# Best Responses to New Atheists **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 1, 2010, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682 "2010-10-01T02:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/401 "2010-10-08T03:18:25Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > The Razor approach (the simplest and most obvious answer… ) would say “all apparent instances of faith healing are frauds or wishful thinking”. And when there is easy money to be fleeced off the gullible at any “faith healing revival meeting” (regardless of where or when, past or present), I’d say fraud is the simplest answer. Toss in the idea that people will “see” what they wanted to see or were conditioned to expect, and there you are. Fraud. > > You would be surprised how easy it is for faith healers to put one over on us WITHOUT ACTUALLY DOING ANYTHING FRAUDULENT! > > For example, here is a trick often used by these people, especially if they are operating out of large auditoria and are on TV. > > Many of the people coming into these prayer meetings are older people or people with limited mobility who can still walk, maybe with a cane. Employees of the charlatan preacher watch for these people as they come in, and graciously offer them the free use of a wheelchair, the services of an attendant to push the chair, and a seat in the front row. They do not say a word about healing. > > Once they are sitting in the front row, in wheelchairs that the preacher can identify, everything is ready to fool the audience. > > Preacher: What is your name dear? > Olivia: Olivia > P. And do you love Jesus. Do you have faith in Jesus? > Olivia: Oh, yes! > P. Then I want you to close your eyes and say: “Jesus, I believe in you”. Now I want you to get up out of that wheelchair and walk with me on your own two feet and praise God. RIGHT NOW, Olivia! > > Naturally, Olivia gets up and starts to walk (heck, it IS his wheelchair, and Olivia CAN walk a certain distance). The audience breaks into wild applause. The preacher shouts praises to God as Olivia beams. > > Now, here is a question for anyone learned in the law: Has the preacher told a lie or has he done anything fraudulent? I doubt it. He has not even said a word about healing. In fact, Olivia would be astounded to learn that thousands of people think she was healed. > > There are all kinds of tricks like this used by faith healers. Often they are based on the fact that 90% of legally blind people have some eyesight, or that total deafness is rarer than we think. One wonders how often Jesus and these disciples used these tricks to “heal”. I have a nonlegalistic opinion, one that would probably be Epic Fail, in a court. My opinion on this is… If this so called preacher is aware that people believe he is healing through prayer, and he knowingly provides all the props and trappings to keep this false belief going, he is guilty of deception, just as surely as if he had had called himself a healer. He is doing all he can to keep the illusion going, knowing and encouraging the “conclusion” the suckers will arrive at. So I’d say he’s guilty. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/402 "2010-10-08T03:24:11Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > > [@Valteron](#): > > > > Now, here is a question for anyone learned in the law: Has the preacher told a lie or has he done anything fraudulent? I doubt it. He has not even said a word about healing. In fact, Olivia would be astounded to learn that thousands of people think she was healed. > > Yep you can get done under Australian fair trade laws just as much for what you don’t say as you do say. You have to use the “reasonable man” test, would a reasonable person think that he is saying she is healed through JC? The answer of course to this IMO would be, Yes. > > On the question of Jesus and his cures I think we need to step outside the cartoon interpretation of the bible and look at the story for what it is. Curing the blind is a metaphor that any fool can understand. Just listen to the words of the song, I was born blind but now I can see. That sounds like an excellent law. I like it. As to the “metaphor”, I guess by now you’ve noticed there are a lot of people who don’t quite see it that way. This may cause “problems” but for a lot of people, everything in The Book is literal - except when it’s inconvenient for them (Leviticus is a great one). They get to pick and choose, but the rest of us don’t. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/403 "2010-10-08T03:27:04Z")
> [@Valteron](#): > > > [@sisu](#): > > > > On the question of Jesus and his cures I think we need to step outside the cartoon interpretation of the bible and look at the story for what it is. Curing the blind is a metaphor that any fool can understand. Just listen to the words of the song, I was born blind but now I can see. > > Gee, for the past 2000 years just about 100% of Christians would have told you that it was REAL blindness being healed, not metaphorical. Now suddenly it is a metaphor? Say, maybe the crucifixion was a metaphor? Maybe the resurrection was a metaphor, in the sense that Jesus came back to life in the spread of his teachings, etc? Maybe it does not really mean physical resurrection? Or Maybe Jesus himself is a metaphor. Some Hebrew mystics ran together some Egyptian myths about the death of resurrection of Orsiris and a few saying by a couple of radical rabbis that the Romans had killed, and invented the metaphorical Jesus. > > METAPHOR? Are you sure you want to start on that slippery slope, my friend? Sure. Why not? Do you want to go down the other slippery path that everything is literal? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/404 "2010-10-08T03:44:43Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Sure. Why not? Because it’s an admission that there isn’t really a god? > [@](#): > > Do you want to go down the other slippery path that everything is literal? That’s not a slippery slope, that’s common sense: until you have a reason to believe otherwise, believe people mean what they say. That’s not the same as believing what they say is _true_. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/405 "2010-10-08T03:59:06Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > > [@SteveG1](#): > > > > Sure. Why not? > > Because it’s an admission that there isn’t really a god? > > > [@](#): > > > > Do you want to go down the other slippery path that everything is literal? > > That’s not a slippery slope, that’s common sense: until you have a reason to believe otherwise, believe people mean what they say. That’s not the same as believing what they say is _true_. Huh? Where is the common sense in saying it is ALL literal? When Jesus told a parable, was it literal? No. He told a simple story to make a point about something bigger. Does anyone give a hoot about a mustard seed? No, they don’t unless it is a metaphor for something bigger and more important. When he talked about people with splinters in their eye being criticized by people with a beam in theirs, was that literal? People really walked around with chunks of lumber in their skulls? A lot of it was and is metaphor. That is common sense. In a bigger sense, why would you or anyone else care if I did or didn’t believe? Maybe I believe, but not according to your “brand of religion”. Maybe my “brand”, my church and its official teachings say you are wrong if you go for complete literalism. As for people meaning what they say, I don’t care. The hospitals are full of people who mean it when they say they are Napoleon or Teddy Roosevelt too. It takes more than just meaning it. It also has to be true or at least make some sort of sense. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/406 "2010-10-08T07:11:12Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > No I don’t see why we have to be able to measure it, maybe just maybe there are things beyond our mortal coil. It is arrogant in the extreme to say that only the physical is real, can we scientifically measure music to determine if it will inspire? No, if we did we would have computers writing all music and not just disposable pop songs. Yes, we can measure the effects but why does beethoven move me but I can’t stand pachobel? Why do people “not get” Opera, RAP, Metal etc? We can’t say why people like the color blue, therefore god? We can explain preferences without invoking magic. People have different brains. The neuron connections in one person may lead to certain preferences than others. Certain things may be associated with pleasant or unpleasant stimuli in the past. They’re not mysteries of the universe. On the other hand, claims of god, especially the god(s), typically have observable claims. If God created man and then the animals and blah blah, why do the genetic histories conclusively suggest otherwise? God doesn’t push the sun across the sky, we know how the solar system works, etc. So you can play the safe “maybe there’s this vague god that never does anything that affects us” sort of game, but that’s not the sort of belief that almost everyone holds. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/407 "2010-10-08T12:51:40Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > Huh? Where is the common sense in saying it is ALL literal? When Jesus told a parable, was it literal? No. He told a simple story to make a point about something bigger. I’ve seen this point brought up it in discussions about biblical literalism before, and it’s about the weakest counterargument I’ve run across. No, the metaphor isn’t literal. What’s meant to be literal is that Jesus told the story. I mean, really, duh. Of course, there’s no clue in the writing that Genesis is a metaphor, so a literalist would likely take that story as truth, not metaphor. What about when Jesus said (paraphrasing), give up all of your stuff. Parable? Metaphor? Harder to tell. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/408 "2010-10-08T13:44:20Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Of course, there’s no clue in the writing that Genesis is a metaphor, so a literalist would likely take that story as truth, not metaphor. Bart Ehrman makes the point that people long ago, just like people today, immediately recognized that if a story includes talking animals, it’s not meant to be taken literally. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/409 "2010-10-08T14:01:43Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > Bart Ehrman makes the point that people long ago, just like people today, immediately recognized that if a story includes talking animals, it’s not meant to be taken literally. Uh, there are people today who take the Genesis story literally. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/410 "2010-10-08T14:05:56Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > > [@RitterSport](#): > > > > Of course, there’s no clue in the writing that Genesis is a metaphor, so a literalist would likely take that story as truth, not metaphor. > > Bart Ehrman makes the point that people long ago, just like people today, immediately recognized that if a story includes talking animals, it’s not meant to be taken literally. Ok, what about virgin births, talking bushes, multiplying food and drinks, walking on water, resurrection, miraculous healing, etc etc? Because it they’re all not to be taken literally, then there’s no reason to take anything supernatural in the bible seriously, including God and the divinity of Jesus. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/411 "2010-10-08T15:28:21Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > > [@RitterSport](#): > > > > Of course, there’s no clue in the writing that Genesis is a metaphor, so a literalist would likely take that story as truth, not metaphor. > > Bart Ehrman makes the point that people long ago, just like people today, immediately recognized that if a story includes talking animals, it’s not meant to be taken literally. Not enough people today, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/412 "2010-10-08T16:19:00Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > > [@SteveG1](#): > > > > Huh? Where is the common sense in saying it is ALL literal? When Jesus told a parable, was it literal? No. He told a simple story to make a point about something bigger. > > I’ve seen this point brought up it in discussions about biblical literalism before, and it’s about the weakest counterargument I’ve run across. No, the metaphor isn’t literal. What’s meant to be literal is that Jesus told the story. I mean, really, duh. > > Of course, there’s no clue in the writing that Genesis is a metaphor, so a literalist would likely take that story as truth, not metaphor. What about when Jesus said (paraphrasing), give up all of your stuff. Parable? Metaphor? Harder to tell. And so what? Do I have to take it as literal because I can’t prive it wasn’t? No I don’t. You can try and prove that it wasn’t. I won’t do your homework for you. What is your counter argument, except what apparently is just a different version of “is not”? PROVE it is literal. I don’t have to disprove. You have to prove. You can’t. Genesis. OK. Six days. OK. Ummm, how does that happen? There was nothing. No place, no existence, NO TIME. So “on the first day”? There wasn’t any time yet, so how could it be ANY day? Whose measure of days? God’s? Isn’t time meaningless and irrelevant to him? He could have taken one microsecond, or 14 billion years by our reckoning. What’s the difference? To him, time is nothing anyway. The world is here, we’re here. Who cares if it took six days or 15 billion years or a trillionth of a microsecond? The garden of Eden… was it an apple? A pomegranite? A polka dot pumpkin? Just a fruit? If the literal details matter so much, we better find out. Anyway, did Jesus tell that mustard seed story? Maybe he did. Maybe not. Was it in exactly those identical words? I highly doubt it. He didn’t speak English, for one. We only have a written account, that was probably written several years later, and it may not have happened at all. As long as the underlying message gets across, who cares. Further, there were during the “early days” various meetings, conventions, the Council of Nicea, etc etc etc where people decided what books and passages would be part of the “official” bible. If this was the literal and unalterable word of God, how would they dare do that? What about those other books that they discarded? How about the King James version, which according to some people is the ONLY true and right version? That came how many many years later? No, just saying “it’s literal until someone else tells me different” doesn’t work around here. You need more than what you’ve got, to convince people here. “really duh” is a hell of a convincing argument :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/413 "2010-10-08T16:20:21Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > > [@CurtC](#): > > > > Bart Ehrman makes the point that people long ago, just like people today, immediately recognized that if a story includes talking animals, it’s not meant to be taken literally. > > Uh, there are people today who take the Genesis story literally. And your point … is… ???:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/414 "2010-10-08T16:24:00Z")
So we are supposed to worship the god that performed all those incredible miracles, but the miracles were really parables. So what _did_ this god actually do? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/415 "2010-10-08T17:31:13Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > > [@RitterSport](#): > > > > Uh, there are people today who take the Genesis story literally. > > And your point … is… ???:rolleyes: Well, CurtC was positing that people back then, just like people today, knew to take the really, really silly stories at metaphors, and I was just pointing out that there are lots of people today don’t take the Genesis story as metaphor, even the talking animals part of it. > [@SteveG1](#): > > No, just saying “it’s literal until someone else tells me different” doesn’t work around here. You need more than what you’ve got, to convince people here. > > “really duh” is a hell of a convincing argument :rolleyes: I was addressing your specific statement that obviously you can’t all of the bible literally because Jesus told parables and the parables weren’t meant to be taken literally, and he used metaphors, such as the beam in one’s eye. To that specific point that you made, I think that’s a really specious argument – one can believe that everything that was described in the bible as happening, literally happened, without talking about logs in eyeballs. In the context of the story one could take literally, that Jesus said a certain thing (in Hebrew, or Aramaic, whatever language he spoke), that doesn’t make the metaphor in the story a literal thing. I can write a book of history and describe conversation a historical figure had, including a parable in the conversation, but that doesn’t mean I expect the parable to be taken literally. The history was the conversation, not the parable within it. I don’t want to prove anything to you – I don’t buy any of it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/416 "2010-10-08T18:01:37Z")
What if it’s literally true that he used a metaphor to explain a truth? ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/417 "2010-10-08T18:35:04Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What if it’s literally true that he used a metaphor to explain a truth? I’m having trouble with the double talk you were answering too. If it is literally true, then each of the four “remaing and not expunged by the Nicea Council” books would have the same, identical, account of it. Instead, from one book to the next, and even within the same book, there are differing accounts and contradictions. Genesis - Why are there two different creation stories, if it is indeed literal? No, saying everything is literal, is not the right answer. Saying everything is metaphor is wrong too, because we do know there are historical references to real kings, real empires, and such. But, we can’t say it is all literal, and we can’t say it is all fable/parable/metaphor. Anyone who goes to either extreme is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/418 "2010-10-08T18:40:20Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > No, saying everything is literal, is not the right answer. Saying everything is metaphor is wrong too, because we do know there are historical references to real kings, real empires, and such. But, we can’t say it is all literal, and we can’t say it is all fable/parable/metaphor. Ah, so it’s unreliable. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/419 "2010-10-08T18:40:47Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > > > What if it’s literally true that he used a metaphor to explain a truth? > > I’m having trouble with the double talk you were answering too. > If it is literally true, then each of the four “remaing and not expunged by the Nicea Council” books would have the same, identical, account of it. Instead, from one book to the next, and even within the same book, there are differing accounts and contradictions. Genesis - Why are there two different creation stories, if it is indeed literal? > > No, saying everything is literal, is not the right answer. Saying everything is metaphor is wrong too, because we do know there are historical references to real kings, real empires, and such. But, we can’t say it is all literal, and we can’t say it is all fable/parable/metaphor. Anyone who goes to either extreme is wrong. Not quite - it could all be literal, but rife with error. The literal/metaphor distinction is one of authorial intent; whether they meant what they said, not whether what they said is objectively correct or agrees with other accounts. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2010, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682/420 "2010-10-08T20:46:43Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > > [@SteveG1](#): > > > > I’m having trouble with the double talk you were answering too. > > If it is literally true, then each of the four “remaing and not expunged by the Nicea Council” books would have the same, identical, account of it. Instead, from one book to the next, and even within the same book, there are differing accounts and contradictions. Genesis - Why are there two different creation stories, if it is indeed literal? > > > > No, saying everything is literal, is not the right answer. Saying everything is metaphor is wrong too, because we do know there are historical references to real kings, real empires, and such. But, we can’t say it is all literal, and we can’t say it is all fable/parable/metaphor. Anyone who goes to either extreme is wrong. > > Not quite - it could all be literal, but rife with error. The literal/metaphor distinction is one of authorial intent; whether they meant what they said, not whether what they said is objectively correct or agrees with other accounts. Oh, that would be a “whole 'nother” can o’ worms. If it is full of errors, then it can not possibly be the exact and inerrant Word Of God. Because God does not make mistakes. Hmmmm. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-responses-to-new-atheists/555682.md?page=22)