How Can There Be NON-Fundamentalists?

[Eve]

Now, I am asking this as a lifelong atheist who doesn't know all that much about relgigion. But I just read this book (samharris.org) (is that the hottest author ever, by the way?), which raised a lot of questions in my pretty little head.

The author states that "real" (i.e., fundamentalist) Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that their particular Holy Book is the Word of God. No questions asked. Follow every word. This makes sense, right?

He goes on to state that the nice, reasonable, "cafeteria" Christians, Jews and Muslims—the kind we befriend and chat with here on the Boards—are fooling themselves. "Well, I believe in the Old Testament [or New Testament, or Koran], but I don't believe you should stone adultresses to death or torch entire towns because some inhabitants are infidels."

Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.

Opinions?

[Eve]

I am asking this as a lifelong atheist who doesn't know all that much about relgigion.

. . . Including how to spell it . . .

[Lobsang]

if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.


This is what I've always thought. Good OP.

[John Mace]

It's a difference in belief about the origin of the holy text. If one believes it is divinely inspried, and therefore literally true down to the last word, then one is a fundamentalist. If one believes that it is the product of men*, then one can admit that the text is not literally true (word for word). One might conceive of the text as being alegorical, teaching general moral principles, rather a prescriptive code of ethics.

But even if one is a literalist, there is still a lot of debate about what specific words mean from a text that was written down so long ago. Words change in meaning over time, and some we may not even know the meaning of.

*even if the faith itself is divinely inspired

[Ethilrist]

. . . Including how to spell it . . .
Boy, do you need an editor.

I had this basic problem the first time I tried to read the New Testament. I read through the Gospels and was partway through one of the next books along and I got to the point where the Holy Spirit came down and killed a couple people for lying, and I thought, "Perhaps that was misreported in the popular press...?"

So I went back to the Gospels, re-read the things attributed to Jesus, and stuck with those. Probably still subject to errors in translation, but the errors are closer to the source.

[Kimstu]

My opinion: Nah. Everybody who subscribes to any set of beliefs or principles---a political affiliation, a philosophical school, whatever---makes some compromises with their content as "officially" set out in the party platform or founding text or what have you. Compromises with sacred scriptures are no different.

I think comparatively few theists really subscribe to the view that "THIS HOLY BOOK IS EXACTLY AND ENTIRELY AS IT WAS REVEALED BY THE DEITY, AND WHAT ITS STATEMENTS SEEM TO MEAN TO ME IS EXACTLY HOW GOD MEANT THEM." Most believers allow for the possibility that the transcribers or interpreters of the text, as well as they themselves, are looking at it "through a glass darkly" and can't expect to see exactly what God meant by all of it.

So one "no" vote here for the thesis that non-fundamentalist, non-literalist theists are just barely hanging on to religious sanity by a shred of cognitive dissonance.

[John Mace]

I had this basic problem the first time I tried to read the New Testament. I read through the Gospels and was partway through one of the next books along and I got to the point where the Holy Spirit came down and killed a couple people for lying, and I thought, "Perhaps that was misreported in the popular press...?".

That has been debunked as propaganda from The Galilean Fishermen for Truth organization. :)

[bup]

Well, there used to be a group called the Essenes (http://www.essenespirit.com/). Lots of people believe Jesus himself was an Essene. The Essenes didn't believe every word of the Torah was literal truth - they believed some of it was metaphor.

If the founder of your religion didn't believe in the literal truth of the document, why is it self-foolingnessism?

Also, I'm not sure I understand why you can't think the Bible is an imperfect record made by humans which was an attempt to capture that which they thought was miraculous, or at least needed to be written down, that someone else thought should be part of the Bible. It seems your author's argument has a hidden assumption - that belief in a religion is founded in the belief of the book. Drop that and you've got it made.

[Lobsang]

If those imperfect beings who wrote the bible believed one thing which turned out to be intrue, then surely it is possible that all the other things they believed lose their validity and can turn out not to be true. That is the argument I think.

[Contrapuntal]

It's a difference in belief about the origin of the holy text. If one believes it is divinely inspried, and therefore literally true down to the last word, then one is a fundamentalist. If one believes that it is the product of men*, then one can admit that the text is not literally true (word for word). One might conceive of the text as being alegorical, teaching general moral principles, rather a prescriptive code of ethics.

But even if one is a literalist, there is still a lot of debate about what specific words mean from a text that was written down so long ago. Words change in meaning over time, and some we may not even know the meaning of.

*even if the faith itself is divinely inspired

Well it's difficult to be a literalist as far as the Bible is concerned if or no other reason than that it contradicts itself. I agree that words change meaning over time, and ancient definitions may be unrecoverable. What I do not understand is why there is not an unbroken line of understanding from the first revelation of God's word until today. Why should we have to translate words from thousands of years ago? If the truth of his wisdom is so apparent, why was it not passed down from father to son, from mother to daughter, clearly and concisely, with no interpretation required?

[Polycarp]

So I read a post here by, say, iampunha, who's actually done a couple of them, that seems to live and breathe the spirit of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I say that "King's legacy inspired ol' pun to write that." And I do have a definite meaning in mind when I say something like that. Or I see a witty, sardonic comment by yourself, dear OP, and I say that "the spirit of Dorothy Parker lives on in Eve."

You catching a drift of the point I'm making here?

Now, I pick up ye olde leatherbounde Bible and start leafing through it. I see records of a lot of guys going "Thus saith the Lord...." and a books telling what Jesus said and did.

But nowhere do I find any book written by God Himself -- leastwise not the Father or the Son. The Holy Spirit -- well, He is something of a ghostwriter (pun intended) for the folks purporting to give a message from God.

But every book in that collection was written by a human being, overtly and clearly so, and with the exception of one short passage supposedly written directly by God on stone, it's totally clear that it was human beings delivering what they understood to be what God wanted them to convey to people.

So whatever He wanted said is filtered through the minds and vocabularies of people. And, people being people, it's quite possible that many of them were mistaken as to what exactly it was that He wanted said and done.

So it's quite possible to believe in a God who "inspires" Scripture, without believing it to be His verbatim words. Because people do fuck up.

Look at any religious thread here, or I can link you to a forum with 928,845 threads and 9,443,182 posts allegedly discussing what God has to say -- and the differences of opinion are rather extreme, to say the least.

This is not to condemn those who happen to believe in the literal veracity of the Bible -- it's to respond to the OP by demonstrating how an intelligent person can accept it as "inspired" but non-inerrant and not identical to "the word of God."

[Neurotik]

The author states that "real" (i.e., fundamentalist) Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that their particular Holy Book is the Word of God. No questions asked. Follow every word. This makes sense, right?
Well, no. The problem is that all of these faiths also have traditions outside of the Bible informing their doctrines. Remember that Christians didn't have the Bible as it is for the first couple hundred years of the faith's existence. Same with Judaism, except expand it to a couple thousand. I'm not as versed in Islam.

Second, there are also traditions of lessons being taught through the use of parables and metaphors, which are not supposed to be taken literally. They are just illustrations.
He goes on to state that the nice, reasonable, "cafeteria" Christians, Jews and Muslims—the kind we befriend and chat with here on the Boards—are fooling themselves. "Well, I believe in the Old Testament [or New Testament, or Koran], but I don't believe you should stone adultresses to death or torch entire towns because some inhabitants are infidels."
Again, the problem is that the books are long and often filled with vague lessons and instructions that are sometimes conflicting or sometimes exclusive to the time and place. It's quite easy to pick and choose because of this vastness.
Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.
There are a lot of people who do admit the possibility that none of the Holy Book held water, but still believe that it does. It's not a logically exclusive position.

[blowero]

Eve, I think it's a good point. I'm not a theist, but I think I've hung around here long enough to understand what might be their reasoning on this. I think most middle of the road Christians would say that the Bible was written by men and thus subject to human fallability. Inspired by God, but written by men. And I would guess that many Christians would say they don't need the Bible to prove God, because they have personal knowledge or faith or whatever you prefer to call it.

Fundamentalists, on the other hand, DO believe the Bible to be the infallible word of God. I once had a conversation with a fundmentalist friend where I mentioned the stoning of adulterers proscribed in the Bible. Her response was, "Well, it's sure gonna keep people from committing adultery, isn't it?"

I don't hear as much from Jews and Muslims, so I can't speak for them.

Boy, do you need an editor.

I had this basic problem the first time I tried to read the New Testament. I read through the Gospels and was partway through one of the next books along and I got to the point where the Holy Spirit came down and killed a couple people for lying, and I thought, "Perhaps that was misreported in the popular press...?"

So I went back to the Gospels, re-read the things attributed to Jesus, and stuck with those. Probably still subject to errors in translation, but the errors are closer to the source.
Actually, we've had some really good threads on the gospels, and there's a great Straight Dope article on them as well. I was quite surprised to learn that the gospels are not close to the source at all. They are quite far removed from first-hand sources, and a lot of the material is even re-used in almost the exact same wording from one gospel to the other. And of the parts that are original material, they frequently contradict each other in rather important ways. There's considerable doubt as to whether one can know if Jesus said or did any of the things attributed to him in the Bible.

Oh, and on preview I see that Polycarp has already confirmed what I was saying about the Bible being men inspired by God.

[blowero]

That has been debunked as propaganda from The Galilean Fishermen for Truth organization. :)
Aren't they the ones who say Jesus only had minor injuries, but put in for a full resurrection anyway?

[Voyager]

That has been debunked as propaganda from The Galilean Fishermen for Truth organization. :)

Right. And those weren't nail holes, just self-inflicted wounds. :D

[bup]

The problem is that all of these faiths also have traditions outside of the Bible informing their doctrines. Remember that Christians didn't have the Bible as it is for the first couple hundred years of the faith's existence. Same with Judaism, except expand it to a couple thousand. I'm not as versed in Islam.With Islam, they wrote down Mohammed's seurah's shortly after he was gone; nevertheless, there are even a few different versions of the Qu'ran, with small differences traceable all the way back to way-back-when.

Tangentially, it's hard to understand how God Ips-self could have written the Bible, when the book of Luke starts out, "A few other people have written this down, but now I'm going to put together my best attempt for you, Theo."1





1Paraphrase.

[Ethilrist]

I was quite surprised to learn that the gospels are not close to the source at all. They are quite far removed from first-hand sources, and a lot of the material is even re-used in almost the exact same wording from one gospel to the other. And of the parts that are original material, they frequently contradict each other in rather important ways. There's considerable doubt as to whether one can know if Jesus said or did any of the things attributed to him in the Bible.
Oh.

Great.

Well, that killed 30 years.

[Voyager]

Damn, blowero beat me to it!

I understand the divinely inspired, human written position, but I think it has significant problems. How does one tell the parts that are purely human, written, the parts that are divinely inspired where the human made a transcription error, and the parts where the divine shines through. How can any deity expect us to act upon such unreliable instructions, except through the same non-divine logic and moral reasoning that we would use without any divine inspiration at all?

If there were large chunks (think containers in a buffet) that were one or the other, it would be easy. We could see Job as a fable, Chronicles and Kings as non-inspired historical commentary, and Leviticus, say, as divinely inpsired. We could fill our plates from the good containers and avoid the dubious ones. But things seem a bit more mixed than that. The important stuff, like the Shma, is mixed in with the stuff we'd rather ignore (like the "every harlot must get stoned" part. Could an advocate of the divinely inspired - human mangled position give me an algorithm for a filter that does not involve our human perceptions?

I understand where this position comes from, by the way. Our moral code is far beyond that of 2700 years ago. But I don't know how you reliably pick out the good bits of meat from the nasty ones. In my buffet, I'd toss the whole pot.

[Eve]

It seems your author's argument has a hidden assumption - that belief in a religion is founded in the belief of the book. Drop that and you've got it made.

But I don't think you can drop that—if there had never been an Old Testament, there'd be no Judaism today. Had there been no New Testament ever written, no Christianity. No Koran, no Muslims.

[Homebrew]

Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.

Opinions?
This is precisely what happened to me. I grew up very fundamentalist Pentecostal. Rationality eventually caused me to begin rethinking everything. In due course, I rejected it all. Even later I finally overcame my religious-based homophobia and Came Out.

So based on my experience, I think they're all afraid they'll become Gay. And that's why they won't rethink things.

Okay that last part is for humor only.

[Ethilrist]

So based on my experience, I think they're all afraid they'll become Gay. And that's why they won't rethink things.

Okay that last part is for humor only.
... but it does go a long way towards explaining where all the gay Muslims are...

[Johnny Bravo]

But I don't know how you reliably pick out the good bits of meat from the nasty ones. In my buffet, I'd toss the whole pot.

I prefer a different analogy.

It's like the attic in a house your family has lived in for generations. Every now and then you might go up there and poke around. Maybe you'll find something that catches your eye. So you bring it down, dust it off, and use it. But maybe you're not using it the same way previous generations did. Is that wrong? No. Likewise, it's ok to stick something of yours up there. Maybe a future generation will clean off the dust and use it. Or maybe they'll leave it there because they can't think of a use for it.

Religion is a living and evolving thing. The fundamentalists are the ones who stand still against natural social change.

But I don't think you can drop that—if there had never been an Old Testament, there'd be no Judaism today.

Mmm. Maybe. But then again, Judaism had an active oral tradition centuries before the OT was actually written down.

[SolGrundy]

He goes on to state that the nice, reasonable, "cafeteria" Christians, Jews and Muslims—the kind we befriend and chat with here on the Boards—are fooling themselves. "Well, I believe in the Old Testament [or New Testament, or Koran], but I don't believe you should stone adultresses to death or torch entire towns because some inhabitants are infidels."

Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.

Opinions?

This argument sounds like "fundamentalist atheism." If it is possible for any aspect of your key Holy Book to be false, then logically, all of it must be false. Personally, I don't agree with fundamentalist all-or-nothing Christians, and I don't agree with all-or-nothing atheists.

I don't believe that those who consider themselves fundamentalist Christians (I don't know enough about other religions to form an opinion) are doing as good a job as they claim of following the word of the Bible to the level. As far as I'm aware, there are not individual editions of the Bible that give each person a minute-by-minute play by play of how he should live each day of his life in the 20th century. We're covered when it comes to the proper method for sacrificing a lamb, but the book is oddly silent when it comes to stuff like how to deal with it when someone cuts you off in traffic.

Therefore, every person who claims to be a fundamentalist is actually acting on his interpretation of his religion's Holy Book. Even if the book itself were infallible, and even if the humans who wrote it down were infallible, the people who are reading the book are most definitely not. Even thouse who feel they are following the literal word of the book to the letter, are actually interpreting what it says and deriving their own fallible human understanding of its meaning from it.

But I fail to understand how someone could come to the conclusion that that means the entire book is invalid. It is the work of human beings, inspired by God to explain to other human beings how God "works" and how we should be treating each other. There's an awful lot in the book that's so obviously right; why is that all invalid just because the universe isn't really only a couple thousand years old? Why should I reject a religion that overwhelmingly says "love your neighbor" just because it has bits that say "unless he's gay?"


(is that the hottest author ever, by the way?)

No. That would be John Irving.

[Eve]

Why should I reject a religion that overwhelmingly says "love your neighbor" just because it has bits that say "unless he's gay?"

Hey, that would ceretainly be sufficient reason for me!

(And Sam Harris is way hotter than John Irving!)

[bup]

But I don't think you can drop that—if there had never been an Old Testament, there'd be no Judaism today. Had there been no New Testament ever written, no Christianity. No Koran, no Muslims.The Christian Church made it for a few hundred years before there was a bible.

I wonder if different media had been available if there'd be Christianity. If, for instance, instead of written texts, we had video of people who passed on what they had heard about Christ a generation after it happened.

Or if the gospels had never been codified into a bible. If they just called them 'our best documents about what happened,' and nobody ever said the documents themselves were holy.

Actually, Eve, I think the best example of your OP's argument might be the Book of Mormon. Are there any Mormons who don't take it literally? "Non-literal" and "Mormon" really do seem mutually exclusive to me.

[Voyager]

I prefer a different analogy.

It's like the attic in a house your family has lived in for generations. ... So you bring it down, dust it off, and use it. But maybe you're not using it the same way previous generations did.

Yep, that rack up there makes a dandy coffee table if you throw a board over it. :)


Religion is a living and evolving thing. The fundamentalists are the ones who stand still against natural social change.


Precisely. But if religion were initiated by a perfect deity, why should it be a living, changing thing? Wouldn't a deity get it right the first time? If religion were purely manmade, reflecting whatever the moral code of the time was (and I'll give you the best morals, not the worst) then you'd expect it to be changing, just as you said.

Some religions resynch with the current moral code through new divine inspiration, be it Messiah, prohet or angel, but the same argument holds.

[Already in Use]

Damn, blowero beat me to it!

I understand the divinely inspired, human written position, but I think it has significant problems. How does one tell the parts that are purely human, written, the parts that are divinely inspired where the human made a transcription error, and the parts where the divine shines through. How can any deity expect us to act upon such unreliable instructions, except through the same non-divine logic and moral reasoning that we would use without any divine inspiration at all?

If there were large chunks (think containers in a buffet) that were one or the other, it would be easy. We could see Job as a fable, Chronicles and Kings as non-inspired historical commentary, and Leviticus, say, as divinely inpsired. We could fill our plates from the good containers and avoid the dubious ones. But things seem a bit more mixed than that. The important stuff, like the Shma, is mixed in with the stuff we'd rather ignore (like the "every harlot must get stoned" part. Could an advocate of the divinely inspired - human mangled position give me an algorithm for a filter that does not involve our human perceptions?

I understand where this position comes from, by the way. Our moral code is far beyond that of 2700 years ago. But I don't know how you reliably pick out the good bits of meat from the nasty ones. In my buffet, I'd toss the whole pot.I suppose most believers who accept that their religious text is fallible retain only the parts that ring true to them spiritually. But upon closer examination, how can that work? Isn't that saying that your ability to discern the "true" parts of your religious text is better than that of the saints who wrote it? Of course, I guess one can pick out the parts that ring true, but at the same time acknowledge that one's own spirituality is as fallible due to personal and cultural influence as that of the texts' authors, and pray for divine guidance. Nobody ever said religious belief was easy. (OK, I'm sure some snotty atheist/agnostic/humanist has said it. However, I was raised Lutheran and am now a snotty agnostic, and I can honestly say that making sense of your life is hard any way you choose to do it, whether through faith or through reason or some combination thereof.)

I guess what I'm saying is that it's a question of how the divine manifests itself. If it can only be glimpsed in distorted form through texts, and religious leaders are similarly fallible, what can man rely on to get a better view? Again, one can pray for divine guidance and hope for the best, but ultimately, how does distinguish between divine and Satanic influences? If God's love is everywhere corrupted by the imperfect state of the world, and even man's own abilities to perceive it are flawed, how can man ever be expected to know the true path to God?

(Sorry if any of this post is contradictory, but the topic is a bit of a brain-stretcher. And Eve, I like your recent habit of GD thread-starting. You keep your OPs short, sweet, and humble, which is quite a breath of fresh air for the forum!)

[Sevastopol]

Opinions?

Yep, he's hot. You have chosen wisely, go forth...

[dangermom]

Actually, Eve, I think the best example of your OP's argument might be the Book of Mormon. Are there any Mormons who don't take it literally? "Non-literal" and "Mormon" really do seem mutually exclusive to me.Depends on what you mean by "literally." There are some few Mormons who do not think that the BoM is actual history, but that Joseph Smith was inspired to write it. A pretty unorthodox opinion, but then Mormons don't have a whole lot of 'required' beliefs, and the historicity of the BoM isn't one of them. People who think the BoM is not in some way an inspired book tend not to be Mormons for very long. On the whole, however, LDS accept the BoM as what it claims to be.

The BoM contains a lot of narration of events (literal), some quotes from Isaiah (largely metaphor), accounts of visions or allegories with their interpretations, and sermons on how to behave. It isn't as difficult to tell which is which as it is with the Bible.

The LDS view of the Bible is that it is mostly inspired and correct, but also corrupted and containing mistakes. Individual Mormons tend to vary on how much they accept as historical (such as Noah's ark, etc.), and most wouldn't be too bothered to find out that one or another ancient story was exaggerated or whatever. Of course, we firmly believe in the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that he is the Savior. Everything else is secondary, however. Mormons tend to be literal about the Bible where some others are not, and metaphorical in spots that Fundamentalists take literally. We also think that the authors of the books of the Bible were inspired, but human.

All this confusion is why we think it's important to have a living prophet. It's his job to help modern-day people figure out the word of God and how it applies to them. Prayer and personal inspiration are also considered helpful.

Hope that helps you understand the LDS POV.

[Padeye]

So based on my experience, I think they're all afraid they'll become Gay. And that's why they won't rethink things.

Who says that rejecting faith is the only way to rethink things? Lots of non-fundies look at the truth of the bible in a more postmodern sense. We don't see the truth in the bible in the universe being created in 144 hours, we see it in Jesus saying the most important thing is to love God with all your heart and next most important is to that love your neighbor as yourself. Just because some who call themselved Christians reject homosexuals doesn't mean God does.

[Johnny Bravo]

But if religion were initiated by a perfect deity, why should it be a living, changing thing?

Why should it be, why shouldn't it be? I know it must seem like a pretty tired excuse to an atheist, but saying "this is was God thinks" or "this was what God was thinking" isn't something I consider possible.

[blowero]

This argument sounds like "fundamentalist atheism." If it is possible for any aspect of your key Holy Book to be false, then logically, all of it must be false. Personally, I don't agree with fundamentalist all-or-nothing Christians, and I don't agree with all-or-nothing atheists.

Be fair, Sol. Eve said maybe none of it holds water. She did not say "all of it must be false."

[foolsguinea]

The OP's problem is the assumption of perfect knowledge. This is a tenet of Fundamentalists, who are Biblicists, & assume that just because a text is canon, it's infallible. The non-religious should know better.

Just because a history textbook has a few inaccuracies, doesn't mean it has no truth. This who are not "fundamentalist" read their scriptures seriously, & judge them against reason & outside information. That doesn't mean they throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[SolGrundy]

Hey, that would ceretainly be sufficient reason for me!
Then I worded it incorrectly. How about attempt two: I reject the notion that all those who don't accept Christ as their savior are doomed to hell. I also reject the notion that homosexuality is an abomination. Does that mean that I must also reject the notion of "judge not, lest ye be judged," or "love thy neighbor," or to go back further, "thou shalt not kill?" Since atheists have rejected the Bible as "the truth," then does that mean I should be in constant fear of atheists trying to murder me or steal from me or covet my neighbor's wife?

I'm at a loss to understand why I'm "fooling myself" if I accept only the parts of Christianity that make sense to me, those that fit in with the rest. It does form a coherent belief system and a coherent moral code; it's not as if I'm just winging it here and making stuff up as I go along.

(And Sam Harris is way hotter than John Irving!)
DIE, HERETIC!

[Homebrew]

Who says that rejecting faith is the only way to rethink things?
Perhaps you missed the part where I said "Okay that last part is for humor only."

[SolGrundy]

Be fair, Sol. Eve said maybe none of it holds water. She did not say "all of it must be false."
I'm not necessarily arguing with Eve, I'm arguing with her so-called "hot" author. If someone describes himself as being not a fundamentalist, then by definition, it's not so damning to him if maybe none of it holds water. If I'm a fundamentalist, then I have to believe in all or nothing. If I'm not a fundamentalist, I'm open to varying interpretations of the "truth."

As well as the possibility that the actual "truth" is unlike anything I've ever realized, that in fact it's potato bug worship that is the One True Way, and I'm going to spend an eternity in torment because I stepped on one as a child and didn't perform the proper ritual of attonement. If that is the truth, it's irrelevant, because it doesn't make any sense to me, so I couldn't believe it even if I wanted to. So I believe that God gave me a brain, and I'll use it to make sense of the world, believe the parts that fit in with that conception and find some other explanation for the parts that don't.

That's not "letting in a chink of reason," as if the entire notion of religious belief is unreasonable, and people come about their belief systems without giving it any thought. And I say it's not "fooling yourself" to be able to reconcile a belief system out of things that would to a cursory observer seem like completely incompatible concepts. I believe it takes a lot of reason, a lot of time, a lot of thought, and a good bit of faith.

(And since people seem to keep thinking I'm angry when I'm not: I'm not. Really. The digs at Eve's honey are meant in fun.)

[Freyr]

Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.

Opinions?

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will) but isn't this the logical fallacy of the excluded middle? IE: if some Scripture is untrue, then all of it is untrue.

Extending the analogy:

If some black people steal things, then all black people steal things.

If some gay men are flamboyant, then all gay men are flamboyant.

If [b]some Republicans make homophobic statements, then all Republicans make homophobic statements.

If some transsexuals are witty, gorgeous and have fabulous lives, then all transsexuals are witty, gorgeous and have fabulous lives. :D

[Contrapuntal]

Why should it be, why shouldn't it be? I know it must seem like a pretty tired excuse to an atheist, but saying "this is was God thinks" or "this was what God was thinking" isn't something I consider possible.
Then you are not a Jehovah's Witness, or a Catholic, or one of any number of fundamentalist Protestant sects that claim to know the word of God, and by extension, his mind. Also, the major Christian religions' final appeal is to the truth of their dogma, which is justified as a representation of what God wants re. humans. That dogma is either immutable, or open to interpretation. If the former, then only one interpretation can be correct; if the latter, then it must needs comprise, at least in part, some human input. Humans being flawed, it follows that the dogma is to some degree suspect.

[Lobsang]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will) but isn't this the logical fallacy of the excluded middle? IE: if some Scripture is untrue, then all of it is untrue.

If some scripture is untrue, then all of it comes into doubt. There's a difference.


If some black people steal things, then all black people steal things.

Take away the word 'black' and add my distinction. then you have it.

If some people steal things then all people might steal things.

[Lobsang]

Same goes for your other analogies.

[Contrapuntal]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will) but isn't this the logical fallacy of the excluded middle? IE: if some Scripture is untrue, then all of it is untrue.

Extending the analogy:

If some black people steal things, then all black people steal things.

If some gay men are flamboyant, then all gay men are flamboyant.

If [b]some Republicans make homophobic statements, then all Republicans make homophobic statements.

If some transsexuals are witty, gorgeous and have fabulous lives, then all transsexuals are witty, gorgeous and have fabulous lives. :D
I think it sets up more like this:

A religion that claims infallibility but is found to be fallible in at least one respect must be suspect in all others. If the religion claims something like "We think we are right most of the time," then fallibility is allowed, but leaves one wondering when to follow the religion and when not to follow it.

[Mangetout]

Everybody does the 'cafeteria' thing; fundies just pretend they don't.

It's possible to consider a holy writing to be an imperfect attempt to portray a genuine truth and to therefore seek that truth aided by the book, but without resorting to slavery to it.

[coffeecat]

If you start out with the premise that your particular religion and holy book are literally true, direct from the lips of God, then yes, liberal faith is wimping out. That's not the only kind of religion, though. Believe it or not, atheists don't have a monopoly on reason. Let's say your an intelligent person who knows that you have to question your premises in order to find the truth, so you don't just blindly swallow the faith you were taught as a child. So you examine the evidence, and conclude, perhaps based on your own experience, that God does exist. You then try to learn more about Him. Maybe other people have noticed things about Him that you've missed. Sure enough, lots of other people have said all kinds of things about Him, a lot of it sounding just like the Being you've concluded exists. Other things they've said sound like a crock of shit. So you take what seems useful and reliable, and ignore what seems like nonsense. This is how reasonable people form opinions about politics or morality or any other subject that isn't a hard science.

I suppose most believers who accept that their religious text is fallible retain only the parts that ring true to them spiritually. But upon closer examination, how can that work? Isn't that saying that your ability to discern the "true" parts of your religious text is better than that of the saints who wrote it?
What other way is there to live? Fer crying out loud, haven't you atheists ever heard of thinking for yourself? ;)

[Contrapuntal]

[QUOTE=coffeecat]
What other way is there to live? Fer crying out loud, haven't you atheists ever heard of thinking for yourself? ;)

Well if it were the way of the world that each person on Earth were free to seek his or her own walk with God then things would be hunky dory. Such is far from the case. If you follow the link in the OP you see that the author's premise is that historically, blind faith has led to horrible atrocities, and that level of belief coupled with modern weaponry is potentially disastrous.

[Contrapuntal]

[QUOTE]This argument sounds like "fundamentalist atheism." Perhaps it might if there were such a thing, but as atheism has no tenets save a denial of the existence of a particular god, and that tenet has held forth unchangingly, "fundamentalism" hardly applies.

[Krokodil]

I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said that the thirteenth chime is bad, not just in and of itself, but because it casts doubt on the preceding twelve.

And a National Lampoon writer (Jack Handy? Peter Gaffney?) wrote: "I believe the Bible means exactly what it says it means; I just don't attach any importance to it."

[Mangetout]

Acvtually, what makes religion/faith any different from any other thing where it is reasonably possible to inhabit a point that isn't at one exreme or the other?

[Metacom]

But I don't think you can drop that—if there had never been an Old Testament, there'd be no Judaism today. Had there been no New Testament ever written, no Christianity. No Koran, no Muslims.
Had there been no Principia there'd be no understanding of physics today--but that doesn't mean that Newton was the last word on the subject!

[Contrapuntal]

Had there been no Principia there'd be no understanding of physics today--but that doesn't mean that Newton was the last word on the subject!
So the stuff that God said way back when was just him sort of figuring out things, and now that he's had some time to think about it maybe he would like to revise it a bit?

[Zoe]

SolGrundy, you are so cool! I would let you have my armadillo if I had one. Would you let me have your baseball cards? ;)

[JRDelirious]

And I say it's not "fooling yourself" to be able to reconcile a belief system out of things that would to a cursory observer seem like completely incompatible concepts. I believe it takes a lot of reason, a lot of time, a lot of thought, and a good bit of faith. And one thing often missed in the argument about "what to take at face value, what not to", is that the religions have had armies of theologians putting their lifetimes into figuring that out for two millennia. Every single believer need not figure it out from scratch.

[Contrapuntal]

And one thing often missed in the argument about "what to take at face value, what not to", is that the religions have had armies of theologians putting their lifetimes into figuring that out for two millennia. Every single believer need not figure it out from scratch.
What happens when those armies conflict? Who is to be believed?

[Metacom]

Had there been no Principia there'd be no understanding of physics today--but that doesn't mean that Newton was the last word on the subject!So the stuff that God said way back when was just him sort of figuring out things, and now that he's had some time to think about it maybe he would like to revise it a bit?
Eh? Your response assumes I think the bible contains the literal word of God. I don't. I think it contains the words of people who were trying to figure things out.

[Contrapuntal]

Eh? Your response assumes I think the bible contains the literal word of God. I don't. I think it contains the words of people who were trying to figure things out.
I did not mean to put words in your mouth. Please excuse me.
Newton was "not the last word" on a subject that is open to being proved completely wrong. Can you suggest to me a religion or theory of God that allows for the same?

[roger thornhill]

I think there might be confusion over the way 'fundamental' is used, a confusion that has been increased by the fact that many people associate the word these days with unthinking conformity, barbaric behaviour and indeed criminal activity.

If a fundamental is seen as someone who seeks the heart of a belief system, its core messages, then most sincere religious followers would be pleased to be called fundamentalists.

A true fundamentalist would combine a robust defence of his or her core beliefs with tolerance for those who disagree. Especially with those within his or her religion who disagree. A true fundamentalist would never advocate coercion to his or her beliefs, and would speak against violence, in this context, at every opportunity.

[Little Nemo]

I follow what others have said. God sent mankind a message and we can figure it was ... well ... the Straight Dope. But then people stepped in and added, "what God meant to say was..." and these people are not necessarily repeating the same message as God intended. (I call this the Zottean Theory of Editorial Diminishment.)

So one purpose of theology is to seperate out the parts that came from God from the parts that came from men. (Admittedly another is to figure out if there's any trace of God at all underneath it all. But's that's another debate.)

To me the best course is to stop focusing on the details and look at the big picture. At some point in the Bible it says adulterers should be killed. But at another point it says people shouldn't kill other people. At this point common sense and interpretation is needed to reconcile these two apparently opposing directives.

[blowero]

I'm not necessarily arguing with Eve, I'm arguing with her so-called "hot" author. If someone describes himself as being not a fundamentalist, then by definition, it's not so damning to him if maybe none of it holds water. If I'm a fundamentalist, then I have to believe in all or nothing. If I'm not a fundamentalist, I'm open to varying interpretations of the "truth."

O.K., but what I was responding to was your strawman characterization of Eve's argument where you said:

If it is possible for any aspect of your key Holy Book to be false, then logically, all of it must be false.

That was never argued by anyone here. I'm objecting to your contention that Eve is arguing what you call "fundamentalist atheism":

This argument sounds like "fundamentalist atheism." If it is possible for any aspect of your key Holy Book to be false, then logically, all of it must be false. Personally, I don't agree with fundamentalist all-or-nothing Christians, and I don't agree with all-or-nothing atheists.

See, you're arguing against a strawman.

From what you say above, it sounds like you agree with the argument, and do admit that maybe none of the Bible holds water.

As well as the possibility that the actual "truth" is unlike anything I've ever realized, that in fact it's potato bug worship that is the One True Way, and I'm going to spend an eternity in torment because I stepped on one as a child and didn't perform the proper ritual of attonement. If that is the truth, it's irrelevant, because it doesn't make any sense to me, so I couldn't believe it even if I wanted to. So I believe that God gave me a brain, and I'll use it to make sense of the world, believe the parts that fit in with that conception and find some other explanation for the parts that don't.

That's not "letting in a chink of reason," as if the entire notion of religious belief is unreasonable, and people come about their belief systems without giving it any thought. And I say it's not "fooling yourself" to be able to reconcile a belief system out of things that would to a cursory observer seem like completely incompatible concepts. I believe it takes a lot of reason, a lot of time, a lot of thought, and a good bit of faith.

(And since people seem to keep thinking I'm angry when I'm not: I'm not. Really. The digs at Eve's honey are meant in fun.)
And on a side note, I'm intrigued by your use of quotation marks around the word "truth". That seems to imply that truth means something different to you. To me, truth, by definition, is objective, and is not changed merely by my beliefs or desires.

[blowero]

SolGrundy, you are so cool! I would let you have my armadillo if I had one. Would you let me have your baseball cards? ;)
This isn't a contest, it's a discussion. It's really not necessary to backslap each other for being on the same team.

Atheists rule! Yee-haw! :rolleyes:

[Lamia]

Then I worded it incorrectly. How about attempt two: I reject the notion that all those who don't accept Christ as their savior are doomed to hell. I also reject the notion that homosexuality is an abomination. Does that mean that I must also reject the notion of "judge not, lest ye be judged," or "love thy neighbor," or to go back further, "thou shalt not kill?" Since atheists have rejected the Bible as "the truth," then does that mean I should be in constant fear of atheists trying to murder me or steal from me or covet my neighbor's wife?

I'm at a loss to understand why I'm "fooling myself" if I accept only the parts of Christianity that make sense to me, those that fit in with the rest. It does form a coherent belief system and a coherent moral code; it's not as if I'm just winging it here and making stuff up as I go along.
I think the point may be that if you pick and choose which parts of Christianity make sense to you and reject the rest, you may be fooling yourself by calling yourself a Christian. You may still have a perfectly nice and reasonable belief system, but is it actually Christianity? After all, I'm perfectly happy to reject the "bad" Christian notions mentioned above and accept the "good" ones...and I'm not a Christian.

[ouryL]

hermeneutic Circle (HER·me·NEU·tic CIR·cle). All interpretation involves a circular reasoning structure involving a projection of a fore-structured understanding, rather than the purely objective relation of whole and parts. Any detail, such as an object or word, is understood in terms of the whole, and the whole in terms of the detail. For example, advocates of the Thursday Crucifixion hypothesis interpret every piece of evidence, not objectively from the evidence itself, but understanding it and spinning it in terms of their mindset. Other examples include astrology, dualism, and scientific creationism. People locked in hermeneutic circles normally remain caught therein until faced with irreconcilable, overwhelming evidence to the contrary. People in this logic dilemma often reject all evidence to the contrary and choose to remain deceived. It is perhaps the most fundamental flaw in hermeneutics giving interpretation a limited, dubious role in the search for fact and truth.

[Voyager]

Why should it be, why shouldn't it be? I know it must seem like a pretty tired excuse to an atheist, but saying "this is was God thinks" or "this was what God was thinking" isn't something I consider possible.

But anyone who believes he is following God's commandments is doing just that. I suppose you can say that there is a god, but you don't know what you want so you can do what you please.

[Voyager]

Then I worded it incorrectly. How about attempt two: I reject the notion that all those who don't accept Christ as their savior are doomed to hell. I also reject the notion that homosexuality is an abomination. Does that mean that I must also reject the notion of "judge not, lest ye be judged," or "love thy neighbor," or to go back further, "thou shalt not kill?" Since atheists have rejected the Bible as "the truth," then does that mean I should be in constant fear of atheists trying to murder me or steal from me or covet my neighbor's wife?

No, but it means that you accept those things out of moral reasoning, not because God said so. Unless you have objective evidence why god said one thing and not another, you are putting your morals above god's - a good thing, since most people's morals seem to be better than that of the God of the Bible. You probably wouldn't kill someone for picking up sticks on a Saturday, for instance.

[js_africanus]

But I don't think you can drop [divine origin of holy books]—if there had never been an Old Testament, there'd be no Judaism today. Had there been no New Testament ever written, no Christianity. No Koran, no Muslims.
Well, the OT isn't even ostensibly of divine origin. The first few books are claimed to have been written by Moses and, IIRC, it's not supposed to be a literal transcription of god's word. You can compare this with the Koran which is supposed to be a verbatim copy of god's words through the angel Gabriel (IIRC). The NT certainly isn't divinely authored—the New Testament books that are in the bible are there as a result of a vote! Some, the Apocryphia (sp?), didn't make it. The Gospel of Thomas is one example of a more credible gospel that got the boot. So in terms of authorship, what little I'm aware of suggests that it is not difficult to ignore parts of one's holy text simply because of questions of authorship.

Additionally, the pre-printing-printing press method of reproduction would leave room for plenty of doubt on any questionable passage. The redaction and what not creates even more wiggle room.

Of course, translation is notoriously sketchy. How many people think that god said that thou shall not "kill" or "lie," when a true and updated translation may indicate that one shall not "murder" or "give false testimony [as a witness]"?

Another issue is that we're not dealing with Euclid's Elements. We're not looking at tightly argued texts built from easy to grasp axioms. One could easily find room for interpretation in a holy text, IMO, and people do it all the time. As a last resort, one could always claim that it was a metaphore or an allegory.

I think a really important element has to do with what the cafeteria believer considers to be proof. I've known, and currently know, Christians who believe they "know" god. And by "know," they mean that they are personally in touch with Jesus and have received personal, meaningful communication from him. I've spoken to astrology advocates who insist they have a priori knowledge or understanding that trumps any alleged facts that may come their way. I don't think there is a psychosis going on here; but instead they're people who just haven't learned to apply critical thinking fully.

Personally, I don't understand it. It seems to me that if god really wanted to give me a sign, he'd make it on par with his powers; but for other people, seeing a three legged dog outside a church is a sign from heaven and that's all there is to it. The point of that is that it is probably easier to believe discount passages in a book of quesitonable heritage when one feels that one has a personal relationship with the diety herself.

Ironically, I can't help but wonder if that last one isn't an element helping to create such malignant fundies, because the other side of the coin is that it is probably easier to believe the literal text of a passage when one thinks one's god is backing it up through personal communication.

Of course, I haven't read the book. The author may have a powerful argument. Oops! Jesus is ringing my doorbell. Gotta go.

[Polycarp]

Nice post, js_africanus. There are quite a few nits that could be picked with your historical exegesis -- but they are purely and simply nitpicking, not a flaw in your basic statement.

That said, I have an anecdote that may amuse you and others. You said:

It seems to me that if god really wanted to give me a sign, he'd make it on par with his powers; but for other people, seeing a three legged dog outside a church is a sign from heaven and that's all there is to it.

I saw a report on a Christian board I belong to about a person having seen a church with one of those changeable-letter marquees outside, the ones that usually list sermon topics and times of service, or announce stuff, or are occasionally used for oh-so-twee bits of 'wit.' This one, however, had:

So you've been waiting for a sign?
This is a sign.
See you Sunday!

[JRDelirious]

What happens when those armies conflict? You pick sides, presumably with the theologian who comes up with the theory that provides you the explanation of what the scripture says that most helps you improve your life.

Of course, in the old days, that often ended with someone being barbecued in the town square. Now they can just go on a book tour :cool:


And before you ask "but what if you pick the wrong side", well, then you'd better hope that God is really a merciful being who takes into account that your intentions were good, your efforts sincere, your faith heartfelt and your actions beneficial to your neighbor.

[matt_mcl]

That has been debunked as propaganda from The Galilean Fishermen for Truth organization. :)

"Passion. The story of the crucifixion of Christ, usually told in the version of one of the four apostles. (The Passion According to Reuter's Jerusalem Correspondent has not received the attention it deserves.)"
- John Barber, A Musician's Dictionary

[DocCathode]

JS_AfricanusOTTOMH a rather large portion of Jews do hold that the Torah, in its entirety, was given by G-d to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Back To The OP

I do get a sense of Jack Chick while reading the review in the link. The argument that my faith rests entirely on a question I've never thought to ask myself, and that being forced to deal with that question will bring my faith down like a house of cards.

I dealt with the question of whether the Torah was literal and innerant back in elementary school. Genesis said the whole universe just took six days. The science books, and those really cool PBS specials said the Big Bang was billions of years ago and that Lucy was millions of years old. I may still have that charming book of Bible stories with a cover depicting a fallen Adam and Eve fleeing the garden for an earth filled with dinosaurs. The story of Noah made no scientific sense, and was very similar to a story in my book of Greek myths.

After a long analysis, I settled on that section of Genesis as parable. My parents, and Rabbi Klirs often told me parables. These were not attempts to deceive me. The story of Noah, I decided, was probably a story which predated Judaism and told of an actual flood which seemed really big at the time. But, was there a G-d? After more searching, I found that there was. My faith does not rest on unquestioning belief in the Torah.

Re The Author

Am I the only one who sees a resemblance to Ben Stiller?

[Already in Use]

What other way is there to live? Fer crying out loud, haven't you atheists ever heard of thinking for yourself? ;)Heh. I see what you're saying, but I mean, why bother even seeing any part of a religious text as authoritative? If you agree with some of it, but don't agree with other parts, doesn't that make you the "authority," rather than the text? In which case, why not just start your own religion?

I do sort of see where you're coming from, though. So you see it as more of a dynamic interaction between religious texts and believers, wherein the parts of the texts that are "inspirational" allow the believers to further develop their own religious understanding?

[Eve]

I'm just so proud to have started a Great Debates religion thread that--rather than turning into a train wreck--has become an interesting and informative exchange of ideas! Who'da thunk that would ever happen?!

[Oh, and, sadly, Sam Harris is not "my" hot author, he's married and probably young enough to be my great-grandson . . . ]

[DocCathode]

Does the book discuss the dangers of blind faith only in a religious context?

[Lilairen]

Heh. I see what you're saying, but I mean, why bother even seeing any part of a religious text as authoritative? If you agree with some of it, but don't agree with other parts, doesn't that make you the "authority," rather than the text? In which case, why not just start your own religion?

It might be worth looking at how religions that have no sacred texts maintain continuity. (Especially as we have evidence that sacred texts are not guarantors of continuity in the first place, from the evidence of several religions that have them.)

Orthopraxy is one of the common ones: in some cases, belief is even optional, so long as the correct practices are carried out. (You can see a mainstream example of this in the cases of atheistic Jews who continue to maintain halachic practices because they are still Jewish.)

Shared pools of context, religious imagery, religious metaphor: the context of the myths and parables of the religion, the visual structure of its ritual spaces and rituals, and so on. In some cases this will also have shared religious experience. But the shared familiarity of the images and mindsets of approach to the divine is a continuing thread, even if it does not have a canonical or holy form.

Shared belief. All religious epistemologies come with a certain set of axioms about the structure of the world, including interaction with the divine. There will be a range of takes on those axioms, but none of these will include all possible worldviews; there exist religious axioms that are flatly incompatible with each other. (For example, the common African religious belief in a universe that needs maintenance to maintain its purity vs. the common Christian religious belief in a fallen universe that needs redemption.) Continuity of paradigm is another force of maintenance on a religion.

All of these contribute to "Why not start your own religion?" Religions are not books; even when they include texts they are built of an additional corpus of material that may not have much, if anything, to do with that text. Centrality of the importance of a particular text is one of the axioms that goes under "shared belief" above; it will not be shared by all religions, or indeed all implementations of a particular one.

[Eve]

Does the book discuss the dangers of blind faith only in a religious context?

No, but that's its main point. Frankly, a lot of it went over my pretty little head. I had to reread a few paragraphs and still couldn't quite grasp what he was saying.

It's an interesting book, but deep, and not an easy, light read.

[SolGrundy]

O.K., but what I was responding to was your strawman characterization of Eve's argument where you said:

That was never argued by anyone here. I'm objecting to your contention that Eve is arguing what you call "fundamentalist atheism":

See, you're arguing against a strawman.

No, I don't see that at all. Perhaps instead of telling me that I'm not being fair or setting up imaginary targets to knock them down, and admonishing Zoe for saying that I'm "cool," you should clue me in on exactly what the discussion is about.

Based on the title and the wording of the OP, I assumed that the discussion was asking how it's possible to be religious and yet not accept every word of the religion's dominant holy text as completely, 100% true and accurate.

Once again, I point to the wording of the title "How can there Be NON-Fundamentalists?" which I read as "how can you be religious without being 100% religious?" And to the text of the OP, which implied that non-fundamentalists were "fooling themselves," implying that their beliefs were invalid. Or that "they must let in a chink of reason," implying that their beliefs were unreasonable. Or that "they must admit that maybe none of it holds water." Holds water how? By being a 100% inerrant transcription of the thoughts of God? Or by being a valid basis for a belief system? How much water are we talking about here?

Perhaps you'd explain which part I misread, exactly.

From what you say above, it sounds like you agree with the argument, and do admit that maybe none of the Bible holds water.
Again, how do you mean "holds water?" Holds water as a 100% exhaustive, accurate description of the workings of the universe? As the basis for a moral and belief system? As proof of the existence of God?

The only argument I made was that I use the Bible and the tenets of Christianity as the framework for my moral system. I am not dogmatic, because I accept that there are other, equally valid moral systems. And that is not my "fooling myself" or being a "casual Christian;" that is simply my being "not a fundamentalist."

And on a side note, I'm intrigued by your use of quotation marks around the word "truth". That seems to imply that truth means something different to you. To me, truth, by definition, is objective, and is not changed merely by my beliefs or desires.
I'm intrigued by how much you can read into quotation marks. But since you asked: Yes, I believe that there is an objective reality. I also believe that that is mostly irrelevant to me because it impacts me in no meaningful way. The objective reality exists, but it is only relevant in so far as we humans can perceive it and conceive of it. And how we interpret that objective reality is what I call "truth."

Take the existence of God as a simple example. He either exists or he doesn't. My belief in God doesn't cause Him to come into being any more than someone else's disbelief causes Him to vanish. So He exists, and that's the truth. How do I come to that conclusion? Because I cannot conceive of a universe in which He doesn't exist. I've tried to imagine such a situation many times, and it simply makes no sense to me. Someone might say, "but your belief doesn't change the fact that God doesn't [or does] exist." And my response would be "yes, but that doesn't matter." Either I'm right, and when I die I'll get to heaven and He'll give me a metaphysical high-five and say, "Good on ya!" Or I'm wrong, and I'll be dead so it won't matter.


I think the point may be that if you pick and choose which parts of Christianity make sense to you and reject the rest, you may be fooling yourself by calling yourself a Christian. You may still have a perfectly nice and reasonable belief system, but is it actually Christianity? After all, I'm perfectly happy to reject the "bad" Christian notions mentioned above and accept the "good" ones...and I'm not a Christian.

Well, are you sure you're not fooling yourself into thinking that you're not a Christian? I hope the question sounds absurd to you, because it sounds absurd when applied to me as well. Christianity as it's always been explained to me is: accept Christ as your personal savior, acknowledge and appreciate the works of God, and live your life as Christ taught, treating people with love, respect, and compassion. I do that to the best of my ability, based on the teachings of Christ. Ergo, I am a Christian. I'm no scholar of comparative religion, so as far as I know, I do all the same things in my day-to-day life that Buddhism teaches. That doesn't mean I'm a Buddhist, because I don't identify myself as one and I didn't use those teachings to create my moral framework.

If I had suddenly hit on the idea that killing and eating babies was a good, proper, Christian thing to do, and still called myself a Christian, then I'd be fooling myself. Because it flies in the face of everything else that the religion says.


No, but it means that you accept those things out of moral reasoning, not because God said so. Unless you have objective evidence why god said one thing and not another, you are putting your morals above god's - a good thing, since most people's morals seem to be better than that of the God of the Bible. You probably wouldn't kill someone for picking up sticks on a Saturday, for instance.

It depends on what he were planning to do with those sticks.

But you're trying to apply your interpretation of existence to explain my religious beliefs, and that's not appropriate. I do accept those things out of moral reasoning, but I did not wholly invent my moral framework. My moral framework is based on the teachings of Christ. I do not need objective evidence that God said one thing and not another; I have been alive long enough to see the world that God has created and understand what works and what doesn't. I am not putting my morals above God's; I was created by God, and was given a brain by God, and given a teacher and savior by God, and trusted by God to interpret what I experience and use that interpretation to do the right thing and make my life on earth meaningful.

[Magiver]

Not sure I fully grasp the question? Just taking the Christian religion as an example, it was once entirely Fundamentalist in nature. When Martin Luther started the Protestant Church it created an environment where church leadership could be challenged.

Ultimately, religions consist of people. As educational opportunities increase, greater numbers of people acquire the ability to use reason to challenge religious dogma.

Nothing speaks more of change than to see Afghani children (especially girls) getting a real education

[HPL]

Perhaps it might if there were such a thing, but as atheism has no tenets save a denial of the existence of a particular god, and that tenet has held forth unchangingly, "fundamentalism" hardly applies.

They could using that term to mean distiguish "There is no god/s" Athiests from "There is NO GOD and anyone who believes so is an idiot, delusional or something else" Athiests. The latter bear a disturbing resemblist to their Religious counterparts by the fact both often feel the need to push their belief or lack of it onto you.

If you have a better term to describe both, I'm all ears.

[JRDelirious]

Not sure I fully grasp the question? Just taking the Christian religion as an example, it was once entirely Fundamentalist in nature. When Martin Luther started the Protestant Church it created an environment where church leadership could be challenged. Hmmm... hold it, I don't think that you're using the same meaning of "fundamentalism" as the rest of the thread -- which is not exact either. (More on that later) You seem to be mapping it to dogmatism, but at the time of Luther Catholicism was dogmatic but NOT "fundamentalist". Luther made Christian Fundamentalism possible (as we know it by that name); it is a PROTESTANT phenomenon.

In this thread, however, "fundamentalist" as used in the OP actually refers to a Scriptural Literalist, one who believes in the literal factual truth of the entirety of their Scripture's text as-is, not just as a source of spiritual guidance but also of documentary history AND of legislation for everyday living; and who believes that this can be mostly discerned from a reading at face value, rather than by a select priesthood figuring out the symbols. This most often, but not absolutely, comes tied in with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, the Scripture as sole source of faith and authority in of itself. Yet even at the time of Luther, the Catholic Church did NOT hold to this doctrine; it was the Protestants who exalted Sola Scriptura.

Thing is, Scriptural Literalism is only PART of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism originates as a "Back to Basics" movement, ditching those accumulated practices and doctrines acquired through tradition, uses and customs, and theological pronouncements that he feels are extraneous to the fundamental message of the religion, or that have corrupted over time. In the practice, that includes most visibly an active opposition and effort to roll back any practices and doctrines that are seen as an accommodation to the secular world, an appeasement of nonbelievers, or a watering down of the Old Values; as well as, for the more activist, actual effort towards having civil society itself also conform to the "Basics". But it does not necessarily mean it HAS to go that way.

[Contrapuntal]

They could using that term to mean distiguish "There is no god/s" Athiests from "There is NO GOD and anyone who believes so is an idiot, delusional or something else" Athiests. The latter bear a disturbing resemblist to their Religious counterparts by the fact both often feel the need to push their belief or lack of it onto you.

If you have a better term to describe both, I'm all ears.
How about "assholes?" My point is that when a fundamentalist Christian tries to convert me he is doing so because his faith commands it. There are no tenets of athiesm that require proseltysing. If an atheist is pushing his beliefs on you or calling you an idiot for not agreeing with him, he is simply being a jerk. It has nothing to do with atheism. The only belief fundamental to atheism is a denial of a particular god. A person who professes to be a fundamentalist Christian is required to behave in certain ways consistent with his faith. A claim of atheism has no such requirements; in fact, it is simply a descriptive term.

[ambushed]

So one "no" vote here for the thesis that non-fundamentalist, non-literalist theists are just barely hanging on to religious sanity by a shred of cognitive dissonance.

And one "yes" vote to even the count.

[ambushed]

Also, I'm not sure I understand why you can't think the Bible is an imperfect record made by humans which was an attempt to capture that which they thought was miraculous, or at least needed to be written down, that someone else thought should be part of the Bible. It seems your author's argument has a hidden assumption - that belief in a religion is founded in the belief of the book. Drop that and you've got it made.

Literalism isn't the issue. It's the issue of being willing to compromise. The fact is that there is a certain category of people who believe that to compromise with the infidel is to become the infidel; if you're not in that category, then in a very real sense you've already compromised.

The reverse is probably also true: there is probably the category of people who hold that if you compromise with reason you've become irrational.

[Oy!]

<complete and total hijack> Eve, if you think Harris is hot, check out Ed Wasser (http://www.wasser.com/) (Morden) on the first three seasons of Babylon 5! Same look, only even better.</hijack>

[Eve]

<complete and total hijack> Eve, if you think Harris is hot, check out Ed Wasser (http://www.wasser.com/) (Morden) on the first three seasons of Babylon 5! Same look, only even better.</hijack>

Nah, I think Harris looks like they did Ben Stiller over and got it right this time, without the chimp-like elements.

Now, back to the intelligent discussion, folks! This is fascinating, and I am happy to see it remain on a high, "pass-the-tea, Maude" level.

[Eve]

By the way, I just sent Sam Harris a link to this thread, telling him if he's not sick to death of the subject by now, he might be interested in reading it (and that perhaps his wife might like to join in on the hotly contested "Sam Harris/John Irving" debate).

[Polycarp]

How about "assholes?" My point is that when a fundamentalist Christian tries to convert me he is doing so because his faith commands it. There are no tenets of athiesm that require proseltysing. If an atheist is pushing his beliefs on you or calling you an idiot for not agreeing with him, he is simply being a jerk. It has nothing to do with atheism. The only belief fundamental to atheism is a denial of a particular god. A person who professes to be a fundamentalist Christian is required to behave in certain ways consistent with his faith. A claim of atheism has no such requirements; in fact, it is simply a descriptive term.

I think you have a valid point, but I still beg to differ. What is motivating the asshole of either variety -- the faith-based asshole and the "evangelical atheist" -- is the opinion that his own views as to the Truth trump any rights and privileges you may have to your own faith or to making up your own mind on the issue.

I have as strong a call to help you find a deep, close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ as that guy who called on you unexpectedly last week with a Bible under his arm and a tract in his outstretched hand. The difference is that I'm not convinced that you're deluded and need to have me rescue you from the error of your ways -- you're a human being with the same wisdom and abilities as me, ceteris paribus, who arrived at whatever position he has on the religion issue based on his own life experiences and the logic which he applied to them. And the omniscient God whom the fundy is so anxious to keep on the good side of, He knows that -- knows right where you are, and loves you nonetheless.

Lots of people have read Eve's books and columns. And they know her in one sense of the word. We on this board know her better -- we've come to exchange views with her. We've traded more than a few witty riffs over the years; I was around when she "came out" online; I have more than a clue how she's likely to react to a given comment. Some lucky few of us know her as a flesh-and-blood person, adding to the interchange of ideas here the ability to interreact with body language and such, to share a meal, etc. And for some obscure reason, no one has seen fit to court her and know her in the Biblical sense.

That apparent total digression has a point. Nearly everybody claims to know God from His books -- but remember that He has the same problem as Socrates; leading writers attributed back their own idées fixés to Him, and from His literary output, you can't get to know Him all that well. He wants to get into a one-on-one with you -- not just having you read His book, but sending spiritual IMs into your mind, and receiving them back from you.

That bit of witnessing was essential to my point -- that's where I'm coming from religiously. I'm conveying the message of a God of love who wants to make your life richer and fuller and extend it indefinitely, not one that is playing carrot-and-stick in cosmic terms and trying to coerce you into turning to Him by threatening you with eternal damnation if you don't.

And do I care if you take my witness seriously or not? Well, I have enough of an ego to wish you would, and enough commitment to Christ to hope you would -- but I also know God as loving and omniscient, and quite well aware of where you are, in spiritual terms. And He is in charge, not I. Therefore, if any given person decides that my witness above belongs in the trash can right alongside the Jack Chick tract, hey, no problem -- I did what I was called to do, and you reacted as you felt right, and that is exactly how things should be.

Because you see, I don't have that sense of ultimate egotism that affects the fundies and the "evangelical atheists" -- that what they "know to be the Truth" is something that they need to force down the throats of everyone else, like some magic potion that will remove stupidity.

Peace.

[JRDelirious]

Literalism isn't the issue. It's the issue of being willing to compromise. The fact is that there is a certain category of people who believe that to compromise with the infidel is to become the infidel; if you're not in that category, then in a very real sense you've already compromised. Well, but then "fundamentalist" becomes redefined on the basis of what ARE the "Fundamentals" on which you may NOT compromise, and specifically applies then to those persons who will accept NO compromise at all whatsoever. (Or else, there can be NO non-fundamentalists, because every sect -- or freelance believer -- will have SOME "fundamental" belief on which they won't compromise, and the term loses meaning)

[Eve]

Unfortunately, he is too snowed under and over-extended with plugging his book, and starting new work, to join in this discussion, but he did read the thread and finds it interesting (of course, he agrees with some of us and disagrees with others, esp. on the presumed inerrancy of Holy Texts). Nice fellow.

He finds the "Sam Harris/John Irving" contest "very funny," by the way.

[js_africanus]

JS_AfricanusOTTOMH a rather large portion of Jews do hold that the Torah, in its entirety, was given by G-d to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Well, there you go, learn something new and all that. Does that include all the OT stuff that occured after Moses's death? That would be kind of bizarre.

[puzzled Israelite]I'm not sure where we're headed as a people...oh, wait, it sez it right here...nevermind.[/puzzled Israelite]

Or does the Torah end w/ Moses's death?

And since "Moses" is singular, is the possessive form "Moses's"? I can never remember.

[/hijack]

[Contrapuntal]

Polycarp,

Thanks for a thoughtful, interesting post. I am still going to insist that there is nothing about atheism that commands an advocate to witness. The difference between your approach and a more aggressive, unyielding one is a matter of degree, not kind. My understanding (from A Southern Baptist upbringing, and right down the road from you if I am not mistaken), is that believers are supposed to spread the word of God. I suspect a fundamentalist Christian might take that directive more to heart than one who is not a fundamentalist, but nothing compells him to be overbearing about it. If anyone comes to to me and says "I'm right and you are wrong and nothing you can say will change my mind," that person is simply being a jerk and in my mind such behavior has little or nothing to do with the message, only the mesenger. If I were to insist to you that Eric Clapton was the greatest guitar player who ever lived and anyone who says otherwise is delusional would that make me a fundamentalist Clapton fan, or simply obnoxious?

[Magiver]

Hmmm... hold it, I don't think that you're using the same meaning of "fundamentalism" as the rest of the thread -- which is not exact either. (More on that later) You seem to be mapping it to dogmatism, but at the time of Luther Catholicism was dogmatic but NOT "fundamentalist". Luther made Christian Fundamentalism possible (as we know it by that name); it is a PROTESTANT phenomenon.

In this thread, however, "fundamentalist" as used in the OP actually refers to a Scriptural Literalist, one who believes in the literal factual truth of the entirety of their Scripture's text as-is, not just as a source of spiritual guidance but also of documentary history AND of legislation for everyday living; and who believes that this can be mostly discerned from a reading at face value, rather than by a select priesthood figuring out the symbols. This most often, but not absolutely, comes tied in with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, the Scripture as sole source of faith and authority in of itself. Yet even at the time of Luther, the Catholic Church did NOT hold to this doctrine; it was the Protestants who exalted Sola Scriptura.

Thing is, Scriptural Literalism is only PART of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism originates as a "Back to Basics" movement, ditching those accumulated practices and doctrines acquired through tradition, uses and customs, and theological pronouncements that he feels are extraneous to the fundamental message of the religion, or that have corrupted over time. In the practice, that includes most visibly an active opposition and effort to roll back any practices and doctrines that are seen as an accommodation to the secular world, an appeasement of nonbelievers, or a watering down of the Old Values; as well as, for the more activist, actual effort towards having civil society itself also conform to the "Basics". But it does not necessarily mean it HAS to go that way.

An interesting POV. To take it a step further, the Catholic Church may not have held the biblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura, it did hold the Pope's interpretation of it to be infallible (and therefore literal). It is to me, the birth of biblical "literal interpretation". To me, Protestantism allowed individual study of the bible vs institutional study, and thus encouraged the literal attachment to the written word. Since I hold no degrees in religious study I am forced to simplify my views on the differences that have evolved over time.

I never approached the idea of fundamentalism as a Protestant issue within Christianity because I was raised Catholic. I've always thought of the early years as being more dogmatic because of the violent lengths the Church went through to maintain the status quo. To me, dogmatic behavior was the result of a fundamental state of mind (The world's flat and I'll kill you to prove it). Although this is not a direct relationship I think it applies to the violence found in today's fundamentalist Muslim doctrine.

[Voyager]

Well, there you go, learn something new and all that. Does that include all the OT stuff that occured after Moses's death? That would be kind of bizarre.

Or does the Torah end w/ Moses's death?

[/hijack]

No, but I think tradition says Joshua wrote the parts afte Moses, and the book of Joshua also, of course. I believe that book was written by an author of the Torah, and is considered closely related to it.

[Polycarp]

Old-school conservative attribution of authorship, which I believe is based on Talmudic doctrine borrowed by Christianity, claims that Moses wrote the entire Torah except the last few verses of Deuteronomy which describe his death. They were added in order to close out the narrative by Joshua, who wrote the book ascribed to him -- again, except for the final passage describing his death, which was written by Phinehas ben Eleazar ben Aaron, the High Priest, to close out the story of Joshua.

Modern scholars, of course, take a quite different view, ascribing the entire Hexateuch to four or more traditional sources: the Yahwistic or Judahite (J); the Elohistic or Ephraimite (E); the Priestly (P); and the Deuteronomic (D). Some scholars claim to see interior strands within these four principal traditions that produce, e.g., J1 and J2, and P1 and P2 traditions.

[JRDelirious]

An interesting POV. To take it a step further, the Catholic Church may not have held the biblical doctrine of Sola Scriptura, it did hold the Pope's interpretation of it to be infallible (and therefore literal). It is to me, the birth of biblical "literal interpretation".
You DO understand that "Papal Infallibility" (on teachings regarding Faith and Morals) was only made an official Catholic doctrine after Luther's time, right? In any case, it's still not "literalism", since "literal" means "to the letter" -- that what it says on the text is all that is; and the RCC has always picked and chosen which parts of the text are to be taken as allegory and symbol and which as fact, and has always inserted tradition and scholarship into the mix. Now, they were (and are) dogmatic and absolutist about what traditions and scholarship were "the Truth". But Literal is not a synonym of Absolute.

To me, Protestantism allowed individual study of the bible vs institutional study, and thus encouraged the literal attachment to the written word. Thus literalism and fundamentalism found the most fertile ground among the Protestants.

I was raised Catholic. I've always thought of the early years as being more dogmatic because of the violent lengths the Church went through to maintain the status quo. To me, dogmatic behavior was the result of a fundamental state of mind. (The world's flat and I'll kill you to prove it). Although this is not a direct relationship I think it applies to the violence found in today's fundamentalist Muslim doctrine. Except that you're coming up with a personalized definition of "fundamentalist" ("= dogmatic, oppressive, absolutist, intolerant"), that does not exactly map with the origin of the term "fundamentalism" itself, and its use in a religious sense.

(BTW, teachings about the shape and location of the Earth in the universe were not Fundamentals of the Faith, but Ordinary Magisterium, albeit dogmatically held and enforced. The "I'll kill you if you say otherwise" part was mere authoritarianism.)

[JRDelirious]

Well, there you go, learn something new and all that. Does that include all the OT stuff that occured after Moses's death? That would be kind of bizarre.
Just so we're all in the same page, js_africanus, the Torah is specifically the First Five Books of the Jewish scripture, Genesis through Deuteronomy, not the entirety of Christian OT.

[Magiver]

You DO understand that "Papal Infallibility" (on teachings regarding Faith and Morals) was only made an official Catholic doctrine after Luther's time, right?
No, I wasn't specifically aware of it but the Forrest Gump in me says that infallibility is as infallibility does. Martin Luther wasn't ground zero for blasphemy. Doctrine is something written after-the-fact by people who want to codify their intentions.

Except that you're coming up with a personalized definition of "fundamentalist" ("= dogmatic, oppressive, absolutist, intolerant"), that does not exactly map with the origin of the term "fundamentalism" itself, and its use in a religious sense. Yah, that pretty much sums up my opinion.

(BTW, teachings about the shape and location of the Earth in the universe were not Fundamentals of the Faith, but Ordinary Magisterium, albeit dogmatically held and enforced. The "I'll kill you if you say otherwise" part was mere authoritarianism.)

Fundamentalists are the end product of doctrine, not of the written word. If they were the result of the written word, there would be no need for the advise and consent of religious leaders. One follows the other. Religion REQUIRES leadership in order to stay on message. Fundamentalism is based on "literal interpretation by proxy". I hold as a test of my theory that all fundamentalists have leaders.

[JRDelirious]

In any case, Magiver, we're hijacking the thread, as this is not really its subject. Just reiterating my (further back) observation, that this is yet another different definition of "fundamentalist" that makes the OP harder to answer.

[Magiver]

Yes, we're getting off point but the original question is based on a premise that all religions are based on the literal word of God. Fundamentalists who make allowances are not, by definition, fundamentalists.

There is some truth to the original concept of the thread. As people gain general knowledge of the universe it becomes more apparent how much faith is required to maintain a certain level of religious conviction. It does not nullify a belief in God but it does question the religious doctrine that has survived from the earliest days of civilization. At some educational point, doctrine begins to resemble nothing of God and everything of man.

I would project that thought forward. As knowledge of the universe increases so does the prospect of a belief in a higher power. The magnitude of the universe demands a certain respect for it's order and complexity. Its sheer mathematical beauty is beyond man's comprehension. Over time we may cease to believe in religious doctrine but nobody escapes the laws of gravity and time.

[Eve]

I thought about this thread last night, as I am reading a very enjoyable social history of single women in the US, and I thought I might use it as a reference source for a book I'm doing.

Then the author says that many girls envied and looked up to "Florenz Ziegfeld's Florodora Girls," and I smacked my forehead in dismay. True, it's a minor mistake—but it puts everything else she says into doubt, too.

[matt_mcl]

[Oh, and, sadly, Sam Harris is not "my" hot author, he's married and probably young enough to be my great-grandson . . . ]

Well, sure, if you're in one of those cultures where they marry them off before they hit puberty...

[Little Nemo]

God's divine message might be tainted by human error? Next you'll be claiming Jesus didn't really bless the cheesemakers.

[jayjay]

Am I the only one who sees a resemblance to Ben Stiller?

No. No, you're not. I went eagerly to the link just to see the photo after Eve declared him "hot" (shallow slut that I am) and the first thing I thought was "Ben Stiller? Eve thinks Ben Stiller is the hottest thing going?!"

[Dangerosa]

(is that the hottest author ever, by the way?)

Opinions?

Not bad.....my bookclub is currently doing "books by authors we have crushes on." Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon and Salman Rushdie. OK, Rushdie isn't cute in that "see him on the street and want to do him way" but he is intellectually adorable.

[Liberal]

Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.

Opinions?I'd be willing to admit that. It seems to me that only God is infallible, and if people say the Bible is infallible, then they are saying that the Bible is God. Parts of it obviously are wrong; I mean, when two statements contradict, both cannot be true. I guess I'm fortunate that my faith is based on personal experience and not on the book. Well, that's not perfectly accurate. The book is a part of it. But only a part. Certainly not a deal breaking part. There are other books that are just as good or better anyway.

[Avumede]

This brings to mind a thought I had about crazy religious beliefs, and which beliefs are totally considered sane or not by a set of educated people such as the members of this message board.

Belief in God: Sane
Belief that God has talked to people: Sane, but perhaps a bit odd
Belief that God talks to you: Totally insane.

Belief that praying is a good thing to do: Sane
Belief that God is listening to your prayers: Sane, but perhaps a bit odd
Belief that prayer actually works, like if you pray for God to do x, x has an increased chance of happening: Insane

Belief in the Bible: Sane
Belief that at least some specific things in the Bible are literally true: Sane
Belief that Revelations is true, and the kind of life we know will end someday: Not very sane
Belief that the Rapture will come in your lifetime, so be prepared: Totally insane.

The above might be off base, but if not then it sort of tells me that people do the whole religion thing because they like the ritual, or the philosophy, or some other reason that has nothing to do with the supernatural. But religion is all about the supernatural, in fact it is the only thing that religion brings to the table that nothing else does. I think if people were really serious about religion, what is considered sane or not would be quite a bit different.

[RaftPeople]

Harris argues that these people are making deals with themselves psychologically, because if they admitted that some of their religion is outdated rantings from thousands of years ago, they'd have to let in a chink of reason and admit that maybe none of their Holy Book held water.

Is it possible they already let in that chink of reason which led them to interpret the bible in a way that makes sense to them personally and in the context of current times?

[Polycarp]

I have conclusive proof that Eve does not exist. To start with, the accounts of her life are clearly mythical: Jungian archetypes translated into a story of a modern Teiresias. Then there are clear errors in works attributed to her. Factual details in Platinum Girl, the Brief Madcap Life of Kay Kendall, and Vamp! are capable of being ferreted out by the diligent eye. Since we can know her only through her writings, and they contain factual errors, it's obvious that she herself does not really exist, and is the product of a conspiracy. (Personally I suspect that Ukulele Ike is behind it; he was the first to claim to have discovered her as an individual, when she was going under a fictitious name.)

Anyone with an ounce of common sense would realize that the entire Eve scenario is really part of a massive plot by the New York intelligentsia to dominate the rest of the world. I have my evidence; I won't be fooled again!

Sincerely,
Athier Than Thou

[Scott Plaid]

Um, Polycarp, I see Eve coming this way, and she looks pissed. I think that is a baseball bat she's carrying.

(Translated: I may not be able to prove China/Eve exists, by referring to books, but I can physically go there. I can also, theoretically kidnap the person who denies the existence of china, and take them there. (Or, she can go to them.) If they still deny the existence of China/Eve, in Chyna-mode, well, you have em' bound and gagged. Toss em' off at a sanitarium.

[Walker in Eternity]

Belief in God: Sane
Belief that God has talked to people: Sane, but perhaps a bit odd
Belief that God talks to you: Totally insane.

Belief that praying is a good thing to do: Sane
Belief that God is listening to your prayers: Sane, but perhaps a bit odd
Belief that prayer actually works, like if you pray for God to do x, x has an increased chance of happening: Insane

Belief in the Bible: Sane
Belief that at least some specific things in the Bible are literally true: Sane
Belief that Revelations is true, and the kind of life we know will end someday: Not very sane
Belief that the Rapture will come in your lifetime, so be prepared: Totally insane.



In my opinion (and I have read the Sam Harris' Book) none of the above can be classed as sane. How can the belief that there is an omnipresent being, who micromanages the universe and expects some pretty strange rituals and dietary habits from those that believe in it/him/her be sane? This does not mean that I view practitioners of religious faiths to be insane, just that they have insane beliefs.

If there were ever a book that should be translated into every language and read by the whole world, this is it. It shows the dangers presented to the whole world by fundamentalists of all faiths.

I also note that in "End Of Faith" Harris mentions a considerable amount of text from the Koran, which according to the muslims is the literal word of god as desribed to Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. This thread is taking a very christian centred view of faith, when in fact the book criticises fundamentalists of all faiths, with the exception of Jains and Bhuddists as I recall.

[matt_mcl]

I have conclusive proof that Eve does not exist. ...

But I've seen Eve! It was divine.

[High Cheese]

I'd be willing to admit that. It seems to me that only God is infallible, and if people say the Bible is infallible, then they are saying that the Bible is God. Parts of it obviously are wrong; I mean, when two statements contradict, both cannot be true. I guess I'm fortunate that my faith is based on personal experience and not on the book. Well, that's not perfectly accurate. The book is a part of it. But only a part. Certainly not a deal breaking part. There are other books that are just as good or better anyway.

I'm merely curious here, Lib, and not conjecturing anything. Quoting from above, "I guess I'm fortunate that my faith is based on personal experience and not on the book." Could you expand on your claim of personal experience. And I mean beyond the fact that maybe one day you found 5 dollars when you were short 4 dollars rent. If I'm to believe in God, it's not going to be merely because of a favorable event.