Now, I've officially accepted myself as atheist but still diving into history is fun. Every time I dive in to Biblical history...the less I find anything worthy of hanging onto. God's word? Holy book? Doubtful.

Looking into the origins of Jewish religion, there are pagan roots to the God of Moses and Elohim, the Canaanite pantheon. Okay, well what about Jesus, then? You mean the books about his life that were written 50 years after his death by people who didn't even know him. The whole thing is what Disney did to Grimm fairytales and what Grimm Bros. did to the actual folktales. Can we stop now?

I used to think, "Egh! Seer stones! That's kinda witchy, ain't it?" making a sort of subconscious contrast to dignified religious tools from the Bible. No. No, those were pagan and "magic" too. They're not sophisticated at all. It's like when you find out your favorite music artist doesn't actually sing like on the album; that the track is a Frankenstein stitched together product of all the good clips of singing that artist did in the booth. Everything is a lie.

Plus, it's not hard to build a case that the ghawd of the old testament was a real dick.

Animal sacrifice? There's a rationale to that? You have to give until it hurts? Why? F-you, ghawd.

Seriously! Like, two middle fingers way up.

I've seen God described as a "trickster" God. With the way LDS God(and even regular Christian God) tests people, and demands strict obedience then changes his mind later, it's one of those, "Now I can't unsee it" things. If he is real , then no matter which ancient holy book you read, he's simply a goblin in the sky.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/26/2020 06:21PM by thegoodman.

This is where I don’t understand ancient Israel. They had the Texas barbecue, Egypt had the beer. Why didn’t they team up?

Can you divorce yourself enough from a literal interpretation of the OT and treat it like other epic literature? The Iliad, the Odyssey, Herodotus, Dante, the Bhagavad Gita, Journey to the West, Beowolf, Ulysses, Moby Dick, etc., are all beautiful works that include a lot of violence and strange religiosity/superstition. If viewed that way or as a compilation of ancient myths and legends, the OT can be a rewarding read.

I remember when Gregorian chants shook me deeply because of the religious associations. Then, after many years out of formal religion I listened again and they were simply beautiful. The Bible is that way, too. It can be a great read once time has eroded away the literalism, the sense of damnation, and the other religions encrustations.

Possibly some day, I'm sure. For now, I am still reeling from my preconceptions and biases being uprooted. Informed mainly by the church but also Christian tradition itself, to hold the Bible stories to this divine standard, where divinity is clean, virtuous, and holy in an extranatural way.

I don't believe in anything but for a little while there, I depended upon Christians and Jewish people to know their stuff. Turns out the book they base everything on is just as clouded in mystery and rewritten history.

I have gotten to a point where I am no longer angry about Joseph Smith. I'm having a blast learning and reading about him and trying to visualize this man who could pull this off. So, eventually all things that are new to me right now will become old hat.

Understood. It took me decades.

> If viewed that way or as a
> compilation of ancient myths
> and legends, the OT can be a
> rewarding read.

It was compiled to promote a process. I'm speaking of the Nicene Council. Only a believer could consider it heroic literature. At least that's my opinion.

Even in Spanish it sucks, Sr. Cipriano de Valera.

The Nicene Council as the NT, not the old. Of course the OT was also compiled to promote a cult--the YHWH cult--some 600 BCE, but there is more water under the bridge so it's easier to view the global flood, the Garden of Eden, Jonah's very large whale, etc., as mythology than the NT, to be sure.

My point is that virtually all ancient literature and much modern literature was intended to achieve an end and we do manage to separate the creation at the witch's cauldron from the brew thus conjured into existence. One day even the BoM will be analyzed as mythology, organizational psychology, and history.

The priests did, yes. That was a major part of their remuneration.