Comment on the Bible

[Act_of_Reparation]

44. I can't agree with that.

I always saw it as a reference book. Since the chapters don't really pertain to each other in any kind of sequence, a lot of people don't see it as a book to be read cover to cover. More like short stories.

By chapters I assume you mean books.

If not, I am tempted to disagree. While Genesis may read like a collection of myths sewn together into one book, Exodus is a clearly coherent narrative from beginning to end, and to disregard it as a whole is, I think, to miss the whole point of the book. Much of the New Testament is, as well.

I would also argue book order is important. Books like Deuteronomy and Leviticus are books of law and really have no place in the narrative of the Old Testament, and could probably be placed anywhere. However, the Old Testament doubled as a religious text and history text for the early Jews, and most of the books were ordered in a chronological manner. It would be stupid to put Joshua - which describes the conquest of Canaan - before Genesis, in which Noah curses Canaan and his descendants to an existence of subservience and inferiority. One is an off-hand side-story in Genesis. The other is a military conquest. Together, however, you have divine-sanctioned, prophesied conquest. If you read one but not the other, the picture is incomplete.

And while many christians may not read their bible, it is read to them every week if they are church goers. The OP (not the person who posted it, btw) is just inflammatory bullshit meant to poke at stick at believers. It is not truth and surely not even close to profound.

I can really only speak for the tradition of Christianity in which I was raised - Catholicism - but churchgoers do not read the Bible in church. In church, the Bible is read to them. They are by no means compelled to actually listen.

The OP, while perhaps inflammatory, was not bullshit. Atheists generally know religion better than their believing counterparts, at least according to recent study. While you may consider this all very ho-hum, considering there are, in fact, believers who know quite a great deal about their respective religions, to atheists the fact the rank and file generally does not matters.

And it matters because the same rank and file believers who know next to nothing of their own religion, tell their kids atheists are bad people because they don't believe in god. They are the same people who want evolution taken from the biology classroom, and the same people who would see intelligent design takes its place. They take public opinion polls which show atheists to be less trustworthy in the public eye than rapists, thieves, and murderers. They throw money to homophobes and anti-Semites like Billy Graham and Pat Robertson, or they vote for fascist goons like Darrell Issa.

Now, a parting advisory tale:

A few weeks ago on the Best of Left podcast, host Jay ran a clip which dealt, to some degree, with white privilege. A number of callers phoned in with objections to the term, emphatically disagreeing with the term because it implied that they didn't work for what they had, or otherwise didn't deserve any of it.

Jay's response to the criticism, I think, was pretty poignant. You have to realize you are talking about a class which faces discrimination all the time, in virtually every aspect of their lives, a discrimination with which few others are inconvenienced. You may not be a part of the problem, but the problem is there.

You have to learn that it isn't about you.

I've read your comments on a number of threads already, and they all have the same tone, and essentially the same point: that you aren't one of these Bible-thumping conversion-mongers, so Atheists shouldn't speak to disparagingly about Christianity.

Here's the issue: you're in the minority.

So, while every atheist here no doubt appreciates how non-confrontational you are about your religion, you have to realize you are the exception to rule, and when we're speaking about "Christians" and "Believers" or whatever, it's not about you.

Don't take it so personally.