are you an atheist?

I would kinda hope that an allpowerful supernatural deity could give rise to a book about itself that wasn't so prone to misinterpretation/misuse by its most special creations though.

Well the fluidity of the meaning is essential, otherwise we'd all be fundamentalists.

which gets at the meat of things...there's no 1 thing that "disproves" God or Allah etc...there's 1000s of little "hey wait a minute here" things that should make a person with good critical thinking skills be very very doubtful.

what's wrong with fundamentalists? why are they "wrong"?

think it might be that you view fundamentalists how I view vast majority of the religious

Probably because its impossibly hard to think critically about something you've genuinely come to believe is infinitely infallible, at least to any meaningful degree.

chicken/egg tho innit? I know plenty of people raised in very religious households, Catholic school and all that, yet at some point the "hey wait a minute here"s mounted up to the point where they're no longer believers.

Most vehement anti-Christians I know where raised in pretty religious households. Yet at some point they probably smoked a cigarette too.

They may even have cussed or listened to a rock n roll record album.

Being that there exist a number of sects within Christianity (and in regards to the Old Testament, also the Jewish faith) who all read the Bible a different way, I challenge the idea that there is a "right" way to read it, but moving on...

Nowhere did I describe how I read the Bible - my overarching point is that many Christians I have debated or seen in debate often fall back on the tired "get out of jail free" card of "You can't disprove what I believe!", disingenuously painting this inability of disproof as an attribute, when in reality, this inability to disprove is due to the circular nature of the faith itself, and the constant redefining of beliefs when things don't pan out as expected. Namely, many of them start out with the thesis that "Christianity is real", and shift their beliefs around that, rather than starting at neutral. Which to be fair, is to be expected with many of them, as pointed out above, for various reasons. However, there is nothing impressive about shooting an arrow and drawing a bullseye around it after the fact.

I think Biblical inerrancy is laughable and silly but I also think using it's error-prone nature as the singular source of disbelief in said religion is oversimplifying things. My reasons for being a nonbeliever were simple - I was a young Christian that for years tried to seek out this all-powerful deity. I was not the naive type that thought a bearded glowing figure would show up in my living room in an Elvis costume and say "whassup dogg". But most Christians I know would say things like "I FELT THE HOLY SPIRIT TODAY" or all kinds of physical phenomena that they attributed to an outside lifeforce. However, after years of trying, I felt and found nothing other than that which was in my own brain. So I gave up, and in addition, grew to dislike what was being taught and the central thesis of the faith itself. Recently, I have been revisiting my beliefs through extensive reading, but my opinion has merely softened, yet not changed (though my animosity at organized religion has certainly grown in recent years).

Moreso, I think while one can say contradictions don't 'disprove' the existence of a God, specific reliability errors in the Bible certain cast some doubt on the existence of THAT PARTICULAR version of God, or at least many of the key components shared by most of the believers of the faith. Inerrantists reflect only a portion of believers, but even more liberal Christians still believe Jesus was the Messiah, and that Heaven and Hell are real, even if they accept that large portions of the tome were written by man and are imperfect.

However, the discrepencies in the Hebrew definition of what a Messiah was and who Jesus was, simply put, do not make sense. It suggests that the God of the Old Testament said to his Chosen People, "Hey peeps, this is how things are, if any other false idols show up and tell you otherwise, please tell them to sod off", and then when Jesus did exactly that and was thusly seen as a heretic by the Jews, they were rebuked for following the instruction he himself gave them. Many Early Christians actually believed that the God of the Old and New Testament were two distinct and differing deities, the first being an 'evil' God that Jesus and the New Testament God rescued them from. (None of these made it into the canon, of course).

Could there be some kind of supreme deity? Yeah sure. But I think there probably is not. And I base that not on technicalities in a book but based on the fact that the world itself appears to be operating at random as if there is nothing behind the scenes to my eyes.

xxxxxxpost

so then I think tsorobodo's last point only applies to people who aren't very good critical thinkers to begin with.

xpost I did have a creepy dream at age 11 tho where I bribed God with a quarter and it started floating into the air

"there is nothing impressive about shooting an arrow and drawing a bullseye around it after the fact."

did you come up with this or is it a common saying? like it

common saying - I found it on a Rabbi's website while reading.

So is there room in here for any non-mainstream Christian "THAT PARTICULAR version of God" or is that too far outside the atheist bullseye?

always felt that if you're gonna pick n choose aspects of Xianity you can get down with, why not just go 1 step further, leave it all behind and create your own god that makes 100% sense to you

You sound like Jesus LOL

People pick n choose from everything in life, not just Xianity. Why not give it all up and live in a cave? Worked for the Buddha.

yes but a vegetarian who occasionaly eats a burger is a lil different, don't you think? "I am the One True Way"...yeah ok JC I hear ya but Imma modify your shit a lil to suit my tastes, no biggie, we all pick n choose in life.

I guess you could call me one of them but at the same time that's not how it actually worked out for me (and I'm sure many others). Raised as a pentecostal Christian. Parents are pastors(brother was recently ordained. Lost my faith 5 years ago at 18. But as I experienced it at the time it wasn't a result of my chipping away at the blatant fallacies (though I no doubt was constantly doing so) I simply felt that whatever feeling it was that told me I had a relationship with god was steadily waning and the study groups, christian camps, anointing/worship services etc. I used to re-up were just making things worse.

Essentially as far as I can tell (trying to piece together what my thoughts were or meant I assume will be an ongoing process for a while yet) The logic came afterwards and throughout the whole ordeal remained obscured by whatever "feeling" I'd been fighting to hold on to.

Its hard to comprehend the extents to which many religious people define themselves according to their beliefs so when atheists see the simple trains of thought and wonder why religious it's generally because they're not considering the kind of rejection of self that actually entails.

God wasn't a decision I arrived at logically (if it was a decision I made at all) so for a younger me and I'd assume most religious people there's no frame of reference within which you can begin to question god that does not preclude your notion of the existence of god and all the baggage that comes with that.

Many Early Christians actually believed that the God of the Old and New Testament were two distinct and differing deities, the first being an 'evil' God that Jesus and the New Testament God rescued them from. (None of these made it into the canon, of course).

I find these gnostic/nag hammadi texts absolutely fascinating. The idea that our world has been hidden from the benevolent creator god of the universe by a corrupted idiot god seems so much more likely than the standard Xtian theology that actually won out.

xp

I'd be down with a deity that told us to enjoy what he created for us instead of giving a bunch of rigid constraining rules and threats of punishment under the false guise of "freewill". but even then I wouldn't just blindly believe in it.

The problem with picking and choosing depends on how one arrives at deciding what to accept and discard. For those that believe certain sections that are considered literal by Fundies are actually allegories, and do so because of the content of the writing, fair play to them.

For those who want to be Fundies and tattoo the Leviticus verse against homosexuality on their arm whilst ignoring the verse that decries tattoos themselves simply cuz tats are cool, fuck that.

It cuts both ways too. The Universalists of the Christian sect have an appealing belief system that everybody eventually goes to Heaven (not too different than the Jewish Gehenna where one is purified first there before ascending, except Universalists are more hippydippy and newagey), except it kind of defeats the purpose of Heaven...and it's a little offputting to think of Hitler dancing around up there (I'm guessing his purification would take longer). Plus their argument is thinly defined, relying too much on presumptuous textual critiques.

I guess what I'm saying is the only God I would worship would be the type I'd see at an Iron Maiden concert so....

I find these gnostic/nag hammadi texts absolutely fascinating. The idea that our world has been hidden from the benevolent creator god of the universe by a corrupted idiot god seems so much more likely than the standard Xtian theology that actually won out.

xp

― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, March 5, 2014 3:14 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, I get a lot more enjoyment from reading the non-canonical or gnostic texts. some of them are obviously rubbish but even then they are entertaining.

Neanderthal I think you're just basically describing the debate or internal validation technique of "moving the goalposts", which is always interesting to me because no matter what religious affiliation the theist subscribes to they are all suddenly arguing as deists when they do this in a debate.

Which I think is your point, right? Any focus on discrepancies in religious text is met with "Well if we took everything literally we'd be fundamentalists, let me interest you in a cosmic point too philosophical for science to touch currently instead".

...aka deism

So you've just moved the goalposts around God. Seems it works for both atheists and theists.

The problem with picking and choosing depends on how one arrives at deciding what to accept and discard. For those that believe certain sections that are considered literal by Fundies are actually allegories, and do so because of the content of the writing, fair play to them.

It's not about accepting and discarding things, it's about approaching it not from the viewpoint of "which stories in here are wrong/inconsistent with findings/etc" because the Bible is not a textbook. If it were, there would be no argument, one could simply read the Bible and understand, whether they are predisposed to believe or not. It is ALL allegory.

I'd be down with a deity that told us to enjoy what he created for us

I would be interested to know if you think that how you live your life currently would change, if you discovered such a god existed, and he commanded you to live according to the same beliefs, standards, values and ideas you presently embrace.

If one's genuine beliefs are already congruent with the "religion" such a god would entail, then the necessary belief system would be in place, regardless of any explicit belief in god or in no god; either way the results would be indistinguishable. Which perspective is why I find the existence or non-existence of god(s) to be a fairly moot point.

It is ALL allegory

while this may be your opinion, I assure you it is not for the vast majority of believers...specifically, the type I was referring to in my original post.

Like if I was to walk into a Methodist church and shout "ayo folks, this book you're reading is all allegory, great stories/fables around life, but not one iota of it meant to be taken literally", I wouldn't likely be well-received.

Which is not to say that you are wrong, per se, but that the arguments I described upthread are with the variety of Christian that believes bad people are going to Hell when they die and that the Second Coming is a real thing that's going to actually happen. A belief that isn't merely restricted to the Young Earth loonies.

I would be interested to know if you think that how you live your life currently would change, if you discovered such a god existed, and he commanded you to live according to the same beliefs, standards, values and ideas you presently embrace.

If one's genuine beliefs are already congruent with the "religion" such a god would entail, then the necessary belief system would be in place, regardless of any explicit belief in god or in no god; either way the results would be indistinguishable. Which perspective is why I find the existence or non-existence of god(s) to be a fairly moot point.

a good question. honestly, I doubt my life would change that much in the example above.

I would be interested to know if you think that how you live your life currently would change, if you discovered such a god existed, and he commanded you to live according to the same beliefs, standards, values and ideas you presently embrace.

reminds me of a story i heard in yeshiva about the chofetz chaim who made plans late in life to visit the alps (iirc?) and when asked why he answered, how can i face my maker without having seen + appreciated his beautiful world? maimonidies writes also about how to cultivate belief in god by dwelling on natural beauty.

Again, you don't "Discover such a god exists". This is not astronomy. This is not biology. This is not cartography. The Bible is not a textbook. Likewise, if you have a trans-formative experience that leads you to conclude that god DEFINITELY EXISTS, it would likely be an experience that takes you out of the norm. I can't imagine someone having a life-changing personal experience that concludes with them not changing a single thing about their life, god or no god.

This reminds me of last week on Bill Maher, he was going off on the Arizona law, saying it was all due to religious ferver. A Christian woman on the show responded by saying that isn't so, those are politicians perverting the Bible to their own needs. He wasn't hearing any of it, and wouldn't let her view be expressed, because it does not fit into the atheist worldview of what religious people believe.

why are you watching Bill Maher that guy is a blight on the cancerous ass of shitheadism

The belief in God is a belief about how natural elements came to be. The bible describes a specific version of that. What makes you anything but a deist if you don't subscribe to the truth in any of the specifics of a holy book?

What makes you the arbiter of what is true in a holy book?

is "thou shalt not kill" not true

xp

Bill Maher is not a fair representation of atheists, as if any particular atheist is a fair representation.

I can't imagine someone having a life-changing personal experience that concludes with them not changing a single thing about their life, god or no god.

You've defined the possibility out of existence by citing both "a life-changing personal experience" and "not changing a single thing about their life". So, it is no wonder you cannot imagine it.

This reminds me of last week on Bill Maher, he was going off on the Arizona law, saying it was all due to religious ferver. A Christian woman on the show responded by saying that isn't so, those are politicians perverting the Bible to their own needs. He wasn't hearing any of it, and wouldn't let her view be expressed, because it does not fit into the atheist worldview of what religious people believe.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, March 5, 2014 4:53 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

man, that's not what I'm getting at. I posted on that very topic last week and said one major reason the law was absurd was that it purported to protect 'religious freedom' whereas the majority of religious followers likely did not agree with or want said law. It was pandering to a very small minority of fringe believers.

also what Shakey said about Maher, etc.

But you can see my point about not generalizing? If you want to generalize Christians then you shouldn't be upset if they generalize atheists.

What makes you the arbiter of what is true in a holy book?

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, March 5, 2014 5:01 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

considering the fact that the Bible was put together piecemeal from a large collection of writings, the canon of which was determined by several councils based on a vote, I'm not certain why you're so confident that it is all allegory, as all of the authors did not have the same aims.

Also, while the Gnostics certainly existed, most of the Early Christians considered the various books or stories they subscribed to, canonical or no, were eyewitness accounts of actual events. It isn't as if this religion started out as one big fable and then later over time Fundamentalists showed up.

You're acting as if we're misrepresenting Christianity by saying that most Christians believe at least a large portion of the shit described in the book happened and that there's a lake of fire and an afterlife and some shit. I mean these are core beliefs, not fringe ones.

No, not all Christians are Fundamentalists who believe in inerrancy but that was never who I or anybody in this thread was describing.

ya but here's the thing they believe in a lolgod and atheists don't so i mean xp

Adam, I'm asking if nothing at all in the holy book describes literally "how", than what at that point separates a deist from a theist?

It isn't as if this religion started out as one big fable and then later over time Fundamentalists showed up.

"Fundamentalists" as we understand the term today showed up about the time the canonization happened, which is not coincidental - those early Xtians/gnostics who insisted on the allegorical nature of various Christian tenents/stories were thrown out as heretics and their work was banned/destroyed. and as we all know (I assume) this was more about consolidating power, Irenaeus et al wanted Christians who all agreed about what it meant to be a Christian, but more importantly all agreed that the CHURCH would be a final arbiter of what it meant to be a Christian. It's similar to how cults operate today - the true faithful are those who swear that whatever the guru/boss/messiah figure says is true is actually true. This weeds out dissent, consolidates power, and results in a bunch of idiots swearing that demonstrably impossible things are literally true. Whatever actual spiritual value could be gleaned from an allegorical interpretation of source material gets wiped out.

xp

btw lot of papists in the street today, got me thinking about all this again

xxxpost Who is generalizing? Is it that controversial an idea that most Christians believe much of, if not most of the Bible is a literal truth, even if many or most of them are also wise enough to recognize that much of it is also allegory and not literal?

I mean yes, the faith isn't merely made up of inerrantists, but it's also not made up of purely liberal Christians who think the story is a good fable either. I went to both a Methodist church and a Fundamentalist when I was a kid, attended Bible school at an Episcopalian one, attended services in Catholic churches...I know they're all different. Part of what I've been reading over the last several months has specifically focused on the differences in core beliefs between each sect. That's not where I'm coming from, assuming an organized religion is a homogeneous entity made up of a singular-minded stereotype is boring.

Also realize the examples I provided weren't just conjured up, but were pulled from real life experience, as well as from various debates I've read/watched over the past few months.