People genuinely think the Bible is a good book. The only idea they have of the book is that it is a good book that preaches love, wisdom, and discipline.
But this is because they only know the good parts of the Bible, they don't know the foolish, cruel and unbelievably retarded parts of the Bible.
In church, Sunday School, and CRE classes in school, people are only taught the good parts of the Bible. No mention of the evil parts so it is easy for one to grow up going to church, Sunday School, and getting great grades is CRE but never come across the evil retarded parts of the Bible.
For example, I was having a conversation with some middle-aged man who had been a Sunday School teacher for over 20 years. I mentioned the part of the Bible that says one can sell his daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7-11) and this guy told me I was lying, that there is no such thing in the Bible. Guys, a Sunday School teacher for over 20 years!!
He told me I was saying rubbish. He told me to show it to him in the Bible and I hurriedly did. Guy was dumbfounded. I told him that if he didn't know this, then does he have any idea how many parts of the Bible he doesn't know? He said it couldn't be much. I laughed and immediately started dishing them out.
Two portions where Jesus promised some guys that the rapture would happen in their lifetime (Matthew 16 vs 18
and Matthew 24 vs 23), the portion where God told the Israelites that people who are born blind or deaf or as dwarves should never be allowed to become priests or come near the altar (Leviticus 21 vs 16-24), that they are a disgrace to him, the part where God said menstruation was a sin that required atonement (Leviticus 15), etc!
In my time of mentioning unknown parts of the Bible to Christians I've never come across any Christian who replied to me with "yes I knew", they're always shocked. These bad parts of the Bible are mostly known by atheists and people who have dumped religion. If everyone knew these bad parts well they wouldn't go about portraying the Bible as a good book.
Here is a screenshot of some guy who strongly thinks the Bible is a good book:
When I saw this I immediately thought, "Yeah, why is he not sending his friends the part where the Bible was telling you how to sell your daughter into slavery, or how to forcefully marry your daughter to her rapist instead of punishing the rapist? (Deuteronomy 22: 28-29)"
Now, a usual excuse Christians use is that the old testament has been relegated and is no longer applicable. But even though that is the case does that change the fact that those parts of the old testament are very foolish and evil? Does that change the fact that according to the Bible their God once said those foolish evil things? That their God once thought that was the right thing to say and do?
The truth, though, is that no god said any of those things in the Bible, men wrote what they wanted and lied about being told those things by a god.
The End
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Yep, that's the most insane thing I've ever read. I enjoyed reading the bible the one time I did read it. It's quite a colourful read. But nothing I can really put my faith in, especially with that kind of shit!
I think most Christians are aware that there is bad stuff in the Bible. I can't speak for every Christian of course.
The Old Testament isn't generally considered irrelevant by Christians but it is the old covenant and it was superseded by the new covenant (New Testament) so where the new doesn't support the old, it no longer applies.
Also, context is everything. For example, the bit about selling your daughter into slavery doesn't mean quite what you seem to think it means (see https://jewishbelief.com/selling-a-daughter-into-slavery/ and https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/does-the-bible-support-slavery for example). This isn't God advocating slavery. Also, this wasn't some brand new law passed down from God but more like improvements on existing man made laws and customs that had already been established long before Exodus was authored. Not everything in Exodus is or should be interpreted as new law passed down from God.
These passages generally aren't readings you would typically hear in church not because they are trying to hide something (after all, it's right there in the Bible for anyone to read) but because they have little relevance today as they were specifically applicable to pre-existing laws and customs of the time.
I'm not going to try to explain every bad thing mentioned in the Bible because it has already been done ad nauseam and thanks to the Internet it is all pretty easy to find. Atheists tend to ignore it though. Both Christians and Atheists love to take Bible passages out of context to make a point. I fully understand not believing in God. I don't understand the need to attack the Bible based on the most superficial interpretations though. If you really want to make this a "deep dive" then address the historical context, what "slavery" means here, the existing laws and customs at the time, etc. The links above make for better deep dives but obviously from a different point of view.
Some more context for other things mentioned:
Matthew 16:28 (this isn't about the rapture)
https://www.bibleref.com/Matthew/16/Matthew-16-28.html
https://evidenceforchristianity.org/how-can-i-explain-matthew-1628-when-jesus-did-not-come-back-in-the-first-centuryr/
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (this was a penalty for the man, not the woman...the woman was not forced by law to marry her rapist though her father had a say in this)
https://www.gotquestions.org/Deuteronomy-22-28-29-marry-rapist.html
Leviticus 21:16-24 (this had to do again with the context of the time..."blemished" persons would have been seen by the people of the time as imperfect or unclean and not a good representative for God as a priest. Interestingly, these versus are specified to apply to the descendants of Aaron.)
https://www.bibliaplus.org/en/commentaries/138/peter-petts-commentary-on-the-bible/leviticus/21/16-24
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/leviticus/21-16.htm
I didn't see the part in your comment from "Some more context for other things mentioned:" to the bottom. Now that I see it I think it would take a lot of time to explain each of them, let me go with the easiest one first for now. Leviticus 21. This is what you said:
That doesn't excuse the way blemished people were spoken of, the reason you gave for why they were not good representatives weren't mentioned in the Bible, this is you doing damage control, the Bible itself gAve it's reasons clearly, here they are:
23 yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.
As you can see, the simple reason is that he would desecrate the altar due to his defect. And the Bible mentioned examples of these defects:
16 The Lord said to Moses, 17 “Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. 18 No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; 19 no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. 21 No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God.
Common deformities in humans. Even if people considered them poor representatives is their creator not expected to use this chance to tell people that they should be accepted as humans too? But here he is saying they shouldn't step on his altar with their defects that it amounts to desecration.
It's simple, men hAve always discriminated against people with defects so they wrote it in their book and lied that it was a god who told them to write it.
It's not saying people with "defects" are bad people. Just that they aren't appropriate priests (for those people at that time).
Believing in God is a matter of faith (obviously). God has not tended to make massive changes to mankind all at once in terms of the teachings we are given. Presumably, he knows best the way to teach. Presumably priests with "defects" would not have been listened to by the people at that time. Why didn't God just "make things different"? That's a bit like asking why bad things happen to good people. There are plenty of answers but that doesn't mean you are going to like any of them. In any case, to form an opinion on how God (or men) felt people with "defects" should be treated based only on the section of the bible that talks about rules for priests during the age of Exodus is more than a bit incomplete. After all, a few hundred years later, Jesus was curing lepers. It's not as if during the time of Jesus people didn't discriminate against lepers. I mean nobody thought physical defects or diseases were a good thing, least of all people with physical defects or disease.
As far as using this as an opportunity to teach that they should be accepted as humans too, I think this is done:
Leviticus 21:22
He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy, and of the holy
https://www.biblecomments.org/c/9/matthew-henrys-whole-bible-commentary/leviticus/21/16-24
So with respect to the church (or Jewish temple as it would have been at this point), these people were treated pretty much the same way as anybody else who wasn't a descendant of Aaron.
Well, you did label this a deep dive :)
But my goal here isn't to defend every potentially negative verse in the Bible, just to point out that for every one there already exists a massive volume of scholarship and explanation and certainly a deeper historical context beyond "God is bad" or "The Bible is bad" or "bad people wrote the Bible". The vast majority of the time when Atheists use these verses as a weapon against Christianity, the Bible or the existence of God, they are taking them vastly out of context, parroting debunked interpretations or at the very least they are choosing to ignore the widely accepted interpretations instead of addressing them head on.
I don't expect to change your mind but for anybody else who may be reading this I just wanted to point out that Christians don't simply ignore these verses (though as with any group I'm sure you can find plenty that don't have a clue) and there are in fact massive volumes of scholarship on these subjects and they have been addressed time and time again. You can agree with it or not but at least know it is out there and come to your own conclusions instead of trusting in one random person's interpretation. You won't find a monopoly on truth here and Atheists are in fact not the only ones to address these verses.
This is you doing damage control. If this was God's reason it should have been started clearly there, but he gave a different reason, he stated his reason clearly so what you're saying can't top that. If what you're saying is what God meant then he would have simply said it like: "let them not become priests because the people would not listen to them" not "let them not become priests because they'll desecrate my altar due to their defects".
It's really simple.
I've seen all the "massive volume of scholarship and explanations and deeper historical contexts" you're talking about and they're all like the arguments you're making here, they're all damage control and people coming up with a different reason when the Bible stated it's own reason clearly. Like how can the Bible say: "let them not become priests because they'll desecrate my altar due to their defects" and you're telling me: "let them not become priests because the people would not listen to them" that's really dishonest and it makes you come off as one who would say anything to defend the Bible and always look at the evil it advocates in a euphemistic way.
Many atheist talk have also brought these to my notice, an I keep ask them certain questions
I rest my case here
Well, bro, you know nobody would criticise it if it was a book about what the men of old did. They criticize it because it is rather claimed to be a moral book, in fact claimed to be the most morally upright book ever. Based on this claim it should be heavily criticized and revealed for all to see. You understand perfectly, I'm sure.
It's actually hard to say what is good or bad but I'm sure that everyone knows selling your daughter to slavery is bad, that is easy.
Christians and jews are claiming the same god, and there are many things they both agree this god did.
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