my favourite bible quotes – part 1
We all have them. Those particular passages from our favourite book that mean something extra special just to us.
Given the size of the Bible and the wealth of interesting verses, I figure this post will a generate a useful series of ‘best bits’.
The pressing concerns of an omniscient, perfect deity revealed:
“If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. And do not approach my altar by going up steps. If you do, someone might look up under your clothing and see your nakedness.” (Exodus 20:25-26)
Really? What a petty, uptight superbeing the god God would be (if he existed). But my biggest concern is that Christians can read this, and file it under ‘perfectly reasonable instructions from a deity’ – right next to slaughtering animals to say ‘sorry for being bad’.
Wtf?? Haha.
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Pause for thought next time you go up some steps …
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Us damn humans profane EVERYTHING. Oh wait…aren’t we his beloved children? I somehow forgot.
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It must be an odd experience having children you love so much that you want to kill them frequently. Especially when you have the power of foresight and knew you were going to want to kill them because they’re so evil.
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My favorite: John 3:16
(lie #1) For God so loved the world,
that
(lie #2) he gave his only begotten Son,
(lie #3) that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
(lie #4) but have everlasting life.
It contains four lies and is one of the things repeated with pride by most Christians. Then there is this:
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” — Mark Twain
One old man from Missouri (you know, where the garden of eden is) can see through all four lies so clearly that it puts everything in complete perspective. The latter makes the former my favorite.
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I see what you mean. Even if I had any reason to believe this god might exist, he clearly doesn’t love people much.
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Yeah, I don’t even think he likes us a little bit.
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Well, he eventually god around to loving christians. Given enough time he will get around to not hating everyone but his chosen problem children… Maybe
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The book of Ecclesiastes is one of my favourites books.
Eccl 1:1-4
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I think you’ve mentioned that before and I made a mental note to read that book in its entirety. Will make that mental note again …
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You should. It’s a good book
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If the bible had it and job only, it would have been redeemed. But with the murder, rape and so on going on, there’s nothing to redeem the bible
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If the god God was concerned with bits floating around under breezy tunics, why didn’t he simply command the creation of underpants?
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Or have pop out vaginas and penises that could easily be folded away when they weren’t needed? He wasn’t much of a problem solver if private parts aren’t the be viewed and his best solution is not going up steps …
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Detachable penis’s!
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Well I never! Did you know about this or was it a random google?
“there is nothing new under the sun” Ecclesiastes 1:9
See, I’m a quick learner!
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You never heard that song before? I’m shocked! Does this mean you’ve never heard their song, Jesus was Way Cool?
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Nope, that’s a new one for me. Did Colorstorm recommend it to you?
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Naturally.
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Really violet? Perhaps you should place a * in front of your ‘fav bible verse.
Sharp objects should be handled with care; your hands must be bleeding for your take on Exodus 25.
What, you do not think: ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver’ is more pleasing, more worthy of a fav? Or is your *fav just an example of a springboard to weigh in on your dismissal of all scripture?
Why do you only ‘see’ that which promotes your view of darkness? ‘The entrance of thy word giveth light….’
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Did you not find it funny? The idea that a god would be concerned about people looking up skirts tickles me pink!
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So V;
You make no distinction before appearing before a Supreme Court in shuddering silence, as opposed to presenting your case for a parking ticket before the local magistrate….
.
As said, the word of God is sharper than any two edged sword…………..
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So it’s okay for people to see your private parts at the local magistrates but not at the Supreme Court?
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Violet-
If you understand this:
And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.
then………………
The second part is easier to see : there is this thing about approaching God by steps……..
This is really simple and profound, but it seems the proverbial gnat straining has won the day.
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It must be because it’s a male God, an you’re a man, that you can appreciate the sentiment of wanting to be worshipped, and being so particular about how it’s done. Do you really thing such a relatively powerful being would be so inanely small minded?
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It’s really not asking too much violet to pay respect to He who gives you breath and life.
After all, your favorite bible verse pertains to God Almighty……..
Or maybe you could purchase the ‘breath of life ‘ at k-mart or find it under a rock……….. yea good luck with that.
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The night class fees at that school you attend to be a Dickhead must be quite steep, seeing as the classes are likely small.
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So speaks the great stone god aten.
Another fine comment by the stellar intellect and wonderful vocabulary of he who worships himself.
Show your wonderful commentary to your lovely christian family members.
I’m guessing even a few of your friends are embarrassed at your never ending irrelevant, colorless, and useless jabs.
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I doubt that. But if it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling in the trouser region to think so, then good for you.
You never did tell what was your particular vice or sexual malfunction that caused you to turn to Christianity to assuage your guilt? Did you find it got better after confiding in Jesus or do your palms still itch?
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I’m just not convinced that the Jewish god God gave anyone breath and life. Seems more like a popular myth. After all, clearly one tribal superstitious myth has to be the most popular. Doesn’t make any of them probable.
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I like Ecclesiastes and Job too, and would make a case for Jonah. Jonah is that Follower of God who wants God to smite everyone who is not just like him. Evangelicals think it is a historical account, which prevents them from seeing it as a satire on people like them.
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Clare, I, too, would make a case for Job.
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Do you have a post on that?
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Nothing on Jonah, but this on Ecclesiastes. Jonah is a short book, worth reading. God calls Jonah and Jonah runs away. God drags Jonah back by the scruff of his neck, and tells him to preach to Israel’s enemies. Jonah does not like them, but God does. Jonah is really unhappy when they repent. Then Jonah is unhappy because God inconveniences him by killing a plant he uses for shelter. Jonah is selfish, cowardly, and thick. Yet God uses him for important work.
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That kind of forbids the building of churches as we know them today. Altar should be made of natural stones and no stairs are allowed. Nevermind the silly reasons we are supposedly not worthy to evaluate, as we should take it all on the might makes right of this particular god having alledgely, but as of yet, totally unprovenly, made all things, and somehow owning them as a result – a logic I personally have allway failed to understand. These rules could very well have been applied as far as the early 15th century in fashion terms. After that the western society invented joined hose and there was very little to be seen even under the skirts of men, exept in Scotland.
My favourite Bible quote is the Psalm 82 in wich the alledgedly monotheistic divinity enters the assembly of other gods to tell them how bad and weak they are. The Hebrew word is “Elohim” a plural to the word often elswhere in the Bible used to describe the particular god of the Hebrews and a clear derivant from the ancient Cananite pantheon whose father character god was El. It is also a word that is sometimes translated as the “judges”, referring to the practice of casting dice, or otherwise more or less randomly determining between options made up by the priests, to determine the judgement of a god in many primitive cultures and it is frequently also found in the Old Testament, in a form, that god said this, or god said that.
There are a number of ridiculous apologetics to explain away the obvious fact, that the Old Testament Biblical culture history is actually a description of one particular group of people slowly transforming their religious affections (as their economy and politics change) from having a polytheistic religion, through having only one (easy to carry around, typical to nomads) invisible god, to when they are allowed to worship only that main god (not to lose their cultural identy and for their theocrats not to lose influence on them under pressure from neighbouring civilizations) to a situation where they proclaim only one god even exists, but at the same time recognizing all these other sorts of spirits, who weild the powers of gods in any surrounding polytheistic religions. In that sense it is one of the most informative stuff we can get to through the Bible at all, in trying to understand the past cultures in ancient Levant, the Fertile Cresent where farming was first invented, and between the great cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt and finally Hellenistic and Roman cultures. A lot of pressure there.
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Point noted – in Scotland we need to remove the steps up to altars, so that the god God doesn’t get all hot and bothered if a priest in a kilt approaches him.
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I was more concerned with the Priests wielding their tools.
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That bit struck me as rather amusing too.
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First off…Violet, would you please tell me which version you are using?
Secondly…It seems a bit silly to be side tracked by the “looking up skirts” thingy. Seriously? As far as I know, men of Biblical times did not wear mini-skirts they wore maxi dresses. 😋 I don’t believe anyone would be able see “nakedness” under a robe of that length unless someone was standing on the top rung of a tall ladder with someone directly underneath them in an extremely awkward position. IOW…Logically, this would be an impossibility so might there be another reason/meaning for these verses?
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Are you an expert in ancient textiles?
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Good questions! I like to mix and match my translations to give the most probable meaning – Biblehub is great for facilitating this, as you can scan down them all. I used the New Living Translation in verse 26, but the rest say much the same. You also get commentary, which can be very useful:
“Here the reason of decency, added in the text, is obvious; and the law would necessarily continue until sacerdotal vestments of a very different character from the clothes commonly worn by Orientals were introduced”
http://biblehub.com/exodus/20-26.htm
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It is interresting how much popular culture affects our view on what the material culture of any epoch and culture has looked like. Charlton heston wearing ankle length robe, is the common view people have on Biblical patriarchs, but if Moses had been a historical character, his dress would have been more like the ones contemporary Egyptians wore. That is, a single piece of cloth wrapped around the waist. A bit open to the front, exept with military personnel, who also wore a sort of narrow loincloth underneath, that shows from between the towel like skirt, wich in turn tells us a bit about how open the skirts used to be from the front.
The people who wrote the story about Moses and all, would have known, that their readers knew how people dressed in Egypt, even if their own dresses were any different. But most propably they were not that different, if they were also supposed to be practical. Trousers had not been invented at all. However, the obsession about nakedness, that did not bother the Egyptians, or Hellens, but wich seems to be very typical to the Semic cultures and later has taken over most of the Indo-European cultures as a result of Christianity spreading, might have some impulse on their garb.
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