What does the Bible control you to do? Or stop you from doing?
Great Questions.
The bible attempts to position itself as the authority on right and wrong by claiming to have been written by a divine hand (aka “because god”). This allows the authors to make any rule they want as right or wrong and how everyone must obey that rule or go to hell (all without evidence of god or hell). From there many big, small, silly, or insidious rules to govern human behavior arise. Rules on what you can eat (Leviticus 11:2) and rules about killing gay people (Leviticus 20:13). Basically, if anyone finds themselves doing anything “because god said so” or “because the bible said so”, I invite them to question it. In many cases, I challenge them to compare that belief to “the golden rule” in order to see if it’s actually fair to everyone or immoral. For example, the bible has rules on how to correctly enslave others (Leviticus 25:44-46) and rules on how to beat your slaves (Exodus 21:20-21). Killing someone for who they sleep with is immoral because we wouldn’t want anyone to kill us. Enslaving others is immoral because we wouldn’t want anyone to enslave us. Beating a slave to death is immoral because we wouldn’t want anyone to enslave and beat us to death. Yet the bible not only makes those things “okay”, but in some cases, commands it.
But here’s the thing.
IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS BECAUSE it’s all built on “because god” and there is no evidence of god.
The bible was written and rewritten by men who said whatever they wanted while using “because god said so” as a means to not only make you obey the men using this book to their advantage but to make it perfectly okay to carryout horrible punishment and even murder when people didn’t obey their book.
The bible is a cleverly disguised collection of lies that not only encourages it’s readers to blindly obey but to also blindly punish anyone who attempts to question it.
For more on this topic, check out the Atheist Category.