Are biblical principles practical today?

Some Biblical teachings are relevant and practical today: the 10 Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and suchlike.

Related: "Mere Christianity" and "The Great Divorce" by C. S. Lewis.

Are the morals of fables, folk tales and fairy tales still relevant, practical life lessons hundreds or thousands of years after they were written? Of course.

yep, in principle ................................

I've always liked George Carlin's distillation of the 10 Commandments:

https://genius.com/George-carlin-the-ten-commandments-annotated

My father was a Pentecostal reverend -- the real deal, a legit bible thumper and doomsday preacher in the Appalachians. As a kid, I was terrified of him and the picture of a vengeful, brutal God he painted. Now, in my 40s, my dad has gone off the deep end. He forsake every wife and child he had for the bible, and operates now under the delusion that he's a prophet who sees angels. No bullshit. So as you can imagine, I have a bit of a complicated relationship with religion.

Instead, I more or less subscribe to the argument of Pascal's Wager: Essentially, Pascal's wager is the ultimate win/win situation: Live your life as if God exists, even if you don't believe in him. If he does exist, when you die, you'll be rewarded with eternity in heaven. If he doesn't exist, at least you'll leave behind a positive legacy. This doesn't mean you have to go to church. You don't have to pray, you don't have to be pious at all. Just be a good person. Love your family, help those who need it if you're able, be courteous to others and don't hurt anyone who doesn't hurt you first.

Sure

Somewhere right now a pastor is raping a 14 year old and justifying it with the bible.

Imagine a homeless person who notices that the back door to a restaurant is open after midnight. He sneaks in. Does he go for the food or the garbage can?

"Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher.' Kalamas, when you yourselves know: 'These things are good; these things are not blamable; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness,' enter on and abide in them."
- The Buddha, in Kalama Sutra

"I find many passages [of the Four Gospels] of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth; charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate therefore the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, & leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, 1820

By the godly - by definition