Census Do you believe in the bible?

I don't have many problems with the Bible as a work of literature, and a cultural treasure. It's when people start treating it as, well--the Bible--that it starts getting thorny. It does say some pretty hurtful things, and plenty of people are willing to take those and run. The Bible has caused a lot of violence in the world. I don't believe in that.

I really like that verse from 2 Timothy: 16 Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness. Only the Bible isn't the only Scripture. Like any great work of art or literature, there is a lot of insight and inspiration that can be had from it. And if each is given different gifts, and God speaks to us all in different ways, why should we idolise one scripture above others?

 

Typical Nord, worshipping the pretender god. May the Eight curse you.

 

Typical mortals, worshiping your false Aedric spirits. HEED THE WORDS OF THE THRICE-BLESSED:

The Scripture of the Wheel, First:
'The Spokes are the eight components of chaos, as yet solidified by the law of time: static change, if you will, something the lizard gods refer to as the Striking. That is the reptile wheel, coiled potential, ever-preamble to the never-action.'
Second:
'They are the lent bones of the Aedra, the Eight gift-limbs to SITHISIT, the wet earth of the new star our home. Outside them is the Aurbis, and not within. Like most things inexplicable, it is a circle. Circles are confused serpents, striking and striking and never given leave to bite. The Aedra would have you believe different, but they were givers before liars. Lies have turned them into biters. Their teeth are the proselytizers; to convert is to place oneself in the mouth of falsehood; even to propitiate is to be swallowed. '
Third:
'The enlightened are those uneaten by the world.'
Fourth:
'The spaces between the gift-limbs number sixteen, the signal shapes of the Demon Princedoms. It is the key and the lock, series and manticore.'
Fifth:
'Look at the majesty sideways and all you see is the Tower, which our ancestors made idols from. Look at its center and all you see is the begotten hole, second serpent, womb-ready for the Right Reaching, exact and without enchantment.'
Sixth:
'The heart of the second serpent holds the secret triangular gate.'
Seventh:
'Look at the secret triangular gate sideways and you see the secret Tower.'
Eighth:
'The secret Tower within the Tower is the shape of the only name of God, I.'
The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.

-36 Lessons of Vivec, Sermon 21

 

I'd like to discuss a couple of things you mentioned if that's okay.

Kill your child for talking back to you-> Not sure what story in the bible this is referencing.

Rape is okay if you marry the victim-> I believe this refers to Deuteronomy 22:28-29;

"If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated (anah) her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." (NIV)​

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How does saying "for he has violated her" make rape okay? By that society's standards, rape had made her un-marryable because she was no-longer a virgin. By society's view in her day, by marrying her after she'd been raped, you were committing social suicide. Not because the law written in the Bible said she was un-marryable, it's just what people thought in those days. Same sort of thing as if you were unmarried and pregnant in Victorian times; lowest of the low. Heck, rape is still a pretty tabo subject present day.​

By forcing the male who raped the woman to marry her, she was being provided for by being given someone who would look after her when her parents had died. Not only that, but it was also intended as a deterrent. The male who raped her is forced to pay for his actions. He has to pay her father the standard marrage dowry and then work and provide for this woman for the rest of his life. There's nothing that says she's forced to have sex with him again, or even sleep in the same bed. This even allows for if she becomes pregnant through his actions- he then has to provide for both her and his child.​

By the standards of the time, this was revolutionary. Rape victims in other societies would have been thrown out onto the streets and become beggars or prostitutes. Nobody wanted to marry a non-virgin woman because they were considered as unclean or violated. And, sadly, women were seen inferior to men at this time so they had no options of earning a good wage to look after themselves.​

Would this apply now? No of course not. This was written for that society at that time. Women have means to provide for themselves in today's world and if a man rejects a woman for marriage because she was raped once, he's probably not worth marrying in the first place.​

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But wait, there's more...​

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This is actually a simplification of the subject. This is the passage translated straight from the Hebrew;
... “If a man finds a girl who is an unbetrothed virgin, an he lays hold of her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man lying down with her shall give to the girl’s father fifty pieces of silver, and she shall be his wife because he has humbled her; he may not put her away all his days.” [Deuteronomy 22:28-29]

The Hebrew word used for "lays hold of" simply means to grasp something, take, handle something. Same word used when the Bible describes the handling of instruments. The author of the Hebrew is suggesting a seduction of the woman rather than outright forced, violent rape. My own musing follows on this law; I think it has two purposes- to allow for a (rare) circumstance where the woman was willingly seduced by the man, and to make sure men being accused of raping someone couldn't just claim "oh well she didn't fight back so I thought she was okay with it". Notice "not betrothed" is used because the woman has not been promised to any man yet (Israelite courtship was a bit more complicated than today's dating-> engaged-> married). But as I said above, she had had sexual relations before marriage so she would be considered unsuitable to marry and it would be very surprising if another man in that society would have ever willingly wanted to marry her after the event. Therefore the man is made accountable for his actions of seducing her, and becomes her husband.

In Deuteronomy 22v 25-27 we find this;
25 "But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. 26 Do nothing to the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, 27 for the man found the young woman out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one to rescue her."
The word used here is "chazak" which in the context means to force, to be strong. It is essentially saying "If the man forcibly rapes a girl and she fought back with any more than a minimum amount of force, he is to be killed." Modern random rape would fall under this law. As the woman is pledged to be married to another man, as far as I am aware she would go ahead and marry him as normal.

 

May the Nine Divines show you mercy, for their Knights will not.

 

At least is it relates to morals, though, you acknowledge it's got some horrible stuff in there, too. So how do you determine which morals are good and which are bad? And those answers aren't in the bible.

He may be referring to "Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head." in Leviticus. Least that's the part that came to mind to me.

 

deuteronomy 21:18

 

I used to have this quote as my signature, and they're words I abide by:

"The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals." - Christopher Hitchens

But, of course, we are told the repugnant bits of the bible are taken out of context - perhaps by limitations of the language of the time. The same language which confuses "kill" and "murder", softening "thou shalt not kill" to enable you to righteously perforate an individual should they your television, theirs. So when they say "rape", they actually meant good things. You know, if you raped someone, there could be consequences. For truly, the Lord is down with rape.

People claiming this is a moral text clearly cherry pick, which means that it has some interesting moral lessons that could easily be found elsewhere. Either you take the rape, the genocide, the capricious God's word as a whole or you stop calling the damn thing a moral roadmap and broaden your spiritual horizons.

Seriously. Everything else religion has given us, by way of answers of where have we come from and what do the heavens look like, has been proven categorically false by science (I exclude those an evolutionary phase behind us, whose brains cannot comprehend anything beyond "intelligent design" and "creationism"). In short, Man has exposed God's lies (or more accurately, the assumptions of men who didn't know any better when the wrote the Bible). The last fortress they hold is morals, but if the morals exist in codes that lack a deity - looking at you Buddhism - then it may be that Gods and morality aren't related at all. That morality might just pre-date the Bible, the Torah, etc.

 

I don't believe. Partly beause I'm a Jew, so the whole second half of it doesn't apply And the Old Testament dosn't really sit well with me. Too much men being the dominating sect; not enough gay marriage. As suited the times. It doesn't apply today.

That said, whenever the "love your neighbor" stuff pops up, that's always nice.

 

I could have just "liked" this, but Long Halloween! !!!!

 

##$^ them. The Norse Gods are where it's at.

Zeus was a pimp. I'll give him that.

 

Yes yes, Norse folk had much to offer. Loki may just be the greatest character out of the entire mythology. But minotaurs, labrynths, multi headed canine guardians, medusa, titans, and far easier to pronounce names and Greek myths just rate a notch above Norse. Just a notch.

 

Here's my problem with that, ES. You're not taking the Bible as a whole, either. You're just nit-picking the bad stuff out and saying that makes it a terrible thing. Why not just acknowledge that there's some good stuff in there too? I'm not saying that the good stuff is original, I'm not saying it cancels out the bad, and I'm not saying that it's even special. But it makes you seem either ignorant or dumb to act like there are no good things in the Bible at all. That's the equivalent of some dumb Christian saying that Game of Thrones is a worthless, terrible T.V. show with no redeeming value because there's some boobs sometimes.

I mean, the Bible was written by people who existed in a specific period of time at a specific geographical place. Thus, it condones things that we find deplorable. I'm sure you can find a lot of other ancient documents that this is true for (you know, like the U.S. Constitution?). The fact that these deplorable things are present does not magically make all the good things disappear. They just exist, side by side. Because it's an ancient document. Written by people. And that's all it is. Some good, some bad. It's not an evil document, just like the U.S. constitution isn't an evil document. Because documents can't be evil. Because they're just documents.

Lowbacca, I determine that the same way pretty much everybody else determines that. I look at my personal experience and the experiences of those around me, and I decide what I care about, what I like, and what I believe is good and what I believe is bad. This decision is informed by things like art, literature, history, culture, my family, etc.

 

boobs are not objectively bad, prenn. parents murdering their child for disrespecting them is. as long as we're comin' correct

 

Yeah, similes and all that.

Also, idk if I believe in "objectively bad". And I'm kind of surprised you do, tbh.

EDIT: not that it matters, though. I agree with you. Boobs are good and murder is bad.

 

i believe in the bibble about as far as i can throw the bibble (into a bonfire at my feet).

 

you may have me on "objectively bad". jury's out

 

@MASTERPRENN - I specifically did that. I noted the morality stuff is in there, however the problem is none of it is unique to Christianity. The execution might be different, but the underlying concepts are decidedly the same.

My point was this - you can't just take the good or evil out of the Bible. You have to take the wildly inconsistent, the repugnant, the evil and own it as much as the good. Which raises a tonne of questions about the fundamental nature of faith...

 

Haha me too man. I can't make up my mind or not.

ES, we agree then. That's boring.

 

mostly its a matter of semantics for me tho

 

Can't help but wonder if the opening post is lying. Most people who actually believe in the bible tend to capitalize it. "Bible".