The players: Dad. David Ryan, atheist. Plaintiff, represented by Ed Kagin of American Atheists. Mom. Susin Bisig, Catholic (That’s her in the photo, wrapping herself around the cross, it would appear.) Kid. Michael. The question: Where does Michael go to school, a Catholic School where both he and his mom want him to go, or to an academically equivalent public school, where his dad wants him to go?This is a case being decided in Kentucky and pertaining to state constitutional law regarding religion. The case was effectively decided several years ago when the same issue came up in grade school, and the judge sent the family away telling them to keep the kid in Catholic school and wait until high school to make this decision. Again, the usual gambit: The religion presumption, the religious fall back, the religious default.
The writer goes on to say this is why Atheists should not marry believers — a statement with which I wholeheartedly disagree. We can marry theists, but only the SANE ones, which I admit may not be the majority. The real issue is that when marrying theists, have a discussion about how you will raise your kids, and get nailed and firm, BEFORE you plan the wedding.
alatham,
Shakespeare was not just trying to create “art”, he was trying to convey thoughts and feelings through the use of human language, which is finite when taken literally, therefore is impossible to explain some things without figurative use. If Shakespeare, arguably the greatest writer in human history, couldn’t convey his feelings for a woman in a literal use of a human language, how could a writer 2000+ years ago explain the work of a masterful God with a strictly literal use of language, a language less developed than the one Shakespeare employed?
The Bible is like a manual, but that simile should only go so far. They weren’t trying to describe how to assemble a bike, so that comarison only goes so far.
For me, and other Christians, these answers are one and the same (see the link at the bottom of my comment just before this one). If you’re waiting for scientific proof that God is there and He created us, I fear and pray for you, for you will never find that evidence.
I don’t have time to respond to the rest of your comment at this time. But please don’t feel like I’m attacking you. Even if I was the ruler of the entire world, I would not force religious beliefs on anyone. I’m afraid this has happened many times throughout mankind, and not only has it nearly always been a tragic result, it’s just not what God has called us to do. Yes, we as Christians are called to spread the gospel, but it is your *God given* right to reject it, although we also believe that is an eternally fatal mistake. He never told us to force anyone to believe (which I believe is impossible to do, anyway), just to spread the good news.
I have nothing but love for you or anyone else who does not believe in God, and it will always be that way. Also, the only things that I say or write that I contend or infallible are quotes from scripture. Everything else is subject to the flawed nature of my humanness. So it’s very possible that some things I said about evolution and other scientific topics were untrue. I will look into that later when I have time, and will own up to any mistakes I made
For anyone arguing that you shouldn’t take parts of the bible literally, you’re on the proverbial slippery slope.
What I mean is, if you decide to interpret certain parts of the bible as non-literal, or metaphorical, then you have to explain your reasons for doing so, and support that explanation with something from the bible. For instance, when jesus tells the apostles he was speaking in a metaphor, you can accept that he was speaking in a metaphor.
But, to assume that just anything in the bible is metaphorical is the ’slippery slope’. If you can say that creation is non-literal, then I can say that the noah myth isn’t literal. The next guy can say that all of judges was allegorical. You end up with some atheist somewhere like me saying that the ten commandments shouldn’t be read in public schools, because they’re bogus.
You either take the bible literally, or you accept the fact that it can all be taken metaphorically. If you do the latter, you may as well use your book as kindling, because it loses its authority.
Good comment, mrunicycler. You saved me 5 minutes.
uoflcard,
mrunicycler already explained why this is a scary way to justify following the Bible, so I’ll just say this: I wasn’t trying to suggest that it is possible to describe the work of a masterful deity. I have no idea how to answer that question. Since I’ve seen no evidence of one, why would I jump to the conclusion that one exists in the first place?
OK, how far? Where does the line get drawn? More importantly, who is drawing the line? Whoever it is, it certainly isn’t God.
You’re not following the word of God, you’re following the word of whatever authority decided to speak for God. This makes you an Authoritarian, and I think we both know that Authoritarianism isn’t healthy for humanity or our planet. For the sake of humanity’s future, please don’t listen too closely to your religious leaders. It really is OK to disagree with them.
Almost. There is one fundamental difference that you’ve missed though.
“I don’t know” makes no implications about whether or not the question is even answerable.
In many, but not all cases “God did it” implies that the answer is unknowable. So why bother even thinking about it?
That is why “I don’t know” is a much better answer. It does not restrict curiosity.
And if that’s true, then why should anyone believe you?
If you believe that, then I’ve got a bridge in New York that I’ll sell you.
I’m glad you think this, but you’re operating under the delusion that your God also believes in the right to disbelieve. The Christian idea of Free Will is an illusion. Allow me to explain:
According to the Bible, God effectively gives us the choice between an infinite punishment and an infinite reward. But if you operate under the assumption that God exists (as you have) then you don’t actually have a choice. There is no possible action during your lifetime that could ever make up for the infinite punishment of hell (I would also argue that there is no possible sin that justifies an eternal punishment, but that’s a different argument against Christianity). None.
It’s akin to a choice between free pancakes and a kick in the teeth. Only a fool would choose the latter.
Therefore, given that you have no choice but to follow the words of the Bible, Free Will evaporates.
The “choice” that you speak of only applies to non-Christians. It’s something many Christians use to justify their bias against others since we’ve “chosen” to be heathens. After all, only a fool actively chooses hell. However, if Christians accept the idea that we are simply unconvinced (and thus aren’t making a choice), then suddenly the Christians have to take the blame for not being convincing enough.
I know it’s much easier for Christians to believe that God gives us a choice, but it’s still an argument that relies on a jump to conclusions. Whether or not you actually fall into this camp of Christians or not, I can’t say. You may have simply never looked at it from the other side of the fence.
Please don’t abuse the word “love,” you’re confusing it with “respect.”
Love requires a personal relationship. You and I do not have a personal relationship. You and I don’t even know each other’s names. Were we to continue speaking, over time I could accept that you might come to love me, but right now the idea is way out there.
It’s impossible to love everyone. At least, not unless you redefine “love” so that it means much less than it should. When people misuse the word love as you have, it loses some of it’s meaning.
I love my girlfriend. But if I also love everyone else, then what would be the point of expressing it?
To finish up, I also don’t want to you to get the idea that I’m attacking you personally. I’m only attacking your logic and your arguments. Were we to meet in person, who can say how we might relate?
Comment from: alatham
I love listening to an atheist attempt to explain Christianity…
Care to give a spin with Islam…?
phreedm said:
“I love listening to an atheist attempt to explain Christianity…”
yea, isn’t it funny how we atheists can explain it much better than you because we are not blinded by the “TRUTH” (which is really simplistic fiction), not brainwashed by the holymen and can see through all the BS.
Phreedm,
I’m aware that your particular sect of Christianity doesn’t believe that hell is an eternal punishment*, but that is not a common view.
Do you think you can explain Christianity?
It’s odd that you would go out of your way to point out that there are many different and sometimes mutually exclusive interpretations of the Bible. Such a view only weakens the idea that the Bible is divinely inspired and/or authored.
*-At least, that’s what you’ve led me to believe about your views, but it’s impossible to take anything you say at face value anymore.
God and the Bible never said to not be curious, to not ask questions. Even Jesus himself questioned God, asking Him “Why have you forsaken me?”
My belief in God and the salvation of Jesus has not limited my curiosity at all. I thoroughly enjoy and appreciate science; in fact I’ll have a masters in mechanical engineering in a few months. But ultimately I’m aware of the limits of human reason, and that God’s ways are simply beyond ours.
Well if you can wrap your mind around the idea of being incapable of understanding God’s ways, it is then possible to accept the presence of God without scientific proof, since science is a culmination of human knowledge and understanding. Please don’t misunderstand my words, either. I don’t mean to say that He has not made Himself present in our world. It’s just that you aren’t going to find his DNA, any of his fossils, or any other scientific method that we use to prove other things existed or happened. And specifically dealing with creation, we *definitely* won’t find the scientific or mathematical explanation of how it all started, because of the mystery of god (never used XHTML….hope this tag works:
http://home.flash.net/~thinkman/articles/mystery.htm)
I respect your rights (I would never want you to be forced to believe anything), but yes I love you and everyone else, Christian and non-Christian. That is why we were created, to love each other and praise God. My heart aches for those that either choose to reject God, have not been exposed to his words, or simply aren’t yet convinced. No, I don’t love you as you love your girlfriend, or as I love my wife. And yes, if we had a personal relationship, or even a close friendship, my feelings would be different. They would just be stronger, as they are for my close friends & family who are non-believers.
To be honest, not only have I looked at it from the other side of the fence, I’ve been there! I was born into a Christian family and believed with all of my heart until I left high school. Then I went to college, stopped going to church regularly, and stopped thinking about God all together. College for a freshman can be *extremely* distracting! As I drew apart from God, questions of science (which I’d always known about, but never affected my faith) began to make me question everything that I had believed (which isn’t a bad thing), and my faith was generally lost. For several years I had the viewpoint that you speak of, waiting to be fully convinced. And while further pursuit of our knowledge and theories of everything in the universe eventually gave me the idea that we will not be able to explain with our knowledge capacity, I did not fully come back to faith in this manner. Eventually, I had to choose to re-open my heart to God, to proclaim my unbelief to Him (it’s a difficult thing to pray to something you’re not fully convinced is there!). But when I did truly open my heart to Him, and asked Him to step into my life, He filled it with warmth and love has He did throughout the first part of my life, when I was full of faith.
I don’t think it’s just as simple as you choosing your path. Otherwise, all I’d have to say here is, “Accept Jesus as your savior, or don’t.” Instead, there does need to be some convincing. This is why Jesus performed miracles in front of crowds! If he just wanted to heal people, he could have instantly healed the entire world of all its illnesses. He knew that humans needed to be convinced the he was God in human form.
And you’re absolutely right that sometimes we as Christians must confront the fact that we aren’t convincing enough for some people, and we’d need to rethink our ways! I don’t think an Internet message board is the most effective medium to convince anyone to believe anything, or to consider believing. It’s much more effective in person, when the person can feel your love and compassion.
I had the impression that you were strictly dealing with this discussion and were not resorting to personal attacks, which is common here (and on every other blog or message board on the Internet, regardless of topic…it’s amazing what some people say to others when they don’t have to look them in the eye!) And yes I believe we could have a friendship, even a great one, if we knew each other in person! I’m not the type of Christian that refuses to relate to others who don’t share my views. My best friend since I was 10 yrs old has never been to a church gathering in his life, outside of funerals and weddings, to my knowledge. Refusing to agree with someone is not that same as refusing to relate to them!
uoflcard,
Excellent, a fellow engineer. I’m an EE myself.
I would also agree that there are plenty of limits to human knowledge. But I would never agree that some knowledge is simply unknowable for all future living things (which you may or may not agree with, I can’t say). If we’re lucky, we can just wait for evolution to come up with something more intelligent, but there are no guarantees there.
I believe my point stands for the average Christian, but you don’t appear to fit into that mold so well. So I apologize for making that assumption.
I have no problem with assuming something for the sake of exploration or argument, but if I am going to assume that God is incomprehensible, then why should I assume that it is the Biblical God that exists when there are plenty of other deities who are more or less equally likely to exist? That is a huge jump, something I am not willing to do unless the Biblical God is more compelling than the rest. Without that, making an assumption that a specific deity exists is not something I can do without first coming to the conclusion that any deity exists.
Since you know your science, you should know it’s important to prove the general case first before you can start proving specific cases.
I believe the Bible portrays God as a being with a strong sense of justice. I also believe the Bible portrays a vision of hell that is an eternal punishment. I have no found a way to justify interpreting the Bible any other way. In light of this, I cannot find any way to justify your God’s eternal punishment in hell for finite sins on earth. Ergo, I am forced to assume that the Biblical God does not exist as described. Even Hitler and Stalin combined would not deserve an infinite punishment. This is only the first of many roadblocks that makes this assumption impossible. I believe the possibility to be there, but I consider is far less compelling than a material view of the universe.
OK, so what method can we use? I’ve yet to see any reliable method for gathering knowledge other than science and logic. If there is another method, then what can we gather from it? If there is only one piece of knowledge that we can gather using a different method, then this method is untestable and therefore dangerous to rely upon. Science is useful precisely because it has been tested and has stood up to testing. No other method has.
If the Bible is correct, then prayer works and it should be possible to prove that it works. The counter-argument is usually that God is clever enough to not show himself, but that necessarily means that prayer is set up in such a way that it doesn’t actually work as described in the Bible. So either the Bible is wrong about prayer, or the Bible is wrong about God.
The easiest way to show evidence of God’s existence is to show a scientific study that prayer has a positive effect. No such study exists at this time. There remains no good reason to believe that God exists. If there is another way to gather that knowledge without using science, then I invite you to present it, but it had better be testable or I could never rely on it.
As for your link, it was insightful, but it starts from the presumption that the Bible is reliable. I do not believe this to be the case. Our Mysterious God is unconvincing.
You wouldn’t agree with a new theory about gravity if it were untestable and presented in only one source? So why do hold the Bible in such high regard?
You’re using a definition of love that is contrary to the dictionary. This means that you and I (for starters) cannot communicate effectively using the word ‘love.’ The word ‘love’ has become useless in our conversation.
Because of this, when you say things like “My heart aches for those that either choose to reject God, have not been exposed to his words, or simply aren’t yet convinced.” It’s hard for me to take you seriously because your definition of ‘love’ is so different from mine. It’s impossible for me to say just how much different (since both of our definitions are subjective), but I can say that your statement doesn’t have much meaning with me as it stands.
If you want to provide a less ambiguous definition of ‘love’ for use in this conversation, then we’ll be able to communicate emotions effectively. As it stands, there’s a lot of ambiguity.
In other words, my range of emotions runs from strong hatred (which is very rare) to strong love (which is also very rare). Your range seems to run from mild love to strong love and there is no way for me to compare my feelings with yours. This is the basis for my complaint.
I wouldn’t describe myself as ‘waiting’, but I think I know what you mean.
One of the things that I fully believe (which may be a delusion) is that people will tend to believe what they want to believe. Here, you had to actively desire a belief in God in order to come to accept it. That’s not a logical thing to do. Darwin didn’t want to believe in evolution, and Einstein didn’t want to believe in relativity, they were forced to believe these things because that’s where the evidence led. With something metaphysical, you can’t start from the conclusion and work backwards, you lose a lot of objectivity that way. If there’s no way to prove that your reasoning is correct, why should it be accepted as truth? That’s a short path to a closed mind. It may be comforting, but it’s not at all convincing to an objective observer.
You also speak of God communicating with you. If that’s true, then why has God failed to communicate with pious believers such as Mother Theresa?
http://tinyurl.com/23kudz
Does God pick and choose who to communicate with, or is it a matter of the level of faith? If it’s a matter of the level of faith, then it’s impossible to communicate just how much faith is needed, so why should I take this idea seriously? It becomes a matter of a carrot on a stick, but you can’t actually see how far away the carrot is. I, for one, would never chase after such a carrot unless there was some other compelling reason.
I’m already perfectly content with the amount of warmth and love in my life (except during our Chicago winters, ugh). Furthermore, I’ve seen that Christians run about the same level of emotional range as I do, so what reason do I have to believe that I’m missing out on something?
If Jesus had healed the whole world, that would have been awfully convincing, no? If God knows the future, then God knew ahead of time that many of us would not be convinced and that in the future, even fewer would. Since God was not interested in convincing everyone I can only come to the conclusion that God was willing to sacrifice many of his flock instead of saving everyone.
That said, since I don’t consider the Bible to be reliable, why would I believe it accurately depicts Jesus’ miracles? I consider Islamic and Baha’i miracles to be equally convincing. Why should I pick one over the others?
Perhaps, but the train runs both ways. As long as you ignore all the noise here (aka, the guy named Phreedm along with some of the more vitriolic atheists here), this is as neutral a ground as you’re likely to find anywhere. Here we can both present our ideas and arguments in a calm and rational fashion. I don’t believe I’m more likely to be convinced in person. People tend to become very emotional about their religion and I believe I’m more likely to be annoyed and (possibly prematurely) start ignoring the messenger.
Furthermore, on the Internet religion doesn’t have the powerful force of social pressure behind it. I believe social pressure to be the most common reason for people to follow a religion. If I could prove that, I would, but I can’t.
I also agree with you about how disgusting some of the comments can be on the Internet. There really is a world of difference in the amount of cordiality. I try not to fall into that trap, I can only hope I’m successful.
Comment from: phreedm
And here we have a classic example of someone running with theory, and then forming an argument using that theory as fact…
Actually, the classic example of that is when religiously insane idiots like you try and use the not-even-good-enough-to-be-hypotheses from your big book of christian fairy tales to try and prove your religiously insane amoral philosophies…
Comment from: phreedm
Comment from: ☺ Seeker ☺
Are you being lazy? Read the text.
No, but you are. Just answer the question. What geographical area does Genesis 2 describe today? And why?
Straight out of grade school.
Is this an example of christian debating style (or lack thereof)?
Comment from: phreedm
I’ve asked twice…this makes three times. Yeah, copy and paste and explain…
And I’ve asked you, over and over again, why it is you think you are justified in demanding answers from others when you can’t be bothered to reply to others when they ask you something.
So, I’ll ask again for the (n+1)st time: why do you think you are justified in demanding answers from others, when you refuse to abide by this rule yourself?
(: tom
pheedy doesn’t answer questions. He just asks more questions or provides innuendo. I think he thinks he teaching by that method. But he’s really just making sure that he doesn’t provide any substance for anyone to tear apart, mostly because he doesn’t have any.
On an off-topic note, I found out that everyone in my lawyer’s office are, not quite atheists, but humanists, and while going over my discovery documents, his wife, secretary and I had a delightful free-though conversation. They were so thankful to have someone to talk to who wasn’t praising jeebus for everything! And I was ever so thankful to be in like company! We celebrated with cheesecake!
Mmm, cheesecake.
Who said atheism never gives you anything to celebrate?
karen – I wish I could say that I have the same type of experience within my office. But the christian types are very much into the using company time and resources for their religious purposes, and I get into trouble when I point out things like that. Which is one of the main reasons that I have problems with the religiously insane polluting the discussion here. You can’t even avoid having to deal with their delusional nonsense on a blog by atheists for atheists…
karen is exactly right. phreedm is here to antagonize us for the most part. so try and not get caught up in what he says but just needle him now and then so he knows that we appreciate his pitiful contributions to the site.
tom, i’m with you on having to deal with his continual pollution of the site. but he doesn’t ever get the hint and go away, because he is filled with hate for AA and atheists. isn’t hate one of the good xtian values that his god teaches.
Yeah (: tom
, this was certainly an anomaly, which was why I was so excited by it. My lapsed-RCC therapist (who voraciously supports my atheism) recommended this lawyer to me, and I see now that it was for more reason than that he is an excellent attorney.
There are few other havens of free-thought in this heavily-studded bible belt area. We should have a jeebus factor index, akin to the pollen index for allergies.
As for the blog pollution, we have had no luck in the time I have been here-since 06- in getting folks to just ignore the 4F factor. The other trolls come and go, but we can’t seem to reach a consensus on banning him or paying him no heed. He leads a church youth group and I’m sure he makes up tall tales from his exploits here to regale them with about how he is in a constant battle with the big bad atheists. Of course if they ever visited here, they could witness how weak his arguments are and how he never answers any questions. He’s still avoiding “Is this a white man’s nation?” from months and months ago. You might want to add that to your collective response that you give him regularly.
sayonara and karen, thanks for the comments.
I’m thinking that we could start a phreedm corps with the express purpose of haranguing those who think they have the right to spew their religiously insane kimchee without opposition around here.
I did not know that he was also polluting young children’s minds, and seducing them into his deviant lifestyle. I wonder how many of them will follow in his footsteps, and engage in mindless ranting on the nearest available internets soap box?
He still can’t provide any proof to back up any of his delusional fantasies. But he has provided a considerable amount of material here that shows how clueless and irrational the religiously insane are. And he’s been an inspiration for quite a few to re-evaulate, reconsider, and renounce their superstitious heritage (that I personally know of – there’s probably more out there who didn’t email me, thank me for taking a stand against this mental midget, and tell me that his superstitious raving caused them to reconsider their faith). Even (especially?) when deeply in the throes of delusional occult madness, religious phreakshows like this help advance atheism. I wonder if he’s aware of how much his comments help us? Maybe he’s a plant* after all…
* – not the kind that grows in soil – that would be a step up, evolution-wise, from his current state.