After some recent conversations with some religious people I have made a rather surprising discovery: A great deal of people who profess themselves as Christian have NO DAMN IDEA about the bible. I mean, wow.....
So I did a little research on this issue of biblical ignorance and found out that this is quite common. The percentages are stunning to me, and you can read more about it here (http://www.bible.org/illus.php?topic_id=152).
Now I split my time between living in China and the US although currently I'm living in western Pennsylvania (where I was born and raised), and there are no shortages of churches around here if you know what I mean. And as far as I know, I am the only atheist at my job, and even within my own family. But I'm really curious to know about others' experience in different parts of the country. What do you find to be the level of sophistication of Christians (or in fact any religion) in your area? Does anyone feel discriminated against at work or school?
I hope to hear from you all,
Thanks,
- AQ
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Most christians I've talked to (or debated) have precious little knowledge of the bible. And most of it consists of new testament excerpts.
When I relate some of the OT stories I usually get dumbfounded looks...
Exactly my experience, but I find debating people especially difficult for the simple fact that they REFUSE to even defend their positions seriously.
They just keep repeating that stupid phrase over and over again - "It's just my faith, man....It's just my faith."
I happen to think that they really don't believe it. To me, it's almost the same as a child who is JUST on the verge of realizing that mom and dad are the ones putting the presents under the tree. And they instantly put up a wall in their minds and close their eyes and say "I believe in you Santa, I believe in you."
Boy you are dead on about the OT stories though. I'm sure you also have heard religious people twist themselves into a virtual linguistic pretzel trying to square OT tales with our modern day morality and knowledge. Funny stuff, but also so pathetic....
Not to mention the OT stories point to a god who is morally relativistic: i.e. - slavery was ok then, but not now... Polygamy, genocide, etc. etc. were all condoned in the old testament, but we recognize them as evil today.
Religious people have ALL the explaining to do here.
Post a Comment