Until recently I have vehemently spoken against all holy books.Firstly, I was brought up a Christian, so I'm going to limit my discussion to the Christian bible. Secondly, I am an avid reader so you can imagine how I ravished the pages of the old and new testaments of the bible in our house before I had a cent to buy a book. Thirdly, I am an atheist and I detest all Generation X born again folks. I'm being so specific because the above mentioned are the most notorious in cherry picking the bible. Post-colonial Christians like my grand folks are tough, they walked a treacherous path between the white man and the Mau Mau, two forces that turned their faith against them. Those that survived hold on to their beliefs, and are willing to execute every word in the bible. To these people Numbers 31:17-18, Deut 22:20-22, 1 Timothy 2:9, were not to be taken lightly.
Enter Generation X. The roots of religion run deep, but the 'temptation' of secularism was strong, still is, and the bible started to become a hindrance instead of an aid. Something like oversized boots that needed resizing. Good thing the generation in question is full of apologists who work diligently day and night (Their zeal amazes me, honestly) to make sure the bible remains palatable to the ever changing preferences of faith. And so there are verses in the bible you will never hear being mentioned by a Christian anywhere on the globe, because they are outright ridiculous. Read any book in the bible and you'll find a multitude of them.
I was always of the opinion that if cherry picking the bible made the hypocritical religious lives of people livable, life to these poor folk would be bliss of they flashed the whole thing down the toilet. I now recant the above, because I think we could still gain a lot if we continued to read the bible, but as what it is, folklore.
The bible was compiled over thousand of years, that is a lot of knowledge. As a lover of knowledge, I cannot advocate for its destruction no matter its form. It is true that some of the knowledge contained therein can have destructive impacts. Indeed! But that is great since it leads to the realization that destruction has been humanity's most perennial trait and a constant reminder of our stupidity, a very important fact.
I just read Matthew 8: 28-34 about Jesus and two possessed dudes. So Jesus transfers the demons in these guys to a bunch of swine that end up drowning. Being an atheist, the exorcism part is bullshit, because we all know and I bet Jesus as the "son of god"(In some versions Jesus refers to himself with the phrase "Son of Man", I wonder if they ignore this deliberately) knew that you can't drown demons, making the whole thing an unnecessary waste of life. The swine are more interesting because they made me think, what if one of those pigs paused? What if one chose to listen to those demons and think differently from the other pigs? It would have been saved from drowning. Lesson learnt, contradict the crowd. It will save your life. There are numerous other insights, for instance the popularity of crucifixion at the time and the crowd that came to see Jesus and his thieving friends die, remind me of people who cheer and watch as an alleged thief is being stoned and torched. Lesson: nothing new under the sun, and nailing a thief or two with their penises hanging out does not deter future thieves.
Of course the above can be learned from numerous literary sources. However, my atheism is not justification for ignoring it until I infer the same from a Dostoevsky novel. And so I maintain that the bible should be read in its entirety, the beautiful, the ugly and the entertaining. It's a great anthology, the bible is, and so are all holy books. So read them and treat their characters and events the same as you would treat the events in R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island, and you will be amazed at the sheer immensity of depth and shallowness, beautiful prose and poetry, which will make you revere and detest those books in equal measure. Plus if you're an atheist, you'll have the intellectual freedom to read as many as you can from various regions and religions, and all they can do is make you a better person, which is impossible for believers.
Enter Generation X. The roots of religion run deep, but the 'temptation' of secularism was strong, still is, and the bible started to become a hindrance instead of an aid. Something like oversized boots that needed resizing. Good thing the generation in question is full of apologists who work diligently day and night (Their zeal amazes me, honestly) to make sure the bible remains palatable to the ever changing preferences of faith. And so there are verses in the bible you will never hear being mentioned by a Christian anywhere on the globe, because they are outright ridiculous. Read any book in the bible and you'll find a multitude of them.
I was always of the opinion that if cherry picking the bible made the hypocritical religious lives of people livable, life to these poor folk would be bliss of they flashed the whole thing down the toilet. I now recant the above, because I think we could still gain a lot if we continued to read the bible, but as what it is, folklore.
The bible was compiled over thousand of years, that is a lot of knowledge. As a lover of knowledge, I cannot advocate for its destruction no matter its form. It is true that some of the knowledge contained therein can have destructive impacts. Indeed! But that is great since it leads to the realization that destruction has been humanity's most perennial trait and a constant reminder of our stupidity, a very important fact.
I just read Matthew 8: 28-34 about Jesus and two possessed dudes. So Jesus transfers the demons in these guys to a bunch of swine that end up drowning. Being an atheist, the exorcism part is bullshit, because we all know and I bet Jesus as the "son of god"(In some versions Jesus refers to himself with the phrase "Son of Man", I wonder if they ignore this deliberately) knew that you can't drown demons, making the whole thing an unnecessary waste of life. The swine are more interesting because they made me think, what if one of those pigs paused? What if one chose to listen to those demons and think differently from the other pigs? It would have been saved from drowning. Lesson learnt, contradict the crowd. It will save your life. There are numerous other insights, for instance the popularity of crucifixion at the time and the crowd that came to see Jesus and his thieving friends die, remind me of people who cheer and watch as an alleged thief is being stoned and torched. Lesson: nothing new under the sun, and nailing a thief or two with their penises hanging out does not deter future thieves.
Of course the above can be learned from numerous literary sources. However, my atheism is not justification for ignoring it until I infer the same from a Dostoevsky novel. And so I maintain that the bible should be read in its entirety, the beautiful, the ugly and the entertaining. It's a great anthology, the bible is, and so are all holy books. So read them and treat their characters and events the same as you would treat the events in R. L. Stevenson's Treasure Island, and you will be amazed at the sheer immensity of depth and shallowness, beautiful prose and poetry, which will make you revere and detest those books in equal measure. Plus if you're an atheist, you'll have the intellectual freedom to read as many as you can from various regions and religions, and all they can do is make you a better person, which is impossible for believers.
