Do the religious of this board think atheists should read the sacred texts of the main religions so that their debating comes from a position of better knowledge of religion?
I personally have a recent curiosity about reading the bible from front to back so that my thoughts against religion have more credibility than they had before.
Many atheists and agnostics are atheists and agnostics in part because they have studied the Bible, Quran, etc…
And many have studied the Bible, Quran, etc, in order to bolster their own arguments when the subject comes up. So yes, if you want to, it’s entirely appropriate for you to do so. But don’t read the Bible from front to back…it’s a lousy read that way. My suggestion would be to find one of the webpages that outline a study course on it and follow that (minus the meditations and praying, of course).
If atheists only read the Bible and the Koran, at best they could debate based on internal consistencies in these scripture those religions seem unlikely. It is of course logically possible that God exists, but hasn’t directly ever communicated with humanity. And then there’s that matter of Buddhism, which doesn’t have a god in the Western sense of the term.
Absolutely. Keep us posted as you complete reading each book. You might also start a thread where you post a report on each book you’ve completed. From an atheist point of view of course. Might start some lively debates 
I tried once, but it was full of so many damn clichés!
I think so, though I’m not religious, simply because it is always a good idea to know what you’re talking about before you take a position on it. It’s more decent and a decent person’s opinions are taken with more weight.
Absolutely. It’s the funniest stuff this side of George Carlin’s golden period. Especially when you get to thinking that billions of people actually buy into this garbage.
Ditto. It still amazes me that some religion hasn’t realized the emense damage letting your congregation read the books for themselves does. I’m just waiting for someone to go Handmaid’s Tail style and take over the world by refusing to let the populous read the texts they’re basing the political power on. It’s so obviously useful. Of course, maybe someone has already done this and they’re just relying on the population’s utter poverty to keep them ignorant. Can’t think of any place like that.
Given that they are generally important documents to understanding a society’s social mindset, if one takes an interest in that society, it would be logical (I know atheists love that word) to study the religious texts. But then, if they aren’t interested, they shouldn’t be obligated to.
Much of art, music and literature of European civilization depends on the bible. You’d have a hard time fully understanding a painting like Da Vinci’s Last Supper or a sculpture like Michaelangelo’s Pieta if you didn’t understand the subject matter. Similarly, biblical alllusion abounds in such diverse novels as Moby Dick or The Brothers Karamozov, or in music as varied as Handel’s Messiah and “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.”
In short, it is a great work of literature that has greatly affected other works of art/music/literature over the centuries. To remain ignorant, deliberately, does not seem to me to be very reasonable.
Westerners should know the Bible for the same reason they should know Shakespeare as well as Greek and Roman mythology. If you aren’t familiar with them, you are likely missing out on a great deal of subtext in secular literature and conversation. (Spoken as a former Christian, now devout agnostic).
I find it disappointing talking to intelligent people who would look disdainfully at someone who didn’t understand the origin of “Pandora’s Box” or “et tu, Brute”, but they themselves give me a blank look when I make reference to the trials of Job or Jonah being swallowed by the fish. Or worse, they chuckle as if to doubt that such a thing is even worth knowing.
Of course, being an agnostic, these references are not a frequent staple of my conversation. But it happens, and occasionally the reaction is quite disappointing. You can doubt the divinity and historical accuracy of the Bible just as I do, but I find it the height of atheistic hubris to deny how tightly it is woven into the literary and cultural heritage of western civilization.
Now that you mention it, I think I remember reading a thread where someone annouced they were going to do that. I don’t remember ever hearing about it again.
Hmm…
Ck and Natto have it dead to rights. Was I the only one who studied parts of the bible (as a work of literature) in English class in high school?
Reading it doesn’t mean you buy into it, just as reading Greek Mythology (good example from Natto) means you worship Apollo, or reading “Mein Kampf” means you want to live by Hitler’s ideals.
I think buying a good book about the Bible, and then having one handy to cross-reference, may actually be more helpful than simply slogging through. Because it is a slog, in places. There’s a lot you can pretty much skip and be no worse for wear, unless you like to argue the finer points of Levitican law with a Rabbi or whatever. Same goes for every other major book or compendium of scripture. I had to read a good-sized chunk of the Vedas and Upanisads, and, I’m sorry, I found some of it to be a complete yawner. Maybe I had an especially uninspiring translation, I don’t know, but it’s a lot more helpful (and, frankly, more engaging) sometimes to have a good, learned scholar walk you through it.
Good characters though. “I love that God fellow, He’s so deliciously evil!” - Stewie
One of the things that really drove me crazy in college was when I would take an upper-division literature course in, say, medieval literature, and virtually no-one in the class would know anything about the Bible. I understand that most of them weren’t raised in religious households or anything, but it is ridiculous to go to one of the most eminent universities in the US, become an English major, and yet get to your senior year and take a lot of classes in medieval and Renaissance literature without knowing one thing about the Bible. Most of them were much smarter than I am, but totally unprepared. We had to stop the class and spend 2 weeks going over things like Adam and Eve, Passover, and other basic events. It was an awful waste of time.
Well, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I would say that any atheist or agnostic with interest in history, culture, or religion in general should be at least somewhat familiar with the relevant major religious texts.
I think it’s good to study the Bible for the aforementioned fact that much of culture and other literature and art references it, and I don’t think you can appreciate much of history without at least a basic understanding of the ideas that influenced it (for better or worse.) I would consider it far more important than say, Shakespeare, if only for its historical context.
I’ve only managed to get through Genesis, and most of Revelations, I got lost somewhere in the middle because the text just requires more time and work than I have to give it (it wasn’t for a class, just on my free time). I do have a decent familiarity with the more common stories and such, because I have learned about them through other sources that were more condensed and accessible for casual study.
I’m a soft atheist for what it’s worth, open to the idea of theism if I saw sufficient proof, but I don’t think any of the world’s many religions are 100% correct. IMHO.
I think rfgdxm said something close to I was thinking:
What an atheist might learn from reading scriptures is what certain groups of people think about god. The Bible or Qu’ran is not god’s biography: there is no proof he was at all invovled in writing it, and there probably can’t be any such proof by definition. You could learn a lot about society, religion, or whatever else, and you might be able to counter specific arguments about god or religion based on those texts, but I don’t think you need to know about those things to be an atheist, nor do you need to debate about them.
Why limit oneself to just the Biblical religions? I’ve studied the major eastern religions and found them wanting, too. Though to be fair, the non-Biblical religions don’t seem to get as judgmental as the western ones.
I read the Bible end to end when I was in grad school (for fun - as a Computer Scientist Knuth was my Bible) and posted about it on the Plato religion notesfile, kind of a 1975 vintage usenet.
I was astonished about the stuff they skipped over in Hebrew School. No wonder the Catholics 500 years ago didn’t want anybody without proper training to read it.