How not to start a conversation with a skeptic...I think

[robvalue]

"English forms naturally at the back of the brain."

~Ricky Gervais

[brewer]

I think that christian scholars would do their utmost best to get the translation correct. They have given the world the best of the best. And yet the contradictions still exist. Maybe they should try for a bible 2.0.  

So now you're saying the bible in english can't be trusted to be accurate. Good job christians.

Give me an example of a contradiction.

You'll need to take that up with the OP. I'm only taking issue with your argument.

[Huggy Bear]

"Excuse, me, God. Could you just tell me what this word should say? We're having some disagreement. In fact, someone just killed my family because of it. We apparently talk quite often, you and I, so it shouldn't be too much or a hardship for you to clear this up."

"I'm so fucking mysterious. Free will."

"Thanks mate."

---

That's why the new testament was written in Greek, it was the most commonly spoken language of the time, much like English is now. It's not that hard to search a Hebrew or Greek lexicon if you want to know what a word meant originally.

What you guys don't get with English is that words change in meaning over time...

But still not a nice universal language that never changes meaning and can't possibly be misunderstood. Even God has his limits, I guess. Unless he could do that, but he actually wants us to argue about what it means. Cut off each other's nobs and that.

If you guys know the bible like you say you do then you'd know that you can only gain understanding of it through revelation, being able to read it means nothing.

At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. - Matthew 11:25

[Astonished]

"Excuse, me, God. Could you just tell me what this word should say? We're having some disagreement. In fact, someone just killed my family because of it. We apparently talk quite often, you and I, so it shouldn't be too much or a hardship for you to clear this up."

"I'm so fucking mysterious. Free will."

"Thanks mate."

---

But still not a nice universal language that never changes meaning and can't possibly be misunderstood. Even God has his limits, I guess. Unless he could do that, but he actually wants us to argue about what it means. Cut off each other's nobs and that.

If you guys know the bible like you say you do then you'd know that you can only gain understanding of it through revelation, being able to read it means nothing.

At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. - Matthew 11:25

Dude, every single one of your posts in here has left me literally speechless. I mean, the level of intellectual vapidity required to have such a fundamental misunderstanding of logic, reality, even your own worldview, it's staggering. This is why it's so heartbreaking seeing what religion, even this nice-nice cherry-picking la-di-da version you seem to hold onto, is doing to you. When you're ready to accept help, we're always here, but for the life of us, you make it so damned hard to get to the point where you're willing to listen to reason.

[Neo-Scholastic]

The Bible is a honking pile of wank.

I'm sorry, but that's just how I feel.

Feeling aren't evidence, mate.

[Huggy Bear]

If you guys know the bible like you say you do then you'd know that you can only gain understanding of it through revelation, being able to read it means nothing.

Dude, every single one of your posts in here has left me literally speechless. I mean, the level of intellectual vapidity required to have such a fundamental misunderstanding of logic, reality, even your own worldview, it's staggering. This is why it's so heartbreaking seeing what religion, even this nice-nice cherry-picking la-di-da version you seem to hold onto, is doing to you. When you're ready to accept help, we're always here, but for the life of us, you make it so damned hard to get to the point where you're willing to listen to reason.

Please.

Since you claim the bible contradicts itself how about posting one of those contradictions for starters.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Firstly, you cannot start with the presumption that there is any truth in your holy book. That has already been proven false scientifically in so many cases, and has failed to overturn this determination, and for obvious reasons. Do not make the claim that your holy book contains any truth, you make yourself look like either an ignoramus or a liar

No truth? None whatsoever? Zero? Nada? That’s a bit of an overstatement. First, none of the 66 books in the canonical bible are science manuals. You must take each as they are. Otherwise let’s suppose that as just raw documents handed down to us from ancient history, let’s assume that they are not entirely reliable. Neither are Thucydides, Tacitus, Plutarch, or Aeschylus free of the fantastic or apparent fabrications and yet few scholars find it problematic to say that they contain plausible and discernible truths related to real people and actual events.

It doesn't help anyone to ignore scientific findings or things that are simply blindingly obvious, and again, gives you a bad impression in the eyes of skeptics. One of the main problems we have is the denial of or discounting of the value of the scientific method.

I agree that’s a pretty pathetic approach. That kind of thinking by some Christians is pernicious. God is the god of all knowledge, not a gap-filler. Two of the central and unique beliefs of Christianity are that the physical universe has a rational order and Man’s capacity for reason reflects a rational Creator. The efficacy of the scientific method is one of the key justifications for belief in that type of God. This could easily lead to a discussion about the inadequacy and magical nature of modern materialism, but that is generally beyond the scope of your justifiable rant.

Thirdly, please consider that statistically speaking (this goes to point 2) skeptics know more about your holy books than you do. …-The holy book contains contradictions, outright falsehoods and numerous signs of deliberate tampering in most cases -Morality based on a carrot-and-stick reward-and-punishment system is to fail to understand what is moral and thus morals do not come from any holy book, authority figure, and are not in any way absolute nor objective -If you attempt to discount or discard parts of your holy book because of how they fail to appeal, or have been proven misleading, your attempts to give validity to the rest are completely pointless;

Perhaps. Many atheists come, not surprisingly, from fundamentalist backgrounds. They also carry with them a literalist approach to the biblical texts that has a modern origin. Your critique is damning not of the texts themselves but rather a flawed way of looking at them. This leads into your fourth point…

… you do not get to exempt yourself from the fundamentalism of other believers if you claim that you get your worldview and morals from your holy books…until you acknowledge that you are really using your own internal moral compass to reject the bad parts of your holy book. It will do wonders for your self-esteem, too. This will also save you the trouble of attempting to justify atrocities in your holy books…

Mmmmm…yes I can. Just because there is debate about how to approach a religious text doesn’t mean that all interpretations are equally valid or even reasonable. Historians have legitimate debates about purely secular texts, particularly those that come from ancient and medieval sources. No one would suggest that because historians disagree about certain events it follows that they are all wrong. The solution to bad theology is good theology.

Without the threat of a terrible afterlife, the bribe of a wonderful one (though this is impossible in principle anyway), other emotional appeals, can you give a single good reason why we should not look at you like you are someone in desperate need of psychological assistance?

Are you suggesting that reasonable people cannot disagree? Why do you belief that someone with a different opinion than you must have some pathology? It sounds like the person who sent you that PM was not very informed or tactful.

[Astonished]

Hugs, have you been living under a rock? How can you have never, ever, heard a single contradiction in your holy book? Even if you disagreed, you still have to be aware of them. Again, this smacks of being willfully dishonest or so disgustingly ignorant, it makes me question if it's even worth it. But here's one just to humor you.

God is supposed to be all-loving. Or such is the impression the la-di-da crowd hold. But he drowns all but 8 people at one point. Let's not forget the human sacrifices either. The plagues and taking away Pharaoh's free will, a violation of the thing apologists throw around like an endless supply of frisbees. There is ZERO excuse for any of this to still make the first sentence true. If that statement isn't true, the entire character of the subject of the book is false and should be discarded as an object of worship and adherence.

I don't give a half a fuck if you say that first statement is not actually stated in the bible. I really don't. Again, recall how subjectivity demolishes any small idea that there's any truth at all (or any truth there is in it would be so obvious it hardly merits acknowledging). What matters is that there is no belief centered around it that is not irrational and has an easily contradicted point about the evil shit and the la-di-da bits. So if it's in degrees, and god is just a so-so "yeah, I can take humans or leave them" sort of personality, again, the laundry list of atrocities is more than enough justification to say that even that is a load of shit and he's nothing but a belligerent monster, completely unworthy of worship because we are regarded as nothing more than disposable ants beneath a magnifying glass.

Neo, see the bolded part in the previous paragraph for my response about there being 'no truth', or none worth giving the book itself credit for (because it's not remotely the oldest document nor religion in history).

But you disappoint me because while your points start out sounding reasonable, you start to delve into excuses and apologetics that are just so childishly pathetic it makes me wonder how you were even capable of conceiving of the stuff at the beginning. You're basically making a claim that you have a unique truth that 99.99999% of other Christians are too deluded to understand because your understanding of the bible is the right one, out of the billions of different interpretations. Do you not get how fundamentally dishonest, not to mention IMPOSSIBLE, that is? It is absolutely, like the name says, astonishing that you must see this criticism of your arguments all the damn time and still never get it through your head that there's a good reason for that.

[Rhondazvous]

Firstly, you cannot start with the presumption that there is any truth in your holy book. That has already been proven false scientifically in so many cases, and has failed to overturn this determination, and for obvious reasons. Do not make the claim that your holy book contains any truth, you make yourself look like either an ignoramus or a liar, and that's never a good impression to give. You're already going in Phew...so, am I being too hard? Too defensive and sensitive? I just feel like it's impossible not to feel like my intelligence is being insulted when someone approaches me with whatever seemingly friendly intent they might have. Since most of us have been where theists are and have the benefit of being on the inside looking out and the outside looking in, for them to not consider this and meet us half-way is already pretty condescending, in my opinion. But like I said, I'm sick, I'm tired and that PM really pissed me off, so maybe I'm wrong all over. But let's hear it, what do you guys think?
[/quote]
We know the bible is full of some crazy stuff, so we know the people who believe the bible are going to say crazy things. It's easy to get exasperated, but don't let them control the whole rest of your day. Don't let them make you sick and pissed off. Those are your emotions and it's your power to control what kind of day you're going to have. Why give that power to people who you know are crazy?

[Ravenshire]

---

I got a PM from someone who had some frankly very immature ideas about how to open a dialogue with someone about their faith and the other's skepticism. Let me start with a list of some things I think are critical for theists to understand before they open their mouths with the intention of trying to convert someone or, at the very least, convince them that faith isn't the worst thing to befall humanity since pathogens. This may be just my own opinion and I'd really like to hear what other atheists and/or skeptics think, if you agree, vehemently disagree, and of course, why or why not, since we should theoretically like justifying beliefs, right? I'm going to frame it as a letter to a theist, even though I doubt any of them would care to read it. I've got something of a reputation, apparently.

Firstly, you cannot start with the presumption that there is any truth in your holy book. That has already been proven false scientifically in so many cases, and has failed to overturn this determination, and for obvious reasons. Do not make the claim that your holy book contains any truth, you make yourself look like either an ignoramus or a liar, and that's never a good impression to give. You're already going in with the label of 'deluded' to anyone who doesn't share your beliefs, so think twice about how you want to bring your holy book into the discussion, if you bring it in at all, which probably won't help. If there is no information in a holy book that can't be determined through the scientific method or common sense, even what little truth it does contain is irrelevant. Prophecy is also right out, though I'm not going to go into why, but it's easy enough to find why on youtube.

Secondly, show us that you respect facts and information so it doesn't give us the impression that you are just going to stonewall every point WE make, otherwise it's a one-way conversation and neither side benefits. It doesn't help anyone to ignore scientific findings or things that are simply blindingly obvious, and again, gives you a bad impression in the eyes of skeptics. One of the main problems we have is the denial of or discounting of the value of the scientific method. You don't have to deny that you still believe what is in your holy book despite what science says, but you better have a damn good reason or you can't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Thirdly, please consider that statistically speaking (this goes to point 2) skeptics know more about your holy books than you do. Be prepared to acknowledge when we point out things that you may not know (most of us have been there before deconversion) and not outright deny them, but either agree to look it up later or do it on the spot if you so happen to be where you can do that. This point comes with three seemingly insurmountable obstacles that you need to address for there to remain any reason to bring a holy book into the discussion at all:
-The holy book contains contradictions, outright falsehoods and numerous signs of deliberate tampering in most cases
-Morality based on a carrot-and-stick reward-and-punishment system is to fail to understand what is moral and thus morals do not come from any holy book, authority figure, and are not in any way absolute nor objective
-If you attempt to discount or discard parts of your holy book because of how they fail to appeal, or have been proven misleading, your attempts to give validity to the rest are completely pointless; if you aren't sure why that is, I'm really not sure what to tell you. Something about flipping a coin comes to mind.

Fourth (and I'm running out of main points; not sure if that's because I'm tired and/or sick), you do not get to exempt yourself from the fundamentalism of other believers if you claim that you get your worldview and morals from your holy books. There is no moral difference between a fairweather Christian and a Muslim suicide bomber when the way they arrived at their conclusions (as different as those conclusions may be) because both positions are equally defensible from the standpoint of each holy book, as well as the opposite interpretation in each book. Let me explain why this is, if you think this is unreasonable: If a person gets behind the wheel of a car drunk and makes it home safely, how are they morally any different from someone who hit and killed someone during their drunk drive home? Same method of arriving at a conclusion (irrationality), different results. No moral difference. Not until you acknowledge that you are really using your own internal moral compass to reject the bad parts of your holy book. It will do wonders for your self-esteem, too. This will also save you the trouble of attempting to justify atrocities in your holy books, as this is something we have probably all completely lost our taste for. As well as the failed, morbid moral lessons those books teach and yet you reject. If you are at the very least willing to say that there is no excusing some of these all-too-human (and evidently NOT divine) writings, once again, you do nothing but give off an air of dishonesty or at least naivete.

Fifth...if there is no evidence other than anecdotal, philosophical word sludge and all of the other dishonest approaches outlined about, why would you expect any of us to take you seriously? Without the threat of a terrible afterlife, the bribe of a wonderful one (though this is impossible in principle anyway), other emotional appeals, can you give a single good reason why we should not look at you like you are someone in desperate need of psychological assistance?

I think that's about all I can come up with. Really, you've got a tremendous uphill battle from the very beginning, so think about this: Why is it that your arguments have not changed, nor succeeded, in thousands of years? They uniformly fail just as hard today as they always did. Do you not think there's something to this lack of success that comes from following the same script? Adaptation (evolution, baby) is key, and it's one of the hallmarks of the rational mind. Learning new facts, adjusting one's beliefs accordingly rather than stubbornly remaining in one place despite all the implications. Not saying that something is always absolutely moral or immoral 100% of the time or that it is so because someone 'said so'. You can't really expect anything that you have to offer to be more tempting than that if you can't actually deliver on those promises because they naturally can't have the same success rate as science, for one of the biggest reasons we reject faith in the first place.

Phew...so, am I being too hard? Too defensive and sensitive? I just feel like it's impossible not to feel like my intelligence is being insulted when someone approaches me with whatever seemingly friendly intent they might have. Since most of us have been where theists are and have the benefit of being on the inside looking out and the outside looking in, for them to not consider this and meet us half-way is already pretty condescending, in my opinion. But like I said, I'm sick, I'm tired and that PM really pissed me off, so maybe I'm wrong all over. But let's hear it, what do you guys think?

---

I like how you atheists seem to think you know the bible, but can't seem to grasp that the Bible wasn't originally written in English and therefore what you perceive as a contradiction is not so in the context of the original language.

You're absolutely right, except that even biblical scholars accept that there are contradictions.