People voting with their feet

[Springheel]

I thought the discussion had reached a natural ending point a few posts ago, but I'd like to end off on a bit of a summary, in case the subject should come up again (as it generally does).

 

We've established that those who are hostile to homosexuals can easily find direct justification for their bigotry in the Bible, including clear directions that homosexuals should be killed.

 

We've established that you can use the Bible to justify all kinds of beliefs and behaviours, both good and bad. People come to the Bible with their views of what is good and bad already set, and then they cherry-pick the verses that support their views, ignoring the ones that don't. "Of course Noah's Ark is just a fable, and God doesn't really want us to kill people who work on the Sabbath anymore, but he definitely hates homosexuality because the Bible says so!"

 

Since there is no reasonable way to demonstrate how your interpretation of scripture is right and someone else's is wrong, thousands of different Christian sects have flourished, all of them strongly disagreeing with each other about some element of Biblical interpretation (and fighting vigorously--often to the death--among themselves).

 

I think the above has been agreed upon by all involved.

 

My followup assertion is that if there were thousands of different ways to interpret the Iliad, no one would care. But because we've given the Bible some kind of "magical" status, people pick the verses they like and then believe that they have "God on their side". Even the Nazis had "Gott Mit Uns" (God With Us) inscribed on their belts. With God on your side, all things are permitted.

 

My final position was that society would be much better off if we did away with dogma and unjustified certainty of all types. It is certainty, without good reason, that allows bigots, or nazis, or any particular religious sect, to claim that God is on their side. Perhaps a little humility is in order. There is nothing wrong with being uncertain, with saying, "I hope a god exists, but I don't really know--in the meantime I'm going to live a good life and try not to harm others". If people did that just a little more often, just imagine how much kinder and more neighbourly our world would be.

[Mortem Desino]

Sure. That's a fair summary.

 

The only point I still refute is that these are "clear directions." Some "clear directions", in my opinion, are as valid as me opening up Genesis 22 and proceeding to kill my son. Where in Genesis 22 that whole account was concluded a lot sooner, we've all got such low attention spans that we can't even find the apodasis's to the civil (kill the homosexual), moral (do not commit adultery), and ceremonial (how to become ceremonially clean again) laws. Scripture is not a simple English "do and don't do" textbook 4 dummiez; Scripture interprets scripture.

 

Confirmation bias (I'll vehemently defend my own beliefs!) and belief perseverance (I can't accept that I could possibly be wrong!) heuristics have long made the discussion rather looooooooooooong.

[jdude]

To summarize my stance: There's good people in bad religions, and bad people in good religions. I think bad people would find other ways to justify their bad behavior even if religion didn't exist, and they do. What's important is to be kind to one another regardless of one's beliefs or lack of.

[Mortem Desino]

Absolutely. Before I found the Dark Mod, I administrated a few Video Game servers. One server owner was/is a proud homosexual and agnostic. I voiced my disapproval, but never disrespected him.

 

I found an interesting website tailored to smart atheists and skeptics. http://www.rationalchristianity.net. (EDIT: nope. Bad arguments and doctrine scattered within.) The author has an occasional problem with reformed doctrine creeping in, but is fairly good as a whole. If there's any question or objection not covered there, I guess I can motivate my tongue to waggle some more.

[Springheel]

I found an interesting website tailored to smart atheists and skeptics. http://www.rationalchristianity.net

 

Er, am I missing something? The first link I clicked on (about Noah's Ark) just had a couple Bible verses and links to off-site articles, including Answers in Genesis (a terrible apologist site I'm familiar with) and an article that talks about how Noah could have fit 16000 animals (including dinosaurs) on the ark because, "these animals were young, but not newborns. Even the largest dinosaurs were relatively small when only a few years old."

 

A few more clicks finds this explanation for why God allows suffering and evil in his creation: "Furthermore, a universe that never contained beings who did evil would mean that God would have no opportunity to act justly or mercifully, or to display his love for his creation"

 

Seriously?

 

I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or whether this just further illustrates your point about confirmation bias--that people who already believe something will easily accept a weak argument as long as it confirms their belief. That concept is consistently demonstrated by religious believers, who can easily see the flaws in the arguments of other religions, but not their own. Christians are quick to point out the flaws in Islam, Jews can clearly point out the flaws in Christianity, etc, etc. But each group can't see how the arguments for their own religion are equally suspect.

 

Anyway, didn't mean to drag this on further, but your recommendation of that site perplexed me.

[Mortem Desino]

Wow. Neeeevermind. I take my recommendation back, as I read further and further outside the "Objections to Christianity" section. Crypto-calvinism, reformed doctrine, and some weird false dichotomies, and even contradictions, all riddle parts of the site. Unacceptable.

 

I think answersingenesis is trash anyways. I was limiting it to within the site, not offsite links.