Why is the Bible thought of as good book?

Question

I mean, compared with say, the buddhist sutras, the contents of the Bible are violent, oppressive and God is the most ruthless being to have ever existed (Noah's arc- he wipes out EVERY living being on the planet other than the arc dwellers). According to the Bible, God also thinks/demands tens of millions of innocent people should be killed/stoned to death.

If you work on the sabbath you should be killed.
If you drink/eat too much as a teen you should be killed.
If you sleep with another man you should be killed.
People of other nations should be enslaved, and beating them is OK.
Women should be oppressed and not allowed to talk in public.
Villages/towns of atheists should be destroyed & every inhabtant killed.

I am against murder for whatsoever reason, and ~apparantly~ so is God in the 10 commandments, so how can the Bible be deemed 'good' for legitimizing murder in some of the above scenarios and more?

It also says God's law is perfect (so just), and it stands for all time, so should those parts of the Bible be followed today? According to it they should!

Jan- It seems as though you have flaws in your Bible reading skills too, as all I mentioned IS INDEED found within your Holy Bible!


"18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, 19then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. 20They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ 21Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death."
Deut 21:18-21

"33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church."
1 Cor 1:33-35

"All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall,
25but the word of the Lord stands forever."
1 Peter 1:24-25

Well... what do you have to say now?

You refer for murder as being pre-meditated... And would it not be pre-meditated if you and a group of elders/men decided to gather to stone/execute somebody??

Answer 1

You're about to get a lot of nonsense from christians and the odd funny post from atheists. Truth is - man wrote the bible. That's the only thing that seems to be undisputed. From my point of view, man wrote it - period. Oh, and another thing. God is man's worst creation. Unless you're the wealthy ruling class.

Answer 2

The Bible is an anthology of books, most of which are meant to relate history. You are quoting from the Jewish civil law, which was based on Babylonian law, and which was codified during the Jewish exile in Babylon. Unlike the Buddhist Scriptures, the Bible is not a list of 'good' behaviors. It records historical practices that may or may not have been worthy of emulation. Even the Jews did not execute all of the laws in the Old Testament. In some sense, the rules were meant to be broken. Old Testament regulations were meant to teach the severity of sin, but they were also meant to offer the opportunity for mercy. That is why Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It was a given that every man standing there was guilty of a capital offense - no one disputed that fact. But the Jews used discretion to determine when punishment was due and when it was not.

Answer 3

Other than the obvious fact that your Bible literacy is at zero, there is something else you are missing here:
For some weird reason, some people seem to think that God is love, love, love. Just love your neighbor. Be kind to people.
Be tolerant, and politically correct. Don't make waves, just be gentle and sweet and kind, no matter what.
What a crock of crap. God loves just fine - esspecially His children; however, theres lots of stuff He hates, and He is no wimp. Neither should be His people; they are expected to be learned in HIs Word, and stick to the plumb-line. No wishy-washy crap. If someone tries to endanger your family, take action. If other nations want to come and blow up your country, find them and kill them. If someone is found guilty of rape or murder, put them in the electric chair, and send them to the
Father for immediate judgement. period. If you are looking for some religion that just sits around and says "praise the lord" all day and lets people walk all over you and your family, look somewhere else. To hell with that. Thats not true Christianity.
You love and get along with your neighbor IF THAT BE POSSIBLE.
The Bible does not say if you work on the sabbath, you should be killed. As a matter of fact, Jesus healed a guy on the sabbath, and alot of people were pointing fingers at him. He told them they were wrong.
If you drink or eat too much as a teen you should be killed? Not in the Bible, friend.
If you sleep with another man, you should be killed? Is that what Jesus did to Mary Magdaline? No, it isn't.
Women should be oppressed and not allowed to talk in public?
Wrong - you read the passage out of context. Why not use your fifth grade reading skills and go back and trace your subject and object to understand what you are reading.
You are against murder? Thats fine. Gods commandment does not say "thou shalt not kill" It is, in fact, "thou shall do no murder".
The word murder in the text means "lie in wait to do fatal harm".
Thats PREMEDITATED MURDER.
As far as Noah and the Ark - the entire planets population was not wiped out; if you read the accurate writings, you will find that the reason for the flood was due to the angels that had come down and were mating with human women. You can read of them in the only chapter of the Book of Jude. They left their habitation and came to earth as angels, instead of being born to women - they wanted to marry women. They had children, and these hybrids were called "geba", which translated means "giants". These were the hybrids that God needed to do away with. As for Noah, He was a preacher against them.
They were trying to get Noahs daughters to participate. Noah would not allow that - he kept his geneology (bloodline) pure of these beings. Don't you see that this was satan's SECOND attempt at polluting the pure bloodline that womb-to-womb, was to come the Christ?? God has a reason for everything that He does. You do not have the knowledge or understanding to see the whats, whys, whos and how's of God. You lack wisdom in the Word. If you had it, you would see that there is nothing unfair about Gods plan.

Answer 4

The word "Good" used to describe the Bible as "The Good Book" meant "Holy". Maybe morality is implied in that, but the word itself didn't mean "good" the way we mean it today, as a value judgment or a reflection of morality. It's a "Holy" book -- that was the paramount meaning when the phrase was coined way back when.
I agree that the present use of "good" seems misguided here, and it should. It's a linguistic misunderstanding.

Answer 5

sounds like to me you have read the Bible from the stand point of a person who has never had the salvation experience that is also talked about in the Bible. you can not understand the Bible from a man's view simply because the Bible pretains to the spiritual things of God not the natural things. the Bible states that GOD' WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS NOR HIS THOUGHTS OUR THOUGHTS. you can not understand these things until there has been a change from deep within you brought about by salvation from the LORD GOD. seek him while he maybe found.

Answer 6

There is nothing in The Bible of The True Christian Faith for the non-believer... you misunderstandings are proof of that... The Bible is only for those of The Faith. and only by the leading of God through The Holy Spirit can an individual find what God has for them their.

you have an extreamly distorted view of The Bible...either for trying to read what is not intended for you..or by reading the words of others who have tried toread The Bible with out Faith and The leading of The Holy Spirit.

It is not possable to answer you adiquatly in this forum... it would require a lengthy study in person with one of The Faith.

Do not be concerned with The Bible or any of the "laws" you misunderstand...none of them apply to you any way... and no one of The True Christian Faith would ever try to impose them upon you.

Answer 7

Because the people who say it is good either haven't read it, or (probably more likely) are masters of doublethink (for those who haven't read 1984, see below):

"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth."
-1984 (George Orwell

Answer 8

I agree with you. it's not a guide for modern life. it represents in group--in this case Jewish--morality. For example you don't kill fellow Jews.

Billions of people share the belief that the creator of the universe wrote (or dictated) one of the many holy books. While religious tolerance is surely better than religious war, tolerance is not without its problems. Out fear of provoking religious hatred has rendered us unwilling to criticize ideas that are maladaptive. It has obliged us to lie to ourselves—repeatedly and at the highest levels of discourse—about the compatibility of religion and scientific rationality. Our competing religious certainties are impeding the emergence of a viable global civilization. Religious faith—faith that there is a God who cares what His name is called, faith that Jesus is coming back to earth—is on the wrong side of an increasing war of ideas. Unfortunately, there are many books that claim divine authorship, and they make incompatible claims to divine authorship; and they make incompatible claims as to how we MUST live. Competing religious doctrines have shattered our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continual course of human conflict.

“Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris

Answer 9

bible is a holly book we believe in it but with its right demands which transmitted by god on profit jesus ...since human hands has played with the info involved in it and changed everything so what u are reading now is not the original right bible which is perfect in every part of it no mixing of info no orders of bad things and so u cant believe with the wrong bible found now

Answer 10

God got a bad deal by bible authors. He was dragged down to their level, and humanized.