Being raised Catholic the bible is to them the word of god, right? To me the bible is a book just like Harry Potter is. Who is to say that 2000 yrs from Harry Potter is the new bible.
My question is, what is the bible to you?
An ancient book of myth that codified two separate philosophies and dogma that tries to project a single religion but are mutually incompatible.
Stories built with no foundation eventually it will fall as all other religions have that are now know as mythology.
Truth is what the facts are. The Bible was written by ignorant, bronze age, savages who thought the world was flat.All fable's have to start somewhere and somehow.Thats as close to the truth you'll get from the Bible.If you use the Bible as a moral guide, you'd be a criminal on ever continent on the planet.It promotes murder, slavery,incest, genocide, animal cruelty,spousal abuse, abuse, abortion,pillage, cannibalism. I could go on forever why it's a book I should avoid.
Well, it is a collection of writings that can be read as one meta-narrative, interpreted through the lens of the teaching associated with Christ Jesus. I did believe it to be inerrant and infallible, but I now seriously doubt that. However, some of the intellectual assaults can easily be refuted, like the supposed contradictions. I know the original language of the NT and so arguments about translational differences are not convincing.
For me, the real criticism comes with the extremely complex way one has to read the OT to arrive at the meta narrative as all pointing to Jesus. There are also very serious questions to be asked about the morality of the OT torah. Mass exterminations of whole races is not something that can be explained away as a foretaste of hell.
The body of teaching associated with the apostles is so detailed that it seems to fly in the face of a more humane approach the gospel accounts offer. However, if the letters of the NT are problematic, then so too the gospel accounts, for they are all written by believers. So how does one know what is to be believed and what is not? If the gospels and letters are seen as truth, then the result is set of morals that seem cruel and unwise at times.
So you can see my doubts about my earlier convictions.
I'm currently reading it. Often we hear it called the Big Book of Multiple choice, as confirmation bias will let you take whatever you want from it. But I've been thinking lately that it really wasn't MEANT to be read as such. The book is literally the length of a bible. Over most of the years of the bible's existence, most of the believers couldn't read. And during many of those years, the bible was only in Latin--a language that most believers didn't SPEAK, much less read (most couldn't read in the language they actually spoke anyway). The mystique of a giant, magical book outlining the meaning of the universe (and your relation to that universe) that only a select few could translate to the masses would be breathtaking to an illiterate, ignorant person. The sheer literary and political GALL to pull off that kind of psychological showmanship is very impressive. The masses will project whatever fears, hopes, dreams, or hatreds they have onto that book and through that book into the world, allowing the keepers of the book (churches, priests, kings, politicians, whoever) to steer the ignorant masses however they wish.
Interestingly enough Catholics hardly ever read the bible. Which is a pity because it sure helps with deconversion.
Their leaders discourage it because they only are supposed to believe the church's interpretations.
It's a fairtale. It's an interesting bit of anthropology. It's a problem because of how much power it's been given.
I think it should be called the book of manipulation