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[MonkeyHead]

If you start reading the Bible with the mentality that there is no God, you are not going to be convinced that there is a God. If you start reading the Bible keeping an open mind, you might decide that there is a God.

Exactly - or you might decide there is not, or remain undecided, or unconvinced. I suppose my question is this then: do Christians see the bible as something that should convince people of the merits of their religion regardless of their current mindset (be it theistic, agnostic or atheist), or must one first have precluded in a god of some form?

[TD1]

If you start reading the Bible with the mentality that there is a God, you're going to be convinced he exists despite the contradictions/improbability. If you start reading the Bible with an open mind, you'll see the flaws and assume it's all flawed, or so I think.

Edit: Or, you only read part of it, e.g. the messages of love, and decide something that good should be believed.

[Arx]

If you start reading the Bible with the mentality that there is a God, you're going to be convinced he exists despite the contradictions/improbability. If you start reading the Bible with an open mind, you'll see the flaws and assume it's all flawed, or so I think.

Edit: Or, you only read part of it, e.g. the messages of love, and decide something that good should be believed.

You're pointing out the bias of Christians towards confirming their beliefs, but only partially your own toward rejecting their beliefs. You don't have an open mind, so you can't know what it would be like to read the Bible with an open mind.

If you start reading the Bible with the mentality that there is no God, you are not going to be convinced that there is a God. If you start reading the Bible keeping an open mind, you might decide that there is a God.

Exactly - or you might decide there is not, or remain undecided, or unconvinced. I suppose my question is this then: do Christians see the bible as something that should convince people of the merits of their religion regardless of their current mindset (be it theistic, agnostic or atheist), or must one first have precluded in a god of some form?

I think once someone's decided on a belief, it is incredibly difficult to change their mind. It's the nature of belief.

[Rolan7]

No. You're overcomplicating what I'm saying. One has to take it on faith that God exists for the Bible to make sense. If one doesn't believe that God exists, then naturally one is going to find eighty percent of the book to be absolute tosh.

I find this almost to be putting the cart before the horse. Should one not be able to approach the bible with an open mind, read it, and become convinced of the existence of a god rather than already thinking there is one, then reading the book in order to affirm ones preclusions?

It does work for reaffirming (to my eternal surprise, considering most of the content) but I don't think it's supposed to be a logical proof.  Even science papers are based on experiment (except for math and philosophy) so it's reasonable for the Bible to be the same: Describing a theory and reproducible experiments which support it.

Which the Bible does do.  If you have an open about the existence of God, you can test it:

Proverbs 2:3-5
    If thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.

Proverbs 8:17
    Those that seek me early shall find me.

Matthew 7:8, Luke 11:9-10
    Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

So the Bible isn't a proof or something we need to believe in blindly or fully.  We just need to consider the doctrine, then we'll know it's true.  Or, not.

Although there are many cases where the Lord hides his existence from specific people for his inscrutable reasons...

18:40 Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.
18:41 They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.
18:42 Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.

But if God hasn't determined that we'll never find him, then we totally can find him through open-mindedness.

If you start reading the Bible with the mentality that there is a God, you're going to be convinced he exists despite the contradictions/improbability. If you start reading the Bible with an open mind, you'll see the flaws and assume it's all flawed, or so I think.

Edit: Or, you only read part of it, e.g. the messages of love, and decide something that good should be believed.

Don't be too cynical!  Some Christians do read the Bible and realize how hateful and arbitrary it is, and discard the belief they were trained to have as kids.

[Helgoland]

... and Atlas Shrugged is not supposed to convince people of the benefits of right wing open market capitalism?

Because propaganda exists, everything is propaganda? That's a damn fine non-sequitur you got going there.

[MonkeyHead]

Hey, you brought up propaganda, not me. I just don't see how a holy book is not designed to "sell" a religion, so to speak.

[Rolan7]

You're pointing out the bias of Christians towards confirming their beliefs, but only partially your own toward rejecting their beliefs. You don't have an open mind, so you can't know what it would be like to read the Bible with an open mind.

I think once someone's decided on a belief, it is incredibly difficult to change their mind. It's the nature of belief.

Discussing Christianity's problems is actually an exercise in open-mindedness.  If somehow all the issues and contradictions were explained away, we could start considering it as a real possibility.  It's faith which is entirely close-minded, once it sets.

[TD1]

If you start reading the Bible with the mentality that there is a God, you're going to be convinced he exists despite the contradictions/improbability. If you start reading the Bible with an open mind, you'll see the flaws and assume it's all flawed, or so I think.

Edit: Or, you only read part of it, e.g. the messages of love, and decide something that good should be believed.

You're pointing out the bias of Christians towards confirming their beliefs, but only partially your own toward rejecting their beliefs. You don't have an open mind, so you can't know what it would be like to read the Bible with an open mind.

Of course I have an open mind. It's how I went from Christian to sceptical to non-believer.

Edit: What Rolan-ninja said.

[Helgoland]

Hey, you brought up propaganda, not me. I just don't see how a holy book is not designed to "sell" a religion, so to speak.

I gave an example of a ideologically central text not being propaganda! And calling the Kapital the holy book of Communism is not far off: Nobody reads it, but everybody claims it says what they want it to say.

(Try reading the first couple of pages - you'll notice that it is definitely not written to convince anyone.)

[MonkeyHead]

Sorry Helgoland, I really don't see what point you are making. I am NOT claiming the bible to be propaganda in the way one could see things like Mein Kampf or Atlas Shrugged to be. I am simply questioning Christians if they think the Bible should be seen as a book that acts to convince people. The nature of Das Kapital has no real bearing on if the bible could be seen to have this property or not.

[Arx]

Sure, the Bible can act to convince people, but I wouldn't say that it's its only purpose. Large portions of it are also not written with that in mind, by which I mean the old testament.

If there was a propaganda Bible, I think you'd find some structural changes such as placing the Old Testament after the New Testament, so that the reader who begins at the beginning (logically enough) doesn't hit all this heavy stuff about sacrifice and purging first, especially considering a lot of that isn't relevant any more.

[Orange Wizard]

A propaganda Bible would have perfect mathematical reasoning that leaves people without doubt that God is real.
Actually, no, hang on. If God were concerned about the free will of his followers, and converting as many of them as possible, he'd just send a buttload of really flashy miracles. Appearing in the sky as a giant fiery cactus and shouting "BELIEVE IN ME!" or somesuch.

...

From an "effectiveness" standpoint... the Bible's really rubbish at convincing people. So is anything, really. In my experience, you can't convince people to believe in the Bible. All it does is get their guard up and make them hostile to the prospect.
It's really sodding hard to make people change their mind, especially when it comes to God/religion/whatever. Brains are weird like that.

Spoiler: This kind of turned into a rant on evangelism. (click to show/hide)

The Reformed church (I might have mentioned this before) says that God has to change someone's mind, but he will only do that when a given person has heard the word. Which makes sense, really. I can't have faith in His Obliqueness Kilath-katok if I've never heard of the bloody thing. It also means that I no longer have any reason to force people to believe in any way possible... because as was discussed earlier, the moral thing to do from a Christian+free will in beliefs standpoint is to spare as many people from Hell as possible, no matter what that takes.
But then if we say it's actually up to God to change someone's way of thinking... then actually, that approach becomes very immoral. Our job is now to make sure as many people hear the Word as we possibly can. It doesn't have to be stand-up-in-front-of-a-crowd-and-tell-them-"Jesus Loves You!"-except-not-because-that-would-be-lying-type spreading of the word, though, because not everyone is good at that. There's a few passages that talk about this (I can't for the life of me remember where they are) but basically go along the lines of "people have different skillsets because the Kingdom of God needs more people than just the guys who are really good at getting converts".
Like me. I'm awful at evangelism. Heck, just look at this thread. I've got no qualms about admitting that belief in the Bible is irrational and an exercise in circular logic. Or that God condemns millions (billions?) of people to hell because he feels like it. Yeah. If that's not going to convince people, I don't know what will.

[Arcvasti]

Probably relevant quote from Les Miserables:

Is there not true evangelism in the delicacy which refrains from preaching and moralizing?

[TheDarkStar]

A propaganda Bible would have perfect mathematical reasoning that leaves people without doubt that God is real.
Actually, no, hang on. If God were concerned about the free will of his followers, and converting as many of them as possible, he'd just send a buttload of really flashy miracles. Appearing in the sky as a giant fiery cactus and shouting "BELIEVE IN ME!" or somesuch.

If anyone would do the same thing, free will or not, wouldn't that effectively nullify free will?

[Leafsnail]

It's really sodding hard to make people change their mind, especially when it comes to God/religion/whatever. Brains are weird like that.

Is it really strange that you're not changing people's minds when you aren't giving them any evidence to show them your belief is true?