Living by the Bible

This is written with the focus largely on the Christian religion as that is what I am most familiar with but you can probably replace Bible with any other holy text, make other necessary substitutions, and the point is still valid.

I feel it is safe to assume one of two things; either the Bible is the literal word of God, word for word, or it has cultural influences in it. One or the other must be the case, if there is another alternative then I am yet to see it. And for this I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and saying it’s not all just fictitious. All I am trying to show with this is the invalidity of using the Bible as a guide for living and perhaps more importantly due to its ability to affect the lives of others, legislation.

So, belief number one, the Bible is the exact word of God. If so then to go against anything in the Bible would be to go against the word of God and that would be a terrible thing for a Christian to do. First looking from an emotive angle, according to the Bible, “Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." (Genesis 3:16) There it is, in the Bible for all to see, man shall rule over woman, husband over wife, plain and simple. To want it any other way would be to want to go against God. If you wish to please God and believe the Bible to be the exact word of God then you must accept that women are to be ruled over by men. Personally I’d say to hell with that (though possibly that’s not the best choice of words). A Christian who believes the Bible to be the exact word of God cannot support anything remotely resembling gender equality without a logical inconsistency.

Now from a more logical angle, passages in the Bible as to the creation of the universe directly contradict scientific observation, that is, direct observation of the universe God created. So for that to add up it would be necessary to accept that in the Bible God was either wrong, he has created the universe in such a way as to be logically inconsistent, or was actively lying. If any of those three options are true then living by the word of the Bible, treating it as the exact word of God, is pretty preposterous. And what’s the most common (and only valid) response to that problem? “Oh, that bit isn't the word of God. That was just a way of explaining it to the people of the time.”

I’ll say that again: That bit. Isn't. The word of God.

So there we have it, parts of the Bible aren't the word of God, an acceptance of cultural influences in the Bible.

So now we have cultural influences in the Bible, the leads to the big problem; how do you know which bits are the will and views of God and which are cultural influences in the Bible? Is a passage condemning anal sex a cultural bias of the time put in there by the writer, or what God himself would have you believe? There is no way to tell, the same with any other guideline for life drawn from the Bible. Kosher for example, does God abhor eating camels or was it something meant for the culture of the time? This all reduces the Bible to nothing more than a list of possible guidelines for someone to pick and mix their own moral viewpoint from, and once you’re doing that you may as well not have the Bible at all.

Suddenly any justification of an argument with it being “in the Bible” or “the will of God” is completely invalid. It is impossible to build a life accurately following the “word of God” if you acknowledge that whatever Laws you follow may just be cultural opinions from several thousand year ago and for all we know could go directly against the will of God. I'm going to say that again because I think it’s important: If you accept cultural influences in the Bible you cannot know if any line you follow is the will of God or actually goes against the will of God. And if you can’t know that, then to base any moral argument on it is just silly. Now when you take into account that this is not just used to validate people’s own moral choices but laws and actions affecting other people’s lives and human rights (looking at you laws against gay marriage as one example, objecting to the use of condoms as another), then it goes from silly to abhorrent. To live your life under the word of a book that you freely admit to not have any validation in its guidelines is not a valid course of action, but it’s ultimately your life. To use an invalid text to influence other peoples’ lives is just plain wrong.

So there we have it, two options: You believe the Bible to be the exact word of God, in which case you are, how to say this politely, provably wrong. Or you believe it has cultural influences in it and thus invalidate any authority in it or any justification of letting its writings influence your life or the lives of others. Either way, it is unjustifiable to live your life by the word of the Bible and worse to make others live their lives by it.