It's time for Jolt Country to discuss The Bible

[RealNC]

Has anyone here even read the bible? I never have and it sounds like one of the most boring books ever written. If it was written today it would probably get like 1 or 2 star reviews on Amazon.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

It's boring as shit. I have not read the whole thing like you would a book. We would do sections at Sunday School as a kid and they were reading part of it out loud. When I was making Cryptozookeeper and wanted one of the characters to have a religious background, I would visit one of those sites where they have the text there, but then in another column, stuff written by a modern author that explains and interprets it.

Basically, I experienced the Visible Zorker Project, but for the Bible.

They are also doomed by their structure. Four guys telling you the same shit from their own perspective CAN work in media - the movie that came out last year called Weapons is like that (I'll leave whether or not it was successful as a separate thing) - but in the Bible there is nothing to be gained from a dramatic perspective by reading the four main "here is what Jesus was like" evangelist books in Mark, Luke, John and Matthew. I am not sure if they had invented that dramatic story framing yet. In their defense, I don't think they were concerned with maintaining the attention of the audience. That is the downfall of all religious media. When I create a story, every single line is a desperate plea to keep the reader's eyes moving for one more sentence. Religious writers think you have to pay attention because you are going to burn in hell otherwise.

[LiamNeesonLittleCars]

Weapons was better than the bible.

[Jizaboz]

Evangelical atheism will not be tolerated in any form.

I have no idea what this means.

Just a dumb joke!

[Da King]

My son had to read part of it for an English class he was taking last year.

Said it was worse than any Shakespeare that he'd ever read... and he detested Shakespeare.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Honestly, it could use more of the gang defeating the plans of the pesky Satan Boys on more of a "Fridays at 8:30 PM Eastern, 7:30 PM Central" vibe

[AArdvark]

I recall a co-worker that used to belong to one of those mega-churches in the area. You know, the huge kind that sits on twenty acres of land, needs traffic cops to direct all the cars and has a motto that reads "Jesu$ loves fifties."
She was telling us, insisting really, that "theirs was the one true Bible."
I had no idea there was more than one kind. Aren't they all the same? I did not ask for an explanation as I don't share her fantasy.

[RealNC]

I had no idea there was more than one kind. Aren't they all the same?

It was probably a reboot.

[Tdarcos]

I prefer the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: John, Paul, George, and Ringo, Christ! You know it ain't easy.

[LiamNeesonLittleCars]

I prefer the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: John, Paul, George, and Ringo, Christ! You know it ain't easy.

I liked that one.

[Tdarcos]

The Bible is a mess of contradictions, As I show in this piece, sometimes one chapter of one of the books of the Bible doesn't agree with another:

Chapter 46 – “This is where you start your religious training.”

Jim said, “Let᾿s go back down to the classroom.” They take the elevator down to 6, get off and walk over to the classroom in 6A1. “You can sit at the table and have your pad handy. I᾿ll sit next to you. For the rest of this discussion, I’m only looking at the planet Earth, not this dwarf planet. Understood?”
“Of course.”
“ Now we'll start with something simple. How old is Earth?”
“About four billion years.”
“Check on your pad.”
“Oh, I was wrong, it was 4½ billion.”
“Okay, and how old is the universe? Just go ahead and look it up”
“About 13, maybe 13½ billion years.”
“So, we know they could not have been created, or formed, at the same time, or even reasonably close to each other?'
“Yes, of course.”
“Now, let᾿s say your family decides to move to a new, larger building. A week after you move in, you decide to buy, say, a bird feeder for the new garden, and discover there are cats, so to keep the cats from going after the birds, you buy an automatic cat feeder the following week. Now, would you say that when you moved in, you bought a bird feeder, and a cat feeder, or would you say that a week after you moved in you bought a bird feeder then a week later, a cat feeder?”
“I᾿d say I bought a bird feeder a week after I moved in, and a week later, a cat feeder.”
“Now if it was a month, or a year later, you certainly wouldn’t say that when you moved in, you bought a bird feeder and a cat feeder?”
“No, of course not. What are you getting at?”
“This is where you start your religious training.” Marnie started to wonder if maybe Jim was one of those religious nuts. “I᾿m going to try to let you learn some things, and they might not agree with what you believe in, but I want you to keep an open mind and think about it. Bring up the Bible on your pad. Read the first sentence from Genesis 1:1.”
“'In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth.'”
“Think about that for a second, the people who wrote the Bible were just farmers, or shepherds, or priests with no scientific training, and didn’t know much about the universe beyond the earth. Seem reasonable?”
“Yeah.”
“So, when this says ‘the heavens᾿ they probably meant everything outside of earth, what we call ‘the universe᾿?”
“Yeah, this seems pretty obvious.”
“So we know that the heavens – as the Bible calls it – came into existence 13 billion years ago, and the earth about 9 billion years later?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Now read that sentence again, and think about it. See if you come to any conclusions.”
He watched, as the look of shock came over her face. “The Bible is wrong from the first sentence!”
“If you study other religions, they're also wrong. Often they're full of contradictions. Now let᾿s try this. “How old is the sun?”
“That, I don’t know.”
“Very good, if you're not willing to admit you don’t know something, you can never learn. Any guess? Or let᾿s try this. Is the sun newer than the earth, or older, and why?
“Well, I᾿m thinking. The earth had to be built from lots of rocks crashing into each other, and it probably required something like a lot of gravity to pull them into one place, so I᾿m guessing the sun is older. Maybe 5 or 6 billion years?”
“Those are very good answers! Now see what the answer is.”
“‘The planets are believed to have been formed from the solar nebula, the gas and dust left over from the sun᾿s formation.᾿ Holy shit! I got it right! Now let᾿s see... Oh, the sun is a lot more recent than I thought, it᾿s 4.6 billion years old. Well, it wasn’t too bad.”
“No it wasn’t. That᾿s the point. You made an educated guess. Since you know that the earth is 4½ billion years old, you predicted the sun had to be older. Then you made a reasoned guess since you lacked evidence. Now, and this is not a mistake, it would have been reasonable for you to say you couldn’t make a guess since you have no data on which to make it. Or you could have estimated it᾿s also 4½ billion years old, that the planets formed very quickly, within, say a million years or so. If you don’t have data, almost any guess could be right or wrong. Now I could just had you look it up anyway, why did I ask both questions?”
“Because you wanted me to think about it, and see what sort of an answer I would come up with.”
“Exactly. Now read verses two through five.”
“'2. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.'”
“So where the Bible says, ‘let there be light᾿ what is it most likely referring to?”
“The creation of the sun.”
“Now, when does the Bible say the sun was created, before the earth or after the earth?”
“After the earth.”
“Is that correct?”
“No it᾿s not.”
“ Read Genesis 1:9 through 26, to yourself. Then I’ll ask you a question.” She looks down, then back up. ”Very good. Now of the four groups: animals, birds, humans and plants, list them in order by when the Bible says they were created.”
“Let’s see: plants, birds, animals, and humans.”
“Now read Genesis 2:5 through 19 and answer that question.”
“Huh, it lists them in the order plants, humans, animals, and birds.”
“Let᾿s try a few more Bible verses.” As he goes along, he shows her verse after verse where one part says one thing, and another part contradicts it. After about ten of these, she says, “If the Bible is this wrong, why does anyone believe it, or follow it?”
“Most people who believe in God have never read the Bible, or have only read a few pieces. Many, if not most of them of them were indoctrinated as a child and have internalized it. No matter what you tell them, the thought of living without belief in a god so frightens them that they will not consider the possibility they could be wrong. Let me ask you this. If you believed something, and were shown real, conclusive evidence that what you believed was wrong, would you continue to believe it, or would you change your mind?”
“Why, I᾿d change my mind, of course.”
“Many religious groups, which often include their members, will have a statement of faith, which you can find online on their site, which says essentially that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, has no errors, and any fact to the contrary, regardless of evidence, must be wrong, and they will not consider it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Who says it has to make any sense? Marnie, if, starting at age five or six, or perhaps earlier, if your parents and you had gone to church, they believed in God, had told you this, then sent you, say, to Sunday School, where you got more indoctrination, by a very young age, say six or seven, you'd believe this too. Some are so blinded by their faith they will misread things and lie to themselves. Then, maybe when you got to be 21, or maybe my age, if you were honest, you'd discover it was wrong, you'd have what they call a ‘soul searching᾿ and you'd reluctantly give up your faith. Or maybe you'd be one of those who feel they can’t give it up, and would deceive themselves and believe a lie for all of their lives. Or some doubt their faith, but keep up appearances and pretend to believe because it looks better to their neighbors and friends. This happens a lot back in my old country, the United States.”

[LiamNeesonLittleCars]

I didn't like that one.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Hey, he did name his favorite discipline 40
lines down