Christians: In your honest, non-antagonistic opinion, why do you think that atheists are atheist?

I encourage Christians to answer honestly and Atheists to respond with correction or affirmation without either party taking things personally or becoming combative.

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Richard65 · M

I went to a Catholic school, was utterly indoctrinated from childhood to be faithful, go to church, and pray to God, etc. Ironically, that same school educated me to the level that my intellect began to question my faith to the point I found it harder and harder to retain my belief in God. We had a timid religious teacher and she'd regularly be unable to pacify an unruly class who also seemed to lack faith and her lessons often descended into mild anarchy.

I looked at the Bible teachings as if it were evidence in a legal case and reasoned that none of it would be acceptable in a courtroom. It was all hearsay, the events described many years after the time they allegedly happened. They were written by people who often weren't witness to the events, but heard it second or third hand. The "evidence" was also presented in an ancient language nobody spoke anymore and was subject to multiple translations in different languages by a myriad people who often mistranslated an already contentious text. It all just seemed ludicrous and going to church appeared arcane and somewhat pointless.

Pikachu

@Richard65

It was all heresay, the events described many years after the time they allegedly happened.

That's a very justified conclusion.
The justification for the hearsay appears usually to be something along the lines of "Well why would they lie?".

SamInAZ · 46-50, M

@Richard65 nobody speaks Aramaic or Greek anymore? Are you sure about that?

Diotrephes · 70-79, M

@SamInAZ The original Bible was written in Latin. All other language versions are translations.

walabby · M

@Diotrephes Seriously?? XD

Diotrephes · 70-79, M

@walabby You couldn't find a legitimate authentic copy of a complete Bible as a book in any language for all of the gold in the solar system that was written before the first three master copies were written in the late 680s- early 690s by a comittee based in England who wrote them in Latin, the language of the Catholic church. One copy still exists. You will never, ever, see a real copy that was written before that time.

walabby · M

@Diotrephes Ahhh... You are talking about a complete bible, and not the books contained therein. St Jerome was the instigator of the first Latin translation, I think...

Diotrephes · 70-79, M

@walabby There was no guy named "Jerome" because there were no "J" words at that time. And there is no legitimate copy of the Bible he is claimed to have written.

walabby · M

@Diotrephes He translated the Vulgate from Hebrew in the late fourth century. Previous Latin translations were from the Septuagint...
"Jerome, also known as Jerome of Stridon, was a Catholic priest, confessor, theologian, and historian; he is commonly known as Saint Jerome. Jerome was born at Stridon, a village near Emona on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia. Wikipedia
Born: Stridon
Died: 30 September 420 AD, Bethlehem
Notable work: Vulgate; De viris illustribus; Chronicon
Place of burial: Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome, Italy
Full name: Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus
Attributes: Lion, cardinal attire, cross, skull, trumpet, owl, books and writing material
Education: Catechetical School of Alexandria"

Note that his birth name was Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus. No wonder that it was shortened!

Diotrephes · 70-79, M

@walabby Christianity was a verbal religion in ancient times. There was no central publishing house churning out Bibles to be sent to the outer reaches of the area. Sure, there were bits and pieces of various manuscripts but there was not a single book that had all of the fairytale.

In the 630s-early 640s Uthman had a committee write the Koran. Once the Pope heard about that he knew that he had to have the Christian fairytale compiled into a single book So, it was decided to assemble a committee of storytellers, writers, and artists and base it in far off England, safe from the rampaging Muslims. They had to raise a herd of about 2,000 cows for the vellum to write on. Their output was 3 master copies, written in Latin, the language of the Catholic church. Each copy weighed about 75 pounds each and one copy still exists. The Bible was written as a counter to the Islamic Koran. The Christians were then able to inspire the ignorant Crusaders to engage in all kinds of barbaric acts that they probably wouldn't have done i=on their own but the Bible examples where the God character commanded his minions to do those things so that made it acceptable.

Remember, the Bible does not teach morality; it teaches complete obedience and total loyalty to the Boss (God, the chief priest, the emperor, the family father). Disobedience to any of them warrants the death penalty. It's actually like a military code of conduct (total obedience to the guy in charge) for the masses. It even says so.

There are some chapters in the book of Sirach that shows how easy it is to spin the fairytale. Read chapters 44-50 = https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Sirach+44-50&version=CEB

So,as you can see, all you need to know about the characters is their names and a sentence or two about what they did. You can then write your own Bible and it might turn out close to the one that exists now. And it would be very easy to preach to the ignorant masses about those characters because there was nothing that said otherwise. But once the fairytale was actually written down and classified as "real" everyone had to stick to the script.

The storytellers and writers had some fun by including countless conflicting ideas to show that it was just an elaborate hoax. SInce there was no objective editor to discover them, they became true. Today, we can easily find those passages by using a computer. It is very hard to do that just by reading thin page after thin page of paper.

In conclusion, you couldn't find an earlier authentic Bible in any language on this planet for all of the gold in the entire galaxy.