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> pointing out that the Bible ‘is a library, not a book’, full of contrasting views and narratives. With the risk of sounding blasphemous, yes it is a library.

> pointing out that the Bible ‘is a library, not a book’, full of contrasting views and narratives. With the risk of sounding blasphemous, yes it is a library. It is a buffet. You get fish, you get meat, you get salad, you get fruits. There is something for everyone. Pick what you want, ignore the rest, and we're all happy. I also wonder 'when', if ever, we will learn the truth about 'the Bible' (or other similar documents of 'holy' value). I wonder if in those bookshelves that the Vatican or in the Holy Mountain (Athos) store all the previous versions that show the evolution of the document. And I wonder if they would ever release the evolution of the document with numbers of pages, chapters, authors, years, so we can see the 'timeline' (kinda like a changelog in a Policy document).

MrMcCall 2y ago
The truth is simple, yet insidiously difficult to manifest: We are to self-evolve ourselves such that we are completely compassionate. Our love for our fellow human beings leads us to understand how we sometimes act selfishly with them, causing them unhappiness. Love for them then dictates that we need to be better people, so we turn to our Creator to help us overcome our selfish impulses, that are borne of our animal nature and cultures' pack-mentalities. By sending love to our Creator (who needs nothing of the sort), the universe resonates that love back into our heart. That reflective compassion gives us the strength to make better choices, which leads us to actually becoming better. Love is powerfully transformative. First, we must transform ourselves towards greater love, then we must help transform our societies to compassionately care for all our fellow human beings. That is the ENTIRE purpose of religion: to help us create peace and happiness for ALL human beings. And this absolutely is kindof selfish on my part, because helping others learn this greatest of all truths is a benefit to my own happiness. But the purity of my purpose here requires this message to have no material benefit for me, only karmic benefit. Peace be with you all. Compassion is the way, and, as Rumi said, "The Way goes in." [As to the Vatican, they traded their souls for a small price when they covered up their mass child rape (and are now declaring bankruptcy instead of paying their victims). A Catholic person can connect with God and become consumed by love, but the power organization that is the Catholic Church has damned themselves to hell, because they chose money over truth and compassion. Jesus says precisely what will happen to those who harm children.]
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  You may claim that this is the purpose of religion, but religious texts have MANY more things to say than this message. For example, where in all of your nice description does the prohibition against eating pork but not beef fit in? Where does the prohibition against same-sex love fit into the universal compassion? Where does the stoning of jews who don't observe the Sabbath fit in? And these are just some of the major laws of Judaism and Christianity that I'm most familiar with. Similar prohibitions and encouragements can be found in a leach and every religious practice on Earth, and they have literally 0 to do with universal love. So why believe that religion is all about universal love when religious practices insist on so many other things?
  - westmeal 2y ago
    You forgot the part where some woman's husband dies and God wants his brother to knock her up asap but when he pulls out and cums on the floor God strikes him down immediately. His pull out game was so good that God himself was furious.
    - echelon_musk 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan
    - MrMcCall 2y ago
      Not everything written down and claimed to be from God is, indeed, from God. Unreputable people have managed to insert themselves into "holy" works for ages upon ages now, and, if not in the works themselves, then certainly in our understanding of them. That is why everything is weighed against love. And the vast majority of human beings -- especially so-called religious authorities -- utterly fail in that regard. Selfishness for money and power corrupt most everyone, and religion is rife for abuse by the unscrupulous. Also, God's rules vary over the eons for different cultures and epochs.
      - specialist 2y ago
jl6 2y ago
It’s always possible that there is a Vatican Super Secret Archive that has been successfully hidden from the world, but the regular Secret Archive isn’t actually secret (and in fact isn’t called the Secret Archive any more), because it’s now open to researchers. Same for Mount Athos, where materials are being catalogued by various projects. Further knowledge about the origins of the bible are more likely to come from archeological finds, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
huhkerrf 2y ago
There's no need to imply a shadowy conspiracy to hide the "truth". You can look at, for example, The Dead Sea Scrolls and compare them to the Masoretic texts: https://news.nd.edu/news/dead-sea-scrolls-yield-major-questions-in-old-testament-understanding/ https://news.nd.edu/news/dead-sea-scrolls-yield-major-questi... Spoiler alert: there are some differences, but many more similarities.
- spacebanana7 2y ago
  Imagine the difficulty of running a conspiracy to change Biblical texts. You'd have to find and modify every copy of scripture everywhere on the planet. The only people who realistically could've attempted this might've been a Roman Emperor or an early corrupt Pope. But even those people wouldn't have been unable to modify the Dead Sea Scrolls, as those weren't discovered until well after the Roman empire ended / Papal authority of all Christians faded. There are also many other ancient manuscripts, some discovered relatively recently (i.e post reformation) and a couple dating back into the first millennium BCE [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript

MrMcCall 2y ago

The truth is simple, yet insidiously difficult to manifest: We are to self-evolve ourselves such that we are completely compassionate. Our love for our fellow human beings leads us to understand how we sometimes act selfishly with them, causing them unhappiness. Love for them then dictates that we need to be better people, so we turn to our Creator to help us overcome our selfish impulses, that are borne of our animal nature and cultures' pack-mentalities. By sending love to our Creator (who needs nothing of the sort), the universe resonates that love back into our heart. That reflective compassion gives us the strength to make better choices, which leads us to actually becoming better. Love is powerfully transformative. First, we must transform ourselves towards greater love, then we must help transform our societies to compassionately care for all our fellow human beings. That is the ENTIRE purpose of religion: to help us create peace and happiness for ALL human beings. And this absolutely is kindof selfish on my part, because helping others learn this greatest of all truths is a benefit to my own happiness. But the purity of my purpose here requires this message to have no material benefit for me, only karmic benefit. Peace be with you all. Compassion is the way, and, as Rumi said, "The Way goes in." [As to the Vatican, they traded their souls for a small price when they covered up their mass child rape (and are now declaring bankruptcy instead of paying their victims). A Catholic person can connect with God and become consumed by love, but the power organization that is the Catholic Church has damned themselves to hell, because they chose money over truth and compassion. Jesus says precisely what will happen to those who harm children.]

tsimionescu 2y ago
You may claim that this is the purpose of religion, but religious texts have MANY more things to say than this message. For example, where in all of your nice description does the prohibition against eating pork but not beef fit in? Where does the prohibition against same-sex love fit into the universal compassion? Where does the stoning of jews who don't observe the Sabbath fit in? And these are just some of the major laws of Judaism and Christianity that I'm most familiar with. Similar prohibitions and encouragements can be found in a leach and every religious practice on Earth, and they have literally 0 to do with universal love. So why believe that religion is all about universal love when religious practices insist on so many other things?
- westmeal 2y ago
  You forgot the part where some woman's husband dies and God wants his brother to knock her up asap but when he pulls out and cums on the floor God strikes him down immediately. His pull out game was so good that God himself was furious.
  - echelon_musk 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    Not everything written down and claimed to be from God is, indeed, from God. Unreputable people have managed to insert themselves into "holy" works for ages upon ages now, and, if not in the works themselves, then certainly in our understanding of them. That is why everything is weighed against love. And the vast majority of human beings -- especially so-called religious authorities -- utterly fail in that regard. Selfishness for money and power corrupt most everyone, and religion is rife for abuse by the unscrupulous. Also, God's rules vary over the eons for different cultures and epochs.
    - specialist 2y ago

jl6 2y ago

It’s always possible that there is a Vatican Super Secret Archive that has been successfully hidden from the world, but the regular Secret Archive isn’t actually secret (and in fact isn’t called the Secret Archive any more), because it’s now open to researchers. Same for Mount Athos, where materials are being catalogued by various projects. Further knowledge about the origins of the bible are more likely to come from archeological finds, like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

huhkerrf 2y ago

There's no need to imply a shadowy conspiracy to hide the "truth". You can look at, for example, The Dead Sea Scrolls and compare them to the Masoretic texts: https://news.nd.edu/news/dead-sea-scrolls-yield-major-questions-in-old-testament-understanding/ https://news.nd.edu/news/dead-sea-scrolls-yield-major-questi... Spoiler alert: there are some differences, but many more similarities.

spacebanana7 2y ago
Imagine the difficulty of running a conspiracy to change Biblical texts. You'd have to find and modify every copy of scripture everywhere on the planet. The only people who realistically could've attempted this might've been a Roman Emperor or an early corrupt Pope. But even those people wouldn't have been unable to modify the Dead Sea Scrolls, as those weren't discovered until well after the Roman empire ended / Papal authority of all Christians faded. There are also many other ancient manuscripts, some discovered relatively recently (i.e post reformation) and a couple dating back into the first millennium BCE [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_manuscript