Bible Thumper To Atheist

Introduction

Few people today have the time or inclination to read the entire bible from cover to cover. Many find it boring and difficult to understand. This book has been written with those people in mind. It is set out in short interesting paragraphs which are easy to read and understand. No detailed tedious analysis of scriptures is required, and it is interspersed with my own cartoon drawings depicting various biblical situations and stories, some funny, some provocative, others quite shocking. It contains over three hundred of the most thought provoking questions which I have not been able to find satisfactory answers to, despite many conversations and debates with preachers and clergymen of various denominations. Many questions highlight strange and baffling verses in the bible which may be helpful to readers who are confronted by bible thumping pastors or ministers. The opening chapter describes my journey from bible thumper to atheist, and the reminder of the book to the many questions which convinced me to doubt that the bible was the word of God.

The sword is mentioned extensively throughout the bible, especially in the Old Testament, and there are many references to men, even angels, killing women and children with swords in the name of God. The gun could be considered today's equivalent to the sword, and if we were to substitute the word gun for sword when reading this book, it will give the reader a whole new contemporary perspective of the bible. One would be forgiven for thinking that they are reading about the past crimes and deeds of some psychotic ruthless dictator, but no, everything contained in this book refers to the God of the holy bible, whom millions of people pray to each day.

Apart from the sheer amount of violence and blood curdling sacrifices in the bible, one of the issues that struck me most was the fact that many of God’s followers in the Old Testament were unsavoury characters, responsible for murdering hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children. Many were also responsible for rape, slavery, and theft. Amazingly, God never condemned these atrocities, in fact, he often authorized and coordinated them.

There has always been controversy as to who exactly Jesus was. Was he 100% human or was he half-human and half God or simply God manifest in the flesh? Did he even exist? Some biblical verses appear to confirm that Jesus is God, while others advocate the paternalistic father son relationship. Most Christians believe in the concept of the Trinity, i.e., the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The whole idea of the Trinity is mind boggling and bewildering, even theologians can’t satisfactorily explain it.

Whatever the explanation, evangelical Christians will at least accept that Jesus is part of the Trinity and that there is no action of God the Father which is not at the same time the will and action of the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In other words, they believe the Jesus of the New Testament is the same God of the Old Testament. The bible does say that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for evermore. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8. This should be borne in mind when reading this book. If we insert the word Jesus in place of God, many biblical verses will make horrific reading for those who always thought of Jesus as the meek and mild man of peace. It seems incomprehensible that a God who could create a universe as splendid as ours would leave us with nothing more than what is revealed in the following pages. Judge for yourself.

From Bible Thumper To Atheist

I was born in the town of Lurgan, Northern Ireland in 1950, a child of a mixed marriage between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic. Religion, God, or Jesus were never mentioned in our home when I was growing up, and no one attended church. I have no recollection of ever hearing about someone called Jesus until I reached the age of five, when I started primary school, and the subtle brainwashing that was to shape my destiny began.

Most people will remember their first day at school, with all the associated apprehension that brings. I was no different, but there was an added fear which left a scar, and a feeling of guilt with me that I would carry for many years. In those days only Protestants attended my school. There were no integrated primary schools. The first day at school the teachers told us all to split up into groups and go to other classrooms for religious education, according to the church we attended, i.e., Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Church of Ireland etc. I remember being gripped by panic: What are they talking about I thought? I didn’t know what denomination I belonged to: I simply didn’t understand what they were saying to me. All the other children began filing off to go to their respective classrooms as if they had done it all before. I was too shy and timid to say anything, so, like a little lost sheep, I stood there on my own, not knowing what to do, or where to go. Then I spied my next door neighbour and decided to follow her, she was a Presbyterian.

First thing each morning the class met for religious education, but I started to develop a feeling of guilt and embarrassment that I was different and shouldn’t be there. I was constantly petrified that someone would find out that I didn’t attend any of the churches the other pupils attended. Although the feeling of guilt never left me, I eventually began to enjoy hearing all the comforting stories of the loving, meek and mild, gentle Jesus. I was told how Jesus loved me and how he died for me. I also began to enjoy the singing. My favourite songs were, away in a manger and all things bright and beautiful. However, my enjoyment of religious education was short lived. After a few weeks we were all told to bring our bibles to school. This may not seem a big issue to you or me now, but as a five year old, the dread and fear came back to me. I simply didn’t know what a bible was. I was again too shy and timid to ask. After several mornings with no bible, I was sent to the school principal. He was a tall stern man with a big black handlebar moustache. I was petrified. I remember sitting outside his office shaking. He eventually called me in and I was questioned as to why I did not bring a bible to school. I recall muttering, I didn’t know. He sounded very cross with me and proceeded to give me a number of painful whacks of the cane and told me to bring my bible to school in future. As I made my way back to class in tears, nursing my throbbing hand, I remember wondering, where was my friend, the loving, meek, mild and gentle Jesus, and why was he punishing me? I felt I had done nothing wrong to deserve this.

Later that day as school lessons were coming to an end, I began to wonder what I was going to tell my mother concerning this book which I had to bring to school. I even felt embarrassed at having to ask her about it because I knew it had something to do with religion, and religion had never been mentioned in our house. I don’t recall exactly what I said to her, but I do remember there was confusion as to exactly what type of book it was. My mother wasn’t sure if it was what I now know to be a prayer book, which was mainly used by Roman Catholics. Bibles were not a common thing in Catholic families in those days. On the other hand, Protestant homes usually had several bibles, and that is still the case today.

Eventually, my mother found out it was a bible, and immediately went out and purchased one. Even then, she had to make sure it was a Protestant bible and not a Roman Catholic bible, as there are seven more books in the Catholic bible than the Protestant bible. These additional books are called the Apocrypha, but Protestants do not deem them worthy enough to be included in their bible, for various reasons which we will not go into in this book, apart from saying that Protestants do not believe they are divinely inspired.

Other experiences of religion outside primary school also invoked fear in me. My school was of a different religious persuasion to another just a few streets away, and I was conscious that the children who went there were not the same as me, even though some of them lived in the same street as me. On my way to school one morning, at the age of seven, a crowd of bigger children from the other school, surrounded me. They could tell from my school uniform what school I attended. One of them had a small silver medallion hanging round his neck displaying the image of a woman who had her head covered, holding a baby. I now know the image was that of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. He lifted the medallion up to my face in a threatening manner and asked if I knew who it was. I was terrified, as I hadn’t a clue.

Because I failed to identify Mary, they proceeded to give me a good thumping. I was always in fear after that, going and coming home from school. I had to run to safety on a number of occasions. Children from both sides were regularly beaten up because they were from a different school. I remember the police being called on a regular basis. Looking back on things now, I can see how this segregation of school children was sowing the seeds of conflict and suspicion which would later manifest itself in the troubles which erupted in 1969. Even to this day there is a strong sectarian division in my home town. There are no mixed housing estates. One half of the town is Protestant and the other is Roman Catholic. It is almost possible to run a ruler straight across a map of the town, dividing the two religions

From an early age I began to learn that Catholics venerated Mary much more that Protestants, and Catholics wore medals with various saints on them, including the Virgin Mary. Catholics also wore crucifixes with Jesus pinned to the cross, whereas Protestants sometimes wore a plain cross with no figure on it. Protestants believe that because Jesus rose from the dead, he should not be depicted as a dead figure on a cross. Protestants never wore medals with Mary on them because they did not venerate Mary in the same manner. These were some of my first memories of religion, growing up in Northern Ireland as a small child.

At the age of eleven I started attending secondary school, and thought things would be different, but it wasn’t long before the feelings of guilt came back to haunt me. Each Monday morning one of the teachers would ask for all those who had been to church the previous day, to raise their hands. I was honest, and kept my hand down, but I was the only one, and after several weeks I realised others were beginning to notice that I was different in that I didn’t go to church, so I decided to lie, and raise my hand in future. This only compounded my feelings of guilt concerning religion.

Despite all this, for the rest of my school years I began to take an interest in the morning assembly lessons and enjoyed listening to stories from the bible. I started to develop more interest in this person called Jesus. At the age of seventeen, a school friend who was saved or born again, as some people like to call it, began to talk to me about Jesus and the bible. He explained that it was not enough for me just to believe that Jesus existed, nor was it enough just to live a good life. He said that I needed to confess all my sins to Jesus and to ask him into my heart, and be born again. He told me I needed to be cleansed in the blood of Jesus, and that only then would all my guilt be removed. He explained that once I had done that, I would become a, new creature in Christ, and would want to follow Jesus. He also explained the danger of not being saved, and warned me that if I died without Jesus in my heart I would go to hell, where there would be, great weeping and gnashing of teeth. Matthew 13:42. He said I would be lost for all eternity.

The thought of this terrified me, and after several meetings with him over the following weeks, I told him I wanted to be saved. I asked him how would I know for sure that I was. He quoted me the verse, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. Acts 16:31. The verse did not say, might be saved, but shall be. There and then I called upon Jesus, and like a bolt from the blue, a wonderful warm feeling came over me. I realised I was now saved and assured of going to heaven. I was immediately transformed on the spot. I remember the exact date and time. Ten minutes past nine on Sunday evening the 8th October 1967, on the main street of my home town. I was euphoric and ran the whole way home full of excitement. All my guilt had gone. I could hardly sleep that night. I was now a member of the happy clappy brigade, and on my way to heaven. I had been cleansed from all my passed sins.

The next morning I went into school and told my friends that I had got saved. They took it well. They could see I was a changed person. I was excited, and began talking to everyone about Jesus. I soon began making up for lost time. I stopped going to dances and the pictures, or anything which was considered to be of a, worldly nature, and not of God. I also separated myself from my old friends outside school time and only associated with those who were born again Christians. I helped organise prayer meetings in school each Wednesday lunchtime and began talking and preaching to other students about Jesus, several of whom were influenced by me and became Christians. In fact, some of them are still Christians today. I still occasionally bump into some of them. My whole life started to revolve around God and I decided I needed to find a church to attend. I had never been in a church before, apart from a funeral Mass for my grandmother the previous year.

After trying several churches, I was drawn to the Apostolic church in my home town. I was welcomed with open arms. They were nice people, devout in their beliefs, and keen for me to become more involved in the church. Because I had previously been in a pop band, we decided to form a Christian singing group, which we called the Witnesses. We began to travel the country, singing, preaching and giving our testimonies. I also began to study the bible more earnestly and attended church three times every Sunday. Sometimes I finished the day off with another, more informal service in the nearby busmen’s mission hall, where I often played the guitar. Tuesday nights I went to the prayer meeting and Thursday nights the bible study. Saturday evenings I attended the young peoples meeting. Once a month we organised prayer and fasting meetings, which started at 10am on Saturday morning, and continued all day, until the evening meeting commenced at 8pm. We ate nothing all day. These meetings were like a kind of penance which would hopefully give our prayers more power, and demonstrate to God how devout we were. We prayed for everything, including the sick, our families, the troubles in our country, lost sinners, and for ourselves to have increased faith. We often prayed for the same thing over and over, all day, on our knees.

The Apostolic church was known as a Pentecostal church, which believed in the, gifts of the Holy Spirit. These included: The gifts of healing, prophecy, knowledge and speaking in tongues. We were all also encouraged to receive the, Baptist of the Holy Spirit, which is manifest by the speaking in tongues. It is a spiritual experience, and is literally the same as the disciples supposedly experienced on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on them. I experienced this about a year after joining the church. Looking back on it now, I believe we were in some sort of self induced trance, similar to that displayed by witch doctors, as they gyrate themselves into a stupor. We were supposed to be all speaking in tongues i.e., foreign languages, but it was more like a form of gobbledegook gibberish. To achieve this state usually involved endless reciting and chanting of prayers. After half an hour or so, the brain seems to become anaesthetised, and susceptible to suggestion. It is easy to see how this self-induced, partially comatose state, can be interpreted as messianic in origin.

Occasionally, some of us would get carried away in the trance like state to such an extent that we would shake uncontrollably, and fall prostate on the floor, usually accompanied by weeping for our crucified God, at the thought of the pain he suffered for us. When this happened, we were told that we were filled with the Holy Ghost. I have to emphasise that all the people I met in the Apostolic church were normal, lovely people, some of whom I still meet today, and have the greatest respect for.

By now I was well and truly indoctrinated into Christianity, and was officially baptised into the Church in a water baptismal service. This involved being briefly submerged under water by the Pastor. As we rose out of the water we uttered our praises to Jesus and re-dedicated our lives to him. As time passed I became even more passionate about the Bible, in fact, almost fanatical. When I had armed myself with all the biblical knowledge I needed, I thought it was time to bring my message to the public. I began to walk the streets of my home town, often on my own, handing out gospel tracts and preaching to people. I would go round the doors putting tracts through letter boxes. I debated with atheists, agnostics, drunks, down and outs, and people from other religions, as I endeavoured to win them over to the one true God. I never missed an opportunity to preach about Jesus. Many people soon got to know me and would often say, Here comes the bible thumper. I tried to convert my parents, and brother, but to no avail. I always wore a little badge on my lapel which said, Jesus saves, sometimes I wore one which simply said, God first. I gave my first sermon from a pulpit at the age of nineteen. It was a nerve wrecking experience, I wasn’t really ready for it, and I ended up forgetting half of what I wanted to say.

Within the Protestant churches there are scores of different denominations, in fact, here in Northern Ireland, there are approximately 100, all interpreting the bible to suit their individual views. This has resulted in a certain amount of rivalry and disagreement between many of them. Some Baptists for example would often snigger at me because of my beliefs. They do not believe that such things as the gifts of the Holy Spirit are applicable today. Some of them would go as far as saying that people like me were, from the devil, and doubted whether we would even get to heaven at all. On the other hand, most of the evangelical fundamentalist churches would look down upon the more liberal thinking churches, such as the Salvation Army or Church of Ireland, and doubted if some of them were really saved.

During my Christian days I thought I knew the bible quite well, but the truth was I had spent most of my time studying only certain selected stories and chapters which appealed to me. I had learnt many