faith, fear, or denial, you'll never know until its too late to tell anyone else.

hey 8033:

1) mmmm hmmm. i would have to be given specific examples, but the specific examples i've seen to date are sub-nostradamus kind of things. big on metaphor and interpretation, like the rest of the book.

2) i don't think anyone would argue the material accuracy of big swatches of the bible as an historical document. i would, however, argue the accuracy of the claims that give it such massive weight among believers, such as that jesus christ rose from the dead and ascended into heaven b/c he was the son of god. no one can prove that, unfortunately for us all. the other prime tenets of the christian faith are similarly based on shaky ground, but i don't care enough about it to get into it very much here.

3)

Religion doesn’t just fulfill some community niche it’s a biological human imperative.

the human imperative is to question as a means of seeking knowledge. unfortunately, we are not all we are cracked up to be. we cannot escape our animal nature, and we are in the end frail creatures. we don't understand an awful lot. for instance, we think with our brains, and yet we do not understand our brains very well.

combine our questioning nature with a limited capacity for understanding, and you end up with an intense desire to fill in gaps. some people turn to the provable via science, and some people turn to faith via religion. i think there is nobility in certain manifestations of faith, but most of the time it's the easy way out, and in the end it is, unlike scientific discovery, manifestly unprovable. when faith feeds other elements of human frailty, such as the desire to subjugate and diminish others, i find it disgusting. in any case, it is less than fully defensible.

the problem with the typical xian argument is that it requires that nonbelievers (people who do not feel the spirit of jesus christ within them) immerse themselves in the supposed merits of the bible via massive study and careful inspection. the fact we don't give a shit about the bible is seen as our problem, and we are seen as unreasonable if we tend to think that the soulsaving quals of xianity ought to be a bit more self-evident if they do in fact exist. and the fact that many xians do not engage in careful, thorough inspection of the bible is somehow not a prerequisite to being down with god.

People can believe whatever kind of voodoo crap they want, just don't push it on me and I won't push back.

If worship is hardwired how does that explain my atheism and lack of worship? Oh wait, it doesn't because it's BULLSHIT!

yeah, I kind of side with notion that people can worship whatever they want...

But I think it's important to realize that ALL religions were created by humans for human purposes.

The bible has some pretty fucked up shit in it. And to think that it is the direct word of God and that it provides a blueprint for an absolute morality is absurd. It's a frightingly destructive belief that will end up leaving us all in a fucking mushroom cloud if we don't back up for a minute.

The Bible is a human document containing human views and opinions, on history, morality, what God is and isn't, etc.

blue wrote:yeah, I kind of side with notion that people can worship whatever they want...

But I think it's important to realize that ALL religions were created by humans for human purposes.

The bible has some pretty fucked up shit in it. And to think that it is the direct word of God and that it provides a blueprint for an absolute morality is absurd. It's a frightingly destructive belief that will end up leaving us all in a fucking mushroom cloud if we don't back up for a minute.

The Bible is a human document containing human views and opinions, on history, morality, what God is and isn't, etc.

Tell that to the Muslims and the catholic priests.

religion isn't the culprit, its the people who interpret it to their likings. or hatreds for that matter. guns dont kill people, people kill people, and the same with religion.

empty wrote:religion isn't the culprit, its the people who interpret it to their likings. or hatreds for that matter. guns dont kill people, people kill people, and the same with religion.

how do you seperate the interpretation from the religion itself? It's not like religions just drops out of the sky.

blue, i think the point here is that while it's easy to attribute something like mayhem and war and global destruction to religion, if you've ever been to a church or fifty you'd know that most of the folks there are not in any way intent on killing or destroying or doing any of the evil things folks like to pin on religion. there are loads of Christians who are good people, *really* good people, who read the bible and come away from it saying "wow, Jesus evokes a message of pacifism, I will strive toward that" rather than saying "let's blow up the world" or "let's kill muslims" or anything of that nature. so in that sense, it clearly cannot be the religion itself that is the source of the ills, but rather the wrongful application of a peaceful message by an asshole or series of assholes. just like a gun could be used only to shoot the rabid dog that is walking down mainstreet, religion could be used only for good purposes. many folks are able to read the bible and come away from it how i've just described. that would suggest that the bible itself is not the source of the ills, but rather assholes are the source of the ills. something like that.

how do you seperate the interpretation from the religion itself? It's not like religions just drops out of the sky.

if you believe in the absolute authority of any religion, then the misinterpretation of it is man's doing.