Reading the Bible

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Ahmed Shah on April 25, 2009 at 2:24am

Actually , i thought the incest part was kind of funny,because it was the last thing i expected when i read it .I attended a christian-affiliated school when i was a teen,and i since i was a long way from home ,i lived in the hostel attached to the school.We had a priest who stayed at the campus ,who would come every evening when we had the group prayer .Everyone took turns to read something from the bible and reflect upon its meaning.I was one of only two muslims in the entire hostel (of 40 students) so i assumed(worse of all i was a closeted atheist) i didnt have to do it.But they insisted,and i was curious as well to study the bible, after all i do agree with most of the views on how central the litretue of the bible is to modern western culture.
but i had a rebellious streak in me back then ,so when i came across the incest passage , i so desperately wanted to use that,to the horror on my friends!It was either that or the ezekiel alien visitation!
but ,finally i decided to play nice , and i gave one of my best (sadly last) sermons on the log in the eye parable from the new testament...i 'm such a sell out!
By the way ,the school was neither protestant nor catholic.It belonged to an eastern christian sect.The church of St.Thomas.

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Permalink Reply by Hank Bones on April 25, 2009 at 5:00pm

The log in the eye. That's the one where Jesus says that if you have a log stuck in your eye, you should get that taken care of before trying to get the sawdust out, right? Classic. Vague enough that it sounds profound and can be applied to just about anything.

Although I've alway been confused about how, exactly, one gets an entire log stuck in one's eye. I suppose that's the beauty of the parable though.

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Permalink Reply by Angie Jackson on May 2, 2009 at 5:54pm

from BrickTestament.com

Attachments:

• logeye.jpg, 55 KB

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Permalink Reply by Hank Bones on May 4, 2009 at 11:49am

Touche.

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Permalink Reply by Jennifer W on April 26, 2009 at 12:27pm

I'm reading it right now and I must say as an atheist all of the sacredness and power of it is gone. Kinda like airing out a tire. I can make a bet that no theist is reading the Bible from the same perspective as I.

Some parts are inaccurrate and boring. Except I enjoyed the Begat parts. They were pretty funny. You can tell the Bible is really choppy with the editing, because sometimes I feel that a whole paragraph got erased.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Sullivan on April 29, 2009 at 6:56pm

I haven't read Leviticus yet but I would read it. It makes arguing with Christians a lot more fun. If you really want to have fun with your parents go buy a Koran and read that as well. Tell your parents you are interested in different points of view. See how they react to that

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Permalink Reply by smb12321 on May 2, 2009 at 9:42am

I cannot imagine anyone in the West NOT knowing the Bible. The posters who never read a word - do they have an education? The Bible (like it or not) is the most influential book in Western literature and art. It is impossible to study either without some knowledge of "holy scripture".

The Bible contains occasional beauty and poetry - some Psalms, the "charity" writings of Paul, incredible imagery of John. Dawkins opined that we are a Christian culture & (like me) can't imagine an education that did not include at least a passing acquaintance of Biblical themes and popular stories.

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Permalink Reply by Medusa on May 2, 2009 at 5:00pm

I read the whole thing. Twice. I was already an atheist, so I thought I had to read what I no longer believed. Yes, it was very, very boring.

As an English major in college, I read many, many books written before the 20th century. These writers just assumed their readers were well-versed in the Bible. Thank you, Norton, for those editons with all the footnotes!

The story of Charles Manson and his crazy ideas sent me back to the book of Revelations. In light of the crimes of the Manson "family." this was a frightening experience. I can see how unstable people read all sorts of "theories" into it.

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Permalink Reply by Angie Jackson on May 2, 2009 at 5:35pm

I actually got one of those "bible in one year" bibles that had four sections of the bible per day - old testament, psalms, one verse from proverbs, and new testament. I think they knew how dry the OT is and were trying to mix it up a bit. Come to think of it though, that was the first time I really read the bible in full and within 16 months of getting it, i was an atheist :)

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Permalink Reply by Angie Jackson on May 2, 2009 at 5:37pm

Oh but Deuteronomy was the first book I ever read as a child, before Dr. Seuss even. It was 28 I think? The "cursings" on Israel. My mom was actually a bit disturbed by how fun I found all of the "I will destroy your lands and your livestock, your sheep and your cattle" and tried to get me to read the "blessings" that would happen if Israel would obey. THAT was bo-ring.

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Permalink Reply by Riaz Ahmed Shah on May 3, 2009 at 9:02am

i wholeheartedly agree with you....and eloquently put.

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Permalink Reply by Hank Bones on May 3, 2009 at 5:35pm

I agree that it still has relevance today.

I suppose that the underlying problem is that people use the text as their basis for ethical/moral/historical/scientific truth. If people did the same with any other 2000+ year old (or 200+ for that matter) text as the ultimate foundation for their way of life, I'll be concerned with that as well. So boringness aside, its up to atheists to show that using the Bible as the infallible word of God is silly. I think that is our ultimate goal. I've never read Heart of Darkness, but if people were using that as their ethical/moral/historical/scientific baseline, I'd be concerned as well.

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