Thirty years ago, Bob Collins was a fundamentalist Christian
studying at a seminary when things didn’t add up.
According to Collins, it was the “Thou Shalt Not Kill” commandment
in the Bible that brought him up short. Not killing was fine and all,
but the Bible was otherwise filled with God’s exhortations to do just
that. The contradiction led Collins to quit the seminary and to
ultimately become an atheist.
Collins is now a computer programmer in Birmingham, Alabama, and a
devotee of the Freethought movement. He’s currently working on his book
100 Bible Math Mistakes and will be discussing his findings
Sunday at an event hosted by the Memphis Freethought Alliance.
Collins says he’s found way more than 100 errors so far and that the
book will focus on the most egregious errors. One example: Jesus rising
from the dead in three days and three nights. Collins counts out Friday
and Saturday and notes that Sunday was when Jesus was resurrected and
that’s two nights max.
Collins isn’t trying to convert anybody. Instead, he says his work
is a sort of Consumer Reports for religion. “I help people be
better informed,” he says, “and not just take someone’s word as
fact.”
