An atheist is a fool according to the bible
Fools say in their hearts, "There is no God."
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.
They have all gone astray, they are all
alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one. (Psalm 14:1-3)
What? What gives here? There is no one good in the world? I thought the author of this passage was talking about atheists, but I guess not!
God is with the company of the righteous.
You would confound the plans of the poor,
but the Lord is their refuge.
O that deliverance for Israel would come
from Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of
his people,
Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.
Oh, I get it. There is a select group that is good. They are the poor, the righteous, and God is with them. The author is one of them, and the Lord will restore their fortunes. He will restore Israel. Sorry, but this doesn’t include Christians. You are not the righteous Jews.
Many scholars believe this passage was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC and it is a promise that God will make things right. The author of Psalm believes this disaster was brought on by those Jewish evil doers who strayed from righteousness. It is not a comment on atheism. Sorry, but there just weren’t any atheists back then.
A note: The Dead Sea Scroll community of Qumran called itself the Poor. It was nomenclature they used throughout their writings. The word for poor in their language was very close to our English translation of another word which is how we get the term Ebionite. Note, a number of early church fathers identified the Ebionites with the early Jewish Christians. Also, the Sermon on the Mount is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls; and note the language – blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, and so on. These are all terms the Qumran community called itself. Interesting, eh?
