The Bible is the holy book for the Christian religion. It is separated into two parts, the Old and New Testaments. (I shouldn't be surprised that Jehovah's Witnesses use Hebrew-Arabic and Christian Greek instead of Old and New respectively.) Total number of books are 66, although there are many books that didn't make the final cut. The Bible has been translated into over 400 languages. There are over 70 English versions.
Some of these rejected books are Gnostic gospels or included in the Apocrypha. I haven't read any of them yet but the History Channel did a special called Banned from the Bible. Speaking of rejected, just how did the Bible come to be? One version is that Pagan emperor Constantine called together the Council of Nicea because of the bickering between the various sects. How ironic, eh?
Christians differ in whether to take the Bible completely literal or figurative or a mix of both. Sounds like our Pagan myths, right? Now, I will admit, there's some good stuff in the Bible, stuff that should be taken literally like "bad association spoils useful habits" (1 Cor. 15:33). There's also stuff that shouldn't be like creating the world in 6 24-hr days. I haven't met a Pagan who swears that Zeus actually had sex with mortal women but there are Christians who believe that angels a.k.a God's sons had sex with mortal women.
As you know, I used to be Christian and tried to follow the Bible. I thought the Bible was the end-all be-all and thought that Jehovah's Witness was the only truth. Why the Bible though? Followers would say because the Bible is inspired. The King James Version says "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." (2 Tim 3:16). This, my gentle readers, is called circular reasoning.
Now that I have eaten from "the tree of knowledge", I find it illogical to let one book dictate how you should live your life. Again, there are some good things contained therein. But why should one suspend his/her disbelief if this is a divine book? Why should families be torn apart? Why is there so much conflicting information in the Bible if God truly is its author? I admit, I haven't studied the Bible for myself; I wouldn't even know where to start. By reading some of the stories without the assistance of WBTS publications, I have a new understanding. The Bible, like all mythological stories, are fictional. Some places are real, some people are real, even some of the advice is good. However, to claim that the Bible is the one go-to book should make people cringe.
"The only universal truth is that there are no universal truths." Kind of applies here, doesn't it? Yeah, that whole literal belief in the Bible gets really surreal when you start talking about numbers, but I too have actually known people (some rather well) that literally believe that the world is only a few thousand years old and that people like Adam and Noah really were 900+ when they died and stuff like that. Don't know if you've ever seen this before, but if you want to get a good laugh at another take on religion and circular logic, check this out: http://www.jhuger.com/kissing-hanks-ass
ReplyDeleteHa! that link was great! It's the same thing and thinking people would say it's ridiculous. Turn it back into the bible and all reasoning goes out of the window.
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