I was a pretty lost kid and I tried lots of drugs and alcohol and when they didn’t help much I allowed myself to be brought to Christ by some lovely schoolfriends. I had a fabulous time hanging with them and families, the speaking in tongues stuff at church seemed odd but they were just so nice and loving and I felt like I belonged somewhere at last… then we all realised I was queer.
In those months I read the bible cover to cover several times. I tried really hard but all that did was convince me that it could be used to prop up any hateful beliefs you wanted to prop up and I just couldn’t see how anyone came away from it giving it rave reviews. When it was used to tell me my very being was wrong I went back to the drugs. I saw God a lot more via smack than church but I knew it wasn’t reality.
…an atheist who has never read the Bible… Intersection of “atheist” and “people who haven’t read the Bible”.
Heck, I expect people who have never read the Bible to be familiar with the expression no matter what their religion happens to be, because the expression gets used frequently enough outside religious circles. What I don’t necessarily expect anybody who has never read the Bible (not necessarily end-to-end) or attended church is to be able to tell the parable, nor anybody (including those whose nominal religion is some form of Christianity) to be familiar with the sociopolitical background behind the choice of representative figures.
But the same is true for people being familiar with, say, Romeo and Juliet without having ever watched the play (either as written by Shakespeare, or any of its cinematic redos), or with Don Juan without really knowing anything about him beyond his name. Or knowing that “the number of the beast” is the name of a song by Metallica… all three of which I’ve encountered.
All those are expressions people know because they’re part of our popular culture, without necessarily being familiar with the background.
Assuming you don’t want theists to vote in the poll, so I didn’t. If you do, I have read the entire Bible including the begots. As a matter of fact, I just finished listening to the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles on audiobook. I used to be able to read Greek, so I read the New Testament in the original language, although I can’t any more.
I have read the Old Testament probably a dozen or more times, and the New Testament more like fifteen, end-to-end. The lectionary of the Lutheran church goes on a three year cycle, and I have been going to church all my life, so do the math if you like. I have also read about the Bible, devotional, textual criticism, all that.
Atheist here. I went to a Catholic high school, which means I’ve had two and a half years of Bible classes, during which we read the Bible cover to cover and took notes. Our Bibles had some apocryphal bits in them, such as the Book of Tobit and the 13th chapter of Daniel.
Skimmed, I guess. Was forced to go to Sunday School until I left my parent’s house, so had plenty of exposure to the stories. Quite enough to be culturally literate wrt Christianity. I’ve read large portions here and there and I’ve tried to read it cover -> cover several times, but don’t ever get anywhere near. There are just frankly large portions that aren’t very interesting. I have a King James version on my bookshelf (I can see it right now actually) that I bought 20 years ago and use when I need to familiarize myself or research something.
Other: Read much of it, attended serious Bible studies, took university courses in Biblical history. Confident that I know more about the actual contents of the Bible than most of the mouth-breathers who claim they are “Christians” but don’t know the history of the Bible or even their own denomination.
And yet the same retard brigade insists I am ignorant and that if I only gave it a try, I would realize how wrong I am.
Trouble finding a cite for it, so take it for what it’s worth, but, I was raised Lutheran, and I do remember my pastor talking about many parts of the bible that are never used in Lectionary Readings.
Hmmm, not specific to Lutheran, but this talks about the lectionaries in general.
Someone else can do the math to see how much of the rest is covered. For instance, I am not seeing kayaker’s favorite passage, in fact, it seems to go straight from Ezekiel 18 to 33, skipping over everything in between.
You’ve read it cover to cover a bit, so you’ve got it covered, but anyone who just shows up and listens is only getting a part of the whole.
I was also raised Catholic from birth, spent 12 years in Catholic school, and was even an altar boy. So of course I am closer to skimmed than reading the entire thing. I’ve read both the Quran and Tao Te Ching though.
I put “other” because I’ve certainly never read it all the way through, and I wouldn’t say I’ve skimmed it either, because that means that you’ve at least briefly looked over all parts of it. I’ve read selected bits of it over the years, various specific stories and such, but that crap is so badly written I could never subject myself to reading the whole thing. I have better fiction to read.
And for the record, my reasons for being an atheist are not the sort of thing that any amount of additional reading could squelch - unless the book has the power to brainwash or something.
I cannot say I never touched it, but I also cannot say I ever skimmed it. I’ve read a few verses, including the beginning of genesis and the description of the kashruth a few times and I had ten verses from the bible read to me 190 days a year for 12 years, as required by commonwealth law at the time. I probably got the 23 psalm several hundred times. My family didn’t own a bible as I discovered one day when we got a school assignment to read something in the bible and ??? (don’t remember what I was supposed to do). While my parents would not have identified as atheists, there was just no religion in our lives. Of myself I say that as far as certain knowledge, I am an agnostic, but as a matter of belief I am an atheist.
I went to Sunday School starting when I was 8 years old.
When I was 15 (having read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and the Gospels thoroughly), I asked my teacher if there was any proof of God. He admitted there wasn’t (he was a decent chap) and I became an atheist.
I did win the Religious Education prize at school about that time (mainly tested on Acts in the New Testament) - even though I don’t believe in God I still read the Bible and answered questions on it.
Sorry, I have to nitpick, it was an Iron Maiden song. It’s what we dopers do ;).
As for reading the Bible. Three times, cover to cover, special parts like the whole New Testament, Genesis, Exodus, Kings, Chronicles, Samuel and Judges more often, those are my favorite parts. But let’s not talk about the minor prophets and, heaven (heh!) forbid, Maccabees ever again (hint: booooring). Doing all this reading long after I had become an atheist (or rather, after realizing the concept with about 12 years, seeing that I am one), out of general interest (I had learned bits and parts through Catholic upbringing and certainly knew about parables like the good Samaritan and others), I couldn’t help but wonder every time how a coherent religion or even a moral code could be derived from this hodgepodge.
When debating atheism on line in 1975 (on PLATO) I said that I’d read the Bible cover to cover and report if someone sent me one. Someone did, and I did.
Reading the naughty parts not often mentioned by believers certainly helped me to reinforce my atheism.
There are many tropes known to the general public who have never read the original, like the good Samaritan story. How many who know “to be or not to be” have read Hamlet?
I’ve read both the Quran and Tao Te Ching though.