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?
If you look at the rules of the Christian & Jewish religions, one rule states that you should never worship any idols or images created by man. The bible is stories of humans written by humans and interpreted by humans, none of which is the actual word of god. So by worshiping the bible or using the bible to worship god is sacrilege. That pretty well sums it up, break all the laws so you can have power over other people and enslave them with fear.
I don't have one in the house so i guess its not at all important to me. Im not hugely interested in it. I beleive there are many versions.
I'm a buddhist and we have many religious texts but we don't really do the ' It must be true because it says in the bible...' thing. In fact we often start a dhamma talk(kind of like a sermon) with the words 'Thus have I heard...' which is kind of a nod to the fallability of text
A copy of a copy of a copy of a translated, added to, taken from, retranslated collection of thoughts on certain events, fairy tales, and people both real and imagined... or more re-imagined... used to 'try' to instill a particular religious set of morals... or to control the masses. Probably both.
Pretty much mythology forced through a Christian specific lense.
A period piece written to keep the uneducated masses in check. A book used to brainwash people to behave in a cult like mentality. Not to mention a self righteous attitude. Well the list of transgressions that can be laid at the door in the name of Christianity would take days! The bible is really just a rule book ( albeit one open to differing interpretations ), followed by people who can't or won't open their minds ... blah blah blah. .. chuckles ... sorry I do get carried away!
It's a book, it's a badly written book, it's a book full of inaccuracies, it's an unreliable book, it's a book that wants to be taken seriously but can't, it is the best selling book in history if you add all the versions together but it is an anachronism.
To me it is nothing more than other books on my book shelf that I'll never pick up again.
To me it's a text that's important to western civilization and even contains some wisdom. ("Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." ) I'm not so sure it was meant to be taken literally--maybe the line between the literal and the merely symbolic was less clear in ancient culture!
The line "As you have done it for the least of you, you have done it for me" does mean a lot to me.
To me the Bible is one of the worst things that ever happened to humanity and the world. Anthropocentricism screwed up everything. Placing humans as the center of God's universe is utter nonsense and consummate arrogance. It was a sad day for the unhuman animals when some goat herder or fisherman wrote that the humans have "dominion" over nature.
Considering our current level of deforestation it's a serious threat to the environment.
It's the Big Book of Contradictory Gibberish.
It's a waste of paper, ink, and time.
It's the opiate of the asses.
It's nowhere near the caliber of Harry Potter. It's poorly written; its plot is disjointed; and the characters are superficial. I don't feel any attachment to them. It's not even as well written as twilight.
An aweful taste with premium weed is what it is.
don't smoke yourself retarded kids.
A book of parables important because it shows how people felt in those times. It is also important for scholars to study because you began to see the edits and where one story began elsewhere and was later edited to blend in somewhere else. Many of the gnostic versions versions show similar edits.
So many parts of the bible are thought to have been written by different monks or religious figures who were being supported by a wealthy patron. You will taken in your patron's beliefs and proclivities while putting down any translation, I'm sure.