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What is your 'favorite' Bible story? Is there one that always stood out to you as especially dumb or interesting?

Greenheart 7 July 9
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6

My favourite Bible story is where I pick up a copy of the Bible and throw it in the trash.

Lol. That's gangsta???

My fave is where someone picks up a bible and it turns them atheist. A very common theme in deconversion stories.

4

The Story of Job. How can a loving God can do all this horrible stuff to one man, and then get angry when he rebukes him? It highlighted the hypocrisy of the God narrative to me at an early age.

I actually like the story of Job although it is obviously just an allegory. As I see it, Job had a high concept of God. It was impossible for him to “curse God and die” as advised by neighbors. It was not that Job was more moral or more worshipful, rather his deep insight meant that such a shallow attitude was logically impossible. He couldn’t help but abide his pain.

@LimitedLight The Bible is a bunch of myths and allegory mixed in with Jewish history. I never look at it.

I do think however, if not read literally, the story of Job has a pertinent message. When hit by sorrow, there’s something better than to curse God and die. That would be to shine the light of awareness on your true essence, thereby finding joy and sustenance.

@LimitedLight the serpent in the Garden is believed to have been (at least in kabbalistic texts) the archangel Samael, whose name means 'poison of God' and whose sole purpose is to test the faith of the faithful and attempt to make them give up their faith.

@geist171 A noble cause that.

@Rossy92 not really. He's the...manifestation of that neurotic 'I'm gonna make this person prove they love me by subjecting them to a situation where they have every motivation and reason to leave and no reason but me to stay and see what they do.

The original silent Hill game's final boss is Samael, and the endings suggest a very Jacob''s Ladder scenario where the protagonist is battling for his soul by proving his devotion to rescue his daughter who is one half of Samael's being (Alessa is the other half) despite all kinds of opportunities to give up and distracting temptations to divert from the goal.

But as Satan is not technically a name so much as a designation (it just means adversary) it's possible every instance of the word Satan could be referring to a different entity operating in similar opposition to the god-allied hero of the story in question. Maybe the narrative required one big bad instead of a bunch of little ones.

@geist171 You appear to refer to God. I'm referring to the noble cause of the serpent. Normally I prefer to put things in my owns words, but in the interest of catching a few more winks before getting up for work, I'll refer you to this quote from the great Robert Ingersoll:

3

Cain and Abel. God created Adam and Eve and they begat Cain and Abel. Cain then slew Abel. Cain then took a wife........where the hell did she come from? I have asked countless ministers of religion and not one has been able to give me a satisfactory answer!

There are some schools of thought which explain the 'where did Cain get a wife' through the idea that Adam is not the first human, but the first Hebrew, and Cain went and met non-Hebrew people and that's where he found his wife. Which, honestly, makes the Judeo-Christian god sound a bit like an alien, in the same way the Innunaki (of...hell Gilgamesh is...Babylonian? Sumerian?) read kind of like an occupying extraterrestrial group who created a slave race to do the gold mining for them.

That is one I've asked many times from people that say they take the book litterally, and I've never got a straight answer

@geist171 The logical answer would be that Adam and Eve went to on to have other children which would mean that Cain’s wife was his sister, but of course that would mean that they had an incestuous relationship. Most clergymen say that god went on to create more people, but they have to admit that the bible makes no mention of this. If they believe everything in the scriptures is true, then by that same logic, if it is not in the scriptures then it is not true..

@Marionville Given the incestuous precedent in the stories of Noah and Lot, it also seems presumably logical that they acquired wives by way of sex with Eve. I know it's highly twisted, and would have taken quite some time, but given the twisted nature of so much of the bible, and that people apparently lived to be as much as 600 years old back then, it's not out of the question.

3

One of the song's of Solomon... I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley. Also when Linus tells Charlie Brown the meaning of Christmas.

3

IF you take them literally, though you may as well believe in the Disneyfication of the world. If you take it is allegory there are some wonderful, insightful tales and concepts. Love, violence, sex, Joshua's rock 'n' roll...and so on

3

Got to be Revelations - The absolute best mushroom inspired fireside tale EVER! I mean the bad guys cop it big time and the good guys get to live forever. Make a good movie!

3

Job, the first section, which I believe was the only legitimate section. The whole message is that bad things can happen to good people through no fault of their own. Just because one is less fortunate, doesn't mean they did anything wrong in the eyes of God. Of course God doesn't look that great in this story, but who cares. The human message is what matters. Conversely, it also means that doing right by the Lord doesn't guarantee success either. Pretty good message for such an old story.

For me, not so much the story but the writing in Job when God speaks and drops a big "fuck you" on Job in particular and humanity in general.

@LimitedLight Yes, thats what they say. Most scholars believe the 1st and 3rd section were original with the second section added later. I still like the first section the most. The third section however, does seem to me to be taking place in his head, like the first could possibly have.

3

Talking snakes are fucking cool. And when the god character zapped that chick into salt, that was hella unsuspected! I thought the dude dragging the big wooden tee through town was a great demoralizer and really jerked the tears from the audience. But the best part of the whole thing was the opening scene. A total fantasy that engulfs you into a web of non-thought to get you ready for the nonsense to come later in the film. Pfft, plants before a light source. I give it 1.5 stars out of 10 only because talking snakes would be fuckin sweeeeeeeeeet!

3

I liked all of the beggating in Genesis. They were some lusty little bastards, explaining why there are so many of them.

2

The soft porn - Song of Solomon 7.

[biblehub.com]

Then there's Ezekiel 23:20

"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses."

[biblehub.com]

Outside of porn, I've yet to meet a female who was fond of horse sized emissions. I guess its more proof of the bible's paternal bias.

2

The story of Sodom and Gamorrah... once very important content that gets overlooked. Lot would rather the men of Sodom "know" hours two virgin daughters than harm the two angels who came to his house. He offered his daughters to be raped.
Genesis 19: 4-8. 4. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; 5 and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out of the door to the men, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.”

It gets even more messed up when you realize later in the story that the daughters were engaged and that their fiancées were probably in the crowd.

Yeah. And what of the shelter of a loving, caring father???

@Seminarian Divinely inspired my ass. Reminds me of this meme.

@Rossy92 It's true, women were very low value on that societies value scale. The lesson was supposed to be about not raping and murdering any guests even if they were outsiders. Unwelcomed outsiders were still open game. Hey, one step at a time. They just stopped child sacrifice after the Abraham story The problem today is that some people don't recognize these were important stories for societies evolution at the time they were written, not intended to help modern people gain understanding. We should be beyond these lessons, although unfortunately some aren't far enough beyond, even today.

@Seminarian How about not raping and murdering anyone. How about the golden rule. And why should this hold sway over any modern day person. An interesting artifact perhaps. A moral tale to draw lessons from? GTFO. Divinely inspired absolute morality? Don't waste my time. Seems you have awareness of this though I wonder what that New Thought ministry is about? Sounds a bit questionable.

@Rossy92 We view the Bible as a recording of mans spiritual evolution. Jesus also evolves in the new testament as well (even though he might be fictional). All miracles are metaphorical. There are no such thing as miracles only natural laws (Divine Laws) that science hasn't figured out yet. The real Jesus, if he actually existed, was the founder of Humanism. "Have I not told you that you are Gods" ," The kingdom of God is at hand" (within you). "Greater works than these you shall also do" and we did, with help from science. See? all true. Oh and God is not a conscious being but is consciousness. In other words we are Panentheists. By the way, the human mind could not evolve without language in other words "In the beginning the WORD was with God and was God". See?

@Seminarian Interesting.

2

I loved the story of fishes and loaves...when I was a kid, I was exposed to famine in Ethiopia and wished I could help all of the starving people by doing what Jesus did in this story. I think when I realized it was a fake story, I quit believing in the bible all together.

2

One of the song's of Solomon... I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley. Also when Linus tells Charlie Brown the meaning of Christmas.

2

Song of Solomon is sexy sex and more sexy sex. 😀

2

Judges 15:4-5 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
4 Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took torches, and turned the foxes tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails. 5 When he had set fire to the torches, he released the foxes into the standing grain of the Philistines, thus burning up both the shocks and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and groves.​

I think it would be impossible to catch 300 foxes.
It would be impossible to tie their tales in pairs with a flaming torch.
The foxes are vicious biters and fighters and this is absolutely unbelievable.

Pretty good 'tail' though

The crazy thing is that Christians believe this story is true.......@Geoffrey51

@nicknotes Yes, I guess quite a few will. Oh dear! What to do?

2

My favorite part is were is says 'Amen' because the dribble that was spewing out comes to an end.

2

Song of songs. Very little or no god in it and loads of eroticism

2

As a child in Sunday School I memorized Romans Chapter 13 (aka "the love chapter" ). I rather still like it. It's one of the few lengthy passages in the Bible I can mostly agree with despite my apostasy. Too bad most Christians don't follow it.

1

God and Satan destroy a man's life to see how long it will take him to disavow his god, over a bet.

1

The whole 'water to wine' thing. Like Jesus figures out how to water down some wine and everyone acts like he did something amazing. He was just being a cheap bartender.

Water represents physical life. Wine represents an enhanced spiritual life. There are several little clues that support this interpretation. Anyway, we know Cana wasn't a real city.

1

I would say David and goliath. I can see Russell Crowe as David. Lol.

1

Babel. Babylon. If even a tad true, showed that God is afraid of man's potential. Therefore, NOT. a god at all ?

1

I like the bit where Moses parts the Red Sea... just imagine what they might have come across down there, shipwrecks, coral reefs, flopping fish. And the seven plagues god sends down to the Egyptians. Just goes to show how ridiculous the whole thing is, not a very loving god is it?

Denker Level 7 July 10, 2018
1

The Exodus story, but only with Charleton Heston.

1

Dalmatians 6:14-15 "For it is written that "if the wise man appears always stupid, his failures do not disappoint, and his success gives pleasant surprise."

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