Are Xians stupid?

Great Debates
181

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
Science assumes “I may be wrong about all or any of this–please show me where you think I’ve made an error and I’ll be grateful to you for correcting me–this is all a work in progress, with the assumption being made provisionally that we’re correct about things that we haven’t yet shown to be erroneous, of which there are I’m quite sure many items.” Religion, particularly Xianity, doesn’t apply any particular lessons from scholarship showing that certain literal assumptions have been erroneous–it’s all “No, that’s true, that’s also quite true, yes that’s the way it works,” and then finally centuries after being shown to be wrong about its literal assumptions, they’ll concede “Okay, okay, that’s not LITERaLLy true, but it’s true as a metaphor, so it’s just as good,” as if there isn’t something morally disturbing about having deceived believers for centuries into accepting the authority of monstrous falsehoods. Science is eager for correction, while religion clings to its cloak of self-proclaimed authority in the absence of evidence.
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I think is one of the best expressions of your position I’ve read. I understand the frustration when otherwise intelligent people refuse to consider available evidence. This is certainly a problem with organized religion down through the ages. It’s important to note that the reason religion has continued to change is the very attitude you attribute only to science. Lots of religious and spiritual seekers are very aware that we and our beliefs are a work in progress and we go forward based on what we believe right now , knowing that our experiences and study will refine and change our beliefs. We too believe provisionally and are eager for advancement and correction, but the arena we seek in is not simply the physical world. It’s the arena of human consciousness, and our relationship to each other.
Admittedly part of the problem is the introduction of money and power into the mix but that’s another discussion. My point here is although you make a valid point here, it is oversimplified.

Again, well put but too generalized to be accurate. Should I take that you mean this to be literally factual or is it just a representation of a principle you believe? I hear authors do that sometime.
Finding value and insight in the Bible is not the same as “believing in”. If we take “Love thy neighbor” as literal and question the accuracy of a historical event is that cherry picking?

I think “universally reviled” is a bit much. There seems to be a widespread misunderstanding about atheism. I think thats in part because in our day to day dealings with each other the issue rarely comes up. I did a little reading about how many state constitutions used to contain a clause requiring belief in a supreme being to hold public office. Far too many. I believe those clauses in state constitutions have been declared unconstitutional. Our new congress is very diverse including two Buddhists{no God belief } and several that are “undeclared”
If you wanted to run for Congress it would be up to you to choose words that were true to your own belief system and unoffensive to the people whose votes you were courting.
“A life time of bias crimes” Care to be more specific? Lot’s of people experience one or more of the many forms of human bias that exist. Can you give some examples of bias that was specifically related to you being an atheist.

In my experience a person’s character is what people notice and value or not, rather than their religious beliefs. My coworker had a step father who was a declared atheist and worked tirelessly his whole life to help those around him. When he passed away their was a huge funeral and wake to mourn the passing of someone loved and revered by those that knew him. I’d have to assume lots of believers participated.

My point is that although bias certainly exist your example here seems to be exaggerated. Believers aren’t universally praised because of their belief. Atheists aren’t universally despised. As more people begin to understand atheism we’ll see more changes.

182

The issue here seems to be – well, if you use critical analysis on the Bible, you’re “cherry picking” – if you don’t, you’re accepting myth at face value. What number catch was that again?

183

FWIW, Poly doesn’t “claim to believe in Biblical literalism a little bit” – Poly claims that the Bible, examined by critical methods, is one primary source for understanding how people have conceptualized the Jewish and Christian conceptions of God over the years.

I find it really strange that the idea of critical study of a collection of literature is so foreign to PRR’s field of understanding. One would think a person in his position would have encountered it repeatedly.

184

My question would be that if you find so much of it to be errant, why would you trust the basis of the whole shebang to be factual? It is, after all, the most far-fetched claim the bible makes; that there is a god who created everything and can perform miracles and cares about what people do on Earth. That claim would be the first one I’d toss aside, as it is foreign to everything we know today.

Also (and this is a serious question), while weighing the claims in the bible, discarding those you don’t cotton to and embracing those you do, would your opinion and those of the bible become so disparate that you would no longer consider yourself a christian?

185

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
FWIW, Poly doesn’t “claim to believe in Biblical literalism a little bit” – Poly claims that the Bible, examined by critical methods, is one primary source for understanding how people have conceptualized the Jewish and Christian conceptions of God over the years.

I find it really strange that the idea of critical study of a collection of literature is so foreign to PRR’s field of understanding. One would think a person in his position would have encountered it repeatedly.
[/QUOTE]

You’re being disingenuous here (I hope). Of course I’ve come across critical studies of literature, which assume that the text is a work of the imagination, often with a political (or other) bias on the authors’ part(s), which critics not only don’t share (usually) but are often hostile to. Is this your position about your Holy Book, that it’s an interesting piece of propaganda to which you’re not endebted in the least? Say you’re not unholy, Poly!

Don’t tell me there aren’t a few sentences, like the one about the New Commandment Christ gives unto you, that you don’t utterly reject. Because if you do, that would make me a truer Xian than you and we can’t have that, can we? There are some parts that you accept literally, aren’t there?

Please straighten me out here.

Thanks, cosmosdan, for engaging in a genuine discussion. Of course I’m overstating for effect. But I believe an open atheist couldn’t get elected dogcatcher in this country * and that there are high offices to which, in certain sections, someone could make a damn good run, simply by being known as a Christian and nothing else. There is something seriously wrong with that: substitute “black/white,” “woman/man,” etc. for the “atheist/Christian” in the previous sentence and the degree of wrongness will jump out and hit you in the eyeball.

*another overstatement. Please don’t supply me with names of successfully elected atheist dogcatchers.

186

And I’ll take Kalhoun’s last question one more step: if you could specify what degree of Biblical falsehood it would take to shake your faith in Xianity, about 99% of my hostility to your beliefs would fall away. I’m not asking you to renounce your beliefs, just to state what would be required for you to stop being a Xian, just that it’s possible, given a certain standard of falsehood.

What I’ve heard, when I’ve found that rare Xian who will even engage me in this discussion, is “I could find out that the whole Bible is wall-to-wall bullshit, I could learn that it was dreamed up by a demented fascist shoemaker in Syria in 101 AD who laughed his ass off at the crap he got over on us, and that Jesus lived a long, happy life and died in bed with a hooker from a fire started by a hashish pipe, and I’d never stop believing in my faith,” well, that’s where I know I’m dealing with an unreasonable person who values his fanaticism far more than the respect of his fellow human beings.

187

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]

I’m disputing both.
[/quote]

Well, you’re welcome to do so if you like. I wasn’t there but a lot of people were and there are reports from scientists and university faculty according to Wikipedia
Clearly the sun didn’t fall out of the sky but some sort of visually observable phenomenon did.

Again, I’m talking about your issues with the science of it. There was no falling sun and the Vatican doesn’t assert the sun fell. I figure if there were that many accounts of some sort of phenomenon, there was a phenomenon. And I do belive in ‘miracles’, again, because I think all of these issues lie within the realm of some branch of physics we just haven’t glommed yet.

You’re welcome to believe that there can be no science other than what we now understand but I think and will continue to think that that’s an extremely illogical and narrow-minded viewpoint.

188

[QUOTE=Kalhoun]
My question would be that if you find so much of it to be errant, why would you trust the basis of the whole shebang to be factual? It is, after all, the most far-fetched claim the bible makes; that there is a god who created everything and can perform miracles and cares about what people do on Earth. That claim would be the first one I’d toss aside, as it is foreign to everything we know today.
[/QUOTE]
How do “we” know this is far-fetched? It sounds like you’re taking the non-existence of God as both a postulate and a conclusion, but you can’t have it both ways. What you’re saying sounds like the counterpart of the circular reasoning Christians occasionally try to get away with: “We know God is real because the Bible says so, and we can trust the Bible because it’s the Word of God.”

189

[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster]
Well, you’re welcome to do so if you like. I wasn’t there but a lot of people were and there are reports from scientists and university faculty according to Wikipedia
Clearly the sun didn’t fall out of the sky but some sort of visually observable phenomenon did.
Again, I’m talking about your issues with the science of it. There was no falling sun and the Vatican doesn’t assert the sun fell. I figure if there were that many accounts of some sort of phenomenon, there was a phenomenon. And I do belive in ‘miracles’, again, because I think all of these issues lie within the realm of some branch of physics we just haven’t glommed yet.
You’re welcome to believe that there can be no science other than what we now understand but I think and will continue to think that that’s an extremely illogical and narrow-minded viewpoint.
[/QUOTE]

It could also be mass hallucination. Many christians deny that possibility, but it is a common occurrence, particularly among the religious.

The vatican most certainly does assert that the sun fell from the sky. It didn’t crash to the Earth, but the church says the accounts are to be believed, from their point of view. That’s what

means.

I never said there can be no science beyond what we know today. You need to back off that errant take on my statement.

190

[QUOTE=Thudlow Boink]
How do “we” know this is far-fetched? It sounds like you’re taking the non-existence of God as both a postulate and a conclusion, but you can’t have it both ways. What you’re saying sounds like the counterpart of the circular reasoning Christians occasionally try to get away with: “We know God is real because the Bible says so, and we can trust the Bible because it’s the Word of God.”
[/QUOTE]

Well, of course it isn’t far-fetched to a believer. But the rest of us simply don’t acknowledge the possibility of disembodied intelligence at this point in our quest for knowledge. Could that viewpoint change? Certainly! Scientific knowledge changes all the time. But at this point, it doesn’t make sense.

191

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
]Thank you for acknowledging, at last, that Genesis has been recognized as a source of serious historical truth for its entire existence by devout Xians.
[/QUOTE]
Since I have never denied it, your sarcastic “thank you” is merely a self congratualtory strawman. Would you like to engage in discussion, or simply try to score minor points on those nooks and crannies of your argument that are not based on overwhlming ignornace?

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
But let’s stick with those Biblical ages, for a moment, because they speak to my point. Ussher certainly relied on them for much of his authority in dating historical events, and it doesn’t take a 21ist century rocket scientist with subspecialities in brain surgery and carbon-dating to question their likelihood.
[/QUOTE]
Does it not? Do you have the slightest evidence that anyone in the seventeenth century had any notion that the world was much older? Do you have any notion that anyone in the seventeenth century had proposed a “scientific” explanation? (I can actually point to a few societies where the world was deemed to have been much older 6,000–when in their mythology, they found cycles that were all perfectly 10,000 years long or similarly based on the magic of numbers.) The only reason that you know that the world is older than 6,00 years is that you grew up in a society where the science of geology had actually been firmly established. You are relying on the luck of your birth year to pretend superiority to people who did not have your advantage of the general progression of knowledge.

Based on your logic, we should recognize Charles Darwin as a fool since it was pretty clear that there was something like genetics driving his descent with modification and he never figured that out. Using your argumentation, Newton was an idiot for failing to recognze that all space is curved.

Basically, your complaint is that once we have discovered new information, anyone who had not recognized that information hundreds of years earlier was a fool. It may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling to believe that you are so superior to our predecessors, (or, at least, our predecessors who may not happen to have shared the beliefs you now hold), but it does nothing to establish your argument when you simply resort to anachronistic and baseless criticisms.

192

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
You’re being disingenuous here (I hope). Of course I’ve come across critical studies of literature, which assume that the text is a work of the imagination, often with a political (or other) bias on the authors’ part(s), which critics not only don’t share (usually) but are often hostile to. Is this your position about your Holy Book, that it’s an interesting piece of propaganda to which you’re not endebted in the least? Say you’re not unholy, Poly!

Don’t tell me there aren’t a few sentences, like the one about the New Commandment Christ gives unto you, that you don’t utterly reject. Because if you do, that would make me a truer Xian than you and we can’t have that, can we? There are some parts that you accept literally, aren’t there?

Please straighten me out here.
[/QUOTE]
It would appear that you are the one being disingenuous.

Poly specifically noted that “is one primary source for understanding how people have conceptualized the Jewish and Christian conceptions of God over the years.” In other words, (re-phrasing a point I have made on multiple occasions), faith does not arise from scripture, scripture proceeds from faith. Now, if you would like to dismiss that as “propaganda,” demonstrating your need to score points rather than understanding the position, you may, of course, do so. However, to then proceed to demnostrate that you have no clue what you’re talking about by claiming “that it’s an interesting piece of propaganda to which you’re not endebted in the least.” That is not what was said.

The earliest Christians received some messages from Jesus that they recognized as truths. They encapsulated those truths–what they believed-- in stories, (using the formats and modes of epistles and biographies that were relevant to their era) which, in consideration of how multitudes of persons over the years have found that those truths resonated in their own lives, certain of those writings have been collected and recognized as doing the best job overall of expressing the truths that the people believe–subject to the idiosyncracies and stylistic constraints of their media.

It is only the later development of a special kind of approach to reading those books, (first enunciated by Luther and later embraced by Fundamentalist Christians and a few odd atheists), that have lost the sense that the books express faith, they do not dictate it.

You are free to dismiss the faith as being outside your ken. You are not free to apply standards of reading that are held by a minority of Chrtistians to the way that other Christians read the books.

193

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Since I have never denied it, your sarcastic “thank you” is merely a self congratualtory strawman. Would you like to engage in discussion, or simply try to score minor points on those nooks and crannies of your argument that are not based on overwhlming ignornace?

Does it not? Do you have the slightest evidence that anyone in the seventeenth century had any notion that the world was much older? Do you have any notion that anyone in the seventeenth century had proposed a “scientific” explanation? (I can actually point to a few societies where the world was deemed to have been much older 6,000–when in their mythology, they found cycles that were all perfectly 10,000 years long or similarly based on the magic of numbers.) The only reason that you know that the world is older than 6,00 years is that you grew up in a society where the science of geology had actually been firmly established. You are relying on the luck of your birth year to pretend superiority to people who did not have your advantage of the general progression of knowledge.

Based on your logic, we should recognize Charles Darwin as a fool since it was pretty clear that there was something like genetics driving his descent with modification and he never figured that out. Using your argumentation, Newton was an idiot for failing to recognze that all space is curved.

Basically, your complaint is that once we have discovered new information, anyone who had not recognized that information hundreds of years earlier was a fool. It may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling to believe that you are so superior to our predecessors, (or, at least, our predecessors who may not happen to have shared the beliefs you now hold), but it does nothing to establish your argument when you simply resort to anachronistic and baseless criticisms.
[/QUOTE]

You know, this time I think I’m going to decline the pleasure of responding substantively to you. (You’ve already wasted one morning for me reading a dopey Gould essay that in no way contradicts what I’d said about Ussher’s colossal brainfart defending an inerrant Bible.) I’m just going to sit back and chuckle at your tying yourself up in knots defending this ridiculous position you’ve created for yourself (or am I violating GD standards by claiming your position is negligible and ridiculous? If so, I’ll take that back and just fling a general poo-laden dirtball of permissable “You’re a fucking, slime-encrusted liar” at you for now. If that breaks the rules, just remove the adjectives. You’re certainly a liar, and I’m certainly allowed to call you one without backing it up or anything here, so I’ll just take my pleasure and let your statement stand on its own, with the understanding that someone of at least moderate intelligence will come along to argue with you eventually. You liar.)

194

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
You’re a fucking, slime-encrusted liar" at you for now. If that breaks the rules, just remove the adjectives.
[/QUOTE]
Lying that i am lying was certainly permissable in this Forum.

Adding the adjectives is a direct violation.

This is an official Warning that you are out of line.

Do not do this again.

[ /Moderating ]

195

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
Lying that i am lying was certainly permissable in this Forum.

Adding the adjectives is a direct violation.

This is an official Warning that you are out of line.

Do not do this again.

[ /Moderating ]
[/QUOTE]

You couldn’t just edit out the adjectives as I had asked ? (“reason: post contained adjectives that the poster requested be removed if there was a violation”) No, that would have been too easy. Score a point for the Mod, flexing his big Mod muscles.

196

Where have you “replied substantively” in any exchange we have had? When you invented things that you claim religious people do all the time without providing a single istance where it has happened? When you misread Gould’s essay? Where you attribute to other people positions they do not hold, (generally with no supporting citation)?

Your whole approach is to simply stamp your feet and whine about how you don’t think it’s right for people to behave in ways you do not like or insist that people are stupid for believing things that you only choose to not believe because you live in an era when the earlier assumptions have been challenged.
I cannot find a substantive post by you in this thread, based as they all are on your unsupported claims (where have we seen that before?*) about what you think other people do or believe.

197

[QUOTE=pseudotriton ruber ruber]
You couldn’t just edit out the adjectives as I had asked ? (“reason: post contained adjectives that the poster requested be removed if there was a violation”) No, that would have been too easy. Score a point for the Mod, flexing his big Mod muscles.
[/QUOTE]
Ahh! I see. You want to be able to break the rules at will, then blame the moderator for not choosing to “fix” the deliberate offense.

One more little aspect of your personality displayed.

198

You’re a liar.

199

So, are we in the argument room or the abuse room?

200

PRR, if you want to ask me a question about what my views are, I’ll be glad to answer. If it’s unclear to you what I am saying, I’ll be glad to respond to a question about clarification. At the moment, you have some image of what you think I’m saying that you are hurling vituperation at. (The Ray Bolger comment was an attempt to be witty about this: The Scarecrow = “a straw man” – instead of being obnoxious about it.) I honestly do not see where you are getting the conclusions you are drawing about my beliefs or about the Gould essay. It would be uncivil of me to suggest that you are bringing to them your own presuppositions, and misreading them based on them. But it honestly sometimes seems that is what is happening. I have tried to be as clear as possible; if you find it abstruse, it is your move to seek clarification from me. (That’s not intended as a put-off, but as honest bemusement as to what I can do to clarify, and an earnest request to keep the lines of communication open.)

Kal, perhaps the whole Fatima bit could be simplified. I personally frankly put no store in supposed apparitions of the Virgin Mary, but I do understand something of Catholic teaching. And Fatima, Lourdes, etc., are what are termed, in their system of teaching, “pious opinions.” This is the fifth and lowest rank of Catholic beliefs, and is not binding on anyone. Bottom line is that what they’re saying, as an institution, is roughly this: “Some people saw something they regarded as a miracle. After careful review of the evidence, we are prepared to state that we think it was in fact a miracle. It’s commended, not commanded, to the faithful.”

In other words, stuff like the Dogma of the Trinity, the Incarnation of Jesus, is core to the belief system. It’s obligatory for a good Catholic to assent to it. Other stuff is taught as the best understanding the Church has of a divine mystery of one sort or another. It’s formally taught, but with the proviso that it’s not infallible – something similar to a “proven” theory in science, the best explanation available with present knowledge, subject to further understanding in the future. Then you have the “pious opinions,” which are simply beliefs by some Catholics that are not at odds with Catholic teaching – which the Church feels honorbound to review and pass on, positively or negatively, but with absolutely no mandate that anyone believe them. We have the rather bizarre story told by three young Portuguese kids during World War I of seeing Mary and “signs and wonders” and being told three prophecies by Mary – the church reviewed it, saw no contradiction to what it teaches, and gave it an “OK to believe if you want.” But it’s not a doctrine of the church, and any Catholic who so chooses may regard it as unworthy of belief.