Depending in which camp you reside, the Bible is the inspired word of God, or the allegorical stories of Bronze Age nomadic goat-herders. Whatever your position, I want you to really look at the following Bible passages objectively. Can you find inspiration here, or is it more likely reflections from the hearts of man..?
However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way.
Leviticus 25:44-46
When a priest’s daughter dishonors herself by becoming a prostitute, she dishonors her father. She must be burned..
Leviticus 21:9
For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.
1. Corinthians 11,8-9
I’ve said it so many times that I’m starting to sound like a broken record… as a Christian, you should accept the word of the Bible 100%.
As soon as you start arbitrarily cherry-picking which verses to live by and which ones to ignore, it begs the question, why base your philosophical outlook on the Bible at all?
There are many more inspirational books in the world – some even older than the Bible, some written much more recently.
If you’ve only had the best bits from the Bible read to you in church, it might seem reasonable that man cannot live a good life without God. It might seem reasonable, because you haven’t taken a closer look at this terrible book yourself…
But that’s religion’s purpose – to keep you onboard, living in fear and handing over money.
But as one of the greatest intellectual minds of the 20th century observed:
Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.
Christopher Hitches
Atheists are not evil. We’re certainly not going to hell. Your religion – or absence thereof – does not make you a good or bad person… your actions do. There were good and bad people long before Christianity came along, and there will be good and bad people long after its teachings are all but forgotten.
I’ll leave you with one final quotation:
Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor – but they have few followers now.
Arthur C. Clarke
