RE: Why the "There are so many interpretations of the Bible" claim is confused
October 16, 2015 at 1:33 pm
(October 16, 2015 at 2:51 am)Losty Wrote:(October 16, 2015 at 12:46 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote:
I'll do my best. However, I have already read your answers and found most of it to be willfully-crafted bullshit. You have to know that much of what you said is unsustainable, but I'll go through and gladly dissect it for you.
"From scripture" is something that the Christians with whom you would fiercely disagree also claim to base their theology upon. It's disingenuous of you to claim that you have the only solid understanding of the scriptures when I, after having this discussion with you, will be unlikely to go a week before having another discussion with a Christian who holds an entirely different POV on what "from scripture" means.
As to our "sin nature", man did not create "the situation" alone. According to your story, God put the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil "in the midst" of the Garden, where it would be a certain temptation to mankind. Regardless of what Adam and Eve did, in any case, it is ridiculous to claim that there is justice for me to serve prison time for something my grandfather did. It is an infinite amount worse to say that I have a debt that can result in an infinite punishment for something my grandfathers's great great gr.........great grandfather did. What is old and tiring is your claim that subjugating my will to that of the writers of Bronze Age fables who claim to speak for God, and accepting that a vicarious blood sacrifice would work a magic cure if only I will surrender my reason and "just believe" first, is "free" or a "gift". It is clearly neither; it is a precondition of being "saved" from the punishment which I will automatically incur if I do not accept the terms of this contract. A contract offered at gunpoint is null and void, even if it says "I freely accept this contract" right above the signature line.
Again with the "accept first" stuff. You're saying "become a believer, then you'll see if becoming a believer is a reasonable thing to do". That is the peak of insanity, in any other context. Why hide at all? My point was that the Salvation Plan you speak of is unavailable after death, when actual, unquestionable proof is finally available... prior to that, I must simply accept your word (and that of the writers of the Bible which you follow) that any of this is not like all the other cults on earth. It is especially the case, since I can see in your Holy Book a great many things that are absolutely contrary to logic, reason, and scientifically-verifiable fact. To suggest that the only way I can see that what you believe is true is to believe it in-advance is no different than the claims of a thousand other cults, worldwide. I am sure you can understand my anger at this suggestion, if you picture having a conversation with a Hari Krishna, who tells you that the only reason you don't believe in Lord Krishna is because you are "running from the Truth", and just don't want to accept that it is real. Can you really not see how ridiculous you would find that Hari Krishna, in that situation? No matter how assured you are of the truth of your beliefs, you still sound not a shred different to me than that HK would sound to you, or to me for that matter.
I apologize for the condescending tone, but truly it is very hard for me to have a serious conversation with someone who doesn't understand evolution, since that is what I did professionally for the first decade of my adult life. You're trying to tell me that after all my work at understanding population genetics, cellular biochemistry and chemical genetics, zoology, physics, etc, that I should throw all that out the window and accept a Bronze Age story written by people who thought that Lamarckian acquired-characteristic inheritance was a thing (Genesis 30). When you tell me stories about magic trees, humanity coming from a single pair of individuals, and talking snakes... it's hard not to think of you in the same light I see someone who tells me that he has conversations with aliens unless he wears his special tinfoil hat.
I deliberately used the term to indicate the permanence of the condition "inherited" from Adam, and also to break out of the cycle of rhetoric you don't seem to realize you're using. New terminology to describe old concepts helps us both to look at the idea fresh. And many, many Christians do believe that our sin nature is a taint that was acquired from Adam, meaning that we are flawed from before our birth. Others (as you appear to do) believe that we are born flawless, and "fall" when we begin to commit sins at some age when we are old enough to understand the consequences of our actions in defiance of God, as a way to avoid saying that God would send a toddler to hell for being a sociopathic little shit (which they are, as you know if you've ever raised a child). In any case, there's no effective difference between "unable to avoid sinning" and "sinners from birth", so really your point is rhetorical. Either way, we are doomed from the moment we enter this world, according to your mythology, and we "earn" our salvation by paying the price of giving up our own reason and "accepting in advance" that belief in Christ fixes this (entirely fictional, to anyone who doesn't already believe) problem of "sin", sin being defined as defiance of God's will.
So God makes the problem (by having a will in the form of a set of behavior-commandments which can be defied, to our eternal detriment in the form of torturous hellfire), and then offers the solution, which you claim we are free to accept as a gift... only it's not free, since it's to our eternal torturous detriment not to do so. That's called a protection racket, in any other context.
As I said before:
(Emphasis mine.)
Accepting Christ is the process of 'earning' this salvation of which you speak. I'm not claiming works. I'm claiming that the acceptance of the religious teachings of Paul and the Apostles (or whomever the writers of the Gospels actually were, since different Christian theologians and historians differ on this point; don't bother, I already know what you fundamentalists think about the authorship question) as to who Jesus of Nazareth was, and what I must do to "accept his 'free' gift of salvation", is the price. What you call "a desire to live a life according...", I call giving up my own free will. That is the price, and it is the most expensive thing that can be asked of anyone.
Run from God? Really, dude?
I run from God like you run from Lord Krishna. They are fiction. Fake. Made up. Invented nonsense, as are the sins of disobeying these gods, whose motives all sound suspiciously like the motives of the priests who appear to have invented them. More on that later.
And by "the Living God", I'm assuming you mean Horus. Or Mithras. Perhaps Adonis?
I left the above intact, as I think the exchange is worth noting. It's interesting that you keep saying I'm showing ignorance of the Bible, because I can't think of a single thing I've said wrong, it's only phrasing one mine that you seem to take issue with. I've already addressed that other Christians have a different view of Adam & Eve's "original sin" than you have, but fine I'll go with your version for the sake of this argument, while noting that those other Christians would say it is you who lack the understanding of the Bible. That's the problem with arguing with you types; it's like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall! Anyway, on to your point:
What does Christ's blood pay for, according to your version of this story? My sins. Why do my sins matter? Because God will torture me (or allow me to be tortured, if you prefer) in the place that He created for those who don't receive atonement, if I don't confess that I am a sinner and accept the payment that was made in blood, the only source of blood that is considered good enough for this atonement-- the coin of the realm being the product of his own preconditions.
So the only person here playing word games is you, trying to shift the burden on to me by saying that it was my doing (I didn't set the preconditions you allege, and all I did was live a normal, human life), trying to assert that I somehow inherently know something that your religion made up-- which is why missionaries are even a thing, since they have to go tell people that they are sinners, and convince them that there was this guy named Jesus Christ who had to be murdered on their behalf, etc etc.
I "know" no such thing as having a debt to be paid. I find the concept as ridiculous as the claim that one day Shiva the Destoyer will eat my soul if I have not become Enlightened before end of the world. It is plain to me that I am a vertebrate mammal, a bipedal Great Ape, and that I live and die according to the same rules of physics/chemistry that operate on every other animal on this planet. So I hear your story and all I can see is the basic principles of a Mafia shakedown, and I've seen nothing in your reply that remotely suggests otherwise.
You keep saying how I feel about God. You could not be more wrong. I hold exactly the same anger toward your pathetic deity-concept as I hold toward Lord Voldemort. It's a story. The only thing that makes me hateful is to have to hear people telling me how Lord Voldemort is going to punish me for my disobedience if I don't join House Slytherin and become one of the Death Eaters.
I say that sin is more powerful than God, according to your story, because most of the Christians of your obviously-fundamentalist stripe say that sin is something that God hates so much he cannot bear to be in its presence, which is why we must be banished to hell if we remain without the blood atonement. I say that makes Him pathetic, according to your story, since it means he lacks the power to wash us all clean regardless of our behavior while on the planet, and wipe our sins from us by fiat rather than by blood magic.
[At this point I skip a bunch of stuff that's partly us agreeing, and partly stuff I didn't feel warranted a particular reply, since it's social commentary and, as you point out, is better saved for another thread.]
Um, if you say so. I'd be just as likely to challenge Dawkins as anyone on the planet, on any point he raised with which I did not fully agree. He says things a great many people like, but I'm sure you'd object to a popular preacher being described as "being on a pedestal", when in reality you're not deifying that preacher, and it would be wrong of me to characterize you as doing so. I think you project onto us a "savior figure" because you can't imagine us operating without one. We simply do not. You might find Billy Graham to be a man worthy of respect and admiration, but you don't think he's anything more than a bearer of a message that he's just a little bit more talented at presenting than some; likewise, I think Dawkins is very skilled at presenting some of the teachings of science and the methods of skepticism in a way that is sometimes clever, always illustrative, and generally fun to listen to. That's it! Same with the rest of us.
On to the Bible verses, now.
So, rather than seeing this as being instructions by God to destroy people of "wrong" faiths, you see it as (what was the term?) corruption prevention? It's genocide in the name of ideological purity. It's religious intolerance on a scale unimaginable in the modern age, but totally normal in the Bronze Age. It's Bronze Age tribalism written down by priests as being justified commands of God.
As for the "dangerous on many levels"... really? Is that why there are no Palestinians, Egyptians, Syrians, etc., today? Because they all got wiped out by perversions and sexual diseases?
Also... what sexual diseases? Are you familiar with a dangerous Bronze Age STD heretofore unknown to science and history?
They didn't have modern STDs of that sort. Look it up. Let's deal in facts, not speculation. Most likely the prohibitions against "sexual immorality" had more to do with establishing Patriarchal rule, maintaining wealth in family lineages, and breeding lots of warriors and sheepherders.
See, now we're talking truth. Except it wasn't God who had the issue, here, it was the men who had control of the women in their society, and who placed great value on "the family name" (and of course, the wealth that went along with it). It's no surprise to me to find these verses in there about sexual and other behavioral control of the population. That you attribute the "Creator of the Universe and Its Hundreds of Billions of Galaxies Each with Hundreds of Billions of Stars" as having the same concerns over where we put our penises/vaginas that the men who ran those desert tribes would have... let's just call it "curious coincidence", from my point of view. To put it as nicely as I can.
I hid most of that, since you're mostly just repeating the same thing. It's amazing to me that you think any of that is justification for jack shit. I am an American, one who values deeply our nation's commitment to religious pluralism, the notion that government shall not establish one religion over another. Regardless of the reasons why "God" (as you put it) and "priests and kings of the Hebrews" (as I would put it) wanted them to be "ideologically pure", it defies everything I consider moral and decent, and looks entirely like religious tribalism and barbarity. Justifying it in the name of a "coming soon Messiah" is just silly. You're telling me that God had to command the murder of how many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people, just so conditions could be right in one tiny patch of earth in one particular year for him to send down the Salvation Sacrifice Plan?
REALLY!?!
I didn't "pick them out of the middle", I mentioned only the ones that are relevant. The version prior to 25:44-46 are about Israelite "indentured servitude", and the verses 44-46 are about "inheritable, permanent-property racial-based slavery", as I said. Trying to deflect onto the prior verses about what the system was for fellow Hebrews is deceitful.
The same is true for verses endorsing just how hard you can beat your slaves. Just because there were limits and regulations doesn't make it okay! God could just has easily have called slavery a forbidden abomination, not "regulated" it. Again, we see here the hand of man, not the words of a God.
Um... really? A "burden to her family", who is better off with her rapist? Are you insane?
I agree with your assessment of why that verse says what it says... but wow, you speak of it as if it's okay. You also ignore the other laws-of-rape, which say things like if she doesn't cry out "enough", then she's to be murdered too because it's assumed that she was complicit in fornication, not rape... except we know that women who are brutally attacked are often paralyzed by fear, overpowered and rendered unconscious, or have their mouths covered so they cannot cry out. These are the kinds of things a God would know, but which ignorant and woman-devaluing Patriarchal male societies would not take into consideration, even if they did know it. Not the work of a God. The work of men.
Holy shit, dude, did you just say "cleaning out the land"? You know there's a word for that: ethnic cleansing. Genocide. It's NOT OKAY. EVER. Why in the fuck would you think I think it's okay when others did it to Israel?!?
Ethnic cleansing isn't war, ever. It's always murder. It's often enacted via war, but it's still murder any time you kill noncombatants. When you order a war of genocide, you are Hitler. Claiming that God commanded you to do it makes you a liar, or makes God a genocidal maniac. There's really no way around that either/or.
What's the point in keeping "virgins who have not known a man" if not for sexual conquest? Indeed, there are several verses which deal specifically with the men of Israel going to capture women to "make brides of them", which in no way implies a choice or consent on the part of the women!
"This is a standard of wars in those days" does not mean it's something The Chosen People had to indulge. You spend all that time, above, talking about how they were special, had to behave differently than their neighbors, etc... but when it comes to justifying the most brutal, execrable crimes known to man, you say "well that's just how it was back then!"
The "Song of Deborah", a Judge (leader) of Israel, celebrates (in song!) a historical telling of the brutal things done to those who opposed the God-led (via the Judges) tribes of Israel, in the time before the coming of Samuel who finally granted their request for a king, instead of God's Judges. You should know the Bible better than that, instead of accusing me with such narrow straws to grasp at.
I quoted Zechariah because it is a prophecy that specifically spells out what God will allow to happen to them, "in the sight of" the men of the nation, as a penalty for continued disobedience to God. Whether or not it's a direct command of God is somewhat irrelevant, at that point, don't you think?
Dude, really? You got "you're a white supremacist" from that? Pull the other one! You see what was bolded there and thought, "oh he's just trying to hide his supremacist leanings by claiming to think they're ridiculous"?
Fuck, man, you can't be that dishonest, can you? I know them because I spent nine years in a Maximum Security prison, surrounded by them, and I've listened to them telling me how Jesus loves the white race (and getting really mad when I explain that Jesus was a Jew). If you don't believe that Christianity is connected to White Supremacy, check out their Church Website. Right here in Missouri!
Dead wrong. I thought I loved others, as a Christian, just like you do. I didn't realize the amount of hurt that our views caused in others, because I was so myopic about the culture in which my faith-tradition sprang up, and what it did to those who were not a part of that in-group. It is only in looking back that I am amazed at how I used to sound, when I talked the way you talk now. You have no idea how much damage you do, in the name of what you call love. It is because I know it is unintentional on your part (and that of others like you) that I still bother to take the time to engage you on these subjects, even as you look me straight in the face (so to speak) and tell me that the reason I talk about God with you is because I still (secretly, actually, because I talk about it but don't realize it's why) believe in your fairytale stories. You yourself said it several times, above, not realizing how condescending and ignorant such statements are. You won't listen to me now, I know, but in the name of fairness I have to keep telling you. All of you.
It's simply astounding to me to hear you tell me I wasn't happy as a Christian; those were some of the best years of my life. To this day, every day is a struggle to be an atheist, because every member of my family are religious, and they put me under constant pressure to "rejoin the herd"... it's a carrot-and-stick approach, and they don't even realize that what they're doing is wrong. They think of it as love. There's that word again.
And yet, the things I hear spewed out of their mouths, in defiance of almost everything I have learned since taking off the blinders I didn't even know I was wearing, back when I was one of you, are pure hatred disguised as love. Telling atheists what we "really" think; telling gays they're "perversions" and sick and sinful; telling scientists that looking at the universe for ourselves is "prideful" and "man's knowledge". Trying to push their faith into the lives, societies, and governments of those who don't want it there. Endlessly.
I compare you to the Klan because they, too, think what they're doing is for a better world, and in the name of God's Will for Human Society, not because your ideologies are exactly the same. And for you to pretend that I was saying they were is disingenuous enough that I feel I cannot discuss this any farther with you.
I'm gonna skip most of what's in the end, here, since most of it was one-line rehashes after mountains of previous quotes, and I suspect at that point you were as tired as I am, right now, facing this mountainous set of replies and formatting!
I'm not offended at the delay. I get it. Life comes first! But I am offended that you keep insisting on telling me what I "really" think about God, and why I "really" left the faith, in order to justify your prejudices, but want to get mad when I state the wrong version of Christianity, mistaking your particular view for another branch of the faith, or citing doctrine in a way that doesn't suit your esoteric shibboleth wording. And in truth, you genuinely pissed me off when you tried to suggest that I'm a White Supremacist sympathizer. I had to really take a moment to breathe and force myself to give you the benefit of the doubt that you really could have read what I said that inaccurately, and legitimately come to such an awful and incorrect conclusion.
I don't know how you had the energy to read that huge wall of garbage. Let alone respond to it.
And atheist wonder why Christians have a hard time finding respect for them, insults usually draw insults, I don't care to bring any here nor do I want to waste time doing so.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
