This is directed to my Christian friends here, coming from an atheist. I have been reading through some of the posts here, and I keep running across the same thing. It's got me very confused. Why is it that when asked a moral question, the answer is "because it is in the Bible." ? The line of logic seems to stop there.
Usually, it is accompanied by a quote from Scripture, and then something along the lines of, "it's clearly in the Bible. So that's why it's a sin. The Bible says so."
What it is about this book that I'm not getting? What kind of book is there that could possibly be so infallible that you would never question it's contents? Nothing can be wrong? Not even a translation error? As long as it's in the Bible, you can relax...it must be right! It's in the Bible. So we don't have to think any more?
I sincerely do not intend this to be insulting. I mean it as a question. Read this in a happy voice...not a sarcastic one. That is the tone I intend...and would prefer the answers to be in....
In an absolutely brilliant soliloquy in 'Gettysburg' Sgt. 'Buster' is talking to Col. Chamberlain about the 'colored' and that neither of them really knew many and found formulating an opinion about the race or the accusations made against that race difficult.
Buster makes a brilliant point when he says "people who judge by the group are pea-wits. You take men one at a time."
Why should you find a passage in the Bible here that seems moral, there that seems just and then decide to accept the whole? You run the risk, in this example, of being branded with no more wits about you than a pea.
Why not take the passages one at a time? It's a big, long, complicated text and to conclude that "I can really get behind the notions given in the sermon on the Mount, so the entire Bible is somehow validated" could be described as an over-reach.
I would also refer you to podcasts by the 'New Covenant Group.' The main hosts are both linguists. I am not. They assert that the koine Greek, Aramaic and First and Second temple Hebrew texts are consonantal. I've heard the description "It's a failed meta-language that is more akin to interpreting modern art than a clear rendering of concepts" and "No reputable Biblical scholar has yet claimed that they can decipher which vowel-pointings come closest to the intended meaning."
You'd agree that 'rod' 'rad' and 'red' use the exact same consonants, 'r' and 'd' but the insertion of different vowels changes the whole meaning of the 'r-d' word, right?
Imagine, if you will a whole book structured that way. Would you feel competent to definitively state which vowel is the 'correct' or 'intended' one? I wouldn't.
It occurs to me that when Christians discuss the 'rightness' of God's commands or decrees an often chilling realization is difficult to avoid; namely what some Christians consider 'right' or 'good' or 'moral' cannot be determined by we lowly humans.
I've heard William Lane Craig assert that "It's good that there are no Midianites or Amelekites around today, because, based on what he reads in the Bible he would be required to still be at war with them and he'd have no choice but to try and kill any he met." He leaves off revealing whether he would spare the 'virgin girls' he encountered.
He has also proposed that in the story commonly known as the slaughter of the innocents, it is not, in fact, the victims modern man should pity. Those deserving of pity are the poor soldiers who have to actually DO the killing, though I'm not sure why he says they are deserving of our pity.
They seemed to be carrying out God's will and those sorts of people are usually rewarded, are they not? If not here on earth then post-mortem.
These thought processes support the notion that God alone is the arbiter of justice, goodness and morality.
If God says "Slaughter those people," then, by definition, it is a moral act.
The rather obvious hypothetical question "What if God changes his mind about what he thinks is moral, just or good?" is rather creepily answered, "Well, he's the boss, so...."
It does not seem to me to be valid to say "Oh, well, God wouldn't change his mind" because successful petitions to, at least, MODERATE his edicts are extant in the text.
I haven't heard the 'consonantal' argument made about Greek, but I do know that fundamentalists accept the plain meaning of the Gospel texts in English, UNLESS doing so would pose a problem for their theology.
Case in point:
Matthew 24:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then will appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
....
Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place.
To accept the 'plain, literal meaning' of most verses, but to be so confounded by Matthew 24, that they do linguistical gymnastics to avoid "this generation" meaning "this generation" strikes me as intellectually dishonest. The motivation for those triple full twisting logical backflips is clear:
If they accept that the 1st Century Christians had it wrong and the prediction that Jesus would come a 2d time was dead wrong, they would have to admit their entire belief system has crumbled like a house built upon the sand.
This is one of numerous podcasts from the New Covenant Group:
I think it is in this one where the main host describes the woefully inadequate understanding most literalists have of 'the Scripture' they insist is literal and inerrant or even the insights that have been provided by a linguistic study of the Bible.
I don't have enough understanding of the topic to substantively add to this debate but can certainly appreciate the logic that 'reaching for the KJV' as somehow supporting this or that thesis is, essentially, intellectually conceding the argument.
Any claim, they seem to indicate, in which you hear someone say "My Bible CLEARLY says......" is spurious from the outset. This line of argumentation completely discounts the effect that the hands and pens of fallible humans SHAPING the text that has come to us today and that the meanings of passages or even the emphasis of certain passages is factually based on the editors and redactors through the ages as what the 'original author' intended.
This is one of numerous podcasts from the New Covenant Group:
I think it is in this one where the main host describes the woefully inadequate understanding most literalists have of 'the Scripture' they insist is literal and inerrant or even the insights that have been provided by a linguistic study of the Bible.
I don't have enough understanding of the topic to substantively add to this debate but can certainly appreciate the logic that 'reaching for the KJV' as somehow supporting this or that thesis is, essentially, intellectually conceding the argument.
Any claim, they seem to indicate, in which you hear someone say "My Bible CLEARLY says......" is spurious from the outset. This line of argumentation completely discounts the effect that the hands and pens of fallible humans SHAPING the text that has come to us today and that the meanings of passages or even the emphasis of certain passages is factually based on the editors and redactors through the ages as what the 'original author' intended.
Sorry, but I'm not going to waste an hour watching a video where I could absorb the whole thing in 5 minutes from reading a transcript. Just seeing the name "Hovind" also puts me off because the fraud Kent Hovind, now behind federal bars for lying and cheating, has his hopelessly silly site and goofy museum still plugging along with his son at the helm.
A agree that Biblical literalists get things hopelessly wrong by interpreting the myths of Genesis as if they actually happened.
My beef is these same literalists are perfectly willing to take Paul literally when he is condemning women as equals of men, but then they turn around and refuse to take Matthew 24 literally when it speaks clearly about 'this generation.'
BTW, I also won't watch some of these videos because the opposition is frequently inept. It's just too frustrating to watch.
If they accept that the 1st Century Christians had it wrong and the prediction that Jesus would come a 2d time was dead wrong, they would have to admit their entire belief system has crumbled like a house built upon the sand.
This strikes me as the most extreme example of what has been described as 'kindergarten' theology.
Let's take an example of a secular debate that, I think, is still not completely settled, but I do stand ready to be corrected: S. J. Gould vs. Dawkins, punctuated equilibrium vs..... you know, I'm not exactly sure of that concept's antonym.
Even a fleeting glance at how this argument between two eminent scholars has been perceived or used by the credulous to say "See, they don't have the details of evolution worked out. They don't have certainty, but we do and our certainty grants us the superior argumentative position."
The potential and I'd argue actual problem with adopting that position, namely equating uncertainty with invalidity, is that the believer's position must display a rigidity bordering on psychoses.
In one context, a fundamentalist believer literally cannot be reasoned with because it's pointless to do so: they cannot admit or allow themselves much uncertainty. To admit even the possibility of error in their own position opens them to the same criticism they level at scientific naturalism; "is what you're claiming 'truth' in the absolute sense?" "How can you claim to know anything if you admit you could be wrong?"
This "all or nothing" theological approach seems terribly short-sighted to me. It precludes dogmatic believers from even accepting the notion that their notions just might be wrong. It essentially eliminates the identification of rhetorical 'common ground' between the two sides. It raises the stakes of the argument to completely unnecessary, it seems to me, levels.
Why does "If you CAN prove one thing in the Bible isn't true, then you've proven that the WHOLE Bible isn't true" logically follow?
I don't see that at all. Does it not inculcate rigid dogmatism, rigid mindsets and a rigid relationship with whatever English translation they prefer?
lamar1234 wrote:
Even a fleeting glance at how this argument between two eminent scholars has been perceived or used by the credulous to say "See, they don't have the details of evolution worked out. They don't have certainty, but we do and our certainty grants us the superior argumentative position."
....
Why does "If you CAN prove one thing in the Bible isn't true, then you've proven that the WHOLE Bible isn't true" logically follow?
I don't see that at all. Does it not inculcate rigid dogmatism, rigid mindsets and a rigid relationship with whatever English translation they prefer?
The problem with the first is that they demand science be as simplistic as a cartoon; any honest disagreement about details gives them an opening. This approach only plays well to the kindergarten choir.
The second statement is valid IF it is preceded by a claim that the entire Bible is inspired by God and is without error. If that is their position, then why would not a single error prove they are wrong? If they take such a simple position that admits no doubts, no exceptions, then they've left themselves vulnerable to this admittedly simple attack.
You're free to skip it and I won't be mad at you. The climax of the encounter is actually more telling about Sye's point of view. Eric Hovind seems to have drunk deeply of the Sye Kool-Aid.
Sye continually harangues everyone on their own show about "Yeah, but you've already admitted that you could be wrong about everything you think you know" or "Oh, you're telling me something you KNOW now. How do you know that?" or "What is your definition of truth and how do you account for the logical absolutes in YOUR world-view?"
The producer of the show, in a moment of pure frustration cuts in on the conversation following one of these endless regressions and says "I'm sorry, but you've got to quit with this cheap trick of 'you could be wrong' it's tired, your point has been made and you're being rude."
Sye retorts "That's fine. Thank you for your time."
This is the exchange, I guess, backstage after the show:
A mere 8 minutes that recaps and encapsulates their on air exchange. I applaud the patience the cast and crew of 'The Place' showed toward a guest bound and determined to highjack the conversation.
You can sense the frustration of the host that Sye refuses to shake hands, insists on everyone present's immediate and total repentance and the self-satisfaction Sye demonstrates in what he must have felt was a 'job well-done.'
He, to me, personifies the barriers to civil discourse between believers and doubters (for lack of a better word). Sye MUST be totally correct. If this means everyone within earshot is then, by definition, totally in error, so be it. It is easily demonstrable that he treats others in conversation with him rudely, while claiming to 'love' them, he is dismissive of anyone's ideas or arguments against him, he claims that since he was a factory worker in a boiler room, this gives him some credibility in a philosophical debate about 'knowledge' itself.
He fails to admit or realize that, while he no longer works in a factory, he has entered the marketplace of ideas and refuses to acknowledge or accept that, though his ideas are borrowed from Van Till and that this line of argumentation contains problems and flaws that to this day haven't been adequately countered.
He's studied just enough to handle the average man on the street, yet not enough for him to realize no philosophical argument has yet been devised that doesn't have at least one potentially destructive flaw. He doesn't publish on anything more substantive than a blog, he doesn't cite, he asserts and then asserts again and then, just to be different, asserts some more.
He has blown the dust off an argument had by, I believe, the Vienna Society over a century ago. Though he postures as if he is this worldly, educated sage but when his base assertions and his bait-and-switch shenanigans with the definition of the word 'know' are demonstrated, he falls back on his old standby "All that from a man who can't know he isn't a brain in a vat."
He adheres to a pre-fabricated script that, if his opponent isn't aware at the outset of what he's doing or isn't philosophically educated, leads inexorably to the conclusion "....therefore you can't say you 'know' anything for certain, can you?"
You're free to skip it and I won't be mad at you. The climax of the encounter is actually more telling about Sye's point of view. Eric Hovind seems to have drunk deeply of the Sye Kool-Aid.
Sye continually harangues everyone on their own show about "Yeah, but you've already admitted that you could be wrong about everything you think you know" or "Oh, you're telling me something you KNOW now. How do you know that?" or "What is your definition of truth and how do you account for the logical absolutes in YOUR world-view?"
The producer of the show, in a moment of pure frustration cuts in on the conversation following one of these endless regressions and says "I'm sorry, but you've got to quit with this cheap trick of 'you could be wrong' it's tired, your point has been made and you're being rude."
Sye retorts "That's fine. Thank you for your time."
This is the exchange, I guess, backstage after the show:
A mere 8 minutes that recaps and encapsulates their on air exchange. I applaud the patience the cast and crew of 'The Place' showed toward a guest bound and determined to highjack the conversation.
You can sense the frustration of the host that Sye refuses to shake hands, insists on everyone present's immediate and total repentance and the self-satisfaction Sye demonstrates in what he must have felt was a 'job well-done.'
He, to me, personifies the barriers to civil discourse between believers and doubters (for lack of a better word). Sye MUST be totally correct. If this means everyone within earshot is then, by definition, totally in error, so be it. It is easily demonstrable that he treats others in conversation with him rudely, while claiming to 'love' them, he is dismissive of anyone's ideas or arguments against him, he claims that since he was a factory worker in a boiler room, this gives him some credibility in a philosophical debate about 'knowledge' itself.
He fails to admit or realize that, while he no longer works in a factory, he has entered the marketplace of ideas and refuses to acknowledge or accept that, though his ideas are borrowed from Van Till and that this line of argumentation contains problems and flaws that to this day haven't been adequately countered.
He's studied just enough to handle the average man on the street, yet not enough for him to realize no philosophical argument has yet been devised that doesn't have at least one potentially destructive flaw. He doesn't publish on anything more substantive than a blog, he doesn't cite, he asserts and then asserts again and then, just to be different, asserts some more.
He has blown the dust off an argument had by, I believe, the Vienna Society over a century ago. Though he postures as if he is this worldly, educated sage but when his base assertions and his bait-and-switch shenanigans with the definition of the word 'know' are demonstrated, he falls back on his old standby "All that from a man who can't know he isn't a brain in a vat."
He adheres to a pre-fabricated script that, if his opponent isn't aware at the outset of what he's doing or isn't philosophically educated, leads inexorably to the conclusion "....therefore you can't say you 'know' anything for certain, can you?"
Your excellent summary of this describes exactly what I don't like to watch. It's like watching Bill O'Reilly bullying and interrupting and yelling 'pinheads!' as if it means something.
Why expose yourself to such nonsense when you can't fight back with your own well placed question or comment? Too frustrating for me to just be a passive member of the audience.
While I may not be fully true on this, but believers were "brainwashed" the ways of their religion as young kids, before they could question, and therefore thought anything told to them was true. And since the bible is connected to Christianity, it is therefore perceived as true. While I can feel agitated of how people could not question such things like religion, I remind myself that a lot of people can't help it, as they are accustomed to it. The thing about the bible is that only it's own self proves that it is true. Basically, the bible says that god says that the bible is true and must be followed. While who knows how most religions start, people did not have the technology and intelligence to question things people "saw," and thus create believers.
