{"id":4576,"date":"2012-06-17T10:01:45","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T14:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2012-08-07T22:41:07","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T02:41:07","slug":"does-the-bible-make-people-atheists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html","title":{"rendered":"Does the Bible make people atheists?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019m often confused by two assumptions I have heard many atheists make: first, that Christians don\u2019t actually read the Bible, and second, that if they did they couldn\u2019t help but see the inconsistencies and atrocities and become atheists. Why am I confused? First, because while I\u2019m sure there are plenty <\/em>of Christians who don\u2019t read the Bible, everyone in the evangelical community where I grew up read it on a daily basis, and not just the easier books like the Gospels. Second, because I read the Bible through numerous times before I even graduated from high school, and doing so didn\u2019t shake my fundamentalist\/evangelical faith one iota.<\/p>\n

This issue was brought to my mind by a recent article on the Friendly Atheist<\/a>, which reported that the British secretary of education is sending a new copy of the King James Bible to every school in England in order to help students appreciate England\u2019s cultural heritage. Richard Dawkins surprised many by coming out in full support of the initiative for the reasons I mentioned above:<\/p>\n

I have an ulterior motive for wishing to contribute to Gove\u2019s scheme.\u00a0People who do not know the Bible well have been gulled into thinking it is a good guide to morality.<\/strong> \u2026 I have even heard the cynically misanthropic opinion that, without the Bible as a moral compass, people would have no restraint against murder, theft and mayhem.The surest way to disabuse yourself of this pernicious falsehood is to read the Bible itself.
\n<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

American Atheists\u2019\u00a0Dave Silverman\u00a0took this same idea a step further several years ago in a\u00a0New York Times<\/em> article:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have heard many times that atheists know more about religion than religious people,\u201d Mr. Silverman said. \u201cAtheism is an effect of that knowledge, not a lack of knowledge.\u00a0I gave a Bible to my daughter. That\u2019s how you make atheists.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thus for Dawkins and Silverman, reading the Bible is \u201cthe surest way\u201d to lead people to question its use as a moral authority or even to lead people to become atheists. Dawkins of course does clarify that he\u2019s especially talking about \u201cpeople who do not know the Bible,\u201d but Silverman saves no punches in stating that reading the Bible is \u201chow you make atheists.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I asked for questions<\/a> for the Raised Quiverfull project, one reader suggested that I ask how often the project participants read the Bible growing up:<\/p>\n

Also, I\u2019d be interested to know how free women and children in this movement are to actually read their bibles? Are they guided away from \u201cdangerous\u201d passages or downright forbidden from reading any particular parts without authorisation, or is this one aspect of life that isn\u2019t strictly controlled? I come from a liberal Christian background but was made an atheist largely thanks to reading\u00a0the bible. I understand that a lot of other people have had the same experience and that many Christians simply don\u2019t bother to open it. What I\u2019d like to know, is the percentage of people who can read the bible, in all its most gruesome detail, and not question their beliefs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This reader was echoing what Dawkins and Silverman said, and the way she asked the question she clearly expected to hear the participants say that they had been restricted from reading the Bible or kept away from certain passages. If I\u2019m correct about this, her expectations were definitely not met\u00a0when the Raised Quiverfull project participants responded<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Joe<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say that I have read through the whole Bible about forty times. \u2026<\/p>\n

Latebloomer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We kids had to read the Bible by ourselves daily as part of our\u00a0homeschooling curriculum. \u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n

Libby Anne<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We all read the Bible daily. It was sort of a requirement. \u2026<\/p>\n

Lisa<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2026 Us kids, we were encouraged to take off a few minutes each day for private prayer time. Reading, studying, interpreting certain chapters was also part of our daily\u00a0home schooling. \u2026<\/p>\n

Mattie<\/a>:<\/p>\n

We were supposed to read the Bible every day. \u2026<\/p>\n

Melissa<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2026 We each received a King James Bible of our own at around age 8 or so, and we were expected to read it privately and consistently. \u2026<\/p>\n

Sarah<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2026 We were also expected to read our bibles alone. Any mistakes we made were attributed to fact that we \u201chadn\u2019t spent enough time in the word.\u201d I read my bible multiple times a day\u2026.<\/p>\n

Sierra<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I was raised to read the Bible every day and have a personal relationship with Jesus. \u2026<\/p>\n

Tricia:<\/p>\n

In my home, Bibles were everywhere and they were constantly being read, that is we read them daily or sometimes a couple times a day, both as a family and individually. \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, I read the Bible every day the entire time I was growing up, and in the process I read straight through it multiple times. My mom read the Bible aloud to us every morning after breakfast. We went to a Bible club called AWANA and memorized hundreds of Bible verses. We learned about the different books of the Bible, learned to find our way around the Bible, learned what the Bible said about everything<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a mistake that fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals are often called \u201cBible believing Christians.\u201d For fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals, the Bible is of foremost importance. They know <\/em>what is in the Bible, including the crazy Old Testament laws and the genocides. They read <\/em>it. They almost worship <\/em>it.<\/p>\n

Based on my experience at least, the idea that if a fundamentalist or conservative evangelical just read the Bible for once they would see that it\u2019s a bunch of hooey strikes me as ludicrous.<\/p>\n

I wonder if it\u2019s perhaps different for moderate or liberal Christians, who do not, after all, grow up in a climate where reading the Bible daily is emphasized almost above everything else. Perhaps for those whose pastors have glossed over things like the Old Testament genocides, reading the Bible would indeed come as a shock. Perhaps for some, reading the Bible might lead to a questioning of Christianity itself. Or, as a reading of yesterday\u2019s post indicates, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

What are your experiences with this issue?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m often confused by two assumptions I have heard many atheists make: first, that Christians don\u2019t actually read the Bible, and second, that if they did they couldn\u2019t help but see the inconsistencies and atrocities and become atheists. Why am I confused? First, because while I\u2019m sure there are plenty of Christians who don\u2019t read […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","tag-bible"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes the Bible make people atheists?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm often confused by two assumptions I have heard many atheists make: first, that Christians don't actually read the Bible, and second, that if they did\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does the Bible make people atheists?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm often confused by two assumptions I have heard many atheists make: first, that Christians don't actually read the Bible, and second, that if they did\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Love, Joy, Feminism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-17T14:01:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-08-08T02:41:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Libby Anne\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html\",\"name\":\"Does the Bible make people atheists?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-17T14:01:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-08T02:41:07+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\"},\"description\":\"I'm often confused by two assumptions I have heard many atheists make: first, that Christians don't actually read the Bible, and second, that if they did\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/06\/does-the-bible-make-people-atheists.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Does the Bible make people atheists?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/\",\"name\":\"Love, Joy, Feminism\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/#\/schema\/person\/fae465c1bbb5cbdf26c9e73bfd1b73d2\",\"name\":\"Libby Anne\",\"description\":\"Libby Anne grew up in a large evangelical homeschool family highly involved in the Christian Right. 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