A Visual Representation of Biblical Contradictions

Whoa…

This is amazing.

This just makes me believe that Sam Harris is either dishonest, illiterate, or at best ignorant of what biblical inerrancy actually means. The couple of these “contradictions” I looked at are nothing of the sort. Any atheists who endorse this graphic as serious come off as silly and desperate.
Fail.

I can explain the contradictions: From a non-fundamentalist view, The Bible is historically written by many many authors, often cobbled together from multiple folk sources and often generations after the event. You probably know this. But check this out:

The Bible is looked at by many non-fundamentalist Christians as the human-written tale of a religious and cultural heritage that reveals as much if not more about the nature of people as it does about the nature of the higher power. We see it not only in the acts of the characters — such as King David’s inability to keep his pants on — as we do in the contradictions that are pointed out by this very beautiful and well researched document.

I go still farther in my appreciation of The Bible. Even though the books in the “approved” version were selected by power hungry misogynists and we are burdened by crappy translations, I can still find a message of love and a sense of grace for the individual between the covers. As with any text, the bible allows for as many interpretations as there are readers.

Perhaps even, for the open minded, a single reader could find multiple interpretations, a conversation if you will, that helps to illuminate the challenges of being a person on this planet that tries to be good.

Simplistic thinking, both religious fundamentalism and total rejection of the bible as a document of value, fails to recognize the qualities of much of the text.

Daniel,
Please tell us the couple you had a problem with and explain as to why they are not contradictions.

So Daniel, please explain to use ignorant atheists what “inerrancy ” means.
With examples.

Aaron,
What inerrancy says is that the original manuscripts, taken in the sense intended by their author, are without error.
It doesn’t mean there aren’t copyist errors and it doesn’t mean there isn’t figurative language. Besides, for something to count as a “contradiction”, it has to be a necessary contradiction with no reasonable scenario in which it’s explainable.

For example, taken from the chart:
5. Who was Abijam’s mother? I Kings 15:1-2, II Chron. 13:1-2.

“His mother’s name was Maacah the daughter of Abishalom” (Kings) vs. “His mother’s name was Micaiah the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah” (Chronicles).

First, Maacah and Micaiah are close enough that they could simply be variant spellings (especially in Hebrew which had no vowels).
Second, if Maacah and Micaiah are the same, “Uriel” could be a concubine and “Abishalom” the legal queen-mother, or vice versa. One could be a birth mother and one the adoptive mother, etc. Or Uriel and Abshalom could be mother and grandmother (the Bible often calls more distant ancestors “father”, etc). Or if Maacah and Micaiah are not the same woman, the same things I said about Uriel and Abishalom could apply to them. Birth mother and legal mother, mother and grandmother, etc.

In other words, this is only a contradiction if you have no imagination and are a completely uncourteous reader and have an axe to grind, and it’s like denying the brightness of the sun by pointing out a sunspot.

This just makes me believe that Sam Harris is either dishonest, illiterate, or at best ignorant of what biblical inerrancy actually means. The couple of these “contradictions” I looked at are nothing of the sort. Any atheists who endorse this graphic as serious come off as silly and desperate.
Fail.

Hm. This is obviously a lot to check, but the when I looked up three at random (#1, #34, and #60) they looked like legitimate contradictions, although the third could be explained if the sons of Bela were named after their uncles. But I would agree that it seems somewhat nitpicky, in light of the actual contents of the Bible. For example, the first passage sited:

“Josheb-Basshebeth,[a] a Tahkemonite,[b] was chief of the Three; he raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed[c] in one encounter.

Now it is true that the second passage sited says he only killed three hundred. But it seems sort of ridiculous to soberly note this contradiction given that it just said that he killed eight hundred men in one battle. And our problem with this is that it says a different number somewhere else? Really? I understand some people take the bible very seriously but this sort of rigorous fact-checking does seem a bit ridiculous given the contents of the story being checked.

It would be much easier for this to be simple text and links.

It doesn’t matter to me whether or not the mythology that Christians enjoy is consistent or not. It is still mythology.

Which parts?

Honestly even if all the contradictions could be explained away it is like saying that Harry Potter is true because it is mostly consistent.

No one said lack of contradictions make it true.

Chicago,
This chart displays anything but reasoned attention. It actually displays pettiness.

Daniel Hoffman asks which parts of the bible are mythology. How about the part where god creates man out of the dirt of the bare ground and then woman out of his rib. Is that not mythology? Is that literally true? Or wait, I’m confused, I thought he created man and woman together on the sixth day. Maybe that part is mythology and the other story is true.

To Daniel Hoffman:

All of these are contradictions. They range from the simple, such as your example of differently spelled names, to the more extreme, such as claiming no one has seen God, yet citing several instances in which a man had seen God.

Another example is when Jehoiachin became king. Was he 8 or 18? You can pass that off as a copyist error, but if you actually look at the actual original text, the words for 8 and 18 are completely different, and thus it wasn’t simply a slip of the pen that made that contradiction.

You can pass these off as “copyist errors” all you want but they are still errors in which millions of people are reading and believing as to be 100% truth without realizing which parts are true and which parts are “errors.”

Yep, that will learn us.

Silly us, turns out our questions are just nonsense hardly worth the time to answer.

if you read the bible looking for meaninglessness and contradictions, you will find it. if you read the bible looking for truth and light, you will find it.

if you observe a photon and want to see a wave, you will see it, if you observe a photon and want to see a particle, you will see it.

what’s inside you, who you are/are being, appears to be more important than the external universe.

I must admit that I’m not terribly impressed. Obviously a lot of work went into this project, but the end result just looks like overkill to me. A single objection is sufficient to dismiss the entire bible: there isn’t a single shred of credible, verifiable evidence to substantiate supernatural claims. You don’t need a massive list of biblical contradictions to conclude that the absurdly impossible stories in the bible are complete bullshit. I would like to see a line drawn from the resurrection story to reality. Now there’s a contradiction for you.

In other words, this is only a contradiction if you have no imagination and are a completely uncourteous reader and have an axe to grind, and it’s like denying the brightness of the sun by pointing out a sunspot.

Actually, I beg to differ. This is a contradiction, albeit a minor one. That it doesn’t take huge amounts of interpretation to figure out a plausible way around the contradiction, doesn’t make it any less of one. So, when making a list of all the contradictions in a narrative, one is within their rights to include possible copyist errors as well as more severe blunders.

if you read the bible looking for meaninglessness and contradictions, you will find it. if you read the bible looking for truth and light, you will find it.

if you observe a photon and want to see a wave, you will see it, if you observe a photon and want to see a particle, you will see it.

what’s inside you, who you are/are being, appears to be more important than the external universe.

I don’t think that’s how quantum physics works, but setting that aside, if you actually believe that then why bother with the bible? Doesn’t this imply you can gain the same insight from reading “Horton Hears a Who?” or “Mein Kampf”?

Ethanol,

It isn’t how quantum mechanics works at all and it is the kind stuff that people who don’t actually know about QM like to proclaim loudly because they think it sounds profound.

I agree with Daniel. Nitpicky and biased t bet. Granted I didn’t look at them all but from the ones I did, most were not contradictions at all. For example number 8. Only one verse mentions Abrams age at all. The rest don’t. So I don’t see how that is a contradiction in the slightest

Same with number 9. Only one verse mentions the years the ark was in the house (20 years). the remaining verses don’t mention any length of years at all.

I guess it depends how you define contradiction. I would define it with reference to the intention of the author.

And, of course, every Christian knows what the intention of the author was. And they all know differently.

Your attempt to rationalize away contradictions by insisting that you know what the authors really meant is beyond insipid. You’re ignoring that people of equally strong and certain belief interpret the authors’ intents completely differently. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14:33 that God is not the author of confusion – and yet this all-powerful deity was apparently incapable of guiding his scribes to write down his words and will in a way that didn’t require massive explanation, rationalization, and justification just to seem consistent? You’ve got to be joking.

Here’s a sticky bit for you. The gospels of Matthew and Luke list the generations between Abraham and Jesus. Both of them go through the line of King David, as needed to fulfill a supposed prophecy. However, even going just two generations back gets you a vastly different list of people – and neither genealogy goes through Mary. I’ve seen people attempt to explain that one of them actually does go through Mary, but that it then switches back over to the patriarchal line (which makes absolutely no sense at all as anything but an ad-hoc rationalization). And it doesn’t help anyways, because even within a single gospel it’s inconsistent.

If both genealogies descend from the line of David through Joseph, then Jesus didn’t fulfill the prophecy of being of King David’s bloodline. If he did, then he wasn’t God’s son. Whoops.

The simple solution, of course, is that it’s fiction meant to tell a story and not actual history. But … that’s kind of what the atheists are saying, isn’t it?

Even if you find away to explain away the contradiction, that does not explain why God wrote his holy book so that it could be so easily confused. Or why God passed his faith down through a book that could be mistakenly copied, thus potentially changing the faith. Or why God allowed there to be so many different denominations of his faith. Or why he allows there to be so many other religions. Or why he then tied your ability to go to Heaven to your ability to cut through this mess. The whole thing is uselessly confusing.

A better explanation? Humans created a faith and then added the “believe or you go to Hell” part in order to keep converts and motivate them to convert other people.

To Samiimas:

When millions of people devote their lives to religion, I think it is absolutely fair to point out the inconsistencies in their literalism. If people are fine with the inconsistencies and only follow the philosophies, that is still a huge problem, since they can get that morality and philosophy from a much more consistent and a much less insane source.

Seems to be a lot of duplicates in this list. I found two, different to the ones mentioned above. Not something you’d want to put on display anywhere.

I think that Rollingforest made an excellent point:

Even if you find away to explain away the contradiction, that does not explain why God wrote his holy book so that it could be so easily confused.

Both sides to this debate are able to strain to make these contradictions into whatever they want them to be. I happen to think that a lot of the contradictions I have seen are pretty damning to the bible’s credibility and some attempts to dismiss them can seem quite desperate. I can also understand that those who take the opposing view will see me as the one who is clutching at staws.

The important point is that whichever way you look at this chart, one of the conclusions you must draw is that the bible is hugely subject to interpretation. The fact that we are even having this debate about contradictions shows that the bible is not clear at all and one must choose a message, even if it is a stretch to see the one you want to see. The vast array of different Christian denominations all drawing from the same texts is further evidence of this.

To me this suggests that there is in fact no correct interpretation of the bible at all, no one original message or intent. It’s just a bunch of stories written by lots of different people. Not the word of god.

Also on the subject of copyist and translator errors, they might corrupt the original writings somewhat but without the first manuscripts who can say what is error and what is intended? I don’t know if there are any original manuscripts or not, but if so why on Earth would today’s bibles still be littered with these mistakes?

@Joel Barker:

“Literature. Have you ever read anything that helped you understand your life?”

Yeah, but it sure as shit wasn’t the Bible.

Literature. Have you ever read anything that helped you understand your life?

ironically, i think you’re more right than you know. so many believers of the bible struggle with issues like incest, rape and warmongering, murder, lying, infidelity, rioting, human sacrifice… the bible probably is a good guide for them, now that i think about it.

For instance, it is quite easy for a Christian to believe in evolution because it is pretty obvious that Genesis is a creation myth

this has *always* annoyed the crap out of me. if you accept that “well, some parts are just myth, darnit. ya got me there, pal” in the Minnesota Nice way that a lot of liberal Christians do, why then is it so hard to take the next step, and realize the whole thing is man-made, made up, not real, akin to Santa and the Easter Bunny? it’s not a big step. Christians and other believers in holy books that they confess are at least partly myth confuse the hell out of me. it’s like saying, “yeah, i love wine and steak and blue cheese and apple pie, but i’m not going to have any.”

The problem for those who recommend reading the bible metaphorically is: One need to understand a very complex concept when interpreting symbols. Every symbol has an equivalent. For example: If you say to a child: Your father is locked up at work. The child will take it concretely. That is because the child has not been exposed to the symbolic meaning of being locked up. The child has time and the concrete equivalent in order to unveil all the meanings. But if you say to an adult: And then they rape the angel. The man ignored all while his wife was raped and killed. Then he went to a cave with his 2 daughters and those 2 daughters fought as to who would sleep with the father. What the hell is the concrete equivalent?
Got it?

Who cares? You don’t need this chart to know that the stories in ALL ancient, “holy” scriptures are nothing more than mythology, ancient folk lore, parables, superstitions, whatever one chooses to label them. But the word of Gawd? C’mon. Who wrote these stories down? Gawd? No, scientifically ignorant, tent dwelling, sheep herders with a very basic understanding of the natural world. Only a tiny bit of independant and rational thought is needed to comprehend this.
“Mountain blow top and ocean swallow coast because Gawd angry.” Right.
Somewhere in the Amazon a witch doctor moans.

Wow. I wake up to this big list of things to respond to. Let me take them in order, as my green tea cools down.

@Jagyr. I am glad that you are moved by texts. I love text and feel that I a great deal of my constitution is from texts I have had the joy to absorb. TS Eliot, Douglas Adams, David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, Octavio Paz, Roland Barthes, Some textbook authors, and I suppose the The Bible are part of who I am, for better or worse. I feel pretty good about who I am and how I think and how I treat the world.

I would not want to be dogmatic about it and tell others what to read and not to read, however. That would encourage a very boring, homogeneous, and authoritarian world.

@MiketheInfidel: Firstly, I did not say The Bible is a singular poem, but a collection. And like I said, yeah, I do recall that a lot of it is pretty enjoyable. Song of Solomon certainly gets me thinking, and The Gospels are an amazing story, particularly if you read them all, seeing the same tale from a bunch of points of view.

Or that is my recollection. I have not read The Bible in years. I am not a Christian.

Your explication of Jesus’ sacrifice is one way of looking at the story. There are a lot of different ways to apply the story. I like your question “Why does a human sacrifice pay for sin?” I don’t quite understand myself, but in some churches the message is that we, all humans, can receive grace.

That gets pretty complicated from there on out and I get confused. But I know that some Christians are moved by their faith to work for peace and justice and equality and to give people the space in their lives to feel like they belong in the world and that they have a right to feel good.

Obviously I am no theologian. I certainly can’t defend every Christian viewpoint. Particularly the fundamentalist ones cause I don’t get where they are coming from at all. There are a ton of ways that Christianity is expressed. In literary criticism — and a ton of other humanity disciplines — people like to point out that there is always a gap of some sort between the sign and the signified. If the sign is “butter” then the gap is not that far and you can be pretty sure that when you ask for butter you will get the same thing most times.

When the sign is a massive collection of words written by a passel of different authors with vastly different purposes, different languages, and different cultural contexts from all the readers, we are going to have a pretty big gap to the signfied.

And if the signified is something metaphysical or moral as opposed to something substantial like butter (delicious butter) then the gap will be still further.

And into that gap enters the reader, with the opportunity to make his own connections. To constitute himself in the texts. In all texts.

Looping back around: There are a lot of ways to interpret The Bible, which people do to their own capabilities and convenience. Some of these interpretations suck. They are really dogmatic and assume that a single frail and flawed human, or a collection of them, have been able to read one book, parse the entire universe, and provide a single way that is right for everyone on the planet.

I don’t react well to dogmatic stuff, particularly when it generalizes huge swaths of people..

@chicago dyke. Sure, the whole thing is man made. It is written down. Some has some basis in history, or so I understand. But when we write things down, historical or not, we transform it by our choice of words, our arrangement of it, and our terrifically flawed memories. It becomes a work of art, it becomes about us.

You have helped me see why some people get confused by the mix of myth and history in The Bible, Chicago Dyke. I think of all writing as fictionalizing, so I don’t hold The Bible to any higher standard than any other text. You point out that it (they — once again multiple sources for the books of The Bible) is inconsistent and that is just fine with me.

The Bible is really written — you can agree with that, right? And there is some value in reading what someone took the time to right down.

@Lauren. Yeah fundamentalism is scary. Those statistics are scary. They scare liberal Christians, too. I think that any dogmatic stance should be attacked, particularly when it demands a single point of view from large swaths of people or unjustly attaches a negative label to a whole population.

The sense that Fundamentalism (as I understand it Fundamentalism is the belief that The Bible is the word of God) IS Christianity is obviously untrue. As atheiests who are proselytizing for your cause, I ask you:

Is Fundamentalism your enemy or is it the perfect straw man with which you can attack all of Christianity?

I would say that it is safe to say that the vast majority of Christians believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. Written by man of course but directed by God. Some is obviously metaphorical, some is historical, some is literal and some is not. But all is the word of God.

AS far as creationism, there are at least two camps- young earth creationists who take the more fundamentalist view and those that believe that God created the earth and all that’s in it, but that the story of creation is not a literal six day time period.

Mike,

I have looked at several more and find the same sort of problem. One, two and three for example. Some require a look at the context and an explanation, but I doubt most here would accept those so what is the point of going through them.

The idea that Jesus’ death could pay for our sins means that it only matters that God forgives us; the forgiveness of those whom we’ve harmed through our actions is utterly meaningless and not at all required for us to be sanctified. People love to say that this god is perfectly just, but there’s no justice in a system where the suffering of the people who we’ve actually wronged is totally immaterial to our salvation.

Would you really want your salvation dependent upon whether someone on Earth forgives you for the harm you did? If you harmed someone here in earth and they choose not to forgive you you salvation would be lost?

Salvation is not a ledger system. For it to be that way would be unjust. you would never know where you are on the ledger system and what side of the line you are on. The assurance of salvation from the grace of God through belief in his son Jesus and the atonement for our sins comes through our belief in Him and what he did for us. Now if that “belief” is followed by continuing to act as you did before, harm people, be hateful, etc, then you have to question whether you believed in the first place. God knows a man’s heart, not us. But when you truly believe and accept Christ as your savior you become a changed person. Does that mean you won’t sin again? Of course not. But your reaction to others when you do should be to accept the harm you have done, seek forgiveness and become a better person.

But why does it bother you if other people believe it?
The belief is not the problem – it’s what people choose to do about it. If I try and impose my views on other people, then that’s bad. What my views are, if I keep quiet about them, is a seperate matter.

@Jon and Joel Barker

Fundamentalism is not a straw man upon which atheists hack away ignorant of the myriad interpretations accepted by liberal religionists. It is simply not possible to address the multitudes of idiosyncrasies with regard to the interpretation of texts and the prescription of behaviors in anything like a systemic fashion (even among fundamentalists- they are a more heterogeneous group than is commonly thought). For the atheist looking on at liberal religion, one is as apt to find myriad differences from person to person and group to group which marks any particular interpretation as largely arbitrary if not downright capricious. Rather than address an individual’s interpretation, an atheist involved in debunking religion is interested in persuading people that the entire enterprise is ill thought out. By examining religious texts with a minimum of interpretation, an atheist hopes to avoid claims of bias while demonstrating that the bare texts are flawed and should therefore not be regarded as divinely inspired or otherwise special. In watching those of us who are liberal christians twisting and turning to make a coherent whole out of discordant passages, the atheist primarily points to the lack of necessity of doing so once one stops attributing a special status to the bible.

Fundamentalism alone is not the problem. So using it as a strawman does not address the issues that an atheist may take with religion. While fundamentalism/literalism may be the most caustic form of religion, liberal religion can likewise be a source of ill for individuals and society. Additionally, liberal religion provides a milieu in which fundamentalism can take hold from its insistence on venerating some texts/practices as sacrosanct.

Joel Barker

some atheists are terrifically dogmatic and rigid as Christian Fundamentalists

I am sure that in a large group whose only connection is a lack of belief in gods what you say is true for some. However that is entirely irrelevant.

We’re discussing the contradictions and inconsistencies of the Bible. The point is that these exist. In order to reconcile these problems the religious adherent has to jump through some mental hoops to justify them or treat their holy book as poetry and ignore the problems with it.

But why does it bother you if other people believe it?

So when you meet someone who believes in Scientology, that Lord Xenu existed and seeded the Earth with thetans, it doesn’t ‘bother’ you that they believe in a ludicrous cult with absolutely no evidence?

I know hypotheticals are useless and you’ll just give whatever answer is most convenient to you but we all all know that in reality no one gives any respect to Scientology no matter how private they are about their beliefs.

Holy crap this is awesome!

Definitely some trolling going on here. Lots of names I didn’t see before. That indicates that this entry was linked somewhere.

No problem – it’s important to check we were both talking about the same thing.
I was using ‘liberal’ as distinct from both ‘fundamentalist’, and ‘mainstream’, possibly even subconsciously defining it as ‘benign’.
(I don’t know myself which is the accepted term, but as long as we both understand what each other means…)
Given that, I can’t disagree with a word of your last post.
When I’ve had more coffee, and am more awake, I’ll comment more.

if there are so many ways to interpret the bible, so many ways to read it, whether to take it literally or not then you might as well be creating your own religion. As far as i am concerned, there should only be oNE way of reading/interpreting it since it is supposedly the word of god.

@Holly
Have you looked at the history of Christianity (particularly the Roman Catholic Church) from late Antiquity to about the 17th century? “Money or power” pretty much sum up the entirety of their motivations. For much of that time they acted pretty much as kings, trying to exert as much influence over people as possible. They amassed immense riches and were deeply involved in political affairs. For centuries it was impossible to become a king or ruler (or do some things when you were) without the blessing of the church, which naturally led to more than a few wars. In some countries (Germany for example), some bishops were powerful rulers – with the secular powers of an earl/duke/prince in their own right. The clergy had their hands in literally everything. It was all about power.

I’ll just stick with “where’s the objective evidence of your particular god ?” If you get into splitting hairs in the bible, you’re on their territory, and they can BS if you haven’t studied it thoroughly, which is too much work.

I agree. Why bother picking apart their holy book when there are thousands of deities and scriptures from many different world religions? The Bible has nothing to do with atheism. Sadly, our culture makes it hard to discuss atheism without addressing the beliefs of the dominant religion in our society. I get tired of playing that game.

Is Fundamentalism your enemy or is it the perfect straw man with which you can attack all of Christianity?

It’s easy to pick on fundamentalism because it’s scary and extreme and quite obviously immoral, but that doesn’t mean we should go soft on other forms of Christianity. Obviously liberal Methodists may have more palatable social views, but their beliefs are every bit as false as those of their fundamentalist brethren. If we’re going to “attack” Christianity, we should do so because their supernatural assertions make no sense and are completely unsupported, not because some forms of the religion are nice and the others are nasty. Although I will admit it’s easier to feel comfortable with people who reject the nasty parts of their belief system. When Christians rid their theology of concepts like hell and sin, that does away with most of the harmful bits that I can think of. The supernatural beliefs still aren’t true, but at that point they’re (mostly) benign.

Hm – I’ve registered, posted on the forums, but can’t log in to post here – do I need to register seperately?
Anyway..
@Anna said:

Obviously liberal Methodists may have more palatable social views, but their beliefs are every bit as false as those of their fundamentalist brethren. If we’re going to “attack” Christianity, we should do so because their supernatural assertions make no sense and are completely unsupported, not because some forms of the religion are nice and the others are nasty

So, you don’t like the fact that their beliefs have a supernatural basis, even though ethically, you can’t necessarily fault them? Doesn’t that imply that a dishonest atheist is better than an honest theist?
(Not meaning to imply anyone here is dishonest, but hopefully you see what I mean).
To me, someone can believe what they like – it’s their actions for their beliefs that matter.

Jon,

Hm – I’ve registered, posted on the forums, but can’t log in to post here – do I need to register seperately?

I’ve never had to register or log in to post comments. Once Hemant has verified your e-mail address, the software should recognize you automatically whenever you try to leave a comment. I only have to enter my information once, and it remembers me until I clear my cache.

So, you don’t like the fact that their beliefs have a supernatural basis, even though ethically, you can’t necessarily fault them?

Well, it’s not really a question of liking. I mean, yes, I suppose I don’t like that people have beliefs that are patently false, simply because I think it’s better for people to believe true things rather than false things. That’s not just about religion, but about everything. Whether I like the beliefs doesn’t matter. Reincarnation, for example, is a nice idea, but I don’t think it’s true, and for that reason, I don’t think people should believe in it.

Doesn’t that imply that a dishonest atheist is better than an honest theist?

I’m not seeing the connection? I didn’t say anything about honesty. People’s private beliefs aren’t a moral question to me, as long as the people are not promoting things (like eternal torture) that are immoral. So if someone believes in a warm-fuzzy god and a warm-fuzzy afterlife, I’m not going to call them immoral. I don’t think it makes them any less moral, just like I’m not more moral because I lack belief in the supernatural. I think you measure morality by actions, not thoughts. I don’t believe in thought crime.

To me, someone can believe what they like – it’s their actions for their beliefs that matter.

Exactly. And I fully support people being able to believe what they like. It’s just that I wish they wouldn’t believe things that aren’t true. But of course it’s not my decision to make. If their beliefs make them happy and don’t hurt anyone else, I’m not going to be as hard on them as I would be on someone who believes really awful things. For example, two of my closest friends are “symbolic Pagans” (their term) and I think their beliefs are completely benign. I cannot fault them morally, even though I feel the beliefs are silly and untrue.

@Anna
Sorry, I wasn’t clear with:

Doesn’t that imply that a dishonest atheist is better than an honest theist?

What I meant was ‘is it more important to have a nonreligious mindset than it is to have good ethics?’
From the sounds of it we agree that the answer to that is No. People can believe what they like, as long as they behave morally – I think we only disagree that in an ideal world, you’d prefer peoples beliefs not to be based on religion, wheras I don’t mind.

While you can’t prove the existence or nonexistence of god, you can test some specific claims made by the religious. For example, the claim that prayer heals, which has been tested. My understanding is that once you take out the part where the patient is told they are being prayed for (placebo effect), there’s no statistically significant effect. I recall that just telling people they’re being prayed for, even when they really aren’t, is a lot more beneficial than praying for them and not telling them.