ago you cant find no history or information on exept the bible. cant find his birthday, what he looked like or anything.

 

i just dont get it. any body wanna try too explain this too me.

[Mike D]

if you hate someone so much you wanna burn them forever why create them?

Because you love them so much, you didn't want them to be a robot so you give them the free will to send themselves to hell.

 

That's the explanation I usually get from Christians on this.... got created hell for us to go to, because he loves us soooooo much!

[daniel_1012]

One of my personal favorite of the unsettling stories in the OT, is in 2 kings 6:26-31

 

26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, "Help me, my lord the king!"

 

27 The king replied, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?" 28 Then he asked her, "What's the matter?"

She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.' 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

 

30 When the king heard the woman's words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body. 31 He said, "May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!"

 

... maybe not the best story to tell your kids before tucking them in, but then again... I wouldn't tell them in detail events of the holocost either.

[Fweethawt]

2 kings 6:26-31

 

26 As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall, a woman cried to him, "Help me, my lord the king!"

 

27 The king replied, "If the LORD does not help you, where can I get help for you? From the threshing floor? From the winepress?" 28 Then he asked her, "What's the matter?"

      She answered, "This woman said to me, 'Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.' 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."

 

30 When the king heard the woman's words, he tore his robes. As he went along the wall, the people looked, and there, underneath, he had sackcloth on his body. 31 He said, "May God deal with me, be it ever so severely, if the head of Elisha son of Shaphat remains on his shoulders today!"

 

I'm not quite sure I follow this story here. Why would the king want to cut someone elses head off because some woman suckered him into eating his son?

 

I would think that he would go after the woman.

[willybilly30]

I'm not quite sure I follow this story here. Why would the king want to cut someone elses head off because some woman suckered him into eating his son? 

 

I would think that he would go after the woman. 

 

why are they eating their kids anyway?

[willybilly30]

if god treats people he loves like that what does he do too people he hates. dosent sound like love too me.

 

 

Because you love them so much, you didn't want them to be a robot so you give them the free will to send themselves to hell. 

 

That's the explanation I usually get from Christians on this.... got created hell for us to go to, because he loves us soooooo much! 

[Fweethawt]

why are they eating their kids anyway?

The answer to that will be something along the lines of, "Well, there was a great famine during that time. And so, they had to eat their children."

 

And that answer will prove the existence of the bible god.

 

 

[daniel_1012]

if god treats people he loves like that what does he do too people he hates. dosent sound like love too me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

What do you mean?

[willybilly30]

What do you mean?

i dont know its just the more i think about it the more i cant understand it. he created people knowing how theyd be then sends them too hell. yet their not robots and have a choice. but god knew what choice theyd make. if god created people and didnt have a clue what kind of people theyd be then you could say well he didnt know they be that way. also now that i think about it didnt he want us too be robots? i just dont get it.