Why are better educated people less religious?

neologist wrote:

USAFHokie80 wrote:

I agree with echi. I don't understand why people claim that morality requires a diety. I do not believe in any creator and yet I am moral - for the most part. :-)

That morality is not a special possession of the believer is a point I made earlier in this thread.

Well unless there is some great incongruency between his own beliefabout himself, and the way his actions are taken/interpertated it's not an unfair statement.

stlstrike3 wrote:

And before you even start.... where did the "major modern translations" come from?

One the printing press was invented, whatever-the-hell of the thousands of versions of the bible were out there suddenly went into mass production.

Seems that what constitutes the "original" bible shouldn't be a matter of which one reached 500 copies first.

I have already shown the similarity of Ecclesiastes 9:5 in a few translations. Why don't you take a few citations and show us how they differ?

neologist wrote:

stlstrike3 wrote:

And before you even start.... where did the "major modern translations" come from?

One the printing press was invented, whatever-the-hell of the thousands of versions of the bible were out there suddenly went into mass production.

Seems that what constitutes the "original" bible shouldn't be a matter of which one reached 500 copies first.

I have already shown the similarity of Ecclesiastes 9:5 in a few translations. Why don't you take a few citations and show us how they differ?

.... btw... I'm still waiting for your reply to the selection from Misquoting Jesus I reproduced for you.

stlstrike3 wrote:

neologist wrote:

stlstrike3 wrote:

And before you even start.... where did the "major modern translations" come from?

One the printing press was invented, whatever-the-hell of the thousands of versions of the bible were out there suddenly went into mass production.

Seems that what constitutes the "original" bible shouldn't be a matter of which one reached 500 copies first.

I have already shown the similarity of Ecclesiastes 9:5 in a few translations. Why don't you take a few citations and show us how they differ?

.... btw... I'm still waiting for your reply to the selection from Misquoting Jesus I reproduced for you.

In my bible, the passage is presented with this notation:
Manuscripts xBSys omit verses 53 to chapter 8, verse 11, which read (with some variations in the various Greek texts and versions) as follows:

This is precisely my point. "With some variations".

So how do we discern the meaning of "god's word(s)" when we don't even know what words are supposed to be in the text?

I've heard lectures/homilies/sermons where they hang on SINGLE WORDS to make their point. I have actually heard preachers say, "notice the word that god uses here", as the entire basis for one of their speeches. And yet....

. . .
I'm afraid he nailed you to the wall with that one, Neo. The earliest complete texts are the unical texts, where all the letters are capitals, there is no punctuation, there are no spaces between words and letters. That is why the majority text movement began, to reconcile all the texts which succeeded the unical texts, and that only began within the last three hundred years.. . .

The one thing with which i don't agree in his response is that claim that the bible is the worst example one could choose of divine revelation--they're all pretty shitty, and all Stlstrike demonstrates, once again, is that he knows almost nothing about religion other than christianity, and i suspect he knows almost nothing about history other than North American history, in a sketchy way, and vague notion of European history.

When it comes to goofy scripture, i highly recommend the Quran and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. But Hell, don't get me started . . .

From the point of view of those who wish to profit by fleecing the gullible, Hubbard's Dianetics is one of the niftiest, cleverest little screeds anyone ever came up. Pretty damned successful for a failed science fiction pulp author, too.

The question posed on this thread is based on assumption, speculation, and biased measure.

The statement should be proven before the question of "why" should be asked.

. . . That education and religiosity have an inverse relationship is the null hypothesis.... discuss..

fresco, Good point: trying to tie atheism to some religion-based belief is nonsense! As for the increasing numbers of atheists, it'll be a wonder if most religions today will survive the next century - as more scientific knowledge and information becomes available to refute most religious beliefs.