A recent TV segment on ABC World News about ministers who become atheists while continuing to lead their flock raised an interesting point about bible study. Specifically one minister was quoted as saying “Reading the Bible is what led me not to believe in God.”
I never attended Bible study as I was raised Catholic and Catholics, for the most part, don’t read the bible. Catholics leave it to the priests and bishops to tell the flock what all that gibberish in the Bible is all about. If we read anything it was Catechism which is defined as “the Church's official manual of popular instruction.” So the faithful doesn’t have to bother their little brain with reading the Bible.
So when I did finally get to read the Bible for myself, I was amazed by all the gobbligook in it. I won’t get into all the violence and mayhem that the Bible goes on and on about. Or the numerous things you can’t do or if you do do God will whack the crap out of you. Or the begats and begats, ad nauseam. What really struck me, among other things, was the sheer repetition of many stories and the inconsistencies in a lot of stories. No sense in going into that here but sufficed it to say reading the bible tends to open one’s eyes if one is willing just read it as it is rather than have a bias initially that all in the bible is true and inerrant.
Which brings me to my point and that is that most Christians tend to isolate themselves with their religion, listen mainly to ministers and teachers and don’t go beyond that. Pastors usually admonish their flock about listening to dissenting people and/or opinions. The message usually is that you shouldn’t listen to those that don’t believe as they might sow the seeds of doubt in you!
In my own case I remember the nuns telling us not to think too much about the “mysteries” of Catholicism and just to believe. They would tell us the the mystery of three gods in one that is really only one god, sort of, and you must just believed it. Thinking about the Trinity might make your head hurt.
So here you have some pastors who “dared” to question the Bible, and probably read dissenting opinions and slowly came to the conclusion that it just didn’t make sense. The problem they are left with is that the only training they have is as ministers. They see no job prospect for themselves. But, I contend, if they really want a job they can hawk things like magnetic bracelets or dowsing rods or elixirs for cures. After all, their training is all about convincing people to buy into things that are just myths! Think about it.