Believers, put yourself in my place.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

 

The existence of my wife defeats his strawman. She is an atheist who is not a naturalist.

My hex-wife was an unnaturalist.

[Foxaèr]

Believers cannot put themselves any place except Jesus' place.

[Crossless2.0]

Isn't it funny how we can call the Greek gods mythology, but people get offended if you say the same thing about Christian mythology?

Many (Most? Nearly all?) would take offense to any pairing of Christianity with mythology if by mythology you mean "not true". I do not. Greek mythology has many truths within it. Mythology and religion are parallel approaches to spiritual reality. A mythological outlook looks for truths that are not contingent on historical facts. Bibilical exegisis takes this approach as well. The story of the Exodus conveys many truths regardless of its historical accuracy or even if never happened at all. The intellectual poverty of atheism is its inability to recognize and work with truths that are not directly bound to physical facts.

This again? To hear you say it, atheists are so intellectually and imaginatively impoverished that we would read Moby Dick and conclude that it's nothing more than a story about a whaling voyage gone wrong. We're not all such bad readers, Chad. I certainly don't think "Genesis" is historically true (I doubt you do, either), yet it ranks among my favorite books, and I have read it several times with great pleasure and feel enriched by the experience despite not believing in Yahweh. Mythology/religion does offer a pathway to certain insights about human nature. If you want to call it 'true' I won't quibble, though I prefer 'meaningful'.

Try to bear in mind that the "fundamentalist" approach to the Bible that you see with so many atheists has to do with the sort of Christians most likely to proselytize us -- Baptists and Evangelicals, for the most part. A good many atheists were also raised in such households, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that Protestant Bible Thumpers with their crude "The Bible Says It; I Believe It; That Settles It" attitude are the go-to stereotype many people think of when they hear "Christian".  I agree that it's a poor way to approach Christians as a group and a terrible way to read the Bible, regardless of which side indulges in it, but you've seen many examples of those same believers here at AF. If you want nuance, you're wise to drift toward Catholicism.

But damn it, Chad, stop characterizing all of us as being just as dim as you likely think some of your co-religionists are when it comes to reading and understanding your book.

[Catholic_Lady]

Some of you will recoil in horror, but some of you will be able to imagine that you are looking at your religion from the outside. If you can do that I ask you to consider what your religion would look like without the assumption of divinity. For example, the Greek gods. Few, if any, people still worship the Olympian gods, so it's "safe" to discuss them and their rather naughty habits. You would, however, get a few million people seriously upset if you question Mary's virginity. 

For those of you who can make the leap, please keep in mind that your gods are equivalent to the Olympians in my mind. I'm not out to destroy your belief or turn your churches into brothels (even if it would be great idea), I just don't believe your god or gods are any more special than the panoply of discarded gods that came before and after yours. 

/probablewasteoftime

Every religion that is not my own is a religion I look at from the outside. I imagine I probably wouldn't feel any differently about Catholicism as I do about Protestantism, Judaism, Buddhism, Hindu, etc etc if I was something other than Catholic. I don't feel a need to keep putting those people down, or calling them stupid, or mocking something that is so close to their hearts.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Dupe.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

 I don't feel a need to keep putting those people down, or calling them stupid, or mocking something that is so close to their hearts.

Then I suggest you stop that. 

[Minimalist]

Mythology and religion are parallel approaches to spiritual reality.

"Spiritual reality" is an oxymoron.

[AceBoogie]

If atheism was simply the lack of belief in god(s) then cabbages are atheists. It’s a dodge. Atheism is actually an opinion about the proposition that god(s) exist.

Robvalue retreats from my critique (atheism does not recognize and cannot work with spiritual truths) on the grounds that it was a definitive statement and not a generalization open to qualification. In fact the opinion that god(s) do not exist is overwhelmingly associated with ontological naturalism.  If his wife is an exception then she is certainly in the minority.

But back on point, the topics in Exodus are not confined to a slave revolt, inexplicable plagues, and the adventures of an ancient people during migration. When someone who doesn’t believe in God reads Exodus only things such as those are subject to inquiry. Did this happen and if so when? Etc. On the other hand the believer reads the text to learn about things like Divine Providence. If someone doesn’t believe in a spiritual truth like Providence it doesn’t make any sense for him inquire about how it works.

Wrong. A cabbage cannot choose to have any beliefs, or lack thereof, because it is not a conscious being. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any god or gods. Whatever assumptions you make about atheists are your own assumptions and have nothing to do with any actual atheists.

It's very possible that most atheists are naturalists... so what? What exactly is your point?

No.... Try to understand, if we can't look at Exodus, or any of the other books in the bible for that matter, and find historical accuracy within its claims or stories, then what is the bible? That makes the bible just a book of loosely connected, fictional stories that are supposed to teach us something about how to live our lives. Then we consider the fact that the bible condones slavery, violence, genocide, etc. etc. and we realize that its not even very good at teaching us how to live. So then that just makes it a bronze age book of loosely connected fictional stories. Huh... go figure.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Whoa there! Some stamps have airplanes on them, so all stamps are a type of airplane. See?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Wrong. A cabbage cannot choose to have any beliefs, or lack thereof, because it is not a conscious being. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in any god or gods.

To be an atheist "simply" means not having a belief in god.
A cabbage is not a conscious being. Therefore...
A cabbage cannot have any beliefs. Therefore...
A cabbage cannot believe in god. Therefore...
A cabbage is an atheist.

So if you define atheism as simply the lack of belief in god the your definition is trivial.