Sugar coating Bible Stories

As a Child I remember hearing the stories of Noahs Ark and how god saved Noah his family and two of every animal. It was taught in such a way that it made me believe that god was good and loving. Looking at it through my child eyes I could just see god telling Noah how the ark must be built. I could imagine god leading all the animals to the ark two by two. This all amazed me as a child. The stories of Sodom and Gomorrah and the like were all taught to me as a child in such a way that I thought these were stories of Aa loveing god.

Later in life I realized that nothing could be farther from the truth. Yes god did save Noah and his family and two of every kind of animal(supposedly). But they dont tell you ,or elaborate, that god killed millions of people even innocent children and animals. Not killed murdered.
When the thought struck me that this god might not be the loveing and careing being that everyone was talking about I started to read past the stories I had learned as a child. I wanted to find the god I was taught about in sunday school. He was nowhere to be found in the whole of the Bible. What I did find was a murderous vengeful jealous tyrant. I found a god who would issue commands in one chapter and the break them in the next.

I had a lot of questions after this. But the ones I wanted the answer to first was, how can people read this bible and ,when done think for an instant that this book was about a loving and careing god, and why would people keep worshiping this horrible being? After my studies I found it impossible to even thik that this being was worthy of worship.To me it is worse than having a church dedicated to Hitler.

I found my answer to these questions in my sunday school class. They started brainwashing me as a child by sugar coating stories of mass murder. I had wasted half of my life beliving that the stories like Noah and the like were good stories proving gods love for us.

I know many people who are still wasting their lives away nodding to everything the preacher says and never questioning the bible. Many are family members. I can only hope that some wil see the true light. The light of truth and of science.

Views: 22

Comment

You need to be a member of Atheist Nexus to add comments!

Join Atheist Nexus

Comment by Jo Jerome on September 4, 2010 at 9:54pm
One person warned about it, but no one listened, so he saved as much as he could. The power of the tale isn't its truthfulness but its potential to be used as a metaphor for what is happening in the world today.

But who would we tag as the teacher-hero protagonist of the story? It's not like we can just make one up. Steve Irwin maybe?
Comment by Al-KADIM on August 29, 2010 at 10:57pm
Then again, most of the stories that are read to children are expurgated and cleaned up. Southey's original story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears replaces the little girl with an old woman who is never seen again. In LIttle Red Riding Hood, both the Grandmother and Red are eaten (though they come out of the stomach alive--a Jonah parallel), and the woodsman kills the wolf rather brutally. In the original Three Little Pigs, two pigs and one wolf get eaten. So expurgating Bible stories isn't that uncommon. Folk tales in general are violent from a sterile 21st century perspective.

As for the Noah's Ark fable, I actually think it has great potential as a modern legend, especially when talking about global warming. Take away the concept of some undefined sin, and talk about how people are destroying the planet so that all living things could die from climate change and sea level rising. One person warned about it, but no one listened, so he saved as much as he could. The power of the tale isn't its truthfulness but its potential to be used as a metaphor for what is happening in the world today.
Comment by Grace Fitzpatrick on August 27, 2010 at 11:36pm
I remember my parents watching Charlton Heston's the Ten Commandments when I was six or seven. My parents sent me to bed right at the point where Moses/god curses all the Egyptian first born children to die. I was a first born child. I hid on the stairs listening to the movie hoping all the Egyptian babies and kids would be okay, but my parents found me and sent me to bed. I laid awake crying for hours thinking god was going to kill me overnight for not being Jewish. It was definitely a root.
Comment by Jo Jerome on August 27, 2010 at 4:09pm
Yeah, when I heard Noah's Ark as a child, I too had happy visions of cartoon animals gleefully striding into the ark. But every now and then a little voice inside my head would say, "So everyone else deserved to drown? Babies and puppies and kittens and butterflies?" It wasn't easy forcing the happy-cartoon vision to the forefront like a good little member of polite society.
Comment by Rucareanu Valentin on August 27, 2010 at 3:40pm
It made it easier for me to see the BS in all the Bible stories because I wasn't introduced to God until I was 8 years old. My mother bought me an Illustrated Children's Bible. It cut out all the bad parts. Why do we wait until people are older to introduce them to the Evil God? Because children may not want to believe in God. If you introduce children to both sides of God at an early age they will treat him just like Santa Claus. They will lose their faith in both as soon as the age of reason reaches them.

© 2013   Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: Richard Haynes.

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service