The senseless waste of religious study
I was watching this programme yesterday and I was thinking, my god, this is so incredibly sad; in fact it's embarrassing. These are grown men, quite old in fact, respectible men in suits and ties, apparently sincerely telling us how we can examine the Bible for prophecies about the future.
Let's set aside for a second the incredible puerility and silliness of the god-concept, and look at the Bible for a second. I mean, have these people ever actually read the Bible? The book is quite literally god-awful. As a history book it is almost pure myth. As a work of literature it is variously ugly, tedious, trite, and impenetrable. As a guide for behaviour it is, at best, hopelessly contradictory, and at worst quite despicable. Even as a work of fiction it is quite simply awful, boring, ugly, and confusing. But without doubt as a work of prophecy it is hopeless, utterly hopeless, failed, and wrong.
How can a grown person not see this? These men are embarrassing to humanity, and they're wasting their lives on bullshit.
We've known and become familiar in the West with Bible study, theological colleges and courses, and so forth. So it wasn't until Oxford started putting up Institutes for Islamic Studies left right and centre that I came to notice what an unbelievably huge waste of time and money is being piled into reading these pieces of shite ancient tomes over and over and over looking for more meaning, as if the last thousand years of study wasn't enough. Of course, the idea of a vitally important book that everyone must value, and inspired by a 'perfect' entity, being so completely impenetrable that it is not fully understood even after a millennium and a half, is nothing short of farcical. But the waste is so depressing. GO AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL WITH YOUR LIVES, PEOPLE!
Religion - it makes you laugh and it makes you cry. But it certainly doesn't make you a good person.
Let's set aside for a second the incredible puerility and silliness of the god-concept, and look at the Bible for a second. I mean, have these people ever actually read the Bible? The book is quite literally god-awful. As a history book it is almost pure myth. As a work of literature it is variously ugly, tedious, trite, and impenetrable. As a guide for behaviour it is, at best, hopelessly contradictory, and at worst quite despicable. Even as a work of fiction it is quite simply awful, boring, ugly, and confusing. But without doubt as a work of prophecy it is hopeless, utterly hopeless, failed, and wrong.
How can a grown person not see this? These men are embarrassing to humanity, and they're wasting their lives on bullshit.
We've known and become familiar in the West with Bible study, theological colleges and courses, and so forth. So it wasn't until Oxford started putting up Institutes for Islamic Studies left right and centre that I came to notice what an unbelievably huge waste of time and money is being piled into reading these pieces of shite ancient tomes over and over and over looking for more meaning, as if the last thousand years of study wasn't enough. Of course, the idea of a vitally important book that everyone must value, and inspired by a 'perfect' entity, being so completely impenetrable that it is not fully understood even after a millennium and a half, is nothing short of farcical. But the waste is so depressing. GO AND DO SOMETHING USEFUL WITH YOUR LIVES, PEOPLE!
Religion - it makes you laugh and it makes you cry. But it certainly doesn't make you a good person.
posted by extabgrad at 2:12 PM
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