My farewell to the God of the Bible

Rationalist

Rationalist

Hail Voltaire
About a month ago, I joined a Bible study of the first five books of the Old Testament. They meet on Wednesday evenings. Tonight will be my last, however, as I will be informing them that I can no longer maintain my integrity and accept the Bible is divinely inspired. The Old Testament is packed with so many absurdities, scientific inaccuracies, and contradictions that I can simply no longer believe it.

The God of the Old Testament is a psychotic, egotistical mass-murderer. Even if he were real, he would not be worthy of my respect. And since the New Testament says the Old Testament is divinely inspired (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16), it is obviously not trustworthy, either. If someone said Ted Bundy was a moral, upstanding citizen, despite him being a vicious serial killer and rapist, would that individual be worthy of your trust? I think not.

I still believe Jesus was a wise teacher, and that there may be a higher power of some sort, but unless I am willing to lie to myself, I have no choice but to reject the Bible and its god.
 
Read the Dhammapada. You'll find no mention of God in there, and no inconsistencies. Nor does it tell you about floods.

;)

Just sayin'
 
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General Burnside said:
About a month ago, I joined a Bible study of the first five books of the Old Testament. They meet on Wednesday evenings. Tonight will be my last, however, as I will be informing them that I can no longer maintain my integrity and accept the Bible is divinely inspired. The Old Testament is packed with so many absurdities, scientific inaccuracies, and contradictions that I can simply no longer believe it.

The God of the Old Testament is a psychotic, egotistical mass-murderer. Even if he were real, he would not be worthy of my respect. And since the New Testament says the Old Testament is divinely inspired (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16), it is obviously not trustworthy, either. If someone said Ted Bundy was a moral, upstanding citizen, despite him being a vicious serial killer and rapist, would that individual be worthy of your trust? I think not.

I still believe Jesus was a wise teacher, and that there may be a higher power of some sort, but unless I am willing to lie to myself, I have no choice but to reject the Bible and its god.
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It is why the Bible should not be taken literally. Please read Bishop John Spong, it will help your transition.

It was devastating to me at first, but in time it is so liberating. The guilt I no longer live with, the feelings of dissonance are gone.

I was so angry at first I rejected everything, but now I am open to a kind of not knowing the answers, it being a mystery to me and an awe of the thing we call life.

It will be hard at first with friends and family who are still believers, I give mine the respect to believe as they feel they must, but unfortunately, those I have told do not return the respect towards me. It has caused some hard feelings with some people. My closests friend accepts me, but she prays for me and worries that I will go to hell. I tell her that no loving God would put me there for a collection of stories whose meanings have been lost to most people.

Good luck with your journey.
 
Rana said:
It is why the Bible should not be taken literally. Please read Bishop John Spong, it will help your transition.

It was devastating to me at first, but in time it is so liberating. The guilt I no longer live with, the feelings of dissonance are gone.

I was so angry at first I rejected everything, but now I am open to a kind of not knowing the answers, it being a mystery to me and an awe of the thing we call life.

It will be hard at first with friends and family who are still believers, I give mine the respect to believe as they feel they must, but unfortunately, those I have told do not return the respect towards me. It has caused some hard feelings with some people. My closests friend accepts me, but she prays for me and worries that I will go to hell. I tell her that no loving God would put me there for a collection of stories whose meanings have been lost to most people.

Good luck with your journey.
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Thank you, Rana. To be honest, I'm not certain I'll ever tell my immediate family. I'd prefer they remain blissfully ignorant than worry about me getting sent to their god's torture chamber when I die. My mom in particular will literally lose sleep over that.

It is extremely liberating, though! I feel as though my mind has finally, fully broken free of the shackles of fundamentalism.
 
Also, I already feel like a better person. Like I want to be a good person for the betterment of humanity, not because I'm just afraid of going to hell.

One dilemma I have are the multiple Christian charities that I support. I think I will continue giving to them, because all of them provide services that everybody needs, like clean drinking water and HIV medication. Eventually I might find different ones that I like better, but for now I'm going to keep my commitments.
 
General Burnside said:
Also, I already feel like a better person. Like I want to be a good person for the betterment of humanity, not because I'm just afraid of going to hell.

One dilemma I have are the multiple Christian charities that I support. I think I will continue giving to them, because all of them provide services that everybody needs, like clean drinking water and HIV medication. Eventually I might find different ones that I like better, but for now I'm going to keep my commitments.
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I love, Dr. Without Borders! I am not sure about clean water charities.
 
General Burnside said:
Also, I already feel like a better person. Like I want to be a good person for the betterment of humanity, not because I'm just afraid of going to hell.

One dilemma I have are the multiple Christian charities that I support. I think I will continue giving to them, because all of them provide services that everybody needs, like clean drinking water and HIV medication. Eventually I might find different ones that I like better, but for now I'm going to keep my commitments.
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If you like charities (in general I don't) don't stop giving to them just because they happen to be Christian.
 
Rana said:
Yes, but when you ate hungry or thirty or ill, you are vulnerable.
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The same can be said of any condition. If you choose to believe in something and investigate it no further than how strong is your conviction in the first place?
 
Rana said:
How many uneducated people have the opportunity to investigate?
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Investigation isn't a difficult thing. It does not require great effort to support or detact from your beliefs. If God is upposedly just, how hard would you have to look for justice amongst his faithful.
 
christiefan915 said:
Why don't you like charities? It seems like most with your political leanings urge people to contribute to charities rather than expect the government to provide.
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I don't have a problem with charities in theory, only the current crop of them are rarely all that charitable.
 
General Burnside said:
About a month ago, I joined a Bible study of the first five books of the Old Testament. They meet on Wednesday evenings. Tonight will be my last, however, as I will be informing them that I can no longer maintain my integrity and accept the Bible is divinely inspired. The Old Testament is packed with so many absurdities, scientific inaccuracies, and contradictions that I can simply no longer believe it.

The God of the Old Testament is a psychotic, egotistical mass-murderer. Even if he were real, he would not be worthy of my respect. And since the New Testament says the Old Testament is divinely inspired (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16), it is obviously not trustworthy, either. If someone said Ted Bundy was a moral, upstanding citizen, despite him being a vicious serial killer and rapist, would that individual be worthy of your trust? I think not.

I still believe Jesus was a wise teacher, and that there may be a higher power of some sort, but unless I am willing to lie to myself, I have no choice but to reject the Bible and its god.
Click to expand...
Dude....what were you expecting? Twain?
 
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