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> I'm 100% atheist but I've considered reading the bible because it's culturally significant. But isn't just a bunch of boring and inconsistent tales? is there

> I'm 100% atheist but I've considered reading the bible because it's culturally significant. But isn't just a bunch of boring and inconsistent tales? is there really anything to be learned from the bible? You could say the same thing about the Iliad or Aeneid, or the Arabian Nights, or pretty much any long-standing work of literature. I'm not a Christian either, but I love the Bible - it's a book of great beauty and wisdom, and a foundation / moral guide for many of the world's great civilizations. If that isn't reason enough for you, then nothing will be. "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."

Joker_vD 6y ago
Do you mean New Testament or Old Testament? The New one is mostly pleasant (mostly) but the Old one... oh boy. Casual genocide, god-assisted, even, what's not to love? And even better, the stories of literally defrauding the god (Moses was told by the god he has to keep his arms up for Israelis to keep winning the battle, but he gets tired, so his sons(?) keep them up with their hands for him, yeah, that's totally not against the spirit of the god's challenge). Honestly, the Greek myths are better in that they weren't at least claiming those gods were omnibenevolent and stuff.
- mistermann 6y ago
  I think I read somewhere once that the stories in the bible shouldn't be taken as literally true, but rather that they use metaphors to convey ideas. Not sure how true that is though.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    Ah, "figurative interpretation" defence. Except that one or two thousand years ago such "figurative interpretation" was considered an apostasy: people actually believed those stories to factually be true. Try to deny their factual truth, get stoned (with stones).
    - mistermann 6y ago
      There is what is true, and then there is mankind's interpretation/opinion of what is true, which changes over time. And, interpretations do not always have unanimous support for any given point in time. This kinda seems to apply to pretty much everything, not just The Bible.
    - mcv 6y ago
      Not true. During the Middle Ages, 4 levels of interpretation: literal, allegorical, moral and mystical. Of these, the literal was generally seen as the least important. Of course there are parts in the bible that do describe literal history, and those are still very important for context, but a lot of stories are very clearly not literal, and even in the middle ages, an important Christian thinker or cardinal (I forgot who it was and can't find the quote at the moment) said: if our interpretation of scripture conflicts with our observation of the world, then our interpretation must be wrong. He wasn't stoned or burned at the stake for that. And 2000 years ago, it certainly wasn't the Christians who were stoning people. No, the "figurative interpretation", as you call it, has been with us for millennia. Biblical Literalism is only a fairly recent movement, and quite at odds with the bible, Christianity, and reality.
      - mistermann 6y ago
        It's interesting how modern rationalists look down their noses at the bible and people's interpretations of it, while being completely unaware of the fact that while doing so, they are interpreting their perception of reality (an interpretation within an interpretation). I suspect a non-trivial part of religion (that has been lost since we have broadly rejected it) is that it explicitly taught various types of humility, in various ways, and then also that from a more abstract/psychological perspective, the cognitive practice of conceptualizing an all powerful, all knowing God may have had beneficial psychological aspects with respect to moderating the (often dangerous) perception of omniscience, that seems to be an evolved and unavoidable consequence of human consciousness. Evidence of this sense of omniscience can be seen everywhere on social media today: widespread self-perceptions of abilities to accurately read minds, predict the future, know everything (including the unknown/top-secret/undiscovered), solve infinitely complex problems with ease, etc. It's weird how this is so obvious, and makes complete logical sense, but encountering someone who does not outright and incredibly passionately reject this idea is incredibly rare. Perhaps this helps explain why religion is so common, always and everywhere - it is socially evolved and doggedly persistent, because it provides genuine superior fitness by offsetting some of the unseen negative aspects that hitched a ride on other evolved traits.
  - mcv 6y ago
    It varies a lot. Some stories are history, some stories are stories. Some are a bit of a mix: they may have a kernel of truth, but they're really more about the story than about historical reliability. I think it's generally pretty easy to tell which is which, but clearly a lot of people have a much harder time with that. I blame the biblical literalism movement. I don't think there's anything else that has done quite as much damage to Christianity as the insistence that every part of the bible has to be taken as literally as possible. This movement is relatively recent; in the Middle Ages, bible scholars identified 4 levels of interpretation of the bible, of which the literal interpretation was only one, and generally the least important. After the Reformation, everybody had to be able to read the bible (generally a good thing), but that also meant everybody got to interpret it, and some people got a bit carried away.
- themaninthedark 6y ago
  The story of going against the spirit of a command is universal. When I was learning Japanese, I was told this story: Hashi : chopsticks, edge, bridge A young monk was studying at a temple, inside the temple ground there was a garden with a bridge to an island. The senior monk told the student that he was to not cross the bridge"Hashi wa dame". Every day the young monk studies and meditated but he was not reaching enlightenment. One day, he crossed the bridge and meditated and had a vision on the island. He then share his vision with the other monks and the senior monk said to him "I told you not to cross the bridge" and the young monk replied "Master, I thought you were telling me not to walk on the edge, I went down the middle." Both stories are very anti-establishment in nature and teach us that in order to get what we desire we may have to look for loopholes.

Joker_vD 6y ago

Do you mean New Testament or Old Testament? The New one is mostly pleasant (mostly) but the Old one... oh boy. Casual genocide, god-assisted, even, what's not to love? And even better, the stories of literally defrauding the god (Moses was told by the god he has to keep his arms up for Israelis to keep winning the battle, but he gets tired, so his sons(?) keep them up with their hands for him, yeah, that's totally not against the spirit of the god's challenge). Honestly, the Greek myths are better in that they weren't at least claiming those gods were omnibenevolent and stuff.

mistermann 6y ago
I think I read somewhere once that the stories in the bible shouldn't be taken as literally true, but rather that they use metaphors to convey ideas. Not sure how true that is though.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  Ah, "figurative interpretation" defence. Except that one or two thousand years ago such "figurative interpretation" was considered an apostasy: people actually believed those stories to factually be true. Try to deny their factual truth, get stoned (with stones).
  - mistermann 6y ago
    There is what is true, and then there is mankind's interpretation/opinion of what is true, which changes over time. And, interpretations do not always have unanimous support for any given point in time. This kinda seems to apply to pretty much everything, not just The Bible.
  - mcv 6y ago
    Not true. During the Middle Ages, 4 levels of interpretation: literal, allegorical, moral and mystical. Of these, the literal was generally seen as the least important. Of course there are parts in the bible that do describe literal history, and those are still very important for context, but a lot of stories are very clearly not literal, and even in the middle ages, an important Christian thinker or cardinal (I forgot who it was and can't find the quote at the moment) said: if our interpretation of scripture conflicts with our observation of the world, then our interpretation must be wrong. He wasn't stoned or burned at the stake for that. And 2000 years ago, it certainly wasn't the Christians who were stoning people. No, the "figurative interpretation", as you call it, has been with us for millennia. Biblical Literalism is only a fairly recent movement, and quite at odds with the bible, Christianity, and reality.
    - mistermann 6y ago
      It's interesting how modern rationalists look down their noses at the bible and people's interpretations of it, while being completely unaware of the fact that while doing so, they are interpreting their perception of reality (an interpretation within an interpretation). I suspect a non-trivial part of religion (that has been lost since we have broadly rejected it) is that it explicitly taught various types of humility, in various ways, and then also that from a more abstract/psychological perspective, the cognitive practice of conceptualizing an all powerful, all knowing God may have had beneficial psychological aspects with respect to moderating the (often dangerous) perception of omniscience, that seems to be an evolved and unavoidable consequence of human consciousness. Evidence of this sense of omniscience can be seen everywhere on social media today: widespread self-perceptions of abilities to accurately read minds, predict the future, know everything (including the unknown/top-secret/undiscovered), solve infinitely complex problems with ease, etc. It's weird how this is so obvious, and makes complete logical sense, but encountering someone who does not outright and incredibly passionately reject this idea is incredibly rare. Perhaps this helps explain why religion is so common, always and everywhere - it is socially evolved and doggedly persistent, because it provides genuine superior fitness by offsetting some of the unseen negative aspects that hitched a ride on other evolved traits.
- mcv 6y ago
  It varies a lot. Some stories are history, some stories are stories. Some are a bit of a mix: they may have a kernel of truth, but they're really more about the story than about historical reliability. I think it's generally pretty easy to tell which is which, but clearly a lot of people have a much harder time with that. I blame the biblical literalism movement. I don't think there's anything else that has done quite as much damage to Christianity as the insistence that every part of the bible has to be taken as literally as possible. This movement is relatively recent; in the Middle Ages, bible scholars identified 4 levels of interpretation of the bible, of which the literal interpretation was only one, and generally the least important. After the Reformation, everybody had to be able to read the bible (generally a good thing), but that also meant everybody got to interpret it, and some people got a bit carried away.
themaninthedark 6y ago
The story of going against the spirit of a command is universal. When I was learning Japanese, I was told this story: Hashi : chopsticks, edge, bridge A young monk was studying at a temple, inside the temple ground there was a garden with a bridge to an island. The senior monk told the student that he was to not cross the bridge"Hashi wa dame". Every day the young monk studies and meditated but he was not reaching enlightenment. One day, he crossed the bridge and meditated and had a vision on the island. He then share his vision with the other monks and the senior monk said to him "I told you not to cross the bridge" and the young monk replied "Master, I thought you were telling me not to walk on the edge, I went down the middle." Both stories are very anti-establishment in nature and teach us that in order to get what we desire we may have to look for loopholes.