MultifariousBirdLady Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 I still have mine. In fact, as I started to look more closely into what the Bible actually said, I went out and got others (to compare) and eventually ended up getting a couple different concordances, too. Like asanerman, I also have other reference books (including a Greek lexicon, though I got it more for Greek religious stuff than Biblical stuff), commentaries, etc. Years ago I did take a couple religious books, set them on fire, then throw them in a lake. That was a special case. It was very cathartic at the time, but at this point I'd be just as happy to still have them around. I did feel conflicted about burning books at all, actually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asanerman Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 It's the mind games we play that are silly! At once I agree and disagree and I'm trying to figure out why. Come on Legion. Think, damn you. Why do you agree and disagree with this? I disagree because I have chosen the path of the mind warrior. And if I agree with it, I will have to re-examine that choice. Well done Legion. Now why do you agree with it? I agree because the mind games we play often are silly. What do we hope for? Men who stare at goats? Good for you Legion, Good for you! A true "mind warrior!" Always re-examining each side of the coin! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 Positivist, I remember the day I went to Barnes and Noble to purchase Dawkins' The God Delusion. Talking about paranoid, I was 59 years young at the time and I felt like a high school freshman buying his first pack of "rubbers" at the corner neighborhood Walgreen's and the cashier taking my money was my mother! The cashier at B&N's had that "you're an infidel" look in her eye's as she took my money and stuffed the "contraband" into that nice green and I don't get that "your an infidel" sense of exposure at bookstores, but I did two weeks ago at the public library when I checked out John Loftus' "The Christian Delusion." There's been a few other titles where I've gotten that "judged by" feeling when checking books out. I'm in my mid-40's, by the way. It's the same feeling as the first time I bought condoms at the drug store. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TotalWreck Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 LOL! Wow, this is really interesting. I can understand keeping ones that were given to you as gifts, but I find it interesting that so many people still keep their bibles and Christian books. I have to ask: Do you all still keep your bibles because deep down inside you're scared to completely let go of Christianity? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TotalWreck Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 couple of months ago, i cleared my book shelves dedicated to christianity..... at least 10 different copies of bible, chinese (2 versions), leather bound bible, discovery bible, greek-english new testament (did not even started reading and deconversion starts), KJV, NIV, New NIV and can't remember versions of english bibles and autobiograhies of various missionaries, commentaries, christian fictions and help book on evangelism, anger, demon possessions and don't know whatnots,,,,, must be at least a couple hundred of books, all thick and thin.... put in the garbage bag, and left beside the garbage dump,,,,, i don't want t know what the garbage collector do it,,, it actually felt pretty good at the time, feeling the closing of the past error era of believing......think that i must have spending thousands of dollars on these books,,,,, sigh,,,,, That's exactly how I felt! It was so liberating to get rid of my bible and the Christian books that I had and I don't miss them a bit! It was almost like a weight was lifted off my shoulders and I could finally move on with my life. I didn't want those books to be around me during one of my "desperate" times where I might have ran to those books for temporary comfort and fall back into the tiresome cycle again. Terrible you spent so much money on all that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VacuumFlux Posted December 12, 2011 Share Posted December 12, 2011 LOL! Wow, this is really interesting. I can understand keeping ones that were given to you as gifts, but I find it interesting that so many people still keep their bibles and Christian books. I have to ask: Do you all still keep your bibles because deep down inside you're scared to completely let go of Christianity? Most of mine were given to me as gifts, and a few have my name stamped in gold on the cover. At some point I wanted nothing to do with 'em, found reading 'em traumatic... but that's faded and they don't mean much to me. I meant to go back and read the bible from the deconverted perspective, and started to a few times, but found that I don't care that much about it any more. And I love books and am a bit of a packrat, so they're just in the stack with all the other books I never have enough time for. I've never even sold back a textbook from my most boring classes, just in case they might contain information that I'll want in the future. If I really want to look something up, I use the computer becuase its search is easier than flipping through a concordance. Sometimes it's more theraputic to treat the bible the same as all my other books, or to put it up there next to my collection of fairy stories, with the realization that I no longer feel so strongly about it that I'd bother to spend the energy to get rid of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 LOL! Wow, this is really interesting. I can understand keeping ones that were given to you as gifts, but I find it interesting that so many people still keep their bibles and Christian books. I have to ask: Do you all still keep your bibles because deep down inside you're scared to completely let go of Christianity? No. Its just a recognition that it was and is still part of me. I don't care about them. I don't think about the Bibles or the other Christian books. Maybe its something like a trophy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badpuppy Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 At one point in my life I made the decision not to have things in my house which I found depressing or overall negative. I won't have things like The Exorcism in my house (not because i believe in demon possession or demons. I don't, but because movies like that depress the hell out of me.) I won't have a bible in my house for much the same reason. It's just too negative and too much evil shit justified in the name of a deity. No thanks, I'll pass. With regards to reference, the bible is online, so I never saw the need for having my very own physical copy of stuff I don't believe in. But I can't really see a reason anymore to need it for reference, either. I don't argue with Christians because I figure if they want out of their belief system they'll take the necessary steps and if they ask me there are sites I can refer them to. But I don't see a need to ever reference the book for the same reason I've never felt compelled to reference the Koran or even crack the spine. But I know other people's mileage varies on that point. There was a time I still needed a reference. But it just seems with online references and bibles that even then having it in my house would have been pointless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badpuppy Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 I got rid of all my Bibles except for one. It is the one I used during my deconversion process, and it has notes all over the margins. Quite a few "WTF"s and other assorted vulgarities mixed in with scholarly observations. HA! I wish I had a bible I had "WTF'd" up. If I had, I might have kept it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MultifariousBirdLady Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 I can understand keeping ones that were given to you as gifts, but I find it interesting that so many people still keep their bibles and Christian books. I have to ask: Do you all still keep your bibles because deep down inside you're scared to completely let go of Christianity? Well, see, initially the bibles (and bible resources) I have went from being a source of anguish and confusion to ammunition to use in online arguments. And if anybody ever wants to see the oddities that most Christians don't know about, I can pull this stuff out and show it to them. But now... well, for quite a while now I've also just plain had a love of religious studies. Most of my anger and hurt has subsided, and I'm very clear about my reasons for disbelief, so I don't feel a compulsion to use them as debate references anymore. I can appreciate the bibles and the other Christian literature I have in a whole different way at this point, especially after learning a lot more about their historical contexts and contributing cultural influences. That perspective puts these things in a completely different light. I still dislike the parts of these books that are outright manipulative, but even that can be illustrative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdog Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 I have one bible left. It's tucked away in a cupboard somewhere. I threw the other bibles out in trash bags and put them in the dumpster. I didn't even want to donate or sell them. I didn't want anyone getting 'infected' with the stuff. LOL I had a woman's devotional, King James bible, NIV bible, concordances, I had some Christian books too. "For My Utmost Highest"....how come that is a standard for so many Christians? "Streams in the Desert" and other books. I had quite a few. I kinda wish I hadn't thrown one bible out as it was from years ago. oh well. I still have a common prayer book from the UK my grandmother gave me. I didn't want to part with that. but yeah i don't know why I won't throw out my leather bound bible in it's canvas zip up cover. LOL not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skeithx Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 The KJV in my android. Does that still count? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 LOL! Wow, this is really interesting. I can understand keeping ones that were given to you as gifts, but I find it interesting that so many people still keep their bibles and Christian books. I have to ask: Do you all still keep your bibles because deep down inside you're scared to completely let go of Christianity? First of all not everybody in my house is an ex-Christian. So if I threw all Bibles away that could be a problem. However if we all did de-convert I would still keep the nice Catholic one simply because it is so useful. It includes texts from multiple manuscript sources so you can see the discrepancies side by side. I have no problem letting go of all Christianity. A trace of theism lasted longer but it was not a Christian theism. It seems common for ex-Christians to have something hang on longer than other beliefs. Either way I have started throwing away old Bibles that we don't use. I once believed that was sin as they were the Word of God. Now if I don't use them anymore then they are trash in my eyes. I was cleaning out an old box and found three Gideon New Testaments. Away they went into the circular file. If burning them would have served my needs I would have had no problem doing that. My fireplace is not functional so I didn't bother. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
izzytheterri Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 It's kind of sad but also funny... I do still have a copy of the Bible. I'd lost mine over the years of moving. When I found out my mother was going to have heart surgery, I purchased one and poured my heart into it. I didn't exactly know what I was praying for, but I felt like I would find it. A short time later, I stopped talking to my mother. She'd abused me my entire life, even into adulthood and I managed to break away. I also then discovered Buddhism, and broke free from Christianity. I do not believe that the Bible is evil, I think that it's a religious text like many and that there is some really good wisdom in it. I also think there's history and a lot of terror, but in reality... it's just a book. I keep my books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyChef Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 At my lowest point emotionally in my deconversion I burned my bible and all the other "holy" books I'd been given.I was so full of rage at the time It was the only way I could get out from under that emotional poison. It was a turning point for me to destroy the "source" of all the abuse and neglect I had endured to that point. I wrote about it in my first post on this site but I think the admin. could see all the hate I had in me and thought I was just a Troll making trouble. Over the last four years I've done a lot of growing and healing thanks to this site and the good people on it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badpuppy Posted December 13, 2011 Share Posted December 13, 2011 At my lowest point emotionally in my deconversion I burned my bible and all the other "holy" books I'd been given.I was so full of rage at the time It was the only way I could get out from under that emotional poison. It was a turning point for me to destroy the "source" of all the abuse and neglect I had endured to that point. I wrote about it in my first post on this site but I think the admin. could see all the hate I had in me and thought I was just a Troll making trouble. Over the last four years I've done a lot of growing and healing thanks to this site and the good people on it. I didn't burn my bible but that is a lot of how I looked at it as well. It wasn't "bad people" that had been the source of emotional abuse and panic attacks for me... it was the teachings of the bible themselves. Therefore the bible was, in a very real way, an instrument of abuse for me. It wasn't something I wanted to continue to look at or have in my personal space. It was a big deal to me to be able to have the freedom to leave all that behind and not to HAVE to have such a book in my house. I mean, I respect that everybody is different and has a different experience/perspective, but that's where I was coming from so I can definitely identify with you here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MultifariousBirdLady Posted December 15, 2011 Share Posted December 15, 2011 At my lowest point emotionally in my deconversion I burned my bible and all the other "holy" books I'd been given.I was so full of rage at the time It was the only way I could get out from under that emotional poison. It was a turning point for me to destroy the "source" of all the abuse and neglect I had endured to that point. I had a similar experience at one point in my healing but it didn't involve the texts. It involved a particular icon. It was just what I needed. Over the last four years I've done a lot of growing and healing thanks to this site and the good people on it. Good to hear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurari Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 I do, but I save it for reference now if I need to check something for a debate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xerces Posted December 16, 2011 Share Posted December 16, 2011 Nope, I destroyed mine. Bibles belong in the garbage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShackledNoMore Posted December 17, 2011 Share Posted December 17, 2011 After many years I actually burned one bible that was particularly baggage laden. The rest I mostly unceremoniously threw away--I may still have one of them somewhere, but I'm not sure. When I read the bible again with a thinking mind, or whenever I need to reference it (largely to look up or quote something related to a topic on this site), I exclusively use online bibles. They're much more convenient, easily searchable, work great with ctrl-c and ctrl-v, and it's easy to reference and compare different versions, all while having the resources of the Internet at your fingertips if you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VacuumFlux Posted December 30, 2011 Share Posted December 30, 2011 Saw this comic today and it reminded of this thread: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/12/29/nakedpastor-bible-history/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MultifariousBirdLady Posted December 31, 2011 Share Posted December 31, 2011 Saw this comic today and it reminded of this thread: http://www.patheos.c...-bible-history/ Yep, I'd say that's pretty accurate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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