# Have a hard time respecting the moderately religious **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2014, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053 "2014-07-14T05:29:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/383 "2014-07-29T21:11:23Z")
It would require Adam and Eve to be non-modern humans, transformed into them. They’d have to be something with a significantly smaller skull size. Australopithecus? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/384 "2014-07-30T00:08:48Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Also, humans have to spend way more time “working” than animals and/or pre-agricultural peoples. So a hunter/gatherer, like an Inuit, is not human? I believe you need to tweak your definitions to be less insulting. > [@](#): > > **DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MIND OR WHAT!?** Um, no. Takes a lot more than some half-assed Biblical “explanation” to blow the minds of anyone here. Perhaps you should concentrate on blowing the minds of home-schooled pre-teens. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > But surely at least the childbirth thing is such an unlikely coincidence, right!? No, because it is no coincidence at all. Y’see, the author of that bit of the Bible took something he knew to be true, that childbirth is painful, and imagined some theological explanation, a [just-so story](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-so_story), to explain it. These were simple people and an understanding of evolution and its mechanisms was thousands of years in the future, so I give them a break. A modern fellow like you already knows more than Moses, Plato, or Archimedes, and can learn more than that, and can come to the conclusion that, if we were “designed,” whoever did it did a lousy job and there are still kinks to work out. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/385 "2014-07-30T00:26:08Z")
Back to the OP. I’m about as atheist as a member of my church in good standing can be (it’s complicated). My oldest spent last week chaperoning a bunch of high schoolers on a mission trip to [del]the Red Cloud Agency[/del] [del]Wounded Knee[/del] (it’s the 21st century, not the 19th, right?) the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. I am proud of her and after she described the trip I told her I had been thinking about her one-time consideration of the ministry (studying on [Seminary Ridge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminary_Ridge), no less–I can’t get out of the 19th) and that I felt she might look into heeding the Call. I see no cognitive dissonance in that and resent the OP’s insistence on a black and white world. ---
**Author:** ![orangeapples](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@orangeapples](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/orangeapples)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/386 "2014-07-30T02:57:04Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > The genesis story tells that the curse of man eating “from the fruit of the tree of knowledge” was that man has to work for a living, and childbirth hurts > > Why does childbirth hurt so much to human women? Well, it’s because of our unique position as the thinking animal of this planet. Our huge heads don’t fit through the pelvis, so it hurts the mom like hell. Our huge heads of course are needed for our big brains (Post shortened) I’m no mammalogist, but doesn’t live birth hurt period? I mean I’ve been present when both my children were born, and the woman that used to be my wife was in fantastic pain, I freely admit. But I’ve also seen some house pets deliver, and there seemed to be a good bit of discomfort involved there as well. I’m just not sure that’s on Eve. Also, and probably not entirely relevant to the topic at hand, I’m willing to bet laying eggs also feels lousy. Regarding the OP, I have no issue with the moderately religious. They’re the least likely to impose their beliefs upon me, and I appreciate that. The religiously moderate, on the other hand, can go to hell. Pick a side, freaks!\* 😛 \*Apologies if someone already said something similar. It’s a long thread. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/387 "2014-07-30T03:28:36Z")
> [@orangeapples](#): > > . . . Regarding the OP, I have no issue with the moderately religious. They’re the least likely to impose their beliefs upon me, and I appreciate that. The religiously moderate, on the other hand, can go to hell. Pick a side, freaks!\* 😛 . . . Reminds me of what Walt Kelly said about Pogo: he isn’t for the extreme right, or the extreme left, but the extreme middle. ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/388 "2014-07-30T03:28:45Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m no mammalogist, but doesn’t live birth hurt period? My understanding is that it’s not nearly so bad as it is with humans. (most) human women are screaming in pain. The baby literally does not fit through the pelvis, his head is smushed together along that seam in order to get him to fit through.The pelvis is put under enormous strain. And bone strain is one of the most painful things you can experience. They say if you really have to stop an intruder immediately, shoot him in the pelvis and he’ll be screaming on the floor in pain ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/389 "2014-07-30T03:34:20Z")
> [@](#): > > So a hunter/gatherer, like an Inuit, is not human? I believe you need to tweak your definitions to be less insulting. Did I say that? What the hell is wrong with the people here? Why are so many posters incapable of reading comprehension? > [@](#): > > m, no. Takes a lot more than some half-assed Biblical “explanation” … imagined some theological explanation, a just-so story,… OK, but did you get the part where the story they made up **parallels human evolution**. That is, childbirth is painful because we’re the thinking animal of this planet, i.e. we ate from “the tree of knowledge”? That’s way too on-the-money to be a random coincidence. At the very least one would have to admit that it’s possible that the ancient writers noticed the human-childbirth-is-exceptionally-painful phenomenon and connected it loosely with our unique nature. If you want to maintain a dismissal of religion that’s fine, but at least GET what I actually wrote ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/390 "2014-07-30T04:15:05Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Did I say that? Why yes, you did: > [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Also, **humans** have to spend way more time “working” than animals and/or pre-agricultural peoples. > [@](#): > > What the hell is wrong with the people here? Why are so many posters incapable of reading comprehension? The problem is more with writing comprehension. > [@](#): > > OK, but did you get the part where the story they made up **parallels human evolution**. That is, childbirth is painful because we’re the thinking animal of this planet, i.e. we ate from “the tree of knowledge”? That’s way too on-the-money to be a random coincidence. At the very least one would have to admit that it’s possible that the ancient writers noticed the human-childbirth-is-exceptionally-painful phenomenon and connected it loosely with our unique nature. > > If you want to maintain a dismissal of religion that’s fine, but at least GET what I actually wrote I do “get” what you wrote. It’s not exactly deep. It’s just a poorly thought out apologetic wrapped up in a pseudo-scientific just-so story. It’s nonsense, and as I explained, it’s hardly a coincidence. The writer of Genesis imagined a back story to explain a scientific fact. I gave him a bye because he had no choice but to be ignorant. You are ignorant because you want to be. Believe what you want, but don’t come in here expecting to blow our minds. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/391 "2014-07-30T04:26:57Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Did I say that? > What the hell is wrong with the people here? Why are so many posters incapable of reading comprehension? Well, yes, you did. Most of us got what you meant, but, yeah, you really did phrase it that way. > [@](#): > > OK, but did you get the part where the story they made up **parallels human evolution**. That is, childbirth is painful because we’re the thinking animal of this planet, i.e. we ate from “the tree of knowledge”? That’s way too on-the-money to be a random coincidence. At the very least one would have to admit that it’s possible that the ancient writers noticed the human-childbirth-is-exceptionally-painful phenomenon and connected it loosely with our unique nature. I don’t think it works. I think, instead, the point of the knowledge of good and evil is the awareness that, when lions kill, they do it without malice, but humans kill with malice. We know what we’re doing is wrong…and we do it anyway. We’re the only animal that wears clothes, because (at least the reasoning went in ancient days) we’re the only animal that knows that nudity is wrong. The authors of Genesis noted that childbirth is painful, and wrote that up as Eve’s punishment, but I’m pretty sure they weren’t connecting the dots between human intelligence, cranial size, and birth pangs. For one thing, they didn’t know that the brain was the “thinking organ.” > [@](#): > > If you want to maintain a dismissal of religion that’s fine, but at least GET what I actually wrote Well…you could be a little more careful in construction. I agree that it’s pettifogging pedantry to parse sentences exactly when your intention was clear, but, well, really, you wrote it kind of poorly. The SDMB grammar police are harsh! ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/392 "2014-07-30T04:27:50Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > That’s way too on-the-money to be a random coincidence. At the very least one would have to admit that it’s possible that the ancient writers noticed the human-childbirth-is-exceptionally-painful phenomenon and connected it loosely with our unique nature. So? I mean, we’re the only animals that think and the only animals that have extremely painful childbirth and the ancients guessed correctly that the two were related. Their answer is lucky at best. At worst you’re making this up completely, since your version completely ignores the OTHER half of why childbirth is painful (we stand upright \, [so can’t have wide enough hips for baby heads](http://www.medicaldaily.com/does-childbirth-have-hurt-evolutionary-design-flaw-behind-labor-pains-and-helpless-newborns-247277).) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/393 "2014-07-30T05:49:09Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > Did I say that? > > OK, but did you get the part where the story they made up **parallels human evolution**. That is, childbirth is painful because we’re the thinking animal of this planet, i.e. we ate from “the tree of knowledge”? That’s way too on-the-money to be a random coincidence. At the very least one would have to admit that it’s possible that the ancient writers noticed the human-childbirth-is-exceptionally-painful phenomenon and connected it loosely with our unique nature. > > If you want to maintain a dismissal of religion that’s fine, but at least GET what I actually wrote All those bad things happened because of their disobedience, so your explanation doesn’t even work. Why do we have to work? Why are we afraid of snakes? Why is childbirth painful? Why do we die? All our fault, don’t blame God. Not really a big deal in Judaism, but it leads to all the salvation crap in Christianity. BTW, a lot of hunter gatherers didn’t work that hard, much less hard than early farmers. And they were healthier too, with better diets. So don’t knock them. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/394 "2014-07-30T12:58:39Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > The genesis story tells that the curse of man eating “from the fruit of the tree of knowledge” was that man has to work for a living, and childbirth hurts > > Why does childbirth hurt so much to human women? Well, it’s because of our unique position as the thinking animal of this planet. Our huge heads don’t fit through the pelvis, so it hurts the mom like hell. Our huge heads of course are needed for our big brains. > Also, humans have to spend way more time “working” than animals and/or pre-agricultural peoples. Agricultural peoples have to spend pretty much all day long weeding, planting, harvesting, threshing, sewing/weaving, tanning, carving, tying (building), etc. Whereas pre-agriculture people, though they had higher mortality and lower standards of living, had way more leisure time, which makes sense, because their lack of technology/knowledge of skills meant their was much less value gained per amount of time spent working. > > In other words, the punishments in Genesis directly parallel human evolution > > **DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MIND OR WHAT!?** > > I think Adam’s punishment may be more a commentary on the fact that it’s both our brains AND our HANDS that make us the creatures that we are, as it’s the hand thing that makes u have to “work” so much. So much time spent physically processing things into tools and edible food and shelter. Even the hunter gather gatherer peoples who had way more free time than agriculturists still had to spend a lot of time here and there making spears and huts and stuff. And surely that’s more time spent “working” than a lot of mammalian animals. I mean, what do like elk do all day? Walk around and graze, and run away if there’s a wolf. > > But surely at least the childbirth thing is such an unlikely coincidence, right!? I had seven children, had no pain with any to speak of. most were born getting off the elevator, or in the labor room. My husband hadn’t even parked the car. My third child the nurse had my husband hold my legs crossed while she push the head back, I grabbed a hold of the bed bars and kicked them both across the room. I was always very physically active and that is why i had no problems and the Native Americans had their children working in the fields. So apparently the curse didn’t work on a lot of women. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/395 "2014-07-30T18:57:11Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > So apparently the curse didn’t work on a lot of women. My wife took the appropriate drugs and had a c-section, because who needs to push a big cranium through there if bigger craniums have come up with an alternative? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/396 "2014-07-30T22:56:39Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I agree that it’s pettifogging pedantry… Part of me objects to being accused of pettifoggery, but the rest of me likes it just fine and is rolling the word around my brain because it feels good. > [@](#): > > The SDMB grammar police are harsh! I wanted to verify that **EdwinAmi** misspoke accidentally and isn’t a particularly heinous breed of racist. It’s also for the lurkers in the Peanut Gallery. Fighting ignorance requires us to express our thoughts clearly so even a person with limited English skills can understand exactly what we mean. (looking at my 22,761 posts and finding maybe a half dozen that meet that standard) Do as I say, not as I do. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2014, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/397 "2014-07-30T23:37:43Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Part of me objects to being accused of pettifoggery, but the rest of me likes it just fine and is rolling the word around my brain because it feels good. It is a pretty kind of word, innit? > [@](#): > > I wanted to verify that **EdwinAmi** misspoke accidentally and isn’t a particularly heinous breed of racist. It’s also for the lurkers in the Peanut Gallery. Fighting ignorance requires us to express our thoughts clearly so even a person with limited English skills can understand exactly what we mean. > > (looking at my 22,761 posts and finding maybe a half dozen that meet that standard) > > Do as I say, not as I do. Grin! Believe me, I’m in your camp all the way! I treasure precisely formulated posts, which communicate formally and as close to exactly as possible. I also admire effective use of connotations and inferences: I respect people who can write “between the lines.” And…I fall short of these ideals myself, any number of times. (I have, upon more than one occasion, walked into a paragraph on the “pro” side of a debate, and, by the end of it, was arguing the “con” side with copious verbosity, having completely lost my way somewhere in the grammar-thickets in between!) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/398 "2014-07-31T02:20:26Z")
More than once in college I stopped three minutes into answering a question and asked, “What was the question again,” yet people said, “Keep going. You’re sounding great.” I come from a family of lawyers and might have missed my calling, but I’d probably argue myself out of my original position in front of the jury and my client would fry. When I do that here I just get accused of inconsistency. ---
**Author:** ![EdwinAmi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5fc32e/32.png) [@EdwinAmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwinAmi)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/399 "2014-07-31T02:46:16Z")
> [@](#): > > the OTHER half of why childbirth is painful (we stand upright \, so can’t have wide enough hips for baby heads.) doesn’t that just add to the comparison to human evolution? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/400 "2014-07-31T03:12:41Z")
> [@EdwinAmi](#): > > doesn’t that just add to the comparison to human evolution? Sure. But it doesn’t make it any less of a coincidence. The Book of Genesis doesn’t mention anything about “The stooped became straight.” You might as well try to argue that Esau, the hairy man, was an Australopithecus, but Jacob, the man without obvious body hair, was Cro Magnon. You can find these things if you look for them, but they don’t really signify anything. (I take the Bible as the story of God’s accommodation to agriculture. At first, Cain’s offering of grain is rejected by God, and God curses Adam to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. But by Jesus’ time, God provides the miracle of the loaves of bread, and Jesus even transubstantiates into bread for the spiritual nourishment of his followers. God originally hated bread…but came to accept it over time. This is all right there in the Bible…and really, quite meaningless.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/401 "2014-07-31T10:20:15Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > (I take the Bible as the story of God’s accommodation to agriculture. At first, Cain’s offering of grain is rejected by God, and God curses Adam to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. But by Jesus’ time, God provides the miracle of the loaves of bread, and Jesus even transubstantiates into bread for the spiritual nourishment of his followers. God originally hated bread…but came to accept it over time. This is all right there in the Bible…and really, quite meaningless.) Throw in something about unleavened bread for Passover and it’s GOLD! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/402 "2014-07-31T11:33:13Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > So the Bible is just a bunch of suggestions, to be overruled by what humans think at any given point in time? > > I agree completely with the OP, BTW. Being religious is like being pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. It’s not a buffet. If you believe in God, then you take God as he says he is, not as you would like him to be. When you decide that God is okay with things he said were a sin, it’s known as “making things up”. And when you make up your own God, that’s known as idolatry. Sophisticated idolatry, as you didn’t build your God with your own hands, but you did build him with your own mind. It’s really the same thing in the end. You didn’t like the God as written in the Bible, or Koran, so you made one you liked better. > > And here’s why this line of thinking is not actually helpful. Sure, in modern times, religious people are a pain in the ass, trying to hold us back on being more tolerant of this or that thing. But in other times and other places, they also went against societal norms to call for more human rights, for more equality, for refraining from harmful activities that society at the time endorsed. Religious people, not atheists, were at the forefront of many of the West’s most important social movements, like the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-communist movement, the anti-Nazi movement, Prohibition, and even inequality issues. Society is not guaranteed to always progress the way us secular-minded folks would like. Sometimes we go badly wrong, and when that day comes you’ll be glad of religious people who see those ancient morals as better than the new ones. I think the answer to this is that one is taking the word or words of another human and because that human said God said or did something is just the human speaking it’s own mind. No one can prove a God said or did anything, so one can say it is the work and words of another human. If one looks back 5,000 years ago( or so) if humans were getting better, then they there would have been no need for the 10 commandments. Apparently people are no better now than they were, nor any worse. Human nature is what it is, and if an all knowing God created humans with these faults it is not the fault of humans but the maker! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053.md?page=21)