Because the bible tells you so?

[Nope]

Religion is ridiculous but the reasons why many people are religious is not. Some people have vulnerabilities that religion addresses. It is actually sad that they need to turn to what is essentially a drug to deal with life.

[Exian]

How could I ever forget that?

I feel you are over thinking the issue. It is not necessary to take it seriously. In fact. taking it with a grain of salt is best. Theists crave to be taken seriously. Strive to deny them that.

Haha You're the shit, Min. Maybe "take it seriously" isn't the best way to put it. When I see my fellow atheists on here arguing with theists, and they're able to recall exact passages, I'm thinking "How the fuck?" Lol My knowledge of the bible is probably somewhere between the low-end (theists) and the high-end (atheists). I couldn't quote the damn thing in an argument, but I know most of the characters and stories, and the chronology. I know what was going on in other parts of the world when Abraham was supposedly walking around, for example. The only interest I've ever had with the bible was in forming a timeline with the real world (I'm reluctant to call it an historical interest).

[Nope]

How could I ever forget that?

I feel you are over thinking the issue.   It is not necessary to take it seriously.   In fact.  taking it with a grain of salt is best.   Theists crave to be taken seriously.   Strive to deny them that.

Haha You're the shit, Min. Maybe "take it seriously" isn't the best way to put it. When I see my fellow atheists on here arguing with theists, and they're able to recall exact passages, I'm thinking "How the fuck?" Lol My knowledge of the bible is probably somewhere between the low-end (theists) and the high-end (atheists). I couldn't quote the damn thing in an argument, but I know most of the characters and stories, and the chronology. I know what was going on in other parts of the world when Abraham was supposedly walking around, for example. The only interest I've ever had with the bible was in forming a timeline with the real world (I'm reluctant to call it an historical interest).

Some of us are exChristians who read that damn book repeatedly in a futile attempt to force it to make sense.  

[Exian]

I've yet to hear anything that is more convincing than "this book is magic". And the arguments sound no less silly than that either. "My mummy wouldn't lie to me" maybe.

I normally get drenched in loads of little arguments, all of which are fundamentally flawed. By the time I've shown what is wrong with the first one, three more have taken its place. I don't care how many arguments you have got, if none of them are sound, they don't amount to anything.

^This is another reason I started this thread. When asked why they believe the bible is true, they usually respond with something that dances around "because the bible is divinely inspired" (they don't want to show their hand too much), which amounts to "it's magic", but you never hear a good detailed reason for why they believe its magic. I'd be very interested in learning what a theist thinks happened to the bible that makes it so special. I'm afraid I won't be participating in any discussions if I can't get past this initial problem. I really can't see how anyone moves on from this issue to discuss things like Jesus' existence.

Unfortunately, we're running low on theists these days :/

[Pyrrho]

I've yet to hear anything that is more convincing than "this book is magic". And the arguments sound no less silly than that either. "My mummy wouldn't lie to me" maybe.

I normally get drenched in loads of little arguments, all of which are fundamentally flawed. By the time I've shown what is wrong with the first one, three more have taken its place. I don't care how many arguments you have got, if none of them are sound, they don't amount to anything.

Yes, but there is an important psychological fact about having a bunch of flawed arguments.  By the time the believer has gotten to argument 6 (or whatever number it takes), they have forgotten your rebuttal to the first argument, so that it regains its importance from a psychological standpoint.

The arguments are not generally why anyone believes.  Usually, it has to do with being told religious nonsense along with ordinary truths when one is being raised as a child, so that they all form part of the person's world view.  Its authority is the same authority that told them that stoves are hot and so you should keep your fingers away from stoves.  They know that their mothers did tell them the truth about a great many useful and important things, and the religious claims are other things that their mothers told them were very important.  Normally, in the beginning, the religious claims are not all presented as a separate category of thing, called "religion," but are just part of the totality of "truths" that the person is taught.  And normally religious claims are included in the totality of things claimed from the very beginnings of one's upbringing, so that they form a part of the core of beliefs that a person has.  That is why most religious people are religious.

The arguments are generally just a support to push away doubts that might come up later on.  Basic psychology will tell you that it takes less to convince someone of something they already believe than to convince them of something else, so the arguments do not have to be that great.  Normally, if they have a superficial appearance of working, that will be enough, as most will not examine the details of the arguments too carefully.  And, of course, if a person sees through one of the flawed arguments, there are many others at hand, and if the person fails to see through just one of them, then the person maintains belief.

So, the arguments have an important function, but they are not for the function that most people seem to suppose.

[Secular Elf]

For the most part, in Christianity there is one fact that arises above the rest: though they claim to be one of three faiths of the book, they are not that biblically literate. Nor are they familiar with the history of their own religion, other than what they cursory learned in sunday school (besides all the Bible stories in the OT, the Apostles in the NT). Back in my Christian days, I was probably one of the rare ones who had enough intellectual curiosity to actually read the entire thing from front to back and actually pay attention to details. And when you pay attention to details, you notice things. Things like, two different creation accounts in Genesis, the silly magical stuff like Lot's wife turning to a pillar of salt for looking back at Sodom, all the genocide, murder, war, rape and mayhem in the Conquest of Canaan story, why would Jesus curse a fig tree for not bearing fruit when it was not even fig season? Even if they do read the Bible, it is with blinders on. They rationalize the crap that does not make sense, because of the shit the preachers tell them to gloss over them or simply leave parts out when they preach.

And you don't necessarily have to have written words to be religious. The anthropological and archaeological record indicates many societies that had religious expressions of animism, totemism, and other basic primitive religious thought processes.

If you are looking to satisfy your own curiosity I suggest learning about the history of how the Torah came to be and how the New Testament came to be. I have learned a lot through my own readings and tangents because of my interest in ancient Middle Eastern history. Studying the Sumerians I learned that nearly all the stories from the first few chapters of Genesis derive from Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian mythology, which also interests me.

[Cyberman]

Religion is ridiculous but the reasons why many people are religious is not. Some people have vulnerabilities that religion addresses. It is actually sad that they need to turn to what is essentially a drug to deal with life.

Which wouldn't be so bad if the drug actually had a single active ingredient. Religion is the homeopathy of the intellect.

[robvalue]

Pyrrho: You're absolutely right. I call all such arguments rationalisations, a defence mechanism for a predawn conclusion. And since the conclusion doesn't depend on these arguments, rebutals don't mean anything to them.

I'd be far more interested in the real reasons people believe, but on the whole they seem reluctant to discuss them in detail. Could this be because they really don't know what the reason is, or that they are worried it will sound irrational?

[Pyrrho]

Pyrrho: You're absolutely right. I call all such arguments rationalisations, a defence mechanism for a predawn conclusion. And since the conclusion doesn't depend on these arguments, rebutals don't mean anything to them.

I'd be far more interested in the real reasons people believe, but on the whole they seem reluctant to discuss them in detail. Could this be because they really don't know what the reason is, or that they are worried it will sound irrational?

I think most people don't know why they believe most of the things they believe.  Try an experiment on yourself.  What, exactly, are the reasons why you believe everything that you believe?  Start easy.  Why do you believe the world is approximately spherical?  

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Epic fail for anyone who answers, "because it is."

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 Try to do that with all of your beliefs, and you are likely to run into difficulties.

Also, one's beliefs are not all in isolation of each other, but depend on each other in various ways.  So questioning one belief may not lead to anything, because it may well be supported by other beliefs.  Those other beliefs, of course, may not be reasonable, but it can be tricky trying to get at the web of beliefs and ask the right questions to expose its flaws.  And obviously, it is you who do the questioning and thinking in your mind, not someone else, so you have to be asking the right questions to get your beliefs in order.  So even if someone else asks the right questions and tells you the questions, if you are not thinking about them in the right way, it will be of little use.

Some things are so deeply engrained, it can be difficult for people to even imagine an alternative.  This sort of thing comes up in various philosophical issues, like the idea of idealism or Hume's analysis of causation.  Some people have a great deal of difficulty in even conceiving of such things.  Of course, that is generally a necessary preliminary to being able to satisfactorily evaluate a claim, but it obviously isn't all there is to the matter.  If one believes something and cannot even conceive of an alternative, there is something amiss with one's thinking.  For any statement "p," for "p" to make sense, "not p" must also be intelligible.

Often times, it is helpful to examine other people for insights into one's own beliefs and ways of thinking.  For example, many religionists of one type imagine that their feelings, and the feelings of others of their religion, somehow are relevant to the truth or falsehood of what they believe.  But the problem with that becomes apparent when one looks at people of an alternative religion, and notices that they typically feel the same way about their own beliefs.  Muslims and Christians, for example, often will report feeling in touch with the divine in some way or other, but the fact that both groups report this shows that it does not establish the truth of their respective religions, because they cannot both be right.

Sometimes, though, one can understand a problem with others through introspection for oneself.  For example, when one imagines some Biblical character hearing the voice of God, it is useful to reflect how one would react to hearing an apparently disembodied voice.  How would one know it is God, and not someone else pretending to be God?  How would one know that one has not gone insane?  And if one cannot answer such questions satisfactorily, then how could the Biblical character know it was God talking to him, instead of Satan or him being insane?  And that is even assuming that the person is honest, as anyone could lie and say that God spoke to them.  How would you be able to tell if God really spoke to the person or not?


I did not mean to digress as I have with this.  For one's own thinking, if one can figure out what basis matters for a particular belief, what one really thinks supports the belief, then one can poke about with that and see if it is something 'solid' or not.  Of course, one can always make a mistake, and so it is good to be willing to rethink things if it ever comes into question again.  Anyway, I have rambled enough for the moment.

[Minimalist]

When I see my fellow atheists on here arguing with theists, and they're able to recall exact passages, I'm thinking "How the fuck?"

Um....fucking google, man.