Why do scriptures hold more weight than observable reality?

The bible is a crock of shit. I'm not going to go easy on that dusty old tome in this thread because I believe it gets FAR more credit than it's due.

In terms of a code of living, A vague set of morals if you will, then the bible is a valid idea.

But who the hell gave you Christians the crazy idea of taking it literally? I mean LITERALLY accepting everything written in it as the GOSPEL truth. Even if it flies in the face of clearly accepted scientific theory.

I'll give some examples:

Taking Genesis literally and arriving at an age for the universe in the region of 6000-10,000 years old.

Taking vague accounts of "behemoth" as literal proof that there were Dinosaurs living with humans and interpreting vague metaphors such as "his tail was like a cedar tree" to try to draw information about the creatures anatomy.

Literally believing that 5000 people were fed with only five loaves and two fish.

And I won't even go into a literal interpretation of Noah's flood.


It seems there is more than enough evidence around to discredit the bible as a serious academic source. I'm not talking about the moral stuff. I have no problem with that.

I'm talking about people attempting to use it as a serious scientific resource and drawing information regarding the age of the earth etc from it. They discard genuine scientific data simply because it flies in the face of the golden infallible scripture.

It's clear that the bible was written at a time when men knew nothing of the world around them. So using their measurements to date the universe or interpreting their wacky fairy stories as dinosaur descriptions are fucking crazy as.

Who here can defend the bible? I say keep it in the church, learn from it if you wish, but don't start extracting data from it. There's just nothing that accurate to extract.

I'm a Christian, but I don't think the Bible is to be taken literally. I think the majority of Christians don't take the Bible literally. If they did, there'd be dead people in ditches everywhere covered in bloody stones. Slavery would still be an acceptable practice and there would be no such thing as divorce.

I think your beef is with people who HAVE to say they are Christian. Those are the people that try to overcompensate for their immoral lives. They preach what is right and what is wrong. Who is good and who is evil. Its kind of like a guy HAVING to say he has a big cock, quoted from the last episode of Real Time. Guys who go around saying they have a big cock, most likely don't have big cocks. Guys who go around forcing their beliefs on you, probably don't live by those beliefs.

Exactly! I have no problem with those that hold the bible at face value for what it is. An ancient text with a certain amount of wisdom contained within about how to live your life etc.

What I DON'T care for is people essentially using it like a scientific journal.

Here's an example:

During the Arkansas trial, Harold Coffin, a Creation Research Society member from Loma Linda University, was asked about the Burgess Shale fossil site, which has been dated to the early Cambrian period:

"Q: The Burgess Shale is said to be 500 million years old, but you think it is only 5,000 years old, don't you?

COFFIN: Yes.

Q: You say that because of information from the Scriptures, don't you?

COFFIN: Correct.

Q: If you didn't have the Bible, you could believe the age of the earth to be many millions of years, couldn't you?

COFFIN: Yes, without the Bible." (Trial transcript, McLean v Arkansas, cited in Berra, 1990, p. 135)


Since when does the bible have ANY sort of validity to be used in this kind of way....to contradict solid evidence?

Since it became a requirement to be from one Abrahamic religion or another to hold public office. Thank God my Representative came out the closet and said he is an Atheist. Hopefully, his peers will do the same. I'm no Atheist, but I can understand that the people that represent me in government do not have to be from the same religion as I. Especially, since the seperation of church and state is explicitly written in our Constitution.

I think people tendency for people to take the bible literally is tied to peoples tendency to be fall for things like snake oil and quackery. I suppose they think that they found some sort of exclusive knowledge about the universe that has long forgotten. Kind of like a when one might be drawn to something labeled as an ancient cure. See what I am getting at? Its kind of hard to explain.

No, I understand. I'm actually awe-struck everytime I read the Bible. It's so vast and there are so many connections to be made that I get caught up in the hype that everyone else seems to live their lives by. But I always recognize in the end that this collection of books came from a different time and place. There is no way anyone of us can read it the way its authors intended it to be read. Different time, culture, place, events... everything. I've actually had the priviledge of talking to biblical scholars, they don't even take the Bible at face value.

Mainly because they are all hardcore skeptics.

[jackketch]

Actually the main problem is that people don't take the bible literally enough. What I mean is they don't try and understand or discern what the author of the respective piece was saying or trying to say.

Christians tend to arse rape the scripture to suit their dogmas, like Joseph Smith with his magic hat and glasses they decide according to their doctrine what the guy meant.

And the people who knock the bible have usually listened to many christians.

They tend to assume that because the christians say something is in the bible that it is.

I have done several threads here in the past trying to show that with a little intelligence, straight forward common sense and google that infact the bible isn't just a book of pious fairy stories.

Originally Posted by postdiluvium

No, I understand. I'm actually awe-struck everytime I read the Bible. It's so vast and there are so many connections to be made that I get caught up in the hype that everyone else seems to live their lives by. But I always recognize in the end that this collection of books came from a different time and place. There is no way anyone of us can read it the way its authors intended it to be read. Different time, culture, place, events... everything. I've actually had the priviledge of talking to biblical scholars, they don't even take the Bible at face value.

Mainly because they are all hardcore skeptics.

You are absolutely right i mean come on why are we still not able to kill and steal.

[AngryFemme]

"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible."

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Originally Posted by AngryFemme

"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible."

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

QFT. I grew up just going to church because my mom is religious, but not really thinking anything of it because my dad is an atheist. However, once I got into high school and it was time to receive my third Holy Sacrament (Catholic), I had to go back to classes held in church. I started really falling into the doctrine. I would never take my Scapular off and would pray the Rosary regularly.

Then once I got into college, I took some humanities courses strictly for studying the Bible. Through my professors, Protestant Deacons with Doctorates, I started to realize how the doctrine had nothing to do with the actual Bible itself. Accompanied with the history of Christianity while studying the Bible, I realized that the doctrines were clearly man made and very far off from what the Bible states. Those Deacons are all vegans, apparently the original doctrine in Christianity called for it interpreting God breathing life into Adam as blood and we as God's last creation should never ingest the "life" of anything. Unless they salted the meat so badly that it became dry of blood.