Does reading bible only help us increase our faith?

It depends.

Some people read it - and get great faith and hope out of the bible.

Some people read it (like myself) - and find many contradictions and it just further proves to them in their mind that God does not exist.

I second what jester wrote. Reading the Bible cover to cover is what caused me to first question my former faith. It was just so obviously nothing more than an ancient book. A lot of it is truly barbaric.

The bible is Gods instruction booklet, to man. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the same Holy Spirit has to help us to understand it.

When a person comes to the word, with an unbelieving heart… he/she can expect to give reports like the ones mentioned here.

Gods word is only open to those who have faith.

To the rest… well… you heard what it means to them.

To those with faith, it is a book worth dying for.

Always has been this way… and will continue to be this way…

You have to think this way and this way only and if you have an inkling of thought elsewhere its a sin. Not everyone fits on the same path.

Yeah, only ONE way of understanding it… yet, there are over 30,000 (potentially 38,000) different denominations of Christianity.

Well, SOMEBODY lost sight of the message. I wonder which one has it right?

stevenw1987-“”then you either didn’t understand what you were reading or you didnt read much of it at all…””

You dont know that. I quite understood the bible and read the whole thing. Just cause I didn’t come to the same conclusuion dosen’t mean I didn’t understand it maybe you didn’t.

thats one of the problems I have with christanity, You have to think this way and this way only and if you have an inkling of thought elsewhere its a sin. Not everyone fits on the same path.

Reading the Bible not only helps to increase our Faith, but to learn more on how to go ahead in life and to be strong in difficult moments. The Bible can (when you try to understand it , truly with Faith, studying it with zeal and sicerity) find answers even to problems or troubles that we haven’t resolved or no one knows how to help us with. When with a humble heart and with sincerity we search for God, He reveals himself true the Bible. And I have known Agnostics and Atheists that wanting to discredit or wanting to prove the Bible only as “..an ancient text or a myth..” at the end they became believers of it. The Bible has advices to how to live a better life ,too…and more.

stevenw1987, most atheists have read the bible - completely.

We have analyzed it, we have researched it (I, myself, even asked for clarification on many things from several different christian authorities - none of their opinions coincided).

You can’t tell me that we didn’t read the whole thing, or that we didn’t understand it, because it seems that even christians, themselves, don’t really “get it”.

You can all stop using this as an excuse now - it’s become redundant.

reading the bible only helped concrete on my view that God dosen’t exist.

dzorro. I understand your faith, I think it’s great that you have it.

The problem that I have is you are generalizing and asuming that you know everything. There are plenty of people, not just young people, who have read the bible, who did have faith at one point, who have studied it words, and have found to them, it was foolish and not true. Just because you knew some athiest that read the bible and believed after, does not mean that it is true for everyone. I have read the bible, I used to believe in God, I used to have faith. Nothing happened to make me mad at God, just the more I learned about Christianity, the more I realized that I didn’t believe any of it, and it was not the path for me.

To those with faith, it is a book worth dying for.

Its more often a book worth KILLING for…

then you either didn’t understand what you were reading or you didnt read much of it at all…

In those who believe, it may help increase faith.

To everyone else, it only increases disbelief.

Reading the bible alone is not going to help your eternal destination. A person must make a decision to live for the creator or not. Then, one day we will all know what the truth was.

It depends on how strong or weak your faith is to begin with.

There are many Christians who DON’T read the Bible much; because it can be hard to read, difficult to understand, or simpy boring at times. And there are sections that are violent, morbid, oppressive, and sexually perverted. As long as you avoid the passages that are contradictory to your beliefs… you should be fine.

Keep this in mind though… the Bible is a canon composed of TWO different books, of TWO different faiths. With depictions of TWO totally different versions of God.

I don’t know about you, but it helped decrease mine