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Best way to lose faith is to read the Bible

acbytesla

Penultimate Amazing
acbytesla
Joined
Dec 14, 2012
Messages
39,400
I was raised in the church. I went to Sunday School and services every Sunday. I went to Vacation Bible School in the summer and Bible camp as a teenager. I was involved in church activities all the way through college. But in all that time I doubt I had read more than a few chapters/books from start to finish. What i had read was almost all from the New Testament and even more specifically the Gospels.

I felt that I had been cheating my faith. After all, I had read War and Peace and many other big books. Shouldn't I commit myself to reading all of God's holy word? So I did. And the more I read, the more I hated it and the more I started to disbelieve. By the time I finished it I was an atheist.

I have heard other atheists tell similar stories. The Old Testament is so horrible and disgusting that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with God even if he did exist. I'm convinced that the best way to get people to turn away from this religion is for them to just read about Jephthah, Saul, Joshua and the non stop evil atrocities.

Does this sound familiar? Am I wrong?
 
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acbytesla said:
I was raised in the church. I went to Sunday School and services every Sunday. I went to Vacation Bible School in the summer and Bible camp as a teenager. I was involved in church activities all the way through college. But in all that time I doubt I had read more than a few chapters/books from start to finish. What i had read was almost all from the New Testament and even more specifically the Gospels.

I felt that I had been cheating my faith. After all, I had read War and Peace and many other big books. Shouldn't I commit myself to reading all of God's holy word? So I did. And the more I read, the more I hated it and the more I started to disbelieve. By the time I finished it I was an atheist.

I have heard other atheists tell similar stories. The Old Testament is so horrible and disgusting that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with God even if he did exist. I'm convinced that the best way to get people to turn away from this religion is for them to just read about Jephthah, Saul, Joshua and the non stop evil atrocities.

Does this sound familiar? Am I wrong?
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Nope. Hatloads of people follow that particular trajectory. Unfortunately, there are also those who think the bible should be implemented as written (choose your version)
 
acbytesla said:
I was raised in the church. I went to Sunday School and services every Sunday. I went to Vacation Bible School in the summer and Bible camp as a teenager. I was involved in church activities all the way through college. But in all that time I doubt I had read more than a few chapters/books from start to finish. What i had read was almost all from the New Testament and even more specifically the Gospels.

I felt that I had been cheating my faith. After all, I had read War and Peace and many other big books. Shouldn't I commit myself to reading all of God's holy word? So I did. And the more I read, the more I hated it and the more I started to disbelieve. By the time I finished it I was an atheist.

I have heard other atheists tell similar stories. The Old Testament is so horrible and disgusting that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with God even if he did exist. I'm convinced that the best way to get people to turn away from this religion is for them to just read about Jephthah, Saul, Joshua and the non stop evil atrocities.

Does this sound familiar? Am I wrong?
Click to expand...


Yes indeed I have heard this before. I have not read all of the Bible (in any of it's versions), but enough to make me feel quite bilious.

I have read of surveys showing the level knowledge of the faithful, of Biblical contents, to be dramatically lacking and somewhat less than that of many atheists.
 
Thor 2 said:
Yes indeed I have heard this before. I have not read all of the Bible (in any of it's versions), but enough to make me feel quite bilious.

I have read of surveys showing the level knowledge of the faithful, of Biblical contents, to be dramatically lacking and somewhat less than that of many atheists.
Click to expand...

Oh right, you just got the Readers Digest version (the bible bashers will say) You need to see my version of the whole thing and whatever context I choose to put on it (pardon me while I handwave away the awkward parts).

Well, I have read it cover to cover and I can tell you that it does not get better. It gets worse. Anyone with their brain in gear would be horrified. It always amuses me when the religious bemoan the amount of sex on TV and I always have the same response, make them read their bible instead of watching. Without exception, they will nod sagely. Much better. Then I point out the outrageous sex in the bible.

Then the fun starts.
 
abaddon said:
Oh right, you just got the Readers Digest version (the bible bashers will say) You need to see my version of the whole thing and whatever context I choose to put on it (pardon me while I handwave away the awkward parts).

Well, I have read it cover to cover and I can tell you that it does not get better. It gets worse. Anyone with their brain in gear would be horrified. It always amuses me when the religious bemoan the amount of sex on TV and I always have the same response, make them read their bible instead of watching. Without exception, they will nod sagely. Much better. Then I point out the outrageous sex in the bible.

Then the fun starts.
Click to expand...

It makes the movie 'Saw' seem like a kiddie movie. The God of the Bible is a violent stalker who loves you so much that he will torture you for eternity just because you don't believe what he failed to provide evidence for.

I met a couple last year hiking who felt the need to share the 'good news about how God loved me' after I had hiked to the top of Mt St Helena in California. At first I wanted to kill them for this. The last thing I wanted to hear after a long tough hike was their proselytising. But I was polite, but I decided I was going to tell them what I really thought of their God. I don't think they were prepared for my pushback.

I said God was not moral for the genocide in the Old Testament and heaven and hell in the New Testament. What right did God have to do all this I challenge them. 'He created you' was their reply. In their minds God created me and could do whatever he wanted with me.

But I was having none of that. I said 'no', it's still wrong.
By their rational, they should be able to kill their children any time they wanted. I really can't fathom why anyone would say God is moral.
 
acbytesla said:
It makes the movie 'Saw' seem like a kiddie movie. The God of the Bible is a violent stalker who loves you so much that he will torture you for eternity just because you don't believe what he failed to provide evidence for.

I met a couple last year hiking who felt the need to share the 'good news about how God loved me' after I had hiked to the top of Mt St Helena in California. At first I wanted to kill them for this. The last thing I wanted to hear after a long tough hike was their proselytising. But I was polite, but I decided I was going to tell them what I really thought of their God. I don't think they were prepared for my pushback.

I said God was not moral for the genocide in the Old Testament and heaven and hell in the New Testament. What right did God have to do all this I challenge them. 'He created you' was their reply. In their minds God created me and could do whatever he wanted with me.

But I was having none of that. I said 'no', it's still wrong.
By their rational, they should be able to kill their children any time they wanted. I really can't fathom why anyone would say God is moral.
Click to expand...
Oh what the hell, I deconverted a doorstep JW with these very arguments. Her elder was a bit miffed to say the least. Theres a kind of thing that goes on. The whole "you are of satan" deal is hilarious, but people really believe it.
 
acbytesla said:
I was raised in the church. I went to Sunday School and services every Sunday. I went to Vacation Bible School in the summer and Bible camp as a teenager. I was involved in church activities all the way through college. But in all that time I doubt I had read more than a few chapters/books from start to finish. What i had read was almost all from the New Testament and even more specifically the Gospels.

I felt that I had been cheating my faith. After all, I had read War and Peace and many other big books. Shouldn't I commit myself to reading all of God's holy word? So I did. And the more I read, the more I hated it and the more I started to disbelieve. By the time I finished it I was an atheist.

I have heard other atheists tell similar stories. The Old Testament is so horrible and disgusting that I wouldn't want to have anything to do with God even if he did exist. I'm convinced that the best way to get people to turn away from this religion is for them to just read about Jephthah, Saul, Joshua and the non stop evil atrocities.

Does this sound familiar? Am I wrong?
Click to expand...

It's a good way to lose faith in Christianity.
 
acbytesla said:
(much snipped)
But I was having none of that. I said 'no', it's still wrong.
By their rational, they should be able to kill their children any time they wanted. I really can't fathom why anyone would say God is moral.
Click to expand...

abaddon said:
Oh what the hell, I deconverted a doorstep JW with these very arguments.
Click to expand...

We do not "create" children, although abortion advocates would have it so. The analogy is seriously flawed.
 
marplots said:
We do not "create" children, although abortion advocates would have it so. The analogy is seriously flawed.
Click to expand...

Neither does God.



I really don't care one way or the other. The rational that God by the virtue of creating us can torture man for all of eternity because we don't believe is inherently immoral. The idea that because he is supposedly the creator of man is not a justification. If you read Exodus it seems as if God says it's OK for parents to have their children stoned.
 
acbytesla said:
Neither does God.



I really don't care one way or the other. The rational that God by the virtue of creating us can torture man for all of eternity because we don't believe is inherently immoral. The idea that because he is supposedly the creator of man is not a justification. If you read Exodus it seems as if God says it's OK for parents to have their children stoned.
Click to expand...

You've heard about heaven, right? You know, the afterlife?
 
marplots said:
You've heard about heaven, right? You know, the afterlife?
Click to expand...

We were talking about all the atrocities that God did throughout the bible and hell, his eternal torture chamber. Are you saying that because God made heaven for gullible sycophants, it justifies the burning and torturing for forever for those who's only offense was not believing in a being that provided as much evidence for his existence as leprechauns and Sasquatch?
 
acbytesla said:
We were talking about all the atrocities that God did throughout the bible and hell, his eternal torture chamber. Are you saying that because God made heaven for gullible sycophants, it justifies the burning and torturing for forever for those who's only offense was not believing in a being that provided as much evidence for his existence as leprechauns and Sasquatch?
Click to expand...

Without the flowery phrasing, yes.
 
Many of us deconverted as a result of an increased interest in the bible, and subsequent research. For me, it was not specifically the old testament barbarism, but questions of doctrine.

The core of Christianity is that acceptance of God was necessary to avoid hellfire for eternity. Along with belief in God, it was important to trust the word of God (the Bible) and the church that represented God (I was Catholic), and while no one would presume to say exactly who went to Heaven and who went to Hell, they were very clear that the wrong beliefs were, at least, a good way to get on the path to Hell, and maybe they were enough to cast you into the pit.

So, I had that in my head as I read the old testament, and it was very clear to me that the old testament taught a very different doctrine than the Catholic Church, or pretty much any Christian denomination. This was unsettling to me. Those souls were saved and damned just like the ones after the coming of Christ. The explanations I read all relied on the idea that, sure,, there was some stuff wrong in the old testament, but that's because God didn't reveal everything important until Jesus came along.

So these pre-Christian souls were being saved and damned, but they were playing with a faulty rulebook that was teaching them wrong doctrine that wouldn't be sorted out for hundreds of years.....except that those faulty books would still be held up as the guidebook to the proper beliefs necessary to achieve salvation.


It didn't make sense to me. The kicker came in the Book of Ecclesiastes. A simple, straightforward reading of the plain text would say that there is no afterlife. And this was the inspired word of God? And guidebook to all that was true?

I decided it wasn't, and rejected God entirely.

(And now I participate in Jewish ceremony and community,but I don't believe. I generally have a positive view of religion, which I suppose is ironic given my beliefs, but that's the way it is for me.
 
Things started to unravel for me right after learning the Ten commandments.
I thought: if I had to make up only ten rules for humanity to live by, I wouldn't waste four on praising God and what he did.
I wouldn't put "don't murder" on 6th place behind honoring my parents.
And asking people not to "covet" shows an astounding lack of understanding of human nature.
 
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One doesn't need to read their books to lose faith in a religion, all one has to do is observe the behavior of the faithful.
 
Meadmaker said:
Many of us deconverted as a result of an increased interest in the bible, and subsequent research. For me, it was not specifically the old testament barbarism, but questions of doctrine.

The core of Christianity is that acceptance of God was necessary to avoid hellfire for eternity. Along with belief in God, it was important to trust the word of God (the Bible) and the church that represented God (I was Catholic), and while no one would presume to say exactly who went to Heaven and who went to Hell, they were very clear that the wrong beliefs were, at least, a good way to get on the path to Hell, and maybe they were enough to cast you into the pit.

So, I had that in my head as I read the old testament, and it was very clear to me that the old testament taught a very different doctrine than the Catholic Church, or pretty much any Christian denomination. This was unsettling to me. Those souls were saved and damned just like the ones after the coming of Christ. The explanations I read all relied on the idea that, sure,, there was some stuff wrong in the old testament, but that's because God didn't reveal everything important until Jesus came along.

So these pre-Christian souls were being saved and damned, but they were playing with a faulty rulebook that was teaching them wrong doctrine that wouldn't be sorted out for hundreds of years.....except that those faulty books would still be held up as the guidebook to the proper beliefs necessary to achieve salvation.


It didn't make sense to me. The kicker came in the Book of Ecclesiastes. A simple, straightforward reading of the plain text would say that there is no afterlife. And this was the inspired word of God? And guidebook to all that was true?

I decided it wasn't, and rejected God entirely.

(And now I participate in Jewish ceremony and community,but I don't believe. I generally have a positive view of religion, which I suppose is ironic given my beliefs, but that's the way it is for me.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what it is but I have met more Jewish atheists lately. The bizarre part of that from my view is you can't really get away with that so easily in Christian churches. It's like the people of the most barbaric of all the religions are by far the most enlightened these days. I mean Judaism as it was once practiced made Islam look like a Sunday picnic. And today, it's like every Jewish person I meet is kind and smart and not so attached to the silliness of their religion. There is something less coercive about modern Judaism. You're almost Buddhist.
 
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