He who is a friend of the world is an enemy of mine?

[Jenny A]

Actually reading The Bible is one of the leading causes of atheism.

Seems to me that youtube clips and websites which selectively quote the Bible are leading causes of atheism.

I was speaking of the experience that I and others I know have had reading the whole thing. It doesn't sound quite so irrational in cherry picked pieces presented as lessons for sermons, or sweet little bits "like for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. . " Reading the whole thing exposes not only differences among the gospels, the two counter creation stories, and so on, it also exposes a lot of ugliness. I don't know any atheists who have lost belief through selected quotations, though I know many (self included from time to time) who use such sites as a kind of ammunition dump when talking to militant Christians.

That said, just the little concordance in the back of my NIV lists about a column of verses dealing with fear. About two-thirds of them are about fearing god (a good thing apparently) and the other third are about not fearing other things because god is with you.

I'm not quite sure what the point of quoting them would be. Perhaps the OP could clarify?

That would be helpful, although the implication seems to me to be that being motivated by fear is a bad thing. Personally I disagree with that. Most mornings I'm motivated to go to work more by fear of homelessness than out of ambition or love of the work I do. My family has a roof over their heads either way.

That might make a good discussion. But I doubt it can be had in the midst of a string of unrelated quotes about fear.

[ignoramus]

I don't think reading the bible in its entirely is the leading cause for atheism.
It might be a qualifying reason.
My main reason is science, evidence and common sense ....bible or no bible.
As many here have stated to the effect:
"I have always had a good bullshit detector"

[Lek]

Fear is probably a good thing as often as it is a bad thing. I don't know of any rule that says that we're not supposed to be afraid of offending God. Because I believe in God there are things that I don't fear. You talk like christians live in a state of constant fear and that's very untrue. We all have things to fear, but if a christian lives in constant fear then something is not right with his understanding of christianity.

[Esquilax]

Seems to me that youtube clips and websites which selectively quote the Bible are leading causes of atheism.

Seems to me that reflexively braying "you took that out of context!" is a leading argument from theists who have no interest in engaging with the quotes or explaining why they're out of context.

[Losty]

Sounds like a good project for you. Please get started.

I just died of laughter