Even within the US, certain regions are more open to freethought / atheism than others. I used to live in the northern U.S. and recently moved to the South. I knew there would be a difference in attitudes, but am still getting used to the pervasiveness of religion in everyday conversation here. I’ve recently met other people from my state online, and their experiences are similar unfortunately: they feel they have to hide their views except from their very closest loved ones. I was very sorry to hear about what happened with the guy from Atheist Nexus as well. I was afraid something like this would happen to me when I spoke to my wife since I’ve heard a number of stories like this, but am very fortunate my wife is more open-minded. Hopefully his wife will come around as well.

Thanks again for the comment and support.

Generally, it seems that actors or projects related to other major religions (Islam, Judaism, even Scientology seems included in this) aren’t promoted, but are left alone: no prominent figure calls for a ban or boycott. But it isn’t unheard of for books to be banned from libraries, films to be boycotted, etc. in the U.S. if it is seen as promoting either witchcraft or atheism.

There were calls to boycott the movie “The Golden Compass”, since its author is an atheist and the books can be seen to promote anti-Catholic views. Related to the news of Daniel Radcliffe, there were repeated calls from Christian groups around the country for “Harry Potter” to be removed from school libraries since it allegedly promotes witchcraft. It will be interesting to see if this news on Daniel Radcliffe becomes public knowledge in the US, and if it will renew calls for Christians to boycott or at least avoid Harry Potter.

I would doubt this is the standard practice in churches, however. In the churches I’ve been to (which admittedly was mostly a while ago since I’m no longer a believer), I could see something like this happening in a Bible study outside of regular services, but not during a normal sermon or during Sunday school, for example.

Can you tell me which version of the Bible you use? I consult a variety of Bibles online (I still haven’t decided which one I prefer). They obviously appear differently online than in paper form, so this would be helpful to me in helping to choose a Bible to see which ones are the most upfront about cases like this.

But I am glad to hear then that at least some churches and Bibles are being clear about this. I will edit my original post to reflect that this may be in the case in some churches and Bibles.

The problem in that case for me would be that God doesn’t deal out grace equally to everyone. It often seems arbitrary (or “random”) when God decides to save and when he decides to smite. Jacob stole his birthright by telling his older brother to give it up or starve. God rewards Jacob by basing the entire nation of Israel from his lineage and not his brother’s.

Maybe “dramatic tension” was part of the reason for the stories in Genesis, but do you argue then that the Old Testament should not be used as a moral guide, since people don’t seem to be rewarded proportionately based on how good or bad they are?

I remember having a Bible as a kid where there were occasional notes where you had to go to the back of the Bible to find out what the note was about. I don’t remember if Mark 16 was one of these cases or not. I’ve read that other Bibles will have a footnote indicating that verses 9-20 weren’t in the original text.

I would argue that a footnote is not sufficient notification for the average reader. As I’m sure you know, many believers have not read the Bible in its entirety; they only refer to verses in church that the priest/pastor use for the day’s lesson/sermon/etc. (and I’ve noticed even then, a number of people don’t open their Bibles). If you’re paying attention to the sermon, you’re not probably not going to take time to look at footnotes.

Of those who do read their Bibles on their own, if experience in other fields is any indication, people tend to ignore footnotes unless they don’t understand the main text. I think a quick footnote saying the verses weren’t there originally is “glossing” over it, as I said in my post. It’s trying to have it both ways: we like the verses, so we’ll keep them in. We’ll put a little note at the end so we’re covered, but most people won’t pay attention to it anyway or won’t get the full significance of these verses being added in later.

I think these verses should either be removed from the Gospel of Mark or set off very clearly (in a different color, with a line through them, etc.) to let people know that those verses do not belong. Preachers should not use these verses unless they point out that they were added on later and explain reasons why. Of course, these are just my opinions, but if people think the Bible is an important document, I would think it would be important to explain very clearly to people what is or isn’t considered part of the Bible, and why.

EDIT: corrected a few typos

The big overarching narrative of Genesis is this big dramatic tension: how is God going to keep his promises to Abraham to make him a great nation? At every twist and turn it seems so unlikely: all these barren women threaten to bring an end to Abraham’s line; hence also why the big focus on the importance of finding wives for people at each stage, to make sure the line continues; hence the big fuss when Esau despises his birthright (the chance to be a part of the great promises God has made to Abraham’s descendants!!)

The fact that the people themselves are so rubbish is almost the whole point – how remarkable that God should have picked *these* people to make promises to! It demonstrates the whole concept that it is all about God’s ability to keep his promises, since it certainly can’t be anything to do with the “specialness” of the people. We see very clearly that God wasn’t making promises on the basis of merit (because it’s hard to imagine they could deserve it less!) but on the basis of his free grace.

God may be the one who put the natural order in place, or may be the one still holding it in place. I can understand some scientists (both early and current) believing this.

The problem is that there would be no way to prove that God is the one who is keeping the natural world in order. Scientifically speaking, there would be no difference between a world where God always keeps the natural world working the same way, and a world where the natural world keeps working the same way without a God.

Maybe Haldane was too strong in using “atheist” (at least as it’s normally used today) to describe the work of a scientist; “agnostic” might be better. It’s unknown whether God has a role or not.

God would have to let us know he’s here by doing something out of the ordinary, a miracle basically. There are lots of miracles in the Bible, but the sorts of things that happen there don’t happen nowadays, or at least have never been observed scientifically.

Your point is definitely taken. I don’t think though that most scientists think “X will happen in my experiment unless God decides differently”, so operationally I would argue they are atheistic or at least agnostic.