Yep years ago I was in a bible study, well on my way to being an agnostic already. They were going over a difficult passage and the conclusion was 'god works in mysterious ways'. Not that I hadn't heard that nonsense before but for some reason hearing it in that scenario was the last straw and I never went back.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, the average person gets a pass on this sort of thing because I generally assume they haven't thought much about it. But it's particularly galling when biblical scholars do it.

I saw one biblical scholar whose schtick was debunking things evangelicals believe about the bible. He would happily admit it's written by a collection of authors over a long period of time, who were doing so not literally but in rhetorical styles popular in their day. Things like that.

Once, I saw him describe how the early Israelites did not believe in the three omnis. They may not have even believed in a monotheistic god, but it was certainly not omniscient and omnibenevolent. Then he went on to say that despite that—despite the fact that the authors of the religious text and the society that invented this god not believing in three omnis—he nevertheless did believe god was omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent. Wtf?