The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

[Priceless]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I thought our physical appearance did matter....otherwise why would it matter if God made us in His image?

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Apparently you don't understand the religious mindset very well, not having one yourself.

You have a very narrow and constricted conception of "man," as if the physical housing of the body actually mattered.

The essential spiritual element is the soul. There is no a priori reason to expect that intelligent life that evolved elsewhere would not also have a soul: if anything, the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere could easily be viewed as affirming the Glory and Wonder of the Deity, giving us siblings instead of leaving us stranded as only children. I would not be surprised if some religious people viewed them potentially as Angels, a higher form of spiritual life sent here to offer us support and guidance.

What would be the point of Creating such a vast and wonderful Universe, and then leaving only piddly little us stuck off in some remote corner? merely for our entertainment? that seems really vain and pretentious on our part, don't you think?



and finally, you presumed without any evidence or justification whatsoever that intelligent life that evolved elsewhere would not have a spiritual aspect. you even allude to the desire of Intelligence to find Meaning in Existence. It seems to me that such a drive, such a curiosity, might just as easily result in intelligent life that evolved elsewhere also to believe in a Diety that fits their evolution and experience.

So would Jesus have to get sent to that planet to get killed, too? Talk about a bad gig...

'Well, that was nicely done, Son - way to use the Romans' fear of a Jewish uprising to get them to kill you."
"Thanks, Dad."
"No problem. Okay, so that's one more down. Only 400 billion intelligent civilizations left to save. Where do you want to die next?"
"Awww, daaaaaad. Do I *have* to?"

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I thought our physical appearance did matter....otherwise why would it matter if God made us in His image?

another non-believer debating religious doctrine? this is really silly, you do know that, right?

Our souls are an imperfect mirror of the Deity's perfection, or something like that. I'm sure if you peruse the Baltimore Catechism you can find the answer there just as well as I can.



Our bodies are not made in the image of the Deity, it is that immanent part of us that aspires to greatness made in Her image.



Mother Earth is a more appealing Deity than some old white dude with a beard, no? I like the images of plowing the earth and planting the seed...

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

another non-believer debating religious doctrine? this is really silly, you do know that, right?

Our souls are an imperfect mirror of the Deity's perfection, or something like that. I'm sure if you peruse the Baltimore Catechism you can find the answer there just as well as I can.

So you criticize him for lacking doctrinal knowledge, but then admit you don't have said knowledge yourself? But it's different because you're a "believer"? That's rich.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

So would Jesus have to get sent to that planet to get killed, too?

Actually, that sounds like a great idea for a television series, or movie franchise, or whatever.

Did you ever watch Stargate SG-1? I enjoyed the first four or five seasons, until it became over-the-top ridiculous....but I digress...


Anyway, that sounds like a really, really, really great idea for a series of myths, in the right hands. The Deity sends Its Divine Offspring to every planet with intelligent life, in a way that fits and suits them. The circumstances would vary, no doubt, the Son / Daughter / Whatever (species-dependent) might fare quite differently in different places. (in a planet in which all sentient beings live underwater, would the Divine Offspring have Its gills held out of the water??? might there be a place in which everyone said, "Dude, you are so right, we'll change our ways immediately" and then follow through??? It would be great if those are the folks that later visit us, no???)

Great concept, I love it!

 

[FreshFish]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

So you criticize him for lacking doctrinal knowledge, but then admit you don't have said knowledge yourself? But it's different because you're a "believer"? That's rich.

I'm not necessarily a Believer, I just find smug self-satisfied Skeptics annoying and enjoy pointing out how much they have in common with the same people they deride. If you yourself are narrow-minded and petty, you expect others to be the same way. If you are generous and forgiving, you allow for the possibility that others might also have that capacity in them as well.

"Condemn the sin, embrace the sinner" is a good philosophy of life if handled with understanding, empathy, dignity, and grace: only actions are bad, people are always accessible to Redemption.


I have lived among Believers, and while I find their fanaticism a bit tedious, I do appreciate the fact that on the whole they have been pleasant company, as long as you can steer the conversation away from Belief.


It seems to me that anyone who speaks with absolute conviction from either "side" is trying more to convince themselves of their own rightness than anything else. There's no way to tell who is right; so the best we can do is have good relationships with people who share common goals and aspirations, and who look out for each other. I love my wife and kids, I cooperate with my neighbors to maintain a good community, and I'm content with that. No fancy justifications necessary one way or the other.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Meh, just another permutation of the argument that all sex, even between married couples, must end with the uninterrupted possibility of conception, or else it's a sin. This paragraph was great through:

Also unnatural? Television, calling a multi-million dollar media empire a "ministry," and asking millions of people for a part of their financial savings so they can spiritually "saved."

 

[Priceless]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

another non-believer debating religious doctrine? this is really silly, you do know that, right?

Our souls are an imperfect mirror of the Deity's perfection, or something like that.

Or something like that...

I'm not necessarily a Believer, I just find smug self-satisfied Skeptics annoying and enjoy pointing out how much they have in common with the same people they deride. If you yourself are narrow-minded and petty, you expect others to be the same way. If you are generous and forgiving, you allow for the possibility that others might also have that capacity in them as well.

The irony of a religious nut calling other people narrow-minded is amazing.

Oh, right. You aren't necessarily a believer. Just like you're a liberal who spouts right-wing talking points and quotes straight from the WSJ Editorial Page.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

FF...although the stated topic, you do realize that most of the non believers aren't here to have a dialog on Christian/Biblical issues. The last honest question was that from Cloud...and that quickly turned into troll exercise.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

FF...although the stated topic, you do realize that most of the non believers aren't here to have a dialog on Christian/Biblical issues. The last honest question was that from Cloud...and that quickly turned into troll exercise.

To non-believers, there's no such thing as a "Biblical Issue." To us (well, to me, anyway), people having deep, meaningful discussions full of import about what this or that verse really means sound about as serious as discussions over whether Athena *really* sprang from Zeus's forehead or if that was just a metaphor. Or whether Bella really more properly belonged with Team Jacob after all.

"Mythological issue" is an oxymoron, because any "issue" can just be solved with a handy superhuman hero showing up to save the day or maybe even a convenient resurrection. Mythology has no rules, so at the end of the day, there's no such thing as a sticky wicket - just tunnel through it with any old "logic" you want and you're through to the other side, easy-peasy.

 

[unofan]

FF...although the stated topic, you do realize that most of the non believers aren't here to have a dialog on Christian/Biblical issues. The last honest question was that from Cloud...and that quickly turned into troll exercise.

My issue with the Bible is that it's full of contradictions, plot holes, and the like. If you read it as the allegory it's meant to be and view it simply as a source of wisdom to "not be a jerk" as Kepler puts it, great.

The second you (in the generic sense) start using it as a shield to defend your own jerksh behavior, or as a club to attack someone else's non-jerkish behavior, we'll have problems. Because I guarantee there are verses in there that condemn something similar that you do or that you're outright breaking by using it as a club or shield.

I would feel the same way about any other religion too, but I live in a fairly monogamous community, so I don't run across other religions all that often, let alone those of an evangelical bent who would use the Torah or Koran (or whatever) in a similar manner

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

To non-believers, there's no such thing as a "Biblical Issue." To us (well, to me, anyway), people having deep, meaningful discussions full of import about what this or that verse really means sound about as serious as discussions over whether Athena *really* sprang from Zeus's forehead or if that was just a metaphor. Or whether Bella really more properly belonged with Team Jacob after all.

"Mythological issue" is an oxymoron, because any "issue" can just be solved with a handy superhuman hero showing up to save the day or maybe even a convenient resurrection. Mythology has no rules, so at the end of the day, there's no such thing as a sticky wicket - just tunnel through it with any old "logic" you want and you're through to the other side, easy-peasy.

I agree with this, kinda, but because I've been doing a lot of reading in the history of Christianity lately I want to amend it a bit. There are "rules," and there's a (very) complicated, nuanced, healthily-debated tradition within theology of trying to discover/interpret the rules which in a lot of ways was proto-scientific. Since you and I are are atheists it's tempting to look at this as wasted or circular effort, or at best a grand game which can be absorbing but ultimately isn't connected with the empirical world, but that isn't quite fair, if only because the methods and the mindset of the people who devoted all their energy, their curiosity, their intelligence, and their cleverness led to those same instruments being trained on nature with incredible results. Part of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition is that God's instructions, if not His intentions, are knowable. This is different from the Greek gods, who don't leave instructions, and the eastern religions, where god/nature is doing it's own thing and the best we can do is tune ourselves to them.

It appears to us that the faithful always have a literal "Deus ex machina" at hand to get them out of any difficulty, but the history of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic philosophy is littered with people breaking their heads against intractable problems -- if we were right, you'd assume they would have avoided all the trouble and just said "because God" and then gone back to their business. They didn't because even though it's a game to us, it was reality to them, with the highest possible stakes, and life became very earnest when questions of whether they were doing things "right" came up.

You and I have no supernatural instinct, and that makes us the minority of those who've ever lived -- we are the left-handed of human history (that 10% actually seems like a pretty good estimate). Now, I have no doubt we're correct, but that doesn't mean the right-handed are cheating -- they're just operating from different instincts. I believe they are carrying on the project of honestly trying to figure it all out just as carefully as we. They just have one bad axiom.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

I get what you are saying, and I do agree that there has been "civilizing value" in he efforts that our parent cultures expended on organizing and formalizing their thinking about religion, even if the central tenet turned out to be the "bad axiom."

Kids sitting in their basements playing Dungeons and Dragons (or goodness knows what they play now) were learning real lessons about strategy, organization, probability, time management, etc - even though the world *where* they were learning was complete nonsense.

 

[Priceless]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Interesting story out of Pennsylvania where a mother left her quadriplegic son out in the woods with a blanket and a Bible while she went to see her boyfriend in Kentucky.

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Question: Would I be labeled a bigot if I were to make the following passive aggressive post in a thread about race relations?

Interesting story out of Pennsylvania where a African-American mother left her quadriplegic son out in the woods with a blanket while she went to see her boyfriend in Maryland

Clearly my statement would be a poorly veiled attempt to infer that the main reason she would do such a thing is because she's black. Isn't that bigotry at it's finest? Wonder if Board would suspend me for being such an aAS$HAT? Nah, Board is such a tolerant individual.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Clearly my statement would be a poorly veiled attempt to infer that the main reason she would do such a thing is because she's black. Isn't that bigotry at it's finest? Wonder if Board would suspend me for being such an aAS$HAT? Nah, Board is such a tolerant individual.

No, you're missing the point of the import of the word "Bible" in the quote. The turnabout is fair play equivalent would be leaving the kid with a blanket and a copy of Dennett's "Breaking the Spell." The Bible is important because it seems to indicate the woman thought that would be a useful protection / solace for the abandoned child. It was relevant to the case, whereas mentioning race wouldn't be (for example, the thumper who left the kid alone might well have been black).

 

[busterman62]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

No, you're missing the point of the import of the word "Bible" in the quote. The turnabout is fair play equivalent would be leaving the kid with a blanket and a copy of Dennett's "Breaking the Spell." The Bible is important because it seems to indicate the woman thought that would be a useful protection / solace for the abandoned child. It was relevant to the case, whereas mentioning race wouldn't be (for example, the thumper who left the kid alone might well have been black).

The point was well recognized. The idiot clearly put her Bible there to protect her son (21y/o with CP).

However, there is little question in my mind as to what the intent of the original post was given the posting Hx of it's originator: This Christian did something amazingly stupid because of her foolish belief in a foolish faith. I say that's just as a bigoted view point as someone saying she did it because she's black. (You know how those blacks love their blankets ) Both are using the episode to reinforce the stereotype one chooses to believe. Both are equally distasteful. Now, if my interpretation of the original poster's intent is totally off base and he wasn't trying to use this as a way to disparage Christian belief because of what one moron did, I humbly apologize. Based on past postings, I doubt if I'll need to put crow on my dinner menu.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

Question: Would I be labeled a bigot if I were to make the following passive aggressive post in a thread about race relations?

Clearly my statement would be a poorly veiled attempt to infer that the main reason she would do such a thing is because she's black. Isn't that bigotry at it's finest? Wonder if Board would suspend me for being such an aAS$HAT? Nah, Board is such a tolerant individual.

Although I decided not to pursue it at the time, this was the exercise that occurred to me awhile back when I mentioned the possibility of bigotry. Kep may be right about the particular post. Yet there have been quite a few derogatory posts blanketing Christians that would be universally panned had they instead referenced women or Jews.

Having said that, there have been some pretty interesting other posts in the last couple days which I have not had time to look into.

 

[Kepler]

Re: The Bible: Real, Fiction, or somewhere in between?

This Christian did something amazingly stupid because of her foolish belief in a foolish faith. I say that's just as a bigoted view point as someone saying she did it because she's black.

Are the cases the same or different? Superficially they look different: religion seems more of an active choice than race, hence you might be able to credibly link it to other attributes of the person, either good or bad. Religious people do this all the time, for instance, though the attributes they're claiming are positive. In that case, you're making a false analogy.

On the other hand, given that the most significant determinant of a person's religion by far is his parents' religion, it's typically the case that religion is as passively received as race. In that case, your analogy holds.