re: Favorite Bible Stories

If I don't believe what? Christianity? Why would there be fear of not believing something? Do you have fear from not believing you're an avacado?

I am going to treat this thread seriously because I am sick of this trolling shite. I am not very religious but there can be intelligent discussion about it. To that end:

By FAR my favorite Bible story is the Matthew 22:15-20. I feel like the solution of "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" is such a brilliant solution for the trap that was set for Jesus that it makes be believe in the entire book more. Also it is an example of what in the modern age we call a secular perspective on government, which quite frankly in this time period and in that part of the word was revolutionary. Hell TODAY that is still a crazy notion in that part of the world. I love that part of the Bible.

My second favorite one is Jonah and the Whale. It is a great narrative overall, with themes that still resonate today. Especially the part about being powerless against stronger forces, that is a huge reality of modern world. I really like that story, always have.

My least favorite Bible story is The Book of Revelation. I think John ate bad pizza and made it all up. I agree 100% with Martin Luther that it shouldn't be in the Bible- heck it is the only apocalyptic document in the New Testament canon. Most than I hate the story (which is vague and kinda pointless to Jesus's message), I fricking HATE the culture that has grown around that fricking book. There are all these so-called "Christians" who freaking love that book because the end result is "the bad guys lose," which too many people interpret as "My a-hole neighbor or Obama or whoever is going to get his." The idea of taking pleasure in the actual pain of others (and not ha ha your player got arrested kind of pain we do here) sickens me.

Runner up is anything to do with Paul the Apostle. He was a jerk, and half of the hate that tarnishes the image of modern Christianity (like the who gay marriage "debate") comes from his stupid fricking letters. Without his poison the New Testament would be Jesus's message dominant which would basically sound like the pamphlet at a hippy commune in tone. Paul is the reason for the America frick Yeah perspective in Christianity today that makes people want to troll Christians all day.

Thomas Jefferson is the all time GOAT founding father for his Bible that leaves out Paul's bullshite and leaves out the garbage book of Revelations.

quote:

---

Revelation is the culmination of every Christian principle found throughout the Bible.

---

I mean, you can interpret all the vague wording in that book however you want to get to that conclusion or any conclusion, and there is almost a cottage industry of canned "bible camps" to help get you there, but I chose to believe the opinions of the man who revolutionized Christianity over an modern religious culture that yearns for a little old school fire and brimstone. To quote Martin Luther:

quote:

---

About this book of the Revelation of John, I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic. First and foremost, the apostles do not deal with visions, but prophesy in clear and plain words, as do Peter and Paul, and Christ in the gospel. For it befits the apostolic office to speak clearly of Christ and his deeds, without images and visions. Moreover there is no prophet in the Old Testament, to say nothing of the New, who deals so exclusively with visions and images. For myself, I think it approximates the Fourth Book of Esdras; 8 I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it. Moreover he seems to me to be going much too far when he commends his own book so highly -- indeed, more than any of the other sacred books do, though they are much more important -- and threatens that if anyone takes away anything from it, God will take away from him, etc. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it. This is just the same as if we did not have the book at all.

---

Boom.

quote:

---

And Paul, outside of Jesus himself, was the greatest Christian philosopher the world's ever known

---

No freaking way, not ever close. That honor goes to Saint Thomas Aquinas. No godly man has had more influence on the modern theological world than St. Thomas.

Por favor......¡¡¡NO MAS HILOS RELIGIOSOS!!!

quote:

---

To each his own, and I don't have anything against Luther (never even met the guy)

---

Unless you are Catholic you should be a huge fan of the guy, because without him you would be Catholic.

quote:

---

God must've thought really highly of Paul to use him to write a huge chunk of the Bible

---

That's the thing, he didn't write "a huge chunk of the Bible." He wrote a bunch of letters that weren't intended to be religious codes that the Council of Trent decided should be books of the Bible hundreds of years later. Of those letters half of them biblical scholars debate fiercely if he actually wrote them, and none them contain the actual living words of Jesus Christ like the really important books in the New Testament do.

Personally I think putting Paul's letters on the same tier as words in the Old Testament that we know came DIRECTLY from God on Mount Sinai is folly. "Every word in the Bible is the word of God" is a very modern interpretation of the book, and one that frankly ignores the history of human decisions that made the book what it is today. In a historical sense books like the ones Paul wrote or Revelations would be weighted in the context of their importance and I frankly wouldn't dislike either of them in that context. It is the modern interpretation that is funky.

With all that said, I do respect your opinion that he was an important person in the Bible for a reason and I want to emphasis that what I am stating above is my own person opinion and I have no intention of trying to convince you or anyone else to also hold those opinions.

I also thank you for you willingness to conversate on the subject. I was ready to talk about favorite books of the Bible, but least favorite books probably leads to a more intellectually stimulating debate.

quote:

---

Moreover, Paul was far from a "jerk". He was a very humble man after he was saved, BC he knew where God had brought him from. He said that of all sinners, he was chief. So when he spoke and preached with such brazenness about God, he did it through the power righteousness, and influence of the spirit... not his own, BC he knew he was not worthy to do so. He was meek in himself, but bold through the spirit of God. Jesus commands us to be meek, but also says we can be bold as a lion through his power and guidance. This is why he commands us to walk in the spirit, not in the flesh.

---

Fair enough, Jerk was too strong of a word. I apologize.

quote:

---

Not really, BC I'm neither Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, or any other Protestant.

---

Fair enough. I have nothing against Catholics, I was raised that way. I wasn't trying to imply anything.

quote:

---

He never learned how to read, so he had my Gma read passages and he would repeat them to her until he actually memorized the entire bible.

---

That is pretty awesome!

I admire the Methodists for having good standards back in that era. The only reason Southern Baptists have so much dogma today that doesn't mesh with the Bible (like the whole don't drink thing even though Jesus turned water into wine) is because unlike your ancestor their illiterate preachers would just pretend they knew what was in the book and make it up as they went along.

You sound like a pretty Godly man yourself. Thank you very much for your positive influence on the world.

Well, I'm not Catholic either. I'm Baptist. And I am enjoying this discussion a well. It's good being able to talk religion with someone who is not trying to troll, tell me how stupid I am, or spout venom at the very mention of Jesus.

quote:

---

So... do you not accept any of the old testament, the book of James, Jude, the Peters, The Johns, or any of the books or verses that do not contain an actual quote from the tongue of Jesus when he was in physical form?

---

For me it is not about some sort of binary "accept it as all 100% right or don't accept at all." I hate that kind of false dichotomy as I find it intellectually dishonest.

What I wish more than anything was that Christians had the same perspective that Muslims have about the Quran. To them the Quran isn't all just the "word of God," some parts are considered more important than other parts and their scholars worked out a ratings system that is a lot like an ancient Angie's List to determine what's what.

I wish we would all look at the Bible that way- ie the parts without Jesus's words are weighted differently than Paul's letters or all the books you mention plus Revelations. I wish people had a perspective of the history of the Bible too. Most people don't know a Catholic Council decided which books are the Bible and which ones aren't, and that some of the books they didn't pick have as much validity as some of the books they did pick.

Heck most people don't even know the old King James translation is probably the most inaccurate popular Bible translation ever, so it becomes "the true word of God" even though the Bible was written in Hebrew and we have more accurate modern translations of that Hebrew. The fact that inaccurate translation exists and that it is so popular is proof to me that God hasn't always intervened to keep the Bible the divine book so many assume it is. It is flawed just like the humans that wrote it, and we have to decide for ourselves which parts have the real divine word in them and which parts don't.

I do believe personally that the most important part of the Bible in general are the parts that include actual words from Jesus and I am not alone on that. Thomas Jefferson made his own Bible that was basically just that:

LINK

Also just for the record I am not a huge fan of the Gospel of John either. The representation in that Gospel of Pontius Pilate is completely different than every historical record on Pilate that we have. From a modern perspective that Gospel, while well written, reads like Roman propaganda and not something anyone should hold up as "The Word of God." I think the story is mostly accurate with a lot of embellishments basically.

Again, just my opinion.

quote:

---

Does it make you feel good? Cause if it makes you feel good that's all that matters, right?

---

Dude, really? Can't we just have one good discussion without all that crap?