I can remember my first reaction to the Bible was off being disturbed by the appallingly unethical actions which were never directly criticized. These unethical actions were done by so called leaders and patriachs, sometimes these people were said to have the spirit of the Lord on them. Why did I not just say to myself, ' I do not believe that a loving, good God would approve of that, these people must have been very mistaken in their assessment of their own behaviour and in their estimation of what a good, loving god might want'
I should have thought to myself, if there was a good loving God then either he would send them a message direct, to inform them that they were mistaken or send an angel with the message. You could say that the actions of O.T. patriachs were criticized by parts of the law but why do you have no recorded criticizm by Jesus or Paul or any other disciples.
I can remember as a child being very fearful after hearing a hell fire damnation sermon and telling my mum I wanted to 'BE SAVED' i did the prayer but it didn't really change anything much. Maybe other people are better at just focusing on the, ' I've signed up, I'm going to heaven now. Now looking back on that night I see it as a step down the staircase to delusion & madness, it was giving in to fears. What I should have said is, 'That is not reality, The main themes of Christianity are fiction, the supernatural realm it suggests does not exist, the ideas of heaven and hell are wildly improbably'. Reject that message and just try to be loving, caring and don't hurt anyone. Just try to do well at school and in a career and everything else will fall into place.
I can remember my early reaction to the hymns in church that they seemed like mumbo jumbo waffle. Why didn't I just say, 'This is nonsense' and think no more of it?
I can remember as a teenager outside the church building just feeling a great sense of gloom about the picture christianity paints of the world. It all seemed just so dark. Then I clicked onto the few verses like 'love you neighbour', 'Treat others as you want them to treat you'. I realised there were a few good ideas in the Bible and I thought maybe under it all there was something I didn't understand, that maybe the message had got twisted a bit. Why then did I grant so much certainty to the doctrine of hell? Well the ministers seemed certain, Scripture Union claimed certainty. I think I always had a wondering if it might not be so. You hope that it isn't so.
If life is like sailing a yacht then there are winds & currents pushing you around that could drive you onto the rocks. The winds/current of my social circle were insisting that the Bible was a message from the gods. I feared I was on the wrong side of that god. I was too afraid just to assert that the Bible was not any sort of message from a god. I tried to see the hidden message in the bible, I thought you needed to solve the parables, riddles and cryptic message in order to get to heaven, I tried to believe in the idea 'trust & believe and be saved'. The winds of my social circle were driving me onto the rocks. I let my fears push me to steer the rudder of thought in a direction that actually made matters worse. Reason says that the bible ideas were no more than guesses and probably false. Now that I go by reason I am doing fine. Going by the idea that the Bible is only guesses allows you to just take a hint or flavour from the Bible without being capsized by it.
I can remember other voices in the media that were more sceptical of the orthodox message I was getting. The voices from the Bishop of Durham, and unbelieving voices on the tv. A friend who said things like put of the matter of whether to become a christian until you are old, the bible says that people won't live past 120 and yet they have, christians should be happy to die if they are going to heaven so why do they pray desparately to be healed from cancer, christianity is a crutch. Did anyone say, 'The bible is fiction' and yet I had the attitude well parts of the bible story are certain fact look there is Israel & the Jews do they think their history wasn't like it says in the Bible. The answer is that while the history in the Bible might have grains of reality in some of its kings having existed, the narrative about them, the detail is legend & fiction. The supernatural realm dimension is fantasy. All the cultures had their hypotheses about the gods and why things happened but that was all fiction. Look at the people to day who claim , this happened because the gods were punishing people or God wants you to do that, it is all deluded guesswork.
One of the most helpful ideas I heard was by Prof Richard Wiseman in his book "59seconds" - that from the example of- if you are told not to think of an elephant then it will actually be more likely that you will think of an elephant. If you have been obsessively worrying over and over about an issue then that issue is going to become memorized to the point where you have developed a mental rut to slip into. So apart from thinking about the reasons why your worry is not real or exaggerated you also need something on a completely different topic to focus on. It is helpful to pick sports , hobbies, crafts, research subjects which you find all consuming, which engage your attention. I go windsurfing as it is complex, ever changing, I like seeing the waves, the sea is different every time, it's therapeutic somehow.
ReplyDeleteThis is a gross exaggeration but ; whatever the Bible says then think the opposite. I mean consider, not do.
[Note definitely do not do anything illegal or harmful to others]
It helps to read at least a summary of the whole history of religion & comparative religion, Even just looking at the dates when each religion started. Look at the ideas of the Ancient Egyptians & Babylonians. Look at how the ideas of Hades & Tartarus were first seen in the Greek religious thought- a culture which the O.T would have condemned as evil just because everything not from Moses was evil.
There is a book called, "What the hell"(2011) by Jackson Baer that was worth a look, not saying I agreed 100%. Also the Youtube channel Tentmaker777 ministry ideas of universalism.
Like in the fictional story of David & Goliath- pick the pebble of the Golden rule and sling it at the giant God to strike his forehead cause the idea of sending others to hell when you would never send yourself there is contrary to the Golden rule and will topple God. When god falls you will see he was just men behind a mask of god. Cut his head off with the knowledge of the facts about our universe that science & technology have revealed.
In John 15 it advises to prune the vine. Well maybe the scriptures need pruned back. First up rewrite 2 Timothy 3v16 as:"No scriptures are god breathed because there is not real god." However there are still a few decent ideas in the Bible such as 'do not worship false gods' .Actually after googling i find that the Bible doesn't even have that idea, its authors thought there were other gods. The O.T authors thought you should worship Yahweh and the N.T authors thought it should be the God of hades, Ok so there isn't as much good in the Bible as i thought but still 1 The golden rule (Matt 7v12), 2 Love does no harm (Romans 13v10) , 3 Don't murder (which again really outlaws putting people in hell), 4 from Galations 5v22 ~"There is no law against love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, humility, self control" but if you try to practice these qualities by saying that it isn't loving to let a hell come into existence & fail to eliminate it before folk get harmed then the authors of the N.T.god/Jesus would ignore your complaints and damn you along with everyone else. Actually the bible does have a law against kindness; it is called the law of sin and death where there is a default position that everyone is doomed unless god has fore -chosen them. Well that law has got to be one of the most evil psychological ideas humans have ever imagined.
As for most of the rest of the Bible you can laugh at it, for unlike the authors of the O.T I see no need to physically smash stuff. All it takes is the recognition that it isn't true or real.