[hombre_fatal]

There are infinite alterations you can make to the bible to make it more moral, like remove the parts where innocent people are punished on someone else’s behalf (raped, stoned, killed) or commanded to enslaved others and take virgins as the spoils of war.

Thankfully over the centuries some people have used their human moral intuitions to gloss over some of the worst parts. But would’ve been much nicer to not have those parts at all.

[haunter]

tbh that’s my biggest problem with it, the cherry picking. Either everything is true or nothing, but once they start cherry picking the whole thing falls apart step by step

[dylan604]

> alterations you can make to the bible to make it more moral

this is brilliant. The book that is supposed to the be the word on morality needs edits. I can hear the religious right gathering their pitchforks and tiki lights now. It's a perfect book written by the almighty. But for those that don't drink that particular kool-aid it's a self evident observation since it's a book of cherry picked stories by a group of people to push their agenda.

[smj-edison]

Depends how you interpret it tbh. At least in my tradition the focus is on seeing the good, bad, and ugly of history. There's many bible stories that are more cautionary tales than role models.

Now to be fair, there's also examples of God (as portrayed by the writers) being vindictive and harsh. I don't have great answers for that, but I do wonder how much it is seeing through their perspective of the situation and how much it was God. (I obviously come at this as a believer).

As to being the only moral text... I certainly hope it's not, because we've learned a lot since then, and I hope what's considered truth can expand beyond one book.

EDIT: not to dismiss your points, just to say that some of us view it in a more nuanced way.