Why Atheists Need The Bible

[onager]

Great article by eminent Bible scholar (and atheist) Philip R. Davies:

The Bible and Atheists Need Each Other

The number of Atheists among the community of biblical scholars is rather small, and they are not a well-knit community. After all, people who don't believe in fairies don't form groups, nor do those who doubt that dragons breathe fire or that Martians ever made it to Montana.

Atheists are constituted as a group only by theists, when they want to attack or isolate people. But whether Atheists as a group need to express their solidarity within society as a whole (and I can see why this might be the case in North America), they certainly need to be outed within biblical scholarship. For we have a positive agenda - or we should! There are at least three reasons why the Bible needs Atheists, and two more why Atheists need the Bible...

...If you haven't guessed it already, I am very fond indeed of this Bible, despite its many dangerous faults. But I wish it would carry a health warning and that only people who have proved they know how to read properly should be licensed to teach it. Is there any doubt that the Bible would be safer in the hands of Atheists?

http://www.targum.net/prd/

[Taxloss]

1. The Bible is a vital and valuable text in understanding humanity

but if you attempt to live by it, in totality, you're certifiably crazy.

[onager]

2. Absolutely

One point Davies makes is that the Bible is a human historical artifact--just like Stonehenge or Easter Island.

Our ancestors wrote it, and it's the common property of us all, for good or ill--not just the property of those who like to claim it was handed down complete from a deity.

[fshrink]

3. I don't think

that Mein Kampf is useful in understanding anti-semitism. It's a bunch of propaganda crap. You can scrutinize and hermeneutic to death, it's still a bunch of bloody crap. There is more useful human truth in the Iliad/Odyssey and in any children fairy tale than in any of these painstakingly apocryph texts. But that's just me.

[BiggJawn]

4. It's fun to know the Bible when you're an Atheist...

Because when you quote some of their book to the mythists, their eyes get real big and they say "How'dja know THAT? *YOU* have read The Bible?"

Sure, It's like how I actually TRIED Limburger before I decided it was crappy cheese...