Contradictions in the Bible...

This is a completely unfounded assumption on your part. There is no evidence that this is true. The nation was founded on the principles of the so-called "age of englightenment," and a great many of the founders were, at least privately, deists, rather than the practitioners of a regularly organized religious sect. Jefferson, in particular, was opposed to the interpretation of "christianity" which had grown up over 1800 years, which is why he wrote his own version of the "new testament." It was Jefferson who, in replying to a Baptist congregation in Connecticut who complained that they were being discriminated against by the Congregational establishment in that state, wrote that the intent of the founders was to erect a "wall of separation" between church and state.



That you choose to take personally my contempt for religious fairy tales does not constitute evidence that i claim any intellectual superiority over those who do not consider religious faith to be fairy tales or superstition. It is your decision to take offense, and to consider anything deemed by you to be sacrilegious to be an insult. If you are sufficiently secure in the rectitude and value of your faith, nothing that i say will insult you.



I will point out once again that there is a difference between entertaining a belief and refusing to entertain that belief. I am operating from a position of not entertaining a belief in a deity.



Your "god" must be a rather pathetic entity if he or she is subject to being demeaned. It is held generally in human communities that the greatest characters are above any petty criticism. If you believe that a god exists, and that said god is omnipotent and omniscient, then surely such an entity will be above any criticism, and especially a criticism which you deem to be petty. None of what i have to say constitutes a personal attack on you. I have said nothing which reflects on you personally, and of course, cannot, given that i don't know you personally. You have decided to take umbrage at the remarks i make, and what you allege to be the tone i use. That's your problem, not mine--too bad, so sad.



Nothing obliges me to show respect for a belief system for which i do not in fact have any respect. I consider the bible to be a collection of stories by a set of racist, sexist, elitist, profoundly ignorant and deeply superstitious tribal men whose goal it was to attain ascendancy over their fellows through the promotion of their own belief system, and ascendancy over the neighbors by the simple expedient of slaughtering them out of hand. To that end, they depict women as chattels, good for nothing but breeding, they depict the other tribes of their region as immoral, even depraved, and their god as authorizing the slaughter out of hand of those tribes, men, women and children. Your god not only authorizes such behavior, he exhorts them to it. Once again, nothing in courtesy requires me to respect the beliefs you choose to hold which are inconsistent with a stable and tolerant society. The god in whom you believe, as described in your bible, is intolerant and murderous. I am not obliged to show any respect for such a despicable character. It is no fault of mine if you choose to identify so narrowly with your imaginary friend that you consider any criticism to be unacceptably disrespectful. People get respect because they have earned it. The accounts of your boy god do not engender any respect in me, only contempt.



It is no more than your mere contention that there is an important and morally edifying message in the bible. I've read the bible in its entirety on more than one occasion. I have found no such moral edification. So what you are pleased to characterize as my perceptions are not subject to your correction. And i have my right to the opinion and the expression of it whether or not you choose to acknowledge it.



In fact, a Rabbi who was honest enough to acknowledge that Lot could not have been too drunk to know he was being screwed by his daughters and still successfully perform the sexual act, attempted to justify the situation by appealing to me on the basis of "preserving Lot's line." So i don't for a moment admit a proposition that religious adherents commonly acknowledge the character faults of those in the biblical stories. You may be intelligent and honest enough to acknowledge the fallibility of these characters--but that is quite uncommon in my experience.



You miss completely my point that it is the character of your putative god which disgusts me. He authorizes slavery, he authorizes the treatment of women as chattel, he authorizes and encourages the slaughter out of hand of the "infidel."



You are whining that i have slighted your intelligence, and yet you are willing to suggest that my understanding is defective. Don't kid yourself on that score. Once again, it is your personal choice to identify so narrowly with your superstition of choice that you consider any derision of the attendant scripture to be a personal attack on you. Get over yourself.



I didn't need a definition from you on the meaning of deride. I don't accept your contention about "an attitude." I have not said, nor do i allege that i am intellectually superior. People as diverse as Pythagoras and Thomas Aquinas have been both immensely intellectual and profoundly devout believers in organized religion. I don't hate the people who subscribe to the scurrilous superstitions which i criticize--i do despise the superstition and its terms. Again, tediously, it is your choice to so closely identify with your superstition that you take it as a personal affront that anyone should criticize it. Assure yourself on one account, though--there is absolutely nothing which i fear or need fear in your superstition. The only thing to fear in regard to superstition is the intolerance and will to dominate on the part of those who subscribe to the superstition. So far, at least, we live in a society which will restrain the fanatically devout from imposing on others who do not subscribe to their superstitions.



This is an irrelevant remark. You have no idea what i believe. You only know what i refuse to believe. Whether or not you chose to mock that would be a matter of complete indifference to me. I am sufficiently secure in my decision not to believe any of that twaddle that your mockery is meaningless to me.



If you are in fact secure in your beliefs and your rationale for them, nothing i might say should discomfit you in holding those beliefs. I c0nsider the personal affront that you take to criticisms of your superstition to be evidence that you can only be comfortable with that belief set if everyone either subscribes to it, or a similar belief set, or keeps their mouths shut. I consider your ranting about personal affront to be evidence of the weakness of your position, and your desire to impose on others. Nothing obliges me to respect your beliefs, or to respect you for holding them. As i do not know you at all, i can neither respect you, nor despise you. I am intimately familiar with your belief set and its origins, and i despise it. Period.




This is what you call your basic straw man fallacy. At no time did i state or imply that i consider myself not to be accountable to anyone of anything. My remark was only in response to your melodramatic warning that i would be called to account someday by your imaginary friend. My comment refers only to your imaginary friend. I consider myself accountable to many persons and things. What specifically those are is none of your goddamned business.



My only comment on this rather c0nfused and poorly articulated passage is that none of it is news to me, and that i have no reason to consider that you have a special understanding of what constitutes "the truth."



Let me 'splain it to you. When you attempt to address my condition in terms of your superstition about your imaginary friend, such as that i will be held accountable, it gives a clear impression that you haven't understood what i am saying, and that you are intolerant of what i have been saying.



I doubt that, given that you don't actually know what my point of view is, nor how i have arrived at it, nor from what sources.



This is a condescending conceit on your part--it suggests that your understanding is perfected beyond my own. I reject such a silly contention.



You shouldn't have used the modifier "informed." It suggests that you are privy to evidence which others do not possess. If you allege that you have testable evidence for the existence of your imaginary friend, do the rest of us a favor and produce. Personally, i consider you to be whistling past the graveyard, and don't for a moment believe you have any evidence at all, at least certainly no evidence to make an "informed" decision.



This is very tedious, you know. You don't know what i believe. You only know one thing which i do not believe.



How bloody white of you. I have the right to disbelieve[/i] the twaddle religionists peddle whether or not you accept or tolerate my exercise of that right.

[quote]What you fail to understand is that my God has commanded me to reach out to those who do not know Him and to let them know that He is there.[/quote]

You really are a fool if you think i don't understand the compulsion which fanatical religionists experience to shove their silly beliefs down the throats of those who don't share them.

[quote]Once I feel that the Spirit has led me to believe that the person is not willing to discuss the Lord with them any longer then I am released from that command.[/quote]

Don't quote scripture at me, Bubba--i've played that game with your ilk all my life, and it rolls off me like water off a duck's back.

Set: "Once again, it is glaringly obvious that you are the one who is unable to imagine a divergent point of view, or to understand how someone would arrive at such conclusions. I came back to this thread because i had seen that Neo had posted. He and i come from the same childhood religious background. My response was to abandon religion. His was to at first abandon religion, and then to take up a different religious belief set. He and i manage to get along. I suppose that you and i could manage to get along, too . . . but i doubt it--you're too intolerant of those who don't see things your way. "

[quote]Now you make assumptions. You do not know what I believe.[/quote]

On the contrary, you've been wasting bandwidth at an amazing pace to let me know what you believe.

[quote]You do not know who my friends are and you do not know anything about me or how I have come to the decisions I have.[/quote]

Who your friends are is a matter of indifference to me, and is not relevant to this discussion. For the purposes of this discussion, i know enough about your beliefs to continue the discussion because you have made them abundantly clear. How you chose to embrace your preferred delusion is neither relevant nor of any interest to me.

[quote]One of my dearest friends is an Atheist; I have numerous friends who are agnostic or live lifestyles contrary to my belief system. To be perfectly honest I have such a diverse group of friends and acquaintances I consider myself very blessed to see such a diverse group of viewpoints.[/quote]

I am reminded of the white boys in the 60s who used to say that some of their best friends were black. Again, how bloody white of you to condescend to the poor unbelievers. From you performance here, i have no reason to assume that you "see" the viewpoints of those to whom you refer. It is my surmise that all that you see is what you choose to believe is their "beliefs," when, in fact, they either refuse to believe, or suspend both belief and disbelief. Nothing you have produced in this thread convinces me that you understand that distinction at all. In fact, you have been at pains to refer to my refusal to believe as my belief, and i suspect you do the same with these putative friends of yours. That is understandable to me, since so many people in this country only barely manage to tolerate divergent points of view by ascribing to them and equivalence which is totally illusionary in this case. You believe something. However, i don't believe it. Those are not two sides of the same coin, this is not a case of competing beliefs.

[quote]Everything I gleaned from your post was that you take an aggressive stance against Christianity and God. If your deepest and most personal belief were referred to as "your boy god" or a "fairy tale", I think you would glean the same.[/quote]

You really come off as terribly thick at times. There is no reason for me to take offense as you do, because i am comfortable in my decision not to believe, and no amount of ridicule from you or anyone else will change that. As for my "stance" as you are pleased to call, i consider organized religion in general and christianity in particular to be the worst disasters to befall mankind. Earthquakes end, storms move on or dissipate, tidal waves recede, volcanoes cease to erupt--but religiously motivated fanatics are always with us. That puts them in the category of unmitigated disasters.

[quote]As for my statement about arrogance, to me any person with finite knowledge who can declaratively state "There is no God" has to be doing so out of arrogance.[/quote]

Again, you are attempting to warp what i've said to suit your insistence on an equivalence of belief. I haven't said that there is no god, because i don't know that. I have said that i don't believe it, and i have not said why. When say that there is a god, you don't know that to be true, but you want nevertheless to insist on there being here a set of competing belief sets. Try to comprehend that believing something, and being unwilling to believe that same thing are not equal but polar opposite intellectual positions.

[quote]Of all the knowledge in the universe from eternity past and for all the knowledge yet to be learned in eternity future, I don't think any human can declare absolutely that there is no God.[/quote]

So what? I haven't said that.

[quote]To me that is arrogance. I make no apologies. Feeble finite humans making such a declaration, when mankind has barely scratched the surface of knowledge of the universe is arrogant.[/quote]

It really is tedious to have to repeat these things all the time. I've not said there is no god. I haven't even said more specifically (but still superficially) why i don't accept that belief. But the superficial statement of my refusal to embrace that belief is that i see no evidence, not even inferential. To me, yours is the arrogant position, claiming that you have knowledge of an absolute truth (your terms, above), and demanding that it be treated with respect by those who don't subscribe to it.

Stop with the f*ckin' definitions, will ya? I know what these words mean, i know what the roots words mean, and in many cases know the words from which they derive and what those words originally meant. You whine that your intelligence is being insulted, and then you trot out definitions of simple words such as deride or arrogance, as though you were addressing a sufferer of linguistic hebetude.

[quote]In other words mankind is arrogant to declare such knowledge that he has not proven with his limited knowledge. [/quote]

That would be you. I have simply said (in far too many words, thanks to you) "I don't believe that." You are the one, in the depths of your limited knowledge, that a god exists. Therefore, by your definition, you are arrogant.

[quote]Because of your comments about "boy god" and “fairy tale" I believe I am safe to assume you do not believe in God. This is your right.[/quote]

But that does not mean that it is safe to assume that i categorically state that there is no god. I don't know, and i don't care. The specific discussion here is the hilarious and morally disgusting fairy tales embodied in the ethnocentric scripture of some middle eastern hillbillies thousands of years ago. It is your choice to try to make it a discussion of theism and atheism.

It is more than a little arrogant of you to continually tell me what my rights are with regard to belief and self-expression. I know these things without being told by you, and i possess my rights with or without your approval.

[quote]And just to add a bit, My belief in God did not come from blind faith. It comes from gut wrenching study and hard cold evidence that for ME is more than enough to come to the conclusion that this universe and all within it were designed by an incredible intelligence. I choose to believe that this "Intelligence" has revealed Himself in the Bible.[/quote]

Which is an excellent functional definition of blind faith.

[quote]I pray that you find happiness in this life, and I can only hope that you find it in the life to come.[/quote]

I have and no thanks to you or your superstitious prayers. As i have no reason to assume that there will be any life after i die (you do realize how oxymor0nic such a concept is, don't you?), your hope is an irrelevance.

Well, i didn't get back in time to edit and correct my UBB code error. But i'm certain that even a christian from Texas will be able to understand what i wrote.

Cyclo, I am a fool because I believe that there are absolutes? Maybe YOUR experience in your life has led you to some conclusion that there are no absolutes. Mine has not. You say there are "practiacally no absolutes" Why only practically? You leave open the possibility of absolutes. If there is even one absolute then that leaves the door open for existence of other absolutes. You didn't say "there are no absolutes" because the statement is self defeating in absolutely declaring there are no absolutes you have declared an absolute.

Whether you desire to believe in absolutes is your right. I do not call you a fool for your belief. Again we see name calling and I don't see its necessity.

I will just leave this portion of your comment with " I ablsolutely disagree with your statement"



I do not agree that it is arrogance to claim there is a God based on evidence. To declare oneself as God or a god, or to even claim to have all the knowledge of God would be arrogant. Unless of course that person was God. To assert there is a God based on evidence that is seen and available I believe is in no way comparable to Declaring the IMPOSSIBILITY of a God existing when there is too much knowledge of the universe still to be discovered by mankind.
In my studies and what I find is that science is supporting the existence of some Intelligent designer every day. I choose to believe that this Intelligent designer is the God of the Bible. Not arrogantly.. that is my choice. I do not belittle or name call because you have not come to the same conclusion as I.

Though I will concede that the Bible states " the fool hath said in his heart, there is no God". I do not think you foolish though if you come to your decision of your own study and free will. I will vehemently disagree but will respect your right to believe as you wish.

You should not personalize this "condemnation" you feel is coming from Christians. They only believe as Jesus taught them. True Christians will declare that there is no other way to God but through Jesus Christ. We do not condemn you to hell. Do I believe that a person who does not have Jesus as his Saviour goes to heaven? No. But I do not condemn you. I am not your judge. My beliefs do not pass final judgement on you. All judgement has been given to Jesus. He will judge everyone the just and the unjust, the saved and the lost.
What you call condemnation is no different than us believing that a person stepping out of an airplane at 30K feet without a parachute of their own free will, will die. There is no doubt in my mind that that person will die, their decision is theirs and theirs alone. Their destruction is theirs. The result of their action is determined by laws. Gravity, physics etc. Those laws rule whether that person lives or dies. Not I. The analogy breaks down I'm sure as all analogies do. But you should not feel condemned by Christians. You make your own choices. they have absolutely no power at all to send you to heaven or hell. Thats all up to God.

Once again sir, I must point out the extreme foolishness of this statement. You can provide no evidence that would lead any scientist to verify your claim of the existence of a god of any type.



Your belief is incorrect, for they are exactly comparable. There exists exactly as much evidence that god exists as there does that he does not exist: none.



No, you don't. You see complexity and do not understand the reasoning behind it. So, rather than find the actual answers, you have decided that complexity proves the existence of God. This is logically unsound and foolish in the extreme.



In that case, sir, I must assure you that a gigantic amount of those who call themselves 'Christian,' are not in fact True Christians. I grew up in Texas and know exactly what it's like to be surrounded by fundamentalist idiots who couldn't logic their way out of a paper bag, yet felt perfectly welcome to engage in exactly the sort of behaviors I described above, and worse.

I think the converse is true: that true Christians engage in the behaviors I describe on a regular basis. The history of Christianity is bloody and only a fool would believe that Christianity has ever supported the idea of 'live and let live.'

Cycloptichorn

Obviously, I have wasted time discussing this with you. I was under the impression in your second post that you actually had an interest in discussing points of belief. I stand by my assertion that your opposition in tone is hateful and harsh. Now that you have revealed that you do not believe in God and specifically are animous to the Biblical God then as I said before I leave you to your belief. Unfortunately I have not the time to reply point by point at this moment. I will have to do so later. I really tried to get along.. and Im still open to "friendly"discussion. But I don't see the point.

God does not need me to take up for Him. He does quite well on His own. You twist my words to fit your perception of what I am saying. You can despise the God of the Bible all you want. You can live in darkness and a false understanding of God. But it doesnt change anything.

God is God... He is your creator and He has the right through His soverignty to do as He wishes with all of His creation. Because our puny human minds do not comprehend the Holiness of God, does not mean he does not exist nor does it mean that your interpretaition of the Biblical God is correct.

Seriously I am out of time. I must go. I won't offer any positive comments to you as you said you basically could care less.

Mth 7:6

Im out of time and have to be quick, but Ill do my best.

I said nothing about scientists. I said that the evidence that I have seen has led me to a conclusion that there is an Intelligent designer . I CHOOSE to believe that designer is the God of the Bible. Science is not my god and I do not believe it can answer the questions of origins or questions of faith. My point was not about science.

e]

I agree they are comparable in some sense, But I disagree on evidence. I am not speaking of hard scientific proof of repeatable results. I am simply saying that there are Types of evidence. Theres scientific, statistical, analogical and testimonial evidence. Of these types of evidence, FOR ME enough evidence is there to make a decision that GOD exists. Can I prove it to you? NO.. WHY? because Im having to assume that the level of evidence needed by you to concede in a God would be much higher than mine. You seem smart, so you have come to a conclusion based on the evidence you have and it leads you in another direction. I applaud you.


Yes I do. To me the statistical probabilities, the scientific evidence of the complexity of life and inability of science to explain the origins of the universe or satisfactorily explain the origins of life at all, are all the evidence I need to believe that the complexity of this universe and life are designed. I find it would take more FAITH to believe that the universe and life in all its complexity to have occurred through random natural processes.



Then my apologies on behalf of Christians who have Judged you to hell. (though they dont have that power). But for those who have wrongfully condemned you out of hate or anger or a spirit of arrogance, They do not exhibit Christ and could very well not even be Christians.



I don't know any true Christians who would engage in the things that have happened in the name of Christianity. To accuse all Christians of the sins of all those who have claimed to be Christians and done these evil things is as unfair as me accusing all Atheist or agnostics of being guilty of he atheistic slaughter of tens of millions of innocent people under communism.

You are correct that we do not support the idea of "live and let live" for Christians. Christians must preach, they must make disciples. They cannot Force Christianity on anyone because Christianity is a decision of the heart. If you think that Christians should not even speak to others about their faith or ever witness to others (which I dont know if you feel this way) then I would disagree. Telling someone about their faith is not shoving it down anothers throat. If that were the case could anyone ever express a belief or opinion? But then If sharing ones faith is equivelent to forcing it on another, then why do atheist work so hard to try and destroy the faith of Christians? just a thought... I am so late I have to go.. later

It is because they are the worst sort of uneducated and stupid people in the sense that they actually believe they are well educated and intelligent. It is on that belief that their bigotry is based.

In my opinion their principle motive for attacking Christianity is to try to escape from its disciplines particularly in the sexual field. It is on that motive that their anger is based.

I had no clue you were an atheist, Spendi.

Cycloptichorn

Take care Cyclo--I might give you a synopsis of Schopenhaeur, Nietzsche and Mann. I daresay you have heard of them and might even have dropped these pretty names in conversation from time to time but I think their names are all you know about them.

Any self respecting law abiding atheist would keep quiet about the matter for a number of quite complex reasons which it is something of a feat to connect up in a short post. He might even pretend to be a Christian, as Sartre envisaged, in order to deflect suspicion.

Is this your subtle way of confirming my observation? I read ya loud and clear.

Cycloptichorn

Jesus you're thick . . . once again, we are not discussing what i believe, we are discussing what i am unwilling to believe. You sound like a little boy with your accusations of hatefulness. People are not obliged to respect what you believe, nor to respect you for believing it, and certainly not to refrain from saying things to which you might take offense while posting in a discussion forum.

What the hell do you think this kind of place is all about?

Your imaginary friend is not my "creator." This line:



Is the only evidence that you've displayed that you've understood any of what i've written.

Science hasn't flown me to the moon and nor has religion flown me into any buildings.

I suspect I have that in common with about 99.9999rec% of the human race.

Incest in royal lines had from time to time been used as a tool to keep the line of decent narrow and therefore help prevent civil wars.

The example that come to my mind is the Greek rulers of Egypt adopting the Egyptian custom of brother/sister marriages in order to increase the stability of the new ruling line.

There are health concerns in interbreeding because of the strong likelihood of having harmful recessive genes showing up in the offspring’s but you can weight that harm to having family blood baths over claims to the throne of some major nation state.

All I've been trying to say Set, Is that if youre intent was to engage in a meaningful discussion, then it is best not to alienate the ones you are debating with by using adjectives that could be considered offensive. ie: 'boy god".. I think you would have been better received by just saying "god" I was trying to offer friendly advice. Obviously I completely misread that you wanted meaningful discussion. Best of nothing to you. ( doing my best to not offer anything you could care about)

Set has indignation pressure. We are the safety valves.

Try to make allowances.

If society was atheist he would be a Christian fundamentalist.

This made me smile

TexazEric is just experiencing what many of us have experienced in past "discussions" with Setanta.

Serious discussion does not have to include innuendos and spiteful language to make a point. I have come to believe that Set uses these tactics because of some fear that he might actually come to respect his fellow man and form a kinship with them. He keeps his adversary at bay while remaining in his intellectual cocoon.

It is obvious that he posseses a great intellect and is probably not comfortable conversing with his intellectual equals.

Contradictions in the bible are acknowleged and have been discussed adnauseum. There are contradictions in many great works but we do not hear about them. As long as something is faith based, it seems to be open to advanced scrutiny.

Don't tell Setanta that some of us actually pray for him.

Like TexazEric.... I believe because I choose to believe.

Well, yeah - but you don't see many other great works presuming to tell me how to run my life. And while I understand that you guys may not be looking to, large segments of our population want our laws and morality based on that book instead of logic.

So there is some advanced scrutiny, and it is deserved.

Cycloptichorn

The bible nor Christianity presumes to tell you how to live your live. You can live your life as you see fit.

The laws in the Old Testament were directed to the Jewish people. Since you say not many, you must mean some.

I am not sure if you refer to "you guys" as us participating in this thread or Christians in general. Either way, we are not necessarily all part of the same mindset.

Scrutiny is one thing but what we seem to be seeing in this thread go beyond that. Other words come to mind to more closely describe what comes across.

On another note. I may not agree with you on these points, but I do agree with much of what you write and have come to look forward to reading your posts.

Yeah, I know. It is the institutions which do so, and those who don't question them. I am not singling out Christianity; it is just one flavor of the same method of control used the world over.

The unfortunate reality of the situation is, as an agnostic who grew up in a religiously intolerant area, my life experience has lead me to view religion in a much different light than it is presented here. All people are fallible, and those who mix religious fervor with their fallibility range from annoying, to meddlesome, to downright dangerous. So the scrutiny is in many cases an attempt to understand how a document and belief system could cause people to act in all these odd ways, and the answers are usually not very pretty, when the situation is logically examined.

Cycloptichorn

I tend to agree with you on this. I find it strange to see the words "religiously" and "intolerant" used together. I know that it exists, but in my view they are exculsive of each other and are separate.

I know this is an idealistic view but we would have a lot less misery in the world if tolerance was more active. I mean for all people of all religions.

Christ taught tolerance and love for our neighbour. Unfortunately, a lot of people (Christians included) do not practice this.