001 - Scott from Fort Worth, Texas

The Bible is the Greatest Bestseller That Everyone Buys and No One Reads.

Tell me a little about yourself?

Corvette fan, Works software IT security for PHONE COMPANY “MY software”

Do you consider yourself an atheist or agnostic?

“thoughtful atheist”

Theist – someone who believes in a personal interacting God

Atheist – lacks that belief

Agnostic – not a middle ground like many think.

Couple categories: Gnostic theist. Agnostic theist. Gnostic atheist. Agnostic atheist.

Depends which God you are talking about.

God of Bible- I consider myself as a gnostic atheist.

Generic creator god that got things in motion – agnostic atheist.

But I’m open to further evidence.

When did you become an atheist/agnostic?

Raised “protestant”. Age 19- thought to myself, “If I’m going to believe this, I should really check into it.”

General idea of the Bible, but that’s it.

Made self a project- Read KJV . Having a hard time understanding it.  Like reading Beowulf.

So checked out couple translations, couple Bible guides from library.

Read couple verses KJV, then same verses other translations.

First worked great. Then problems came up.

Things used to believe – couldn’t find Biblical support

Example: Genesis is it allegory? Read it in Torah- should not be allegorical.

‘And God said, “ “ ‘

Full of contradictions

Described a universe we plainly didn’t live in.

Example: geo-centric universe

Creator should know we orbit the sun

Then we get to Exodus

God sends Moses to Pharoah, but then He hardens Pharoah’s heart

Ridiculously immoral

Numbers and Deuteronomy – NOT good

Commands to genocide

Idea that Creator would have a chosen people, and it would be THESE people, in illiterate Middle East, when other civilizations thrived, if you are going to pass things on with written word, why not other people?

Why not create an indestructible device in every language and send them to every people that they can read it and know the truth?

Was done and moved on at Numbers. That was 1988/89 (18,19). Just moved on.

Joined Marines in 1989.

Over years, studied more stuff. Interested in religion as a phenomenon.

When Israel became a nation, they created greatest group of Archeologists ever to uncover their history.

“Academic Mainstream Common Knowledge” that journey in Joshua turned out to be fiction.

Not just a lack of evidence, but also a large amount of evidence to prove an entirely different history.

“High quality seminary will teach you this too.”

Canaanites weren’t conquered, their city-states collapsed.

Camels mentioned in Bible, but Camels weren’t domesticated during Bible times.

Egypt wasn’t actually a slave culture.

No evidence of a million people wandering the desert for 40 years.

How could Moses receive a genuine revelation of God smack in the middle of fiction?

As soon as you lose the Torah, everything else is pointless too. Because the New Testament depends on the Torah being true.

Having said all that, I’ve studied critical thinking (ways people mislead themselves).

We don’t know what is actually true. We guess what is true.

We compare it to what we know through observation.

The only thing we know for sure is what is not true.

Example: Gravity

Everything we know to be true is actually unsure

Need only one concrete provable thing to disprove what we believe to be true to actually be wrong

Importance of pursuing knowledge. General relativity as we know it is currently 100% correct, but people are trying to find ways to prove it wrong.

Evidence is most important thing. Proving the past wrong is how to be celebrated today.

All we know, is only so far what we know. It could be proving wrong.

Therefore, you could be wrong?

You have to always be willing to change if something is proven wrong, but if something is already proven wrong, then it will always be wrong. Ultimately, religion is an explanation of how we got here. And it makes claims about the Universe. I’ve looked at “hundreds of religions.” It seems pretty unlikely that any of them will ever get it right.

Do you consider yourself a former Christian or other religion?

Yes, used to be a Christian but not any more.

Why do you not believe in God?

Because the Torah has been disproven in my mind.

It’s amazing how many believers don’t care about discrepancies.

What would you say to God-believers out there?

What I’ve said is important. Critical thinking is very important.

Pick up the Bible and REALLY read it. Ask yourself, “does this make sense?”

It’s the Greatest Bestseller, yeah- the “Greatest Bestseller that Everyone Buys and No One Reads.”

Look at the mountains of evidence that disproves the Bible.

Don’t start with “does God exist?” Start with “Is your holy book likely a revelation? Does it look like it contains knowledge outside of the authors at the time that couldn’t have known it unless a supreme being revealed it to them?” Is it more likely the work of humans?

You need to let other people live their lives. Today many religious people spend a lot of money to make other people live their own way. If you don’t want to drink, fine, but don’t force me to not drink.

Homosexuals are mistreated and treated horribly. It’s getting better, leave them alone.

9/11 was militant, over something they could be wrong about.

My friend grew up worried if he had a doubt he would go to hell.

Are you mad at God?

Question doesn’t even make sense.

Do you hate the Christian God at all?

Question doesn’t even make sense. And I don’t hate Christians. But I am concerned. I do hate the harmful effects. When you raise kids by saying, “you have to believe this by faith, and you can’t doubt it,” you are teaching them to be gullible.

Should I stop believing in God, or stay the way I am?

I would beg and implore you to investigate. Because the evidence is stacked. I would recommend stop believing in God after you study and convince yourself. Don’t believe anybody, find out for yourself. Then draw your own conclusions. I believe in my heart that if you do that, you will change your mind.

Have you or do you currently read the Bible or any religious books?

Yes all the time. History. Religion. Debate with people all the time.

Have you ever heard of “presuppositional apologetics”?

I’ve heard the term. But couldn’t differentiate between other apologetics. <Explained what it is.> Oh yeah, it falls on its face pretty quickly. You can know by observing. We don’t need God to know there are 200 seats in a movie theatre.

A Supernova that was 40,000 light years away – means it happened 40,000 years ago. Or, God created an explosion already 34,000 years old when He created the world 6,000 years ago. Does that make sense? And we can see things that are billions of light years away.

We’ve learned how to make nuclear weapons. If we can do that, we can figure out how to date things too.

I’d like to read you a Bible passage. Is that ok? Romans 1: 18-21 – Do you agree or disagree with that?

Is there anything in the Bible you strongly disagree with?

Do you ever debate religion/existence of God with anybody?

Have Christians ever tried talking to you about becoming a Christian?

Yes, and I encourage them to do it. Cause if you’re right, I want you to convince me. But I’m not going to be gullible about it. Nothing I would prefer to believe than I would be reunited with people I’ve known earlier in life. If you have evidence, lay it on me. But there are 1000 claims of God by 1000 different religions- they can’t all be right. I’d be overjoyed if you proved you were right.

Are you open to the existence of a God?

Yes. But I’ve looked really hard for one. I wasn’t out to disprove God. I was trying to be a better Christian.

If you discovered that Christianity was true, would you believe it and become a Christian?

Absolutely. And I would take that evidence to others. I would be the biggest evangelist you’ve ever seen. If it could convince me, it would convince everybody. If God would go to the trouble to let us know He’s out there, He’d make it pretty clear. And I want to know. If you say I’m closed-minded, we’re done talking, because that is not true.