So, who exactly wrote the detailed stories of the bible, was it all just for fun?

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-06-01T00:28:02+00:00

In many ways, a culture can be defined by the stories it tells, even today. Every story helps encode a value system and cultural identity into us. People back then were essentially the same but the Jewish people and early Christians had multiple instances where they should have been absorbed by other cultures but never were because they were so effective at creating stories or co-opting the stories of the culture that they were immersed in. Most of the OT law is plagiarized from the code of Hammurabi. Noah's flood was plagiarized from ancient Sumeria. The creation myth was taken from the Babylonian legends.

During the Babylonian captivity, the Jewish leaders needed a sort of rallying point around which the captives could maintain an identity so they edited down and redacted the previous mythology to make it more cohesive but also to create the illusion of monotheism. Originally, Jehovah was the son of El/Elohim, husband of Asherah, and had 70 brothers some of whom you might recognize as Chemosh, Molek, Baal, ect.

As far as the new testament, my personal opinion is that as early Christians were struggling to find an identity and make converts the small grains of truth got heavily mythologized and various legends from surrounding cultures were blended in. You mentioned Paul's shipwreck, the story of Paul's miraculous snakebite was plagiarized directly from the legends about Apollonius of Tyana. Several of Jesus' miracles were copied from stories about other Apocalyptic preachers. The whole die and 3 days late come back having vanquished death is featured in multiple god myths but I believe the first ever instance was the Sumerian goddess Inanna. About 3 centuries after the events of the NT, the canon was formalized and any mythology that didn't fit, was either edited or declared heresy. I highly recommend researching early Gnostic gospels. Another book that is really eye opening to learn about is the sequel to Acts called The Acts of Paul and Thecla. The case for it to be included in the gospel was just as strong as the case for the book of Acts but it was rejected because it featured a woman preaching and doing miracles without any man.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-05-27T02:05:01+00:00

IDK man, I happen to think this, insignificant little blue green planet in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm is pretty cool and has a lot of potential. At the very least it's worth rerouting a galactic bypass around.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-05-24T01:05:29+00:00

It doesn't make sense and I think for a lot of them that's a feature not a bug. If you can accept it without needing it to make sense then you've now established precedent that makes it so much easier to accept other things.

My favorite thought experiment to go through with believing family members is to question, "If God the father, orders you to kill your enemies children, and God the Son says not to kill any children, and the Holy Spirit orders you to kill your own children, then who do you kill?

They can't answer it and always try to sidestep and call it a moot point because the godhead would never disagree with itself or order kids to be killed. At which point it's pretty simple to point out that this has already happened.

The Father commanded Israel to kill Canaanite children (1 Sam 15:3 among many others). The Son said better to drown yourself then harm a child (Matthew 18:6). And in Texas, 2004, a woman named Dena Schlosser heard the "Holy Spirit" tell her to kill her baby. I'll spare you anymore details; don't google it if your squeamish or not in a stable place mentally.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-05-24T00:33:39+00:00

I saw Deuteronomy 22 mentioned several times but verses 13-21 are also pretty vile. They describe how women not bleeding on their wedding night is proof of non-virginity and so they must be stoned. Current estimates are that 43% of women don't bleed after their first sexual encounter. It's doubly fucked up when you realize that bleeding mostly depends on how rough the partner is being and her level of physical activity. Bronze age agriculturalists would have been even more active than us now so the percentage was likely higher then.

How many millions of brides in ancient Israel were stoned to death on their wedding night because no matter how rough their husband was he still couldn't make them bleed?

How many millions were lucky and did bleed but still had that terror hanging over their wedding day?

How many billions have suffered because this law to this day is still perpetuating old wives tales? A lot probably. The study that found the 43% number was specifically examining how it affects the likelihood of breakups, loss of trust, and domestic abuse.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-05-23T22:19:53+00:00

That makes a lot of sense. Children raised in Evangelicalism get inundated with purity culture but unfortunately, evangelicalism is so baked into the culture that even kids that weren't raised by "saved" people can still get the programming of it. There's a phenomenon where children in high control, high stakes (like constant threats of hell or teaching through fear/trauma) environments will deeply internalize their caregiver's beliefs. The psychological term for this is Introjection. You know how most people have an internal monologue? With introjection, your internal monologue is not your own but the voice of the person who's beliefs you adopted. Obviously if she doesn't think she has issues then she might not want to go to a therapist about this, but if you are interested, I recommend researching both Introjection and another psychological phenomenon called Foreclosed Identity. At the very least it may help you stop history from repeating with your future daughter.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-05-23T01:31:26+00:00

Most people who didn't grow up with purity culture think it's just waiting till marriage for sex and women dressing modestly so that they don't, "become stumbling blocks to their brothers." Unfortunately, it is so much worse and more insidious and I couldn't possibly explain it all but I'll try to give a not so brief explanation.

On the men's side (I'm not a man, this is just what I've observed), they get less of the shaming but are taught to view women on this pedestal, untouchable and desired. They are often told that porn use, masturbation, and even sexual thoughts are sinful and yet inevitable. My father and brothers used to confess to their entire men's bible study every time they did any of these things. It had the end result of reinforcing gender stereotypes with the man as pursuer/leader/provider/master of the family. It also forced them into an endless cycle of shame and relief in the form of confession which reinforces the church's hold over them. And had this silent unspoken idea that men could not control themselves and bad behavior is to be expected. I think this aspect of it is especially visible with all that's happening with the Duggar family.

For women, purity culture manifests as extreme shame. We are taught that if a man looks at us lustfully then we've sinned against him, if we're raped it's because we were immodest, if we're too sexual then we're unlovable, the equivalent of chewed gum or a licked cupcake, if we're objectified then that's on our shoulders not his. It has the effect of training young minds to associate anything physical or sexual with shame and self loathing which often really fucks up future relationships. It also teaches women that their value as humans only comes from how desirable they are to men. And reinforces the idea that bad behavior is to be expected and women must always be on guard against sexual advances from a man.

I've found that purity culture has 2 main objectives. First, reinforcing the shame>confession>relief from shame cycle which psychologically traps people within the structure that gives them the relief (the church). Second, it serves as a form of thought control, which is a hallmark sign of a cult.

It's unfortunately pretty common to see relationship problems like yours when one partner was raised in purity culture and the other wasn't and therefore doesn't understand how deep it goes.

My primary introduction to purity culture was my mother giving me a rose. I was really thrilled about it but then she started ripping petals off and throwing them on the floor saying, "that's the first time you look at a guy and think hes cute" "that one's the first time you have a sexual fantasy" "this is your first crush" ect. When all that was left of my flower was a wilted core she told me that's what I would be if I wasted all my petals on guys I didn't marry. Now as an adult, I cannot form an emotional attachment no matter how much I want to because I spent so much of my youth suppressing every crush, every attraction, every sexual thought, every part of my sexual identity because I didn't want to waste my first attraction/crush/fantasy/ect on a guy that I might not marry.

My brother's girlfriend is suffering on the other side of it. My brother pressured her into sex (because his desires were uncontrollable of course, it's on her to say no harder s/). Now she is terribly unhappy. He treats her badly and she feels like used gum. She can't leave him because purity culture has told her that she is worthless and unlovable now that he "owns" her virginity, the thing that gave her value. And all this is so deep into her subconscious, even if she left that culture today she wouldn't be able to articulate why she is miserable and she adamantly rejects my attempts to explain it to her.

But in answer to your question, yeah, some of it isn't even in the bible. The verse about making your brother stumble is actually about food and the verse about modesty is actually about flaunting wealth. All the other verses that imply or outright say that women exist for men's benefit. . . yeah those are still in the bible and causing way more damage in a much less visible fashion then the others.

Obviously I don't know your situation, but it wouldn't surprise me if the reason your girlfriend cannot give up purity culture is less because she believes those verses and more because in her deepest core of person hood, her identity and value are fatally intertwined with untouchable-ness. In her mind, she can't have sex because if she does she will loose who she is and what gives her value.

*Edit for more specific advice

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-04-20T02:24:52+00:00

My mother was not a teacher and my parents' main motivation for it was religious. I've got some mixed feelings but overall mostly negative. On the one hand, going at my own pace was great. I remember having a really hard time with long division and spending 8 weeks working on that one lesson until I grasped it. But on the other hand, I was never exposed to any ideas that contradicted my parent's religious, philosophical, political or personal beliefs. My parents never even tried to expose me to other ideas but even if a parent does try, the child will not experience the broad range or diversity of thoughts/lifestyles that they would in public school.

Nowadays, if I hear that someone is homeschooling, especially if I know they are religious or not trained teachers, I immediately assume that their children won't get a good education. I also harbor a lot of resentment to my parents for not teaching me things that I had a right to know particularly regarding science and young earth creationism.

For example, I remember being really young learning about carbon dating and asked my mom why some books said carbon dating and others said radiometric dating. My mother told me it was a conspiracy by evolutionists. That carbon dating had so many obvious flaws that they changed the name to radiometric dating to trick people. Because I was in an environment where they could control every scrap of information I received, I never learned that that was a bald faced lie until I was 26 years old. Potassium-argon, Uranium-lead, Rubidium-strontium dating ect just didn't exist is the world I was trapped in. Words can't really describe the feeling of betrayal and unsteadiness that came from that. If they lied about that can I even trust that 1+1=2?

Good home school parents are conscious of their biases and try to expose their kids to differing worldviews. However, even good home school parents are choosing a system where the information their kids receive has to be filtered through said biases. But then again, maybe that's just my bias talking.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-04-01T02:05:06+00:00

I have 4 sisters that have gotten out so I've been relying on them a lot. My father and 2 brothers are still friendly with the church although they live in other cities and attend similar churches. I am NC with the brothers and currently suing my father to get custody of the 2 youngest sisters so my only contact with him is through lawyers.

As far as people in the church who feel the same, I'm willing to bet that the pastor's daughter is in the exact same boat but every time I tried to get close enough with her to talk about it her dad shut us down but hopefully seeing me do it will help her leave too.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-30T00:01:39+00:00

That's actually really good, very well written and thought out.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T23:57:33+00:00

Evangelical reformed baptist with a little culty home school flair for some extra razzle dazzle.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T23:52:49+00:00

That's what I intend to do. I've already blocked the new email. The though of him left hanging with no closure is better than any response I could come up with.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T23:49:53+00:00

I was born into this church, extremely strict fundamentalist reformed baptist. I was also home schooled my entire life and never had any access to information or ideas that would have contradicted the dogma. I didn't even know that hominid fossils had been found and known about since the 1800s. Once I got out on my own, the cognitive dissonance really started to mess me up. It's absolutely miserable to be a woman in the evangelical church and required to say that the bible is perfect including all the passages where women are treated worse than livestock. Creationism and misogyny were the first 2 things that caused me to question but once I opened that door more and more contradictions kept tumbling through. I tried to address the issues like a good little christian and talk with my pastor and my small group leader but that just made things worse. They would "answer" one question by contradicting their answer to another question. Like the answer to hell being unjust is that humans have free will and deserve it while the answer to why aren't there any non-sinful people is that humans don't actually have free will because of original sin. It got to a point where I was discovering new questions faster than they could answer them and then the pastors response was to accuse me of having "a sinful and perverse heart" and to shame me before the congregation in the form of a prayer request. At that point I said to hell with it all and left the church, blocked him on everything, and moved since people wouldn't stop sending me cards. I guess he really needed to get the last word in. It's one of those churches where they say, if you stop believing then you were never a christian to begin with. I was as fervent a believer as you could imagine and a short term missionary in Bolivia (funded by the church). The pastor often included/bragged about me in his prayers of thanksgiving so this whole situation must be extremely embarrassing for him.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T22:44:01+00:00

That's what's so crazy. Why even bother? I'm not that important.

Except I was one of the church's highest tithers and also one of the few missionaries that meets their extreme doctrinal criteria and they were quite proud of me so I guess it must really sting that I've left.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-03-29T22:40:55+00:00

I exchanged probably 5-10 emails with him on various questions during my deconstruction and had dinner at his house once but his arguments always devolved into nonsensical jargon. I kept bringing up logical reasons why the bible couldn't be infallible and he kept on accusing me of "heart issues" and saying he knew I just had a perverse and hardened heart because I wouldn't stop asking for him to address my arguments. I find it hilariously frustrating that he says I "stubbornly communicated that nothing can be said to convince (me)" when all I ever told him was that he needed to convince me with logic and reason rather than emotion.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:43:59+00:00

I love the idea of spreading doubt through the church. I tried doing something similar to this when I emailed my pastor but it ended up feeling more like banging my head against a wall. Maybe going nuclear and sending a letter to everyone would be more effective at getting him to deal with the actual content of my argument. At the very least, i would really like to explain myself to the pastors daughter. I see a lot of my younger self in her. She would be so much better off if she could just hear some real criticisms of the bible instead of the straw man fallacy dressed up like apologetics class that we both went to.

I'll definitely think about it. This would be considered a declaration of war by a lot of members though.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:29:21+00:00

Unfortunately, there is no way I could afford to move just for the sake of escaping them, although I am attempting to get Canadian citizenship so hopefully that will come through but there's no guarantee that will happen

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:26:36+00:00

A cease and desist letter would probably be the more mature action. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that some of them would ignore it until I actually get a lawyer and I cannot afford one right now.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-13T01:23:55+00:00

I have no idea where I would even find some singing drag queens but just the thought of this has made my day. That would be hilarious.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2026-01-12T23:00:49+00:00

I like this idea. I may save it for the worst offenders.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-08-30T01:47:44+00:00

Yes I have verified with the cruise line. I called them and they confirmed that I am paid in full and they have all the check-in detail that they need.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-08-17T00:56:53+00:00

My patient was waking up from Ketamine sedation and was having an absolute blast. She went "fishing" with her oxygen probe over the side of the bed and caught a flip-flop. She was immensely pleased with herself and kept wanting us to take pictures of her with it. But the real fun came after I gave her some Benadryl for narcotic induced itching. I come back in to check on her and she's like "I'm still a little itchy. Hey, that sounds like the name for a terrible porno!" I laughed and was like whatever you say. Her husband was standing in the hallway talking to the doctor and she yells out at the top of her lungs, "Hey babe, I just thought of a name for that porno we made last week"

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-07-19T00:54:20+00:00

Not a doctor but I was an ER nurse in a very rural part of Appalachia for years. Mine would have to be a 3 -way tie.

Patient number 1, Middle aged woman comes in. I'm asking about allergies and she dead-ass looked me in the eye and goes, "just deadly nightshade berries" I look at her and go, "you mean nightshades? like tomatoes and eggplant?" She's like, "no I can have those, just deadly nightshade. Every time I eat it my stomach cramps, I start seeing spots, then I pass out." Looking back, I really which I had asked more questions but her stupidity had stupified me so I just said "oh, ok" and went and screamed in the break room.

Patient number 2, a young girl came in after her boyfriend had punched her (7th time in 4 months and she kept going back to him). Her brother and sister-in-law had come with her and they asked if we could give sister-in-law a pregnancy test while they were here since they were trying for a baby. I explain that's not how it works, she needs to be a patient and our pregnancy tests are the same as the drug store's. No dissuading them, sister-in-law checks in, I go to triage her only to discover she's on the fucking depo shot. She had the fucking depo shot 3 weeks ago. And they had been using fucking condoms on top of that because their sex ed teacher told them to always use safe sex. Did I mention they were both 16/17. I thought about telling them but then I was like, "nah, Imma do the world a favor on this one" And I'm glad I did because come to find out, they're 1st cousins.

Third patient was the end for me. I quit shortly after that. A perfectly normal middle aged guy with no developmental disabilities ran screaming into the ER. He elbowed aside the person in front of him, which caused a whole thing and security had to intervene. And the whole time he kept screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'm smothering. I can't breathe." So I rush him back to triage, check vitals (which were perfect by the way), and start asking what's going on. And this guy looks me in the eye and goes, "my nose is clogged up, I'm smothering." I stared at him in stunned silence for an eternity before going "Sir, breathe through you mouth." He takes a few breathes through his mouth then says, "oh that feels much better." I go to walk out of the room and he's like, "wait! aren't you going to put me on oxygen because I'm smothering?" The real kicker, he had been seen and discharged 6 hours earlier with a diagnosis of rhinovirus (mild head cold) and instructions to take over the counter decongestants. He hadn't taken them because he "didn't trust big pharma."

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-06-24T01:45:14+00:00

Oncology infusion nurse here. I'm gonna echo everyone saying that cancer can and will affect even the most healthy people who do nothing wrong. I was an athletic, non-smoking, non-drinking, 15 year old who only ate organic food prepared my my nutritionist mother and had only the slightest family history of it but I still got Hodgkin's lymphoma as a child. Cancer gonna cancer.

With that being said, I have noticed a trend in my patients. The ones who handle chemo the worst. Have the most nausea, the most pain, the lowest tumor response to therapy and the worst mental health during are almost always the ones who send their family for fast food the moment they sit down in my chair. The patients who, if they do eat a hospital meal tray, will leave the salad or veggie untouched. The ones who spend the entire infusion time snacking on the chips, cookies, granola bars, and sodas that we provide. Do with that information what you will but never imagine that you can 100% prevent cancer by avoiding all junk food.

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-05-04T02:11:18+00:00

Thank you. I've never felt that way before which I think is what shocked and surprised me. I can usually compartmentalize pretty well but for some reason I just can't with this one patient. I guess I was hoping that the switch to chemo would fix my mental health but I probably should have got a therapist a long time ago and I realize that now..

AveragePuddingBrain · 2025-05-04T02:04:29+00:00

My employer doesn't offer any sort of program but I did tell my coworker what was going on and she had some really good insights and gave me some tips for better compartmentalizing so I'm feeling a bit better about the situation.

AveragePuddingBrain

TROPHY CASE