Biblical illiteracy

[Mister Agenda]

I read the Bible cover-to-cover twice. It didn't make me an atheist, but it did cure me of being a Christian. I suppose I was an 'agnostic theist' for the next twenty-or-so years after that.

As far as I know, there hasn't been a study on whether atheists in majority Christian countries are more likely to have read the Bible in its entirety than the Christians in their country. There was a Pew Survey on Religous Knowledge in the US that indicated atheists are more knowledgeable than any other group about religion in general (followed closely by Jews), but I think fundamentalist/evangelical Christians came out as most knowledgeable about their own religion.

My guess is that a given atheist in the USA is more likely to have read the entire Bible than a given Christian, but not more likely than a given fundamentalist Christian. That may explain my perception (if my perception is correct) that formerly Christian atheists are more likely to have been fundamentalist Christians than liberal Christians. Like me, I think they set out to read the Bible to deepen their faith, only to find it having the opposite effect.

[Minimalist]

ACtually there has been such a study. Fundies have a shit-hemorrhage over it!

http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-r...ge-survey/

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

It kind of reinforces this observation.

[Simon Moon]

In fairness, I tend to find both atheists and Christians have a skewed knowledge.

Christians tend to be knowledgeable about the fluffy bits and the bits which support their pre existing beliefs. For eg they might quote you chapter and verse on the passages on homosexuality but be more hazy on the bits about helping the poor (communism )

Wait....

Don't the vast majority of Christians believe in a literal Hell, were people are tortured for eternity for finite crimes?

Doesn't sound too much like a 'fluffy' belief to me.

The things that the Bible gets right, morally and ethically speaking, are not right because they are in the Bible. They are all discoverable independently.

The Code of Hammurabi (a secular document) was written 300 years before the Old Testament and is more moral than the Bible.

Whereas a lot of atheist s I know can quote me the top 5 contradictions but are unaware of the bits promoting equality or integrity.

Because these are more important to demonstrate that the 'Big Book of Multiple Choice' is unlikely (in the extreme) to be the word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.

As I've said before, it's a verbal rorscarch.

Of course, because an omniscient, omnipotent deity could not figure out a method to make sure his message is communicated to all future generations other than in a way that is sure to be full of: contradictions and copy errors, written in dead languages by unknown authors that were not eyewitnesses, decades or more after the alleged events, on media that is sure to be destroyed in disasters, etc , etc. Even though he could have chosen any method he wanted.

Because being unambiguous is beyond 'God's' abilities.

That's one incompetent deity you believe in.

[Jacob(smooth)]

ACtually there has been such a study. Fundies have a shit-hemorrhage over it!

http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-r...ge-survey/

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

It kind of reinforces this observation.

Have a look at the actual data and tell me what it says about which group is most knowledgeable about the bible.

---

In fairness, I tend to find both atheists and Christians have a skewed knowledge.

Christians tend to be knowledgeable about the fluffy bits and the bits which support their pre existing beliefs. For eg they might quote you chapter and verse on the passages on homosexuality but be more hazy on the bits about helping the poor (communism )

Wait....

Don't the vast majority of Christians believe in a literal Hell, were people are tortured for eternity for finite crimes?

Doesn't sound too much like a 'fluffy' belief to me.

The things that the Bible gets right, morally and ethically speaking, are not right because they are in the Bible. They are all discoverable independently.

The Code of Hammurabi (a secular document) was written 300 years before the Old Testament and is more moral than the Bible.

Whereas a lot of atheist s I know can quote me the top 5 contradictions but are unaware of the bits promoting equality or integrity.

Because these are more important to demonstrate that the 'Big Book of Multiple Choice' is unlikely (in the extreme) to be the word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.

As I've said before, it's a verbal rorscarch.

Of course, because an omniscient, omnipotent deity could not figure out a method to make sure his message is communicated to all future generations other than in a way that is sure to be full of: contradictions and copy errors, written in dead languages by unknown authors that were not eyewitnesses, decades or more after the alleged events, on media that is sure to be destroyed in disasters, etc , etc. Even though he could have chosen any method he wanted.

Because being unambiguous is beyond 'God's' abilities.

That's one incompetent deity you believe in.

Not very much I disagree with there apart from the last bit. And that's only because (leans in close and whispers)..

God didn't write the bible.

---

In fairness, I tend to find both atheists and Christians have a skewed knowledge.

Christians tend to be knowledgeable about the fluffy bits and the bits which support their pre existing beliefs. For eg they might quote you chapter and verse on the passages on homosexuality but be more hazy on the bits about helping the poor (communism )

Wait....

Don't the vast majority of Christians believe in a literal Hell, were people are tortured for eternity for finite crimes?

Doesn't sound too much like a 'fluffy' belief to me.

The things that the Bible gets right, morally and ethically speaking, are not right because they are in the Bible. They are all discoverable independently.

The Code of Hammurabi (a secular document) was written 300 years before the Old Testament and is more moral than the Bible.

Whereas a lot of atheist s I know can quote me the top 5 contradictions but are unaware of the bits promoting equality or integrity.

Because these are more important to demonstrate that the 'Big Book of Multiple Choice' is unlikely (in the extreme) to be the word of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.

As I've said before, it's a verbal rorscarch.

Of course, because an omniscient, omnipotent deity could not figure out a method to make sure his message is communicated to all future generations other than in a way that is sure to be full of: contradictions and copy errors, written in dead languages by unknown authors that were not eyewitnesses, decades or more after the alleged events, on media that is sure to be destroyed in disasters, etc , etc. Even though he could have chosen any method he wanted.

Because being unambiguous is beyond 'God's' abilities.

That's one incompetent deity you believe in.

Not very much I disagree with there apart from the last bit. And that's only because (leans in close and whispers)..

God didn't write the bible.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Righto. On a proper computer now.

Thom said

Sorry but the problem is that studies have shown that it is atheists who actually know more about the bible - and it is because we have actually read it.

And minimalist said

ACtually there has been such a study. Fundies have a shit-hemorrhage over it!

And was kind to provide the citation.

http://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-r...ge-survey/
Along with a headline quote

Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

However, the headline is somewhat misleading (as they often are).

What the data actually shows is that while atheists and agnostics did indeed score higher on religious knowledge, this was General religious knowledge, covering all religions and things

like the role of religion in public life, including a question about what the U.S. Constitution says about religion.

Thats well and good and shows a greater knowledge on religion in general. However the title of this thread is BIBLICAL literacy. And the link which M provided also says:-

On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge.

So I really don't know why this would cause fundies to shit haemorrage over it, and it does not, as Thom said, show that atheists know the bible better than christians. It shows that Atheists have a broader knowledge of religions, but that christians have a greater knowledge of the bible.... which pretty much makes sense.

There were a lot of other posts about the bible being variously made up / immoral / inconsistent / illogical etc. Most of those I actually agree with because I believe it was written by men and men are fallible, gullible, and very capable of making stuff up to fit the needs of what they needed to convince the hairy arsed rubes that what they were doing was AOK. But this is by the by to the OP.

Sorry for the long post. But as much as it vexes me when Theists wave the "loads of studies show" appeal to authority placard and / or overstate or misrepresent data, that doesn't make it ok for atheists to do it.. Where someone had taken the time to get proper data, and someone else has had the integrity to post the actual citation, it deserves to be examined properly, rather than just the headline (which can be misleading).

That's enough from me. I doubt anyone has read all this anyway

I am, of course, happy to examine other data if anyone has any.

[Minimalist]

So you are proud of being an isolationist schmuck, jake?

I didn't design the test. I just took it. As I recall I got 28/32.

[Simon Moon]

Not very much I disagree with there apart from the last bit. And that's only because (leans in close and whispers)..

God didn't write the bible.

Actually, he's way to busy not existing to perform any act, let alone authoring a book.

But back on the subject at hand...

Oh, I completely understand that Christians don't claim that 'God' wrote the Bible.

But that's the problem I was pointing out.

Christians claim that there is this specific universe creating god, with the most important message, ever. And he wants to make sure that future generations are able to read it, understand it and do what it says.

He's allegedly omnipotent, so he could have recorded it himself in any form he wanted. He's allegedly omniscient, so he should have seen what would happen to his 'word'.

Yet, he made no provisions to assure it is communicated in a way as to be unambiguous. He could have authored it himself on titanium pages, in a language that would be understood in the future, prevent it from being edited and containing copy errors. He could have made many copies, scattered them around the world and protected them in some way. He could have had a primer in order to tell metaphor from literal passages, the laws that could be ignored (eating shellfish) and the ones that can't (homosexuality).

He could have even come back to correct mistakes. "Hey, remember when I said owning slaves was okay? I made a mistake. Don't do that.". The New Testament does not correct it.

But instead, we have over 30,000 sects, many with major doctrinal discrepancies (even as to the divinity of Jesus). We have 1000's of theologians unable to come up with one cohesive meaning. We have passages that some Christians believe are metaphor, but just as many Christians believe should be taken literally.

Then we have someone like me, that views the entire situation from the outside. I see an ancient text full of contradictions, superstitions, immoralities, talking animals, men living in giant fish, zombies leaving their graves and walking around Jerusalem, curing lepers with a brass rod and pigeon blood, etc, etc.

How am I supposed to tell that the Bible is the correct ancient text, but the Koran, The Vedas, The Avesta, etc are not. They all have the same general attributes.

[freedomfromforum]

Reading the bible = Creating atheists. <-- That's a period on that sentence.

[Jacob(smooth)]

So you are proud of being an isolationist schmuck, jake?

I didn't design the test. I just took it. As I recall I got 28/32.

I'm merely answering the op and the comments made about it. Why the hostility? It's not my data!

Not sure what you mean by isolationist schmuck. If you enlarge and clarify your question I shall seek to answer it.

You forgot to answer mine Btw. Why would fundies "shit haemorrage" over this data?

---

Not very much I disagree with there apart from the last bit. And that's only because (leans in close and whispers)..

God didn't write the bible.

Actually, he's way to busy not existing to perform any act, let alone authoring a book.

But back on the subject at hand...

Oh, I completely understand that Christians don't claim that 'God' wrote the Bible.

But that's the problem I was pointing out.

Christians claim that there is this specific universe creating god, with the most important message, ever. And he wants to make sure that future generations are able to read it, understand it and do what it says.

He's allegedly omnipotent, so he could have recorded it himself in any form he wanted. He's allegedly omniscient, so he should have seen what would happen to his 'word'.

Yet, he made no provisions to assure it is communicated in a way as to be unambiguous. He could have authored it himself on titanium pages, in a language that would be understood in the future, prevent it from being edited and containing copy errors. He could have made many copies, scattered them around the world and protected them in some way. He could have had a primer in order to tell metaphor from literal passages, the laws that could be ignored (eating shellfish) and the ones that can't (homosexuality).

He could have even come back to correct mistakes. "Hey, remember when I said owning slaves was okay? I made a mistake. Don't do that.". The New Testament does not correct it.

But instead, we have over 30,000 sects, many with major doctrinal discrepancies (even as to the divinity of Jesus). We have 1000's of theologians unable to come up with one cohesive meaning. We have passages that some Christians believe are metaphor, but just as many Christians believe should be taken literally.

Then we have someone like me, that views the entire situation from the outside. I see an ancient text full of contradictions, superstitions, immoralities, talking animals, men living in giant fish, zombies leaving their graves and walking around Jerusalem, curing lepers with a brass rod and pigeon blood, etc, etc.

How am I supposed to tell that the Bible is the correct ancient text, but the Koran, The Vedas, The Avesta, etc are not. They all have the same general attributes.

Indeed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEE2L2l3...ata_player

This video I think makes the point very well! And as to your question, I couldn't say. Perhaps there is no "correct text."

That, as I said, is a different question altogether.

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Reading the bible = Creating atheists. <-- That's a period on that sentence.

Yeah, there's some truth there. The bible is the second biggest problem for me as an xtian.

[Rayaan]

I wouldn't want to venture an opinion on what are the most essential concepts for a Christian to understand. Who am I to judge? Speaking personally, I wouldn't say it's at the core of my faith. One of my closest friend is a jehovahs witness and we've been arguing about the divinity of Jesus for 10 years. To me she exhibits all the significant" fruits of the spirit" so I would not opine that here doctrinal differences on this strongly affect her Christianity.

Okay, so then what is your position on who Jesus was/is? Do you beleive that he was a man, God, son of God, all three at the same time ... or what?