What do Atheists believe the Bible as?

[DaveD]

A bit of both really. Leaders from all factions have pretty much relied on religion to control the population. The people really believed it, leaders saw the advantages of it.
It is for the most part, control.

Believing it was 'divinely inspired' doesn't make it so. You are pretty much taking their word for it, and you gotta have awfully low standards to accept such things purely on word of mouth.

On top of believing in these people's words, there is archaeological evidence that support those words. For example, it has been proven that Egyptians had Hebrew slaves, there were the plagues as mentioned in the Bible, and the Hebrew slaves were either freed (a very unlikely scenario) or left by means of war. There is no evidence of a war or uprising by the slaves, so they must have been freed. But why would the Egyptians free their slaves around the same time as the plagues?

Sorry, simply pronouncing that something in your book of myths has been proved isn't good enough. Please cite your sources.

[Ace Otana]

On top of believing in these people's words, there is archaeological evidence that support those words. For example, it has been proven that Egyptians had Hebrew slaves, there were the plagues as mentioned in the Bible, and the Hebrew slaves were either freed (a very unlikely scenario) or left by means of war. There is no evidence of a war or uprising by the slaves, so they must have been freed. But why would the Egyptians free their slaves around the same time as the plagues?

Those "plagues" have already been answered by science. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_...planations

Religion has a way of turning past events into religious stories. Happens even today.

[The Grand Nudger]

I've mentioned this before, but I'll say it again:

The bible may have a great many things to teach us about the people who wrote the bible, how they viewed themselves, others, and their environment, but expecting more from it is unfair to the authors or the text. Examining the text as a supporting document for an article of faith has led to people, or groups of people, assuming positions that range from quaintly ignorant, to malevolent in a benign sort of way, all the way up to the ridiculously absurd and genocidal.

[TheCarlisle]

Religion has a way of turning past events into religious stories. Happens even today.

Care to elaborate?

And those events in Egypt weren't plagues you say? They all happened at the same time. They all were predicted by Moses, and that is how the slaves were freed. How else then was the nation of Israel freed from slavery in Egypt?

[The Grand Nudger]

Do you have any sources to give us? You've insisted twice now that Exodus is somehow proof. I've challenged you with regards to their ever actually being an exodus (as far as we can tell there wasn't), as well as asking you why exodus would be proof of divine inspiration. I'm judging by your response here that you feel that it was an issue of prophecy fulfilled? So, if exodus didn't happen, what prophecy? Also, do you have any texts of this prophecy that predate the claimed plagues? I can make prophecies about what happened in yesterdays newspaper, am I receiving divine inspiration?

[Minimalist]

For example, it has been proven that Egyptians had Hebrew slaves, there were the plagues as mentioned in the Bible, and the Hebrew slaves were either freed (a very unlikely scenario) or left by means of war. There is no evidence of a war or uprising by the slaves, so they must have been freed. But why would the Egyptians free their slaves around the same time as the plagues?

You are out of your mind.

As a matter of fact, 200 years of digging in Egypt has failed to show ANY EVIDENCE AT ALL of bible nonsense.

But, let's see how good you are at this ( my guess is "not very") and give you a little quiz. One question. When did your alleged exodus happen?

[Ace Otana]

Care to elaborate?

And those events in Egypt weren't plagues you say? They all happened at the same time. They all were predicted by Moses, and that is how the slaves were freed. How else then was the nation of Israel freed from slavery in Egypt?

You didn't bother reading through the scientific explanations did you? That tells me you only want to see it one way.

Did you know, Nostradamus made his predictions of events...after they happened? It's nothing new. Events take place, some individuals jump up and shout "I predicted that would happen!". They then say god did it, like fucking always.

Either you're the kind of person who will blindly take very superstitious people's word for it, or you're the kind of person to question the value of a claim and demand evidence when required.
They claimed jebus rose from the dead, where's the evidence? There is none, just people's word for it, who are themselves highly superstitious.

Remember, people back then knew very much nothing of the natural world, so disasters would be equated to god rather than anything natural like we do today.

[TheCarlisle]

Do you have any sources to give us? You've insisted twice now that Exodus is somehow proof. I've challenged you with regards to their ever actually being an exodus (as far as we can tell there wasn't), as well as asking you why exodus would be proof of divine inspiration. I'm judging by your response here that you feel that it was an issue of prophecy fulfilled? So, if exodus didn't happen, what prophecy? Also, do you have any texts of this prophecy that predate the claimed plagues? I can make prophecies about what happened in yesterdays newspaper, am I receiving divine inspiration?

Whoops, here's an article showing how Egyptian history corresponds to Exodus: http://www.biblicalchronologist.org/answ..._egypt.php
Evidence for the plagues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scien...tists.html
Now addressing the hypothesis that Moses claimed to predict things he didn't. Just because Nostradamus predicted something after the event doesn't automatically mean that every other person did just the same.

"They claimed jebus rose from the dead, where's the evidence? There is none, just people's word for it, who are themselves highly superstitious."
There is the testimonies from all of Jesus' disciples that he rose from the dead. Additionally, what evidence are you supposed to expect from a person who rose from the dead? Furthermore, there is evidence that Jesus existed are the hundreds of scriptures within Jesus' existence that were written. These scriptures cannot have been inspired by some book a government pushed into the faces of people to believe, as some would think. Additionally, only educated people could write 2000yrs ago.

You are out of your mind.

That wasn't very nice...

[Epimethean]

An invented character such as Moses predicting events which were past tense when his lines were being written is no basis for substantiating the bible as the word of a supernatural being.

[Minimalist]

You are out of your mind.

That wasn't very nice...

Goddamn right, it wasn't. You made a lousy first impression. I also notice you didn't answer the question.