Intelligence is a Curse

[Erinome]

People who take the bible literally are too stupid for you to talk to? You defend logic and reason and yet you are so unreasonable in your passion to defend your views. You tell me that Christians should live by all of the bible, what does that even mean? Do you want us to invoke the laws of Deuteronomy and Leviticus even though we have been delivered from these laws? Do you want us to police other Christians to make sure they're following the teachings? You sound like a child, "Why can't everyone get along?" You seem to miss the fact that I can only make decisions for myself and you make decisions for yourself, meaning your desire to see all of Christendom live by the whole bible is pretty unrealistic, which in turn means that nothing a Christian says will be enough to satisfy you. You are on a quest to make us acknowledge the bloodshed in the history of the bible. To you I say: what of it?

Yes, people who take the bible seriously are incredibly daft. Even if it is just Genesis that is being taken literally, it's wholly ridiculous.

Tell me, what have I said that was unreasonable, and please do quote me. I am willing to consider if something I've said is unreasonable, but first I need to know what it was that I said specifically.

Yes. I think if Christians are going to defend and claim to live by the bible, then they should invoke all the laws in the bible. It's the word of God, right? At least Muslim nations aren't hypocritical. Allah says to put homosexuals and adulterers to death, and they do. The reason Christians selectively disregard Deuteronomy and Leviticus is because it's no longer a part of our culture. There is very little in the bible that is relevant to our modern culture because IT WAS WRITTEN THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO.
And, no, I do not want Christians to police other Christians to make sure they are following the teachings. I want Christians to stop putting stock into those teachings, and move along to the 21st century. We're in the information age now. Rejoice in that, I say.

I do not actually desire all Christians to live by the whole bible. That is unrealistic, but at the time it was written, it was law, and you either lived by the whole fucking thing or you were killed. What I desire is for Christians to put that disgusting, dark, and hate filled book of irrelevant bullshit down, and get a grip on TODAY"S reality.

Why should anything a Christian has to say satisfy me? Why would I drop all my knowledge and understanding, and be satisfied by the nonsense of someone who believes ancient, allegorical texts to be factual, when they have not a shred of evidence? Why should I accept testimonies of faith over evidence? They don't in a court of law, so why should I?

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What of it indeed?

People who take the Bible literally - as in actually believe the world was created in six days, and that whole lot of crap - are experiencing a massive cognitive dissonance that makes me worry about their sanity. It means they are ignoring all of the information we have obtained since that book was written down - since their stories were first oral traditions from people with goats and tents! - and sticking to iron age beliefs.

In my mind it seems easier for some people to "relinquish" their control of their own judgment over to "Jesus" rather than reasoning through things. Thus they look to the Bible for inspiration, and it's a shite book to do so because of the ability to cherry pick whatever information you want in order to justify yourself. This is what happens when you take a book of stories and invest it with divine meaning. Thus those atrocities mentioned are just as apt to be used for justification as Jesus' teachings are for love. I hate to burst yours or any other Christian's bubble, but it's perfectly feasible for you to put down the book of conflicting stories and be just as wonderful a person as you are simply by having compassion and empathy. I do not need to be told what the "right" thing to do is because god or Jesus told me so. In my mind, by telling people they are inherently sinners and then saying they have to give themselves over to Christ in order to avoid that sin, you create nothing but more sinners as they lose their belief that they have the power to take their life into their own hands. It's also part and parcel with misguided societal rules that became bound up specifically in Judaism itself, passed down to Christianity - values about sex and marriage, etc, that really have no bearing on our current society.

A woman telling Alei that intelligence is a curse is struggling against her own crisis of faith as she realizes discrepancies in the Bible. Humility is not the answer, and I rather find it insulting to listen to people say they only did what they accomplished through the power of God. Even on my best days struggling with the fact that I didn't believe, I couldn't bring myself to think that an all-powerful God gave a shit about our minute struggles (especially those assholes in sports who say they won because of Jesus). Also, if we were specifically created in his/her image, how is it in any way a point of pride to continually debase yourself against these god-given gifts? Rather, it would seem more productive to me for people to be more honest with themselves about their abilities and put them to use propping up others, sharing and sharing alike. No need to be falsely humble just to make other people feel better about themselves.

I rather think a lot of generalizations are being made here. Not all Christians loathe intelligence - in fact I know a number of rather emotionally and mentally stimulating people of different faiths. The distinction you have to make is whether or not they have that ridiculous CD working against them. Some people just feel better believing that in the end there is something watching out for them, even though they continue to power through their lives under their own steam. I've got no beef with those people, unless they want to get into an argument with me. I DO have beef with anyone of any faith who wants to say that knowledge is dangerous to God. If God created the world, then he/she created the evidence that we're now finding. Isn't that reasonable? Unless you want to assume a devil, which I have to admit I never do - such a concept never entered into mainstream Jewish thought. The only thing I can suss out of this is the concept that we shouldn't seek to be like god and know all things, because only god is capable of doing so. That still doesn't make any sense - if god is an all-powerful being, more than likely we will never as a human race know all there is to know and understand, so really it's more like God were one of us making sure we as ants never progressed past our little dirt hills.

All knowledge is worth having. No one should ever be scared of intelligence, and I further suspect that Alei's friend was suffering from a sense of insecurity realizing that her friend had intelligence she lacked - or rather, had never explored. I won't be so mean as to say she's not capable of it, but I will say her insistence on clinging to the idea that she musn't explore it in order to maintain her faith is reprehensible and sickening to the extreme.

This is a very reasonable assessment. You're more patient than I am, I can tell, but I can't disagree with you a bit.

She isn't a stupid person, just scared, and I could tell. I really do think that most theists cling to their doctrines out of fear. I have converted one Christian to Atheism. We had a long talk about it, and instead of interrupting me, and putting his fingers in his ears while rocking back and forth, singing lalalalaah.. he listened. I explained everything, and by the time I was finished he had this look of pain in his eyes. I put my hands on his shoulders, looked him in the eye, and said "It's okay.". He burst into tears, hugged me, and thanked me for freeing him from his ignorance. He and I are still very good friends, and he is currently attending college and majoring in Biology. Before that night he had never questioned. He only believed.