For all of the Blood that was spilled over it, I cannot give an value whatsoever. If your a fan of Joel Olsteen, Jimmy Swaggert, Pat Robertson et al then your totally lost. For a Book that evolved from the Council of Nicea under the directive of a Pagan Emperor who looked to centralize the Populace. So if you think that embellished stories that are meshed with Pagan Rituals to ease the transformation then I would have give you a "no" on that one.
Now if you want to go and explore the lost books of the Gospels that were destroyed and some which have been recently discovered in Caves of Iran and various other places, I would be interested in seeing what they contain. I have gone into reading such authors such as Bart Erhman, Martin Luther, Bruce Metzger, Anthony Pinn and Noam Chomsky.

I do not believe in the bible, but sure, there are lots of people who take the bible as a spiritual metaphor, not literally.

The bit about beating yout slave was very informative ....

I value any good point made regardless from where that point comes, and the bible is no exception to that rule for me.

I didn't read the book. I'm into Pratchett and Cornwell.

I do. The bible tells you how to treat others, though it is my nature to be kind and respectful of others.

I find bits of it helpful because I already know the Bible and I'm able to use it to help my friends consider higher perspectives since they believe in it, but I would never recommend it to anyone looking for truth. I wouldn't suggest any of my children read it to gain good insights. The problem comes that there are some powerful truths mixed in with the truly bad stuff and people tend to believe it's the infallibe word of God. That's what makes it dangerous because people are justifying things that they could easily understand are wrong. We would be better off if every copy of the Bible was burned.

In my opinion, there is very little to value in the bible that was not already there before the bible or has been replaced by modern humanist society.

I think there'd be far fewer assholes in the world, if Christians actually followed the teachings of the man they are supposed to follow. To me, Jebus' teachings are the important part, it is totally irrelevant if he is the Son of God or not. Plus, the entire thing of Christ is My Savior, really is only a selfish way to ensure you get to Heaven, not whether you gave a plug about humanity or being nice to people.

No. No.

The ethics you are pushing here are subjective ethics so I cannot go along with this idea at all. For the most part religions do not have ethics. You post is similar to saying Superman can run fast and he is strong, but he cannot fly.

i do not find mostly good teachings in the bible (and of course you have not said which bible; i have not read the christian one, but everything i've heard about it seems awfully confused). the bible with which i am familiar has a story in it that teaches one to welcome strangers -- but these days everyone interprets that story as teaching one to be homophobic. the same bible teaches one that it's okay to murder one's innocent son as long as one hears voices. come to think of it, it's also okay to get one's father drunk and rape him. i like the story of david and tamar, but onan is confusing. i don't think of the bible as a book of teachings. i think of it as a sometimes interesting, sometimes less so book of fantabulous stories, most of them with anti-morals. so "values" is the wrong word here, for me at least. you can probably find better teachings in a stephen king novel (i can't swear to that, as i don't enjoy the horror genre, but king seems like a nice, smart man, and i don't know a lot about the guys who wrote the bible).

g

Well, there are pleny of good things, that can be found in the Bible and are worth following, however there are also pleny of horrible things.
So the answer is to think about the Bible as most of the Christians do - to cherrypick. We can use good bits and leave the rest behind.

It's a good history book. It may be a little biased. The difference is which version you have.

There is, it seems, a scarlet thread of truth that runs though most all religious systems. I attribute it to the fact that total bullshit is a pretty hard sell! None the less, by combining study of all (most) religion with the eventual rejection of most (all) of it
my original tendency to second quess myself regarding all related subjects has been replaced by a peaceful, comfortable confidence. That is invaluable. Also, history and religion, while often presented on the same page, are very different

I think there are good proverbs and things, same as most religions, just convincing people to take them at that and leave the rest is tough. And where do you draw your line between love your neighbor and hate you family?

See my post with the link to the video about fairly recent findings from Sumerian clay tablets and archeological artifacts from millenia ago. Copied down and translated from Mesopotamia through Babylonian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Egyption, Hebrew; abbreviated and used in the brief compendium called the Bible.

Now that I have listened to Jordan Peterson a whole lot, I do understand that there are deep truths to be found in the ancient traditions. The Testaments have a lineage from the past - through Egypt back to Mesapotamia. He has more or less covered Genesis but in doing so he discussed some ancient Akkadian gods too. This is book is part of who we are, Everyone used to read it a lot, so references to it pervade literature. It is worth having a familiarity with it. I agree that there are some dreadful wrong things in it that are not a guide or moral inspiration for anyone to follow. In amongst the history and stories there is gold.

The New Testament has many admirable messages...love thy neighbour...for instance. It also comes with magic and mysticism which are questionable, so we would need it cherrypick the passages with the messages we agree with and discard the rest. The Old Testament, is a horrific book with no merit whatsoever especially not in any historical or moral context and should never be used as anything except as an example of bad literature.

ya, we have turned faith into beliefs but it is likely meant to be much closer to what we would now tell someone who has never flown on a plane before, and is apprehensive about it; iow, "the dangerous part was the trip here in the car." [abarim-publications.com]

Agreed 100%

I look at some of the teachings in the bible as a good conduct handbook, that’s about it.