God's one moment of insight in the Bible

[Malone]

5 Adn GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Genesis 6: 5-7

[RaleC]

The fact that we are the architects, wardens, jailers, and prisoners of our own hell is self-evident. And that we do this out our own need to roleplay hierarchical parasite chains of greed, privilege and power, is one that transcends doctrine.

There are a lot of fine words in the many books called the bible. And stuff unarguably poisonous to the soul. Here are some I think fall into the former category, though of course it's a matter of interpretation:

Galatians 5:22/23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

&c.

[Malone]

Yup, no doubt about it, regardless of whether you're a person of faith or of no belief, there's no getting away from the fact that, as its name says, the Bible is the foundational book of our culture. So much of our mental and cultural framework is shaped by it that it will be interesting to see if here in Europe, where public secularism is positively aggressive, an alternative develops. Even that crashing bore of an atheist Christopher Hitchens admitted that a secular culture that had abandoned the Bible would be 'wafer thin'.

[RaleC]

The book of Jude talks more on the groveling, self-satisfied horror we invent to wallow in, and while it would be easy to read the shortest book in the New Testament as the typical self-righteous soap-boxing rant we've all become accustomed to from what has become the stereo-typical Christian, I read it as such a longing, sad, statement of irrevocably estranged brotherhood and loss.

12 These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

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“Every time I tried to display my innermost desires-a wish to be morally good-I was met with contempt and scorn, and as soon as I gave in to base desires I was praised and encouraged.” - Tolstoy.

"There is no God and we are his prophets." - Cormac McCarthy

At the gym recently my brother had this to say regarding a poor review leveled at some of my work:

"Don't they realize just how miraculous it is that people can get out of their own way long enough to achieve anything at all?"

Which snowballed into a conversation on what really motivates any of us. We're a frightfully insecure mess - this human race. That's the real tragedy of the state of the world, it's not passion, ignorance or even hubris alone that commits atrocity - or seeks to profit from it - but our weird monkey need to measure ourselves against the possessions, poses, persona, and costumes of others; and do all we can to appropriate the props necessary to mimic whatever social-fiction of status they represent - as if the achieving of the deception would inoculate us against death by making us a performer of life rather than a victim of it.

Of course this same social urge can be a part of what saves us too - if our Saints are failing us we ought to choose better ones.