Intelligence is a Curse

[The Grand Nudger]

They got that retribution didn't they. But hey, what of it...you know. This whole narrative of oppression may not exactly be standing on a granite foundation to begin with. Why oh why would a people who riot, have little internal rebellions in the streets, and burn down libraries while raping and dismembering the librarians be persecuted anyway. I couldn't think of a reason, none a'tall.

[thesummerqueen]

I'm not saying I don't find it disgusting in most cases these days. Just that someone's gotta mop up the blood after you're done, and you seem to like watching me play with soap and water.

[The Grand Nudger]

I promise there won't be any blood to mop up, soldiers get thirsty after all.

[thesummerqueen]

As long as they're not sparkling in the sun while they're guzzling.

[The Grand Nudger]

All of my own proclivities and propensities for this or that aside. I suggest that those who believe these things are true and moral go build themselves a little island colony and see if it goes any better for them now than it did over the last few thousand years. Something tells me that faced with this opportunity many would opt out. I don't think we've seen any mass exodus to Iran of late (just to provide one example). Just about everywhere we look the faithful are breaking their backs to get into secular countries, not out of them. Unsurprisingly as soon as they arrive they start to miss home, and suggest to us that we should emulate the place they so recently abandoned.

[salty]

Salty, it's not a lack of humility or the inability to admit my wrongs that causes me not to bow to Jesus. I try to stay humble and have done many wrongs in my life. I can't bow down to Jesus because he does not exist.

That is something I can respect.

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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?

Sorry salty...but just WHO are you ranting at??

At the OP.

[bozo]

Yes, intelligence is a curse.....on religion.
Religion demands no thought, no reason, no questions...just faith in the truly incredible.
THere is evidence to show that the more uneducated you are, the more likely you are to sign up for superstition of religous faith.

[salty]

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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.

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A very in depth response. Very thorough. I appreciate your view of the situation and I agree that Alei's friend probably felt insecure.

[salty]

Alei. I think you're unreasonable because you ask for Christians to live by the whole bible, but you are so disgusted with the bible that you wouldn't know if this was being fulfilled. In the end you only care about your own opinion.

[The Grand Nudger]

Go ahead, toss the OT in the thrashbin Salty. I'd applaud you. My dystopian world based only on the golden rule, turn the other check, he who is without sin, with me or against me, and vicarious redemption remains. Where's our resident wiccan to offer up a vastly superior moral guideline that only takes one sentence to explain?