The Legislature in Texas in a fit of religious fervor mandated in 2007 that starting in 2009 public schools must teach the "literature and history" of the Good Book. To avoid the obvious constitutional problems of separating Church and State, the law is carefully worded to provide a fig leaf to cover true and rather obvious intent , much akin to how Creationists attempt to hide religious purpose behind the guise of academic freedom.
But rather than continue to engage in this tiresome battle, I say let's fight fire with fire, or at least brimstone with brimstone. Let's agree to teach the bible in all of its bloody, misogynous, murderous, fratricidal glory. Let's teach our impressionable children the following facts about the word of god:
• Exodus 21:20-21
It's OK to kill a slave, because he is nothing but property, but only as long as he does not die from a beating until at least one day later.
• Exodus 21:7
If in need of a little extra income, a father could simply sell his daughter. And of course a female slave is worse off than a male slave; a male slave is automatically freed after 6 years; the woman is never freed.
• Exodus 21:17
The penalty for cursing your parents is death. Perhaps this is not such a bad idea...
• Deuteronomy 22:21
If a woman presents herself as a virgin but is not, on the wedding night, she is to be taken to her father's house and stoned to death. Notice that men do not suffer such a fate. Coincidentally, only men wrote the 66 books that constitute the bible. Women might have fared better with a bit more gender diversity in authorship.
• Leviticus 20:13
Of the exclusively male homosexual acts prohibited by the bible, the penalty for any transgression is death. (Nothing in the bible prohibits lesbian sex).
• Leviticus 16:1-34
God seems to kill people simply for disobeying his word; to get on his good side, these passages in the bible tell how to sacrifice bulls, rams and goats to atone for sins and please god.
But don't think only the Old Testament is nasty and brutish.
• Matthew 10:34
Jesus is no man of peace by his own words: Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I come not to send peace, but a sword.
• Matthew 10:21
Jesus will tear families apart: brother will kill brother, father will kill child, and children will kill parents. That is all OK because it is more important to love Jesus, as we learn next:
• Matthew 10:36
A man's foe shall be they of his own household. Jesus tells us here that if we love our mother and father more than him, we are not worthy. Now there are some family values!
• Matthew 11:20-24
Jesus condemns entire cities to dreadful deaths and eternal damnation because they did not like his sermons.
• Mark 7:9-10
Jesus supports the Old Testament view that disobedient children should be killed, and then criticizes the Jews for not following that law.
• Luke 12:5
Jesus says that we should fear God since he has the power to kill us and then torture us forever in hell; classic effort by religion to frighten people into belief
• John 3:36
If we didn't get the point in Luke, John tells us here that if you don't believe in God, you will feel his wrath forever in hell. Again, not a loving God, but one to be feared as mean and spiteful.
Let us also teach our kids about the amazing inconsistencies in the bible about critical issues. The many authors, none of whom ever met Jesus, can't even agree on when Jesus was born.
• Matthew 2:1
Here Matthew claims that Jesus was born when King Herod was alive:
"Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king..."
Matthew goes on to say Joseph and Mary only returned to Egypt with their infant son after Herod died. The timing is unambiguous.
• Luke 2:1-5
Luke claims that Jesus was born when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, which did not take place until at least ten years after Herod's death.
He specifically mentions the time Mary is pregnant with Jesus when Caesar Augusts imposes a new tax when Cyrenius was governor of Syria; but he did not become governor of Syria until at least 10 years after Herod died.
So even with the most generous interpretation, Matthew and Luke differ by more than 10 years on the year Jesus was born. That diminishes the credibility of both given that they cannot even get correct this basic bit of biography.
Genesis is equally confusing, giving us two completely different accounts on the creation of man between two passages just a stone's throw apart one chapter away. On the one hand we are told god made Adam, anesthetized him to extract a rib from which he made Eve, and sewed him back up, completing the world's first surgical procedure. We are then informed that no, in fact god made Adam and Eve at the same time. Specifically,
• Genesis 1:26
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
But wait, that is not quite right. We are told just a few passages later that god made only Adam first, and then Eve.
• Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
• Genesis 2:19
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
The bible cannot even get the story of creation right. If Adam had his rib removed for nothing we could be witnessing the first case of medical malpractice.
If we are going to teach the bible in public schools, then let's go for the gusto and teach the entire bible. None of this selective reading of just the fluff.
We do not often see animal sacrifices on Sunday at church or women getting stoned to death, but we should reinstitute those traditions if we want to teach the bible in public schools. Or we can make the world safe for goats, bulls and adulteresses by stopping this nonsense and putting the bible where it belongs: next to the Grimm Brothers fairy tales and far far away from our educational system.
your post is good, but you are an "amateur" ;-) Here, in Italy, we have the top! :-) I suggest you this book: http://www.vialattea.net/odifreddi/nonpossumus.php
Maybe there is no english edition yet. On amazon I've only found this: http://www.amazon.com/POR-QUE-PODEMOS-SER-CRISTIANOS/dp/9876091166/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250688140&sr=1-6
So I translate the title for you: "Why we can't be Christians"
bye :)
http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Great-Wisdom-Traditions/dp/0062508113/ref=pd_sim_b_1
http://www.amazon.com/World-Philosophies-Ninian-Smart/dp/0415411890/ref=dp_ob_image_bk
In my experience, the most religious people know almost nothing about the Bible. Polls show that folks with the most intensity like to read books that promote their own dogma, but few read the actual Bible.
Along these lines, I believe that all people who consider themselves educated - especially Protestants - should read Chapter 15 of Martin Luther's book "The Jews and Their Lies." In it, Luther proposed that all temples be burned, all Jewish property seized, and all Jewish people be forced into a life of slave labor. It was a very popular book in Germany in the run-up to the Holocaust.
There's a good capsule about the book on Wikipedia. Here's a link to a good translation- remember to skip to Chapter 15:
www.humanitas-international.org/showcase/chronography/documents/luther-jews.htm
I don't think there is a problem MENTIONING the Bible in public schools, just as with any other religious book. It's important to understand various cultures as a means of minimizing ignorance and the discrimination that stems from it. Teaching any religion in depth is for the places of worship to explore. But schools can introduce the concepts and history of various beliefs though anthropological studies, then have discussions about them. Being informed and aware of cultural differences is the only way to begin to understand and accept them. But the taking-stuff-out-of-context thing really grinds my gears.
Stating that the bible can't even get the creation story straight is a factual statement, and does not reflect anything about whether I have an open mind.
You make the same mistake as my friend with opera; if only I explored deeper I would understand and accept. As with opera, that is wrong. I have explored deeply and reject the story as ridiculous.
You claim I should keep an open mind; tell, me, do Christians keep an open mind that God might not exist? Or that Jesus was just a mortal like everybody else? That the concept of a virgin birth is ssilly? Do you keep an open mind about that?
The entire Bible is one spiritual story. It is the story of God and in it the starkest contradictions of our existence are laid bare and explored: good versus evil; life versus death; love versus hate; light versus darkness; humanity versus divinity; and so on. Your statement that the Bible can't get the creation story right because there are contradictions in it betrays an inability to gain insight into a spiritual story.
To read the Bible selectively is to treat it like the pantheon of the Greek gods-- a verse for this and a verse for that. It is meant to be read as an integrated whole.
Furthermore, the Bible is a spiritual story. You cannot know if it got the creation story right--as a spiritual story -- unless you have spiritual discernment. However, you completely reject the spiritual so this story will remain a mass of meaningless pointless contradictions to you.
1.) We are supposed to strive to be Christ-like (Ephesians 4:15).
2.) God is a jealous, and vengeful god (Exo 20:5). This verse talks about how God will not only take vengeance on you, but he will exact it upon several generations that follow! God is so vengeful, that he will still be taking out his punishment on your family long after you are dead and gone.
3.) Forgive others (Matthew 6:14-15 -- really, this one is all over the place)
4.) Turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39)
So, Christians should strive to be God (Christ) like -- I mean, after all, He is a flawless creature worthy of praise. But somehow us weak humans look at exacting revenge upon 4 generations of a family as being immoral. I guess that is just our original sin making us think crazy things!
All you Christians out there: if somebody has wronged you, exact your revenge upon them and their children, and their children's children! Or, turn the other cheek and forgive them. Either be God-like, or do what Jesus tells you. Hell, actually just do whatever you want -- I promise you that the Bible has some verse in it that will vindicate you!
"Good people tend to do good, evil people tend to do evil, but for a good person to do evil–that takes religion.’”–from the NY Times article “Books on Science: Faith, Reason, God and Other Imponderables
The Bible was NOT Faxed in and is a collection of stories written down by ancient people struggling with The Mystery we call God for lack of a better word.
Two thousand years ago, there was lively debate about who Jesus was, and why he came. Churches before Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity were hot beds of individuality and not the institutions that have become big business today.
Jesus said he came that we would have life to the full; abundant life [John 10:10] and that takes deep thought, wrestling with The Divine and then taking action.
"To think deeply in our culture is to grow angry and to anger others; and if you cannot tolerate this anger, you are wasting the time you spend thinking deeply. One of the rewards to deep thought is the hot glow of anger at discovering a wrong, but if anger is taboo, thought will starve to death."-Jules Henry
The rest of "The Stages of the Soul and How Religiosity/Fundamentalism is holding up Evolution" @
http://wearewideawake.org A GREATER AWAKENING series
Deu 22:22 does indeed talk about adultery. Verse 23 and 24 is what frikkenkids was talking about though -- maybe you should "have actually read the Bible" -- or just two more verses...
23 “Suppose a man meets a young woman, a virgin who is engaged to be married, and he has sexual intercourse with her. If this happens within a town, 24 you must take both of them to the gates of that town and stone them to death. The woman is guilty because she did not scream for help. The man must die because he violated another man’s wife. In this way, you will purge this evil from among you.
It would appear that the intended meaning of of the passage is that "if nobody heard the woman calling for help, she must not have called for help, which means she must have had sex willingly." While this very well could be the case, it is a logical fallacy. The man could have knocked the woman out cold, held a knife to her throat, or prevented her in some other way from screaming.
Either way, Deu 22 does mention "screaming" -- will you acknowledge you were wrong?
Fact: Without repentance there is only emptiness & hopelessness & separation from all that is good & holy. Only the unsaved must experience the second death. If you're an unbeliever, then your body will be resurrected after the Millennium to stand before God for trial, judgment, and sentencing. Then body, soul and spirit will all be cast into the Lake of Fire. We are responsible for the decisions we make in life. We CANNOT blame God.
God is love.
I agree with you totally that both the OT and the NT are one scripture and that there is one God. I don't adhere to marcionism. The way at least that Orthodox interpret the OT is christologically and christocentrically. That is, we interpret everything in the OT in light of the revealed Lord. And it is not the text alone that supplies the meaning. It is the entire life of the church over two millenia. And we understand that the Bible is not about the physical world. It is a story of the invisible spiritual world. That is why it is a mistake to think that you would find science or history in it. And I am certain that I as an individual of faith could not tell you the whole meaning of the Bible.
That about sums it up.
Biblical literacy in America is the norm. Bible study should actually be "studying the Bible."