How does one read the Bible and feel inclined to be religious and believe in God? I was raised Christian but went through a spiritual struggle when my father died when I was 20. I read a lot of philosophy--Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, Aurelius, Descartes, Leibniz--and it helped improve my outlook on life and develop my own self far more than Christianity ever did. I'm rereading the Bible now at age 23 and the portrayal of God just seems silly, and the enforced ethics without any justification.
The prose is obviously beautiful and there are still poignant themes, but I feel no inclination to move past a basic, metaphysical "One" as my interpretation of God. What exactly is the rational behind thinking God cares about us personally and behind assigning human qualities to a supposedly perfect being?
That's right. Look into the Qur'an, fuck the hadiths. This is what I understand to the the general truth: that there can only philosophically and logically be one god. To divide him into three at once makes no sense and it causes part of your love to be devoted under something that isn't purity. God is everything. He is all. He is what causes weather. He is what causes sun.
Xavier James
>assigning human qualities to a supposedly perfect being
Nobody does that. Do you not understand how the Trinity works?
Julian Davis
How is it possible that you think Christianity is assigning human qualities to God? You said that you've read so many shit, yet still can't differentiate between the common western conception of God and the God you're meant to believe in.
Samuel Ortiz
>tfw human >tfw expected to understand something without using human ideas and conceptions
Life is suffering
Tyler Davis
A basic reading of the Bible clearly shows God cares about humans, as he explicitly says so, and Man was made in his image. Do you mean you have a problem with suffering, or the problem of evil?
These are a couple good short video on the problem of evil, but there's plenty of literature on it as well if you still have trouble with it. Or you can clarify if you meant something else.
Dylan Gutierrez
God is Love God is
That's the most basic of interpretations of it. Love and existence trascend the human mind and understanding.
Ryder Turner
What? I'm not OP but the Bible very clearly humanizes God, even if its for the sake of making Him relatable. The OT literally assigns human emotions to God: angry, disappointed, pleased, etc. Am I missing something?
Cooper Young
>The prose is obviously beautiful And why is that? And I assumed that you never actually read much of the Bible. And this assumption wouldn't be too far fetched. And that you're just another one repeating what others have told you to say about the Bible in order to make your criticism look more superficially balanced and moderate. And I then left the thread. And people from every quarter began replying to me to complain.
Nolan Nguyen
Yeah. You've read a lot, but your understanding is poor. A lot of things on the Bible are allegories and form of speech.
