Instruction Manual for Humans

Any Christian-type person has heard the argument for the Bible being God's word that says we all need an owners' manual since we don't come with one. When I discarded my erstwhile, misbegotten conviction that the Bible was of divine origin, I felt a dramatic sense of freedom, the lifting of a burdensome intellectual folly. And yet I realized that I do, in fact, need an owners' manual of sorts, and I could begin to appreciate the attractions of religion.

How does one avoid life's many possible pitfalls and find oneself on a path to felicitous outcomes unless one has some sort of guide? When facing the myriad decisions of consequence one faces every day, what does one use to weigh options and sift the wheat from the chaff? I decided that I needed to consider what my guiding principles should be and to express them clearly and with concision.

Which led me to admit that the Bible is, in fact, one source of tried and true principles for living this human life. Not the only source, and certainly not a supernatural source; every claim about the existence of spirits and souls, of heaven and hell, of life eternal and vengeful gods can be discarded as fanciful and without a shred of evidence to justify belief in them. But is there not wisdom therein nonetheless? I think so.

Is it not clear to everyone that striving for and possessing qualities like love, patience, self-control, thrift, fidelity, kindness, gentleness and respect et al is more likely to bring about better outcomes for one and all than things like deceit, selfishness, anger, promiscuity, et cetera?

So I will continue to quote and try to live by wisdom from the Bible, without giving obsequious and unnecessary homage to a non-existent deity. What say you?