I don’t usually call out people’s comments, but this one was posted today to an older post that most people would miss. It was in response to my post, “Why are Christians afraid of atheists?“
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me on this blog and welcome all comments. It makes the discussion much more interesting. But it’s been a while since I’ve had a gem like this one. Enjoy.
From commenter “Lizzie“:
I’m not afraid of “Atheists”, they just annoy me. Everytime I meet one, they try to shove their Science down my throat. Therfore, naming them “Science Thumpers” and “butt hurt”. As you can see. >.>
Second of all, atheists say that were ignorant, because we don’t want to accept the so called, “proof”. Well guess what honey, we can say the same thing. Needless to say, atheists tend to act “all that”. I am a Christian because I believe there IS A God. I don’t care if the president disagrees, either.
I dont know where atheists get that they are all about “logic”. Because for me, it’s LOGICAL that God created this world. therfore, “logic” can mean differently, to different people. I appreciate Science, because it has helped find medicanes, etc. BUT I will not give Science the credit, for the creation of the world. Evolution is very ridiclious.
Atheists always main argument is WERE RATIONAL DAMIT. It makes them dillusional, not us christians. I’m gonna sum this up and say, Christians (as atheists try to make them) are not evil. We will stand up for whatever we believe, just like anyone else. Yeah sadly, they may call atheists EVIL, but atheists call christians BIBLE THUMPERS, And pathetic excuses for humans….yeah atheists aren’t all righteous, like they try to make themselves seem. Leading up to them being Butt hurt. Flat out butt hurt.
Question for Ass-theists, I mean atheists: why do you feel the need to put our beliefs down? Hmm?
I will continue to be a Christian. I don’t care what people think, they can rant all they want. Kthxbai.
I don’t know about you, but I’m convinced. Ending up butt hurt sounds pretty terrible to me.
Tags: Afraid, Atheist, Atheists, Bible, Blog, Blogs, Christian, Commenter, Commenters, Comments, Evolution, Fear, God, Jesus
November 3, 2009 at 9:11 pm |
It may be logical to believe there is a god who made the world but it is not logical to believe that God is all-loving and good. He made all sorts of parasites and creatures who serve no purpose but to torment mankind. Those who believe in only one god are therefore sad. Their god must be both evil and ‘good’ both cruel and ‘loving’; enter Augustine, Luther , and Calvin to tell us all about how their loving god decides based on a coin toss who will burn forever and who will get to play a harp up on a cloud. If you are going to be a monotheist you might as well be an atheist because your god can’t be a basis for morality anyway. If the same god commands genocide over here but loving your enemies over there, how is morality absolute? Only in Dualism can morality be absolute because only a God who didn’t create the world can be absolutely moral. If you aren’t a Marcionite, you essentially are an atheist because you don’t really believe in the only God that counts, the Good one.
November 3, 2009 at 11:50 pm |
Rey,
You should consider posting over at Reddit,
http://www.reddit.com/
specifically the Christian sub-reddit.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Christianity/
November 4, 2009 at 1:32 am |
Actually it isn’t logical to think that a god may have made the world – it only appears so.
A creator-god is supposed to be the true cause of everything (except itself). The logic shows that there can’t be a “true cause” creator.
If we conjecture a creator-god, we know it has the necessary properties of “godness” that it couldn’t have created. This means that modality – what is possible, probable, necessary and contingent – exists without the intervention of any entity. That’s just another way of saying that every possible world exists without the intervention of any entity, every possible world including this one.
So the creator-god concept is a self-contradiction.
November 9, 2009 at 2:39 pm |
Actually, after the fall of mankind in Genesis, the world changed dramatically, according to Genesis 3:17b, 18
“cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;”
That was the direct result of sin and the devil.
November 9, 2009 at 8:46 pm |
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the kings horses and all the kings men
Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Humpty Dumpty was never the same after the fall. So what’s your point? We should give a shit about your fairy tale? OK, just as soon as you understand the spiritual meaning Humpty Dumpty, I’ll consider the spiritual meaning of your fairy tale.
Here’s the thing. Genesis is a fairy tale. How do we know? Because we know the history of the earth. The history of the people of China, long predates Adam, your Eve or Noah. We didn’t have to be “there” because there is still right under our feet. There was no garden of Eden. How do we know? Because mankind evolved over the last million years. How do we know, because we find his remains, and find they are much older than the fairy tale predicts. There was no great flood. How do we know? Because we can see the history of the earth recorded in the geology of the earth and the ice of Greenland, and know for a fact that the bible is untrue.
November 11, 2009 at 10:18 am
No disagreement here on the age of the earth being older than a few thousand years.
Had you considered that Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” but Genesis 1:2 says, “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters”?
It’s interesting that God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33) and the Bible says, “For where envying and strife [is], there [is] confusion and every evil work.” (James 3:16), yet we find ourselves in Genesis 1:2 with a universe that is “formless and void” with “darkness…over the surface of the deep”.
Why would God do that? Or maybe, there’s more to these verses that meets the eye…
November 12, 2009 at 8:32 am
Rich – or there isn’t and this text is exactly what it looks to be, the compositions of Bronze Aged desert people who didn’t know about evolution, or heliocentricity, or geology, or bacteria, or mental illness.
The fact that you are twisting yourself in knots trying to read the True Meaning (read: not embarrassingly inconsistent and out of date meaning) is perhaps a sign that there isn’t a True Meaning. Maybe the text is exactly as it appears on the surface (minus a few literary flourishes, of course). Maybe it, along with the Quran, the Vedas, the Sutras, etc were all simply written by people putting their own ideas down with no divine inspiration.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my very painful deconversion process, it’s that if a theory takes a lot of work, a lot of reading into, a lot of explanation, and a lot of revision/backtracking to understand, it’s probably false.
November 10, 2009 at 5:43 am |
Rich – How did The Fall create Loa loa filariasis? How did The Fall put venomous snakes in the grass?
Something had to create these things. Ultimately, if God is creator, then he created everything. He set the world us so that either nasty creatures would come as a result of The Fall, or that nice creatures would become nasty once The Fall occurred. Or are you saying that God did not create all laws (physical and moral) in the universe?
The fact is that God created a universe in which The Fall would result in an horrendous world. He then created humanity in such a way that they would be susceptible to temptation and placed something tempting, not to mention a tempter, right in front of their noses! While his plan is certainly elaborate, it would be inaccurate to blame a pawn for everything that happened. Ultimately, God created suffering.
At the very least, God is the one who set up all the dominoes.
November 11, 2009 at 10:14 am
Luke 4:6, “And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.”
Had you considered if the devil had dominion since Genesis because of the fall “for that is delivered unto me” that he might introduce evil things (John 10:10)?
Humans and animals were initially designed to be vegetarians (Genesis 1:29, 30) — that changed — what else could have changed genetically in that time?
November 3, 2009 at 9:58 pm |
Did she ever, in her amazing wisdom, think of using spell check?
just saying…
November 3, 2009 at 10:49 pm |
Firefox would have red lined her entire post. Looks like another “Things Christians Like” is IExplorer.
November 3, 2009 at 11:57 pm |
Oh Crap! My brain got scrambled reading that!
November 4, 2009 at 1:55 am |
I see this type of christian as unreachable. It doesn’t matter what evidence you provide someone like this will never really understand when s/he is being shown the lies s/he has been told though out their lives.
November 4, 2009 at 5:34 am |
I call Poe. “Ass-theist”? Sounds like a 13-year-old having fun.
November 4, 2009 at 6:41 am |
““logic” can mean differently, to different people.”
Erm… actually I’m pretty sure it can’t.
November 4, 2009 at 6:59 am |
Now now, Najaf – dontcha know that opinions are more important than facts? That not giving offence is more important than establishing truth?
So people of all religions get to go to the afterlife they envisioned, all gods exist (several as the only god in existence!), and astrology is just as valid a way to interpret and predict our world as the scientific method is! All you have to do is believe in yourself and you can do anything you want (you go girl!)!
Oof, I really hate Oprah. She killed discourse.
November 4, 2009 at 7:46 am |
What is it that draws Christians to atheist websites? When I was a ‘polishing pews with my ass’ Christian, it would never dawn on me to go to a Muslim website and throw mud at their beliefs, or go to an atheist website and try to convert the lost sheep.
As I said in a previous comment section, we tend to hang out with people that have similar beliefs. I don’t wake up in the morning and wonder what ray comfort wrote last night, or to see the newest wisdom from the 700 club.
I can’t imagine any atheist is going to be brought back to the fold by someone calling them an Ass’thest, any more than a young earth creationist is going to change their views after being called a fucktard. In all the years of watching the Atheist/Christian debate I‘ve not seen too many people change beliefs. Most people I’ve seen do so to be a member of the club, be it, the “I’m a good Christian club so I believe this made us shit, or I’m a member of the non believer club and spout their stuff. But hearts and beliefs are changed outside the debate.
November 4, 2009 at 8:06 am |
My sentiments exactly.
When I was “scouted”, tho, I was told that it was an instruction in the Bible to spread the word in this manner – at least for certain branches.
To a “witness’s” point of view, doing this is just an equivalent of a government no-smoking campaign.
Sometimes I really wonder if this is what God really wants. There’re many people espousing his values… and just like the poster above, NEVER following them at all!
November 4, 2009 at 8:07 am |
*PS: by the “poster above” I mean the quoted post in the OP. Not you, elbogz. My apologies.
November 4, 2009 at 11:57 am |
One of the factors that pushed me out of the church was the whole spread the word campaign. We could go to Africa, but couldn’t deal with the homeless people sitting outside the door of the church.
We could feed the homeless as long as we could take the food to the shelter, but there was no way those pricks were going to come into the door of the church and sit in “My Spot” in the church.
Yea, you got to love “spreading the word”
November 4, 2009 at 8:51 am |
Oh, Lizzie, darling. You really do need to find a caring “ass-theist” because, if he knows what he’s doing, it shouldn’t hurt.
November 4, 2009 at 12:12 pm |
What the hell is “butt-hurt”?
November 4, 2009 at 1:45 pm |
I don’t know, but it can be cured with medicanes.
November 4, 2009 at 4:40 pm |
WIN!
November 5, 2009 at 7:21 pm |
butt-hurt is probably what Lizzie gets when she tries to think. This is due to the location of her head.
November 4, 2009 at 4:38 pm |
“WERE RATIONAL”?
As in, they’re rational only by the light of the full moon?
November 4, 2009 at 4:42 pm |
Wow. That was entertaining. The atrocious writing paired with the repudiation of science was especially hilarious.
Way to go “Lizzie!” You really convinced us but good.
November 4, 2009 at 4:52 pm |
Someone please give this person a lesson in grammar and spelling. How on earth is anyone supposed to take this comment seriously?
November 4, 2009 at 4:56 pm |
I think this video will give you the answer to the questions posed by Miss Lizzie:
November 4, 2009 at 5:07 pm |
Comments like that fail to surprise me anymore.
However, it does make my head hurt to read something with so many spelling and grammar errors. I don’t care what religion you are, if you can’t practice something as simple as proper grammar and spelling, I can’t take you seriously.
She obviously didn’t pay attention in English class, why should we expect her to know anything about science? Ignorance at its finest.
November 4, 2009 at 6:51 pm |
IT BURNS!!!1!11 OHHHHHHHHHH THE PAIN!!!!!1!!!
November 4, 2009 at 8:00 pm |
There are way too many things wrong with Lizzie’s comment. It’s ridiculous, stupid, and totally inaccurate. Clearly, all the Atheists Lizzie knows are absolute jerks.
By the way, does anyone know what “Kthxbai” means?
November 4, 2009 at 8:23 pm |
Okay, thank you, goodbye.
Common in internet lingo as a way to close off a statement – particularly if it was rude.
November 6, 2009 at 12:15 pm |
It’s idiot for “‘K, thanks. Bye.” It’s a very useful abbreviation for people who can’t be troubled with all the tedium of spelling actual words. An activity which, incidentally, “Lizzie” really seems to suck at anyways.
November 4, 2009 at 8:28 pm |
If evolution is a theory in crisis, then English would most definitely be a language in crisis.
November 5, 2009 at 12:30 am |
It is true that 7 outright errors (as I count them) is a lot of typos for a piece this size. But overall, the comment is reasonably cogent and the errors are isolated: apostrophes omitted occasionally and correct elsewhere, a few misspellings, 1 misplaced adverb. I have seen this many errors (or close) in other comments in these pages which were treated seriously. (In this discussion, of course, everyone is taking special care!) Consider, for example, this comment from Tuesday. (I am not intending to pick on you specifically, elbogz; the example was recent, convenient, and apt.) Anyone in a hurry or writing under the influence of emotion can miss some typos; and these comments cannot be edited once they are launched. If you are going to be tolerant when your friends make a mistake, you ought to be equally tolerant of critics.
But, I admit, I am as mystified as anyone about what Lizzie means by “butt hurt”, unless it is something like “pain in the ass”. Maybe English is not Lizzie’s first language. In which case, does anyone here think he or she might have been a butt hurt recently?
November 5, 2009 at 5:38 am |
At the risk of showing off just how very very much time I spend on the internet, it was this girl’s use of words like “butthurt” and “kthxbai” that made me suspect she is actually a 13-year-old boy who is just messing with us (and hence, Poe). Like kthxbai, butthurt is internet slang meaning a wide variety of things, from the actual actual fact of being hurt (physically or emotionally) to the condition of being upset about it afterwards. So for example, the sentence “I’m butthurt because I was earlier butthurt” would be entirely correct (though hilariously correctly spelled).
The Encyclopedia Dramatica has more here: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Butthurt (warning, the site is hugely offensive).
Actually, since I’ve mentioned the ol’ encyclopedia, there’s a thing over there called “doing it for the lulz.” The idea is that doing absolutely anything is permissible, and even encouraged, if you find it funny (or someone else does). Going onto an Atheist website posing as a hard-lining Christian, for example, would definitely qualify as “doing it for the lulz.” Again, I strongly suspect that “Lizzie” is not as she claims and is, in fact, just a bored kid having a laugh.
November 5, 2009 at 12:04 pm |
Hello I am a devout Christian Catholic, and I think your site is great. I especially love your banner image and the way tree is rooted in the body of the web page. Wish I would have thought of that.
For the record, I don’t hate atheists, nor do they annoy me, nor do I wish to force my faith down their throat. I find them very enlightening. I have atheist friends and family. We get on just fine. We also have very spirited and enlightening debates. In fact, a lot of my evangelistic prose is centered around atheism. I am well versed in Russell, Frederick Nietzsche, Darwin, CS Lewis (a former atheist), GK Chesterton (a former atheist), and hundreds of others.
Clearly some of the world’s greatest thinkers were either atheists or people who questioned God’s existence ad infinitum. One such man was Immanuel Kant. I’m sure you know of him, yes? He’s one of the greatest metaphysics philosophers who ever lived. I assume you know what metaphysics are. Kant asked questions about the existence of God you and I could not even fathom. He was a savant in every sense of the word.
Kant’s conclusion about God? After a lifetime of contemplation, he famously declared “We must assume the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, not as objects of knowledge, but as practical necessities for the employment of reason in the realm where we can have knowledge. By denying the possibility of knowledge of these ideas, yet arguing for their role in the system of reason, I am forced to annul knowledge in order to make room for faith.”
Kant’s words really sum up my journey thus far, too. The more I have questioned, the deeper I have dug, the more I have read, the clearer the case for God. I have literally been overwhelmed with evidence. To rule against God would be asenine for me at this point.
BUT all that doesn’t meet I condemn others for their beliefs! Au contraire! I am with you 100% about asking questions. I say ask away. I say search DEEP for the truth. Keep searching until you find it. It IS out there, and I believe we humans were designed to relentlessly search for it.
Please count me a friend,
Mark Johnston
http://markfjohnston.wordpress.com
November 5, 2009 at 1:56 pm |
I have the same question, Mark. Does all the evidence point to a supernatural being of some kind, or specifically to the Catholic imagining of God? I think that it’s an important question.
As for Kant and the likes of him, I’ve never had much patience for philosophers. He may have believed that the evidence points to a giant floating jackrabbit in the sky, but that makes little difference – regardless of how much of a genius he might have been. I depend on my own mind, not on the musings of philosphers who died while people still depended on whale blubber to light their homes.
And what I have seen is a world that is entirely consistent with an absense of the supernatural. There are gaps, of course. For example, I have no idea how the universe came into existence, nor how it makes sense that 0.9999999 is equal to 1, but this is not a positive proof for the supernatural. It is merely a gap in my knowledge.
If you have seen evidence, by all means share it. But it is not enough for you to simply announce that you have seen the facts, examined them, and determined truth. It is selfish at best to hoard all your observations for yourself, and dishonest at worst.
So please, without quoting philosophers or sacred texts, give us the evidence that has made ruling against god asinine.
November 5, 2009 at 2:00 pm |
Thanks for the compliments. We likely disagree on many things, but you’re welcome to post here any time.
November 7, 2009 at 1:22 am |
“We must assume the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, not as objects of knowledge, but as practical necessities for the employment of reason in the realm where we can have knowledge.
I do not concede the necessity.
“By denying the possibility of knowledge of these ideas, yet arguing for their role in the system of reason, I am forced to annul knowledge in order to make room for faith.”
Well there you go. I do not argue for a role for God or immortality in the system of reason. Kant appears to be saying that he (the royal we) must assert those things unevidenced because he is unable to supply supporting argumentation. In other words, “I can’t do it right, so cut me some slack.” This is not the sort of pronouncement that burnishes one’s reputation as a great philosopher.
November 5, 2009 at 1:24 pm |
Thank you for the kind words. After reading that the quote from Kant sums up your journey, I am still left wondering one thing.
Having a belief in the existence of a god is one thing. But there are many “gods” and “supernatural creators” out there for one to believe in. What was it that made you decide Catholicism was the one TRUE thing to have faith in? Did you study them all and pick to be Catholic to be the truth or were you simply indoctrinated?
November 5, 2009 at 4:04 pm |
@Grimalkin said “I depend on my own mind, not on the musings of philosphers who died while people still depended on whale blubber to light their homes.”
Hmmm. You make it sound as though your mind was formed in a vacuum. May I ask what your educational background is?
@Grimalkin (and JC) asked “I have the same question, Mark. Does all the evidence point to a supernatural being of some kind, or specifically to the Catholic imagining of God? I think that it’s an important question.”
For me it all starts with morality. I witness every day how men, by their very nature, fight to do the RIGHT thing. That is, the thing that doesn’t hurt themselves or others. Many times they fail in this endeavor, but then in even their failings I see them fight all the more to redeem themselves. There is no scientific explanation convincing enough to describe this sense of moral obligation men have towards their earth and their fellow human beings. Do all men submit to this unseen moral force? Of course not. But the MAJORITY of them do, else we would have anarchy.
I believe the full pursuit of life, liberty and happiness are possible in the U.S. only because of the underlying moral law here. Without the moral law, we would fall as the Romans did, as the Greeks did. Worship of man has proved to be a recipe for failure throughout history and I believe it will ultimately be the undoing of this country some day, too. Furthermore the concept of freedom is in full congruence with the Bible. God granted human beings freedom in Genesis to do what they like. Whether they followed God or not was their choice. That choice is every bit as clear then as it is today. It proves God is unchanging.
I choose to follow the God of the Bible because His 6,000 year old laws are unchanging. His “love your neighbor” LAW (also known as the “ethic of reciprocity” or “golden rule”) is one practiced in every religion. Every religion without fail holds that one should not commit an offense against another that they would not want committed against them. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
In summary, the God of the Bible is one of mercy, love, forgiveness and reconciliation, and everything I witness every day in my life is of the same stuff. I witness synergy wherever I go. I see the power of an apology. I see what happens when someone is humble and asks another for forgiveness. I see what happens when the outpouring of love is present in a relationship. Everything Jesus said would happen literally happens when you follow his laws and live your life as he commanded people to. You can’t deny him when you are witnessing all these immense miracles of synergy. He is UNDENIABLE.
@Grimalkin said “So please, without quoting philosophers or sacred texts, give us the evidence that has made ruling against god asinine.”
I have witnessed the supernatural. I have personally witnessed multiple people who were completely lost, angry, addicted, self absorbed, depressed, ignorant, and/or miserable transform into loving, giving, sober, happy and successful people through the healing power of Jesus Christ — whom they CALLED to their rescue. How do I know it was Jesus who healed them? First, because they had tried EVERYTHING and nothing worked for them. Second, and most importantly, when they CALLED Jesus to help them, they were healed. I have seen this too many times now for it to be coincidence. Third, it happened to me. I was saved. I was lost and had slipped into a depression so deep I was afraid I could never find my way out, and when I called on Jesus, I was lifted out of it, elevated to normalcy, and HEALED of my afflictions and addictions.
I am witness to the miracles Jesus performed in the New Testament. I have seen them play out in front of my very eyes. And you can trust I am NOT crazy.
Thanks for having me here. Where are you all located? I am in Sacramento, CA.
November 5, 2009 at 4:20 pm |
I also know many people who have overcome addictions and transformed their lives through their faith in God. It is a personal choice when a person decides to overcome negative things in their life. Belief in a supernatural savior helps give people this strength. Unfortunately it doesn’t remotely prove this god is real. Sugar pills also heal people. Placebo has an amazing effect on the human brain.
I don’t at all think you’re crazy. I shared your same faith my entire life. My wife and entire family share your belief in God. But overcoming addictions and being a better person because of faith aren’t remotely the same as curing a blind man, a leper, a paralytic, an epileptic child, a deaf man, and bringing a dead man back to life. Not to mention causing a man’s severed ear to grow back. These are unmistakable miracles that Jesus said a person with true faith could perform in his name. But we don’t see these miracles today because they don’t happen.
Is religion helpful to some? Yes.
Is it necessary? No.
By the way, I’m a simple midwesterner living in Iowa.
November 5, 2009 at 4:53 pm |
“In summary, the God of the Bible is one of mercy, love, forgiveness and reconciliation, and everything I witness every day in my life is of the same stuff. I witness synergy wherever I go. I see the power of an apology. I see what happens when someone is humble and asks another for forgiveness. I see what happens when the outpouring of love is present in a relationship. Everything Jesus said would happen literally happens when you follow his laws and live your life as he commanded people to. You can’t deny him when you are witnessing all these immense miracles of synergy. He is UNDENIABLE.”
I have a Muslim friend who would say that ALL of these things also ring true when following the word of Allah. If all these things can happen to practicing Muslims as well, would you still consider them “miracles of synergy”?
November 5, 2009 at 5:25 pm |
Hmmm. You make it sound as though your mind was formed in a vacuum. May I ask what your educational background is?
Not in the least. I simply don’t automatically grant more weight to the ideas of philosophers than I do to any others. A good idea is a good idea, regardless of who utters it. The same rule applies to bad ideas. I certainly do not consider “look, a philosopher said X” as any kind of argument in favour of something. A good idea will convince me, but I will not be convinced simply because a good person had it.
I fail to see what my educational background has to do with anything at all, unless this is one of those “I have more PhDs than you do!” arguments. In which case, see above. A bad idea is a bad idea, even if someone with a PhD had it.
For me it all starts with morality. I witness every day how men, by their very nature, fight to do the RIGHT thing. That is, the thing that doesn’t hurt themselves or others. Many times they fail in this endeavor, but then in even their failings I see them fight all the more to redeem themselves. There is no scientific explanation convincing enough to describe this sense of moral obligation men have towards their earth and their fellow human beings. Do all men submit to this unseen moral force? Of course not. But the MAJORITY of them do, else we would have anarchy.
I like to think that I am a good person. In one way or another, I have built my entire career around helping people – frequently at cost (sometimes great) to myself. I’m not perfect, of course, but I try, in all things, to at the very least harm no one, and preferably help. And yet, I believe in no gods.
Why is this? It’s quite simple – I’m incredibly selfish.
I don’t want to be poor. I don’t want to go hungry. I don’t want to be forced to sleep outside. I don’t want to be bullied, silenced, oppressed. I don’t want to be beaten or abused. I imagine that most people feel the same way.
When I see someone going hungry, I see myself in their position and I suffer, just a little. I can’t help it, it’s just how seeing pain makes me feel. I want to stop that feeling, so I try to make sure that people don’t feel pain. As an added reward, I get to feel good about myself because I did something pro-social.
By doing good things, not only am I making myself feel good in the short term, I am also helping to create and maintain a society in which no one is forced to feel really bad. This is like buying insurance. If I help open a soup kitchen, I know that if one day I lose my job and can’t afford food, there will be a soup kitchen there for me.
Why does any of this require a god or fear of hell?
I believe the full pursuit of life, liberty and happiness are possible in the U.S. only because of the underlying moral law here.
Look around the world. Why are the most religious countries the most oppressive, the most unhappy, and the most “backward”? Why are the most secular countries such wonderful places to live?
If morality does truly come from God, shouldn’t those countries that most worship God be the most moral? Why are we finding that the opposite is true? Even within countries, why is the proportion of Atheists in US prisons so much smaller than the proportion of Atheists in the US?
Furthermore the concept of freedom is in full congruence with the Bible. God granted human beings freedom in Genesis to do what they like. Whether they followed God or not was their choice. That choice is every bit as clear then as it is today. It proves God is unchanging.
Ouch, you may not want to bring up the Bible as it was actually the inconsistencies of the New Testament that started me down the path to my deconversion.
But all right, you want to talk about freedom. What freedom is it to say “you must do X, Y, and Z – and if you don’t, you will suffer for an ETERNITY”? No one says that a parent who beats their child for staying out past dinner time is actually giving that child the freedom to stay out late. Why do we then distort the meaning so much to make allowances for God?
I choose to follow the God of the Bible because His 6,000 year old laws are unchanging. His “love your neighbor” LAW (also known as the “ethic of reciprocity” or “golden rule”) is one practiced in every religion. Every religion without fail holds that one should not commit an offense against another that they would not want committed against them. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
And is it a coincidence that the golden rule predates the Bible? It looks to me as though simple human empathy more than adequately accounts for the wide spread of this rule.
As a side note, do you suppose that God would want to be slaughtered like he commanded the Jews to slaughter the Canaanites? If God is consistent, why does he not practice as he preaches?
In summary, the God of the Bible is one of mercy, love, forgiveness and reconciliation
Unless you are a Canaanite. Or you don’t accept Jesus as your lord and saviour. Or you sleep with someone of the same gender. Or you wear cloth made of two different kinds of thread. Or you were unfortunate enough to have been the first born male in your Egyptian household. Or you make fun of someone for being bald.
Need I go on?
The god of the Bible is anything but one of mercy, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. He pays lip service to these things when it suits him, of course, but that means little. The god the Bible is petty, vindictive, and perhaps even evil (if such a thing exists). He is cruel and unjust. He kills and condemns to death for “crimes” we would not even fine someone for. And later, when the theology developed a little further and the concept of hell emerged, he began to doll out infinite punishments for finite crimes.
Imagine a father who beat his son every day because he made a bet with someone. Imagine a father who, as he beat his son, demanded that his son love and honour him. Imagine such a father who, in between beatings, might sometimes give some nice treat to his son and demand complete gratitude. Imagine a father who, when his son finally rebels, murders him. Would you call such a father merciful? Kind? Good?
Why is God not subject to the same standards that we hold ourselves to? Why are we always making excuses for him?
and everything I witness every day in my life is of the same stuff. I witness synergy wherever I go. I see the power of an apology. I see what happens when someone is humble and asks another for forgiveness. I see what happens when the outpouring of love is present in a relationship.
That’s wonderful for you.
I, however, have volunteered in women’s shelters and humane societies. I have seen people who have begged for mercy, for forgiveness for the non-transgression of being glanced at by a complete stranger in the street. I have seen the blood of these people, their bruises, their scars. I have seen cues at food banks that extended out the doors and into the street.
Life is wonderful for some people, and it truly is not for others. Will stand behind what you have just said and tell me that those people fortunate enough to be born into well-off families are more religious or more accepting of Jesus than those who are poor or in abusive relationships?
He is UNDENIABLE.
You have sown me no evidence. At best, you have shown complete naivete (and I sincerely hope that no circumstances ever force you see how truly terrible the world can be).
I have witnessed the supernatural. I have personally witnessed multiple people who were completely lost, angry, addicted, self absorbed, depressed, ignorant, and/or miserable transform into loving, giving, sober, happy and successful people through the healing power of Jesus Christ — whom they CALLED to their rescue. How do I know it was Jesus who healed them? First, because they had tried EVERYTHING and nothing worked for them. Second, and most importantly, when they CALLED Jesus to help them, they were healed. I have seen this too many times now for it to be coincidence.
I have seen countless people calling to Jesus for aid who were not helped. I have seen people who were sick with addiction or disease who never called Jesus at all but who got better on their own, or through therapy, or through medical intervention.
Have you ever heard of an amputee growing back a lost limb? Are amputees not religious enough? Why does Jesus only bother with the “hidden cures” – the diseases where getting better is subtle, or addictions where personal perseverance and hope is just as likely an explanation?
Third, it happened to me. I was saved. I was lost and had slipped into a depression so deep I was afraid I could never find my way out, and when I called on Jesus, I was lifted out of it, elevated to normalcy, and HEALED of my afflictions and addictions.
Again, we have a subtle cure. The mere hope in a Jesus, the sense of an external source of self-worth, all this is more than enough explanation without necessitating that Jesus be real.
Jesus does not heal amputees.
I am witness to the miracles Jesus performed in the New Testament. I have seen them play out in front of my very eyes. And you can trust I am NOT crazy.
I have personally witnessed Elizabeth Bennet meeting Darcy and the two of them falling in love. I witnessed it through the power of imagination and, I can assure you, it seemed very real. But it wasn’t, and I know that because it is a work of fiction.
The human mind is an incredibly powerful tool. We can imagine all sorts of things that look and feel completely real. There’s nothing crazy about that. Even if you start to believe they are real, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are crazy – not when there is a large community of people urging you on and validating your visions. No, I don’t think you are crazy. I just think that you’ve fooled yourself and been helped by others who have either also been fooled or who hoped to advance their own situations through you.
I find it a shame that that this is what you present when asked for incontrovertible evidence for the reality of God. You have said nothing that isn’t either false or something that I had already considered and rejected. I am not closed-minded. I came to you honestly, seeking any information you might have that I have missed. But your evidence is ambiguous at best and only the honest desire for it all to be true could convince someone that it is.
November 5, 2009 at 9:35 pm |
Very clear post. You said it all.
November 5, 2009 at 11:19 pm |
In case anyone’s wondering about the Jesus/amputee stuff, here:
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
November 11, 2009 at 9:59 am |
“There is no scientific explanation convincing enough to describe this sense of moral obligation men have towards their earth and their fellow human beings.”
Actually, there is a large and rapidly growing body of research in biology and psychology that addresses precisely the evolutionary advantages of “morality” and altruism. Put down the 19th century and older philosophers and tuck into something written during the past five years. While your interest in metaphysics makes you charmingly eccentric, you might investigate physics to see what the rest of us are so excited about.
Yes, I have wondered why humans are “naturally” good to each other. However, since we see humans in ancestor-worshiping and totemistic societies, many species of animals, and yes, atheists showing tenderness and protectiveness to one another, it’s safe to conclude that belief in a single god plays absolutely no role in basic morality.
November 5, 2009 at 4:20 pm |
Here’s another angle to explain my reasoning for believing…
Let’s say you own a convalescent hospital. Let’s say on five diff occasions you need to call 911 to report five different heart attack victims. All five times a paramedic named Mike responds to the call. Each time he comes out, he tries to revive the victim, but he fails and they die. I’m betting after seeing him fail five times and lose five people, you would stop calling 911 (or at least request they send someone OTHER than Mike). So the next five times you call 911 a woman named Jan comes out. Every time Jan comes out she successfully revives the victim and they live to see another. Jokes aside about your occupancy rate, wouldn’t you have a lot of faith in Jan? In fact, whenever you called 911 wouldn’t you ask for Jan because she has PROVEN to be competent?
My spiritual walk has been the same. I have called on Jesus, and he has answered me, over and over. Not only has he answered me, but I have witnessed him answer many, many others. As Dr Frederick Price asked on a recent show of his when attempting to explain miracles he had witnessed when calling on Christ, “Do I know how it works? Nope. Do I care? Nope. I just know it works.”
That’s me. Forgive the crudeness of this analogy, but if you used fifteen different acne creams, and none of them worked, but then I gave you one that cleared ALL your acne for good, would you believe in the acne cream I gave you? Or would you recommend it to everyone you knew with acne?
November 5, 2009 at 4:26 pm |
Prayer has never had any effect at any point in my life. Other than a warm feeling I used to attribute to the presence of God’s spirit in me. The same thing happens whether you pray or not.
Statistically studies that show that Christians and all other people suffer and die from the exact same things at the exact same rate.
November 9, 2009 at 2:42 pm |
They say meditation and prayer have the same positive effect on a person’s brain (under a SPECT scan) then one who did not meditate or pray.
So, some benefit, at least physically.
November 9, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Meditation and prayer are not the same thing…
When you meditate, you are ridding yourself of all emotions and thoughts; only focusing on your impending task.
When you pray(presumably to a god), you are requesting divine assistance for something. It does not necessarily include being in a calm and empty-minded state.
So which had a positive effect, prayer or meditation? My money’s on the latter.
http://www.ahjonline.com/article/PIIS0002870305006496/abstract
Here’s a intercessory prayer experiment carried out by Harvard experts. Guess what the result was.
November 5, 2009 at 5:39 pm |
Why do Muslims say the same thing, Mark? Is Allah also real? Is Vishnu? Is Aphrodite real? Do all the gods who have ever answered prayers coexist in heaven somewhere?
Why do all these gods ignore every amputee who has ever prayed for his limbs back? Is easing a depression okay, but growing back a finger too much of an intervention?
To answer your question, you might well have more faith in Jan. Unfortunately, you might not be correct. It could be simple chance that 5 people had really bad heart attacks and would have died regardless of who came to their aid. Or, in a more apt example, it could be that Jan lost every other patient, but you have a big crush on her so you forgot about those and focused on her successes.
November 5, 2009 at 4:30 pm |
Beattitude said “But overcoming addictions and being a better person because of faith aren’t remotely the same as curing a blind man, a leper, a paralytic, an epileptic child, a deaf man, and bringing a dead man back to life.”
True! But Jesus was GOD. He didn’t say we could perform those types of miracles. He taught in PARABLES. The healing of a blind man was to show us our eyes could be opened to the TRUTH if we submitted to him. The healing of the deaf man was to show us our ears could be opened to the TRUTH if we submitted to him. The healing of the others was to show we could be cured of our spiritual afflictions if we had faith.
You really hit it on the head when you quoted him as saying “IF a person has TRUE FAITH.” Yeah. Exactly. TRUE FAITH. He also said we could literally MOVE A MOUNTAIN if we had the “faith of a mustard seed.” What does that mean? That means NOP ONE has even the faith of the mustard seed. That means even the faith of his most devout believers is beset by human doubt, worry, and simple unbelief. Only Jesus and a select few of his disciples had that kind of faith. And those few literally saw him with their own eyes… and even THEY doubted him.
November 5, 2009 at 11:29 pm |
Jesus actually did say we could perform those types of miracles. The Bible claims the disciples healed many people. And the disciples were highly flawed individuals with no greater faith than anyone else.
And this is one of my favorite Bible verses. Mark 16:15-18:
Not only can a faithful believer heal people, but they also cast out demons, pick up poisonous snakes, and drink deadly poison. According to Jesus, faith makes you superhuman. If faith allows people to perform miraculous healings … we would see them occur today.
Don’t you find it odd that incredible miracles were commonplace in ancient times, but nonexistent today?
November 9, 2009 at 2:43 pm |
It’s true, Jesus said we could do the same and greater:
John 14:12, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.”
November 5, 2009 at 4:44 pm |
@ Beattitude said “Prayer has never had any effect at any point in my life…”
So you are saying you prayed for things, but they never came to fruition? Is that the reason you no longer believe?
@Beattitude said, “…Other than a warm feeling I used to attribute to the presence of God’s spirit in me. The same thing happens whether you pray or not.”
Of course it happens whether you pray or not. You are baptized. Your faith is on hiatus, but the Spirit’s faith in you is unchanging. God has not given up on you. But judging from what I have seen, he is not really shaking your tree right now either. That leads me to believe he is allowing you to go through this phase. I believe he will yank you back as he did me at some point. It may hurt a bit.
I will pray for you… whether you want me to or not. 
November 5, 2009 at 11:40 pm |
Usually when I prayed to God for “things” it was for other people in need of healing or help in time of trial. For myself, I only prayed for God’s guidance and strength, not petty needs.
I no longer believe for many reasons, but the biggest reason is the book you base you faith. It is too poorly written and inconsistent to be divinely inspired.
If you want more reasoning for my rejection of Christianity, you can read the “About Me” page. Or check out my recent post about losing my religion. For some reason it caused quite a stir in blogland. It has over 1,400 comments and counting.
http://thebeattitude.com/2009/05/28/losing-my-religion-why-i-walked-away-from-christianity/
November 5, 2009 at 4:53 pm |
Markfjohnson, there is another passage toward the end of John that says “greater works than these shall ye do for I go to my Father” which is probably what Mr. theBEattitude is referring to not the faith can move mountains passage. Then there is also the disputed ending of Mark 16:9-20 about how those that believe will drink poison and take up serpents et al. As to nobody having even as much faith as a mustard seed the point of that passage is not that no human being can have it but that we all ought to have it. For the disciples there say to Jesus “increase our faith” and he replies “if ye had faith even as a mustard seed…” His answer is a smart-allec way of saying “what do you mean ‘increase our faith’? Increase your own stinking faith!” For they have asked him to increase their faith but he just rubs it in their faces that they don’t have enough faith. For my part I don’t believe this little exchange took place or that Jesus could have said something so silly and worthless. It is a Catholic interpolation. But it shows that the ‘orthodox’ view of Jesus is an impotent Jesus who can’t even handle a simple request to increase his disciples’ faith. Instead he demeans them for his own inadequasy. (I don’t have spellcheck on my phone so that will have to suffice for my spelling.)
November 11, 2009 at 10:15 am |
Long before Christianity, there was a Buddhist story featuring a mustard seed. A woman asked the Buddha to brink her young son back to life, and he told her he would, if she could bring him a mustard seed from the home of a family where no-one had ever died.
November 5, 2009 at 5:35 pm |
Hi Rey. You said “For the disciples there say to Jesus “increase our faith” and he replies “if ye had faith even as a mustard seed…” His answer is a smart-allec way of saying “what do you mean ‘increase our faith’? Increase your own stinking faith!”
No I disagree with you. The key word is *****IF***. By using the word “IF” Jesus makes it known to them that it is POSSIBLE to have that kind of faith, but not by default.
The use of the word “IF” is used like the word “MIGHT” as in “so that ye MIGHT have eternal life.” All these mights, ifs, and maybes point to one thing over and over again: FREE WILL. God gives man a CHOICE from the beginning of the Bible to the end. Will man have eternal life? He MIGHT if he chooses to. Will he be able to move mountains? IF he has the faith necessary. Will he be able to please God simply by doing good works? IF he has faith to go with it.
In these ways the Bible proves God is clearly not the puppetmaster misinformed people believe him to be. He is the God of free will. He says, “Do what you want… at your own peril.” He gives us a looong leash to explore the neighborhood. But it’s not as long as we think. If we explore far enough we will come back right to where we started because the world is after all circular…. like secular arguments… that have driven many a philosopher mad.
November 6, 2009 at 1:03 pm |
@markfjohnston Unfortunately, your idea that you have selected a religion because “His 6,000 year old laws are unchanging.” is simply incorrect. The statement makes no sense. If your choice was based on longevity or consistency, then your religion of choice would be the animistic religion of the Australian Aborigines who have the oldest continuous culture and the oldest continuously revered religious symbol.
The God described in the Bible is the God of the Hebrews, and Yahweh is far from consistent. A God that drowns innocent infants in a flood could scarcely be called “merciful” or “all-loving”- it would require some bizarre mental gymnastics to define murder as love (a relationship that seems to be the hallmark of psychopaths). In fact, it would mean completely nullifying existing definitions of merciful and loving, and inventing some new standard for these words.
Secondly, the God of the Bible says lots of things, and yet only SOME of those things are considered laws. God days “Love thy neighbor”- but he also says parents have the right to stone disobedient children. How do you choose which one of these ever-so-consistent rules should be followed? Does stoning children seem MORAL to you? Because I, for one, am appalled by the idea.
This is the part where Christians invariably flip-flop and say it’s the “spirit” of the Bible that they follow- what the Bible MEANS to say, not what it ACTUALLY says.
The problem with that is that it’s only reasonable to assume that the Bible MEANT to say precisely what it DOES say. The authors of biblical text weren’t stupid or lacking in understanding of language.
Furthermore, accordingly to all available evidence, religion does not create morality, it simply reinforces normal social restrictions that already existed. That’s the reason why some elements of a religion are maintained and actively practiced, while others are ignored (stoning children). When it became socially unacceptable to stone your children religious figures simply “forgot” about that part of the Bible because that part of the Bible no longer reinforced socially acceptable behavior.
As far as your supernatural experience goes- I don’t believe you have the capacity to evaluate your own experience and establish it as supernatural beyond a shadow of a doubt. Do you know why? Because I can’t. Even if I were to experience something I couldn’t explain I couldn’t be 100% certain it was supernatural. Simply because you can’t explain the phenomenon does not necessarily mean it’s universally unexplainable.
Let me offer an explanation for your supernatural experiences- you imagined them. That’s clearly one alternate explanation for your experiences, so you can’t say that there are no other explanations. You may not agree with that explanation- but you have no objective evidence to completely dismiss it.
Christianity displays a marked confirmation bias. Biblical passages that support whatever the Christian is telling you are RIGHT, yet the ones that contradict what he or she is saying somehow DON’T COUNT because that wasn’t really what the person writing it meant to say anyways **rolls eyes**. In other words- Christianity is absolutely right so long as you totally ignore all facts and theories that contradict it.
November 5, 2009 at 5:50 pm |
Also for the Christian who sent the disparaging comment that was the subject of this article. She said “Question for Ass-theists, I mean atheists: why do you feel the need to put our beliefs down? Hmm?”
The answer to your question lies in the question you posed. And please check yourself with the name calling and profanity. Hardly Christian behavior
November 6, 2009 at 1:10 pm |
Since I am a believer in correct spelling I would like to correct the following errors from my post:
In the following sentence in the third paragraph it should read ’says’, instead of ‘days’:
“God days “Love thy neighbor”- but he also says parents have the right to stone disobedient children.”
In this sentence, approximately two-thirds down it should say ‘according’ not ‘accordingly’.
Thanks.
“Furthermore, accordingly to all available evidence, religion does not create morality, it simply reinforces normal social restrictions that already existed.”
November 6, 2009 at 1:42 pm |
The reason you have the Bible you do today and not some other is because the Catholics in the first few centuries killed off all the other Christian sects and burned their Bibles. Protestants can say “we’re going back to the Bible and leaving Catholicism behind” but it doesn’t work because going back to the Bible only gets you to an earlier century’s Catholicism. It doesn’t get you back to Jesus because the Bible that was closest to Jesus got burned by the Catholics. A true “Protestant” would recognize this and reject the present Bible trying to recover the earlier Bible that it replaced. Anyone who isn’t trying to do that is basically saying “I believe this book is God’s word because the Romaan Emperors and Popes established it with rivers of blood and centuries of torture, mass murder, Inquisitions, burnings at the stake and such like.” In other words, to argue that the present Biblical canon is God’s word is to argue that cruel and bloodthirsty might makes right. For without the centuries of oppressive ironfistedness by Catholics, this nonsensical and contradictory canon would have never become popular because plenty of Christian sects had more sensical books than this mass of twisted OT references fictionized into virgin birth stories and such. The Catholic canon (that is what it is Prots) can only be supported by violence and coersion. That’s why we’re seeing it lose its grip in a free society.
November 6, 2009 at 8:38 pm |
That’s very profound Ray. It always seemed odd to me that these enormous crowds followed Jesus everywhere and yet no one wrote down what he said until 60 years after he died. Most people that say they believe bible is the word of God have no concept of history. Adam, then Eve, then Jesus, and then, Texas. I would only say, that those that say the bible is the word of Constantine. Somehow he was inspired by God? What, God can’t write a book himself?
“I believe this book is God’s word because the Roman Emperors and Popes established it with rivers of blood and centuries of torture, mass murder, Inquisitions, burnings at the stake and such like.”
That, should be a billboard.
November 6, 2009 at 11:31 pm |
“It always seemed odd to me that these enormous crowds followed Jesus everywhere and yet no one wrote down what he said until 60 years after he died.”
Jesus was an obscure, marginal figure in first-century Roman Palestine who was executed for acting as if he was king of the Jews during Passover in Jerusalem one year. Besides, writing then was a big deal – it required far more specialized resources then than now. The story of Jesus was transmitted by word of mouth in the early Christian community and was only written down as the original disciples began to die and a new generation had to carry the story forward.
November 6, 2009 at 11:37 pm |
“The reason you have the Bible you do today and not some other is because the Catholics in the first few centuries killed off all the other Christian sects and burned their Bibles.”
And the proof for this mass killing is…
Have you considered the possibility that maybe the Catholic version of the life and ministry of Jesus was closest to the truth and people back then realized this?
The NT as we have it now was written in the 1st century. All those other “gospels” were written in the 2nd and 3d century and lack apostolic witness. Maybe people thought that the better version of events came from those closest in time to it.
It could be that Marcion and gnosticism failed in the marketplace of ideas on lack of merit.
November 7, 2009 at 7:47 am |
And the proof for this mass killing is…
Since I’m too lazy to get out of my chair, have a web link: http://www.christianityandhumanrights.com/_heretics.html
But seriously, of all things to be doubtful of, you doubt that Christianity – throughout its history – has murdered those who go against the current orthodoxy? Really? Have you heard of the Middle Ages?
The NT as we have it now was written in the 1st century. All those other “gospels” were written in the 2nd and 3d century and lack apostolic witness. Maybe people thought that the better version of events came from those closest in time to it.
How do you know that all the competitor gospels were written in the 2nd and 3rd century? Have you time travelled and seen all that was available?
What about Q – most certainly a written document. Q is definitely older than Matthew or Luke and may even be older than Mark. Why was it not included? We only know about Q because it was plagiarised later. How do we know that there aren’t other lost documents that the Nicean Council knew about but rejected? Why was John, which deviates so completely from the story of the other three gospels, included?
Gnostics were one sect. There were many, many others. In fact, the gospel gives us evidence of at least four unique sects, each with their own variations of the mythology (sometimes very different, sometimes a little different). Through textual criticism, we can come to see what these individual communities believed and how very different they were from one another.
The canonical gospels were chosen for their political value, not their theological value.
November 11, 2009 at 10:40 am |
” the Bible that was closest to Jesus got burned by the Catholics. ” I’m not so sure about that. By the time the Nicean council swept together their scraps of scripture, I’m sure some things had already been lost to war, simple dying out of congregations, and inability to translate various languages. Even if we had everything written by or about Jesus within 10 years of his death, there would still be arguments about what was closest to his teachings.
How you define the beginning of Catholicism?
A series of edicts on heresy, issues several hundred years after the death of Jesus, has been cited as proof that Catholics killed off all opposing sects. I’m not buying it. Sure, there were episodes of persecution, but there were outbreaks of heresy based on gnosticism all through the middle ages, and we still have Copts, Kurds, and Nestorians today.
November 8, 2009 at 11:14 pm |
@Paul M, your knowledge of church history is non-existent. Everyone knows that the Marcionite church lasted to the 4th century in the West but that they were heavily persecuted and their religion was made illegal by Constantine. If you don’t know this you clearly know nothing about church history. By the way, in the East Marcionism lasted to the 8th century. In Iraq it lasted to the 10th century. It was persecution by Catholicism that finally eradicated it in the West and persecution by Islam in Iraq. And if Marcionism couldn’t compete with the wonderfully sensical schitzophrenic position of Catholicism in the “marketplace of ideas” how did it spawn Manicheanism which plagued the Catholic chruch from the 4th to the 14th century? And why did the Catholic church and its secular arms prescribe death by burning for anyone suspected of Manichean beliefs??? Do some actual research and quit just assuming that because your ancestors killed off all the peaceful Chrestians that that makes the pro-carnal warfare version of warmongering Christianity right. You can’t deny the Inquisition. The Catholic church burnt other Christians for not worshipping a piece of bread!!! You can’t seriously doubt that those who would burn people for not confessing that the bread in the eucharist is literally Christ would somehow be too timid to murder those who preached two gods, can you??? The Inquisition, in fact, was created to kill off the Cathars and Alibigenses, two dualistic sects that were labelled Manichean for ease of prosectuion under the existing anti-Manichean laws the Catholics had formed earlier. You can’t argue with the facts, man.
November 11, 2009 at 10:43 am |
That’s actually an interesting point.
Here’s an example:
Say I hand-write a letter and send it to my friend. At the same time I write myself a copy of the letter for my records. My letter arrives at my friend’s house, but my own copy is destroyed when I spill some ink on it.
To see what I wrote, I can call my friend and have him or her tell me what I wrote. If he or she loses that copy of the letter, however, it’s gone.
Say I hand-write the same letter and send it to my friend, but also make and send out nine other copies to nine other friends. If my letter is destroyed, I now have a total of ten people I can contact to restructure my original letter.
Point #1: The more manuscripts (copies) you have of my letter, the more likely you will be able to reconstruct the original (even if there is no one perfect copy remaining).
Point #2: Had you considered that the early (first century) Christian’s might have done something similar with the early epistles?
Point #3: There are 5500+ Greek manuscripts of the NT available, 10000+ of the Latin NT available, PLUS all the other languages in which the NT was translated. On top of that(!), have you ever quoted a book or movie in a note to a friend? That happened too in the old days!
Point #4: I’ll be the first to say that their are apparent contradictions in the Bible that a Bible student will need to work through (which is why BE’s site is so great!) to get the true meaning of God’s written Word in some cases.
November 12, 2009 at 8:25 am |
Consider that some of the areas that copied scripture the most prolifically were also the areas where scribes were poorly trained, often illiterate, and made a lot of mistakes. The idea that “numbers make truth” is what tripped up the scholars who put together the King James. They knew full well that there multiple versions – often quite different, even in fundamental matters such as theology – of the various books of the NT floating around. So they determined that if they could find more copies of version B, that must be the correct version. What you end up with is a hopelessly inaccurate load of crap that is of absolutely no value whatsoever to anyone who is interested in what the original documents might have said.
Now, as to your assertion that we can find the original text easier when we have more data to work with – that’s not strictly untrue (though I fail to see how it is relevant). However, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a great deal of debate in the matter. And even if we ended up with the absolute original version, that still wouldn’t tell us what the “true meaning of God’s written Word” is because if God guided the hands that wrote the NT, why are there so many fundamental theological inconsistencies between the books?
These differences are not just scribal errors. These are fundamental differences in the brand of Christianity practised in the various communities that wrote books later included in the Canon. If all these books are supposedly written with the guiding hand of God, the only conclusion one could draw (that maintains belief in the idea that there is a God and that he did author the Bible) is that God has a different theology in mind for each community. The logical end of this conclusion is that the NT is completely irrelevant because these communities are nothing like us and we would therefore need a modern revelation of our own – one for each modern community.
Or you can just do what Christians have done for two thousand years – don’t bother trying to have it all make sense and just pick and choose which bits you feel are “authentic,” ignore the rest or dismiss it as “metaphorical,” and all the while proclaim that the Bible is the inherent word of God.
Now, I will tell you what I personally did when I read the NT for the first time and realized that the various books CANNOT be reconciled. My first step was to say that the NT was written entirely by men who simply felt God in their hearts and tried to capture that through their own unique lenses. The NT is therefore completely irrelevant except as a historical curiosity. Instead, I had to look inside myself and listen to what God was telling me.
So I listened, and I listened. Then I listened some more. Then I realized that there was no one talking except my own mind, my own consciousness, my own feelings, and my own rationality. If God is doesn’t write and if God is mute, how do I know that he listens and acts? Well, I don’t see any acts, so that leaves listening. If all God does is listen, of what use is he? What is the point of struggling to reconcile so many different beliefs around the world, putting myself through the great physical and mental pain I now recognize to have been cognitive dissonance, in the name of a mute and impotent so-called deity. So I dumped him.
November 9, 2009 at 12:22 am |
Actually, her name is Lizzy. Poor girl missed that one, too.
November 30, 2009 at 1:03 pm |
It seems like business is still getting hit hard. Is anybody seeing an upswing in their respective niches? Health reform seems like a mess. I generate long term care insurance leads and annuity leads for the insurance industry, but volume has been terrible in the last two months. I am afraid the worst is yet to come, but maybe it is just my attitude.
February 15, 2010 at 6:03 am |
Hey, found your site by accident doing a search on Google but Ill definitely be coming back. – Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. – Mark Twain 1835 – 1910
February 15, 2010 at 6:03 am |
Interesting post reminds me of another gem. – Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Attributed to Laws of Computer Programming
March 12, 2010 at 8:02 pm |
I almost peed myself after reading that comment by Lizzie because I was laughing so hard. I know this is kinda random, but I have to get this off of my chest because all of my friends are christian and I never get to express my thoughts because it offends them… Theists never cease to amaze me with their lack of intelligence and acceptance when it comes to the fact that God does not exist. I just want to scream at them that God isn’t real and that anyone who believes in God is an idiot! As for this Lizzie person, you are an idiot. Have you ever noticed that the Bible is notoriously similar to just about every other religious text, and I mean similar by the fact that all of the events in it are not possible. The Bible reminds me of Roman and Greek myths; they both contain events in history that they couldn’t explain so they tied them to their religion. I mean, come on, religion was first created to explain natural occurences and religion has been evolving ever since. Whenever I try to explain this to my friends they just come up with a ridiculous comeback that doesn’t make any since. Then I’ll try to explain how other religions have the equivilant of the Bible and they believe that it is true and would say that the Bible is crazy, just as you think that their religious text is crazy. I give them so much prove and practical ideas and they ignore it like I’m speaking backwards! Religion is a curtain that has blinded the world for far too long. For example, the Medieval Period was so terrible because all of society’s effort was put into religion so nothing was accomplished. The Renaissance Period was so successful because religion was written off as one of the least important things to pay attention to… Oh my gosh! that felt soo good to get off my chest. Thanks for listening, I hope you enjoyed it.
March 12, 2010 at 8:10 pm |
When I wrote Medieval period, I meant to write Dark Ages… my bad.