It's true, I'm an atheist. I actually have to define myself by what I don't believe in. This is a fairly rare phenomenon: you never hear about people being anti-choice, or anti-life, or even anti-active. However, when I try to claim more positive labels - like freethinker or rationalist - I am met with inquisitive yet vacuous stares, the same type you might receive if you proclaimed "I'm a quaker - and you know what that means!" to the average American citizen.

I use that as a personal example, as I, personally, would have no idea what that meant, unless it had something to do with the harvesting of oats.

Despite this label of 'atheist', which I wear with the pride of a cross around my neck (or any other torture device), I am not terribly fond of the atheist culture. They seem to be a high-brow, arrogant gang who have the dubious honor of being able to cite more scripture than the average religious person. The atheist gang still does not garner my sympathy more than the religious factions out there, and I find myself thinking of ways to help the latter out with their arguments against the former, which tend to revolve around 'you're going to hell' or 'god works in mysterious ways' or, worse, an equally pompous sense of forgiveness toward their non-believing brothers and sisters.

And this is why I try to think of things to help the religious folks find a new angle with their arguments; there is no healthy debate without an even playing field. And I think I've got it: Bible 2.0.

The concept behind Bible 2.0 is to eradicate all of the stories and fragments that atheists often cite as part of their arguments against religion and replace them instead with light, happy, encouraging stories and fragments. The precedent is already in place: the earliest gospels in which Jesus is a subject arrived on the scene several decades after his death (equivalent to you or I starting to write about a guy called Elvis today) and the Bible itself did not really come together until Emporer Constantine saw the Christians as a viable, yet disparate, force to be reckoned with - in the early 300s A.D. - although it took over 100 more years to create the first unified manuscript, thanks to the negotiations between the Christian factions in Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Caesaria, Jerusalem, Alexandria and Carthage. Whew. Long sentance.

Thus, despite (or because of) this perceived slackery in getting their religious house in order, the Christians should create a new version of the book. An Old and New And Improved Testament, if you will.

I will scrawl out a few particularly ugly passages, which atheists often utilize, and suggest substitutions, to displace these arguments altogether.


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Ugly Passage 1: "And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire." (Leviticus 21:9)

Correction 1: "And if the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, shall be called a very naughty girl and instructed not to do it again."





Ugly Passage 2: "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man." (I Corinthians 11:8-9)

Correction 2: "For the man needs the woman and the woman needs the man. Ye, one can be a little bit country; the other can be a little bit rock and roll. But you gotta work it out."



Ugly Passage 3: Jesus said that whoever calls somebody a "fool" shall be in danger of hell fire (Matthew 5:22), yet he called people "fools" himself (Matthew 23:17).

Correction 3: Replace "fool" with the more fun-sounding "bitches!!!"



Ugly Passage 4: "And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, which the LORD they God hath given thee, in the siege, and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:" (Deuteronomy 28:53)