Part 2: Atheists and the Bible?

Question

When you read the Bible, did you follow its instructions faithfully until you recieved results, or did you just read it for insight and knowledge?

Answer 1

I was already living my life according to its instructions when I started reading it. I even took college level courses in biblical scholarship as part of my preparations to enter seminary.

When I started to notice the glaring disconnect between the prophecies of the Promised Messiah and Jesus, that was about the last time I read it hoping for faith.

I still read it even now, but simply as an academic exercise.

Answer 2

How can you follow its instructions faithfully? It is not written as an instruction book. It is an anthology dedicated to a traditional set of practices, many of which are only hinted at in Scripture.

Let's look at some of the critiques here offered.

Ridiculous nature of the claims - the interpretations may be ridiculous, but the claims are not. In the original languages, most of the 'miraculous' events in Scripture are either metaphor or natural events. It is hard to explain this when the English reads "Spirit" instead of "wind," or "whole earth" instead of "entire region." The Creation, Fall, Flood, Tower of Babel, Egyptian Plagues, Crossing of the Red Sea, Crossing of the Jordan River, and the Fall of Jericho are all described in natural terms in Scripture, especially when placed in their appropriate cultural and historical context.

Funny - nobody reads the dialogs of Plato and rejects them for their miraculous claims. But the dialogs of Plato contain far more supernatural events than Scripture.

Revelation was an Apocalyptic work. Anyone with any experience in early apocalyptic literature would immediately recognize the symbolism in Revelation. It was hardly the work of an insane man! On the contrary, it reflects a very common form of Hellenistic philosophical/religious writing.

In Scripture, supernatural events, where they (rarely) occur, are often separated by 1500 years or more. So why would anyone assume that supernatural events happened all the time back then?

Answer 3

I read it faithfully. I was pretty into the christian thing and believed in everything when I was 6-12. My best friend was a born again and was always telling me about the bible. I began to go to church with her and bible school and learned everything I could. When I turned 14 I went to a Catholic school and learned more. When I turned 16 I began to question things and by 18 I had firmly believed that there was no God simply by deduction and reading books by people like the ingenius Carl Sagen.

I read it for insight, knowledge and results and in the end found none of the above. I believe in science because there just isn't anything that a "god" could help me with.

Answer 4

I have made several attempts at reading the bible, all failing quite miserably. I have no instructions on reading the bible & honestly have lost complete interest in it entirely. I find nothing of value or a shred of knowledge or insight. You could call me close minded for what it's worth I honestly see no use in either the bible or false hope. I will in this life neither lead nor follow simply build my own path & learn from my own and others mistakes if this is wrong it matters not to me I have up to this point lived beyond every ones expectation, those who matter anyway

Answer 5

5

Answer 6

I read it all the way through, laughing at the ridiculous nature of the claims. And when I finished, I realized a few things:
1)NO WAY that is the word of God, it is full of holes and lacks logic
2)The guy who wrote Revelation was OBVIOUSLY insane and delusional
3)If all of this supernatural mumbo jumbo happened all the time back then, why has NOTHING supernatural happened in the last 500 years?

-And then I started studying history, and context in order to understand more about what was going on around the time of the Bible. The Bible we know now was not even finalized until the 4th century, meaning it was edited, changed, and altered over a period of about 350 years...so that right there means there is NO WAY it is the word of God. Furthermore, if you were an all powerful all knowing being, wouldn't you be able to come up with some better way of proving your existence to humanity than supposedly creating a son and sending him to earth to be tortured and murdered?????? OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 7

"Did you follow its instructions faithfully until you recieved results"

I suppose that means you'd be reading it until armageddon, since no results could possibly result from an imaginary god character and a poorly written book that's been mistranslated so many times all it currently amounts to is gibberish.

I read it. Studied it in school. I wasn't impressed. It's the best reason NOT to be a Xian.

Answer 8

Both. I tried to implement the teachings in my life, and find insight and knowledge within the pages. That isn't to say I found nothing of value in the Bible, I did. I really appreciate classical literature anyway - so there's that value, too. But like many, I took issue with inconsistancies, I had a problem with interpreting stories literally - especially the supernatural bits (I'm too logical for that). Among other things, obviously. One of the biggest downfalls of the entire theology, for me anyway, was the perception of God.

Answer 9

I only read it out of curiosity. I knew that it wouldn't change a thing and all it did was make me sure that I was an atheist.

Why would you want to follow that tyrant from the Old Testament?

Answer 10

There's instructions in there?

Like how to build a bike or something?