Atheists who have read the word- What are your views on the bible?

Question

First off, please do not answer if you have never read the bible. For those of you who HAVE, how do you feel about it? It's historically accurate. It has been in circulation for hundreds of years. It is a testament of time. No one's getting royalties, I got my bible for $3 bucks.

No one has anything to gain other than the people reading the book. In a capitalist country, that is very rare. So I ask you: what are your true feelings about the bible? The word doesn't need translation, it is there for you to read and make your own decision, how does it make you feel from an objective standpoint?

No historical accuracies? Solomon didn't exist? The history of wars in sequence never happened? C'mon, I have a history book from national geographic speaking of these things.

You dont have to go to church and have someone preach to you. You dont have to pay jack to read the bible. So yes NO ONE has anything to gain from having you take the time to read the bible.

I am not talking about the niv or whatever crap is out there. The king james version is the most accurate other than the hebrew texts themselves. Yes the bible depicts wars and violence and how people will not believe in jack. Not historically accurate? If you don't want to believe in it fine. But it is accurate when it comes to the history of the course of human civilization. The kings in the bible did exist. You cannot deny that.

Ha ha ... I caught some people trying to deny the undisputable facts that the bible is accurate to a point. Where that point cuts off because we were not there when it happened. To the guy that goes to catholic school: STOP! I do not believe in religion, but I do believe in the word of the Lord. Whether or not this book is interesting or not, I know it's safe to say that it does have some historical value to it. So to deny the bible based on how religions twist it seems very naive.

How can the kjv be garbage? What do the new versions have other than their own interpretations of what was said in the kjv?

Ole! Hey bull fighter, nice way to dodge the main idea. You can go to the library and read the bible if your too cheap to spend $3. What, are the oil companies getting rich off the bible? Pfft to you.

Skep-Doc. Your right. Maybe I should go back to barnes and nobles and return my $40 dollar history book from NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC because Solomon never existed. Obviously you have more precedence over this matter.

JP. Your a smart guy. I see your point. But why would you think that we are more capable of interpreting the bible in this time than then back then? They probably had more to work with than we did, their intentions were not to conform to any religions, and they were in a time where people had faith. Now you have religous interpreters selling there bibles at a premium because they have gone through the trouble of interpreting it for you! Who would you rather believe?

Skep-Doc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_geographic

I too have read more than one book. I just think an established organization like National Geographic might have ...I don't know.. maybe a vague idea of what they're talking about.

"Like I said, you need to own more than 2 books or spend more than $43."

I have a response......UHHHH WHAT?!?!?! Your scraping the bottom of the barrel on that one.

"furthermore, your precious KJV was based on Greek translations that were compiled 1000 years after the putative events."

Your right. They use the one that was compiled 2000+ years after the putative events. Your digging your own hole.

"it's boring, sexist, homophobic, superstitious and essentially very wrong. i see it as more evil than it is good. i think the world would have been better off without it. they spread their god of peace through war."

Hey, guess what: THAT IS THE HISTORY OF MANKIND. You see where I'm getting at? That stuff still exists to this day.

"It is full of contradictions,written, & edited by man, and overall full of lies"

And science isn't I suppose?

Answer 1

"No one has anything to gain other than the people reading the book."

That's not even remotely true.
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"You dont have to go to church and have someone preach to you"

True.

"You dont have to pay jack to read the bible"

True.

"So yes NO ONE has anything to gain from having you take the time to read the bible"

Pfft. If that's your idea of logical thinking, you need to find some other pasttime. That conclusion is false, and it _obviously_ does not follow from the two other statements.

Answer 2

I have never read the whole bible, but I have read some and when I was a child my mom made me go to church. I doubt that most Christians have read the whole thing.

It is not historically accurate, and there is no proof that it is.

You don't think that they are not making money on it? Look at how much all the catholic churches, mega churches, and televangelists are making off of giving that book out for free or for very little. Just because you received for so little doesn't mean that somebody didn't make money on it

My fillings on the book is that it is a very violent and sick book. Why would someone worship a being that was suppose to create the largest mass murder of all times(The great flood). Or that he is a jealous god, which it says that he is right in the bible, and that doesn't seem to good to me.

Plus there are tons of contradictions throughout it . Such as thou shall not kill, and yet he has people killing for him throughout the whole book.

So from an objective standpoint I think that it should be used as a book to learn about our history, because it has had such an effect on all that has been written or painted throughout our history. Just like all the God and goddess stuff that is from the Greek and Roman times, or any other ancient societies.

Answer 3

You think nobody makes a profit publishing Bibles? How naive are you anyway. Oh wait, you believe that Bible crap, don' t you. I've read it many times, more as an atheist than when I was a Christian. Believers tend to avoid the nasty parts and have a very white washed superficial understanding of the Bible.

It is historically IN-accurate. It is riddled with pointless repetition,contradictions, anachronisms, and errors in all the scientific disciplines (biology, geography, astronomy etc) It promotes hatred of blacks, Jews, family, and women and promotes slavery and violence

It is actually NOT very well written. But that is to be expected when it is a cut and paste job from written oral myths that somebody tried (and failed miserably) to edit into something that seemed to be a cohesive history of a "chosen" people.
Huge sections of it are booooooring beyond belief with recitations of battles and blood and begats. There is pointless detail such as the name of the grandfather of a father inlaw, but then curiously absent of detail when naming the various pharaohs that the legendary Israelites had to deal with.

EDIT: There is no archeological evidence of a person named Solomon, or David for that matter. Most scholars think they likely did exist, but they were just leaders of small bands of roving thugs. (Similarly ,scholars think there was a person who inspired the "King Arthur" stories, but there was no Camelot or Round Table etc) It is certain that there was no great empire under either of those people. Jerusalem existed in the time when David supposedly lived, but it has been shown to be a minor village in those days....no fortresses or fortifications, no magnificent temples. These were all myths that were created by Jewish "historians" when they were in Babylon.

And I'm sorry, The National Geographic has nice pretty pictures and all, and I'm sure it's a great coffee table book. It is not considered to be a relevant resource for actual archeologists. Also, I've read more than one or two books on the subject....maybe you should consider expanding your library as well?

furthermore, your precious KJV was based on Greek translations that were compiled 1000 years after the putative events. No modern Bible scholar (secular or religious) uses the KJV

Answer 4

Historically accurate? I think not. What in the world makes you think it is? You want me to start listing examples of how it's historically INaccurate?

Here are just a few:

1. The Bible describes a world which is only a few thousand years old. We know it's much older than that.

2. The New Testament claims that Augustus Caesar decreed a tax/census during a particular year of his reign (this is supposedly what made Joseph and the very pregnant Mary travel from their home in Nazareth to Bethlehem). Augustus never decreed such a census.

3. The New Testament claims Herod killed all the babies of a certain age, trying to kill Jesus. This never happened.

4. There is NO historical record of the Hebrews EVER being in captivity in Egypt. Just a made up story.

Shall I continue?

Answer 5

It's a book put together over the course of hundreds of years, by different authors, re-re-re-re-translated. And that's the kind of book it feels like when I read it. It reads like an attempt to tie in a bunch of random things together. Starts off entertaining, ends entertaining, but there are parts in the middle that are absolutely boring. If it came out today, no editor would want to publish it. And like a bad Bruce Springsteen album, it only seems to appeal to the already-converted.

I don't find it to be a book of much inspiration. There are a few quotes I like, and given the vast size of the book I'm sure anybody can find a quote that they like inside. But most of the story is focused on this "Lord" character who seems like an egomaniac.

>>It's historically accurate.

No, it's not. It mentions a few real people and places (King Herod, Jerusalem), but then again so does "The Wizard of Oz" (Kansas).

Answer 6

If you think the Bible is historically accurate it must be the only example of a "history" book you have ever encountered. You should see if you can get another book with the change from what you paid for your Bible.

The Bible is a badly written, badly edited, inconsistent, violent, amoral hotchpotch of myth, threat and acid trip. Beside the tragedies of Sophocles it is an interesting read. As the basis for a belief for life, it is genuinely frightening.

Yes, as should be obvious, I've read it.

Answer 7

I am a semester shy of a degree in Biblical studies, if I ever should choose to finish that semester. I've read it over 20 times cover-to-cover in my life, not to mention numerous readings of portions. Eight of those readings occured while I was still a believer, 12 of them happened after I realized what a bunch of crap it is.

It is not historically accurate.

Many Biblical scholars acknowledge numerous contradictions within the text and with discovered archeology.

Its contents are illogical and make no rational sense.

In short, it's fiction. Sadly, it's not even good fiction.

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Yes, some portions are historically accurate. However, let's try a short experiment.

"In the Summer of 2007, I went to visit Baghdad. It kinda sucked 'cause it was hot and there was a war going on. One day as I was going about my business, I got kidnapped by a bunch of secret US hackers in the city. I met their leader (a dragon, as it happens!) and he had me do some missions. The war still rages as I write this in Fall 2007, but I know I did my part."

Does the fact that in Summer 2007 and on-going through Fall 2007 there WAS a war raging in Baghdad mean I really met a dragon?

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Actually, KJV is not used in any serious course of Biblical scholarship because to put it bluntly -- it's garbage.

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The KJV doesn't hold true to earliest source documents in the way that NIV and NASB do. In analysis, KJV shows over five thousand critical errors in translation, most of which change the meaning of the original.

Most reputable Biblical studies groups use NIV and NASB and the original documents (where students are familiar with the source languages, of course). I wouldn't claim they have no errors in translation either (there's no such thing as translation, only interpretation, after all) but they strove much harder to avoid distortion.

Answer 8

It has *some* historical accuracy, and I think it can be beneficial to use to help understand some aspects of ancient history. It is more beneficial to help understand the ancient state of mind...how people thought and felt back then in a time when they had no way to understand things happening in the world around them. (Things like the sun, moon, stars, the weather, disease, etc.)
It has *some* good advice in it, and *some* good insights on living life. (When you take away all the parts about killing everyone who doesn't share your beliefs, or killing homosexuals, or stoning your kids to death for disobeying you...parts like that.)

I do not believe its claims of supernatural beings. The claims of the supernatural in the book is something that answers the question about how people of the time thought the world around them worked, because they had no other way to understand it.

Answer 9

I have read it front to back and its the most replusive book Ive ever read. You claim its accurate? Prove it. There are other religious texts out there as well as books that inspire people and change them, etc. Do you dismiss them? Keep in mind also, people have used the bible as a weapon to bash others and to justify their own bs. There was a quote which I do not recall whom it is attirbuted to, perhaps Shakespeare, but I could be mistaken, but it goes something like this: "Even the devil can cite scripture for his own purpose." Sad...

Answer 10

Truly unbelievable!

No seriously speaking, there are lots of stories in the bible especially the old testament and the revelation that are like reading fairy stories. I admire the morals of Jesus, his talks, proverbs and actions, but it seems impossible to apply his teachings into the world, it is difficult.

edit: historical facts are present in the bible but nothing is documented so you keep this into speculation.
BTW, if you ask the opinions of Atheists, at least respect them for giving you answers and don't thumb down.
Whoever has put thumbs down is a dumbass.

Answer 11

It's very boring to me. It's full of stories that basically end in, "Praise the Lord your God." Even looking past that, most of the stories make little sense. They basically say that if you ask God to help you with something with the utmost faith, he will provide for you. Over and over.

And yet, over and over, throughout history we see God letting his people down. Lame ending.

And historically accurate? Penn & Teller cry "bullshit," as well as many historians