One Meme At A Time - Debunking The Bible

[FreeThinkerNZ]

I'm a member of a secular Facebook group that shares memes from time to time, and I want to share some of them on ex-c but they never seem to fit into an existing thread.  So I'm starting this thread, for posting and discussing clever/handy memes that point out the many factual and logical problems with the bible.  Please share any good memes or textual tidbits you come across too.

 

EDIT: Reminder to posters:  please describe your images and the text in them because we have members who cannot access this information due to visual impairment.  They read posts with the help of scanning software that can read out text but not anything within an image file.  Thanks.

 

Image below includes photo of a smiling woman holding a bible, with the following text:

• "The Bible is the word of God.
• But the Old Testament doesn't apply anymore, except for some parts; we determine what or when those parts apply.
• Only the New Testament applies, except for the parts we ignore; we determine what and when those parts are ignored.
• Some words are interpreted literally, and some as a metaphor; we decide.
• When parts contradict science, each other, are now immoral or illegal, they are definitely a metaphor for something.
• The entire bible is divinely inspired by God, though. [smiley face]

Confusing? It helps if you don't think about it!

 

Just keep smiling."

 

[FreeThinkerNZ]

[earthmama514]

Following

[midniterider]

 

Maybe the loving God who cares so much for his children created those diseases later on! :-)

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Thanks to Earthmama514 for this classic:

 

[FreeThinkerNZ]

[Llwellyn]

[Roz]

I don't think any of our Den apologists have ever read even parts of the Koran... but they will all claim that their interpretation of their book is correct.

 

EDIT to include caption    "Thinks atheists are not familiar enough with theology to criticize christianity... has never read the koran, rejects Islam"

 

[Leo]

Not to nit pick, but I wish thgere was a way for you to caption the graphics you post for the memes, to add an alt or title to the upload. Some of us can't tell what's in the pic, except by guesswork via comments to it, which usually gives a rough idea.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to shut down freedom of expression, just think it would be nice if the pic uploader allowed you guys to put a title or alternative text attribute to the pic.

Never matters if it is just a part of an article, and I'm not some sort of Internet slacktavist SJW or crying boo hoo, don't take me wrong, It would just be nice if there was a way to put a caption on these, especially where the graphic is the entirety of your thoughts. And yeah, I understand that won't tell the same as a picture does for someone who can see it, I understand the arguments people have to this. Just a suggestion.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Not to nit pick, but I wish thgere was a way for you to caption the graphics you post for the memes, to add an alt or title to the upload. Some of us can't tell what's in the pic, except by guesswork via comments to it, which usually gives a rough idea.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to shut down freedom of expression, just think it would be nice if the pic uploader allowed you guys to put a title or alternative text attribute to the pic.

Never matters if it is just a part of an article, and I'm not some sort of Internet slacktavist SJW or crying boo hoo, don't take me wrong, It would just be nice if there was a way to put a caption on these, especially where the graphic is the entirety of your thoughts. And yeah, I understand that won't tell the same as a picture does for someone who can see it, I understand the arguments people have to this. Just a suggestion.

No problem, I will try to remember to caption the graphics, and I'll go back and do the ones above that I've already posted.  You might want to send your suggestion to webmdave, the admin of the site, who can consider if there is a way to make it happen automatically with the software that runs the site.

[Leo]

Ah wow thanks I'll contact them. Might be they could add a description field for when you upload a pic, since it's impossible to self-title these things. There's always an image title, by number if nothing else, although some image titles are descriptive enough in and of themselves. These are by number in this thread, so they probably come from another source.

By number means, I see something like image 000327 or something.

If a pic has a file name it might show up as something like: Yahweh_Spreads_ebola.jpg

Which is quite enough to get the imagination going. Anyway, I know this isn't deliberate and one challenge to certain more image-based methods for communicating on the net. I don't take it personally, never have.

[seven77]

 

Captioning for Leo, per request above: "The following diseases require a human host to survive: measles, mumps, rubella, smallpox, chicken pox, yellow fever, hepatitis, AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis. Which of the 8 perfect people God saved on the Ark had which disease? How unlucky was mankind that these 8 people had all these (and many other diseases)?"

 

---------------------

 

In Which Seven77 Takes A Random Science-Based Biblical Debunking Meme To Task:

HIV/AIDS and Yellow Fever are zoonotic [Wiki: zoonosis], meaning they were transmitted to human populations via exposure to the disease carried by non-humans. Research indicates that HIV/AIDS originated in human populations that routinely handled and consumed monkey meat that was infected with SIV or Simian Immunodeficiency Virus. [Wiki HERE] Yellow Fever is transmitted via mosquito bites. In both cases, the disease originated in non-human populations. Pointing the finger at the supposed 8 humans aboard the Ark is ridiculous and unscientific. Although, if we are poking fun at The Lard, why did he include mosquitoes on the Ark in the first place?

It is likely that measles did not exist during the supposed time of Noah. Research seems to suggest that measles did not arise until sometime during the late Western Dark Ages. Measles is related to rinderpest, which is a zoonotic disease that can pass from cattle to humans. So it could be that measles evolved from rinderpest that jumped to us via our domestication of cattle. Rinderpest was likely present on the Ark, but not measles and once again, we can shift the blame back on Yahweh for allowing carrier beasts on his supposedly clean and holy re-population ship. [Wiki Link HERE]

Jared Diamond sums up the origins of disease in domestication of animals hypothesis quite well in his article in Nature HERE: [emphasis mine]

Evolution of epidemic infectious diseases

 

The main killers of humans since the advent of agriculture have been acute, highly infectious, epidemic diseases that are confined to humans and that either kill the victim quickly or, if the victim recovers, immunize him/her for life. Such diseases could not have existed before the origins of agriculture, because they can sustain themselves only in large dense populations that did not exist before agriculture, hence they are often termed 'crowd diseases'. The mystery of the origins of many of these diseases has been solved by molecular biological studies of recent decades, demonstrating that they evolved from similar epidemic diseases of our herd domestic animals with which we began to come into close contact 10,000 years ago. Thus, the evolution of these diseases depended on two separate roles of domestication: in creating much denser human populations, and in permitting much more frequent transmission of animal diseases from our domesticates than from hunted wild animals. For instance, measles and tuberculosis arose from diseases of cattle, influenza from a disease of pigs and ducks. An outstanding mystery remains the origins of smallpox: did it reach us from camels or from cattle?

Crowd diseases paradoxically became agents of conquest, because exposed individuals acquired immune resistance from childhood exposure, and exposed populations gradually evolved genetic resistance, but unexposed populations had neither type of resistance. In practice, because 13 of our 14 large domestic mammals were Eurasian species, evolution of crowd diseases was concentrated in Eurasia, and the diseases became the most important agents by which Eurasian colonists expanding overseas killed indigenous peoples of the Americas, Australia, Pacific islands and Southern Africa.

 

 

------------------------

 

Previously, there has been discussion of Yahweh being a warrior god that the Jews chosen as their only god. I'm going with that theory here, because it aligns quite nicely with the line of reasoning I am attempting. Namely, God created disease and allowed to survive and thrive specifically due to its potential as a weapon of conquest. Disease, disfigurement and death were merely side effects to Him. Scourges and plagues were the tanks and drones of times past.

The diseases of Eurasian descended settlers are what killed vast native populations worldwide during the last 500 or so years. [sources: Native American Epidemics List,  Smallpox Epidemics in Australia, Epidemics Among the Maori of New Zealand, TB Epidemics Among the Tribes of Canada] Prior to that time, they killed off vast numbers of Europeans as the Crusades waged on, culminating in Black Death of the 1300s. There are records of plagues in Ancient Rome [Antonine Plague and Justinian Plague are the two most well-known. Some scholars think that the Cyprian Plague may have led to the spread of Christianity and its influence on the later empire.] Disease has likely always been a common feature of human existence any time that large numbers of us live in one area with close proximity to animals and shared bodies of water.

The risk of endemics, epidemics and pandemics rises and ebbs with time and space. If one takes evolution as a constant, then one must accept viruses, bacteria and the other disease causing organisms as part of the constant. They evolve as we do. They reproduce, just all other life forms do. There is nothing special about mankind that we should be immune to effects of other species evolutionary process. We sure as hell don't care about the aftershocks of our species' impedance and intrusion upon the lives of other species, do we?

In that way, the microbe acts as an evolutionary justice system. Large predatory animals are largely gone from our modern world, erased by humans in our quest to make the world ours. We've caged a great deal of those left and now we control their evolutionary processes, their lives. The few that remain in the wild are threatened by human encroachment and resource hoarding or perhaps hunting. Only other humans pose a serious threat to other humans. Mostly humans with loaded guns and face-melting nuclear weapons that protect hoards of fear in times of uncertainty.

Our one great non-human foe? Disease. We haven't yet subdued the teeming masses of microbes that threaten our existence. That is why we panic when these tiny life forms begin to spread out and look for new human hosts. Currently, we panic over Ebola. Ebola is scary, no doubt. It too is a zoonotic disease, spread to humans via the handling and consumption of primate meats and/or bats. [bats are the likely reservoir for the latest rounds of outbreak or so current research seems to indicate.] That is why it is primarily endemic to Africa and not elsewhere at the  moment. The danger in Ebola lies in its novelty to rest of the world. We are not eating gorillas, chimpanzees or bats. However, the disease can be transmitted via contact with the bodily fluids of those who have.

As demonstrated in the case of Eric Duncan and its aftermath, the disease can spread with alarming ease from person to person in a first world nation, just as it does in Africa. It is statistically less likely to spread via the same means as it does in developing nations, since most of us don't shit directly into rivers and in open fields. We aren't as likely to step in our infected neighbor's shit as someone who lives in an area where that sort of thing happens. [For those interested, HERE  is an interesting documentary about the campaigns to put a stop to open defecation in third world countries.] We also don’t wash our shitty asses in disease laden water and then go about our day-to-day routines either.

Our nurses are more likely to have gloves and masks. Hospitals are usually decently clean, tools sterilized, bedding changed, etc. However, doctors don’t always wash their hands [link] and neither do patients and visitors. We are also aware of diseases such as MRSA spreading in clinical setting despite the precautions taken to avoid doing so [link].

--------

TL;DR Version:

Many diseases originated in domestic animal populations or are spread by non-human creatures. Current Third World living conditions are conducive to unhealthy habits such as open defecation, the disposing of waste in bodies of water and the overcrowded living conditions in unsanitary areas. Dwindling food and water resources cause people to consume things that they probably wouldn't otherwise, resulting in illness and sometimes death.

The original meme is not entirely wrong. It is misleading and inaccurate, albeit somewhat humorous. The Ark story itself is ludicrous and is deserving of analysis and ridicule that will encourage literalists to let go of such things.

Hail Sagan and all that jazz.

 

 

[Brother Jeff]

[Leo]

Thanks Seven77 for the write-up. Very nice, I really appreciate it.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

The text in this image says "1 Timothy 2:12 I do not permit a woman to teach  or have authority over a man.  She must remain silent." There are several photos of female police officers, doctors, soldiers, teachers, and the caption "Fuck off, Timothy!  Sincerely, The Working Women of the World."

 

[Guest Furball]

Gawd i want to post so many pics but i cannot for the life of me figure out how to do it. If any of you are divinely inspired to help me figure this out-magically make your post appear)

[Avandris]

Gawd i want to post so many pics but i cannot for the life of me figure out how to do it. If any of you are divinely inspired to help me figure this out-magically make your post appear)

 

 

In the reply box you'll see a little picture icon on the second tool-bar (looks sort of like a little polaroid picture). Click on that and copy paste the URL into the available box, click ok.

 

To get the URL for the picture, find the picture you want to use right click on the image and choose 'Copy image URL' then you just paste it into the above. 

 

Hopefully that makes sense and works for you!

[Guest Furball]

 

[Guest Furball]

I'm all powerful ya know. I hope your arm isn't made out of iron.

[Guest Furball]

Damn you free thinkers!!!!

[Guest Furball]

 

[FreeThinkerNZ]

1.jpg

Image is painting of Jesus with disciples saying "So then I was all like, Mom, chill out, I'll be back in like three days, tops".

[FreeThinkerNZ]

I'm all powerful ya know. I hope your arm isn't made out of iron.1.jpg

Image is a painting of Jesus and the Devil arm wrestling. Lol.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Damn you free thinkers!!!!4.jpg

Image is photo of a Jesus character shouting, hand raised.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

 1.jpg

 

 

Image is 6 pictures with captions:

 

1. Megachurch congregation singing, arms raised. "What society thinks I do"

2. Pastor, church, dollar bills and collection plate. "What pastors want me to do"

3. People feeding the poor. "What I should be doing"

4. Man in devil costume. "What other churches think I do"

5. Painting of a stairway to heaven. "What I think I do"

6. Man sitting in church asleep. "What I really do"