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Is the Bible most responsible for atheism?

“The Old Testament,” [A.A. Milne] claimed, “is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief — call it what you will — than any book ever written: It has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle, and golf course.”

—A.A. Milne, quoted by Carlin Romano in an essay on sacred texts and modern atheists
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Fred said…
ah, the scandal of God's preference, which offends the (in)sensibility of intellectuals - it's just not fair that God revealed himself to those people in those times: the only God worth believing in is a God of universal principles who can be discovered mainly through intellectual work (or through initiation into the intellectual elite).

But we adhere to the God who sought us out in our particularity and wasn't afraid of getting himself contaminated by mixing himself up in our struggles...
October 05, 2007 9:55 AM
Micah Tillman said…
Thinking that God is presented by the Old Testament as commanding genocide is another reason people might reject faith. "If this is God, then God is evil. So forget God."

Or something like that.
October 05, 2007 11:08 AM
VanceH- said…
If we just dropped the first three chapters of Genesis the world would be a different place.
October 05, 2007 10:41 PM
Fred said…
Yes, Vance, a place without light, life, and humans! No people or things, no sin, suffering, or murder. The Buddhists do have a point...
October 06, 2007 9:46 AM
Micah Tillman said…
Vance--

I've done a lot of studying of Genesis 1-3 because they seem to be three of the most controversial chapters in the Bible.

I discovered they don't teach what most people think they do. Maybe one day I'll get my study on it published :-)
October 06, 2007 10:55 AM
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