No, Atheist Friends, The Bible Isn't Just "Fairy Tale."

[yallerdawg]

Just another perspective!

Source: Patheos, by Benjamin L. Corey

*****

For example, in the Hebrew scriptures we find a wide array of genres that all center around a theme: the birth and development of a people group that came to be known as ancient Israel. Most of it was written in hindsight (I believe most was written in the post-exilic period) as they looked back at where they had come from. From this literature we see how they viewed government, what bronze age nomads considered good laws, how they viewed the divine, which surrounding cultures they clearly hated, and which ones they were happy to borrow from as they grew in their individual identity.

Within that, do they also include some myths (sacred stories that aren’t literally true)? Some legends (popular stories that can’t be historically authenticated)? Yeah, of course. That’s the kind of stuff we expect to find in ancient literature like this.

As we move forward we find them writing about their wars, and see that just like those around them, they grossly exaggerated their victories (as I demonstrate in this 2 minute video of an artifact I stumbled upon in Amman, Jordan). We also see them write beautiful poetry and wisdom, two more literary genres found in the 66 book library. We find them talking about their national problems, their struggles with leadership and how establishing a monarchy backfired on them, and even have an entire book dedicated to things they complained about.

Then we move into another interesting genre – the prophets. No, these weren’t exactly future tellers, but more like the social justice advocates of their day. After the wars, their culture became like ours- the rich grew richer and the poor grew poorer, so ancient “prophets” came along to tell them that such selfishness actually pisses God off. One of them even told people that God hates religious people who mistreat the poor and vulnerable, and that they make God want to vomit. (These guys often got killed, FWIW.)

And, of course, we have the Greek Scriptures, where some Jews started a new religion that became known as Christianity. In here we see fans of Jesus who wrote about his life and teachings, followed by a collection of letters written to different churches around the world– each one addressing different cultural struggles and issues they were having as they began to establish this new religion. The Bible even ends with a truly strange genre – Jewish apocalyptic literature – which was a specific genre that was geared towards giving people hope when struggling through rough times, but is notoriously complicated to interpret in modern times.

*****

Read it all at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/formerlyfundie/is-the-bible-just-a-fairy-tale-and-do-atheists-have-an-unsophisticated-approach-to-literature/


And the movie genre!

[guillaumeb]

1. Recommended. Just on this excerpt.

Now to read the article.

But some prefer to attack religious books because they are not the equivalent of a science textbook. So metaphoric language for them constitutes proof that religion is based on nothing.

Some, with no real evidence, prefer to worship the human intellect as the highest form of creation. Sorry, I meant the highest form of life.

[yallerdawg]

3. I always thought Evolutionary Survival of the Fittest...

leaned toward cockroaches and sharks as the cream of the crop, the most perfect of that random roll of the dice.


Which, when the Hare Krishna's (the American missionary branch of India's Hinduism) asked me why I wanted to chance coming back as a cockroach, it actually made a lot of sense (coming back a little bit better on the Nirvana train?).

[guillaumeb]

2. From near the end:

It’s such a waste of perfectly good brain cells when bias leads us to dismissiveness and over-generalization, especially in the world of literature. But hey, people do this with Shakespeare too, because dismissiveness is easier than seeking understanding.

Dismissiveness is always the easy or lazy way to respond. But if we are serious about building bridges, and building the Democratic Party, why would anyone want to dismiss the majority of Americans because they are theists? That sounds like a recipe for permanent minority status in many areas of the country.

[yallerdawg]

4. We should be doing everything we can to expand our Big Tent, bring more people in!

Divisiveness and intolerance only makes us smaller.

We are inarguably "Stronger Together!"

[guillaumeb]

6. And dismissing theists is a recipe for irrelevance.

But it happens constantly.

[edhopper]

5. But all the supernatural stuff

is still fantasy.

Thank you for making the atheists' point about the Bible.

[TlalocW]

7. It almost immediately starts off with

A talking snake. That's pretty fairy tale-ish.

TlalocW

[msongs]

8. moses throws his staff on the ground and it becomes a snake. not witchcraft? nt

[TlalocW]

9. Isn't there a type of snake where if you put pressure on the back of its head

It stiffens up? It may just be a made-up story, but if you knew that, and the other primitives around you didn't, well... try, try, try to understand - you're a magic man.

TlalocW

[MineralMan]

11. Not that I know of. I've never heard of such a snake.

And I'm an old snake-handler since childhood. I've never seen a snake stiffen up at any time.

[TlalocW]

12. It could just be an anti-theist/atheist/agnostic

Trying to explain away something miraculous in the Bible and doing his cause more harm than good, but I've heard it several times.

Oh, wait... Here's an interesting essay.

http://ap.lanexdev.com/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=1704

TlalocW

[MineralMan]

13. Very interesting.

I'll have to check further into that.

[TlalocW]

14. Or it could be done like this

I use this prop in my kids magic show.

TlalocW

[Voltaire2]

10. Yes parts of it are a really shitty history, others bizarre and frequently abhorrent laws.

the rest is, a you say, fairy tales.