'All for ourselves and nothing for other people' seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. -Adam Smith "All the 'truth' in the world adds up to one big lie." Bob Dylan "Idealism precedes experience, cynicism follows it." Anon

May 26, 2011

The Bible is not historical it is hysterical

Chain The Dogma       May 26, 2011

The Bible is not historical it is hysterical

It causes hysteria in those who believe it is a literal account of history

by Perry Bulwer




Hysteria:

1. Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic
2. A mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability, etc., without an organic cause.

U.S. television network, History, announced on May 24, 2011 that a 10-hour series covering the entire Bible has been in the works for two years and is expected to air in 2013. News reports covering the announcement all refer to the series as a docudrama, which is commonly understood to be the dramatization of factual events. Such dramatizations, however, almost always use dramatic and historical license to manipulate, distort or ignore certain facts for entertainment purposes without making their audience aware of what those distortions are. The recent movie, The King's Speech, is a good example of that, as explained by Christopher Hitchens.

History president and general manager, Nancy Dubuc, referring to the series as bringing “the historical stories of the Bible to life for a new generation”, seems to suggest that 'docu' in docudrama indicates documentary, in other words a factual representation of real historical events. I suppose she had no choice but to maintain the pretence of history when announcing this project, but remember, she is not in the business of teaching history but in delivering eyeballs to advertisers. The History channel exists to make money, not to educate viewers with actual history, and what better way to make money than to promote the Bible to the gullible. It's what god frauds have been doing for centuries.

It is simply not true that Bible stories are historical, especially the most dramatic ones likely to be portrayed in the series. At best they are historical fiction -- metaphors and myths mixed in with bits of real history -- at worst they are lies. And they do create hysteria in people who believe the Bible is a factual, true account of reality. Just look at the recent hysteria created by Harold Camping, or browse through the more than 3,000 news articles in the Religion and Child Abuse News archive that document the hundreds of ways in which hysterical Bible believers abuse children. I've linked to some of those articles below. The headlines alone are enough to prove the point.


RELATED ARTICLES


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New book on origins of Christianity details the outrageous suffering of children at the hands of ancient religious leaders


Deep roots of child sex abuse in Catholic church go back to the beginning of Christianity


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Prominent Christian theologist says killing children okay if God commands it, an atheist responds to the immorality


California mother slit throats of daughters to protect them from suffering after apocalypse on May 21, 2011


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Christian belief in demon possession leads to physical, spiritual and psychological abuse of children

2 comments:

  1. Excerpt from an article on the blog Bad Archaeology:


    For some reason, there is a channel known as The History Channel. Given its schedule, I can only conclude that the name is ironic in a postmodern sense. It certainly bears only a tangential relationship to something that I would recognise as ‘history’. I’ve been aware for some time that its programming is weighted towards the American Civil War and Nazis, much in the way that the ‘bookshop’ W H Smith has a ‘History’ section that deals largely in World War II and bullshit history. Given that the channel has aired series such as The Bible Code: predicting Armageddon and Nostradamus Effect, I really ought not to be shocked at any of its offerings.

    And yet…

    ...

    I find it incredible and frightening that a worldwide distributed television channel that bills itself as ‘The History Channel’ can broadcast such rubbish as Ancient Aliens. If it were an entertainment programme, I’d have fewer worries (although it would still make me cross); it is the implied authority of the channel (‘The History Channel’, not just any old ‘History Channel’) that makes the broadcast of this series so potentially damaging, as we saw in the reaction of the forum poster quoted above. A channel that is making claims for its authoritative status, which offers educational resources, has a responsibility not to mislead its viewers (no doubt its executives think of them as ‘customers’). That responsibility is one that all makers and broadcasters of supposedly factual television have, but one that few of them take seriously: the responsibility to check facts.

    read the full article at:

    http://badarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/09/17/i-remember-why-i%E2%80%99ve-never-wanted-satellite-television/

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  2. Archaeologists Carbon-Date Camel Bones, Discover Major Discrepancy In Bible Story

    Huffington Post, February 6, 2014

    Researchers Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef from Tel Aviv University have discovered what may be a discrepancy in the history laid out in the Bible.

    Using carbon-dating to determine the age of the oldest-known camel bones, the researchers determined that camels were first introduced to Israel around the 9th century BCE.

    The Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament refers to camels as pack animals as early as the story of Abraham. Though there is no archaeological evidence of Abraham's life, many in the religious and scientific communities, including Chabad and the Associates For Biblical Research, cite the 20th century BCE as his time of birth. If the new evidence is correct, however, this suggests discrepancies between the Bible and human history as explained by science.

    The researchers scoured ancient copper production sites in the Aravah Valley, where camel bones were only present in sites active in the last third of the 10 century and the 9th century BCE. Sapir-Hen and Ben-Yosef write in their report:

    "[The camel bones] demonstrate a sudden appearance of camels at the site, following a major change in the organization of production in the entire region."

    This suggests that camels were introduced to the region abruptly, perhaps by Egyptians along Mediterranean trade routes.

    Dr. Robert Harris, an Associate Professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary, says this shouldn't come as a shock to the theological community.

    “While these findings may have been published recently, those of us on the inside have known the essential facts for a generation now," Harris conveyed to HuffPost Religion through associates at JTS. "This is just one of many anachronisms in the Bible, but these do not detract from its sanctity, because it is a spiritual source, not a historical one.”

    Biblical archaeology is understandably an imperfect science. Archaeologist William Dever explained in an interview with PBS several years ago:

    "We want to make the Bible history. Many people think it has to be history or nothing. But there is no word for history in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, what did the biblical writers think they were doing? Writing objective history? No. That's a modern discipline. They were telling stories. They wanted you to know what these purported events mean."

    read the links embedded in this article at:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/06/carbon-dated-camel-bones-bible_n_4737437.html

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