Yes, I think JC was a pretty tough, smart guy and I agree with most of what he reportedly taught. There’s nothing divine or unique there—other books are equally interesting.

Hindu scriptures especially attract me. Those ancient Indians actually addressed the deep questions of existence while the Hebrew Bible is a mixture of myth and history.

Similar to Confucius and his anelects, the old testament likely codified certain practices in ancient society that were widespread in acceptance(for whatever reason)and contributed to societal stabilization.
The new testament, was an attempt to reconcile a modern day teacher(Jesus) to these Torah stories, in the process to establish a new church.
Today we live in a post-christian world. While our laws and mores are based on Christian values, very few actually believe the underpinning beliefs.

I think there'd be far fewer assholes in the world, if Christians actually followed the teachings of the man they are supposed to follow. To me, Jebus' teachings are the important part, it is totally irrelevant if he is the Son of God or not. Plus, the entire thing of Christ is My Savior, really is only a selfish way to ensure you get to Heaven, not whether you gave a plug about humanity or being nice to people.

The ethics you are pushing here are subjective ethics so I cannot go along with this idea at all. For the most part religions do not have ethics. You post is similar to saying Superman can run fast and he is strong, but he cannot fly.

Now that I have listened to Jordan Peterson a whole lot, I do understand that there are deep truths to be found in the ancient traditions. The Testaments have a lineage from the past - through Egypt back to Mesapotamia. He has more or less covered Genesis but in doing so he discussed some ancient Akkadian gods too. This is book is part of who we are, Everyone used to read it a lot, so references to it pervade literature. It is worth having a familiarity with it. I agree that there are some dreadful wrong things in it that are not a guide or moral inspiration for anyone to follow. In amongst the history and stories there is gold.

The Moralities and Ethics of decent human kind were never derived from the bible nor any other religion based ideology. They came about, more than likely, as early humans went from being isolated family type clans into more co-operative Tribal Groups, religious beliefs merely hi-jacked these moral and ethical codes for their own ends and means since man has been a somewhat moral and ethical being since long, long before religions were ever invented.

I do not believe in the bible, but sure, there are lots of people who take the bible as a spiritual metaphor, not literally.

I don't. The NT talks of "Jesus" aren't very good and to add the parts of that supposed guy called Saul/Paul aren't much better.

I think that morality, like most things, is subjective to the era in which we live. The Bible as a whole is too dated to be pointed to as a good source of ethics and morality. The fact that some of it's teachings are used to fuel hatred is a good enough reason to disregard it and find teachings elsewhere.

There is, it seems, a scarlet thread of truth that runs though most all religious systems. I attribute it to the fact that total bullshit is a pretty hard sell! None the less, by combining study of all (most) religion with the eventual rejection of most (all) of it
my original tendency to second quess myself regarding all related subjects has been replaced by a peaceful, comfortable confidence. That is invaluable. Also, history and religion, while often presented on the same page, are very different

There is, it seems, a scarlet thread of truth that runs though most all religious systems. I attribute it to the fact that total bullshit is a pretty hard sell! None the less, by combining study of all (most) religion with the eventual rejection of most (all) of it
my original tendency to second quess myself regarding all related subjects has been replaced by a peaceful, comfortable confidence. That is invaluable. Also, history and religion, while often presented on the same page, are very different

The New Testament has many admirable messages...love thy neighbour...for instance. It also comes with magic and mysticism which are questionable, so we would need it cherrypick the passages with the messages we agree with and discard the rest. The Old Testament, is a horrific book with no merit whatsoever especially not in any historical or moral context and should never be used as anything except as an example of bad literature.

A pastor on the radio yesterday (1A) stated that there are 270 separate bible passages that endorse slavery. No thank you. I will pass on the whole shebang.

ya, we have turned faith into beliefs but it is likely meant to be much closer to what we would now tell someone who has never flown on a plane before, and is apprehensive about it; iow, "the dangerous part was the trip here in the car." [abarim-publications.com]

Well, there are pleny of good things, that can be found in the Bible and are worth following, however there are also pleny of horrible things.
So the answer is to think about the Bible as most of the Christians do - to cherrypick. We can use good bits and leave the rest behind.

I look at some of the teachings in the bible as a good conduct handbook, that’s about it.

For all of the Blood that was spilled over it, I cannot give an value whatsoever. If your a fan of Joel Olsteen, Jimmy Swaggert, Pat Robertson et al then your totally lost. For a Book that evolved from the Council of Nicea under the directive of a Pagan Emperor who looked to centralize the Populace. So if you think that embellished stories that are meshed with Pagan Rituals to ease the transformation then I would have give you a "no" on that one.
Now if you want to go and explore the lost books of the Gospels that were destroyed and some which have been recently discovered in Caves of Iran and various other places, I would be interested in seeing what they contain. I have gone into reading such authors such as Bart Erhman, Martin Luther, Bruce Metzger, Anthony Pinn and Noam Chomsky.

No.......

Would I change my support of something from good to bad if it was also the moral of a Bible verse? I am a big proponent of critical thinking and the Bible has no influence on my thinking one way or the other.

Agreed 100%

I've read much of the bible, and although I reject the supernatural aspects, I've found some of the teachings of Jesus to be reasonable and actually supportive of the Humanist philosophy...boils down to "Don't be an ass." I helped my daughter through a suicidal time with it - she was raised Catholic thanks to my ex, and thought god hated her because she's lesbian. I talked to her using Jesus as the base...e.g. if he was around today, he'd support the LGBT community, as he always sought out those marginalized by mainstream society.

I agree that religion contains ethics BUT ethics does not require religion. I believe that to be a good person, one should have a set of ethics to live by, but I don't believe that one has to have religion to be a good person.

I didn't read the book. I'm into Pratchett and Cornwell.

i do not find mostly good teachings in the bible (and of course you have not said which bible; i have not read the christian one, but everything i've heard about it seems awfully confused). the bible with which i am familiar has a story in it that teaches one to welcome strangers -- but these days everyone interprets that story as teaching one to be homophobic. the same bible teaches one that it's okay to murder one's innocent son as long as one hears voices. come to think of it, it's also okay to get one's father drunk and rape him. i like the story of david and tamar, but onan is confusing. i don't think of the bible as a book of teachings. i think of it as a sometimes interesting, sometimes less so book of fantabulous stories, most of them with anti-morals. so "values" is the wrong word here, for me at least. you can probably find better teachings in a stephen king novel (i can't swear to that, as i don't enjoy the horror genre, but king seems like a nice, smart man, and i don't know a lot about the guys who wrote the bible).

g

Yes, it's all in the interpretation. As a U.U we believe there is much to learn from the Bible. I definitely don't believe it is infallible, but it is a very interesting piece of literature that can be interpreted in a very Progressive Way.