The author of Ecclesiastes (who claims to be Solomon, the wisest man of all time) advises young people to follow their hearts, and to follow whatever their eyes see. Everything else the Bible says about following your heart or your eyes is very much against it, though. Righteous Job, for instance, believes that people who let themselves be led by their eyes don’t deserve to eat.
Continue reading Should people follow their hearts and eyes?Category Archives: The bad book
Why the Golden Rule is a bad rule
Jesus says you should do to others as you would have them do to you.1 This is known as the Golden Rule. Sounds like a pretty good rule, right? As long as you don’t think about what it’s actually saying. But it’s really a very bad rule. Let’s look at an example to see why.
A man would like to have sex with a certain woman. But that woman is not willing to have sex with him. What should the man do? Well, what would he want that unwilling woman to do to him? He would want her to have sex with him. So according to the Golden Rule, he should go ahead and have sex with her.
That’s right, actually following this nice-sounding rule would lead to rape. What went wrong?
Continue reading Why the Golden Rule is a bad ruleDid Daniel normally eat choice food, meat, and wine?
The first chapter of the book of Daniel establishes that Daniel is not willing to ever eat choice food or drink wine. Daniel makes a big deal out of this. He has religious reasons for his dietary restrictions, as well as health reasons. He insists on eating nothing but vegetables and drinking nothing but water, even if doing so risks incurring the wrath of the king.
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The Story of Adam and Eve—
The Garden of Eden
In the beginning, there was nothing but a perfect God. Everything that existed was perfect. So God decided to create the world, which he knew2 would turn out to be imperfect. Now everything is no longer perfect. Good job, God.
Continue reading The Story of Adam and Eve—The Garden of Eden
Is it more beneficial to unbelievers to prophesy or to speak in tongues?
In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul discusses the relative merits of prophecy versus speaking in tongues. He says as far as the church is concerned, it’s better to prophesy, because no one can understand you when you speak in tongues.3 But what about when unbelievers are around? What’s the best thing to do then?
Continue reading Is it more beneficial to unbelievers to prophesy or to speak in tongues?