2012: Year of the Bible in Pennsylvania

[Amicale]

If they make it the year of the Bible, what do they expect people to do? Read the Bible?

Rape. Murder. Slavery. Ritual human sacrifices. Advocating death for people who disobey their parents, are homosexual, or for not being a virgin. And that's just the Old Testament. The New Testament features beautiful, loving concepts like Paul assuring us that all scripture is the inspired word of God. And which scripture would that be? The Old Testament, since the NT wasn't considered scripture and the canonical gospels hadn't been formed yet. And then we have threats of hellfire in the NT, along with Paul advocating slavery and misogyny. Luke 19:11-27 has a disturbing parable of Jesus' that's rarely discussed in any church, where the servant who hasn't put to good use what his master gave him must be slaughtered in front of the master, which of course suggests the implicit threat that that's what God would do to his people, if they didn't make good use of what he gave them. There are also all kinds of fabulous stories in the book of Revelation (which reads as though it was written while on a drug trip) about God's holy and perfect justice.  

In all fairness, there are some very good ideas and nice passages in the Bible. And why wouldn't there be? After all, the Bible was written by humans, and while we're all a product of our culture (the writers included), humans do have good ideas from time to time. Humans have always been capable of love, of altruism, of looking after one another -- and those concepts are expressed in the Bible too. I'll give it that. The problem is, if a Christian believes that the Bible is THE word of God, then they can't just cherrypick the nice, fluffy ideas out of it and leave the rest. They have to admit that it has massive problems that cannot be ignored. Ever.

My hope is that if some people actually read the damned thing cover to cover, there'll be a few more free thinkers in Pennsylvania, when all's said and done. The Bible's a book. Holy it isn't. To proclaim 2012 the year of the Bible is to proclaim that all the above, and much more, is sanctioned by the state of PA... and that's truly insane.

[statichaos]

I wouldn't mind a "Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible", or, even better, a "Year Of Good Stuff Taught By Various Belief Systems", but this is nothing more than the most shameless pandering, and a power play by religious conservatives.  As a religious liberal, I've gone from annoyed to outright offended by this.

[history_geek]

"Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible"

Well the problem with that would be that first you'd have to decide or let the people decide what these "good parts" are. And that would never be settled so that everyone would be happy. Maybe most, but not all.

And pretty much the same thing with the other idea. You are simply not going to get any sort of agreement on such specific criteria when it comes to religions. And that's before we add the fundies.

Now, a "Year of the Golden Rule" might not be so bad....

Edit: Oh, and welcome to the forum! 

[Sweetdeath]

I wouldn't mind a "Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible", or, even better, a "Year Of Good Stuff Taught By Various Belief Systems", but this is nothing more than the most shameless pandering, and a power play by religious conservatives.  As a religious liberal, I've gone from annoyed to outright offended by this.

What 'good parts' ? None exist IMO.

[Amicale]

I wouldn't mind a "Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible", or, even better, a "Year Of Good Stuff Taught By Various Belief Systems", but this is nothing more than the most shameless pandering, and a power play by religious conservatives.  As a religious liberal, I've gone from annoyed to outright offended by this.

What 'good parts' ? None exist IMO.

In the entire Bible, there are no good ideas, acts of kindness, nice words, etc? I can think of several if you're looking for examples. I think that's what is meant by 'good parts'.

[Tank]

I wouldn't mind a "Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible", or, even better, a "Year Of Good Stuff Taught By Various Belief Systems", but this is nothing more than the most shameless pandering, and a power play by religious conservatives.  As a religious liberal, I've gone from annoyed to outright offended by this.

What 'good parts' ? None exist IMO.

In the entire Bible, there are no good ideas, acts of kindness, nice words, etc? I can think of several if you're looking for examples. I think that's what is meant by 'good parts'.

I think the parable of the Good Samaritan would be one I would consider a worthy morality tale. 

[Amicale]

I wouldn't mind a "Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible", or, even better, a "Year Of Good Stuff Taught By Various Belief Systems", but this is nothing more than the most shameless pandering, and a power play by religious conservatives.  As a religious liberal, I've gone from annoyed to outright offended by this.

What 'good parts' ? None exist IMO.

In the entire Bible, there are no good ideas, acts of kindness, nice words, etc? I can think of several if you're looking for examples. I think that's what is meant by 'good parts'.

I think the parable of the Good Samaritan would be one I would consider a worthy morality tale.  

Yep.   As well as the tale of the prodigal son -- he squanders his money/wastes his time/makes poor choices but as soon as he decides to return home, his father welcomes him back and throws a party, forgiving him.

And then there are the classic texts, such as the one often used in weddings, one which I personally like a lot: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,1 but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;2 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For now we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

[Reprobate]

When is it going to be year of the zombie?

Isn't the bible about a zombie? How about "The Necronomico?"

[Ali]

I wouldn't mind a "Year Of The Good Parts Of The Bible", or, even better, a "Year Of Good Stuff Taught By Various Belief Systems", but this is nothing more than the most shameless pandering, and a power play by religious conservatives.  As a religious liberal, I've gone from annoyed to outright offended by this.

What 'good parts' ? None exist IMO.

In the entire Bible, there are no good ideas, acts of kindness, nice words, etc? I can think of several if you're looking for examples. I think that's what is meant by 'good parts'.

I think the parable of the Good Samaritan would be one I would consider a worthy morality tale.  

Yep.   As well as the tale of the prodigal son -- he squanders his money/wastes his time/makes poor choices but as soon as he decides to return home, his father welcomes him back and throws a party, forgiving him.

And then there are the classic texts, such as the one often used in weddings, one which I personally like a lot: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13.

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,1 but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It idoes not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;2 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For now we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

And the sexy parts, talking about making people "drink the spiced wine of my pomegranite" and "his hand is by the door and my bowels are moved for him."  Okay, the "bowels moving" isn't particularly hot (to me) but I suspect it was meant to be, and in any case, it's a good deal raunchier than most supermarket romance novels.

[Sweetdeath]

*shrug* I guess it's just me. I don't find any part of the bible as enjoyable as other mythologies. It's just boring .

[Crow]

*shrug* I guess it's just me. I don't find any part of the bible as enjoyable as other mythologies. It's just boring .

I'd have to agree. Maybe its because I have read far to many other books that deal with philosophy in far more interesting, enjoyable, and are overall better philosophies that when I got around to reading the bible it was totally underwhelming, questionable and quite frankly rubbish.