Haitus
I’ve ran into some internet connection issues that will keep me from updating both Twitter and this post for the rest of the week if not a little longer, be back soon.
I can be reached at revoxley501 at gmail dot com
Christian Neglect of the Bible
In an October 2000 Gallup Poll it was determined that, out of those polled, only 37% read the Bible on a daily or weekly basis. In my own personal experience, less than half of the professing Christians I know have ever read the entire Bible from cover to cover and don’t ever intend on doing so.
These statistics are not new to me though. This information bugged me deeply when I was a Christian and even more-so now. In this post I intend to show you why.
Christians, by and large, believe that the Bible is “The Word of God”…or at least most of them will make that claim. In fact it is considered by most Christian denominations to be a cardinal doctrine of their faith, that the Bible is the infallible ‘Word of God’ and is without error. It absolutely amazes me that many people that identify as Christians who have not read the full text of the Bible or even spent a large amount of time in study of it often make this same claim. Why is that a problem? Shouldn’t this news make me, as an atheist, very happy?
It doesn’t make me happy at all for a number of reasons:
For one, it tells me that Christians are believing things without even knowing what those things are. One might believe that the Bible is 100% authoritative in all things, yet may not understand that this belief entails justifications of god’s prophets sending bears to slaughter children (2 Kings 2:23–24), mass racial genocides (Joshua 6:20–21, Deuteronomy 2:32–35, Deuteronomy 3:3–7, Numbers 31:7–18, 1 Samuel15:1–9), condoning of rape (Judges 21:1–23), and child sacrifice (Judges 11:30–39). I know that the majority of Christians have never heard of most of these stories from the Bible, yet they still hold to the idea that it is perfection and breathed from god’s lips — would knowledge of these stories and supposed “Truths” change their view of the Bible? For some it would have to.
Keep reading:
