The God Who Wasn't There

[ACatBornInAnOvenIsNotACake]

M i C e​

 

[Archibald Nixon]

God's a comedian whose audience is scared to death of laughing.

 

[Sarek]

Gravity: You can't see it, smell it, taste it, feel it or hear it. The only indirect 'proof' of its existence is the fact that scholars established a great theory why things fall down instead of floating around in the air, and nobody has found an exception to that rule yet.

So I take it that gravity doesn't exist for you?

Check your bathroom sale. That little number you see is the effect gravity has on you. And when you take a dump, you can hear it.

 

[Sarek]

God's a comedian whose audience is scared to death of laughing.

On the contrary. God created conservatives. The jokes on him and we've been laughing ever sense.

 

[Dirk Funk]

An interesting documentary about the 'validity' of Jesus Christ. Presnts some interesting facts and has some really neat interviews about the beginnings of the Christian religion. I really recommend watching it. The last 10 minutes or so are the director's personal crusade against the school that taught him the fear of God. However, the incredibly awkward moment he creates at the end is hysterical.

It's available on most torrent sites.

Anyone else seen it? Care to comment?

Good LORD, Conchaga! You need to PRAY.

 

[Donovan]

I wasn't saying that. I was saying that you're making generalizations about the world of religious scholarship that don't really apply to the majority of Christians, even.

One of the biggest points of contention in the Reformation was the issue that the Catholic Church was aggressively against any kind of biblical literalism, so pointing out flaws in a literal interpretation of the Bible as the unadulterated word of God doesn't really work with them (or a lot of other Christian sects).

I'm talking about religious scholars, when the subject of Bible editing and alteration is ever broached. In debate it is frequently suggested that either A) the Bible has been extensively edited in the past by men with political agendas in order to push personal goals and therefore is NOT the word of God any longer (if it was at any point),
B) translations, modernizations and imperfect copies have led to a number of incorrect interpretations of the original text, context and meaning of the Bible, therefore rendering it "Not God's word" by accident,
C) modern sensibilities have rendered some edicts obsolete or even cruel and should be edited as no longer applicable (stoning adulterers for example, etc)

The answer to all these arguments for biblical fallibility is that the Bible itself is the Word of God passed through man, it is inviolate and should not be edited deliberately. Your argument against literal interpretation even further begs the question: if I can as an individual interpret the Word of God any way I so choose to suit my own comfort level, then why in fact is it any more important a life guide than the other dozens of spiritual health books out there? The argument that the Bible should not be taken literally or even seriously in some sections is akin to saying the book itself is outdated, archaic, mostly nonsensical and should therefore be discarded as a legitimate self-help text and relegated to historic fiction/literature status like the Iliad, Oddysey, Beowulf, and other similar documents before it.

Just try to suggest THAT in your debate, however...

 

[FBI parte due]

The vast majority of Christians are Christians because they look to the Bible and the whole of Christian tradition (assuming they think about it at all, admittedly) to inform their views on morality.

I don't blame them, really. Irreligious philosophy hasn't done a very good job of producing a morality you could actually live your life by this far.

 

[Sarek]

I have a real hard time taking a book at face value that was written over 2 thousand years ago, selectively edited by groups of men for content that they deemed inappropriate or sacrilegious where entire sections, chapters and books were left out, and then was subject to translation upon translation based on the translators interpretation of the passages. It's like making Beef Wellington and omitting the pastry. Might as well toss it in a crock pot and call it a beef roast.

 

[Donovan]

By the same token, and playing devil's advocate (har) the very idea of a religious text continuing to resonate two thousand years later means that one cannot simply discard it as archaic and be done. By comparison, the works attributed to Shakespeare are in their infancy at just around 400 years old or so and we fairly worship those works despite the authorship being no more credible or proven than the Bible. We don't want to discard a work of ancient value simply because we disagree with some of the tenets it expresses or some of its doctrine has become obsolete.

The Bible is what it is: a guideline for social behavior a couple millenia ago that we can learn from in order to understand our global history, our ancestors, and their shared beliefs. It is also a tool for continued inspiration among some of our peers, much like people are inspired by any great philosophical text. I certainly don't knock anybody for trying to use it as a moral barometer, so long as my failure to do so isn't the subject of ridicule. Even then, the book itself is not the object of my mockery but the delusional extremists who shelter themselves within it...

 

[SuN]

I certainly don't knock anybody for trying to use it as a moral barometer, so long as my failure to do so isn't the subject of ridicule. Even then, the book itself is not the object of my mockery but the delusional extremists who shelter themselves within it...

Nice if the respect was both ways; pity humans tend to be so dogmatic and extreme on all sides of the fences.

 

[Riotgear]

Two points:
1. I was talking to wizer about *him* feeling gravity, not some astronauts or scientists. Since there are not too many people who actually get the chance to experience lower or higher gravity levels than high-handed
the one we are accustomed to, I took the liberty to assume he hasn't, either. The lack of experiencing a difference results in not feeling it at all. You may be influenced by it, but you do not consciously feel it. Thus, my argument stands.

2. You're right: you'd feel 'something'. Now we get to the really interesting question: Where did you get your 'knowledge' that it's gravity you are feeling? Who taught you about the source of this feeling, and what it exactly is?
Unless you are an autodidactic genius in physics, my guess is you've learned it from a third party, that is: fellow humans. Have you gone through the motions necessary to verify this knowledge? Did you study physics, went into space, and experimented to prove once and for all the universal validity of what they told you? No?

Well, then I guess it all boils down to you simply believing them.

Now, how is that different from believing some people who say that the reason why stuff falls down is because there is this God dude who has invented the universe and found it neat to organize it in the way you can see, feel, smell, and hear it?

Both kinds of knowledge are belief systems. You listen to the stories those people tell you, and you decide which story you find more likely, or explains the world better for you. Hey, you can even decide to change your belief system whenever you want to, ain't that great?

Why am I babbling about this? Because I find it incredibly high-handed and idiotic to see representatives from both belief systems mocking or trying to proselytize each other. Accepting and understanding that another person lives with a different belief system which is just as valid as any other would be one hell of a step to end a lot of really boring discussions and/or bloody wars, imo.
(aka: Believe what you want, but please don't shove it down my throat kthxbai)

Well then you're certainly familiar with Last Thursdayism.