Bible Stories for Atheists

Sit down, Judge Judy! We're talking about Judge SHAMGAR!!! That's an EPIC name for a judge, isn't it? It's going to be an amazing story, right!? The point of the Book of Judges is to fill in the gaps between Joshua and the Israelites "demanding" their first king. A cycle, similar to Exodus, where the chosen people continually let God down, get spanked by God, come bac...

We wrap up the Book of Joshua and boy does it make time stand still. Apparently God makes the sun stand still for a whole day and somehow that didn't cause everything and everyone to go flying off into space. Why would a god capable of doing that tell people to kill each other? Probably to teach us a lesson about faithfulness.  Excuse the meow's in the background. We did our best but Fro...

You remember that part of the bible when Jesus performed the miracle of getting a rabbit to lay chocolate, cream filled eggs? No? Well then you're just not reading the bible right. We dig into what the hell happened for Christians to turn Jesus' resurrection into a fertility festival geared toward grooming children into their "lifestyle".  Eostre, Ishtar, Ostara, Esther, and Ea...

We all remember the songs about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho and the cartoons and the children's books. All those glorious money-making forms of "art" that taught children valuable lessons about walking in circles around a city and not shouting until God says it's ok, while ignoring that the story was about divinely mandated genocide.  Let's play a drinking game. Every...

I'll be honest. This episode is about crossing a river. We cover 5 chapters of the bible, and at the beginning of it some people are on one side of a river, and at the end those people are on the other side of the river.  If you're into rivers, this episode is for you. If you loved River Phoenix in the 1992 cinema masterpiece "Sneakers" then this episode is for you. If you love...

While reading Genesis in our first several episodes, I noticed odd things. The same stories repeated, stories with inconsistent details, and conflicting commandments. Things I’m sure I noticed growing up as a Christian, but I wrote off as a lack of biblical knowledge on my part. I started doing research into what modern science and scholars can tell us about the actual history of the bible and the...

We finally cover the story of the little wooden prophet who wanted to be a real boy so bad he ended up in the belly of a whale. Ok, so he wasn't wooden, didn't want to be a real boy, and it was a fish and not a whale. But still!  Hear the iconic tale of Jonah being swallowed for a fi... oh it's over? Just like that, it's just done? Well how are we going to sell children's...

We dive deep into Josh. Or at least Josh's past. How he went from devout Christian to a raging atheist.  Was it because of all the Carmen, dc talk, and POD he listened to growing up? Was it because he learned about creationism from Canned Hamm? Was it because he went to a Christian university that didn't allow dancing? Nope. Ultimately it's God's fault. Big thank you to a coupl...

We take on the 2nd and last book named for a woman. Will she be a feminist icon? No. I'll just let you know that now. But she will make a few decisions for herself. So yay for progress. Have you ever wondered, "What's up with the Jewish holiday of Purim?" I know you have. I heard you whispering about it into your pillow at night. "Where did Purim come from?" you asked...

Happy New Year all you sinners and sodomites! We're having ourselves a laid back episode where we go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole on Yzidism, a religion where one of the central figures is a Peacock Angel. And we talk about a great post a listener left on our subreddit.  Pardon the goddamn husky belonging to our neighbor barking in the background practically the entire time. And our cat, Frod...

This week we blow through Ruth, one of the shorter books of the bible, in a single episode.  We find out about Naomi,  whose sons break religious law by marrying Moabite women, not that anyone mentions that. But when her husband and sons die in seemingly unrelated events, Naomi and her daughter-in-law, Ruth, return to Judah. Naomi and Ruth work on getting Ruth married off to one of Naomi's ri...

You know that feeling when you're talking with 3 of your friends in poetic verse for a few days and then you find out there was another guy there the entire time? Job does.  This young guy, Elihu, apparently has been there this entire time and is pissed off at everybody. He goes on a rant and then disappears into the background again. Almost as if he was just an afterthought by the writer. Th...

We kick off a two part series on the Book of Job. That weird book people LOVE to talk about but no one reads... I guess that's not specific enough. That weird book where god suddenly unleashes unending cruelty on someone for no reason... I guess that's not specific enough. It's the one where god makes a bet with Satan that he has Job gaslit enough that if he completely ruined Job&ap...

We set the "good" book aside for the week and pull up some "meh" videos on modern Christianity. We react to way out of the logical box thinking on religion. Meet Tim Mackie, one of the founders of Bible Project. Tim has some interesting ideas on the nature of God's space and Earth's space. And how they overlaPAH. Unfortunately we never are told the reason for Space&ap...

We wrap up our 4 part series on the book of Acts and hear all about Paul's retirement in Rome. But that's skipping ahead. First off, the unchanging, infallible Holy Spirit kicks off this episode by changing their mind on Paul going to Jerusalem. But don't worry, Paul ignores it and there is no consequences. Paul has to prove his Judaism to the Christians. If that sounds like it does...

Between Linz having a migraine and our self isolating due to a COVID exposure, this episode was doomed to be amazing.  This is the third installment of our 4 part series on the Book of Acts and it starts with a freakin' wizard! A wizard named Bar-wait for it-Jesus! In the middle of cursing the wizard, Saul changes his name to Paul and will never be called by his dead name again. We find out J...

We’re taking a short break from our series on the book of Acts this week to talk with Lilac, a teenager who was kicked out of her home because of religious issues with her Jehovah’s Witness family. The first part of the episode, I’ll explain to Linz how I found out what was going on with Lilac and get Linz’s reaction. And in the second part we have a call with Lilac. If you’re interested in helpin...

We continue our series on Acts starting with a story about a Sorcerer named Simon.  A guy named Philip meets an unnamed Ethiopian eunuch who is really into a prophesy that Philip completely gets wrong. Also it turns out Christians can teleport. We have a real Saul on the road to Damascus moment, when we talk about Saul on the road to Damascus. We talk about the most important woman to never get an...

We kick off our series on the book of Acts and start with yet another telling of the ascension of Jesus. Slightly different from Luke but very different from the other gospels. Judas gets replaced. The Holy Spirit comes on everyone at the Pentecost! Lapping up their loins with tongues of fire. And the early church starts getting persecuted simply for yelling at everyone that they killed Jesus. Web...

We wrap up our 18 part series on Jesus and the gospels with his bouncy ball burial. You just can’t keep this dude down. While there’s some discrepancies among the gospels on the burial, that’s nothing compared to the resurrection. None of them can agree wtf happened. How many angels were there? Were they men or boys? Were there solders there? Did the women run off and not tell anyone what happened...

This is it folks. The crucifixion. The grand climax. Where God’s Holy Spirit comes on all of us.  But first we find out what happened to Judas, who realized what a Judas he had been to Jesus. But of course, no one can say for sure what happened to him.  Jesus is put on trial before Pontius Pilate who oddly comes across as a pretty decent dude. Too decent, mayhaps. And Jewish people seem to be susp...

We start off by asking the ultimate question… What are the nuts in your life? But then we start talking about Jesus. Jesus goes to the garden of Gethsemane where he keeps praying and his disciples keep falling asleep. Even when an angel shows up and scares Jesus so bad he starts sweating blood. Judas does what he does best and betrays Jesus. He comes up with a suspiciously specific signal to point...

Jesus is about to have his last supper and he uses his apparently psychic abilities to tell the disciples how to get it set up. Then Jesus strips down and washes his disciples’ feet. I don’t know why he had to get naked for it, but there you go. Unless he’s not naked. Unless there is an opposite to “outer” clothing that we can’t think of. Linz finds out that Judas was the treasurer of the disciple...

“Was the Gospel of John Changed to Suppress Mary Magdalene?” by ReligionForBreakfast – https://youtu.be/rfy6oiB_U-A Crucifying Tony Stark – https://youtu.be/V9_AeLmuRKc?t=120 Turns out Jesus wants us to #TaxTheRich! At least that’s what he tells some Pharisee’s who try to trap him by asking one question and giving up. Also, Jesus is asked important questions such as if a woman clearly kills 7 brot...

Zacchaeus the Tax Collector What does it take to get Jesus’ attention when you’re vertically challenged? Hope you’re good at climbing trees. If you are, hope you have space for Jesus to invite himself over for the night. Parable of the Ten Minas / Bags of Gold We discuss prosperity gospel cultists’ favorite parable about needing to gain interest on your money in order to win God’s love. Jesus Come...