Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?

[Vincent]

Thanks for writing the huge response. So basically you feel that the human mind/brain made up God or gods, an afterlife, etc. for satisfaction, ignoring science and depending on supernatural claims, and wrote it down; creating the Bible? Seems like a point I'll have to look into from both sides. I do understand, though, that the Bible is not just "one book", but a collection of 66 books written by over 30 people over more than a thousand years. It's hard for me to discredit that unless it's just a blatant lie.


From what I gather from the beginning of your post, you feel that if God existed, surely we wouldn't be the only one favored, surely God wouldn't care about our actions, and surely space wouldn't be so "excessively huge". All of these seem to pertain to the nature of God; something that believers are inclined to trust due to other Church teachings. A lot of these replies, since the posters don't believe in God or Church teachings, seem to view the portrayal of God as demanding and excessive....while believers translate that into love.

I'm not so sure about everything in the Bible being "made up". I'll admit, I'm no expert on the book, but if I recall correctly, there are certain historical accuracies inside of it, some bits that may or may not reflect reality. But it was written a very long time ago. In a time period when humans believed all sorts of crazy myths and legends to be fact, a time when we were a lot more gullible, and susceptible to believing things we'd scoff at today. Not to mention the questionable authenticity of it, uncertainty about who wrote each book and when, uncertainty about translation. I believe some books in the bible have also been deleted, right? Some made the final cut and some did not. Additionally, if I have been correctly informed, a period of 40-50 years passed between Jesus's death and the writing of the Gospels - plenty of time for facts to be distorted, or remembered falsely, or exaggerated, or blurred by the passage of years. There are just so many variables to take into account, so much mystery surrounding that book and what actually happened. It's worthy of doubt.

I think it's entirely plausible that the individuals who wrote the Bible believed everything they wrote was true. But there is a difference between what we believe to be fact, and what actually is. Much like some people claim with all their heart and soul that they saw a UFO... and if you hooked them up to a lie detector, it would report they are telling the truth. That doesn't mean what they actually saw was in fact a UFO.

That's just how I look at it, though.