Jump to content

Menu

A question for atheists


Charlie
 Share

Recommended Posts

It took me FOREVER to figure this out, but if you click on the little swooshy arrow in the upper right-hand corner of the quoted box of text, it will take you right to the original post.

 

This proves there is a God.   ;)

 

I had no idea you could do this! 

Edited by idnib
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered where the "baby eating" accusation actually comes from. Does anyone know? I had a Navy chaplain once ask me if I eat babies when, upon being sent to him for counseling, the topic of my personal faith came up and I explained that I'm a Heathen (and what that means when I say it).

 

Wait, people actually say that???   :confused1:  

Edited by Greta
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered where the "baby eating" accusation actually comes from. Does anyone know? I had a Navy chaplain once ask me if I eat babies when, upon being sent to him for counseling, the topic of my personal faith came up and I explained that I'm a Heathen (and what that means when I say it).

No idea. No idea where they get any of that from, tbh. I figured scare tactics to reinforce out grouping so basically attributing the worst to the other to keep people scared and less likely to talk to the scary atheists or pagans. But it's just conjecture on my part.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered where the "baby eating" accusation actually comes from. Does anyone know? I had a Navy chaplain once ask me if I eat babies when, upon being sent to him for counseling, the topic of my personal faith came up and I explained that I'm a Heathen (and what that means when I say it).

 

There's a long history of ancient peoples practicing infanticide, so I'm guessing it comes from that. How someone made the jump from sacrificing babies to eating them, I have no idea.

 

Google is probably very concerned now that I have searched for "Pagans eating babies" while pregnant. :lol: 

 

  • Like 11
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered where the "baby eating" accusation actually comes from. Does anyone know? I had a Navy chaplain once ask me if I eat babies when, upon being sent to him for counseling, the topic of my personal faith came up and I explained that I'm a Heathen (and what that means when I say it).

 

I don't know but there's actually a good bit of flesh eating as in "you will eat the flesh of your sons and daughters" in the bible. It's in Deuteronomy, Leviticus, Isaiah, and Jeremiah that I can recall. I think one of those threats is aimed at non-believers, but not all. Most are threats to the Israelites themselves. 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barrierbreaker/eat-on-babyeating-atheism-encouraged-by-bibles-god/

 

Please, anyone who isn't mamaraby, don't read if you are likely to be offended by a shocking amount of irreverence towards god. 

 

If you do click, I'd advise not watching the embedded video.

 

I was just reading that! 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/barrierbreaker/eat-on-babyeating-atheism-encouraged-by-bibles-god/

 

Please, anyone who isn't mamaraby, don't read if you are likely to be offended by a shocking amount of irreverence towards god. If you do click, I'd advise not watching the embedded video.

Oh, I feel so mature and everything now. Totally going to let this go to my head, too. I'll have to watch it later with dh when I'm back on WiFi.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered where the "baby eating" accusation actually comes from. Does anyone know? I had a Navy chaplain once ask me if I eat babies when, upon being sent to him for counseling, the topic of my personal faith came up and I explained that I'm a Heathen (and what that means when I say it).

Holy crap! Another human being said thus to you???? Everytime I thinj I've heard it all....

 

 

Wow!

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've always wondered where the "baby eating" accusation actually comes from. Does anyone know?

 

It is common to accuse "those people" of murdering or otherwise harming babies. When we do it against Jews it's called blood libel, but this story is virulent and widespread. "Gays are pedophiles who want to rape boys to make them gay", "gypsies steal children and abuse them, along with their own children to make them better beggars", "disabled people are actually changelings, and their species steals real babies".

 

You can see these stories thousands of years ago - the Romans, on the basis of apparently no evidence, accused Carthage of widespread infant sacrifice. There are also reports that they accused Christians of stealing abandoned infants off of middens for the sole purpose of eating their flesh. (Communion, don't you know.)

 

(Of course, those of us today would find the abandoned infant part more shocking, but infanticide by exposure is even more common than tales of how Those Other People Harm Kids. If you have more mouths than you can feed already, you do what you have to do. This, in a nutshell, is why I'm all for free contraceptives and generous welfare.)

 

  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

You can see these stories thousands of years ago - the Romans, on the basis of apparently no evidence, accused Carthage of widespread infant sacrifice. There are also reports that they accused Christians of stealing abandoned infants off of middens for the sole purpose of eating their flesh. (Communion, don't you know.)

 

 

 

The infant sacrifices to Baal are actually true:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-sacrificed-own-children-study

 

(And I really can't fault the Romans for thinking Christians were cannibals. They were eating the body and drinking the blood of the son of God. There are some truly gruesome Communion hymns if you look at them out of context.)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Meh. I'm not. It was supposed to be an atheist thread. Clearly and politely marked. Yet, we've got one person barely veiling their proselytizing and others handing out church recommendations right and left like tic tacs at a halitosis sufferers convention.

 

So, no... not impressed. Same stink, different thread.

 

Was thinking about this and you have a point.  I can't imagine church recommendations of a very different flavor of church in a thread about XYZ specific religion (that wasn't asking for church recommendations). 

 

I didn't read every post, so I'm not entirely sure of the context of the recommendations.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

re OP and wandering way off point:

Meh. I'm not. It was supposed to be an atheist thread. Clearly and politely marked. Yet, we've got one person barely veiling their proselytizing and others handing out church recommendations right and left like tic tacs at a halitosis sufferers convention.

So, no... not impressed. Same stink, different thread.

 

Was thinking about this and you have a point.  I can't imagine church recommendations of a very different flavor of church in a thread about XYZ specific religion (that wasn't asking for church recommendations). 

 

I didn't read every post, so I'm not entirely sure of the context of the recommendations.

 

 

Indeed.

 

Sparkly, I'm out of likes (I feel like SWB reduced our ration??? What's up with that?) but, in addition to greatly admiring Audrey's metaphor ( :lol:) I also concur with her point, and I apologize for my own role in that dynamic.  

 

Some threads are framed generally, and to my mind those ones invite more free-wheeling and wandering bunny trail expositions.... some of which can be quite engaging and interesting and bring in a multitudes of perspectives.  I love those threads and learn a lot from "seeing" points of view to which I do not have visibility in my real life.  

 

This thread was not so framed --  it was a specific, narrowly defined question aimed at a particular audience.  I lost track of the OP and gate-crashed. 

 

 

At some risk of making the precise same mistake again (!), there is language used in many interfaith discussions that maybe could apply to Interweb threads: a dimension differentiating between concepts that are universal (compassion, Golden Rule, ethics etc), vs others that are particularistic (texts, doctrine, ritual etc).   This OP asked a particularistic question which was not addressed to me.  Mea culpa.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well to be honest. I am not an atheist but was reading this thread and enjoying the discussion and hoping to learn.

 

The proselytizing is very off putting. I do not care if the posters in question have "good intentions" because in reality they would be pretty upset if a thread titled CC about CC beliefs was co-opted by non christians with all kinds of secular advice they did not want or proselytizing for other religions. The double standard gets very, very old.

  • Like 18
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The simple truth is that in Christian circles, you only hear about the ones who convert from atheism to Christianity. You would be amazed at how many pastors (people who've studied and studied and devoted their whole lives to God) become atheists. Try a google search - they are everywhere. There is actually a website designed for clergy who no longer believe but have no other skill sets to make money. The Clergy Project helps them find jobs. How do you explain people who've read the Bible many times and preached the gospel and were totally convinced of its truth - leaving Christianity? Were they not "true" Christians? (I hear that a lot, lol!)

 

I used to believe there must be good evidence for so many people to believe in God. But consider how many people believe in Allah. Billions! Have you ever thought that Islam must be true bc why would so many people buy into a lie without at least some convincing evidence? I want to encourage you to look for the evidence, and then evaluate it as someone considering Christianity for the very first time (not as someone who wants it to be true).

Bart Erhman comes to mind, professor of religious studies at UNC Chapel Hill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a long history of ancient peoples practicing infanticide, so I'm guessing it comes from that. How someone made the jump from sacrificing babies to eating them, I have no idea.

 

Google is probably very concerned now that I have searched for "Pagans eating babies" while pregnant. :lol:

 

 

I think you just landed on a no fly list! :D

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well to be honest. I am not an atheist but was reading this thread and enjoying the discussion and hoping to learn.

 

The proselytizing is very off putting. I do not care if the posters in question have "good intentions" because in reality they would be pretty upset if a thread titled CC about CC beliefs was co-opted by non christians with all kinds of secular advice they did not want or proselytizing for other religions. The double standard gets very, very old.

 

That was my point I was hoping to make in my very bad and distracting question with the video. The comments reflect my opinion, but the OP is clearly looking for something within the Christian framework. In this thread, a number of the "correction" posts qualify as proselytizing, in my opinion. They are meant to convince the unbeliever that a particular theological framework is credible. I do not think all the comments made by believers fall in this category (yours, for example, does not), but some do. Mostly, I find it really, really like super dooper interesting that there is a sub-population of Christians that just seem to not be able to help themselves. That's what my OP was about - when people know you're not a believer, do they still try and convince you of the credibility of their belief? And how delightfully illustrative it is to watch Christians proselytize atheists here on a thread questioning that very thing! So now I have to wonder, why are some people so compelled to try and validate their religious beliefs, even when their audience is clearly not interested?

  • Like 12
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 So now I have to wonder, why are some people so compelled to try and validate their religious beliefs, even when their audience is clearly not interested?

 

Well, I think some would say because they really want your soul to be saved. Then there's the part about humans needing to feel/know that they are right. It's just how our brains work. 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That was my point I was hoping to make in my very bad and distracting question with the video. The comments reflect my opinion, but the OP is clearly looking for something within the Christian framework. In this thread, a number of the "correction" posts qualify as proselytizing, in my opinion. They are meant to convince the unbeliever that a particular theological framework is credible. I do not think all the comments made by believers fall in this category (yours, for example, does not), but some do. Mostly, I find it really, really like super dooper interesting that there is a sub-population of Christians that just seem to not be able to help themselves. That's what my OP was about - when people know you're not a believer, do they still try and convince you of the credibility of their belief? And how delightfully illustrative it is to watch Christians proselytize atheists here on a thread questioning that very thing! So now I have to wonder, why are some people so compelled to try and validate their religious beliefs, even when their audience is clearly not interested?

I wish I knew. My sister knows that I unequivocaby do not believe veggies and essential oils cure end stage lung cancer nor do I believe that literally every disease in the world is caused by imbalanced gut bacteria. I have not seen the scientific evidence to support this and am not looking to be recruited to her ideology. Yet so far this week I have been subjected to three very long lectures on this, and finally had to tell her to stop or I was going to cut her off for a while. I suppose that she thinks if she converts me it is somehow evidence that she is right.

 

Sigh....

Edited by FaithManor
  • Like 7
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wish I knew. My sister knows that I unequivocaby do not believe veggies and essential oils cure end stage lung cancer nor do I believe that literally every disease in the world is caused by imbalanced gut bacteria. I have not seen the scientific evidence to support this and am not looking to be recruited to her ideology. Yet so far this week I have been subjected to three very long lectures on this, and finally had to tell her to stop or I was going to cut her off for a while. I suppose that she thinks if she converts me it is somehow evidence that she is right.

 

Sigh....

 

Been there done that except in m y case it was someone telling me I could cure my celiac disease if I just took such and such essential oil combined with a certain brand of probiotics while fasting in harmony with the cycle of the moon. Oh wait, I was to do daily enemas along with all that. Then I would be cured. 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Been there done that except in m y case it was someone telling me I could cure my celiac disease if I just took such and such essential oil combined with a certain brand of probiotics while fasting in harmony with the cycle of the moon. Oh wait, I was to do daily enemas along with all that. Then I would be cured.

In my best Charlie Brown voice, "Good Grief!"

 

I think the proselytizing is the same. If enough people convert to ideology A. then ideology A. must be true, and B. is not. Of course it is a false premise but consistent with human nature and emotional decision making.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Addressing the original post:

 

I have told only one person in real life that I am an atheist. For a short span afterwards, they observed no personal boundaries, preached to me in prayers, sat facing me to conspicuously read their bible, even snooped among my personal effects. I called out every incident as honestly and as patiently as possible, but every discussion led to their feeling being hurt when I would try to explain that they were overstepping and why. This person could only see their side and ironically accused me of trying to stop them from being who they were. So, I initiated a policy of tit for tat. If they wanted me to watch a video, read an article or a book, I insisted that they must equally be subject to atheist propaganda of my choosing. All attempts to reconvert me stopped.

 

Now, I don't know any atheists in real life. Do I want to go through this with every single person I know, family and friends? Not on your life. I see dozens of requests for prayers, declarations of being blessed by God, religious memes, articles, and scriptures on facebook every day. Most of the time it just flows over, other times I feel trapped in a surreal world.

 

What bothers me the most is my children being subject to aggressive prosylitizing. I swear that getting my kids baptized is a life goal for some people. I've tried to inoculate them with studies of world religions and discussions about how all "wrongdoing" is not equal, and they are not broken and filthy depraved sinners. Until the youngest are 18, I feel duty bound to protect them from the fallout that could happen should I become public, so they don't know. I'm pretty sure they just think I'm a much more liberal christian than others they are familiar with. They are okay with that because they are very sensitive to the hypocrisy and bigotry they've seen, especially with the recent events in the US.

 

I recently saw a video clip of David Silverman, president of American atheists, being interviewed. The interviewer scoffed at the idea that people felt trapped or forced to be christian. That is my life. Maybe my imagination of what could happen is worse than the reality. But I'm pretty sure I would be actively shunned by a number of people, and preached to by others. The prospect is depressing. I just want to live in peace.

 

All that sounds kind of dramatic, but it just translates to a life of me keeping my mouth shut and attending church twice a week.

  • Like 16
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The "evidence" conversation flummoxes me.

 

 

The absence of independent evidence can't definitively prove anything -- positive or negative.  This is maybe clearer outside the religious realm -- the absence of various "missing link" fossils doesn't definitively prove that evolution is false, nor does the absence of identified dark matter definitively prove that the mathematical models that imply its existence (which I do not BEGIN to follow, btw, I just heard a cool story on BBC this morning so it's front of mind, lol) are wrong.  Within science and also within history and archaeology, there is always the possibility that new evidence could emerge, either out of ongoing search with existing methods or through the development of new measurement tools or technologies.  That's what science in particular is about -- constant search to uncover yet-unfound evidence.

 

 

Similarly the absence of independent primary historical records or archaeological evidence cannot definitively prove that a claim within a sacred test is false... so to say "no independent primary historical or archaeological evidence has been found to support ______ claim in this sacred text" is not equivalent to saying "the _______ claim in this sacred text is false."  That's not how evidence works.

 

In Judaism, this issue arises with respect to the enslavement in / exodus from Egypt narratives, which are every bit as essential to the core of Judaism  as the paired narratives of the Garden expulsion and the Jesus resurrection are to Christianity.  If that many generations of that many Jews lived that long in Egypt and spent that long thereafter wandering on their way out, one would expect to find significant corroborating evidence in Egyptian scribal records, pottery shards, burial sites etc.  Thus far such evidence has not been found.  

 

Perhaps some day it will be -- independent historical and archaeological evidence for other (mostly well later) biblical narratives about the Temple era and the Babylonian exile and return has been uncovered.  It's possible.  All sorts of stuff continues to show up in Egypt.  Some Jews fervently hope so.  But equally possible is that independent evidence outside the Torah/Pentateuch accounts supporting the Exodus claims within those accounts may never be found.  

 

The absence of independent evidence outside of the accounts themselves does not definitively prove that the accounts are false.  To say "there is no independent evidence" is not to say "therefore the accounts are definitively false."  That is not how science or archaeology or history works.  The existence of evidence can support a claim positively, but the absence of evidence cannot prove anything at all, positively or negatively... whether it's dark matter, or fairies, or a claim within a sacred text.

 

 

It does mean that attachment to the accounts in sacred texts is through other means -- faith, or communal identity, or truth understood in more psychological / moral terms, or something else other than third party evidentiary triangulation.  Which is... fine.

 

For me, personally, the modern era perseveration on "evidence" misses much of the point.  Yes, Sumerian ruins support ziggurats kinda-sorta like Babel.  Yes, there are Babylonian inscriptions about a king named Nebuchadnezzar, and Persian records supporting the existence and decrees of Cyrus.  And to close out the end of the Temple story, there are Roman records of a Jewish uprising and the sacking of the Temple and some kind of last zealots' stand in Masada.  So what?  Those scant independently verifiable historical markers are nice, I guess, to sort of place the Jewish narratives into global time, but they are hardly the core messages of the narratives or what they mean to us and to me.  Those scraps of parchment and worn stones are not where my sustenance comes from, KWIM?  

 

The whole exercise seems rather weird to me.

 

So... I keep thinking about this because it confuses me. I guess, it flummoxes me, lol! I read this and I think the gist of it is, "why is evidence necessary?" Well, let me count the ways.... And while I totally see and agree what you mean about people attaching themselves to their religious texts through other means, like faith and community, and things like that, it doesn't mean those beliefs are true. And that's important, isn't it? When we see other threads on the front page here about eschewing medical care for snake oils, and wondering whether or not a loved sibling is safe, accuracy counts, right? Being right is important, right? Evidence is important because it determines if what we believe is true, or something else is true. We act according to what we believe is true. And, well, isn't that kind of an important thing in general?

 

I think of evidence as finding matching points between belief and reality. Kind of like CSI techs match points between fingerprints. The more points that match, the more likely a particular scenario is true. You don't have to have a 100% match to rule out other prints. You talk about not finding evidence about the Exodus in the desert not proving that didn't happen, and that's a valid point, but a poor one because you neglect the evidence that suggests an entirely different history of the Israelites and Egyptians, one that doesn't include slavery or an exodus of biblical proportions. So when we consider the evidence we do have, why continue to assume one hypothesis, even when the points don't match, except that there is a personal desire for it to be true. But is that how we discern what is true or not? Is that how we determine what is reality? By what works in line with what we want to work?

 

Earlier in the thread someone had linked or mentioned the blog Godless in Dixie. I found an interesting post called How the bible views humanity (and how to get over it). Reading Onceuponatime's sobering post plays directly into this belief. Her kids are being encouraged to think horribly about themselves by people who genuinely believe they're right. If people are going to teach children they are corrupt, despicable creatures that deserve punishment, doesn't it matter whether or not those beliefs are true?  And the gall to try to impose this belief onto other people's children! Sincerity should never be confused with validity, but we create societies in which it is not only confused, it is encouraged. Because evidence doesn't matter when beliefs are sincere and when one's personal experiences are valued more than objective collection of data with regard to knowing how reality works.

 

Sure, there's no evidence of the exodus yet, and there's no evidence of Jesus having actually done any of the things attributed to him in the bible yet. But then we've not yet uncovered evidence of leather bags the Leprechauns use to haul their gold or piles of faerie scat. Does that mean we shouldn't build roadways through certain open spaces because they might live there even though we don't have any evidence yet and all the evidence we do have suggests an entirely different reality? We have no proof there isn't an extraterrestrial race of clowns manipulating physics to troll physicists every time they try to operate particle accelerators at CERN, either. But now I'm getting silly because we know that even though there's no evidence against such a thing, we don't need to prove it's not likely. We know how reality works enough to write that off immediately. The story of the Exodus not so quickly, but that doesn't mean we can't - or shouldn't - apply the same critical analysis of facts. When the points of one print don't match, it should be ruled out in favor of the print that has more matches. And in this case, we have lots more matches for a history that does not claim a mass Israelite exodus out of Egypt. 

 

Some of the people in this thread have explained why they have to remain in the closet to avoid social retribution, to protect their children from being punished for what amounts to thought crimes. We are social creatures, peer pressure is as natural as hunger or a sex drive, but we have the ability, to choose how to use it. We can chose to use social influence to pressure people in authority to secure protection for vulnerable people, just like we can chose to satisfy our hunger with whole foods. But, just like we can opt instead for Big Mags and french fries every day, we can opt for the comforting lies of various beliefs, from the magic of essential oils to the magic of certain words when coupled by appropriate emotions. Knowledge, and understanding how reality works, and understanding how we understand how reality works, is important. It's important because what we believe to be true inspires our actions, and our actions count, for better or worse.

  • Like 8
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have a mostly low opinion people who try to convert friends and family. Offering support, sharing information, answering questions when it is sought out...all fine. But a concerted effort to get a family member to change their religion is something I have experience with and something that will always bother me.

 

My mom's family never accepted that she converted to Catholicism. They are a particular sort of nebulous Protestant and they think the Catholic Church is evil and the Pope is the AntiChrist. Several of her family members were relentless about this and there were times we just didn't talk to them. My maternal grandmother was a batshit felon who seriously abused my mother and never made any effort to take responsibility for her actions. So honestly I can't say I consider her to be a moral or religious exemplar.

 

Anyways, my mom died of cancer when she was just 55. My grandmother was about 13 when she started having kids so she was still very much alive while my mother was in the final years of her life. Before she died, I had to cut her mother and sisters off from contacting her because they were trying to browbeat her into renouncing Catholicism and becoming a Christian. She was super sick and dealing with radiation, chemo and surgical procedures and they were trying to save her soul by their own narrow definition of Christianity. (Yes, Catholics are Christians but they don't believe that.) My mother, especially from age 30 onwards led an exemplary life of volunteerism and her mourners included everyone from homeless men on the street to the local elected officials. My mom did more for people in a week than her family of origin had collectively done their entire lives. But they were intent on saving her.

 

First, on finding her in tears at home on the phone with her mother screaming at her about hellfire, I disconnected her number after telling my grandmother that should there be a hell, my mother would not be going there. Then, we had to block all numbers in their area code from coming through at her hospice. After my mother passed, I spoke to my grandmother for the last time and told her that should she show up for my mother's funeral, she would be turned away. She wanted to come and make a big dramarama show of how she lost her daughter. I wasn't having that shizznit.

 

While I get that mine is an extreme example, it is one that has permanently colored my view of the matter.

That is horrible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My point is they're totally not appropriate if they came from a deity, regardless of the time and culture. An omnipotent, omniscient god who made rules like, "Don't work on the Sabbath", "Worship me and no other gods", and "Don't boil a baby goat in its mother's milk" could have, should have also made rules like, "Don't own people", and "Don't rape". The fact that the Christian god didn't; that he made rules that are consistent with the time period and location make it clear to me that he, like all gods, was man-made. 

 

To be fair, plenty of Christians would say that he probably did, but that he didn't write the Bible, humans did. Men, in particular. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be fair, plenty of Christians would say that he probably did, but that he didn't write the Bible, humans did. Men, in particular. 

 

I think this answer misses the bigger point. The point is, if morality comes from God, there should be some indication of this as true. The bible would be the most obvious place to have this information, or at the very least, it should be included in there. If you're the God of a universe and you want humanity to know you, wouldn't you be invested in the success of the bible if that was the resource you chose to provide? Wouldn't you do what you, as an omniscient god, knows what would be necessary for humanity, both at the time of writing and down the road? Wouldn't that include arguments for morality that evolve as civilizations do? Instead, we see an example of a collection of literary works that reflect the moral, cultural, legal, and social reality of the ancient Near Middle East.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a long history of ancient peoples practicing infanticide, so I'm guessing it comes from that. How someone made the jump from sacrificing babies to eating them, I have no idea.

 

Google is probably very concerned now that I have searched for "Pagans eating babies" while pregnant. :lol:

 

Hold the phone!! You are pregnant?

 

Congrats!!!!!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a long history of ancient peoples practicing infanticide, so I'm guessing it comes from that. How someone made the jump from sacrificing babies to eating them, I have no idea.

 

Google is probably very concerned now that I have searched for "Pagans eating babies" while pregnant. :lol: 

 

 

It doesn't seem too odd to me to eat babies.  If you are going to eat humans in general, you figure the babies would be the most tender.  Like other animals.

 

(kidding of course)

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think this answer misses the bigger point. The point is, if morality comes from God, there should be some indication of this as true. The bible would be the most obvious place to have this information, or at the very least, it should be included in there. If you're the God of a universe and you want humanity to know you, wouldn't you be invested in the success of the bible if that was the resource you chose to provide? Wouldn't you do what you, as an omniscient god, knows what would be necessary for humanity, both at the time of writing and down the road? Wouldn't that include arguments for morality that evolve as civilizations do? Instead, we see an example of a collection of literary works that reflect the moral, cultural, legal, and social reality of the ancient Near Middle East.

 

Again...I don't think God wrote the Bible. I think a bunch of men who reflect their culture and social reality wrote it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Again...I don't think God wrote the Bible. I think a bunch of men who reflect their culture and social reality wrote it. 

 

Well, leaving aside the fact that no one actually suggests the idea of Yahweh coming down from his holy mountain to write the bible over many centuries as a ghost writer (ha) attributing authorship to people like Solomon, David, or Paul, Christian lore conventionally treats the bible as being divinely inspired. But even leaving that aside and assuming the bible's simply a collection of letters and post cards to friends and family far away, collected and tied together first with string and later bound in leather, it still tells us something of the nature and character of the main character, El/Yahweh/Jesus/Holy Ghost. Furthermore, the Christian religion claims to have a superior moral code based on believing in and following this particular God above all others, a God who can and will supernaturally lend moral aid to loyal followers.

 

By your fruits you will know them. Jesus offers this as a warning to his followers to not get fooled by charlatans teaching a false message, thereby missing the straight and narrow path to heaven. It's a warning that also suggests that not only is one's eternal life at risk by following the wrong message, but the message itself is confirmed good and true by the moral behavior of the one bringing it. In short, moral behavior associates you with God, who is considered the source of morality. It's like, you know you're going to be talking with Mormons when two young men on bicycles, white shirts, ties, and name tags approach you with a smile. These things announce their origins - the Church of Latter Day Saints. Jesus says you don't need these outward things to announce your origins, your behavior will do it for you. Morality is very tightly tied in with the biblical message, most particularly the Christian one.

 

The answer to that is that an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect God wouldn't flub up his one and only source that reveals himself to humanity. Regardless of who actually put quill on parchment, the purpose of the bible is to reveal the nature and character of the God of Abraham, from his introduction in Genesis through his corporeal incarnation as Jesus, and impart a message for, well, there's actually lots of differing messages in the bible depending on what section you take, but for Christians the purpose is to impart a message for gaining eternal life as well as leveling up your moral code (to infinity if you believe some of the passages). To suggest morality comes from God is to ignore the nature and character of God as we know it, I guess is the tl;dr version, lol!

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

The answer to that is that an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect God wouldn't flub up his one and only source that reveals himself to humanity. Regardless of who actually put quill on parchment, the purpose of the bible is to reveal the nature and character of the God of Abraham, from his introduction in Genesis through his corporeal incarnation as Jesus, and impart a message for, well, there's actually lots of differing messages in the bible depending on what section you take, but for Christians the purpose is to impart a message for gaining eternal life as well as leveling up your moral code (to infinity if you believe some of the passages). To suggest morality comes from God is to ignore the nature and character of God as we know it, I guess is the tl;dr version, lol!

 

You seem to know a lot about this.  What is with the comments I've heard from some Christians regarding their god being a jealous god?  Jealousy strikes me as a pretty odd characteristic given the other traits he is said to have.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

The answer to that is that an omniscient, omnipotent, morally perfect God wouldn't flub up his one and only source that reveals himself to humanity. 

 

again, just saying that many Christians feel that the Bible has to be interpreted through the cultural lens of when it was written. So yes, there are plenty of Christians who feel differently than you are portraying. Generally, they are not sola scripture Christians. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You seem to know a lot about this. What is with the comments I've heard from some Christians regarding their god being a jealous god? Jealousy strikes me as a pretty odd characteristic given the other traits he is said to have.

The bible actually says yahweh is a jealous God, more than once. The metaphor is that he has a relationship with his people that is like that of a husband and wife. (His people being Israelites in the Old Testament and believers of christ in the new) If they leave him or follow other gods, they are wicked and committing " adultery." Then he becomes jealous and sometimes even enraged.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The bible actually says yahweh is a jealous God, more than once. The metaphor is that he has a relationship with his people that is like that of a husband and wife. (His people being Israelites in the Old Testament and believers of christ in the new) If they leave him or follow other gods, they are wicked and committing " adultery." Then he becomes jealous and sometimes even enraged.

 

And that sounds so bizarre and contradictory to me.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Again...I don't think God wrote the Bible. I think a bunch of men who reflect their culture and social reality wrote it. 

 

Yes, and I agreed with you. I'm suggesting it's not relevant to the point that you replied to. I'm suggesting it is a deflection to avoid the point you replied to.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You seem to know a lot about this.  What is with the comments I've heard from some Christians regarding their god being a jealous god?  Jealousy strikes me as a pretty odd characteristic given the other traits he is said to have.

 

Well, I don't know a lot about this, I lack, dare I say it, sufficient education, lol! But it's an interesting question, isn't it? We think of jealousy as a feeling related to fear of losing control, anxiety over potential loss. That's why rivals are intolerable - they might take what you have or want to have. A jealous God really only makes sense when you remember Yahweh was considered to be one of many rival gods. Remember the tricks Moses' God Yahweh did to one-up the tricks the Pharaoh's Egyptian God did during the whole ten plagues event? Nevertheless, this characteristic remains, rationalized as a metaphor for marriage, or for the affections of one's heart, but that's not how it was understood and accepted originally.

Edited by Charlie
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Geesh, I guess I can't escape the brainwashing. 

 

But I often wonder why despite that I really  just don't believe any of it.  Yet so many people do.  Like what is weird about me I wonder?

 

It's not weird. It's just a different approach to thinking about questions. Do you remember study that asked three questions to predict whether you're more or less likely to be a religious believer?

 

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? ____cents

2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? _____minutes

3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? _____days

 

 

[Answers and explanation here] The conclusion of this little study showed that the more religious the undergrads were, the less likely they were to have demonstrated effective analytical reasoning on the three questions. And the better the students did on the questions, the less likely they were to have strong religious beliefs.

So it's not weird to lack belief and it's not weird to have belief. It just means there are different ways to approach the same questions, including questions like why do we do what we do, what happens after we die, why did it rain on my wedding day, why is my cat chasing something that isn't there?

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, and I agreed with you. I'm suggesting it's not relevant to the point that you replied to. I'm suggesting it is a deflection to avoid the point you replied to.

 

I guess I don't understand. I don't expect the Bible to be a perfect example of God's will or wishes. Because it was written by en with their own biases, agendas, etc. So I'm not surprised to not find perfection within it, in any sense including morality. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I don't understand. I don't expect the Bible to be a perfect example of God's will or wishes. Because it was written by en with their own biases, agendas, etc. So I'm not surprised to not find perfection within it, in any sense including morality. 

 

A lot of people don't think like you though. 

 

Some yes, absolutely.  The message I got growing up wasn't one that said the bible was perfect and to be taken entirely literally.  Some people despise some flavors of Christianity for that very reason though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess I don't understand. I don't expect the Bible to be a perfect example of God's will or wishes. Because it was written by en with their own biases, agendas, etc. So I'm not surprised to not find perfection within it, in any sense including morality. 

 

I think we agree they fully, independently, composed their histories, laws, poetry, letters, etc. I think we agree they wrote what they believed best recorded, or at least best revealed, a real God. While their culture and our culture is miles apart (and years, in the thousands), there is nevertheless a link that ties the modern theist's morality with the ancient theist's morality. That link is faith, and it's the ethics of faith and loyalty to a supernatural character that Lady Florida disagreed with. Namely, it's unethical because it purposefully ignores morality in favor of obedience, despite the known and avoidable harm done to others.

Edited by Charlie
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just like an abusive spouse, lovely.

Well, not by ancient middle eastern standards. The bride was chosen by the groom and had nothing to say about it. She was obliged to be grateful for his favor. Likewise, yahweh tells the Israelites he has chosen them, even though they didn't ask to be chosen. They should be grateful. He is their God so they must be faithful to him or incur his wrath.

 

The Old Testament and archaeology is full of hints and evidence that the israelites were not monotheists from their earliest history. They don't seem to really settle down into the actual practice of monotheism until after the return from exile in Persia. I'm guessing the priests, who had a vested interest, came up with this kind of terminology to guilt the Israelites into adhering to a national/religious identity.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The bible actually says yahweh is a jealous God, more than once. The metaphor is that he has a relationship with his people that is like that of a husband and wife. (His people being Israelites in the Old Testament and believers of christ in the new) If they leave him or follow other gods, they are wicked and committing " adultery." Then he becomes jealous and sometimes even enraged.

 

This is so creepy to me. I'm sorry if that offends the people to whom this kind of thinking brings comfort, but the idea of God as a jealous husband... *shudder* No thanks.

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

re questions and implicit premises behind the questions

So... I keep thinking about this because it confuses me. I guess, it flummoxes me, lol! I read this and I think the gist of it is, "why is evidence necessary?" Well, let me count the ways.... And while I totally see and agree what you mean about people attaching themselves to their religious texts through other means, like faith and community, and things like that, it doesn't mean those beliefs are true. And that's important, isn't it? When we see other threads on the front page here about eschewing medical care for snake oils, and wondering whether or not a loved sibling is safe, accuracy counts, right? Being right is important, right? Evidence is important because it determines if what we believe is true, or something else is true. We act according to what we believe is true. And, well, isn't that kind of an important thing in general?

 

I think of evidence as finding matching points between belief and reality. Kind of like CSI techs match points between fingerprints. The more points that match, the more likely a particular scenario is true. You don't have to have a 100% match to rule out other prints. You talk about not finding evidence about the Exodus in the desert not proving that didn't happen, and that's a valid point, but a poor one because you neglect the evidence that suggests an entirely different history of the Israelites and Egyptians, one that doesn't include slavery or an exodus of biblical proportions. So when we consider the evidence we do have, why continue to assume one hypothesis, even when the points don't match, except that there is a personal desire for it to be true. But is that how we discern what is true or not? Is that how we determine what is reality? By what works in line with what we want to work?

 

Earlier in the thread someone had linked or mentioned the blog Godless in Dixie. I found an interesting post called How the bible views humanity (and how to get over it). Reading Onceuponatime's sobering post plays directly into this belief. Her kids are being encouraged to think horribly about themselves by people who genuinely believe they're right. If people are going to teach children they are corrupt, despicable creatures that deserve punishment, doesn't it matter whether or not those beliefs are true?  And the gall to try to impose this belief onto other people's children! Sincerity should never be confused with validity, but we create societies in which it is not only confused, it is encouraged. Because evidence doesn't matter when beliefs are sincere and when one's personal experiences are valued more than objective collection of data with regard to knowing how reality works.

 

Sure, there's no evidence of the exodus yet, and there's no evidence of Jesus having actually done any of the things attributed to him in the bible yet. But then we've not yet uncovered evidence of leather bags the Leprechauns use to haul their gold or piles of faerie scat. Does that mean we shouldn't build roadways through certain open spaces because they might live there even though we don't have any evidence yet and all the evidence we do have suggests an entirely different reality? We have no proof there isn't an extraterrestrial race of clowns manipulating physics to troll physicists every time they try to operate particle accelerators at CERN, either. But now I'm getting silly because we know that even though there's no evidence against such a thing, we don't need to prove it's not likely. We know how reality works enough to write that off immediately. The story of the Exodus not so quickly, but that doesn't mean we can't - or shouldn't - apply the same critical analysis of facts. When the points of one print don't match, it should be ruled out in favor of the print that has more matches. And in this case, we have lots more matches for a history that does not claim a mass Israelite exodus out of Egypt. 

 

Some of the people in this thread have explained why they have to remain in the closet to avoid social retribution, to protect their children from being punished for what amounts to thought crimes. We are social creatures, peer pressure is as natural as hunger or a sex drive, but we have the ability, to choose how to use it. We can chose to use social influence to pressure people in authority to secure protection for vulnerable people, just like we can chose to satisfy our hunger with whole foods. But, just like we can opt instead for Big Mags and french fries every day, we can opt for the comforting lies of various beliefs, from the magic of essential oils to the magic of certain words when coupled by appropriate emotions. Knowledge, and understanding how reality works, and understanding how we understand how reality works, is important. It's important because what we believe to be true inspires our actions, and our actions count, for better or worse.

 

 

Charlie, there is so much in this that fires off so many cascading thoughts!  And I so wish we could sit over a glass of wine, or steaming mug of tea if wine is not your thing, and hash on out in person.  I'm a little reluctant to launch here, in part because I do not mean to hijack again, but also because I approach matters of my faith tradition so very differently than how you've laid out here that it's hard for me to find the right entry point to get there.  I don't mean to "deflect," but I honestly cannot begin to describe my own attachment within your frame of "evidence as matching points between belief and reality."  To attempt (weakly) through a very imperfect analogy, I could not describe why poetry matters, or why music and art matter, using the terms of "evidence" and "belief" and "reality."  Those three terms are quite inadequate in describing the mechanism of what poetry (of the three arts, the one that most touches me personally) is about or how it works.  And yet, empirically, we look around and see that to some people poetry and music and art do matter -- to a subset of people, a great deal.

 

Bluegoat referenced Charlotte Mason a bazillion posts upthread with something along the lines of where you go depends in large measure on where you start and how you define the premises.  I concur with that idea.  Among the most basic discoveries when folks coming from different faith traditions come together in interfaith discussions is the discovery that we look to our respective traditions to ask quite different questions, and implicit in those questions are premises which also vary quite a bit.

 

It's a tricky thing, making generalities.

 

In America, I think religion is generally linked to questions about what happens after death.  

 

That is, to my mind, largely the legacy of the country's majority / dominant faith tradition.  Christianity speaks explicitly about post-mortal salvation, particularly in its proselytizing forms.  Proselytizers seek to save souls in the world to come. As we've seen in two different WTM threads over the last few days, the anguish felt by parents whose children are questioning their FOO faith are concerned about their children's fate after death.  The "universalist" thread explores what elements are deal-breakers from the perspective of post-mortal outcomes.  On these boards, as well as in interfaith groups I've been in IRL, many Christians express the idea that this life is so tiny compared to the eternal life to come as to pale in comparative significance.  This explicit emphasis on post mortal outcomes implicitly elevates the paired narratives of the expulsion from the Garden, and Jesus' atoning sacrifice, to central prominence.  The impact of the Expulsion story is revealed in the view of humanity described in the link you shared; and the impact of the atonement-salvation narrative drives both the Who is a Christian analyses and also the fervor in some circles for proselytizing*. 

 

But as I know you know, not all religions place nearly the same importance on what happens after death.  Many religions are far more focused on cultivating qualities such as compassion, mindfulness, unity, order etc in THIS life.  Whether as a corollary to that difference, or perhaps it's a different dimension entirely, not all religions are particularly (or at all) theistic.  What sacred texts mean, stripped out from the theistic- and salvation-focused set of questions, is not answerable by "evidence."

 

 

The Exodus narratives have a similar centrality of place within Judaism as do the paired Expulsion / Resurrection narratives within Christianity.  They define the peoplehood and the covenant of the faith.  Our elevation of those stories above the others frames a different core question for Jews, with different emphases -- not What happens when I die?  but rather, How ought we live? or the theistic version of the same question, How does God want us to live?  which are in turn premised on an orientation to this life, here and now; and concern with communal experiences/relationship with God rather than on the individual. And the meaning of those narratives -- their truth -- is rooted in those frames of community and continuity and the relentlessness of that question, how shall we live?  Not in archaeological artifacts or ancient scribal records.

 

Two other analogies, that perhaps can point a little bit to the kind of "reality" I find in my sacred texts, despite a singular lack of "evidence": I personally find meaningful "truth" in the unwashable blood on Lady Macbeth's hands, and also in the tragic locked consequences of secrecy and mistrust between Cupid and Psyche.  I find meaning in both those narratives that informs my understanding of the world.  Those types of narratives, and the metaphors within them, to me reveal "truth."  It is a different kind of truth than I expect from science textbooks.  For the latter I demand evidence. For the former I look for resonance.  I do not for a moment "believe" in the literal truth of the Cupid story; whether there really was a historical Lady Macbeth who actually said those precise words is irrelevant to the meaning of the narrative.

 

 

*FTR, I'm really really really really opposed to proselytizing in both its explicit and its IMO more insidious tit-for-tat souls-for-services forms.  For a rather long laundry list of reasons.   

 

 

On your other, intriguing Cosmo Quiz:

 

1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? ____cents

2. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? _____minutes
3. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? _____days
 

 

FWIW, I got all these correct, the second and third the first run through; the first one I mentally answered the intuitive (and wrong) default first, but double-checked my algebra before following the link.  Which according to the link would suggest mine is not the sort of disposition that is vulnerable to faith attachments.  

 

And indeed FWIW my attachment isn't intuitive, though I would never claim it to be "evidence-driven" either.  For that matter Dawkins' scale, which so many Americans seem to embrace as so elucidating, strikes me as so responsive to a specifically Christian, specifically *American* conception of religion which is not just theistic and belief-based, but specifically monotheistic and in many formulations MALE-theistic at that, as to be nearly a caricature.

 

 

 

I could go on forever, my friend, but I fear I have managed both to go on far too long already, AND fail to answer your prompt.  Truly I don't mean to deflect.  I just can't quite respond to those terms because those are not my processes.  It's like we're flying at different altitudes, or something.

 

  • Like 9
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

Ă—
Ă—
  • Create New...