Agnostics and atheists: why is the Bible not believable to you?

its childishly written, 'and god said it was good' is a prime example of this

its filled with quotes most of which are common sence and existed long before the bible put them in one book,

it claims things, and has no evidence to support it, usually things like talking snakes, burning bushes etc

the writers seem to disagree on a few things, despite the fact its claimed to be 'all true and the word of god'

and most of the stories are taken straight from other myths that existed for thousands of years before christianty

shades of grays answer is bloody brilliant

The position of the atheist is, that the bible makes extraordinary claims. Chief among which is the existence of a supernatural being named YHWH, or Yahweh. The proper name for the Christian God.

The atheist believes that everything that is factual is based on evidence. Everything can be tested, and each test can be verified. This is the foundation of science.

There is no test for "god."

In the early days of science the origins of the universe were unknown. And so religion was assumed to be correct, as it was the simplest explanation. Then the Big Bang theory was discovered. And religion was proven to be incorrect. (see footnote)

If I tell you that I have a pencil, you would assume that was fact.

If I tell you that I have a car, you think this is reasonable, as you know many people who have a car.

If I tell you that I have an alien raygun and a teleporter, you would want to see a demonstration, and perhaps notify the scientists so these items could be studied.

The idea of god is far broader in scope than a teleporter. It's like having a nuclear bomb that's big enough to explode the earth, the sun, and the entire universe.

There would have to be a TREMENDOUS body of evidence to make this believable.

The scale of what you are presenting, in scientific terms, is literally beyond belief.

Uhhh you can be a agnostic and a christian at the same time you know. LOL

How about hundreds of contradicts and there are over 30,000 denominations of christianity so even christians cant agree on what the bible means. There is no real solid proof jesus existed and even if he did that doesnt automatically make him the son of god or god himself or whatever. People can lie too, ever think of that? Who said that who wrote the bible had to be honest? In fact no where in the bible does it say "this is a true story". Do you really believe that there was a talking donkey? Do you really believe that Jesus would take well over 2000 years and God has not had a single word to man in thousands of years? Can you not see the hundreds of thousands of dead religions? Can you not see that the bible is written by multiple people and is not consistent? cant you see that the bibles been horribly translated? Can you prove the devil did not write the bible?

Snakes don't talk. Neither do donkeys. Virgins don't give birth. People don't rise from the dead. The sun doesn't stop in the sky. The world is billions of years old, not thousands. Bats aren't birds. People don't turn into pillars of salt. The world isn't flat. There's no hell under the ground, and no heaven above the clouds. If everyone came from just two people, we'd all be hideously inbred mutants in just a few generations. Killing doves and sprinkling their blood around your house will not cure leprosy. Locusts have 6 legs, not four. The stars aren't lamps in the sky...

Do I really have to go on? This could turn into a very a long list.

In short, the bible isn't believable to me because I stopped believing in magic when I was a child, and the only explanation for the nonsense in the bible is magic.

But at least be honest with yourself. You don't believe the stories in any other religion's holy books, right? I'm pretty sure that if you read Native American, or Egyptian, or Greek mythology, you'd see those stories for what they are... just stories. If you took the exact same stories out of the bible, changed the names, and called it a different religion, you'd be able to see how absurd the stories are.

I'm going to start with something I say to a lot of believers, and I'll say it again because it's important. You have framed the question back to front. When you ask me why I don't believe in your holy book, it seems that you think a lack of belief in something requires justification, but belief does not.

But the opposite is true. We don't just accept whatever anybody says, no matter how unusual or extraordinary, without good reasons for believing it.

Here are some examples. Say you meet a man who tells you he has a car. Would you believe him? Probably. It's an ordinary claim for someone to make, the fact that he claims it is sufficient evidence. Next, say you meet a man who says he has a spaceship. Do you believe this guy? Not right away. The claim is so unusual and extraordinary that you are justified in refusing to believe it until he proves it, which he could do if he really has one. Maybe a newspaper clipping, with a headline "Man builds spaceship" and picture of himself standing next to the spaceship. Note that even though it is possible to own a spaceship (Richard Branson has one), the man making this claim has to prove more than the possibility of it being true. He has to prove he actually has one.

The same standards for belief and evidence should be applied to the Bible. Some things in it are ordinary sorts of claims, that we can accept without any problem. For example, Jesus came from Nazareth. Fine. I'll believe that, it's an ordinary claim. It doesn't need any special justification.

Other statements in the Bible are unusual and extraordinary, but not just like the guy who says he has a spaceship. That claim could be true. The most interesting claims in the Bible are Unusual and Extraordinary to the *maximum possible extent*. For example, Jesus rose from the dead. Jesus healed a blind man. Jesus walked on water. These claims are like a guy who claims to have a time-machine. As far as we know, this stuff *never, ever* happens.

For claims like this, nothing short of direct, independently verifiable experience is sufficient to demonstrate that it is true. In the case of the time-machine, you would insist on being taken back in time with your friends to see a Tyrannosaurus, or to meet King Henry VIII. In the case of the Biblical miracles, you would have to see the miracles for yourself, and have experts on hand to determine whether they could be faked.

So extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The most important parts of the Bible are probably some of the most extraordinary claims ever made, but where is the extraordinary evidence? There are no sufficient reasons to believe that Jesus was God, that there is a heaven and a hell, or even that God exists at all.

I don't believe it's rubbish but I don't believe it's perfect either. It's a book written by people. And like any book, it has good stuff and rubbish in it. I don't know where the idea came about that the Bible was written by God and perfect. Actually, I did here a story that it was the Protestant church's response the Catholic churches claim that the pope was infalible. But really, how can anything written in something as imprecise as human language be perfect?

The Bible is not believable to me because I read it.

I studied it. I checked translations and root words. I saw the contradictions.

I looked up the original Jewish scriptures. I compared them. I saw the differences and changes in meaning.

Because the Bible claims things that are just flat out inaccurate, like that rabbits chew cud or that bats are birds or that a man lived in a fish for 3 days.

Because many of the stories have too many similarities to many of the prevalent Pagan myths of the time.

Because there is a lack of evidence for many of the places, people and events-- now it's clear that some evidence may be lost to time, but other bigger things should not have been hard to find some shred of archeological evidence.

Basically, I was a Christian... then I started reading and studying the Bible thinking it would be more enriching for my faith. All it taught me after a couple of years was that there is no way this book was written by anyone but humans attempting to explain their archaic beliefs in a moment in time.

I respect it as a spiritual tool. But as fact? No... it's mythology. Mythology is very useful to religion & spiritual pursuits but should never be taken literally.

I came to reject religious texts as being factual due to a culmination of answers I felt science better answered than religion does. Due to the mound of evidence I found in favor of the nonexistence of god, I came to the conclusion that religious texts, such as the Quran, Bible, and Torah, are exactly what they appear to be - books. The same as Wuthering Heights or the Twilight series - they are books. They're much older, but they were written by people, not a deity, in a language spoken by people, and the information in them is all congruent with what people believed at the time they were written.

They reflect fairy tales more than the observable reality that I encounter on a daily basis. Since embracing things I consider to be factual, I have a deeper understanding of the universe and its perplexity. As a result, I am humbled everyday by its size, origin, and complexity. I no longer accept one thing as the answer to all of life's questions, and I feel much more intelligent for it.

Oh, and I'm atheist.

First, a literal reading of the Bible contains too many preposterous notions which contradict what we know about the world via investigation. Examples include: the time period between the formation of the earth and the first humans being only 6 days, the earth being around before the sun, a global flood, the Tower of Babel event being the origin of languages, plants being around before the sun, birds coming before land animals, a cow being forced to give birth to stripped calves simply by being shown a stripped pattern on the ground, etc.

Second, the Bible claims that God is almighty and all-good, but still bothered to create a being called Satan and that this being trying to actively overthrow God's rule. Anyone can see that Satan, having a direct relationship with God, would know that an almighty being cannot be defeated, so Satan would not bother trying to overthrow God (though the Bible claims he did and does) because such a thing would be futile. The smart thing to do would be to simply create a different faction and avoid confrontation.

Third, the Bible claims that God is all-good and the source of morality. However, God also regulates slavery and gives rules about how the institution of slavery should be run. Yet, we mere mortals know that any form of one human owning another as property, regardless of how well treated that property is, is morally wrong. An all-good God would know this. God is also guilty of performing multiple immoral acts in the Bible: punishing all mammal females for the disobedience of one human female (Eve) with pain during delivery of children, sending two she-bears to kill 42 children for calling someone "baldy," killing everyone on the planet except for 8 and claiming all of them (including unborn children, infants and babies) of every species to be "evil," and setting up a system of "final judgement" where all crimes aren't considered, but instead simply being lucky enough to have chosen the correct faith-based belief in the one god out of thousands which just happened to be right.

Fourth, the Bible makes claims about the supernatural which are not backed by any form of evidence.

Fifth, Christians do not have any agreement among themselves as to what God thinks or means with regards to many things. If you were to take 50 Christians and put them in a room together and ask them to pray to get divine inspiration for God's view on many issues, they will not come to consensus on all or even most of them. These issues include: salvation by faith alone or if works are (to some degree) important, if hell is a place of torture during the afterlife or if it simply means "separation from God" (which is impossible if God is omnipresent), if the six "days" of creation are 24 hour periods or longer, if God hates homosexuals or not, which if the 636 commandments in the Law are still binding (if any), what humans will be doing once they are in heaven, etc. Every one of them will give their own interpretation and yet still claim they all got their answers from God. If the answers truly came from God, then they would have consistent answers, not the myriad we see from investigation.

In short, the Bible sets up a story which is clearly flawed from a scientific, moral, and evidence standpoint. Any supreme being would know this, and if that being truly wanted us to believe, he would give us more than just a "believe it without evidence or burn in hell" option.

...if i told you i was talking to a tree that was on fire but i can only tell you about it with no proof... would you believe me?

a man cannot walk on water, and in fact very few, if anyone, could swim back then, they see someone swimming they say walking on water

water into wine, a magician can make the statue of liberty disappear, water-wine is nothing

proof that the bible/God is real: nothing, never been shown proof or found any when i've looked

the big bang/evolution: mountains of evidence (note i'm not saying proof!) cosmic background radiation and looking at the DNA in animals for a start

i've actually spent time with religion as both my nans are christians and i still think it's pure stupid bullsh*t... just saying

All of the dozens of religious books I have read (how many have YOU read?) are all pretty unbelievable. Creation myths which OBVIOUSLY were written by an ignorant Bronze Age person NOT the "hand of god" who might be expected to actually have a CLUE how the Universe really came about. Sure, there are also all those talking snakes and talking bushes and talking clouds, etc... makes you wonder if god were "all powerful" why couldn't he just wiggle his nose and have his followers KNOW what to do... why all the lengthy conversations?

Basically, people like to be lied to, so they believe in fanciful stuff like gods, goblins, ghosts and Vampire Edward.