Is the bible just a way to cope with death?

Yes, ceasing to exist as a result of physical death
The prehistoric man, after becoming aware of its own existence would notice very quickly that the dead… don’t exist anymore, it’s not like you can talk to them, is it? So the theory is that this is when people started to come up with ghosts, gods and so on to imagine existence beyond physical death.

Good point. We are told to rejoice even while and in suffering. Christians often cite 1 Thessalonians 5:18, about giving thanks in all circumstances, but that isn’t too hard (nor is it helpful to be told that) – you can pretty much always be thankful to some degree that things aren’t worse than they are. Then there’s Ephesians 5:20 – that’s a bit tougher:

…always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Some may remember the verse in the devotional that surprised me that Monday morning in 2017.)

Why should it? I’m not saying it doesn’t, but what meaning does life have? Evolution is still pretty meaningless. (There can be a difference between function and meaning.)

life as a function is the ability to move energy and matter at will. The purpose of that function is to propagate life. If you look at survival fitness to be the ability to support creation instead of yourself as selfish strands are diluted out in such a process you will see its integrative power.

function: the action for which a person or thing is specially fitted or used or for which a thing exists : purpose.

What’s the function of the dipping bird? To repetitively dip.
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It’s purpose is to entertain humans or maybe demonstrate some science. (A collateral function might be to drive a cat crazy. :sunglasses:) Does it have meaning? Not without humans.

As a Christian who accepts the science, the function of evolution, I certainly do, but just like the dipping bird having no purpose and meaning apart from humans, life and evolution have no real meaning without God – his enduring joy and our being in his enduring family because of Jesus.

Kevin, I don’t remember you asking any dumb questions. I don’t think this one is dumb, but maybe somebody in the comment section of the video was. My husband regularly declares he feels he loses intelligence whenever he looks at comments after videos or Twitter posts, etc.

I’m going to guess that the original claim was not so much that the BIble is a way to cope with death, but that religious beliefs that people have worked out from the Bible are a way to cope with death (and they might just add all religions to that as well). Of course they are. There is plenty of coping with a 100% certainty of death going on among the living—at least living humans.
I don’t think that’s the only purpose or reason for Christian belief, but I’m grateful to have that as well.

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They’re just insisting on a modernist rational concept of truth as correspondence. That is what I learned from Fred Dretski in an epistemology class thirty years ago. That’s all well and good if we’re talking about properly empirical matters. But life is participatory and the manner of engagement can indeed make a difference where fulfillment and meaning are concerned. Detached objectivity isn’t an option. Whatever you believe feeds back on the resulting quality. What is true in the subjective realm isn’t about passive objectivity but rather about what contributes to a life well lived.

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Kendel, I recommend you suggest to your husband that he stops reading comment sections. After I’ve done this, my mental health improved infinitely.
And @Trippy_Elixir the same advice is for you too. Comments people make on social media are hardly ever high quality discourse. Especially not under the kind of videos you described. Of course you’re going to have people who are angry with Christianity saying that kind of things, religion is childish or it was made up as an instrument of subjugation are other common examples I can think of.

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Teee heee! He’s a smart man. He avoids them with fortitude. But sometimes something sneaks in and catches his attention.

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I think that is very simplistic. If we are looking at the entire Christian cannon then there are many, many different purposes that the Bible was written. There are many themes within the Bible, ranging from political to moral theory to finding purpose and meaning in the here and now. I would agree that the Revivalist selling points of being saved and going to heaven can be prominent at times, but the Bible is much more than that, IMHO. It’s been a while since I read the Pentateuch, but if memory serves it doesn’t give off the “coping with death” vibe.

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That’s a springboard to a lot of humor. Try “canon”; it’s slightly less “explosive”.

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