Alucard Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Ok i seriously think this is true, i have three christians in my household and a few christian friends. not one of them read their bible outside of church. whereas even after dropping christianity i still read mine on a daily basis, my brother is a long time atheist and now a theology major, studying primarily christianity. when a conversation comes up about the bible (satan had legs in the garden of eden, jesus never refered to himself as the son of god, its better not to be married) it seems that most christians are completely oblivious as to what the bible really says. in most cases the scriptures i present are met with indignant responses, or just flat out in my face yelling. others will claim that i dont know enough about the bible to make a comment on it. the conversation goes much like this. THEM you shouldnt have sex till your married. ME really, are you married THEM yes ME you know the bible says its would have been better for you if you diddnt get married or even have sex THEM where? ME 1 corinthians chapter 7 versus 1-2 THEM (yelling or screaming) how dare you mock god, you dont know anything about the bible!!!!! unfortunatly this is all to common around here, living in the bible belt. so now i would like to pose two questions 1 do you think that on average atheists know the bible better then the most christians? 2 has anyone else had something like this happen to them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenny Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 1 do you think that on average atheists know the bible better then the most christians? 2 has anyone else had something like this happen to them? 1. For the most part, yes. I would say it's accurate that the average atheist has studied the Bible more than the average Christian. However, I'd say that a significant number of current atheists studied the Bible, at one point, as believers. Increased study of the Bible for most who became atheists began at a time when their faith and belief began coming under fire and intense study began at the point of unbelief and after. I don't know if that makes any sense, really... and I couldn't possibly begin to prove any of those statements. 2. Yes. Since I began attending church in the late 90's, I've seen an alarming number of people teaching and in leadership roles in the church who don't know Sunday school level Bible stories or characters. An overwhelming number of Christians hear something from the pulpit, from a DVD, or a radio/television broadcast and regurgitate it as The Gospel. They have little or no idea where to reference the scriptures, whether it's Old Testament or New Testament, or who said it and in what context. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution_beyond Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 1 do you think that on average atheists know the bible better then the most christians? 2 has anyone else had something like this happen to them? 1 Yes. In fact I think it may be a deciding factor in who deconverts and who doesn't. Those christians that actually read the bible are the ones most likely to deconvert eventually. 2 Yes. My ex was a fundie and during one of our many discussions about the bible I mentioned in passing that it said in revelation that the devil will be locked up for a thousand years and then let out for a little while to tempt people and try to lead them astray before finally being consigned to the lake of fire. She didn't believe me and thought I was making it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SWIM Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 1 Yes. In fact I think it may be a deciding factor in who deconverts and who doesn't. Those christians that actually read the bible are the ones most likely to deconvert eventually. I totally agree with the above, it was a major factor in my deconversion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuaiDan Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Many hath said to know the Bible is to despise it, in so many words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marty Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 I'd be interested to know how many Atheists were born into a religion and left, or how many were raised "free" and never saw a need for religion. I also think most Atheists are thinkers, we investegate things. In my case, I was born into a religion and investegated my way out of it because it did not make total sense when viewed from every concievable angle. In a "born Atheist's" case he/she may be more likely to fully investegate a claim before accepting it as truth; hence a better understanding of what exactly the bible says. Hell, I'm doing this right now with Global Warming and abiogenic oil origins. The former is so far quite believable and plausable to me, and the latter nothing more than a terribly interesting idea at the moment, but I am researching both as best I can to find where I feel the "truth" lies. Some people will just accept either or both propositions because it "sounds right" or "feels right". For me, that is not enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 In answer to the OP, generally, yes... I always like getting people to point out to me where 'Love the sinner, but hate the sin' is in the 'Holey' Book... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skiergirl24 Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 My friends are all Christians and know nothing about the Bible. Catholics particularly likes to pick and choose what they believe from the Bible...usually just the "GOOD" stuff that they were taught in CCD/Church. One of my friends was talking about the flick JESUS CAMP and said "The Bible doesn't tell people to hate those who are homosexual" and "God doesn't preach hate." UM, actually, yes...The Bible DOES tell you to hate and actually commands you to KILL non-believers. The Bible is NOT a loving, GOOD book...it is the most evil document ever written! But, alas, they have their heads in the sand. They know the little flowery verses that they hear in church but otherwise they have NO knowledge of the Bible at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 It happened to me over xmas. I was at my wife's mother's house (coin) and on two occaisions a biblical question came up, and I alone had the answers. I am a trivia hound, and spent my formative years in church so voila, Larry the atheist is the family bible expert. They even called an in-laws parents who are ministers for verification. My answers were not only right but quicker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparrow Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 ... text ... Do Atheists Know The Bible Better Then Christians (?) ... text ... Yes. At least, it seems so. Spatz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alucard Posted February 5, 2008 Author Share Posted February 5, 2008 its too bad a national study will never be done on this so we can see actual statistics. i know there are christians here (at leaqst i think there are) i would love to hear what they have to say on this subject. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 TBH knowing more of the bible than the average christian isn't that hard... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 I know what the Xians do better with the Bible than athiests... ...interpret it to fit their own damn liking... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonolithTMA Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 its too bad a national study will never be done on this so we can see actual statistics. i know there are christians here (at leaqst i think there are) i would love to hear what they have to say on this subject. I'm still a Christian, and I totally agree. Atheists are generally far better prepared to give a reason for their lack of faith than many Christians are to give a reason for their surplus of faith. When I went to college to study Christian ministries I was a non-traditional student, a few years older than my scholastic peers, I watched them go in as blank slates and come out as clones of their favorite professors. I, on the other hand, had studied philosophy and religion for years and tended to frustrate some of my teachers because I wouldn't just accept certain things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bellsybop Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I agree that the Atheists or non believers in the bible are able to interpret the bible for what it is worth, other than taking someone elses interpretation as their own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 A guy at work always brags to me about how he has always been a Christian and always believed in God. I asked him if he ever reads the Bible, and he admitted that he never reads it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MathGeek Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Here's something that still bugs me... Have any of you known an atheist who became a Christian? If so, did he or she go in trying to undermine the Bible only to come out as a believer? I have heard this phrase, "The Bible is an anvil that has destroyed many hammers," and it supposedly refers to the people who have literally spent their lives trying to smash the Bible's prominence only to end up believing in the premises of it or just giving up and walking away. How does one thoroughly explain this phenomena? How does one explain how a freethinker will just walk away from their disbelief and become a happy Christian? I think it comes down to what the person needs at a given time in their life. My theory works like this: if a committed Christian has an eye-opening experience and it crumbles their faith into dust, then it must happen in reverse. It's weird, it's out there but that is how I think it falls out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 There was a squiide the other day claiming she'd BEEN an atheist at one time, but it's never that easy to prove... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GraphicsGuy Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Have any of you known an atheist who became a Christian? [snip] I think it comes down to what the person needs at a given time in their life. My theory works like this: if a committed Christian has an eye-opening experience and it crumbles their faith into dust, then it must happen in reverse. It's weird, it's out there but that is how I think it falls out. CS Lewis and Josh McDowell are the two big names that come to mind...although I certainly don't know what "realization" it was that brought them to conversion. Nor do I know what kind of "athiest" they were before that. I have heard a bunch of stories of Xians becoming athiests and then becoming Xians again. Of course, none of these people were ever a real athiest. Seriously, though...I do think that the desire to believe in something is what brings people to faith. They want to believe in something so badly that somewhere along the line something in apologetics connects with their desire to believe and that does it for them. It's enough of an answer for them to turn that desire to believe into faith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Lewis was raised Church of Ireland, and got 'reconverted' by Tolkien... Raised in a church-going family in the Church of Ireland, Lewis became an atheist at the age of 15. He remained an atheist until 31 years old. His separation from Christianity began when he started to view his religion as a chore and as a duty; around this time he also gained an interest in the occult as his studies expanded to include such topics. Lewis quoted Lucretius as having one of the strongest arguments for atheism: Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam Naturam rerum; tanta stat praedita culpa (Lucretius) "Had God designed the world, it would not be A world so frail and faulty as we see." Though a self-proclaimed atheist at the time, Lewis later described his young self (in Surprised by Joy) as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing". Lewis's interest in fantasy and mythology, especially in relation to the works of George MacDonald, was part of what turned him from atheism. In fact, MacDonald's position as a Christian fantasy writer was very influential on Lewis. This can be seen particularly well through this passage in The Great Divorce, chapter nine, when the semi-autobiographical main character meets MacDonald in Heaven: …I tried, trembling, to tell this man all that his writings had done for me. I tried to tell how a certain frosty afternoon at Leatherhead Station when I had first bought a copy of Phantastes (being then about sixteen years old) had been to me what the first sight of Beatrice had been to Dante: Here begins the new life. I started to confess how long that Life had delayed in the region of imagination merely: how slowly and reluctantly I had come to admit that his Christendom had more than an accidental connexion with it, how hard I had tried not to see the true name of the quality which first met me in his books is Holiness. (Lewis 1946, pp. 66 – 67) Influenced by arguments with his Oxford colleague and friend J. R. R. Tolkien, and by the book The Everlasting Man by Roman Catholic convert G. K. Chesterton, he slowly rediscovered Christianity. He fought greatly up to the moment of his conversion noting, "I came into Christianity kicking and screaming." He described his last struggle in Surprised by Joy: You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. (Lewis 1966) After his conversion to theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931. Following a long discussion and late-night walk with his close friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, he records making a specific commitment to Christian belief while on his way to the zoo with his brother. He became a member of the Church of England — somewhat to the disappointment of Tolkien, who had hoped he would convert to Roman Catholicism (Carpenter 2006).[2] A committed Anglican, Lewis upheld a largely orthodox Anglican theology, though in his apologetic writings, he made an effort to avoid espousing any one denomination. In his later writings, some believe he proposed ideas such as purification of venial sins after death in purgatory (The Great Divorce) and mortal sin (The Screwtape Letters), which are generally considered to be Catholic teachings. Regardless, Lewis considered himself an entirely orthodox Anglican to the end of his life, reflecting that he had initially attended church only to receive communion and had been repelled by the hymns and the poor quality of the sermons. He later came to consider himself honoured by worshipping with men of faith who came in shabby clothes and work boots and who sang all the verses to all the hymns. I loathe the back sliding, intellectually dishonest, mountebank with an intensity that most can only aspire to... McDowell claims to be an agnostic who... [...] initially intended to pursue legal studies culminating in a political career, and began preparatory studies at Kellogg College in Michigan. According to McDowell, he was as an agnostic at college when he decided to prepare a paper that would examine the historical evidence of the Christian faith in order to disprove it. However, he converted to Christianity, after, as he says, he found evidence for it, not against it. He subsequently enrolled at Wheaton College, Illinois, where he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then studied at Talbot Theological Seminary of Biola University, La Mirada, California. He completed an exit paper examining the theology of Jehovah's Witnesses, and was awarded the Master of Divinity degree graduating Magna Cum Laude. Seems to me he had access to a pretty bad library... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 I just read Josh's "Evidence for the Resurrection" A masterful piece of high comedy... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 A quick look at McDowell's article shows me why he was such an easy convert. The man doesn't know how to think or ask questions. And a school that let's him get away with the idea that nineteenth century archaeology is authoritative in late 20th century (or whenever he was writing that article) should not be allowed to exist. If no archaeology had been done since the stuff he quoted, he should still be quoting the most recent scholarship (articles and books) done ON THOSE DIGS. He pretends that nothing of import happened since 1900. That is not only outrageous; it is totally irresponsible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R. S. Martin Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 I find Lewis more difficult to analyze. I only know what he did in my life. I post about that here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 A quick look at McDowell's article shows me why he was such an easy convert. The man doesn't know how to think or ask questions. And a school that let's him get away with the idea that nineteenth century archaeology is authoritative in late 20th century (or whenever he was writing that article) should not be allowed to exist. If no archaeology had been done since the stuff he quoted, he should still be quoting the most recent scholarship (articles and books) done ON THOSE DIGS. He pretends that nothing of import happened since 1900. That is not only outrageous; it is totally irresponsible. Usually when someone is THAT overtly stupid, but is earning something akin to the GDP of a Tuava, then I'd say they're doing it for the money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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