Sacrilegious Discourse - Bible Study for Atheists

Psalm 102: A Cry in Distress / A prayer of the poor man / A prayer of the afflicted. Starts, "Hear my prayer, O LORD." This is one of the seven penitential psalms. It is recited in times of community crisis, and as a prayer for the well-being of an ill person. It is also a prayer for a childless woman to give birth, unless of course that woman is in a same-sex relationship and wants ivf in which case the god of insurance companies tells her to piss off because babies are only for hetero couples who never do anything wrong and thus always deserve babies.

Psalm 103: Praise for the LORD's Benefits. Starts, "Bless the LORD, O my soul." Verse 14 is often recited during a burial service, because it reminds us that we are all just a worthless pile of ashes.

Psalm 104: The LORD's Care for His Creation. Starts, "Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great." This psalm is closely related to the first Genesis creation narrative and is thus far one of Husband's favorites due to its lack of Fire and Brimstone fear tactics. It's a lovely psalm, in large part because of its obvious relation to older creation stories from the Ancient Near East. We went down a bit of a rabbit hole and learned a new term — henotheism, which is the worship of a primary god that doesn't deny the existence of other deities. This totally summarizes early Judaism in a way we've been grappling with, and we're so happy to finally have some decent vocabulary to justify and simplify our ideas!