The Bible. Myth or Reality?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Greatest I am, May 21, 2015.

  1. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,740
    The Bible. Myth or Reality?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAEpc1zhcuo

    As a Gnostic Christian I see literal reading of the Bible as a gross distortion of what the Bible was written to do. That being to inspire people to seek God and his best laws and rules. Literal readers just become idol worshipers and do not seek God the way Jesus instructed.

    http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

    Literal reading has created and idol worshiping closed minded people who have settled for an immoral God whom we name as a demiurge as his morals, if literally true, are more satanic than God like.

    Literal reading has also created a climate where scholars and experts, historians and archeologist, and all the academically well accepted information they uncover, --- is being ignored or called lies by those who are not academics of the various disciplines.

    What is the point of producing good academics if literalists are going to ignore facts because of blind faith?
    Remember please that if not a book of myths, then real talking serpents are somehow supposed to still exist and believers have to believe in a lot of supernatural phenomenon without any evidence whatsoever.

    Literalist Christians, it seems to me, have suspended rational judgement that has created in Christians a new Dark Age of thought and an Inquisitional attitude towards all other thinking. They no longer seek God and are true idol worshipers instead of the God seekers that Jesus wanted to see.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBxFXQy7-M

    Do you think the Bible to be a book of myths or a book trying to show reality and history?

    Regards
    DL
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    Reality.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. sideshowbob Sorry, wrong number. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,057
    Maybe the authors of the Bible were trying to show reality and history but they didn't.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,883
    It is a historical epic.
     
  8. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,740
    All of it? Talking animals, a water walking God and the seven headed monster of Revelation, and God using genocide against the whole world?

    If so, talking serpents are supposed to still be here hurting us. Where are they?

    Regards
    DL
     
  9. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,740
    Or maybe they wanted to show fantasy and people stupidly thought it was reality.

    Or maybe it was written by aliens.

    Many maybes.

    Regards
    DL
     
  10. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,740
    That falls under reality then.

    I asked Photizo to expand in post 5. Care to answer the same post?

    Regards
    DL
     
  11. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,632
    Can't be. It even contradicts itself.

    The Bible is the written form of an oral tradition going back millennia. The stories did not survive intact, nor are all the stories from the same place. Some are parables, some are real events, some are real events as modified by a new religion struggling to find relevance.

    While study of the Bible can be a valuable endeavor and can reveal a lot about the time it was written and the various Christian faiths, it is a mistake to take it literally. It is not a literal account, nor was it intended to be.
     
  12. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,883
    By historical epic I mean that there is some historical truth (the sematic tribes existed, they had some interaction with Egypt, they migrated, etc.) but everything was written in the context of mythology - along the lines of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
     
  13. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_paradox

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    "The Bible is the written form of an oral tradition going back millennia. The stories did not survive intact, nor are all the stories from the same place. Some are parables, some are real events, some are real events as modified by a new religion struggling to find relevance. While study of the Bible can be a valuable endeavor and can reveal a lot about the time it was written and the various Christian faiths, it is a mistake to take it literally. It is not a literal account, nor was it intended to be."
     
  14. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    "...it is a mistake to take it literally. It is not a literal account, nor was it intended to be."

    Thus a myth, not reality.
     
  15. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,223
    Something doesn't have to be literally true to be "real" or "true" in a transcendent sense. Granted, I don't think of the Bible as that for me, since I'm a Hellenist; but I'm not the only person in the world and it would be supremely narcissistic to think of my beliefs as objectively true.
     
  16. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    The Bible is the Word of God to man. Ignore It/Him and you will certainly perish.
     
    Gottfried likes this.
  17. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,632
  18. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,632
    In the same way that old history textbooks are myths, yes. (Which is to say, they contained a lot of mistakes, and a lot of stuff was conflated to a Christian view of the world, but were generally true.)
     
  19. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,740
    Perfect. Thanks.

    If Constantine had left it as myth and not pushe the 4 only gospel literacy, we might habe by-passed the Dark Ages of free thought and Inquisitions.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02ciandvg&feature=BFa&list=PLCBF574D

    Regards
    DL
     
  20. Greatest I am Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,740
    Please listen to Bishop Spong on how the bible became the Word of God. Start it up at about the 17 min.mark, although the whole link is worthy of your listening.



    Why did God give man two creation stories and two flood stories that respectively contradict each other.

    These are scriptures that were written by Jews.
    Jews are generally not literalists and do not see it as the word of God. Why do you?

    Do you not think it strange that Christianity reversed the morals of some of the stories?

    For instance, Genesis, to Jews, was a place of man's elevation.

    Christianity turned that into a fall.

    Should the Jewish view not take precedence?
    After all, it is their God and scriptures.

    Regards
    DL
     
  21. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,198
    I think not. Cows were quite similar looking animals to the present cow, I suspect but had much smaller utter and gave little if any milk year long. Man made them via selective breading same way he made various types of dogs.
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    54,036
    In other words, full of shit.
     
  23. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,519
    How's that workin' out for 'em?
     

Share This Page