Do people who hold up the Bible as inspiration for moral rectitude have any idea what is actualy written in it

Question

How many people here who claim to be Christians and use the Bible for moral guidance have actually READ the Bible from cover to cover?

How do you decide which rules you are going to follow and which ones you are going to break (and you ALL break the rules laid down in the Bible on practically a daily basis without a second thought... trust me... if you disagree with that statement, ask your self again, have you actually READ the whole of the Bible?)

Answer 1

I liked the part about offering your daughters to the mob to be gang raped rather than inconvenience a couple of God's servants.

Answer 2

They've come up with a number of different reasons why they don't need to follow the rules they don't like. For instance, the parts about women not talking in church and having to cover their heads are considered to have been "cultural" things that applied back then, but don't apply today.

Of course, the bible doesn't actually say that those are cultural things that can be ignored, but the Christians apparently feel comfortable deciding what is applicable to them and what isn't.

Almost everything in the Old Testament they feel free to ignore, because they say that those commandments were only meant for Jews. However, they still believe the Old Testament verses on homosexuals should be followed. It would appear that they still believe in the anti-gay verses because those verses aren't something that would be inconvenient for them and it gives them a reason to get away with hating certain people.

They also like to point to the Old Testament to justify their willingness to kill people in wars, despite the fact that the New Testament teachings of Jesus seem to indicate that violence should never be used.

Prior to the civil war, southerners in the US often used a lot of the verses in the bible to justify owning slaves. However, now that slavery is almost universally considered to be extremely immoral, its hard to find any Christians that would be willing to admit that the bible actually endorses slavery.

Personally, I still can't believe that there are so many Christians ready to state that they actually believe that Abraham was doing a good and moral thing when he very nearly murdered his son as a human sacrifice to Jehovah. That is just mind boggling, and rather sickening.

Answer 3

Even though I am a pagan rather than a Christian, I have found inspiration in the Bible. I believe there are some beautiful and insprational stories. I see nothing wrong with holding the 10 commandments as a base for a moral person.

I have read it completely, old and new, on multiple occasions using different versions. I have also read a multitude of Holy books from a large variety of religions. I find it fasinating and thought provoking.

While I do not believe the Bible as being a literal document, I do appreciate many of the lessons it can teach to a person with an open mind.

Answer 4

Well, good sir, I would say that one does not need to read the entire bible to understand the basic concepts. If YOU had read the bible through, you would know that the majority of it is basically the history of Christianity.

And yes, we do break the rules, but we do not break all of them on a daily basis. Just today I have no killed, committed adultery, or taken God's name in vain.

And there is nothing wrong with having moral standards. The rules of the bible are widely accepted as a pretty good standard of morality.

So before you criticize Christianity, why don't YOU read the bible from cover to cover. :)

Answer 5

They apply a mental filter that allows them to disregard the character of God and his followers as portrayed therein. Many when they read the Bible only read the parts that are comforting. Others interpret the bad parts through a filter that is made in part from a desire to make whatever is contradictory to their beliefs somehow conform anyway. For me it was reading the Bible on my own as a young adult that shocked me as to what this "God of love" was really like. That led to questioning Christianity and veracity of religion period.

Within Christianity there is disagreement on what rules from the OT still apply or not. In general though Christians tend to say that the NT is a new covenent and so many of the rules from the OT no longer apply.

Answer 6

When I was a Christian, I read it all the time, and honestly never really thought about those events as tangible or reflective of God's nature. I just believed in faith that he was loving, despite what the word showed.

When I was questioning my belief system, I reread the bible from a literal perspective, and was shocked at all the stuff I had glossed over and never really considered.

I had read the bible many times before then, but never considered what it would be like to be a Hittite in Numbers 31 before then.

I think its just a subconscious defense mechanism that helps you maintain a belief system.

Edit -

I love the moral guidance answer. While I was a Christian I read Numbers 5 many times, but didn't consider why God would maintain a law with moral standards like that?

Answer 7

Yes, I do. And I have read it from cover to cover as well. God knew no one could keep all the "rules". That's why Jesus came...and died for us. The law was given so we would know what sin is, not so God would have an excuse to send us to hell---apart from the law, sin was dead. When the law/commandments came, sin revived (we recognized our sin) and we died spiritually. For until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.The Bible teaches that when we accept Christ, we've become dead to the law through the body of Christ.
I can't explain in a few short sentences, but you can read it in Roman's chapters 5-8.
Once a person accepts Christ as their Saviour, they've been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by(sin), so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter (law).
So yes, we still sin, though it's no longer our desire to. But now we have an advocate with God. We seek forgiveness daily, repenting of sin, and we are cleansed from sin by the blood of Jesus. Have you read the Bible with an open heart and mind...sincerely desiring to know the truth? Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. :))



"Hmm?" ~ as Sesshomaru responds to Jaken's attempts to dodge the question.

Answer 8

This is so true. A lot of people including myself attend bible study but have not read it from cover to cover. I study topics and books but to have actually read it as a book I have not. I am not perfect and neither is any of us. I strive to be more Christlike each day. If the message was perfection we would all fail and give up. Yet and still we move in with God's grace and mercy and try to climb a little higher each day. I don't decide which rules I'm going to break today because I don't want to offend or disappoint God. My prayer for forgiveness say Lord please forgive me for the sins I have knowingly and unknowingly committed by thought, word or deed.

Answer 9

Which one do you want to know about...verbatim???

The original Catholic Holy Bible...the New International Version...the King James Version...the Book of Mormon...the Good Book...or the New Testament for Modern Man...the Torah..or the Q'uran???

I think you're mistaking the idea of "reading" versus "adhering to"...my moral compass is tuned to what I've read in the Bible and my faith, but that doesn't mean my human nature won't make me do something to break the commandments...

Answer 10

Reading the Bible is one thing. The trick is to live your life according to what the Bible tells us. Although the Old Testiment is more of History, the Tew Testiment gives us great advice as to how to better ourselves. Since God is so much higher than us, and knows all things, He knows what's best for us, better than we do.
We can learn how to be a better person, or, we can reject it and never grow spiritually. God claims that, "Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and my ways are not your ways."
God loves everyone, but hates the sinning they do. Many are called, but only a few are chosen. The ones chosen are the ones who live their lives the way God commands.

Answer 11

yeah interesting point, i have read it and some of the stuff in there doesn't seem that nice or holy to me (and this being done by various prophets etc) but the problem with things like this is that they can be interpreted in various ways and sometimes have big contradictions eg at one point people are told to make their farming tools into weapons and go to war, then they are told to seek peace and use their tools to farm again or whatever