The Bible and Religion

I'm a good part of the way through the Old Testament and am currently wondering why people feel religiously disposed after reading it. Or, am I wrong, and the New Testament is what makes people believe? The writing is fantastic, but, to me, it mainly stresses familial loyalty, trust, forgiveness, and the importance of bonds. Although God plays a big part in the narrative, I don't feel any more inclined to believe in him, and he could easily just be replaced by Fate or a more anthropomorphic representation (e.g. in Greek works), and nothing would change.

For reference, I have read the Books of Moses, 1, 2 Samuel and 1,2 Kings, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and Isaiah. I'm reading the KJV version along with the annotations in an ESV edition (which I also check if I don't understand a part in the KJV), so I don't feel like I am missing anything.

You have to read the four Gospels about ten times to get it.

Also, re-read Psalms a couple of times

>Or, am I wrong, and the New Testament is what makes people believe?
yes

The OT reads to me like a garbled political history of the ancient near east, with some poetry mixed in.

That's because the OT on its own is yet-another-pagan-religion masquerading mid-transition to something of real interest. Reading it will only stir you if you're reading _within_ a tradition, as would, say, a Jew. That you have no cultural affinity leaves you anchorless in a sea of lost metaphor and relevance.

As for the Christian standpoint, you really have to read the entire OT "through" Christ to make any sense or worth of it. Otherwise, you'd do just as well to read Gilgamesh, The Flood, or the Vedas. Without reference to Christ, the OT begins to look awfully unappealing and contradictory (as any modern critic of Christianity is sure to point out), and you're likely to just leave it aside as yet another depiction of ancient cultures with a bit of interesting morality/history here and there. This is missing the point -- read about Marcion of Sinope to see how the Church addressed this viewpoint early on (he wanted to ditch the OT, saying that YHWH was not the Father of the Trinity).

In short, yeah, read the NT. But more than that, consider _why_ you're reading the Bible in the first place. If you're looking for spiritual "feeling," of course it can happen regardless if the Holy Spirit so pleases, but you really ought to consider reading it within the guidance of a spiritual father or mother.

If for literary appreciation, don't expect to be greatly stirred.

this (but fuck Marcion)

You don't start believing by reading the Bible. You already believe and find that belief mirrored in what you read. Some people just aren't religious, nothing wrong with it. Why do you want to believe in God, user?

spiritually, Christians would say you need to actively seek God with all your heart mind and soul in order to truly believe, and it takes God to make that first step because nobody in our sinful flesh can seek God of their own initiative. you're trying to find God by inciting some sort of intellectual or emotional response from reading his word but you're neglecting the spiritual aspect
if you're not trying to find God but just want to understand why we believe, then forget it. you never will. Paul says the cross is foolishness to the unbeliever

Don't go looking for that. However, what you can find through reading the Bible is that people quickly warp ideas of others and use them for their own means.

People should start with the New Testament imo

Simplified:

It only works if you already want to think that retarded shit.

no, everything i said is intellectually honest
its you who it doesn't work for because you don't want to believe it and are unwilling.

>If for literary appreciation, don't expect to be greatly stirred.
I'm mainly reading it for this. Quality post, by the way. You affirmed some of what I was thinking--that I'm unable to identify with much of what I am reading because I don't have the cultural heritage and oral tradition of the people it was written for.

I just did not want to read the NT before, since I know that it is seen as a fulfillment of the OT in a way. I guess the Bible is something you must read more than once to appreciate.

Keep in mind the OT isn't supposed to be convincing as Jews didn't proseletize for the most part. You just believed it because you were born into it.

So would you advise reading the New Testament first?

If you're just looking for literary references, I would say the only necessary books are Genesis, Exodus, Samuel, Kings, Ecclesiastes, Jonah, and the New Testament.

A lot--and I mean a lot--of the Old Testament books are about Near East politics/history and are virtually impossible to understand the significance of unless you use many secondary sources, at which point you're better off reading a wikipedia article to catch any obscure references you may come across in later readings.

(This is probably why so many Jews are atheists nowadays when they live in highly multicultural societies and aren't united by persecution.)

cheers. yeah, definitely rewards careful re-reading. while you and I may not agree with the Christian(-leaning) intellectuals of the past, it would be idiotic to think that their depth of feeling for the Bible was culturally conditioned or something. (This includes so many Veeky Forums favorites, including Faulkner, Kerouac, and so on.)

As I said, depends on why you're reading. If you're trying to learn literary relevance, you could do worse than to follow user's advice in (to which I'd immediately add Job and the Psalms). If you are looking to understand Christianity better, def start with the NT.

The new testament is what will make you believe

especially if you read pic related

Reading the bible shouldn't make you religious (unless you're a kid like I was when I read it, in which case it lasts up to 5th grade).

Life is what should make you religious.
Stop reading the bible and go out and do something that gets you out on the wavefront of life, I guarantee you'll be amazed by how absurd this reality is.

you shill the shit out of this all over this board. I'm going to assume you're either a sock puppet for the publisher or an /enlightened one/. either way I'm gonna buy it now, but seriously, fuck/thank you.

tl;dr: read it until you'll manage to brainwash yourself

I've always been more awed by the old stories, especially Moses.
But it is true that stories like Paul the Apostle have a higher appeal when it comes to strength of belief.

2 of those are jokes you dense wiener

would you say I need to believe in God and his incarnation to consider myself a Christian? By that I mean make historical and cosmical claims.

Hmm, I struggle with the same question myself when I think and talk about these things. I don't consider myself to be a Christian despite above posts, but I do see how fundamental the Incarnation is to Christianity (if you remove you it ultimately get either Evangelical prosperity gospel or Unitarian Universalism -- both feel-good but, in my view at least, as empty as New Age or similar).

That said, belief comes not from the head but from the heart (excuse the ancient Near-Eastern metaphor). Probably no people who 'consider themselves Christian' have exactly the same historical/cosmological/doctrinal mental understanding of things, but rather they all share an openness to that which they can't understand, including as it regards specific miraculous and mystical claims about those things. On days when I'm not feeling misanthropic and strongly agnostic I like to think I'm at least close to the latter characterization of the Christian faithful.

But as a more direct answer: you probably shouldn't care what I think. If you do in fact feel drawn to this, read as much as you can about it (I highly recommend early Christian writings -- Athanasius, Maximus, etc.) and, more importantly, find someone who has walked the path (one whom you truly trust and respect) and get some spiritual guidance from that person.

Nothing beats the Gospels imo

I would advise reading the gospels first, then OT, then NT

I have covered a fairly vast domain of Christian writings (I was only interjecting your previous conversation with other anons,my first post was ).

I don't think I'll ever be able to truly make the leap, despite my affinity for Christianity, but wanted to see where you'd put me. This is quite personal, but what's the closest you've gotten and how?
.

>The Bible
>Old Testament
lol you fucking idiot. I bet you actually started with the Greeks too.

The cultural-historical gulf between the early (oral and written) texts of the Bible are so wide as to be impenetrable. This is especially so with Genesis, which is so bizarre an amalgam of texts it doesn't seem to even make sense for ancient readers. Like another user said () reading the Bible to -be- religious can't happen. It's fundamentally a text that one projects one's self onto since much of its voices' echoes have long since faded. Read it as historical literature; these aren't your life lessons any more than the Gita, or Upanishads, or Gilgamesh, or your various cave paintings and bone scribbles. But they are still required reading, and really, really interesting, obviously.

The Gospels are closer in time, yet are even more bound up in their bizarre cultural climate. If they "make you believe" it's because they catch you within the vagueness of their language, which is intentionally designed to be pleasing while also critical (effectively, reaching out to the dissatisfied/alienated populace and offering some mental escape as a bandage for really existing conditions that the church can't [won't] account for). Again, worth reading. Just don't get too caught up in the memes.

Ah, fair enough.

I'd say the closest I've come was following a somewhat mystical experience (very personal, not in the sense that it's private but rather that it would be nearly impossible to convey why it was significant). I had just come off studying Indian religions at the time, but the experience was quite obviously (to me at the time) Christ-ian. (Not, I should say, in the obvious, these-are-my-cultural-associations-with-mysticism way, but in an ineffable but very surely Christ-centric way.) The memory has since faded, but it got me into reading the philosophy of religious experience, where I think William James does the most compelling and honest work, as well as back to studying the "original" Christianity that I had never known (t. proddie Amerifag).

In general, the older I get (though still young, under 30) and the more I read, both religious and otherwise, the more peace I feel when I ponder Christianity. I still haven't converted this interest or enthusiasm into actual prayer or church attendance due to my skeptical and anti-organizational leanings (thought I would lean Orthodox or at least Catholic if I ever did). I suspect that if I ever do develop a regular prayer habit, I'll be taken over the edge. The second closest I came was when I decided (shortly after above experience) to say and meditate on the Lord's Prayer for a few days in a row (short-lived, hmmm).

Personal indeed, but there you have it. Do you have any stories about how you developed interest instead of disgust (so common in modern world among intelligent people)? About what it would take / why you haven't taken the leap?

I was baptised Orthodox, but pre-pubescent contempt followed soon after - fortunately, fedoras weren't a thing back then and memes even less so. Had an uncle who poked at my teenage convictions and the skin was indeed thin and revealed all sorts of blisteres - mind you, this uncle of mine was too, an atheist.

I engaged with his literary recommendations -never found any value in the guidance of clergymen despite trying several times- and so my chase for revelation began. I have to admit it's always been fuelled by ennui and inadequacies and I doubt my chase will change its nature, but this has been enough for me.

I think I've come to a coherent understanding of Christianity, but as far as the leap goes... I don't think it will happen. I've just left behind my mid-twenties and am working towards leaving that ennui and despair I was telling you about through much worldlier pursuits. I've spent too ling thinking I was above those, when the answer might partly be there. To be fair, my interest for Christianity never felt genuine, whatever that means.

I'm an atheist and this was a nice post. Keep it up

>mfw it wasn't even me

The King James Version has both old and new testament, that is what you should be reading.

>I'm a good part of the way through the Old Testament and am currently wondering why people feel religiously disposed after reading it.

I wouldn't say I became a full believer after reading the OT, but I definitely saw the beauty of the religion after going through most of it.

Largely because of the reasons you listed (that it stresses "familial loyalty, trust, forgiveness, and the importance of bonds"), the OT rises above as a great work. Not only that, but it has some legit characterization and a lot of thought was put into it.

IMO, it's less about turning you into a believer than it is about being a good introduction to their religious history and guidelines. That, in turn, will get you to perhaps look into the community sides of things, which will help you look into deeper meanings and alternative explanations for things in the OT, which will in turn help you believe.

But, most importantly, I like the OT because it kind of presumes that some of its readers/listeners wouldn't buy it. So, from the perspective of a non-believer, it did a good job of considering the benefits, the weaknesses, and the utter totality of having a God -- the Job kind of God, or the kind of God that fucked over Saul, and yet the God who nonetheless fought for the Jews again and again.

It's interesting; it's contradictory; and it's aware of itself, aware of its seeming ridiculousness, knowing that that's what it means to believe.

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I've never really liked the NT because it basically hits your over head and shames you into believing. "What, you don't believe in God? You don't believe in Jesus? Maybe you're just too rotten or too stupid..."

There's obviously a bit more nuance, but starting their New Testament with the Gospels was effectively their way of saying just that, since those Gospels lack the characterization of almost every OT and Apocryphal book.