This question popped into my head the other day and it defines my position on everything. I question everything.

More than anything else this question applies to the bible, a book that claims to have answers.

Tags: Bible

1. Do you believe the bat is a bird? No you don't, you know it's a mammal. Science one, bible zero.
2. Do you believe the Earth is flat? No you don't, you know it's round. Science two, bible zero.
3. Do you believe the Earth is the center of the solar system? No you don't, you know the sun is. Science three, bible zero.

For you to truly believe the bible you need to believe that the Earth is flat. If you do not believe the Earth is flat then you deny the teachings of the bible. If there is a single error in the bible then any part can also be in error. If the bible were the word of god then he would have known the Earth is round and the bible would not state the contrary.

There is enormous amounts of evidence for evolution. Why, if your bible is wrong about so many things do you not believe the same science that tells you about evolution?

This is how religion retards intelligence, it forces you to deny evidence.

It doesn't matter how you say it, The Son of God, The Sun of God, The Sun God, God of the Sun, God's Son or God's Sun.

I haven't done much research on this but it's crossed my mind several times. Many civilizations worshipped the Sun. It seems to me that the Sun may be the most worshipped item ever. If you think about this coincidence it's almost seems farfetched. Of all the things Jesus represents, he just happens to be called the son of God. Think of the things he or she could have been called or referred to as. Mother, Father, daughter, King, Queen, proper name. There are many more examples of what the name or reference could have been. But of all the possible references it just happens to phonetically the same as Sun. That's a pretty big coincidence.

Christmas was the hijacking of an existing Winter celebration (The Winter Solstice). Jesus' life is littered with plagiarism from previous prophets. Unicorns, really?

Now take into account that Mary was not a virgin, but a maiden (mistranslation, look it up) and you have a man, "Jesus", who was born to a man and a woman (if in fact this individual ever existed) not the immaculate conception (a product of the original mistranslation) that is claimed in the current translations of the Bible.

You can begin to see that the current beliefs of Christians are founded in plagiarism, mistranslated text and Bible books that have been selectively removed (Book of Judas and Book of Jasher).

Why can Christians read the Bible and see the mistakes (the Earth is not the center of the universe) yet think other parts are without error? Even a simple story of the Bible will be taken as a exact representation of the real story. This doesn't make sense, if any part of the Bible is in error, then that proves that any other part of the Bible can also be in error.

I've begun to understand that Karen doesn't care what the Bible says. What I mean by that is she's not concerned about the accuracy of the Bible. She believes in a personal God. I'm not really sure how you can separate God from the Bible because without the Bible there is no God. Regardless of any inaccuracies I point out in the Bible it doesn't affect her relationship with her personal God. I understand it but I don't think it makes sense. The only way I can relate is to imagine an imaginary friend that you love like a real person.

Now we have the problem of God and Jesus. If you can only speak to God through Jesus and the Bible is wrong about Jesus then how do you know what to believe? What I've found is that most Christians simply believe whatever comforts them. So the nuances between two Christians beliefs are small and the main difference is that each is comforted by something different. I don't think it's even possible to convince a Christian that something they take comfort in could be in error.

So who or what do you believe in?

Which one? From which religion? Which translation?

No. I have never read the Bible from beginning to end (though I tried in the Army). I have never read the Bible entirely (every single page). I have never read the Bible to prove a point. I have looked to the Bible for wisdom. I am reading the Bible online.

I'm not a book reader, I could probably list all of the books I've ever read in under 60 seconds. Karen couldn't list all of the books she's read in 2007 in 60 seconds.

I do, however, spend about 8 to 12 hours a day on my computer, I read more online in a year than most do in a lifetime. I'm a research fanatic and since becoming an atheist I have researched and read the Bible online. I still can't bring myself to read it from beginning to end or try and memorize it for the sake of knowing it.

Since becoming an atheist I know more about the bible than my prior 36 years. Because I now have an interest in why it's so messed up and why people believe it. If I could quote the Bible like some can, I would be a horribly obnoxious atheist.

I'm bothered by people who trust the Bible yet discount the Old Testament because of the New Testament. If the New Testament changed the rules then why hasn't God updated the Old Testament and removed the unnecessary rules? Imaginary characters can't make real changes, that's why. There isn't another single book I can think of that would leave in the old rules after changing them. If God was real, and he wrote a book, it would be the best damn book ever written and everyone would read it. But he's not. The Bible is not a good book, it's schizophrenic, hard to understand, contradicts itself and difficult for people to agree on the meaning.

Now that I'm and atheist I don't really care that I never read the Bible. I know people who have and they don't understand what they read. Besides, now that I'm an atheist I'm well aware that the Bible was written by men for men. So I don't really feel like I missed out. Had I read the Bible before now, I would have become an atheist much sooner. I believe we have so many christians in America simply because they haven't read their Bible.

Never accuse me of simply passing along or believing what I've been told by others about any subject. My opinions are mine, after my own research. If I simply believed what I was told I would still be a christian and I would believe banks are looking out for my financial interests.

Have you noticed that manuals get updated when new information is learned. You certainly couldn't use a 1967 auto manual to repair a 2007 auto.

But the bible doesn't get updated. Many people claim to use it as a manual for their lives. But why would you use a 2000 year old book to decide how to live today.

In the same way that a 1967 and 2007 auto has 4 wheels and a steering wheel, humans 2000 years ago and today have two legs and two arms. But what runs them (auto engine/human brain) is profoundly different. In reference to our brain we don't think the same way, work the same way or live the same way as humans from 2000 years ago. We are significantly smarter than humans 2000 years ago, why would you use a book written for a 2000 year old human mind on today's mind? "You shouldn't."

The bible still refers to the Earth as the center of the universe, this is incorrect. Yet the bible has not been updated to reflect this new information.

Therefore the bible is not a manual, it is a novel.

After a conversation with my wife earlier I realized, had she been born 500 years ago she would believe the Earth is the center of the universe.

This is important because today she does not believe that. Why? Because of the empirical evidence that science has proven. You would be considered a lunatic today if you believed the Earth is the center of the universe. The bible has many references that have been dis-proven through science. Realistically speaking it's only a matter of time before science dis-proves even more of what the bible teaches it's followers.

"Think of all the answers we have today that once was a scientific answer and was replaced with a proven religious one. You won't be able to think of one, but turn that around and the list gets very long. Think of all the religious answers we once had that are now explained by a scientific one." Sam Harris

I heard Mike Huckabee say that he would always refer to the bible answer if it conflicted with science, in which I told my wife, "Mike Huckabee believes the Earth is flat and is the center of the universe." In reality he probably (I use that word loosely) doesn't, which means he picks and choses what to believe is true.

Just as many people ignore the bible referring to the Earth being flat, 100 years from now believers will fully believe in evolution and ignore that part of the bible that it conflicts with. They will reject Genesis and focus on the parts of the bible science has yet to dis-prove.

An example of religion interfering with and holding back science is Galileo's discovery of the Heliocentrism in 1616 (the theory that the sun is at the center of the Universe). The Catholic Church banned the reprinting of Galileo's work for 100 years because they contradicted the Bible. On 31 October 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed regret for how the Galileo affair was handled, and officially conceded that the Earth was not stationary, as the result of a study conducted by the Pontifical Council for Culture.

This example is exactly the reason evolution is not being taught properly to our children today. Religion still has a tiny hold over this evolution, but it will fall through and evolution will be taught in the same way Heliocentrism is.

Side Note: Heliocentrism is a scientific theory as is the theory of gravity and the theory of evolution. All of these theories have enough evidence to be considered facts.

The people today that don't believe in evolution are tantamount to those people 500 years ago that thought the Earth was the center of the universe. And they will be replaced with people who do believe in evolution. And so on and so on until bible believers have nothing left to cling to and the bible is little more than an ancient novel.

It's only a matter of time until science disproves almost every aspect of the bible and people are capable of living without a God.

My wife wants me to ready the bible thinking I may find some truths in there. The problem is that I'm reading parts of the bible with an un-believer's eyes and I'm taking it literally. If this is God's book, then he should be able to protect it's translations through the years. Karen told me this. But even she doesn't believe that because she's taking a class that literally translates the original hebrew text. So when I showed her of an obvious mistake in the bible she told me that it was a mis-translation.

I've argued that you couldn't trust the bible when I was a believer because of the mistranslations.

This is an easy one for you. Go to Wikipedia and look up bat. You know, that little flying creature. Now open your bible to Deuteronomy 14 and read from 14:11 to 14:18.

Did you catch that? The bible is referring to a bat as a bird. That's a pretty big mistake for God to make in his own book.

I found this awesome bible online that has some stuff annotated for the reader. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/

The more I read the bible, the more it proves to me that it was written by men that believed the earth was flat (Isaiah 11:12)(Mathew 4:8) and the center of the universe.

You ever see a commercial for something that's free? Of course you have, and your mind knows that there is always a cost for something that's free. You know it's some kind of trick.

Even the Army professes that Freedom isn't free.

How does this apply to the Bible? The Bible tells you that you've been given free will. What it doesn't tell you is that you have to give up your free mind. And many people fall for this trick.