Skepticism

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

she's realised the basic fact Luther's put fourth: You're going to heaven, thus are saved, as long as you believe in God. It's very simple and effective. You can go about doing whatever you want from there on.

I wish people wouldn't toss around the word 'fact' so freely.  This doesn't happen to be true for many Christians.  Being saved, for many, is not some mythic get out of jail free card.  It's not a fact unless a vast majority of Christians believe this way, and if and when they do, I think I might just become an atheist.


Also, contrary to what many of you might think, saying people who follow the bible literally are stupid is insulting.  Some people actually view the bible as a historical document and see the writings inside as factual; granted, there are parables and such written within that are meant to tell a moral story rather than to tell you exactly how to behave, but there are certainly aspects of the bible that are absolutely crystal clear on appropriate/inappropriate behaviors.  Calling people who choose to observe those behaviors stupid (or in InCreator's case, of low IQ) is just so utterly, insanely ridiculous to me that I refuse to continue participating in this discussion if this is going to be a prevailing mindset.

Have what opinions you will on either side, but stop passing them off as though they are absolute fact for everyone everywhere.  That goes especially for you, Nacho, and no -- I quite understand where you're coming from in this argument and haven't misunderstood you.

[Ishmael]

Yeah, I think this is what religion is basically about and it makes sense in a way. But it has nothing to do with genuinely and literaly believe in the bible which I consider plain stupid.

I wouldn't personally call it stupid, I'd just say misguided. Sure, you can try, but following what the bible says literally is pretty impossible. Of course you can look at it this way: You'll be missing out on a lot, which is plain, voluntary stupidity. As is, in connection, not standing against those who tell you it'd be wrong to think otherwise. Everyone has the right to think and act as they see fit. Some people just don't realise it or have the guts to take up to it. Which is, yes, stupid.

In short, giving up your human rights just because someone else tells you to do so is in my opinion stupid.

I wish people wouldn't toss around the word 'fact' so freely.  This doesn't happen to be true for many Christians.  Being saved, for many, is not some mythic get out of jail free card.  It's not a fact unless a vast majority of Christians believe this way, and if and when they do, I think I might just become an atheist.

Did Luther say so or did he not? It is a fact in the sense that he did indeed teach that and not something else. If you run an office and you tell your workers they can have two coffee breaks a day but most of them think they can have four, does it disband the fact that they are allowed only two?

[Nacho]

Sorry Prog, but some things in Bible are plain stupid. I wish I was that comprehensive to hear that someone REALLY BELIEVES in the deluge passage and think "Ok... he... he might be right!"

But I can' t. It' s fisically impossible. It' s impossible to build that ark, it' s impossible to bring all the animals in, it' s impossible to storage the food, it' s impossible to...

Well... Almost everything in those chapters is impossible.

Earth? 6,000 years old? Sorry, man. I hear it and I automatically think "Impossible".

I am talking of literally believing in bible. You mention literallity, and after that you mention me "moral stories". Are you sure we are talking of the same? I think we must define what are we talking about, because I honestly believe we might agree.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Ishmael, this ties more into whether you are a Lutheran (one denomination).  Martin Luther had a lot of contradictions in his own teachings (and I myself choose the lessons of Jesus over Luther) that make him unappealing, at least to me.  For instance, he also wrote things like:

”The pope is the devil; if I could kill the pope, why do I not want to do it?”

And he also advocated having Jewish property seized and burned (and worse).

I don't really consider Martin Luther a shining or credible example of the religion, by any means.



Nacho:  There are things that are happening today, right now, that people once thought utterly impossible or musings of an agitated mind.  Robotic legs, space shuttles, airplanes.  There are moral stories in the bible and then there are events it claims to be true that you either take on faith (like the entire of the bible) or you don't.  The ark is one example of this because it's not explicitly told as a parable (though it is in there as a warning and to establish the covenant between man and God).  Do I believe it happened as written?  Probably not precisely as written, in that figures and events can be exaggerated over time.  Many legends are based on fact and in the same way distorted over time, and I think that can explain at least some of these events.  For the rest, as I said, you either have to have faith or not, and that's the very foundation of religion, anyway. 

I'll just ask you this:  If it's not stupid for people to believe in a superior being, why is it so stupid for them to believe he is capable of a great flood?  To turn water into wine?  To part the sea?  You seem to take issue with these literal beliefs but don't take issue with the actual belief in God itself. 

To me it seems an all-or-nothing argument.

[Nacho]

But prog... How can you argue to me about the morale aspects of Bible when I haven't commented any of those so far? I have given evidences of the way I think, but atm I was just talking to Bible literality.

I said nothing about what I think of the paraboles, the morality, the meaning of the figures or the exaggerations... I said that "believing it happened as is written is stupid".

So... if anybody agrees, I can MOVE and talk about Christian Religion as a Religion based in a book that has errors.

[Sam.]

The ideas all spanish people have are stupid.

Not that all spanish people are stupid....

[MrColossal]

Okay... I've been told that saying that Bible literalism is stupid is:

-Verbally punching.
-Insulting.
-Aggressive.

And

-Gives atheistics a bad name.

Now, to those who told that to me.... Why?

Because there's such a thing as picking one's battles. It isn't the fact that you said bible literalism is stupid, no one is trying to persecute you for having an opinion, and if they are, forget about them.

It's the fact that the thread was about a person just trying to find people who were interested in making a game about {subject}.

In this thread here you told someone what the topic of your thread was so you know the concept of going off topic or even derailing, the topic of Dervish's thread was "Hey guys, anyone interested in this?"

If you pick your battles you can see that that particular thread was not the place for what you were doing and was potentially offtopic/derailing.

I understand that you are strong in your convictions and that's cool, but you can't pretend that people getting upset over things you KNOW will make them upset is surprising. If you're looking to have a debate, pick your battles and have respect for the other viewpoint especially if you consider all these people your friends.

[voh]

I had written a very long and cross reply, but I decided to summarize it thus: "Be respectful of other people's beliefs and they'll be respectful of yours."

[Nacho]

Well, Eric, I was being quite moderate about how skeptics would react against the game, and how could he do it to make it appealing to an skeptic audience. I must confess that I missed the line when he specifically asked not to receive ideas in that direction, that he was not going to take them into consideration. My apologies.

Read the thread again, check it by yourself.

Then, someone told me that I was being a coward, and that FC Barcelona fans are child molesters, comparing religion with football... after that I started debating seriously, because religion is not like football... Maybe it's as childish, but it is not a statal imposition which receives the taxes EVERYBODY pay.

Then the problems started .

***EDIT: Saying, projecting and lying, that I told "All believers are stupid" didn't help, either***

And yes, Voh, thanks for your reply. When "Church" finishing receiving money from taxes I will respect it. When all kinds around the world can go to school and not receiving a false point of view of creation of earth, universe and the life, I will respect it. When all the countries in the world became secular I will start respecting it.

When religion starts to respect my atheism, I will respect religion.

[Khris]

voh: "Only respect other peoples' religious beliefs in the sense that you respect that they believe they have a beautiful wife and intelligent children."

[...] but there are certainly aspects of the bible that are absolutely crystal clear on appropriate/inappropriate behaviors.  Calling people who choose to observe those behaviors stupid (or in InCreator's case, of low IQ) is just so utterly, insanely ridiculous to me that I refuse to continue participating in this discussion if this is going to be a prevailing mindset.

InCreator hasn't participated in this thread yet, so I believe you're referring to my post.
The gist of the mentioned study isn't that "believer = low IQ", it says that, in my own words, social environments with a low average IQ have a higher percentage of people with religious faiths, and the other way around, whether that environment is a country or a university.

The bible revokes and revamps its own rules from chapter to chapter, so finding a coherent set of crystal clear rules is very different in itself (obvious evidence of this are the tons of different, partly contradicting churches all based on Christianity).
Additionally, following the bible on what's (in)appropriate would make much more sense if this wasn't the 21st century. Many of the so-called liberal Christians might state a belief in a survey but don't act accordingly in our real, rational, modern world, which in my eyes doesn't only make them quasi-atheists but, more importantly, makes perfect sense.
What we understand as western civilization has undergone many drastic changes in the last 2000 years, most of them for the better and most of those since we stopped burning people at the stake whom the church considered to be heretics.
The obligations people have according to the bible are what should be considered ridiculous, apart from outdated, misogynistic and cruel.

Take the simple example of not being allowed to have premarital sex: common sense and experience tell me it's the main (if not only) cause of
a) people getting married way too early (both too early in life and too early in a relationship) because they want to be allowed to have sex
b) unjustified, horrible guilt about something wonderful and completely natural
c) unwanted children and 25% of American teenagers suffering from an STD (because their parents didn't have a birds'n'bees chat with them)

In short: if people didn't follow this absurdly ridiculous rule, we'd have less unwanted children, abortions, school dropouts, people carrying STDs and divorces and more healthily happy, sexually educated, guilt-free people.

Ishmael:

she's realised the basic fact Luther's put fourth: [...]

You were saying that Luther's belief is a fact, not that him having believed something is a fact.

Considering the popular fallacy that our modern laws are based on the bible's morality:
Modern, religious people consciously choose not to obey certain biblical rules (e.g. stoning gays).
=> They are using different morals to judge biblical morals and to determine whether to follow them or not.
=> Those different morals aren't based on the bible's.
(Those different morals are modern law / common sense / humanism)

[bicilotti]

I had written a very long and cross reply, but I decided to summarize it thus: "Be respectful of other people's beliefs and they'll be respectful of yours."

[Trent R]

Let me say that I am a Latter-Day Saint, or more commonly known as a Mormon. Which means the views I part are probably not the most common Christian belief, but fairly close (besides, each person is allowed to interpret scripture to their own understanding--but don't try to misquote me on that). Also know that I have my own personal beliefs mixed in with the overall religious ones, so I will try to differentiate the two.

I will be as civil as I can, and I ask for the same courtesy in return. (and I'll admit that my previous comment wasn't completely civil, so I apologize Nacho)

First off, one basic Mormon belief is that the bible is not completely translated correctly. Whereas the Book of Mormon (another book of our faith) we believe is translated completely corrected by our founding Prophet.

Second, there is a lot of symbolism and a lot of literallism. If you ask about them, I'll explain my beliefs about each.

And so:

Earth? 6,000 years old?

I personally believe in the Big Bang theory of the creation of the earth. 6,000 years is the age of man, not the planet he lives on.

Earth made in 6 days

I learned that the original bible uses a word that doesn't always mean 'day', and in this case it should mean 'time period'. The first day could've been 8 minutes and the second 24 billion years.

Eve made from Adam's rib

How God made man, I'm not sure exactly. But this statement is not literal. It is symbolic of Eve being equal to Adam. If she was 'made' of something from his head, it would put her above Adam. Likewise with his feet and being below. This simply shows that man and woman are equals.


Those are a few from this and the previous thread. Any others that I can answer?

~Trent

[Ozzie]

I think the bible can be valuable as a moral guideline for some, though it might be a bit contradictory. I mean, just the Old and the New Testament are coming from very different sides...
...but it should be clear that the bible is more one big metaphor than anything else. If you take the bible literally in this day and age than you're either uneducated or ignorant.

[Trent R]

Church taking money

The LDS Church deals with tithes differently than most, and I hope you can respect our view. Bishops and other church leaders have other jobs. This means that they tithes aren't going towards simply supporting them and their way of life (exception to this is LDS Missionaries, which I'll get to soon). Tithes go to services such as helping the poor and needy, building temples and meetinghouses, supporting missionaries, Humanitarian Aid (we were one of the first organizations in New Orleans after Katrina), and other uses.
Ad for supporting missionaries, yes, those funds get used to support the lives of missionaries. However, they aren't just living normal lives like anyone else, they are in the service of God and the Church and have strict rules to follow. The money goes towards their food and living expenses, not entertainment or anything like that. Also, the missionary himself (and their family, if applicable) pays for a good chunk of the expenses (my mother sends a check off each month to support my currently serving brother).

In short, giving up your human rights just because someone else tells you to do so is in my opinion stupid.

People have free agency, you don't have to do anything anyone else tells you.

~Trent

[voh]

When religion starts to respect my atheism, I will respect religion.

So unless religion respects your atheism, you won't respect religion? Now that's funny - you're demanding something of them which you're not willing to do yourself. This makes you a hypocrite.

voh: "Only respect other peoples' religious beliefs in the sense that you respect that they believe they have a beautiful wife and intelligent children."

I understand the point you make, but I also want to clear something up that I obviously didn't state as clearly as I thought I had. I in no way intended to say that anyone needs to respect without question somebody else's belief. My intention was to say that you should be respectful whether you respect their belief or not. It's not hard to show respect to someone while disagreeing with them whole-heartedly.

Bonus is that if you act respectfully, you might actually get your point across.

[LimpingFish]

Picking ones battles may indeed be the key. It's perfectly fine to consider the Bible to be a contradictory mess that couldn't possibly be taken as fact by any sane person, just as it is perfectly fine to consider Scientology to be nothing but a cult for narcissistic rich people. But declaring out loud, as it it were, ones opinions invites debate. And the fact that your feelings on spiritual beliefs may not go beyond what common sense tells us are ridiculous institutionalized ideals for easily-led fools, such opinions may need a lot of backing up in a debate environment.

As I have stated in past threads, I hold what could generally be termed as agnostic views on the existence of a god or gods. This is totally separate to my feelings on organized religion; in so much as I largely consider organized religion to be a humanity-threatening disease, to which the proven existence of a god or gods would be a hindrance, existing as it does largely as a man-made moral/social/political tool, reliant on the fear of the unknown.

But I don't present my feelings as fact. Just as I would expect people who belong to any of these organizations not to attempt to present what they believe as fact.

It's common courtesy.

[SSH]

Then, someone told me that I was being a coward, and that FC Barcelona fans are child molesters, comparing religion with football... after that I started debating seriously, because religion is not like football... Maybe it's as childish, but it is not a statal imposition which receives the taxes EVERYBODY pay.

In the UK, no religion gets tax money. Spain is not the world. Creationism is not taught in most UK schools.

I said I was making a game which was about Barcelona supporters being molesters. You found that offensive. That was my point: if someone's talking about making a Christian game and you suggest making a game about Jesus being a cheat then they may find it offensive.

Of course, many violent atrocities have happened over the years in the name of football. Of course, the TRUE football fans know that these were just idiots looking for an excuse to be violent and that football was incidental. Oh, did I say football, I meant religion.

[SSH]

Eve made from Adam's rib

How God made man, I'm not sure exactly. But this statement is not literal. It is symbolic of Eve being equal to Adam. If she was 'made' of something from his head, it would put her above Adam. Likewise with his feet and being below. This simply shows that man and woman are equals.

You know, if you believe God managed to make the whole universe and create Adam, why would he have trouble doing it in 6 days or making Eve from a rib? Not that I'm trying to say that is what happened, but the Christian God is supposed to be omnipotent. He can do anything. So maybe he did make the world in 6 days, or 6 aeons or 6 billion years: how does this affect my day-to-day faith? Not at all.

[Nacho]

@ Voh:

No, voh... What I am NOT being is idiot. I am not going to stop throwing punches if the guys that I have in front and is punching me doesn't stop before. They started. They are the ones that are getting taxes from me. They are the ones that told me that lenguajes were made by God because he was annoyed with us because we were making the Babel Tower. They lied to me when I was a child, when I had no rational tools to deffend myself propperly (with no permanent hurt, fortunatelly) and I consider myself in the perfect right to deffend myself.

@ Trent:

I am going to be extremelly polite,you deserve it (To be honest, I missed the parts where you recognised were not completelly civil, I will skip them, then  ). Actually, your post opens an interesting door I' ve never explored before: "Misstranslation". Okay. What I am going to do, basically, is to jump over all the possible misstranslations and go for the nowadays "average" believer opinion:
The one who things that Big bang existed, that man evolved as the evolution theory, and that bible is a bunch of morale teachings that galvanize around paraboles and allegories, and that nothing can be taken as "real".

Okay.

Then... If you don' t thing that those things happened, how can you believe in God? Where is the evidence?

I mean... Literalistics can have "illogical" beliefs (I will, from now and ultil I remember it, change "stupid" for "illogical", ok?). Literalistics believe God created earth because they see the earth. Literalistics believe that God created manking from mud because they see men. Literalistics believe that Deluge happened because they see that there are animals, nowadays, they must be the one who survived deluge!

Literalistics believe in "God", because they see things, and someone must have created that things...

I think that natural history proves things did not happened like that... But they are being consistent, at least...

But if you are not literalistic... Why believing?

If you were, you should have the evidences (Everything should have been an evidence).
If you are not a literalistic, you have nothing.

There is no evidence that God is real. No evidence that what is written in Bible is heavenly inspired, (then, what you have there is not real), and if the stories contained there are not real, maybe the concept of "God" isn' t either.

If you are not literalistic "God" is indistinguishable from anything else invented by man.

Indistinguisable from the smurfs, from Darth Vader, Superman or Godzilla.

Of course... we have the "If I see a watch, I must think that there is a watchmaker". Sorry, no. If you believe that EVERYTHING must have a MAKER, you are in an alley, because GOD would NEED a MAKER as well.

And now... My opinion about "nowadays believers" (scientific believers, or whatever you want to call them): I respect them. I don' t know from where they happened to arrive to that point, of why they do believe, I am nobody to judge them. Maybe they need to believe, I think it' s sad needing something unreal to believe in, but that' s not my problem.
But please... Don' t try to make me believe.

[Nacho]

SSH: As said, football is not cultural imposition. Religion is. That is my fight.

If you want to start a fight against "how, in spite of not receiving an institutional aid, it is impossible for an actual kid of my country to abstract of the influence of football" you can do it. You have my blessing... I mean... support.

Still, football would go on being real, while God, as fas as we know, isn't...