Bible Quotes Quiz #2

Some like me used to be Catholic, and why should you completely avoid the bible if you're Atheist? That's how the ignorant, annoying ones are around.

Atheists tend to be more familiar with the Bible than religious people are. If you want to talk about ignorant and annoying, don't leave them out.

What's the basis for your statement, "Atheists tend to be more familiar with the Bible than religious people are?" I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "religious people". Do you mean Christians in general, or ultraconservative Christians, or members of any religion? It may be true that for every atheist trying to prove a Christian wrong, there's a Christian trying to argue with them, both quoting from the Bible, but I would guess that most atheists don't read and study the Bible on a daily basis, and many Christians do. I don't read my Bible nearly as much as I should, but I'd guess I get much more exposure to it than most atheists, just by attending weekly church services and Bible studies. That still doesn't make me an expert by any means but I try to learn more each day. I've read parts of the "bibles" of other religions, but that doesn't mean I'm more familiar with say, the Quran, than a Muslim. I don't agree with your blanket statement.

A tiny portion of Christians study the Bible daily. The vast overwhelming majority have never once read from it. I'm not talking about the 9 people in your Bible Study group, I mean all the 2 billion + people around the world who identify as Christian. Many atheists were former Christians who became atheists because they got to know the Bible too well. Then there are those who are just naturally inquisitive and want to know the reasons for things and understand truth and the nature of reality- these atheists tend to have a broad understanding of all religions as well as science. Meanwhile, the average mainstream theist tends to just go along with what they are told and are not very curious or the type to question things. And of course there are all the many non-Christian religious people out there who are of course more interested in their own religious traditions but not the Bible.

I imagine that, in the future, as religious influence wanes and more and more people are non-believers... when it gets to the point where to be atheist is the default and belief in a god is seen as strange or different... at that point things might be reversed and then the people who tend to just go along with whatever they are told... most of them will be atheists. The small number of religious people left will be people who studied religious texts and believed them. But, for now, that's maybe only the case in places like Japan or Sweden.

https://www.pewforum.org/2010/09/28/u-s-religious-knowledge-survey/

@kalbahamut is broadly correct: in this Pew research study, atheists/agnostics knew more (6.7/12 vs. 6.0/12) than Christians in general about the Bible and Christianity.

Mormons and white evangelicals specifically know more, but not Christians in general. And atheists/agnostics know much more about religion in general than other groups.

To turn to anecdote, as @ander217 has done: I have found a few different types of religious people (by which I mean people who identify as being a member of a religion): those like @ander217 who study the sources of their faith and who definitely outstrip me and (I'd assume) most atheists in their knowledge; but that's not very many people. I've never personally met someone who describes themselves as Christian who had much knowledge of the documentary tradition of the Bible, for example--how it was constituted and how it has existed in various forms.

Thanks for the warning, Crusher. I've been scared against using any wit in my response and will surely avoid it, lest I suffer the terrible repercussions you listed. But as pd pointed out above, none of what I said is the product of bias or opinion. Multiple studies and surveys have shown the same thing. None that I'm aware of have ever shown the opposite. Don't be so lazy and look them up yourself if you're actually curious. When speaking about a fact or point of data that is universally supported across many different sources, without any contrary evidence in existence, it shouldn't really be necessary to cite a source. (not that this would be necessary in other cases; I'm not writing a term paper)