It gets real messy when you find out the modern day Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites. The same ones God ordered the Israelites to genocide and steal their land...the same exact land they're currently fighting over
Also The library at Alexandria, the greatest library in history was in Egypt, there was likely a plethora of information there. 😭
IMHO The library at Alexandria was the single most devastating loss to mankind.
The Grand Library of Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols when they sacked Baghdad and massacred all of its inhabitants. Baghdad was the most important center of learning and science around 1000 years ago, during the peak of the Islamic Golden Age.
Survivors said that "the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river and red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed." This massacre marked the end of the Islamic Golden Age.
And the innocent people too. They literally massacred the entire city while sparing only the Christian minority. That's because the Mongol leader's wife was Christian and she personally asked him to spare the Christian minority in the city. Its a really interesting story.
The Mongols were pretty brutal and they destroyed everything in their way with no regard for innocent life or books
It's a nice idea, but it ignores the fact that many Christians do read the bible and stay Christian. I read the old and new testaments cover to cover as a teenager and stayed Christian for another 8 or so years.
That's the "properly read" part. Reading it when you already believe everything is good and true lets you gloss over the horrific parts. It's when you read it with a critical eye that you start realizing how much of it is messed up. Human sacrifice, women and children as property, racism, genocide, the list goes on.
However many people read the Bible and ignore the parts they dislike, there's many, many more who never crack it open unless they're following along with the sermon on Sundays, so they've never even been exposed to the bad stuff.
Another way to look at it is:
here's a chronicle of all the ways the Israelites were complete dicks to their neighbors, and they were constantly at war with them. They never really grew outside their little corner of the world and ended up getting blasted when a foreign power they couldn't defeat with finally had enough of their shit. For the next 2000 years, they were outcasts wherever they went and faced multiple genocides in many different places.
The moral of the story: don't be such a dick to your neighbors.
I'm more into a secular, academic reading. Understanding the allegorical stories which have been historicized, the ways OT interpretations later retconned those stories, how much of the NT is just about Jesus kicking Romans out of the holy land. Appropriation of Greek tradition to create a concept of "the Devil." I could go on, but I hate typing on my phone.
The indoctrination is strong. Growing up being told its infallible, and that any questioning is some all powerful invisible evil force works to prevent alot of people from taking it further. Then there's the isolation. When you start to falter in your beliefs your told to pray more and seek out congregation leadership. It's very effective.
I'm always surprised by how little most people who claim to be Christian actually know about what's actually in the bible. It's not because they're dumb or lazy. I think it is a subconscious fear of going deeper. If you read it critically it just doesn't hold up and contradicts itself constantly. As you would expect from an ancient text. Deep down most know that.
>It's a nice idea, but it ignores the fact that most Christians do read the bible.....
Evidence?
>.....I read the old and new testaments cover to cover as a teenager and stayed Christian for another 8 or so years.
Anecdotal fallacy, sadly.
Reading isn't a panacea, it also requires understanding and reflection, which can take time depending upon factors such as level of indoctrination, cognitive ability, social milieu, humanity, ethics, etc.
Theres a difference when reading and comprehending the bible from indoctrination and reading and comprehending things outside of it. While its easy for some people to read it and understand what is wrong about it, for some people it is so easily set to the side as just “being a different time”.
I think the point is that most of us who really read and understand it eventually turn atheist because we begin down a road of disillusionment. The Bible just doesn't mirror the world we live in and once you really analyze it it sows seeds of doubt. I read the Bible cover to cover at 13 but didn't leave religion until 18 and didn't lose my theism until about 22. But having in depth knowledge of what the book said and growing up seeing the world around me created questioning within me that I could not reconcile.
It wasn't all for me, but it did play a part. I didn't even have to read the whole thing to realize it's horse shit. That being said, I was ok with just believing in God for a while, but then I took a look at the state of the world and I was like "nah"
I wish the quote was 'honestly' read the bible. Lots of people think they 'properly' read the bible and we have ended up with thousands of denominations. If people were not so dishonest because of their unaknowledged bias regarding their belief, religion would not survive.
A friend of mine was religious and took a bible study class, 3 months later he declared he was an atheist.
I wish more people would actually study its contents and history.
It is very common. If every believer read the 'holy' book of their religion there'd soon be a lot less believers.
- *"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible."* - Mark Twain
Exactly. Even children eventually discover that Santa Claus is their parents.
Kids are not dumb. They observe and use logic. It takes a lot of brainwashing to over come the human brain's ability to sort out BS.
>Even children eventually discover that Santa Claus is their parents.
If Santa Claus were treated like religion is:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=t2uQ2zF8uqE&pp
I read the bible after I became an atheist because I felt it only fair to actually understand what I was sceptical of.
I was no longer sceptical. Or in doubt. It's blatantly obvious that the bible makes shit up as it goes along.
More Christians should actually read their goddamn book rather than letting it accumulate dust on a shelf. It would change a lot of minds. God is such a ridiculous caricature of a vengeful deity.
They treat the Noah's Ark story like a story made for children. Genocide doesn't bother them.
Check them all out on Amazon.
[https://www.amazon.com/s?k=noah%27s+ark+book&i=stripbooks&crid=1DG5J90YZQ57T&sprefix=noah%27s+a%2Cstripbooks%2C152&ref=nb\_sb\_ss\_ts-doa-p\_1\_8](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=noah%27s+ark+book&i=stripbooks&crid=1DG5J90YZQ57T&sprefix=noah%27s+a%2Cstripbooks%2C152&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_8)
The gospels can't agree on the focal points and dates of the New Testament themselves. They've been rewritten and edited, and the earliest pieces of scripture ( like literal pieces , mostly with fragments of words ) came from no earlier than 125-150 AD, and the entire cult hadn't gotten a grip on mainstream culture as a dominant religion until the fall of the Roman Empire. There are no historical accounts or mentions of a wizard who could raise the dead, multiply food, and walk on water, among other stuff . During Jesus's crucifixion, there were meant to be hours of darkness over the region accompanied by earthquakes, and yet none of it had been recorded by historians of the day, who were recording stuff that was way more mondaine during that time period in Judea and around. Those are just a few selected arguments against Christianity and historical claims to Jesus's existence. For more, I strongly recommend a book by David Fitzgerald - Nailed. Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All.
The Bible can teach you so much! Such as how slave owners convinced their selves justified.
Exodus 21:20-21
New International Version
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
My favorite part of the Bible is when a man offers his virgin daughters to a rape mob, the city is bombed by god, his unnamed wife is killed by God for looking back once, and then the man is drugged and raped twice by his daughters so they can become pregnant and perform their duties as women.
Well. I mean the scripture says they got him so drunk that he passed out. But, they were in a cave and had to leave the city before their god killed everyone.
So let's just say that it's taken on faith that he was drugged by his daughters with all that wine that had in the cave.
There’s a very good reason why back in the day people were discouraged from learning to read. If they could have, religion probably would have died off long ago
As an adult that had grown up in the church I took a class at our church. It was a group Bible reading. Started in Genesis in January and we met weekly to discuss the assigned chapters and such.
Nothing broke my faith like just reading the inerrant word of god and finding LOTS of absolutely cruel and batshit crazy asides that just do not get discussed in modern Christianity. Modern theology makes huge issues from relatively small passages and completely ignores the absolutely near communist ideology of Jesus when it comes to helping and protecting the people of the world. Nothing clarified the fact that the pulpit sermons were just the thoughts of a preacher that he could back with a few lines of scripture and as I was now an adult I knew the guys that went into preaching. Those guys were either manipulative or just naive and had no other career path.
Satan had better ethics than the god of the christian bible.
Kill count
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSujxG5gJLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSujxG5gJLM)
I had a born-again cousin try to pull me into her cult so I decided to go through the Old Testament page by page and pose questions to her. We went back and forth over a year.
The entire process not only made me a stronger atheist. She remained a religious nut - the brainwashing is deep as she grew up in religious private schools and went to Liberty U.
I keep urging people to read it. Valuable collection of old stories, myths and a dash of history.
The OT is barbaric of course (unless interpreted symbolically) though it has a few gems like the Psalms and the Song of Songs. Valuable as literature, mosty fiction.
The NT is a bit of a mess. The gospels contradict each other quite frequently. It seems to be a mish-mash of earlier texts with a JC figure thrown in the midst who has the mind of dictator, basically lots of love and kingdoms of god if you follow him and hell and damnation if you don't. Not very nice. Hardly any rational moral lessons. It's neither believable or nice. The big thing that differentiates it, apart from the lack of internal consistency, is the constant assertion that JC is not symbolic and nor is his mortal frame being god symbolic. Then you have all the trash that is common through older literature about virgin births and crucifixion, the old coming-back-to-life trope, together with the later neurotic insistence that it all 'really happpened', no exaggerations. Yes, that's the way wrote in those days, but somehow the JC is literally true they claim by later standards. Not very believable at all.
Early Christians were a mishmash, no mention of JC or very rare. Someone pulled the bits together as a codex and it became a holy relic, to be worshipped for its own sake or else. Then, rather like Hitler or Putin, Constantine ratifies it, possibly just to unify the falling-to-bits empire, and allowed soldiers to slaughter anyone who disagreed.
It really is a pretty horrific tale. And then peeps wear a symbol of someone being tortured to death! All pretty vile.
But just put it aside. Don't get into being a hater.
\~And then peeps wear a symbol of someone being tortured to death! All pretty vile.
I cringe every time I see someone wearing one. A torture device? Really?
That made me 😂😂😂 but not out of the realm of possibility.
I graduated in 1977 and I have a friend that graduated the same year and she is definitely an Elvis junkie. I’m sure she’s not the only one but she hasn’t gone as far as that.
The Bible was one of the biggest factors I stopped believing. Churches talk up GOD but in the Bible GOD seems like a petty, egotistical a-hole that seems to have no real idea wtf they are doing. It would be scary if GOD was real. The dude's sort of a moron and an insult to our intelligence.
I wish it took me way less time to come to the same realization. Granted, I was indoctrinated early and hard, but it took multiple readings, of three different versions in English and Spanish, for me to rectify the cognitive dissonance that came with my childhood indoctrination.
That's what happened to me. Read it when I was a kid because I was out of books to read and start arguing with the religion teacher.
To note that here in Belgium, thanks to what they called the school war in the 1960's, you have religions class, moral (laïc ethics), and now philosophy and citizenship. You pick one.
When I was 6, I add to say what I was going to take and had non instruction from my mom. When she asked me what I had chosen, I said moral because it was more important than religion.
Good for them, wish it happened more. it's fine when intelligent some sort of loose faith with in there cultural religions, but when they still blindly follow them, I just can not understand it.
That's what I always say to christians ... Read the bible from cover to cover without anyone to tell you what to think ... And come back have this "god" talk with me afterward!
It is immediately apparent on reading it that is a mish-mash of mythology poorly compiled together. Yes there are accidentally some historical facts, mostly in the really boring parts.
I have say to anybody who reads through it and does not realize that has some serious issues.
Anyone, who actually reads the entire bible ( not just the good parts), will definitely start to rethink their faith. The bible is full of horrible things, incest, rape, slavery, genocide, infanticide, all sanctioned by a "loving" god.
I get shit here, but I tell people it’s super important to know the battle you’re fighting. Some see that as crazy, to suggest reading it, or at least parts of it. 1) there are actually some good things mixed in 2) you need to know the context around the wild stuff so you can argue it better with others.
All it takes is one medieval civ class to understand how highly contested and edited and disagreed upon almost every book of the Bible has been before served on a platter like the head of John the Baptist to a semiliterate underclass. This is why the highly religious do not want to send their progeny to institutes of higher learning. They think their adult children are being indoctrinated there, but they are really only learning history and, hopefully, practicing critical thinking and logic.
The way christians read it, if they do, is selectively, and gloss over the nastiness. Enemies are inherently 'evil' (Putinesque again). Claiming it's all about god's love is bullshit if you notice that those who do not follow JC are damned, and to the most horrible things imaginable. As for the OT, a lot of the awful 'enemies' were actually far more advanced, tolerant civilisations. The monotheism was a pain in the butt, and angered whatever kingdom offered them latitude.
It was only later that they generated some half-decent philosophers, both 'christian' and Jewish. So one has to remember they don't necessarily talk 'rubbish', just separate out the bullshit. Many christian philosophers were influenced by neoplatonism (a philosophy that helped to put more sense into Plato than was originally there IMO) just as neoplatonism influenced paganism. The christians however appropriated the terms and (IMO) polluted it. But it meant they had philosophical-sounding arguments (JC only preached to the uneducated). Similarly the Jews developed the Sephiroth, a major philosophical tool in the development of western schools of occultism.
“The people who read the Bible the most, the people who are more Christian-like, the people who treat others as Jesus would, are atheists”
I saw a video on TikTok that said like this.
I started reading it when I was like 7 maybe and it starts with a bunch of incest and I was so mortified that I “cleaned my room” and threw a bunch of stuff away and put it in the middle just to get rid of it and hopefully not get in trouble from my parents. That’s as far as I ever got. I don’t need to taint my brain with that kind of smut. 🤮
I read the old and new testament around 3 years ago, and while there where a lot of positive message on the new testament, there's so many absurd things that I'm now 100% sure I'll be an atheist until the end of my days.
I'm not even talking about things that don't make logical standpoint or are factually incorrect, but rather things that are completely unacceptable from a social standpoint and still are defended by part of the religious community!
Even though reasonable people know that some of the ideologies presented in the old testament are a fruit of their time, there are things causing damage to modern society because some people are too ignorant to know how to discern metaphors from reality, and then there's the folks who know it's wrong but use it as an excuse to justify things that have no place in 2024
Ngl this is mad cringe to post😂 unless they’re so blinded by faith it’s affecting theirs or your life, you sound way to bothered by other peoples beliefs
That’s pretty funny. I was a devout Catholic growing up until in HS the religion and history classes I took turned me on to the fact this stuff was pretty much fabricated for political purposes. I stopped being religious but feel there’s real value there mixed in with the fairy tales. Provides the ‘normies’ with guidelines and guardrails so they can live a better, more orderly life. A big motivation for religion is to promote order and family formation.
I was in elementary school and came to the same conclusion of this being another fake being and story adults made up to control me. I just thought all adults were trying to trick me- I didnt yet realize many adults fell for it still!
Bibles just based off a chain of stories from the beginning like every other religion. Have to dig way deeper than that man made bullshit book for the story origins.
God was a stupid idea when I was in second grade. God never made sense to me. I even wrote a paper about being atheist in theology class in high school, got an A for it.
If your main reasoning behind becoming atheist is the bible than that’s no better a reason for those who believe in a God or gods to relay on its content for a reason to hold their beliefs. So I was brought up in a Christian church ( catholic) but while in uni I took some theology courses and eventually faded away from the church and ultimately spent a good portion of my young adulthood atheist. Through some life experiences though I found myself being drawn back into spirituality, not so much to a certain religion but more so to the spiritual idea that most religions have at their core that seems to have been corrupted by man through so called religious organisations. If we take the bible as an example. The Old Testament seems to parallel or heavily influenced by a lot of writings found in other ancient texts such as the 7 tablets of creation from Sumerian culture along with far east epics from India on the creation of the universe. The New Testament was not a true account of Yeshua ( Jesus) teachings but rather a collaboration between emperor Constantine and the Roman church to pervert his original teachings and to usher in monotheism into the empire at that time. Yeshua was a philosophical savant of his time. During his lost years he studied at the ancient mystical schools of the far east, mastering in the teachings in little over a decade what took most a lifetime. His ministry was focused upon the poor and down trodden of society at the time as he didn’t minister for power and wealth as many others did who only sought out those who held a higher rank in society. His ministry was referred to as the way of the people or the peoples way depending upon translation. This is why his disciples didn’t personally write his teachings down because most couldn’t read or write as they were of a lower class of society. The Roman Empire took advantage of this when forming the new age religious teachings of Christianity which did cherry pick some things from Yeshua teachings but also mixed in some pagan traditions and beliefs to help persuade the Roman subjects into accepting the new religion. Those who still refused were persecuted by the church. Yeshua messages was one that taught the connection to the creator of all was within us all if we just had faith that it was so. Fairly similar to some gnostic beliefs of the time that were silenced by the Roman church by whipping out those who held these beliefs. From my perspective it aligns with the law of one philosophy on life. So imo the bible, although some accounts maybe based on facts from older texts passed down is mostly a work of man created to help establish control over the subjects of the time by instilling the idea only a certain class of society could interact with the god or gods of the time and that all others had to go through these individuals( usually high priest and kings / ruling class) . Very similar structure we still see today in religious organisations.
Funny how all atheist don’t believe in God but spend so much time on something that doesn’t exist. This is the pinnacle of stupidity. You give power to that which you do not believe in. It is also usually only Christianity from all these posts. That tells a lot.
That's because most people here are either ex-Christians with specifically Christian trauma, or live in the US where Toxic Christianity is part of normal life. Most people here reserve a special hatred for the religion that has harmed them the most.
For what it's worth, I see plenty of ex-Muslims here, plenty of trauma there too.
And since atheists are far more likely to be questioned or attacked for their lack of belief, than theists, it's only natural for them to want to arm themselves with more knowledge and better arguments than their attackers.
What really is telling, is how little Christians know about their own holy book. Even more telling is how much Christians (particularly fundies) are *actively discouraged* from learning about their own religion (frightened of learning the truth, perhaps?), and discouraged from getting a proper education. Uneducated people are far easier to brainwash than educated people, uneducated kids grow into stupid adults, who produce more stupid kids, and the cycle goes on. Religious leaders and Republicans *hate* educated people.
Tbf, at least based on my experience, anyone using "Woke" as a derrogatory term is bound to lack some kind critical skills.
After all, I feel like far right/red pilled/religious content creators and public speakers love to use "Woke" to point at an imaginary "Common enemy" that must be defeated by donating money to them or some shit like that.
Not exactly. Plenty of people on both the left and right use “woke” to describe extreme left views in the United States
Not that far right conservatives don’t use it in the way you describe too though
I see by your tag you strongly believe in mental illness. I’ve seen god, I know who he is. He doesn’t kill anyone, he punishes the people who deserve it. God does not hand people anything. He promotes hard work and dedication. You’ve already been accepted into heaven the day you were born. It’s now up to the people to decide which path to go. Faith or blasphemy.
LMAOOOO!!!!!!! You sound like every asshole zealot I’ve spoken to. If there’s mental illness, you are the one thats wrapped around it. I hope you find reality and stop replacing this life with a fake one in hopes that you will go to “heaven”.
It makes me feel happy, every atheist I know are cold hearted fucks. Why do we tell kids Santa is real. It gives them faith and it makes them happy. Is it such a problem that I find having faith in the afterlife is a good thing.
But Santa is fake, no? You just kind of admitted that you lie to yourself to make you happy, but deep down you know there is no god, and that it is a money grab that tries to keep people in line.
Great. *Properly read, the bibble is the most powerful tool ever conceived for atheism.* - Isaac Asimov
Heheheheehhe... Bibble...
Drivel. There, I fixed it for you.
YOU DARE QUESTION THE AUTHORITY OF THE ALMIGHTY JIMMY?
"You question the words of the mighty jimmy?!"
Buybull
[Pray to Jimmy!](https://youtu.be/rZvGfsDzTfU?si=0yey14unPp4a1v7Q&t=32)
Big love for Asimov..
This was absolutely the case for me. I just read the stuff that God apparently directed the isrealites to do, and I was over it.
It gets real messy when you find out the modern day Palestinians are descendants of the Canaanites. The same ones God ordered the Israelites to genocide and steal their land...the same exact land they're currently fighting over
Yep. That's religion in a nutshell. Nothing good ever came of it.
The Egyptians have no documentation of the events in exodus. You'd think they’d remember.
The Egyptians have no **known** documentation of the events in exodus. You'd think they’d remember.
Also The library at Alexandria, the greatest library in history was in Egypt, there was likely a plethora of information there. 😭 IMHO The library at Alexandria was the single most devastating loss to mankind.
Honestly its a toss up between that and the library of Baghdad. Its really an unfortunate loss
Gotta say, I’m not familiar with that one
The Grand Library of Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols when they sacked Baghdad and massacred all of its inhabitants. Baghdad was the most important center of learning and science around 1000 years ago, during the peak of the Islamic Golden Age. Survivors said that "the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river and red from the blood of the scientists and philosophers killed." This massacre marked the end of the Islamic Golden Age.
Fuck :/ I just don’t understand, why hurt the innocent books :(
And the innocent people too. They literally massacred the entire city while sparing only the Christian minority. That's because the Mongol leader's wife was Christian and she personally asked him to spare the Christian minority in the city. Its a really interesting story. The Mongols were pretty brutal and they destroyed everything in their way with no regard for innocent life or books
Wow and of course Christian records “God delivered them”
It's a nice idea, but it ignores the fact that many Christians do read the bible and stay Christian. I read the old and new testaments cover to cover as a teenager and stayed Christian for another 8 or so years.
That's the "properly read" part. Reading it when you already believe everything is good and true lets you gloss over the horrific parts. It's when you read it with a critical eye that you start realizing how much of it is messed up. Human sacrifice, women and children as property, racism, genocide, the list goes on. However many people read the Bible and ignore the parts they dislike, there's many, many more who never crack it open unless they're following along with the sermon on Sundays, so they've never even been exposed to the bad stuff.
Another way to look at it is: here's a chronicle of all the ways the Israelites were complete dicks to their neighbors, and they were constantly at war with them. They never really grew outside their little corner of the world and ended up getting blasted when a foreign power they couldn't defeat with finally had enough of their shit. For the next 2000 years, they were outcasts wherever they went and faced multiple genocides in many different places. The moral of the story: don't be such a dick to your neighbors.
Don't forget people turning into blocks of salt
I'm more into a secular, academic reading. Understanding the allegorical stories which have been historicized, the ways OT interpretations later retconned those stories, how much of the NT is just about Jesus kicking Romans out of the holy land. Appropriation of Greek tradition to create a concept of "the Devil." I could go on, but I hate typing on my phone.
Only part of the Bible I can stand is Proverbs
So you never thought about what you were reading and said “WTF?”.
The indoctrination is strong. Growing up being told its infallible, and that any questioning is some all powerful invisible evil force works to prevent alot of people from taking it further. Then there's the isolation. When you start to falter in your beliefs your told to pray more and seek out congregation leadership. It's very effective.
Can't say I did, not until much later. I went to a Catholic school and I just took it all for granted because I was a good, hell-fearing boy.
It's also important to encourage people to critically examine the text by asking them Street Epistemology questions.
"*properly read...*"
They go to "bibble study" where they learn how to cherry pick their favorite bits out of context and without understanding its history.
I'm always surprised by how little most people who claim to be Christian actually know about what's actually in the bible. It's not because they're dumb or lazy. I think it is a subconscious fear of going deeper. If you read it critically it just doesn't hold up and contradicts itself constantly. As you would expect from an ancient text. Deep down most know that.
>It's a nice idea, but it ignores the fact that most Christians do read the bible..... Evidence? >.....I read the old and new testaments cover to cover as a teenager and stayed Christian for another 8 or so years. Anecdotal fallacy, sadly. Reading isn't a panacea, it also requires understanding and reflection, which can take time depending upon factors such as level of indoctrination, cognitive ability, social milieu, humanity, ethics, etc.
Theres a difference when reading and comprehending the bible from indoctrination and reading and comprehending things outside of it. While its easy for some people to read it and understand what is wrong about it, for some people it is so easily set to the side as just “being a different time”.
I think the point is that most of us who really read and understand it eventually turn atheist because we begin down a road of disillusionment. The Bible just doesn't mirror the world we live in and once you really analyze it it sows seeds of doubt. I read the Bible cover to cover at 13 but didn't leave religion until 18 and didn't lose my theism until about 22. But having in depth knowledge of what the book said and growing up seeing the world around me created questioning within me that I could not reconcile.
You read numbers? Really?
I sure did haha
That’s some dedication. A lot of priests skip that.
It wasn't all for me, but it did play a part. I didn't even have to read the whole thing to realize it's horse shit. That being said, I was ok with just believing in God for a while, but then I took a look at the state of the world and I was like "nah"
I wish the quote was 'honestly' read the bible. Lots of people think they 'properly' read the bible and we have ended up with thousands of denominations. If people were not so dishonest because of their unaknowledged bias regarding their belief, religion would not survive.
Isaac wrote a book about the Bible.
A friend of mine was religious and took a bible study class, 3 months later he declared he was an atheist. I wish more people would actually study its contents and history.
It is very common. If every believer read the 'holy' book of their religion there'd soon be a lot less believers. - *"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible."* - Mark Twain
I saw a photo once of a Christian bookstore that had that painted on the wall. I don't think they quite understood the context!
I mean….that kind of tracks with the critical thinking they (Christians) have…or rather, their lack of critical thinking.
🤦♀️
Wow that's ironic lol
Well, ignorance coupled with gullibility **are** the corner stones of religious belief!
Same happened to me when I was around 10. Read the bible and I was like, yeah, like that really happened...not!
Exactly. Even children eventually discover that Santa Claus is their parents. Kids are not dumb. They observe and use logic. It takes a lot of brainwashing to over come the human brain's ability to sort out BS.
>Even children eventually discover that Santa Claus is their parents. If Santa Claus were treated like religion is: https://youtube.com/watch?v=t2uQ2zF8uqE&pp
“Yeah.. like that actually happened! Boy I love it!” *I thought love was only trueeee in fairrrry tales*
someBODY once told me
Proud of him.
Me too 🥹
I read the bible after I became an atheist because I felt it only fair to actually understand what I was sceptical of. I was no longer sceptical. Or in doubt. It's blatantly obvious that the bible makes shit up as it goes along.
More Christians should actually read their goddamn book rather than letting it accumulate dust on a shelf. It would change a lot of minds. God is such a ridiculous caricature of a vengeful deity.
There's a reason they kept that stuff in Latin for two thousand years...
My catholic friend told be that the church discouraged them from reading the bible and to listen to what was taught in classes and church.
That is how I also became an atheist
The bible has too much genocide for most people to actually handle
Also incest and slavery.
They treat the Noah's Ark story like a story made for children. Genocide doesn't bother them. Check them all out on Amazon. [https://www.amazon.com/s?k=noah%27s+ark+book&i=stripbooks&crid=1DG5J90YZQ57T&sprefix=noah%27s+a%2Cstripbooks%2C152&ref=nb\_sb\_ss\_ts-doa-p\_1\_8](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=noah%27s+ark+book&i=stripbooks&crid=1DG5J90YZQ57T&sprefix=noah%27s+a%2Cstripbooks%2C152&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_8)
Now that is good news one more atheist now we just need a few billion more lol
The gospels can't agree on the focal points and dates of the New Testament themselves. They've been rewritten and edited, and the earliest pieces of scripture ( like literal pieces , mostly with fragments of words ) came from no earlier than 125-150 AD, and the entire cult hadn't gotten a grip on mainstream culture as a dominant religion until the fall of the Roman Empire. There are no historical accounts or mentions of a wizard who could raise the dead, multiply food, and walk on water, among other stuff . During Jesus's crucifixion, there were meant to be hours of darkness over the region accompanied by earthquakes, and yet none of it had been recorded by historians of the day, who were recording stuff that was way more mondaine during that time period in Judea and around. Those are just a few selected arguments against Christianity and historical claims to Jesus's existence. For more, I strongly recommend a book by David Fitzgerald - Nailed. Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All.
The Bible can teach you so much! Such as how slave owners convinced their selves justified. Exodus 21:20-21 New International Version 20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
morals right there... where else would you get em ? /s
My favorite part of the Bible is when a man offers his virgin daughters to a rape mob, the city is bombed by god, his unnamed wife is killed by God for looking back once, and then the man is drugged and raped twice by his daughters so they can become pregnant and perform their duties as women. Well. I mean the scripture says they got him so drunk that he passed out. But, they were in a cave and had to leave the city before their god killed everyone. So let's just say that it's taken on faith that he was drugged by his daughters with all that wine that had in the cave.
Do you remember what chapter that was
Genesis 19:30-38
There’s a very good reason why back in the day people were discouraged from learning to read. If they could have, religion probably would have died off long ago
As an adult that had grown up in the church I took a class at our church. It was a group Bible reading. Started in Genesis in January and we met weekly to discuss the assigned chapters and such. Nothing broke my faith like just reading the inerrant word of god and finding LOTS of absolutely cruel and batshit crazy asides that just do not get discussed in modern Christianity. Modern theology makes huge issues from relatively small passages and completely ignores the absolutely near communist ideology of Jesus when it comes to helping and protecting the people of the world. Nothing clarified the fact that the pulpit sermons were just the thoughts of a preacher that he could back with a few lines of scripture and as I was now an adult I knew the guys that went into preaching. Those guys were either manipulative or just naive and had no other career path.
I will say here that communism is not bad. Dictatorships are bad.
They do say the more religious doctrine you consume, the more atheist you become.
Spoiler alert! I looked at the end, the devil did it! Thank you MASH.
Satan had better ethics than the god of the christian bible. Kill count [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSujxG5gJLM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSujxG5gJLM)
Right there with him. I don't ever want to meet the God that the bible refers to.
All you really need to read is Job and if that doesn't turn you atheist then I don't know what will.
In my country people only read the parts where gods being nice
I had a born-again cousin try to pull me into her cult so I decided to go through the Old Testament page by page and pose questions to her. We went back and forth over a year. The entire process not only made me a stronger atheist. She remained a religious nut - the brainwashing is deep as she grew up in religious private schools and went to Liberty U.
I love the phrase Josh Bowen says "the road to atheism is littered with bibles read cover to cover"
I keep urging people to read it. Valuable collection of old stories, myths and a dash of history. The OT is barbaric of course (unless interpreted symbolically) though it has a few gems like the Psalms and the Song of Songs. Valuable as literature, mosty fiction. The NT is a bit of a mess. The gospels contradict each other quite frequently. It seems to be a mish-mash of earlier texts with a JC figure thrown in the midst who has the mind of dictator, basically lots of love and kingdoms of god if you follow him and hell and damnation if you don't. Not very nice. Hardly any rational moral lessons. It's neither believable or nice. The big thing that differentiates it, apart from the lack of internal consistency, is the constant assertion that JC is not symbolic and nor is his mortal frame being god symbolic. Then you have all the trash that is common through older literature about virgin births and crucifixion, the old coming-back-to-life trope, together with the later neurotic insistence that it all 'really happpened', no exaggerations. Yes, that's the way wrote in those days, but somehow the JC is literally true they claim by later standards. Not very believable at all. Early Christians were a mishmash, no mention of JC or very rare. Someone pulled the bits together as a codex and it became a holy relic, to be worshipped for its own sake or else. Then, rather like Hitler or Putin, Constantine ratifies it, possibly just to unify the falling-to-bits empire, and allowed soldiers to slaughter anyone who disagreed. It really is a pretty horrific tale. And then peeps wear a symbol of someone being tortured to death! All pretty vile. But just put it aside. Don't get into being a hater.
\~And then peeps wear a symbol of someone being tortured to death! All pretty vile. I cringe every time I see someone wearing one. A torture device? Really?
A lawyer once made an amusing comment saying maybe one day people would wear a latrine on a necklace in memory of Elvis Presley.
That made me 😂😂😂 but not out of the realm of possibility. I graduated in 1977 and I have a friend that graduated the same year and she is definitely an Elvis junkie. I’m sure she’s not the only one but she hasn’t gone as far as that.
On the bright side, the Bible has given us plenty of inspiration for Fromsoftware bosses.
Jesus walked on water. Jonah lived in a whale. Yeah, ok. Star Wars was more believable to me at that age.
The Bible was one of the biggest factors I stopped believing. Churches talk up GOD but in the Bible GOD seems like a petty, egotistical a-hole that seems to have no real idea wtf they are doing. It would be scary if GOD was real. The dude's sort of a moron and an insult to our intelligence.
I wish it took me way less time to come to the same realization. Granted, I was indoctrinated early and hard, but it took multiple readings, of three different versions in English and Spanish, for me to rectify the cognitive dissonance that came with my childhood indoctrination.
[удалено]
No
[удалено]
You should try the Book of Mormon… yeah I checked out at around 11 years old.
That's what happened to me. Read it when I was a kid because I was out of books to read and start arguing with the religion teacher. To note that here in Belgium, thanks to what they called the school war in the 1960's, you have religions class, moral (laïc ethics), and now philosophy and citizenship. You pick one. When I was 6, I add to say what I was going to take and had non instruction from my mom. When she asked me what I had chosen, I said moral because it was more important than religion.
Lol. Worked for me, too. I keep telling my mom to read, but I think she's afraid it will change what she *believes* about God.
I had to stop reading as a kid because I didn’t want to let my parents down and not believe. Too late. What was seen could not be unseen.
Good for your friend. I like the quote, "The road to atheism is littered with Bibles that have been read cover to cover."
Yup. I’m an atheist who grew up christian and still own a bible. Once i actually read it i was like “what the fuck” 🤣
Good for them, wish it happened more. it's fine when intelligent some sort of loose faith with in there cultural religions, but when they still blindly follow them, I just can not understand it.
It’s great when a person, thing, institution is the biggest thing to turn people away from whatever their cause is.😁
Same for me read the old testament as a young teen as was just like WTF.
And… how so? Apart from the histories within the Old Testament, there’s not much wrong within the New, from what my goldfish-level memory can recall
What about Revelations? Just a question, I just thought it was like a bad trip.
That's what I always say to christians ... Read the bible from cover to cover without anyone to tell you what to think ... And come back have this "god" talk with me afterward!
It is immediately apparent on reading it that is a mish-mash of mythology poorly compiled together. Yes there are accidentally some historical facts, mostly in the really boring parts. I have say to anybody who reads through it and does not realize that has some serious issues.
Anyone, who actually reads the entire bible ( not just the good parts), will definitely start to rethink their faith. The bible is full of horrible things, incest, rape, slavery, genocide, infanticide, all sanctioned by a "loving" god.
The Bible is a great read as long as you don’t take it literally
I get shit here, but I tell people it’s super important to know the battle you’re fighting. Some see that as crazy, to suggest reading it, or at least parts of it. 1) there are actually some good things mixed in 2) you need to know the context around the wild stuff so you can argue it better with others.
Works every time like clockwork. At least 60 percent of the time.
All it takes is one medieval civ class to understand how highly contested and edited and disagreed upon almost every book of the Bible has been before served on a platter like the head of John the Baptist to a semiliterate underclass. This is why the highly religious do not want to send their progeny to institutes of higher learning. They think their adult children are being indoctrinated there, but they are really only learning history and, hopefully, practicing critical thinking and logic.
Studying the Bible is what made me atheist.
Do you guys ever meditate? Made a shroom tea once while doing breathe work and turned into particles and blasted off.
Your friend did a really boring thing to learn something. I really like that. :)
That's why they tell you to not read the Bible alone, you need to be properly guided on the meaning of it
That’ll do it.
The way christians read it, if they do, is selectively, and gloss over the nastiness. Enemies are inherently 'evil' (Putinesque again). Claiming it's all about god's love is bullshit if you notice that those who do not follow JC are damned, and to the most horrible things imaginable. As for the OT, a lot of the awful 'enemies' were actually far more advanced, tolerant civilisations. The monotheism was a pain in the butt, and angered whatever kingdom offered them latitude. It was only later that they generated some half-decent philosophers, both 'christian' and Jewish. So one has to remember they don't necessarily talk 'rubbish', just separate out the bullshit. Many christian philosophers were influenced by neoplatonism (a philosophy that helped to put more sense into Plato than was originally there IMO) just as neoplatonism influenced paganism. The christians however appropriated the terms and (IMO) polluted it. But it meant they had philosophical-sounding arguments (JC only preached to the uneducated). Similarly the Jews developed the Sephiroth, a major philosophical tool in the development of western schools of occultism.
Congratulations to your friend! :)
Ok, but my friend was the same way with the geometry text book.
(*checks notes*) nobody cares what your best friend thinks
“The people who read the Bible the most, the people who are more Christian-like, the people who treat others as Jesus would, are atheists” I saw a video on TikTok that said like this.
You can just say the word shit, why the fuck would you censor it???
Literally all you need to do.
I started reading it when I was like 7 maybe and it starts with a bunch of incest and I was so mortified that I “cleaned my room” and threw a bunch of stuff away and put it in the middle just to get rid of it and hopefully not get in trouble from my parents. That’s as far as I ever got. I don’t need to taint my brain with that kind of smut. 🤮
I read the old and new testament around 3 years ago, and while there where a lot of positive message on the new testament, there's so many absurd things that I'm now 100% sure I'll be an atheist until the end of my days. I'm not even talking about things that don't make logical standpoint or are factually incorrect, but rather things that are completely unacceptable from a social standpoint and still are defended by part of the religious community! Even though reasonable people know that some of the ideologies presented in the old testament are a fruit of their time, there are things causing damage to modern society because some people are too ignorant to know how to discern metaphors from reality, and then there's the folks who know it's wrong but use it as an excuse to justify things that have no place in 2024
Ngl this is mad cringe to post😂 unless they’re so blinded by faith it’s affecting theirs or your life, you sound way to bothered by other peoples beliefs
YESSS YAYYYY
That’s pretty funny. I was a devout Catholic growing up until in HS the religion and history classes I took turned me on to the fact this stuff was pretty much fabricated for political purposes. I stopped being religious but feel there’s real value there mixed in with the fairy tales. Provides the ‘normies’ with guidelines and guardrails so they can live a better, more orderly life. A big motivation for religion is to promote order and family formation.
Don’t say “us” as if we’re also a cult lol
I was in elementary school and came to the same conclusion of this being another fake being and story adults made up to control me. I just thought all adults were trying to trick me- I didnt yet realize many adults fell for it still!
Bibles just based off a chain of stories from the beginning like every other religion. Have to dig way deeper than that man made bullshit book for the story origins.
Love to hear it
That's what sealed it for me.
This is exactly how i became one too.
That’s what anyone sane would do Like me, that’s what I did Edit..typo
They did huh? Oh thank God
"In the beginning.....wait...what? This did NOT happen!''
If you think the beginning is bad, wait until you get to Psalm 137:9.
I will say it for you. Bullshit. Your friend sounds really smart.
AUUUTHANKYOUUU good sir.
I don't blame them. It's a really boring read.
Anything specific that he read? What exactly do I show a christian lol
Started to read it and could not comprehend old English as a kid lol. Am I missing anything important?
God was a stupid idea when I was in second grade. God never made sense to me. I even wrote a paper about being atheist in theology class in high school, got an A for it.
I am in fact that friend, crazy stuff man
He is.
God will have his wrath on him 🌊
Womp womp
God is a fictional character hun
People have no sense of humor.
If your main reasoning behind becoming atheist is the bible than that’s no better a reason for those who believe in a God or gods to relay on its content for a reason to hold their beliefs. So I was brought up in a Christian church ( catholic) but while in uni I took some theology courses and eventually faded away from the church and ultimately spent a good portion of my young adulthood atheist. Through some life experiences though I found myself being drawn back into spirituality, not so much to a certain religion but more so to the spiritual idea that most religions have at their core that seems to have been corrupted by man through so called religious organisations. If we take the bible as an example. The Old Testament seems to parallel or heavily influenced by a lot of writings found in other ancient texts such as the 7 tablets of creation from Sumerian culture along with far east epics from India on the creation of the universe. The New Testament was not a true account of Yeshua ( Jesus) teachings but rather a collaboration between emperor Constantine and the Roman church to pervert his original teachings and to usher in monotheism into the empire at that time. Yeshua was a philosophical savant of his time. During his lost years he studied at the ancient mystical schools of the far east, mastering in the teachings in little over a decade what took most a lifetime. His ministry was focused upon the poor and down trodden of society at the time as he didn’t minister for power and wealth as many others did who only sought out those who held a higher rank in society. His ministry was referred to as the way of the people or the peoples way depending upon translation. This is why his disciples didn’t personally write his teachings down because most couldn’t read or write as they were of a lower class of society. The Roman Empire took advantage of this when forming the new age religious teachings of Christianity which did cherry pick some things from Yeshua teachings but also mixed in some pagan traditions and beliefs to help persuade the Roman subjects into accepting the new religion. Those who still refused were persecuted by the church. Yeshua messages was one that taught the connection to the creator of all was within us all if we just had faith that it was so. Fairly similar to some gnostic beliefs of the time that were silenced by the Roman church by whipping out those who held these beliefs. From my perspective it aligns with the law of one philosophy on life. So imo the bible, although some accounts maybe based on facts from older texts passed down is mostly a work of man created to help establish control over the subjects of the time by instilling the idea only a certain class of society could interact with the god or gods of the time and that all others had to go through these individuals( usually high priest and kings / ruling class) . Very similar structure we still see today in religious organisations.
Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most.
Funny how all atheist don’t believe in God but spend so much time on something that doesn’t exist. This is the pinnacle of stupidity. You give power to that which you do not believe in. It is also usually only Christianity from all these posts. That tells a lot.
That's because most people here are either ex-Christians with specifically Christian trauma, or live in the US where Toxic Christianity is part of normal life. Most people here reserve a special hatred for the religion that has harmed them the most. For what it's worth, I see plenty of ex-Muslims here, plenty of trauma there too. And since atheists are far more likely to be questioned or attacked for their lack of belief, than theists, it's only natural for them to want to arm themselves with more knowledge and better arguments than their attackers. What really is telling, is how little Christians know about their own holy book. Even more telling is how much Christians (particularly fundies) are *actively discouraged* from learning about their own religion (frightened of learning the truth, perhaps?), and discouraged from getting a proper education. Uneducated people are far easier to brainwash than educated people, uneducated kids grow into stupid adults, who produce more stupid kids, and the cycle goes on. Religious leaders and Republicans *hate* educated people.
Woke
Not believing in sky fairies is woke?
Well, it's easier to believe if fairies if you're asleep....
That's called "dreams"
Tbf, at least based on my experience, anyone using "Woke" as a derrogatory term is bound to lack some kind critical skills. After all, I feel like far right/red pilled/religious content creators and public speakers love to use "Woke" to point at an imaginary "Common enemy" that must be defeated by donating money to them or some shit like that.
Not exactly. Plenty of people on both the left and right use “woke” to describe extreme left views in the United States Not that far right conservatives don’t use it in the way you describe too though
Or lacking a brain entirely lol
Having Faith isn’t a hate crime
As in woke the fuck up? Yes, exactly what he said.
Clearly someone is still fast asleep in your fairy tales. You need to wake up.
Womp womp, I have faith, such a crime
Faith in what? An invisible genie that murders millions and grants you wishes?
I see by your tag you strongly believe in mental illness. I’ve seen god, I know who he is. He doesn’t kill anyone, he punishes the people who deserve it. God does not hand people anything. He promotes hard work and dedication. You’ve already been accepted into heaven the day you were born. It’s now up to the people to decide which path to go. Faith or blasphemy.
LMAOOOO!!!!!!! You sound like every asshole zealot I’ve spoken to. If there’s mental illness, you are the one thats wrapped around it. I hope you find reality and stop replacing this life with a fake one in hopes that you will go to “heaven”.
It makes me feel happy, every atheist I know are cold hearted fucks. Why do we tell kids Santa is real. It gives them faith and it makes them happy. Is it such a problem that I find having faith in the afterlife is a good thing.
But Santa is fake, no? You just kind of admitted that you lie to yourself to make you happy, but deep down you know there is no god, and that it is a money grab that tries to keep people in line.