1 of 3: Why the Bible is better when read from the secular perspective (ex: Book of Job)

One of the ironies of the bible: that when read from the religious perspective, much of it is nonsensical; but when read from the secular perspective (which frees us from having to interpret every single story through a lens in which God is supposed to have infinite knowledge and infinite power and infinite goodness), we can find great literature.

Links to mentioned videos:

Eddie Murphy's 1983 "Delirious" clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96s1M8IyrUQ

KalSolarUK's "Jesus Kills a Fig Tree—Go fig-ure! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytsOLAaiyo&feature=channel

KalSolarUK's "Cross with Jesus" (in my downloaded excerpt, the audio lags behind the visual: check out Kal's channel for the high-quality original!) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fp52CUgoUs

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My four YouTube channels:

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddGates - my musician channel

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddAllenGates - where I discuss the ideas in "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer"

- http://youtube.com/user/ToddAllenGates2 - where I discuss the ideas in my book "Hunting, Gathering, & Videogames" (such as "Why do we have to work?" and "Why do we have to use money?" and "How should we define 'success'?")

- http://youtube.com/user/BlasphemyPiano - where I play the background piano accompaniment for songs in Nick Gisburne's book of lyrics "Blasphemy! Anthems for Atheists."

For customer reviews of "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer": http://www.amazon.com/Dialogue-Christian-Proselytizer-Allen-Gates/dp/16014508...

Link to eBook: http://booklocker.com/books/2739.html

Link to free PDF excerpt: http://assets.booklocker.com/pdfs/2739s.pdf

For customer reviews of "Hunting, Gathering, & Videogames": http://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Gathering-Videogames-Allen-Gates/dp/1601450443/...

Link to eBook: http://booklocker.com/books/2672.html

Link to free PDF excerpt: http://assets.booklocker.com/pdfs/2672s.pdf

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[JarOfRats]

Not a fan of the ladies, are you...

[ToddAllenGates]

@JarOfRats

> Not a fan of the ladies, are you

I LOVE ladies (including my wife of 23 years). Not sure what this has to do with this video though ...

[STFUNOWlol]

Man, no conflict, no antagonist, 2d-characters.... it's like this book was written in the bronze age!!

[matthewtaylorbrown]

@TheBratcat1 Good for you, that will be great right up to the moment you die. Which, I hope, is when you are over 100 years old.

[JohnTheHutDweller]

I agree

[1984vrs]

@ToddAllenGates I see your perspective.

[ToddAllenGates]

4 of 4:

> Things like freewill, to choose good or evil, are the human qualities in the story.

We can find similar qualities in stories in the scriptures of other religions: and non-religious texts as well. So yes, conflicts such as our desires for selfish gain vs. care for the community is an ageless problem, one that people have written about for thousands of years. The Greek myths contain these themes too, but that doesn't mean the tales were inspired by the gods.

[ToddAllenGates]

3 of 4:

But from the perspective that ancient man experienced a local flood and thought the angry gods were flooding the whole earth, well, then the story becomes completely coherent. That is, if we assume man alone wrote these stories, everything makes sense.

But if we take the position that an Omnipotent Omniscient Higher Power inspired these stories, we have to do a lot of creative—even tortuous—interpretations to try to shoehorn these ancient tales into something Divine & Benign.

[ToddAllenGates]

2 of 4:

Take Yahweh during the flood story: an Omniscient God would have KNOWN that humans were going to sin, so He there would be no reason to say "I regret that I made man" (Gen 6:7). And an Omnipotent and Benign God would have no reason to use such a crude method—one involving massive collateral damage—as drowning all living things (no exceptions for pandas or puppies).

[ToddAllenGates]

@1984vrs

1 of 4:

> I mean that it's not supposed to be a compelling story like the Jungle or Dracula.

I find that the Bible *is* compelling in many ways . . . "compellingness" is not necessarily an area in which I feel its credibility is damaged. It's just that many of the Bible's conflicts depend on characters "suffering conflicts" for the sake of drama alone.