How do you feel when people quote an inspirational or lovely passage from the bible?

by stuckinarut2 12 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  stuckinarut2

  A thought occurred to us today about how Christians, including witnesses love to quote some lovely passage of the bible as proof of god's love, or the value of the bible.

  But just because a small passage or sentence is quoted doesn't mean the whole book is to be valued.

  For instance, there may be a nice sentence or comment expressed in the passage of Mein Kampf, but would that make the book or it's author worthy of quoting or following? NO! The entire book and its message needs to taken into consideration! (Obviously that author had genocidal tendencies and disturbing ideas)

  So too with the bible. Although some passages may be inspirational, motivational or seemingly kind and loving, many other passages and parts of the book seem to indicate that the "author" has had a track record of genocidal and violent tendencies...AND such plans for the future too according to witnesses!

  Thoughts?
  
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  Saename

  The problem with this kind of argumentation is that the second you admit that the good proves the value, you also have to admit the opposite—namely that the bad disproves the value. This is the principle we follow when we judge literary works. The good proves the value; the bad disproves the value. If Mein Kampf is found to contain more bad than good, its value is disproven.

  Similarly, as soon as you admit that the good passages of the Bible prove it is divinely inspired, you also have to acknowledge the opposite. You have to acknowledge that the bad passages of the Bible disprove the assumption that it's divinely inspired. Then, you have to see how much good vs. bad there is in the Bible while also remembering that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and hence, if the Bible is divinely inspired, there should be an infinitesimal amount of bad found therein. However, we know for a fact that this isn't the case.
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  zeb

  In my experience jw only cherry-pick quotes when those words have a direct jw message. If anyone else were to quote a biblical text to me for whatever reason I would be touched as they have had the thought to look up something with the their own best intentions . did I get that right?
  
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  smiddy

  I`m pretty bloody sure their are far more negative scriptures in the Bible relating to humans , life or death accounts than their are positive scriptures that are verifiable.

  Lets face it the Bible speaks out of both sides of its mouth.

  On the one hand it says this

  on the other hand it says that.
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  Rainbow_Troll

  Since the Bible is an anthology composed by many different authors, I don't think the book can be judged by any one passage, good or bad. There are plenty of verses from the Bible that I take inspiration from; but I don't privilege them over equally inspiring verses from Shakespeare or Aeschylus. Like it or not, most of us are cultural Christians even if we don't believe in God anymore.
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  Finkelstein

  The ancient Hebrews like other ancient civilizations were being self expressive toward creating an image and relationship to their god, making their god stand above all others, the one and only true almighty god as it were.
  

  Taking in consideration the time and era of when the bible scriptures was written, it comes no surprise really to its content and is an accurate reference to human history.

  Unfortunately due to people's own ignorance, they accept the mythological writings are not fictional in nature and therefore believe what was written to be true and factual .... ie the book of Revelation.
  
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  scratchme1010

  

  Same thing when I hear about the Bible and Donald Trump.
  
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  LoveUniHateExams

  A few passages of the bible are nice to hear.

  I feel the same hearing those as I do when I hear nice passages of Shakespeare or whatever.

  The bible is a fascinating document that contains some awful things and was written and made up by men.

  I'm sure Bill Shakespeare wrote some crap stuff, too.
  
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  truth_b_known

  Here's the only one I quote -

  And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. - Judges 1:19

  I started posting quotes from the Viking sagas. I get a lot of compliments for what I post.
  
  
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  Crazyguy

  Yeah I just think about some of the passages where he kills children, create evil, slaughters his only son, and then remember that the people living in the areas in and around Israel were child sacrificing freaks and the Romans had to put an end to it!