I don't understand how people can seriously believe that the Bible is a literal and completely unembellished account in every word, phrase, and tale. There are several parts of the Bible that I think many modern day people should find severely disturbing. The story of God telling Abraham to bring Isaac up the mountain to burn him, for example, is just incredibly dark and upsetting to me. I have always chosen to take it as a highly-elaborated fable rather than a fully accurate narrative. If that makes me a blasphemer, I really don't care; I can't get down with the idea of God telling his favorite man to go kill his own son, or the idea of that man being so ready to do it without so much as brief explanation. It's one thing for the stories to show this ruthlessness in ordinary people, but the way God tests Abraham like a crazed and jealous girlfriend, and the way Abraham so thoughtlessly obeys, is chilling. So, I go with the idea that it's a little fictionalized, meant to teach readers about the enduring powers of faith and mercy.
There's one other passage that sticks with me, long after I stopped actually reading the Bible at all. This one is from the new testament, and is about a group of slaves whose master splits up his "talents" which I can only assume means his money, among the group of them. Everyone knows the part that basically says the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but the context of that really famous line (the one who has will be given more, but the one who has little will wind up with nothing; I'm paraphrasing) make that particular sentiment even more uncool. The parable says that the master splits up the money based on each of the slaves' potential to perform. The two who are given more money (more talents?) are able to turn a 100% profit, or close to it. The other slave who only got "one talent" goes off and buries it in the ground. When he tries to explain himself, he tells his master that since he knows the boss does zero work and just basically makes money off of other people's labors, he shouldn't really make a profit at all. A pretty logical and ballsy argument if you ask me, but of course, he gets berated and called a lazy idiot or something of the like. Then it's written in the supposed words of God (isn't that what people call the Bible, the direct words?) that if you aren't naturally the smartest, richest, or most adept person, you're essentially screwed and won't be able to make anything of yourself or your circumstances. Do people really think that is what God, the being who allegedly made everything out of nothing, would say?
Instead of advising toward the complete disownment of people who aren't as talented, rich, or adept as you'd like (read: it actually advises that you throw such useless humans out to weeping and gnashing of teeth), the next verse should have read, "so if you're one to whom little's been given, it's going to be a long road; don't bury opportunities, but dig them up instead, and work like a dog to do it." I remember listening to the priest do this gospel reading when I was a teenager and thinking, "hey Catholic powers-that-be, why in the hell would you choose to have us hear THAT?"
Something can be made out of nothing, and no text on Earth, sacred or not, is going to convince me otherwise.
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