(February 4, 2016 at 7:35 pm)Brian37 Wrote:
Quote:Intent aside, it is still a judgmental attitude, and one not based on modern understanding of biology. It is still and old book and that book is still chalk full of xenophobia and bigotry, which teaches self loathing and dependency on the cosmic boss. There is no polite way to put it.All religions teach one doctrine: Believe and obey without exception.
You are doomed even before you can formulate an adult thought. And based on what? "Sins of the father". Why should you or I for that matter have to run a lifetime of a gauntlet from birth to death because of what Adam and Eve did? Not that it was a real story, but the ideal is utterly vile to me looking back now. That would be like blaming me for slavery even though I wasn't around back then.
AND the worst part is as the story goes, Adam and Eve were innocent, and they ended up being poker chips in a bet between God and Lucifer. They had no say in the set up, they were given no explanation, they were not asked for their input beyond Adam getting to name the animals. And Eve is the very first story scapegoating a women, treating her as the cause as if Adam was her victim not partner. Looking at it now, both those characters as a motif are victims.
I know believers don't like viewing it in a negative light, I get that. But from Genesis all the way through the bible, humans are not treated as independent thinkers they are only treated as "thinkers" as long as they promote the tribe or glorify the tribe and defeat outsiders. AT BEST the books of Abraham will tolerate outsiders and minorities as long as they accept their place in the social order.
Once you buy that you are "chosen" of course from your point of view you are not being condescending, but to those who don't share your religion it does come across as such.
Thats why we prefer believers try to stick to providing evidence, rather than preach about what they like believing. We know what you believe, many of us were in a religion. The real question believers need to ask themselves WHY do you feel the need to be "chosen". And unless you have scientific evidence that their is a superior race or religion, then all you can say is you picked a club you like.
There are 7 billion humans, 10,000s of sects of all the worlds major religions and even more small obscure religions. It seems to me absurd for any religion worldwide to claim to have special powers or even special insight as to human morality or even a working scientific understanding of why humans are either cruel or compassionate.
We don't think we are right based on mere opinion. And we don't think we are right because we think we are more moral or better. We too are still individuals. We take the position that there is no god because science currently is running at an increasing pace away from that gap answer. Our modern knowledge is leaving those old claims in the dust. Just like we know the earth is not flat, and that is ok.
Giving up on old claims and bad claims is how humanity progresses and learns and grows.
Critical thinking and questions are to be avoided. Do as you're told to do and how you're told to do it. And if you do that you will go to heaven and not end up in hell (or the volcano).
Ezekiel changed the rules to where every person is only responsible for his own sins. Jesus reinforced that and Mohammed adopted that line of thinking. So no one has to worry over what Adam & Eve did. He only has to worry about what he does himself, under the revised rules. Of course some governments continue to punish the sons for their fathers' crimes. And in America we all like to blame the entire group for the crimes of the individual.
