[The Antiist]

I have the same urge to read the Bible, but then I do have a feeling it will resolve nothing. As I've learned, these texts are too ambiguous to really use them in an argument. If anything, I personally think those stories should be taken symbolically, not literally, but then what else is there to say?

For that matter I absolutely agree with Eauz that the basis for religion is faith, not reason or logic. Therefore, it's knowledge is useless in argument since it relies essentially on something which cannot be proven, whether it's one's intuition or one's own thought-through philosophy on life and the universe.

This is why I'm not too fond of people like Dawkins or scientists who try to argue with religion, because it totally ignores the manner in which religion is maintained and exercised by the populace.

[Dan]

if Christ came specifically to overturn Jewish law and the general tone of the OT, isn't that sort of an admission that God screwed up in the OT?

He did not come to overturn it, but rather to fulfill it.

The purification of sin through the sacrifices of the Mosiac Covenant was temporary and incomplete. Jesus came as the final sacrifice, and fulfilled the Covenant making other sacrifices unnecesary. As well, Jesus' atonement made it possible for His followers to have a direct link to God through Jesus, so the cermonies, rituals of cleanliness, and other such things doing with being ceremonial clean/unclean and ceremony in general became unnecessary.

What do Jews and Christians believe their all-knowing/loving/powerful God was doing with the OT, then?

I know not what Jews believe.

But the OT was to preparation of the way for the coming of the Messiah. The displays of God's wrath in the OT show us how much punishment are sins deserve and how precious forgiveness is.

[smashthestate]

Reading nearly all of the Bible is probably the main force that compelled me into atheism.

[Wellsy]

I haven’t read it but I imagine without contextualizing it with the different lines of interpretation/meaning would render it rather dull to a nonbeliever. As one couldn’t help but interpret it uncharitably.

[Besoeker2]

I haven’t read it but I imagine without contextualizing it with the different lines of interpretation/meaning would render it rather dull to a nonbeliever. As one couldn’t help but interpret it uncharitably.

I have read much of it. It just isn't credible. Everything created in 6 days about 6,000 years ago? Days and nights before the sun existed? Man made from a woman's rib? A pair of all living creatures on that was 300 cubits long........?
Nah!

[jakell]

I haven’t read it but I imagine without contextualizing it with the different lines of interpretation/meaning would render it rather dull to a nonbeliever. As one couldn’t help but interpret it uncharitably.

Well at least you have a degree of self-awareness so you are much further along the road than those who can only read it literally.

This includes both Creationists and a large number of atheists, the latter of which irk me even more because they insist that The Bible makes certain concrete statements such as the age of the Earth being 6000 years (for instance).
It's not that they haven't read it, it just that they are treating it like a textbook - and sometimes this seems to me like a deliberate misreading.

[Besoeker2]

Well at least you have a degree of self-awareness so you are much further along the road than those who can only read it literally.

This includes both Creationists and a large number of atheists, the latter of which irk me even more because they insist that The Bible makes certain concrete statements such as the age of the Earth being 6000 years (for instance).
It's not that they haven't read it, it just that they are treating it like a textbook - and sometimes this seems to me like a deliberate misreading.

So whose human interpretation should you believe - if any??

[Besoeker2]

W
This includes both Creationists and a large number of atheists, the latter of which irk me even more because they insist that The Bible makes certain concrete statements.

I does. Read it.

[Besoeker2]

“Thou shalt not kill.” ...seems pretty concrete.......

[Godstud]

Some serious necroposting here!! 2007 thread...

Is this a Pofo record?

[JohnRawls]

A thread started by the philosopher king himself in 2007, o blessed be this necropost...

[Besoeker2]

So nobody whose human interpretation is valid?? No surprise there............

[late]

The school I went to required attendance at church 6 days a week.

That gave me far too much time to think about it, and I became an atheist.