Theres Something I Don't Get Here

[ogilvy]

at the risk of getting thrown out of here, there's something i sincerely wonder about. its this...IF the bible was actually true, inspired by God, then no matter how outrageious, sexist, stupid or unscientific it seemed, wouldnt it be reasonable for people to follow what it said? similarly, if people BELIEVE the bible to be true, inspired directly by God, isnt it REASONABLE for them to go around trying to preach the gospeal as commanded?

what i'm getting at is i dont get why a lot of atheists criticize funadamentalists for, eg. keeping women silent in church, or trying to avoid worldly things, or whatever else is commanded in the bible which they sincerely believe is from God. isnt it reasonable to try to obey God?

of course, maybe its stupid to believe the bible, but if you do believe the bible, wouldnt it be stupid not to try to obey it?

i dont expect anyone to get what i'm talking about really, because even when i believed the bible and tried to literally follow it, even other christians didnt know what i was on about, except for the amish, of whom there were very very few in my country, or the exclusive brethren.

anyway this is something i dont understand, even though i dont believe in it myself any more.

[florduh]

I agree completely. I actually have respect for fundamentalists who are honest in their own way trying to follow their god's word. Even jihadists who are willing to die for their god. I have little respect for those who want to be associated with the religion of their choice, but then only follow the teachings that suit them.

 

Regarding your specific examples such as women in the Bible, the problem is when they try to tell us it doesn't say what it obviously does say. If they said, "well, it may not seem fair or loving to you or me, but I know it is God's word and I shall defend and support it." Usually they don't have the cojones to really defend their faith. They spend their time making a ridiculous dogma more palatable to us, and more importantly, to themselves.

[MathGeek]

I really think it comes down to an admixture of ignorance and choice. Everybody may ignore parts of the Bible willingly or unwillingly via outside pressures or through lack of knowledge. Also, one's upbringing or current membership within a certain faction of Christianity plays heavily into this idea.

 

I know that sounds wishy-washy and academic, but I think that is how Christianity is now and has always been.

[L.B.]

I agree completely. I actually have respect for fundamentalists who are honest in their own way trying to follow their god's word.

 

florduh, I have to respectfully disagree with you on this. I do not believe there should be any respect given to a belief system that says that 'god' commands his people to kill unbelievers, including babies and so on. You would respect a fundamentalist whose religion says they are to kill you if you refuse to convert? Fuck that. Fundamentalist religion is the realm of power-hungry megalomaniacs who think a magic genie in the sky speaks to them and tells them secrets and gives them magic books. My ass they deserve respect. They deserve every laugh and insult and ounce of scorn we all can muster.

 

The only religions worth pursuing are the ones that refuse to erect these false and hateful borders that the fundies insist must exist because their magic sky man said so.

[Mike D]

what i'm getting at is i dont get why a lot of atheists criticize funadamentalists for, eg. keeping women silent in church, or trying to avoid worldly things, or whatever else is commanded in the bible which they sincerely believe is from God. isnt it reasonable to try to obey God?

When it comes to fundies, generally they believe the Bible is 100% the literal word of god. All of it. To me this is simply the inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. What's reasonable about that? A schizophrenic might believe the voices in their head are real, but that doesn't make it reasonable for them to obey them.

[ogilvy]

 

it'd be reasonable to the schizophrenic wouldnt it?

[Guest Marty]

Um, sure. I agree with your thoughts in principle, but the opperative word is IF the bible is true. The reason it is perfectly fine (IMO) to criticize bible belivers is because they (or anyone for the matter) cannot show the bible to be true in much of anything. Sure, it mentions some leaders and some cities that actually existed or still exist, but Stephen King has real people and places in his books sometimes too, doesn't make what he wrote real.

 

Instead of the bible being anything from a god, it is only a well preserved collection of ancient mythology and laws from a middle east culture of 3,000 years ago. The evidence for this is all over the place. If someone wants me to consider ANY part of the bible (especially the "moral" parts such as killing homosexual men or making sure women keep silent and submissive) as authoritative in any way or even to respect anybody's belief in it's truth, they must first prove to me that the bible was right in other things such as:

 

The circumference of a circle is 3.

 

Bats are birds

 

Whales are fish

 

Insects have 4 legs

 

Rabbits chew cud

 

Donkeys and serpants have the ability to speak ancient Hebrew

 

Unicorns and Cockatrices exist

 

Witches exist

 

The world is a flat disc supported by giant pillars and does not move

 

Dead people got up and walked around Jerusalem and started preaching somethime around 33 C.E.

 

Anyone in Jerusalem being rasied from the dead around the first century C.E.

 

 

Untill these and the countless additional absurdities found in the bible can be proved to me to be true, I will consider those people who live out bible commandments as no different than those who would hold Mein Kampf to be true and carry out its teachings in their lives. If the bible was only a collection of scientific absurdities and mythology, I wouldn't care what people thought about it. But it has much more than benign mythology and stories inside.

 

If the bible got science right, then I would be more inclined to believe its other statments. Instead, it tells us nothing that wasn't known to ancient people. It is full of falsehoods that would be expected and predicted to be found in writings from that period.

 

The bible is obviously not true. It is not from a god. Therefore anyone who believes it is is no more than an adult who still believes in Leprichauns and Faries, and deserves ridicule.

[Ouroboros]

at the risk of getting thrown out of here, there's something i sincerely wonder about. its this...IF the bible was actually true, inspired by God, then no matter how outrageious, sexist, stupid or unscientific it seemed, wouldnt it be reasonable for people to follow what it said? similarly, if people BELIEVE the bible to be true, inspired directly by God, isnt it REASONABLE for them to go around trying to preach the gospeal as commanded?

That is absolutely correct.

 

However what I see as a serious problem with it is that no one can in any way or fashion figure out the exact "literal" truth to follow. When the Bible say that Jesus said that to be a true disciple, you have to sell everything and give to the poor, and then follow him. None, or extremely few, Christians do this. Not even fundamentalists do this command. Why? They have the excuse that this segment was "only" said to the Jews, and not to the disciples. So they extrapolate the interpretation to when and where and who to this applies to. And 99.99% of the Bible is that way. Is baptism required or not to be saved? There's two sides to that coin. So even if the Bible were true, and we should follow it 100%, then which 100% should we follow?

[florduh]

Just for clarity, I gave no respect to the belief system, but to the individual bold enough to follow their chosen religion as it was intended.

 

Someone who is willing to stand up for what they believe is right is acting properly from their perspective. That's all I'm saying.

[Neon Genesis]

at the risk of getting thrown out of here, there's something i sincerely wonder about. its this...IF the bible was actually true, inspired by God, then no matter how outrageious, sexist, stupid or unscientific it seemed, wouldnt it be reasonable for people to follow what it said?

I look at it this way. Since Nazism existed and Hitler was an inspiration to Nazis, then no matter how outrageous, sexist, stupid or unscientific Hitler seemed, does that mean it would be reasonable for people to follow Hitler and convert to Nazism? I think most people would agree that it is unreasonable. Now replace Nazism with a literally true bible and replace Hitler with God and are they really that different from each other? So, even if God was actually true, if it was the same literal God in the bible was true, I'd follow him about as much as I'd follow Hitler, which is not at all. I'd rather go to hell than sell my soul to the true devil of Christianity.

 

similarly, if people BELIEVE the bible to be true, inspired directly by God, isnt it REASONABLE for them to go around trying to preach the gospeal as commanded?

Is Nazism reasonable to preach as true as long as Nazis believe it to be true? Or look at it like this? If it's reasonable for fundies to preach sexism as true as long as they believe it is true, then is it reasonable for the KKK to preach racism as true as long as they believe it is true?

 

what i'm getting at is i dont get why a lot of atheists criticize funadamentalists for, eg. keeping women silent in church, or trying to avoid worldly things, or whatever else is commanded in the bible which they sincerely believe is from God. isnt it reasonable to try to obey God?

The problem is that that's not the only things fundies are preaching. If that was all, I wouldn't care as much, but fundies are also trying to preach that Genesis is literally true and are trying to get taught as science while also banning actual real science, they believe that it's their "right" to enforce their beliefs on others, that homosexuality is a mortal sin that needs to be "cured" as if it was some sort of evil disease and that gays should not be treated as equal human beings, that children suffering is perfectly A-OK because it's all in God's plan, and I wouldn't be surprised if fundies tried to take away the equal rights of women and blacks if they could. So it's not so much that fundies not only believe in a literal biblical truth that bothers me, but are also trying to force other people to believe it's literally true, that pisses me off.

 

of course, maybe its stupid to believe the bible, but if you do believe the bible, wouldnt it be stupid not to try to obey it?

Would it be smart to force women to marry their rapists? Why not, it's in the bible, so if someone believed in the bible literally, shouldn't they also believe that women must marry their rapists? What about Jews? Should it be legal for Jews to stone their children to death if they don't do what they say since Jews believe in the Torah?

[Mike D]

 

it'd be reasonable to the schizophrenic wouldnt it?

I assume so, but so what? If a schizophrenic murders someone because the voices in his head told him to (or a religious person does because "god" said so), is your issue that because in that person's mind it was reasonable to commit murder, that we as observers should agree that it is in fact reasonable and we shouldn't criticize them? Same for religious people also?

[Robbobrob]

Assuming the Bible is 100% true, would you really want to live under the tyranny of such a deity, or fight for humanity and what is right.

 

The Book of Revelations, if true, is the most digusting thing ever concieved, and I for one would gladly fight against the forces of God, for such a God is NOT worthy to be my leader.

[Deva]

i dont expect anyone to get what i'm talking about really, because even when i believed the bible and tried to literally follow it, even other christians didnt know what i was on about, except for the amish, of whom there were very very few in my country, or the exclusive brethren.

anyway this is something i dont understand, even though i dont believe in it myself any more.

 

Actually I do understand this. I actually respect the integrity of someone who tries to carry out what they think is right. They see God as good (strange, I know) and the Bible as "god's word." Its a fact that I still do respect them more than other types of more liberal Christians.

 

I actually have respect for fundamentalists who are honest in their own way trying to follow their god's word

 

I agree with that Florduh. Again, this is totally aside from what the doctrine says. It shows discipline and integrity.

 

And Hans, I understand where you are coming from and I understand the fundamentalists are also cherry-picking - but that is only after I have come out of it. You know they don't see it that way - as you say the objectionable parts don't apply to them.

 

This is, of course, aside from the truth or falsity of the doctrine they are following.

[gradstu09]

Even if it were 100% TRUE, that doesn't mean it makes any SENSE, and that it doesn't speaks very poorly for the god supposedly responsible for it. It speaks even worse for the people who follow it in defiance of all logic.

[par4dcourse]

Blind faith is still blindness.

[alpha centauri]

I have a different viewpoint.

 

While I think the bible and the biblical god are absolutely false, fabricated from myths and superstitions ...

 

If the Bible was proven to be true, I would still oppose this twisted, schizophrenic, narcissistic, cruel sky tyrant. This god supposedly is filled with love and forgiveness, but only if you choose to completely pour out your own individuality (because we supposedly can do NOTHING good on our own, and are born of sin and evil, even though god allowed us to be made that way).

 

Even if this tyrant had the power to cast me into hell, I could never love him. What kind of love is that? And this maniacal god DEMANDS worship and is jealous. What's he so jealous of? That's just nonsensical.

 

A perfect being demanding worship, demanding that he be exalted to the point of our obsession, and that we love him so much we would reject our own loved ones or even kill for him, if he asked that of us (like he requested Abraham sacrifice Isaac just to test him)? That just defies human wisdom, let alone what should be the wisdom of a god.

 

And the authors of the Bible knew people would doubt, so they added in stuff about how god "made foolishness wisdom to confound the wise." WHAT? Why would god want to do that? Why reward ignorance, stupidity and blind obedience and punish wisdom, intelligence, logic and reason? It's so twisted!

 

This biblical god also made a world filled with people who he mostly plans to damn to an eternity of hell. That's just sick, evil and vile sadism at its worst.

 

Why "die and rise again" to save a small minority of sheepish bootlickers when you should have made a better world from the start? Why wipe out most of humanity and send pestilence and punishments? Just because you want prove your awesomeness, lordliness and superiority?

 

That's the worse kind of tyrant imaginable!

[MonolithTMA]

it'd be reasonable to the schizophrenic wouldnt it?

 

Sure, but why does it matter if it's reasonable to them? If I tell you I 100% believe the voices in my head are telling me to come to your house and punch you in the nose, wouldn't you want to argue with me?

[Piprus]

at the risk of getting thrown out of here, there's something i sincerely wonder about. its this...IF the bible was actually true, inspired by God, then no matter how outrageious, sexist, stupid or unscientific it seemed, wouldnt it be reasonable for people to follow what it said? similarly, if people BELIEVE the bible to be true, inspired directly by God, isnt it REASONABLE for them to go around trying to preach the gospeal as commanded?

what i'm getting at is i dont get why a lot of atheists criticize funadamentalists for, eg. keeping women silent in church, or trying to avoid worldly things, or whatever else is commanded in the bible which they sincerely believe is from God. isnt it reasonable to try to obey God?

of course, maybe its stupid to believe the bible, but if you do believe the bible, wouldnt it be stupid not to try to obey it?

i dont expect anyone to get what i'm talking about really, because even when i believed the bible and tried to literally follow it, even other christians didnt know what i was on about, except for the amish, of whom there were very very few in my country, or the exclusive brethren.

anyway this is something i dont understand, even though i dont believe in it myself any more.

I think that at some point, a person who is as you say is trying to follow literally this "word of God", has to throwup the hands and say "Bullshit!" "It's impossible to live this way, with any degree whatsoever of comfort in life!!" At that point what you end up doing is either just cherry-picking the good parts, the words that make you feel good, or you begin to question the validity of the whole thing with the end result so many of us have ultimately taken...reject the whole thing in toto as nothing more than an ancient myth, and find a better way in your own mind to deal with this reality we're in.

[Amethyst]

The problem with the Bible is not only has it never been proven true, but that anyone can interpret it any way he or she wants, and claim all other interpretations as false. This is what's gone on all throughout history.

 

I agree that if you're going to be Christian, you should be a fundamentalist. You either believe in the religion or you don't; cherry picking what you want to believe is not being honest with yourself. But the caveat here is IF the Bible is true. It's been disproven many times, different ways. We know it's not true. Cherry picking things to agree with modern science or political correctness, in order to hang onto the Christian label, is intellectually dishonest. People need to just say they're agnostic and be done with it; the only reason they hang onto the Christian label is because it is socially desirable. We need to make not being a Christian acceptable.

[Evolution_beyond]

I don't necessarily subscribe to this view that taking something literally is the most sincere and rational approach.

 

There are plenty of writings, especially ancient writings, that are not really meant to be taken literally but are poetic and expressive in nature.

 

I agree that it is insincere to try and argue your way out of some of the laws in the bible when they are presumably supposed to be taken on face value.

 

But this fundamentalist view of the bible is seriously flawed even if you take christianity seriously. The Adam and Eve story and the Noah and the flood story are clearly examples of hebrew mythology. Other ancient cultures had similar stories. The 'seven days of creation' story is obviously poetic in nature. It is clearly inconsistent to insist that since what Paul said in his letters we don't need to worry about some of the Jewish laws in the Torah - but still insist that we do need to worry about the line in Leviticus that says a man shouldn't lie with another man.

 

So Fundamentalism is not necessarily the most rational and sincere approach to christianity.

 

Even as a christian I came from a point of view that fanatical literalism was a flawed and dangerous approach to things (and a little bit stupid) - and that the most rational approach was to do your historical research, understand and appreciate when things were being expressed in a poetic and metaphorical fashion - and become an educated follower of the faith rather than taking everything on face value. I understood that with spiritual things in particular, the literal approach doesn't always make the most sense since human beings are trying to describe something that their minds are not equipped to fully understand (eg. descriptions of God or of Hell might not be one hundred percent literal but more of a clumsy, mortal attempt to understand something beyond human understanding).

 

Mind you, this approach to christianity is what allowed me to evolve beyond the christian worldview through paganism, hindu/buddhist influenced pantheism - all the way to sceptical atheism. So I'll agree that the best way to remain a christian is to be a fundamentalist one.

 

But that's why fundamentalism is so stupid. Christianity actually doesn't make any sense when you analyse it intensely. There are only three things to do with that. Either stop analysing it and become wilfully ignorant (ie. fundamentalist), reinterpret it to the extent that it is barely even christianity anymore (universalism) or analyse it to death until it falls apart in your hands (atheism - or becoming some other religion).

[ogilvy]

 

it'd be reasonable to the schizophrenic wouldnt it?

I assume so, but so what? If a schizophrenic murders someone because the voices in his head told him to (or a religious person does because "god" said so), is your issue that because in that person's mind it was reasonable to commit murder, that we as observers should agree that it is in fact reasonable and we shouldn't criticize them? Same for religious people also?

 

what i was trying to say is how a lot of atheists think christians are stupid for doing certain things. i'm saying that if they happen to believe God has spoken to humans thru the bible, it wouldnt be stupid to try to obey it. it could be stupid to believe in the first place, i agree. but once you do believe, its not stupid to try to follow.

 

on another track for a minute, when you first come to believe in the bible you might not know much about it. you have to rely on what 'older' christians tell you is in it, what it says, what it means. after a while you come acrosss things which disturb you, but by then you maybe think that what you have learned up till then makes sense, and maybe assume that theres some reasonable explanation for the rest of it. it can take some time to study it all, think it through, get disillusioned, and finally turn off.

 

i used to find it disturbing that science didnt coroborate (is that the word?) the bible, but because i accepted that there were good reasons to think the bible was ian inspired book, i was willing to conclude that science was 'a lie of the devil'.

 

why i accepted the bible as being from God was things like: the 44 different writers, yet the whole bible seemed consistent, mainly. the writers of the books showed themselves in a bad light, eg. Peter. why would they do that if it was made up? the new testament was written in a time when the local people would have remembered the events, so what would the point be of making up obviously untrue stuff ? prophecies from the OT came true, and apparently the dead sea scrolls prove that the prophecies werent made up after the event. why would the writers of the new testament be advocating good truthful moral behaviour if they were themselves liars. how could they make up stuff about being good if they were bad? etc.

 

for those reasons i was sure the bible was inspired. i never would have believed it if anyone had said, in 2008 you will not believe in the bible any more. seeing as how i did think i was obeying God, it was reasonable that i did all the stuff i did, being 'unworldly' etc. it wasnt even stupid to believe in the first place, because not having found out the flaws yet, what i had studied of the bible seemed to make sense. i honestly couldnt conceive of the bible not being from God, until a few months ago it hit me that the horrible cruelty in the OT was a way of life back then, which would explain why the bible characters don't complain of the cruelty. for the first time i opened my mind to the 'shocking' realization that maybe the bible was a man made book. anyway, of course, having been trhu all this myself, i can see why fundamentalists think and act the way they do, so irritatingly. it makes sense that they do.

[Vomit Comet]

Compartmentalization. I've known some truly brilliant people, even with hard science backgrounds, who accepted the Bible whole hog, although they'd get a little sketchy with Genesis. My best friend believes in evolution and everything, but he rationalizes it so that God is still the A-1 creator behind it all. I've heard people say that "six days" actually means "six phases" or something like that.

 

As for thoughtful humanities types... eh, it takes quite a lot of brainpower to generate the kind of sophistry that lets them sleep soundly at night. C.S. Lewis, for example, was anything but a dumb-ass.

[Jincks013]

I would admire anyone who can live up to an ideal every day, so far I have not found a single christian that actually lives up to their ideal every day but there are plenty of them that want to tell me I have to live to their ideals. The bible did not happen. End of story.

No tribes of isreal left egqypt; the Hysoks did. There is a single recorded event of two slaves escaping via an outpost out of ancient eqypt. The bible couldn't even get that part right,.

So what there was a wagon wheel found underwater.. ok this proves the parting of the red sea how? There are two whole cities under water in the canopic region of ancient eqypt. All this proves is a difference in sea levels between then and now.

 

No I don't think your little leather bound comic book full of sand dune superheros who prey on the minds of the weak was written by any 'god' anywhere. I think its all moonshine and mirrors thrown togather by a highly power motivated group of sadistic misogynysts back a few thousand years ago.

[MathGeek]

Fraud or not, the Bible is here to stay at least for the foreseeable duration. This system of belief is being used to fight against the repressive state regimes and it is assisting poor folks in places where the daily wage is less than $1. I know people should help others willingly and participate in their political system, but there are very clever and intelligent men and women who are awesome at mental gymnastics and can somehow prove to the masses that it may be "okay to eat your neighbor" and that our political system was rooted in Christian dogma. They have us fooled and they've done a good job of it. This is likely why I keep hearing about the Christian right being courted every damn day on the electronic propaganda outlets.

 

Just because the Christians came here first doesn't mean they have the right to establish national policy in their image, but that group sees it obversely.

[Jincks013]

and that our political system was rooted in Christian dogma. They have us fooled and they've done a good job of it. This is likely why I keep hearing about the Christian right being courted every damn day on the electronic propaganda outlets.

 

Just because the Christians came here first doesn't mean they have the right to establish national policy in their image, but that group sees it obversely.

 

1. The bible so gave us senates right? Greeks and romans didn't have a thing to do with it did they? House of Lords didn't exist before American political systems? As a country we learned nothing of a democratic system from the Iriquios? Plato's Republic wasn't used for any sort of modeling was it? Aritstotles Nicomachean Ethics played no part as well? I do not believe either the greeks, romans, plato, aristotle or the Iriquios were xtians. Perhaps you have some information I don't you'd be willing to share?

 

2. Christians came here first.. to what? A vast open land with no one else around? I am under the impression the xtians were invaders and that native peoples resided here first. I could be wrong though, I doubt it.

 

People were xtians then because they had to be! There were fines if you didn't attend church, worked on the sabbath. People could be heavily fined, flogged, locked in stocks, property taken if you didn't attend church and worship. This is hardly a good support for the arguement that religion founded the U.S. political system. When your option is to die or go to church you go to church to preserve your life.

Ephriam Nash of New Hampshire was fined 5 pounds (a lot of money in those days), 50% of his crops and was sentenced to 7 nights in the stocks in 1690 for the 'crime' of working in his field on the sabbath. When my many times great grandfather was hauled up in front of the local magistrate he was asked why he broke the sabbath. His reply was "Its not any different then any other day" did not please the local magistrate.

 

Think about it.

Was the american political system founded on biblical ideals? Or were biblical ideals used as a form of domestic terrorism to force control on people?

The american political system has drawn influence from many cultures both ancient and modern, it has changed and evolved over time into its current structure. Do you really think we have the same political system now that we did in 1776?

A years crops to support his family and suddenly half his income is gone. Taken because of a stupid religious tenant. The man just wanted to work his field, support himself