I only read the book of Matthew in the ESV translation of the New Testament. It's easy and quick.

The vile fetishes of the authors become obvious quickly when God starts demanding the tips of children's penises be cut off in Genesis. I've heard the New Testament isn't as bad but I completely lost my appetite for reading anymore of the bible after that.

I've tried a couple times out of boredom while stuck in a waiting room and whatnot, but it took too much effort to decipher.
"Lo, Koruri of the belly doth eateth thy nut of the dough, for it was good, as Jebediahmathus of Eccleiasidasisihsh did commandeth"

>>3057
Yeah… in reading you realize God was not that great of a being. There's a lot that just seems completely arbitrary or just spiteful when you know He is an all powerful being.

reading the Bible is great but I dunno how to recommend it to atheists, hmm...
read Revelation. it's pretty fun. it's a book that always makes me happy.
I also really liked Ecclesiastes. Surprised me a lot while I was reading it.
Prophets are nice readings as well. Psalms are great to read randomly but not so much in order.
From the Four Evangelists, I guess I'd recommend John. It's the most interesting, also an uplifting book.
Damn, I gotta go back to reading the Bible.

>>3055
You should play the original game before picking up any of the print works.

>>3061
Isn’t the Bible one of the most allegorical and referenced texts in the world? Feel like you’d have to be a really stupid atheist to not at least realize the value in knowing it, unless you were just a boring atheist who holds zero value in art.

>>3063
eh, it is, but as all great works you kind of have to read it all to understand it. I mean, there are some books that you could perhaps skip, but so much of the Bible references earlier text, complements or repeats it, that in order to enjoy reading it you kind of have to truly want to read it.
If even among Christians many people don't read it that much and most of them have never read it in full - how could I recommend it to an atheist? For me reading the Bible brings immense joy, but even then I struggle with keeping a daily reading routine. And then obviously reading the Bible and not reading any of the context around it or theological discussions will leave you with a very incomplete view of the text and of its tradition. Something similar could be said of all books, sure, but the Bible is embedded into the common culture of Western countries much more deeply than even the most famous literary works.
If you only ever read the Bible, you won't be able to comprehend the meanings people have assigned to it. So recommending it as a standalone reading and not as a part of a broader social and religious life is somewhat hard to do.

fishy attempt to make a thread about religion.

>>3063
The stories in the bible are generally worse than bad Isekai.

>>3062
the last cummer

>>3063
That's exactly why I won't read it. I don't want it to infect my mind and by extension my writing, like everything else I read does. Bible references/metaphors are extremely passé in western media.

>>3067
on topic sager

>>3057
In the context which it was conceived (a small group of related nomad tribes facing desert life) then circumcision makes at least some sense; they couldn't afford to be wasting water on clearing dickcheese for all the dirty little kids.

It has no place in modernized society however; barbaric ritual for a people that aren't even related to the original practicioners.

If you have run out of George R.R. Martin books and you still need your fix of sex, violence, incest, cruel punishments, etc... I guess it could work.

>>3072
I'm uncut and I've never once had a dickcheese problem. Occasionally when I was a kid (and let's be honest, as an adult too) I liked to pinch the tip of my foreskin shut and pee a little to inflate the tip of my penis like a water balloon for fun. Teaching kids to do that would be much better than trying to wash it with water or cutting it off. It's like cutting kids' eyelids off because you don't want to hear them complain about getting eyelashes or dirt/sand stuck under them. Gay buttsex is a more likely reason circumcision became popular, because getting poop stuck under the foreskin would be a real problem unlike dickcheese which is natural and harmless.

>>3074
I do the pee balloon thing to wash my dick.

read skin bible instead

Got handed a free bible today.

>>3076
the skincare bible, got it
i actually have been looking for something like that for a while

Unless you're a fedora tipping reddit-style atheist, you should at least familiarize yourself with the highlights simply because they're assumed knowledge for most in the western world. It's a huge part of the cultural backdrop and instrumental to understanding the thoughts and values of billions of people. It's also extremely important to understanding things like history and philosophy. It is, however, an ancient work that requires a good deal of context to fully appreciate, which is why most people go to an expert who has spent years studying the text to learn about it every week. I'm sure there are resources out there that do a lot of the legwork for you, though.

For just entertainment value, however, outside of a few big stories the genealogies are a fucking slog of stuff that's completely pointless to anyone who isn't an ancient Israelite desperate for a heritage. The stuff surrounding the departure from Egypt, the early Israelite kings, and some of the prophets is pretty interesting. Psalms and Proverbs are okay for short bits, but they're compilations not meant for bulk reading. If you don't want to read about Christ four times in a row, John is the book targeted at the group most similar to you and this is obviously the most critical part of the story. The epistles are the foundation of the tradition of interpreting Christ and are generally okay reads that don't go on too long. Revelations feels like someone writing down their feverdream, but some people find that cool and so the imagery from it gets thrown all over the place.

>>3081
Western culture and values are rotten to the core. You could spend that time learning about much better cultures, then if you have kids you can teach them those values instead of "wash immigrant feet, turn the other cheek, and be meek".

>>3082
But I don't care about instilling values in anyone I just want to better appreciate anime and film.

i like the part where jesus talks about cannibalism and the audience just leaves
>Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
>Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it?
>From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

One of my English teachers talked about how he resolved to read the bible as a kid. How he really enjoyed the accounts of creation and the exodus but as soon as he hit Leviticus he threw in the towel and never looked back.
Personally I like history so excepting the law code pretty much everything before Job is interesting to me. Others might be double bored.

>>3086
on topic sager