The bible is a decoration to keep my family and friends happy since still believe the dogma. If wasn't for that I would thrown it the trash when I became an atheist.

A dusty old book on the shelf that barely had any meaning for me as a child, also Catholic, but ceased to have any meaning at all many years ago.

I've also come to a sort of conclusion that the ancients, not having TV or books (for the most part) used the spoken word for entertainment, therefore story tellers were popular people to have around. The Bible is a collection of those stories, a sort of written record of the TV soaps of thier day and like the soaps of today, not to be taken very seriously

Historically it seems that it was the spoken word not written down for many centuries but passed on so I guess if I know anyhting about humans at all there were bits added and subtracted from the story - I read somewhere that the Emperor constantine had a very troublesome populace who were believing all sorts of things and arguing a lot so to get them peaceful he got it written down - I think that is probably why it makes very little sense to me and I was much more inot reading Tom sawyer and huck Finn Anne of Green Gables etc much better narrated stories.

A book of short stories combined at some point from verbal legends and earlier tales into a collection that rulers over time found they could use to their advantage to sublimate many natural human tendencies.

It's a very good book to help us understand how we got to where we are today.

Pornographic in spots, full of hate/torture/murder & incest, plus a gawd who creates & destroys for no reason whatsoever except "jealousy".....

The Bible is just a collection of texts, put together over 300 years after Jesus was supposed to have lived. A had full of clergy picked and chose what they wanted in it. And for that matter, which versions of the stories to use. Even after that, various chapters don't agree with each other. God didn't make man. Man made God. Humans invented the concept of God, and cobbled together various stories to fill it out. And stole a bunch of it from the previous religion of Judaism. (From the Christian point of view.)

A flawed history which can be eye-opening about the conditions of the un-educated human mind in the years up to the birth of christ. Thoroughly unreliable in its creation myth, accounts of miracles, and seemingly psychotic prophets.

Rolling papers

For me it's decoration, in case family and friends come over. None of them know I'm an atheist yet.

An aweful taste with premium weed is what it is.

don't smoke yourself retarded kids.

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.

A bible is decoration in my house. Just in case fam and friends come over. Would it be wrong to burn a bible?

Chloroform in print. -Mark Twain- ( referring to a different religious book)

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.

The bible is a collection of stories by different authors from different times and it tells many different stories. Some versions of it have 66 books and others have more. There are no original writngs today of any of the versions. Everything is a copy to the extent that today we have no evidence exactly of what was copied. The Old Testament is used extensively to "prove" prophesy in the New Testament but the writings are contrived to prove a purpose. There are no eye witness accounts of anything at all, Jesus and all about him included. On close inspection much of the New Testament was written long after the time of Jesus. It's therefore not surprising that you find writings that appear to refer to 70 AD and the Jewish war of that time. The earliest date for Revelation being written is 96 AD. In the first 300 years after the time of Jesus this all came together in accepted ways of what people were going to believe and allow in their collection of all the stories. Constantine had a lot to do with this but so did Marcion and others. The biggest irony of the New Testament is that Saul of Tarsus (as Paul) was the real founder of the faith and he never even met Jesus. Many did not trust him then but today the entire bible (biblios) is looked at as the enerrent word of god. The big book comes about in truth as something closer to Frankenstein's monster, but you cannot tell the faithful that.

A written minstrel.

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.

Poorly written historical fiction anthology

A book full of stories. Chapter One of Gensis is my favorite. Everything got made, everything was inspected and deemed good. 420 time. End of story. Everything after that is like 50 shades of grey (never read the books or saw the movie) or lord of the flies mashed with catch 22.

Also being discovered is that the whole thing took place in Scotland. That J.C., King Arthur, Merlin and the whole mythology of this magical person all originated and culminated within Caledonia - Scotland, before it was Scotland. There is the isle of Skye where they say that Mary Magdalen had a castle, was royalty and wealthy (not a prostitute - good grief), and that Jesus was the god Lugh - who was an Irish hero. There is just so much information mythologically to support these theories.

It is a combination of books that reflect some identity issues of Christians and Jews. It was also impacted by Zoroastrianism. It has some good literature, but religious people, looking for a quick fix, are unable to find. There is some really horrible stuff in scripture as well. Discernment skills are necessary if one wishes to get the good out of biblical literature. Reifying or turning texts into doctrinal truths is to head off amuck. The Bible is a vast undertaking often undertaken by a halfvast people.

Interesting mythology, along the same lines as Bullfinch's "Age of Fable".

The bible was written in in a language that can be interpreted and translated in many ways buy the one who is reading it. Also there were many things left out of the bible. So it is some ancient writings that are translated and described by many with many different outcomes along with many parts porously omitted. And its a hard read and very strange story.

The bible is a book of hate that manipulate people into doin unhumanistic things and have lower compassion for those that are not under its control.