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Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword
The Bible is really only good if you study it book by book. If you try reading it like on complete linear story it really gets boring. I don't really like the narratives and such anyways. Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and those type of books are my personal favorites because they are less narrative and more in depth.
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Yeah, I always tuned my Sunday school teachers out when I was younger. I'm sure they were trying to teach me how to read the bible when all I wanted to do was play Nintendo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Inuzuka Skysword
What about Greek Mythology or Norse Mythology for that matter? They are just as much fairy tales. Albert Camus writes, "Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them." If you take the Bible as myth, you should be able to find some value by breathing your own life into it.
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this makes a lot of sense to me, even if 99% of the bible is pure BS, you can always get something substantial & healthy out of it if the overall message is a positive one.
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Originally Posted by TheCunningStunt
The boy who cried wolf teaches you not to lie, the bible teachers you to behave or off to hell you go.
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The more I try to understand Christianity a bit more the more I don't really think a hell truly exists. It's hard to really take anything too literally with the way things are worded and all the use of symbolism and such, but perhaps hell is an isolated and lonely existence without opening your mind and your heart to something more powerful then yourself. Not saying opening your heart to God is the answer, I think it can be anything or anyone that causes a person to live fully and not full of fear. People (as all animals) need other people in their lives for whatever reasons, love, hate, fear, greed, want, need, etc. are all embedded in us. Perhaps misusing these feelings so often can create our own little personal hell in which we suffer internally until the day we die.
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Originally Posted by TheCunningStunt
I read the fable of the boy who cried wolf, which teaches us not to lie.
I still lie.
Just because I've read it, doesn't mean I'm gonna live by it..
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free will, do what you want but realize your actions have consequences, not to say you will be sent to hell... like I said above, hell could be your unhappiness for living the way you do.
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Originally Posted by AwwSugar
The thing that bothers me most about Christianity, and by Christianity, I mean the Catholic church I'd been exposed to from 3 years old to 15, is that they DO use threats.
If you're homosexual, "God" won't love you.
If you have sex before marriage, "God" won't love you.
If you don't donate to the church, "God" won't love you.
And then recently, I was accepted in to a college that made it clear that it was necessary to have recieved all of your sacraments.
I was blind in looking for colleges, and for some reason, didn't notice how strict the school was religiously.
But that's what I've been exposed to throughout my life.
That's how "God" introduced himself to me.
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I hear ya and feel your pain on this one. A big part in which ANYTHING is taught is the teacher. I've been to masses where I walked out feeling on top of the world and ready for action and then I've been to masses where I want to choke the priest for being so obtuse and prehistoric with his views and teachings. I believe God is love and strength... no matter who or what it is, love transcends all differences. Homosexuals have both love and strength, they should be used as examples of God's love not the other way around. Thinking of Catholicism as a business I have to think deep down they are kicking themselves for not "opening their hearts" to homosexuals... think of all the money they are losing
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Originally Posted by JKSmith
2. I am happier off with religion. Without it, I would only be searching for it. Which is what all humans do, because of a gene which they have found that makes you believe in a God.
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this doesn't make much sense. If I were born on an island with nobody around me to teach me a thing, I wouldn't be looking to the sky for God to help me off the island. I would just be looking for food, water and shelter after some trial and error. If you are told something from the day you are able to speak, you're going to believe it immensely. It's not a gene, it's a desire to fit in and be accepted. According to what Satchmo said (Unitarian faith), this desire is normal but to blindly accept without question and to blindly worship without true desire goes against the very thing Catholics praise Jesus for in the first place.