Nobody here said the pope, churches or religion are not real.
First, he was clearly talking about the small subset of scientific discoveries that directly contradict the Bible or official doctrine, not all “insights of science.” Nor did he say that the ONLY response is those two choices — the way people can compartmentalize their knowledge never ceases to amaze me.
It’s also true that up to a few centuries ago, scientists in the western world had no choice but to profess their faith in the Bible, whether or not they actually believed it, since heretics were liable to be tortured and/or executed.
That said, denial and/or moving the goalposts is indeed the most common way that Christians today deal with Biblical nonsense. Liberal Christians here try to pretend that (for example) Genesis is obviously meant to be allegorical, but it wasn’t obvious at all until scientific discoveries made a straightforward interpretation untenable. The claim that most Christians considered the scientific errors in the Bible to be allegorical until there was a 19th century overreaction to Darwin, and that most Christians before then didn’t believe that Adam and Eve were created rather than born, or that the worldwide Flood happened, or that the Exodus occurred as related, is absurd.
By that definition, belief in the Bible is superstition. The historical parts are full of errors, the scientific parts are exactly what you would expect from Bronze Age authors, and the New Testament is full of promises and predictions that have failed. In fact, even in this allegedly Christian nation, many states now prosecute and imprison parents who depend on the promises of Jesus to cure their sick children.
Maybe not, but if so their wordings have been very loose and open to that interpretation:
"However, almost nothing in the word of religion can be proven as demonstrably true…"
"Except for lack of evidence, NOTHING is representative of “all of religion”-there is no “all of religion”."
Religions of the world are well documented and established institutions. Nobody has disputed that. Religious doctrine, on the other hand, is almost exclusively the domain of faith and ritual. Very little is based on accurate historic evidence. What documented evidence does exists, is often contradictory or independently unsupported. So you have your work cut out for you with what’s been a matter of liturgical record. Never mind the supernatural claims made by various religions.
I never said artifacts and people don’t exist; I am saying the basic tenets of religion cannot be demonstrably proven. I think you’re quoting me out of context and I’m not sure why.
Yes, that is what you are saying now but did you not post *“However, almost nothing in the word of religion can be proven as demonstrably true…”
“That’s a good quote. However, almost nothing in the word of religion can be proven as demonstrably true, so it might as well be the same thing as superstition. I’d better be good because the Invisible Man in the Sky is watching, and I’d better not step on a spider because it might make it rain. Those that believe what they choose to believe will brook no denial, despite mountains of evidence that what they believe simply cannot be. I regard Religion as Literature—imaginative morality tales about how things came to be, but obviously not literally true.”*
Ay, there’s the rub. If Genesis is allegorical and Adam and Eve are mythical, then Original Sin must also be mythical, meaning that there is no need for an actual saviour to save us from Original Sin. Such a simple argument too, really.
No, if Genesis is allegorical, it’s an allegory of something, and that something may well be true. “Genesis is allegorical” just means that Original Sin can’t be blamed on the literal eating of a literal piece of fruit.
Do you deny that the Catholic church has moved the goalposts - the ones who used to think that geocentrism was a core tenet? And good for them, which was my point.
I was not talking about particular people. I personally have know two ordained Catholic scientists, both top rate.
Are you telling me that the Catholic church never believed in the literal existence of Adam and Eve? That would be an odd belief right there.
So, what facts did I make up already? Perhaps your anger comes from not having a good defense.
Genesis - the creation of the world part - can easily be allegorical with no harmful effects. But if you think that original sin came from human choice, not directly from God, you need some humans to screw up.
In Hebrew school we learned the Adam and Eve story as a kind of just-so story - why we die, why we have to work, why childbirth is painful, why we hate snakes. So it being an allegory is okay - but Jews don’t have original sin.
You see, if every person born of man and woman is a sinner without exception - even as a baby - God must be responsible. Unless our common ancestor is responsible, which makes it our collective fault, not God’s fault. So without Adam and Eve, you got a big problem.
You should try reading your Bible some time. In the NT God never does anything of a global nature - not yet, anyway. Someday, perhaps, as in Revelations. God does in the OT. But in the more or less historically accurate part, during the time the Bible was being written, his participation was on the level of his participation in football games. If Judea won God did it, if Judea lost it was because the king (or his father) or the people were being bad. Back when things were not historically accurate, God did much better, like in the Exodus or the Davidic kingdom. Both of which we now know did not happen. David may have existed, but not his empire.
For being divinely inspired, the Bible gets a lot wrong.
Did any of them mention God in their papers, like scientists did 300 years ago? Was religion related to their work at all, like it was 300 years ago?
Why do you think the percentage of scientists who are atheists is much higher than in the population as a whole? I suspect few grew up that way.
So, you now admit that literalists are superstitious, since they believe in creationism which has been disproved, and believe in Noah’s Flood which has been disproved.
That’s a start, at least.
How about belief in the Exodus, which has also been pretty much disproved archeologically?
First thing I would go-on is my personal experience. Secondly, I could reference all of the things I’ve read and learned. Thirdly, it has to be taught by one human to another human (what’s divine about that?). Nothing I’ve read or witnessed comes close to affirming religion’s self-proclaimed “truth”*.
But I don’t want to attack religion. For all the harm it causes, there’s still good within. I’ve seen it and experienced it. However, the good is awash in a sea of incredibility, because the religious continue to demand that we believe in their specific higher power(s). It might behoove religious institutions to abandon such trickery and tell the gospel as it is; a way to get through life that is helpful and positive for all involved. It doesn’t matter that it’s true. What matters is whether it works for you.
God*, angels, heaven, St. Peter, creation stories, karma, rebirth, etc.
** any of various deities.
And you chose to enter this thread. If I chose to enter a church and then complain about the Christians being in my face, then that’s just my fault. But Christians are in our faces in every facet of life outside of the church.
And yet that’s EXACTLY what Original Sin refers to according to the catechism. There’s no salvation from allegorical falls from grace.
Do you hold a firm belief in the non-existence of a 9/11 conspiracy? Would you try to “convert” others to that belief, in the absence of any proof that there was no conspiracy?
I don’t know that there’s no afterlife. What I do know is that there is no evidence that there is an afterlife, there’s good evidence that our consciousness is linked directly to our brain and therefore would die with our brain, and that either one of these facts would entirely justify me rejecting the idea of an afterlife.
This is just downright incoherent.
Because beliefs inform actions. Because when people believe things that simply are not true, they can and often do make actions based on those beliefs, and the consequences of this are often quite staggering. If you believe that blood transfusions are evil because you believe the magic sky fairy says so, then a bunch of conditions become a lot more lethal than they ought to be for both you and your children, for no good reason. The result of this is dead children. This is no different from the people who believe, without good reason, that homeopathy is all they need to cure their pneumonia, and whose children die as a result. Earnest belief does not suddenly make it okay.
And even with more moderate sects, these kinds of harms do not spontaneously disappear. Catholics oppose condoms and sex education in AIDS-ravaged Africa. Evangelicals oppose sex ed and vaccines against STDs. Christianity has only just come around to the idea that gay people should have equal rights, and not literally be legally prosecuted for existing.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Our understanding of morality must first be pinned to an understanding of how the world works. Religions get in the way of that.
IANAC and have not studied the Roman Catholic catechism (or any other), but I googled it. Near as I can interpret it, it teaches that Original Sin comes from an actual act of disobedience by the literal first human beings, but that act was not literally eating a piece of fruit—that part is symbolic or allegorical.
Again, IANAC, and I am not committed to any particular interpretation of Genesis. But I reject the notion that the only way something can be true is at the literal level.
Something that religious people and atheists can agree on: religions (and religious people and organizations) can and do teach things that are wrong, harmfully wrong.