Guest NewVoyage Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 I would like to put this question out and invite response. When I was a Christian, I always told people that the Bible was inerrant, infallible and so forth. (You know the routine.) Now that I am an agnostic and a freethinker, I look back and marvel at the fact that I was saying this without ever having READ the Bible! My guess is that A LOT of Christians don't read it either (while they are Christians), yet keep this secret from their fellow congregants. What was your experience as a Christian? Did you also lie to your fellow Christians about your feelings about the Bible and whether or not you actually read it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poonis Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 The bible, in greatest part, lead directly to my outright rejection of Christianity and becoming an atheist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandora Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 No, I did read it... but not with the eyes of an unbiased observer. I (almost) fully accepted the apologists' explanations for the inconsistencies and atrocities. Welcome to the site. Glad to have you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waynus Posted January 26, 2006 Share Posted January 26, 2006 My rejection of Fundamentalist Christianity happened when I actually read the bible. Now I confront Christians about their beliefs by challenging them to read their bibles more. I always smile when they say amen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueGiant Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Read the Bible (though haven't gone over it too much lately), and bought into it the first time. Then once again in the deconversion process. I have to day, it did not help Jehova's case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToHellWithMe Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Never read the whole of it. Nor did I lie about it but avoided talking about the topic. I had a complex attitude toward that book; I supposed I should be quite totally in the correct mood to allow myself to read the holy texts. And yet from the excerpts I'd heard I could deduce it really has no plot and contains a lot of boring stuff like genealogies and laws I'm not supposed to care about anymore. Thus, I never felt like reading it. Only in the very end of my faith did I feel like having to take a serious look at it to prevent myself dropping out of the fold. After having read only about 30 pages from the beginning of the OT I was astonished at all the bullshit I already had came across and just quit, judging the whole thing stupid. Too bad for them that I was raised into christianity not according to the whole of the Book but by being taught carefully selected stuff. Yet, I was told Bible is the basis. So when I started reading it, the contradictions with what I had been taught were just too big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spamandham Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 I have run across many Christians who make similar claims and who obvioulsy have no more than cursory knowledge of what's actually in that book. I don't know if I made the same claim myself, but I certainly thought it long before I actually read it. I know numerous people who refer to it as "god's word" who i know damn well have never read it, and who don't even know what the words "manservant" and "maidservant" really mean in the 10th commandment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MQTA Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 I guess that's why when people come here parotting their memorized rote bumper sticker jargon sayings, they're floored when given a dose of their bible that they've never read before. I picture them coming in all smile faced with their cheerful parroting and then are culture shocked when smacked with things the bible says that they never heard about. But it's all right there, go look it up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Personally, I read the Bible several times over, and went to Bible school where we read and studied every friggin book in there. But I think a huge majority of Christians never read the Bible. That is what upsets me most with Christians, not that they believe in a fantasy, but that they support their fantasy with a book they don't know. If the book is that important to them, then they should feel compelled to read it, but since they don't feel such a strong need of reading it, it only proves that they really don't believe 100%. But they can't admit it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 I attended Bible study classes regularly when I was Xian, and have read most of the Bible - maybe 2/3 of it? Something like that. I suck at remembering stuff like that anymore though, so quite frankly I'm just not that good at recalling verses when actually arguing with Xians. Sometimes I go back and look stuff up. I treat it like a reference book now. I think you're so right, though, that many, many Xians don't really know the Bible at all. Most probably have some grasp on the basic stories - Adam & Eve, life of Christ, various basic doctrines and rules and suchlike - but I don't know how many people actually get in there and read it and examine what they're reading and critically think about it. I suspect that if people actually did that, then the bulk of Xianity would melt away: moderate, basically nice types might have the same response a lot of ppl here did, get appalled by the violence in the whole thing, and leave the fold; while fanatic types would simply get more fanatic - truly strong faith really can't be shaken by close examination of the book, since it's blind anyway. So I bet you'd end up with a small, very scary group of hardcore Fundie freaks. But who knows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 The sequence of events is usually .. become a christian so the belief is their first - then read the bible So there is a belief bias when any of the bible IS read But to balance the argument I'll play devils advocate (actually the opposite ... Gods advocate!? ) I once spoke to a guy once who said that he knew people who had BECOME christians BECAUSE they open mindedly studied the bible. I can't vouch for that .. any one else heard this? Just thought i would thow to keep you on your toes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MQTA Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 The sequence of events is usually .. become a christian so the belief is their first - then read the bible So there is a belief bias when any of the bible IS read But to balance the argument I'll play devils advocate (actually the opposite ... Gods advocate!? ) I once spoke to a guy once who said that he knew people who had BECOME christians BECAUSE they open mindedly studied the bible. I can't vouch for that .. any one else heard this? Just thought i would thow to keep you on your toes The only times where I've heard THAT claim is when there's an Author looking to sell you a book of their story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Too bad for them that I was raised into christianity not according to the whole of the Book but by being taught carefully selected stuff. Yet, I was told Bible is the basis. So when I started reading it, the contradictions with what I had been taught were just too big. Ditto for me; I was raised with a very different view of Xianity than the one found in the Holah Scripchahs. I was told over and over how holy and perfect the Babble is, and I one day began to pick it up. I was too naive back then to really question it but began seeing things I could not accept. Yet, this laid the future foundation for my dumping of Xianity, because eventually the time would come when I just could not force myself to swallow the loads of contradictions, cruelities, inanities, and outright crapola that makes up the Holah Babble. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evergreen Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Yeah, I didn't read the bible much when I was a Christian, either. Mainly just the gospels, I think. I guess I figured I got enough bible in CAs (youth group, "Christ's Ambassadors") and at church... haha Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amethyst Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Reading the whole thing through when I was about 12 led to more questions than answers, but I couldn't stop believing in it literally until I was at the tail end of my high school years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 The sequence of events is usually .. become a christian so the belief is their first - then read the bible So there is a belief bias when any of the bible IS read But to balance the argument I'll play devils advocate (actually the opposite ... Gods advocate!? ) I once spoke to a guy once who said that he knew people who had BECOME christians BECAUSE they open mindedly studied the bible. I can't vouch for that .. any one else heard this? Just thought i would thow to keep you on your toes Yes, I've heard such things too, but I'm very suspicious what kind of "open" mind they had. Open minded can be used by spiritists too, when they have a seance and want people to be "open minded" to the spirits. The term is misleading, because it only means that your open for a new interpretation of something you weren't so open to before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderbolt Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 BTW Welcome to the forums NV. Hope you have lotsa fun. I did read the Bible a LOT as a Christians (mostly with goggles - standard fundy issued) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest NewVoyage Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 Thanks everyone for welcoming me. It is a pleasure to be here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
white_raven23 Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082801265...glance&n=283155 This book series is THE most dangerous series on the planet!!! I grew up reading these, so when people would ask me if I'd read the bible....I would say "yes". My logic OF COURSE was that if I'd read all the major stories.....then I was familiar with the bible. And the churches enforce this, because all of the verses they EVER have you look up int the bible, or produce sermons on, pertained to these stories! I really didn't perceive this as a lie either! What I heard in church, pretty much matched the warm fuzzy "sanitized" stories I'd read in these books! It wasn't until I got into my teens, and my biology started kicking in, that I really started questioning (which is of course when a LOT of things are being questioned). I started noticing the behavior of my fellow christians in NO WAY matched the example set by my "fuzzy" bible stories books. At first I thought they would be properly set to rights watching the cutesy videos and the sharing moments we would have in our youth meetings (brainwashing sessions). They weren't. And they hated me. I thought it was because they perceived that I was on the "right path"..... I didn't figure out what the REAL problem was until my mom told me when I was a Junior. Their dislike was rooted more in material considerations than spiritual. I was pretty, and I was smart. I was stunned and hurt. I went to the bible for guidance.....deciding it was time I read the thing from cover to cover. I honestly only made it through Galatians. By then I was absolutely sick. I started asking questions in the youth meetings that the team leaders didn't feel comfy trying to answer. It is easy to distract a young child....harder to side-track a teen who felt lied to. The girls loved it because they felt they could "demonize" me and the boys would pay more attention to them. It backfired a bit. The mild attention I'd gotten from the guys went through the roof. I was "bad", "dangerous" and whatnot. I sure wasn't eligable for marriage anymore.....in their eyes, but I don't think I have to tell you they felt I might be good for "other things". I was insulted. I finally left them. And did tons of private study......I've not touched those blue bible stories books in years. They started me out with super rose-colored glasses, and a kid like that is absolute shark-bait in the real world. Especially around christian "friends". I survived and stayed whole thanks to a well developed personality. I know others who did NOT fare well at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vixentrox Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 The bible was instumental to me ditching the hebrew tribal god. Once I actually started reading it with an unbiased eye, yeah, it was quite a shocker what sort of a demon I had been worshiping. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eponymic Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 I tried to read the whole Bible, and have read most of it (excepting some of those books that are just endless lists), but when I started reading from the beginning I couldn't even get out of the OT before realizing the whole thing was bunk. This book series is THE most dangerous series on the planet!!! p.s. I just wrote a review regarding this series. And frankly, I'd urge everyone with an Amazon account to do the same just to lower the rating of an atrocious book series like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
white_raven23 Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 My Brother!!! I'm naming my next kitty after you! That was sweeeeeeet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted January 27, 2006 Share Posted January 27, 2006 This book series is THE most dangerous series on the planet!!! I agree; I still have an old Children's Babble laying around somewhere. I think I will hang onto it and a regular Babble and use them if/when I have kids to show them how Xianity is in reality a cruel and sick deathcult. And it is cruel and sick to see how these so-called Babbles are pushed as if they are the real deal, just like the ones the adults have. All it is, as white raven said, is sanitized, warm and fuzzy. They don't include the stories about yahweh-sanctioned rape and murder and genocide and they don't hammer home the doctrine of eternal torment for the least of finite sins, the worst of which being unbelief. They know that if they put that garbage in a children's book someone will give them hell (hehe) for it, and that kids may start questioning why at too early an age. After all, can't have the little skulls full of mush asking questions when they are still being programmed. It is very unfair and dishonest when parents read to their children from such trash and push it off as the Word of Gawd. It's nothing more than lies and brainwashing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artur Posted January 28, 2006 Share Posted January 28, 2006 * Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eponymic Posted January 28, 2006 Share Posted January 28, 2006 Any one remember that song from "The King and I" when the king is singing with shock about "those who will insist that the thing they do not know is so"? Runs through my head every time I get into one of these conversations. Yup. Very apropos. Always good to have someone like you around to help educate others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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