A Charming Little Piece About the Bible
By Daniel Miessler on August 24th, 2008: Tagged as Religion
First, go read it.
Now, let’s look at what the extremely well-written piece actually said. I think it said to forget about all that crazy Bible stuff (if it seems wrong to you), and just be nice to each other.
Brilliant.
But why not forget about it all together? The only reason the Bible endures is that most people are too weak and stupid to build their own morality without the leverage of an other-worldly threat. And that’s depressing.
They read the Bible, embrace and evangelize the nice parts, and either ignore the filth or sign it off to an angry God that we cannot challenge with our puny little minds. This piece encourages people to do that, which is why I don’t like it.
It claims, in a light-hearted way, to actually know what God thinks of the Bible. It claims to speak with God’s voice in saying, “I don’t know what I was thinking with all that crazy stuff. Just do the good stuff.”
Which translates to, “If something sounds wrong to you, you have permission from God to ignore it. And if it sounds right to you, it’s the word of God.” In a world with 6 billion people and a metric shit-ton of weapons, this is a bad way to go.
Humans thinking they know the mind of the creator of the universe are dangerous. They might not be dangerous themselves individually, but what they teach is itself harmful. Whenever one group “knows” what God thinks, and another group goes against that thing, you know have justified violence.
Just look around at the most religious parts of the world. The problem is one group’s opinion that they have the REAL inside track, and that the other group is wrong. It’s so utterly obvious, people. Wake the fuck up.:
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Your statement “Just look around at the most religious parts of the world. The problem is one group’s opinion that they have the REAL inside track, and that the other group is wrong. It’s so utterly obvious, people.” is not so different from the statement.
Just look at the US as compared to Europe. The problem is that Americans are allowed to own guns and this results in enormous numbers of people being killed and injured by guns. It’s so utterly obvious, people.
I am certain that you have a list of refutations for that second argument. My point is that the LOGIC is the same as the statement of yours that I quoted.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe that your sentiment is something like this: Mankind may be capable of some truly horrendous stuff, but the most horrific seems nearly always (or at least far too frequently) to stem from religious ideals or religion-based conflict.
This may well be true. (I’m certainly going to dispute it.) It’s also true that enormous numbers of people are killed by guns in the US. Does this men that GUNS are bad? No. “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” Similarly, I don’t believe that your blanket statements about religion (ie: your implication that religion is universally useless and bad) are valid.
Comment by Carl M — 8/24/2008 @ 2:35 am
PS I’m not sure if it’s irony or what .. but this post (currently) has a Google ad entitled “Jesus Loves You.”
Comment by Carl M — 8/24/2008 @ 2:37 am
The search must be for truth, not for people’s sake, but for truth’s sake. People are always imperfect forms of truth. Truth will set you free. The Bible is “to be forgotten” insofaras legalism is concerned. One must look into one’s own heart, to pluck the plank from his or her own eye, before one can venture to point out the speck in another’s. But “truth” if it is pure, must be in opposition with falsehood/darkness/obscurity. That’s what makes the challenge so steep: we’re all imperfect beings seeking pure truth. We muddle truth by our own polluted filters. But, say one does pursue justice and truth and righteousness–those who hate truth and justice and righteousness will surely fight against him or her! Satan came to “rob, kill, and destroy”. He works by suggestion, by doubt, capitalizing most often off the notion that none of is good enough (which we aren’t, but we are–that paradox is where Christ fills in the gap, sets things right). Love is the greatest commandment of the New Testament, and the point of the Ten Commandments. We are saved by grace, not by merit or deeds. But, on just a basic example–nothing to do with abortions or wars over oil–would a father who loved his child just tell his daughter or son walking into the middle of the street as a semi pummels down the way to pancake the child to get out of the road, or mightn’t he grab the child, push the child, perhaps yank the child’s arm in getting her or him to safety? This is the part of love that sometimes hurts, for children (of which all of us are one) don’t always (often) know what’s good for us. It starts with faith that God loves us completely, each of us, even if it sounds like cliched, canned moldy nothing. Gandhi is a fine example of how hard a truly holy life is to lead–look at the violence he faced. In many ways, he is the best example of living the Christian life, yet he was not necessarily “Christian”, follower of Christ. But to say he wasn’t revolutionary and offensive to some, would be a lie. Consider “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” for further inspiration.
Comment by mysterious:unknown — 8/25/2008 @ 6:20 pm
Also, The Case for Faith (Lee Strobel) is a great read–addresses some central arguments against “the Bible”, “Jesus-freaks” and Christianity. Mere Christianity (available on audio cd from many public libraries, by CS Lewis–absolutely brilliant) is great for the intellectually inclined, thinker-types. Screwtape Letters, too. His discussions on Grief are also seminal, apparently. You’re so stinkin’ funny. Really gifted.
Comment by mysterious:unknown — 8/25/2008 @ 7:03 pm