I grew up in the bible belt, live in Texas now.. I haven't met ONE Christian other than my brother, who isn't a preacher that has read the bible cover to cover and that's a lot of Christians. True story, was having dinner with my wife's friends a couple months ago and the husband is a religious guy who preaches at prisons.. he was hitting me hard about Christianity and all the god stuff and he wanted to know why I didn't believe the bible. I said there are many many reasons but one is the lack of contemporary historians writing about what should have been remarkable events, but are only found in sometimes one book of the bible. He asked for an example and I told him that in Matthew 27 when Jesus died there was an earthquake and dead saints rose up out of their graves and walked through the city and were seen by many.. I said if something like this actually happened, it would have been mentioned by more than just Matthew. He said that story isn't in the bible. I was a little surprised he would challenge me when I have no dog in the hunt but I said yeah..it's in there. He said he read matthew many times and would remember that. So I bet him dinner it was in there... The good news is, I won dinner, the bad news is, I had to spend another evening with him. On our next outing..where he was buying.. I mentioned that a lot of people don't know who cut Samsons hair.. He immediately said Delilah. I said no.. she didn't. Another dinner bet and now I have to meet him again. On our third dinner he never brought up religion..
This is so not uncommon. Most Christians haven't read the fucking thing, they're clueless. Only theologians and apologists in my experience. Not even most preachers, they just cherrypick is all. So it's pretty amusing when they bitch about atheists citing troublesome verses. Like WE'RE the cherrypickers? Lot more bad than good if they'd bother to open the thing.
I swear, to a person they have NO IDEA about the genocide, or stonings, or torture, or slavery, or racism, or rape, or sexism, or slaughter, slaughter, slaughter - no clue how many seemingly innocuous activities result in a fatal smiting: fabrics, crops, Sabbath, shellfish - they just call me a liar and move on. Scared to death of what they'll learn, that's how strong the delusion. I'd bet my nonsoul it represents upwards of 70% of American believers.