Your opinion on the Bible

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-04-12 06:04pm

This thread is inspired by the apparent diversity of opinion regarding religious matters as became evident in the various pope threads.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-04-12 06:09pm

While there is a lot of asstardiness in it i don't think it was written for someone to further themselves.
So as an atheist it would have to be option 3 : Written by some guys based off thier faith.

Ra · Post by Ra » 2005-04-12 06:14pm

I think it was inspired by God, but has been translated so many times as to be kind of watered down (alas, the telephone game analogy) and has influences by the men who wrote the books. You cannot eliminate a man's personal bias when writing anything; it's there in even subtle amounts in any work. And the KJV was obviously changed up a little to conform to beliefs of the time.
I'm religious, but I'm also no fundie. I know that YEC is a bunch of crap, and has no basis in science. However, I still have faith in my Creator. There are things (especially in the Old Testament) that conflict with modern morality, to say the least. Just some insight on where I stand.
- Ra

Post by **LadyTevar** » 2005-04-12 06:15pm

Inspired by God.
Written by man, and edited heavily over the years.

Still, the basic message gets across... to most people.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2005-04-12 06:20pm

Damnit, I clicked the wrong one. I meant to click inspired by God, instead of inspired by faith. But yes, insipred by God, and then heavily ruined by human involvement.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2005-04-12 06:40pm

A little bit of faith, quite a bit more of asstardery.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-04-12 06:46pm

When peoples' faiths become intertwined with self-interest, the distinction between the two becomes irrelevant. That's what happened to the ancient priests who wrote the Bible.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2005-04-12 07:00pm

Inspired by faith and old timey stories and then compiled and taken WAAAAAAY to seriously...

[Tangent]Hmmm... I wonder if there are any Fundamentalist Discordians out there?

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2005-04-12 07:53pm

A Mix of 3 and 4. Varring in amount from volume to volume.

Zor

Nick Lancaster · Post by **Nick Lancaster** » 2005-04-12 07:54pm

I think once it got to the point of councils and committees deciding what books to include or exclude, the 'inspiration by God' becomes less of a factor - how can God inspire someone to write a book or gospel, yet inspire others to discard it?

Inevitably, the process becomes a select few upholding those portions of testament which agree with their views/understanding.

At the same time, where would the Church be if anyone could hand in a stack of scribble and claim it as divine inspiration? (Before the modern printing press, this would have been less of a concern - how many people would take the time and effort to set their testimony on paper? Now, every idiot with a blog thinks of themselves as a reporter or expert.)

Is it only applicable if it comes from the time of Christ? How do you establish standards for provenance, and is doing so mutually exclusive from faith?

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-04-12 07:59pm

Based off history with some made up shit. A wierd book, in total.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-04-12 08:10pm

Mixture of the last two options.

Pentateuch was a mixture of oral histories, traditions and mythology, what exactly you call that is up to you. The rest is similar stuff, shared mythology, propaganda, poetry, moral lessons, geneaologies, cultural stuff and so on.

Canonicity in carthage obviously had agendas and politics influencing what was put in.

Petrosjko · Post by **Petrosjko** » 2005-04-13 12:11am

Mostly option 4.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2005-04-13 12:14am

I figure it started with option 3. Over time, option 4 made it's way in.

The Silence and I · Post by **The Silence and I** » 2005-04-13 12:32am

I figure it was inspired by faith in God for the most part. I am still working on that idea though so I may have something else to say should a similat thread appear at a later date.

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2005-04-13 12:50am

You would think a book about such whimsical things as talking animals, global floods, monsters, magic, gods and warfare would at least be amusing, if not downright entertaining. Somehow, the authors managed to make it long, boring, redundant and inconsistent. Asstardery.

I don't think I need to point out the inherent danger of regarding such a shitty book as sacred, holy, or the inerrant word of the Creator. In this day it is still used as the foundation of harmful ideologies and as fuel for backwards crusades; undoubtedly more so in its own day. Self-serving asstardery.

4.

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2005-04-13 12:59am

Darth Raptor wrote:You would think a book about such whimsical things as talking animals, global floods, monsters, magic, gods and warfare would at least be amusing, if not downright entertaining. Somehow, the authors managed to make it long, boring, redundant and inconsistent. Asstardery.

An interesting hypothesis I heard about this:

It's all monotheism's fault. In a polytheistic religion, you have all these gods running around doing crazy cool stuff in their stories because they have to compete against each other. If Jehovah actually had to compete in storytelling contests with Ba'al and Ishtar and all those other gods and goddesses instead of just having his fan club slaughter all the other believers, the Bible would be a lot more entertaining. But no, he had to be a sore loser.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2005-04-13 02:25am

Started out as number 3, but moved quickly to number 4.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2005-04-13 03:05am

It's obviously written by people, not inspired with whoever this God-person is. That leaves 3 or 4. What we can observe right now, and a lot of historical accounts seem to imply option #4, yet we have no evidence that it was done just for the sake of it (a.k.a. #3), so I have to vote 4.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2005-04-13 03:07am

Apparently, so far the only "difference of opinion" seems to be whether the guys who made all that crap up were well-intentioned or assholes. Those who think a deity actually had something to do with it are very few.

Robert Walper · Post by **Robert Walper** » 2005-04-13 07:55am

Option number four, without hesistation.

Avalon616 · Post by **Avalon616** » 2005-04-13 09:32am

Which bible?

I assumed you meant the Pauline Bible, and the most known version being the King James version. That would definitely be asstards all the way. Cause Paul didn't have anything to do with the work of Christ! He looked at the followings, and went, "Ok, but we're gonna do this instead..."

If you went with a Gnostic or a Coptic Bible, or any more ancient bible that was written in the times of Christ and followed the actual philosophies of Christ and the Essenes, I would lean towards more inspired by their faith. Even so, with our inability to translate the ancient Aramaic (sp?) thoroughly combined with the supression of all incongruous documents by the Catholic (Pauline) Church, makes it hard to analyze the motives and situation of any surviving documents.

The Guid · Post by **The Guid** » 2005-04-13 11:55am

Written by men inspired by their faith in God.

Edited by assholes. There is so much Biblical text we're not allowed to see.

Ra · Post by Ra » 2005-04-13 01:44pm

The Guid wrote:Written by men inspired by their faith in God.

Edited by assholes. There is so much Biblical text we're not allowed to see.

The Appocrypha (sp?) comes to mind. As a Protestant, I've never even seen the Appocrypha books, while they are still in Catholic Bibles. Every time I asked about it, the preacher or whoever would say "oh, it doesn't add anything important". Makes me wonder...
- Ra

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2005-04-13 02:12pm

Ra wrote:The Appocrypha (sp?) comes to mind. As a Protestant, I've never even seen the Appocrypha books, while they are still in Catholic Bibles. Every time I asked about it, the preacher or whoever would say "oh, it doesn't add anything important". Makes me wonder...

The Jewish and Christian holy texts were compiled in a completely asinine and stupid fashion that would shame a modern editor. In both cases a coterie of theologians got together hundreds or thousands of years after the events recorded in the various texts supposedly occurred, and then decided which went in and which would be lost forever. This is the decision making process that brought us two completely contradictory accounts of creation in Genesis, as well as four "definitive" records of Christ's life and acts which disagree as often as not. Dumb spelled d-u-m.

I would say the the inspiration varies from book to book of the bible. In some cases, the original authors wrote what they really thought had happened (mainly Genesis). In other cases, they were making shit up to serve whatever end they wanted. Some good examples are Exodus and the gospels. Archaeological evidence recently found that the book of Exodus is more or less a total fabrication. And a lot of the contradictions between the Gospels seem to play a political role. One Gospel has Jesus as the man of the people, visited at his manger by lowly shepherds and refusing to associate with the rich (social justice). Another gospel has him visited and paid homage to by magi of the East (Christ as king of kings). And one can't forget the books written by Paul, which had almost nothing to do with Jesus and were just bullshit screeds written by an ex-pharisee hack.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Your opinion on the Bible

The Bible is:

Your opinion on the Bible