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Former fundamentalist 'debunks' Bible
- Thread starter Stoney Mason
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speculawyer
Member
Seth C said:
Dude, it was just a reference to one silly one of many. Here, you can also knock yourself out with all these contradictions:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_book.html
Or these scientific gaffes:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/science/long.html
Or these absurdities:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/abs/long.htm
Have fun.
speculawyer
Member
I don't care. Everyone does stupid things. I'm just saying I don't view it as correct. But who cares what I think? Not even me most of the time.TheExodu5 said:
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
There were Christians in the centuries before the Bible was compiled. What did they believe in?TheExodu5 said:
There was a time when Christians had no Bible. They passed around letters from various writers on what it means to be Christian. They told various stories about the life of Jesus.
Some of these stories were compiled into the modern bible.
Some of these popular stories are notably absent from the modern bible.
It is quite clear to me that Bible fundamentalism is simply a subset of Christian belief.
speculawyer
Member
Well . . . they both could be wrong.OuterWorldVoice said:
speculawyer said:
Really doesn't matter to me. I'm inclined to agree with you on basic premise. That's the problem. You still are left grasping at pi when better options are there. Besides, why should I lend any credibility to the points of someone (website) who has erroneously reached so far as your pi example?
But really, the point is, pick some example, and make them good. They are there. Unfortunately people get...over zealous. And then they have websites filled with stuff like "How was there light when God hadn't created the sun yet? Derrr" as if they are arguing that a being powerful enough to create something from nothing is logical, but he can't fool us, we know he can't invent light without a sun!"
It's stupid and desperate and most importantly, a massive waste of time considering the legitimate issues one could find. Most of it is just someone being critical of every example, illustration, parable, story, symbolism, etc. in the Bible. Anyone who thinks the entire Bible is speaking literally is off their rocker. There are entire books of poetry, for crying out loud. It's easy for us to understand symbolism in modern poetry, and yet half of us seem lost to it when it occurs in the Bible. Crazy.
TheExodu5 said:
Just a note, but what the church suppressed was the notion that the Earth was not the centre of the universe (heliocentrism). That the Earth is a globe has been known and widely accepted since long before Christianity. Columbus was also not trying to prove it was round, but that it was small enough that you could circumnavigate it to Asia without problem (which he was wrong about, incidentally).
maharg said:
Yes, the Catholic church did suppress that notion. It was a religious belief though, unfortunately for Bible skeptics (rather than Catholic skeptics) the geocentric notion isn't in the Bible. Of course, science originally came up with the idea. Religion simply latched on to it afterward.
ChoklitReign
Member
I came in expecting Dan Barker and then I remember this guy is way cooler than him.
Beer Monkey
Member
maharg said:
Widely accepted by educated people. But yeah, I understand what you are getting at.
OpinionatedCyborg
Member
And guess who most of the educated people have been since the fall of the Roman Empire?beermonkey@tehbias said:
Count Dookkake
Member
max_cool said:
Well then, it's a good thing that Ehrman, who can read all the relevant languages (Coptic, Aramaic, Latin, ancient Greek, English, etc), always goes to the oldest and best sources, points out variants in popularity and chronology, and makes a point of comparing and contrasting these many ancient sources with the commonly accepted bibles of today. You might say he is fair and balanced.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
OpinionatedCyborg said:
Men and woman of the sciences? =P
Tim the Wiz
Banned
speculawyer said:
You can start with the core dogma preached by Jesus as accounted consistently throughout the gospels. Killing or judging our fellow man based on their lack of Christian faith simply isn't the prescribed modus operandi. If you're going to profess faith to a religion, you might want to know what the epicenter of your entire belief system actually preached and latch onto that - even if it moves you away, to whatever extent, from the unfortunate mob mentality/flawed human leadership of organizations that claim authority on these ideas.
soul creator
Member
I guess my question is, if we're supposed to largely ignore the old testament, and all the other fantastical elements of the bible, and the "real" Christianity means to just focus on a few key things Jesus said, what exactly makes Christianity "special"? It's not like Christianity/the Bible contains some special knowledge that could only be found within its texts.
If the beauty of Christianity and Jesus Christ is that it's a cool story about the Golden Rule, that's great and all, and I don't really disagree with that...but why does one then need to become a "worshipper" or a "follower"? Why the need for an entirely separate group and category called "Christianity"? Like the guy in the article mentioned, plenty of people study Chaucer and think it's important, but there's no need to form a new religion of Chaucerists around it, and pretend like it deserves some special supernatural standing.
And if we *are* in fact supposed to take the more fantastical elements seriously (the parts that are actually unique to Christianity), and consider them a foundation of the religion, what methodology is used to determine which ones are "correct"? It's not like the supernatural has some sort of "rules" to it, so how exactly does one say X biblical claim is false/allegorical/metaphorical/etc., but Y biblical claim should be considered a key part of the religion?
This tends to be why I think the whole "it's just a few bad apples abusing religion" thing sort of misses the point. If you already accept the premise that supernatural faith-based reasoning is ok, then you get unpredictable results. Yes, good people can do things because of a religion, just as bad people can do things because of a religion. But if you can do all those good things for better reasons besides supernatural ones, why not pursue that? Then you don't have to deal with the muddiness and unpredictability of supernatural reasoning.
Now of course, as a practical matter, I'm not going to raise a huge real-life protest over the idea of people helping the poor and the sick because God told them to. I just hope that eventually, human beings won't feel the need to justify their acts (good or bad) with supernatural claims.
If the beauty of Christianity and Jesus Christ is that it's a cool story about the Golden Rule, that's great and all, and I don't really disagree with that...but why does one then need to become a "worshipper" or a "follower"? Why the need for an entirely separate group and category called "Christianity"? Like the guy in the article mentioned, plenty of people study Chaucer and think it's important, but there's no need to form a new religion of Chaucerists around it, and pretend like it deserves some special supernatural standing.
And if we *are* in fact supposed to take the more fantastical elements seriously (the parts that are actually unique to Christianity), and consider them a foundation of the religion, what methodology is used to determine which ones are "correct"? It's not like the supernatural has some sort of "rules" to it, so how exactly does one say X biblical claim is false/allegorical/metaphorical/etc., but Y biblical claim should be considered a key part of the religion?
This tends to be why I think the whole "it's just a few bad apples abusing religion" thing sort of misses the point. If you already accept the premise that supernatural faith-based reasoning is ok, then you get unpredictable results. Yes, good people can do things because of a religion, just as bad people can do things because of a religion. But if you can do all those good things for better reasons besides supernatural ones, why not pursue that? Then you don't have to deal with the muddiness and unpredictability of supernatural reasoning.
Now of course, as a practical matter, I'm not going to raise a huge real-life protest over the idea of people helping the poor and the sick because God told them to. I just hope that eventually, human beings won't feel the need to justify their acts (good or bad) with supernatural claims.
How can you take the side of the writers of the bible? So anything that is a semantic issue, just plain "miss-heard", or simplified by the writers can be ignored? I don't understand what you are doing. This is the either the complete world of god or it's hearsay written by people. If god told these people what to write why would he not tell them the truth about the nature of the universe?
Besides this why should we believe some book written 1900 years ago as complete fact? Why should we take it on faith when we have a hundred other religions to chose from? Religions that existed before Christ even. It's just too big of a leap to even bother defending. If you are going to believe the bible there is no way you can justify it to the rest of us. You believe and that is that.
I mean if i'm going to believe some old document why would it be one with pages and pages of question ethics? Condemnation of gays, Stoning people to death for a variety of harmless acts, Killing your child in the name of god and a shit ton more. I would much rather live my life based on Sesame Street than the Bible or pretty much any other "holy" book.
All that matters is people, and how we treat them, and if you actually believe the bible is the word of god then you have a lot of explaining to do as to why you don't do some of the things god tells you to do. You know why you don't? Because you are a good person. A good person who just won't shed those stories told to you in an attempt to control or reassure you about your own mortality. If you can't believe everything in the bible then why bother believing anything in it?
Besides this why should we believe some book written 1900 years ago as complete fact? Why should we take it on faith when we have a hundred other religions to chose from? Religions that existed before Christ even. It's just too big of a leap to even bother defending. If you are going to believe the bible there is no way you can justify it to the rest of us. You believe and that is that.
I mean if i'm going to believe some old document why would it be one with pages and pages of question ethics? Condemnation of gays, Stoning people to death for a variety of harmless acts, Killing your child in the name of god and a shit ton more. I would much rather live my life based on Sesame Street than the Bible or pretty much any other "holy" book.
All that matters is people, and how we treat them, and if you actually believe the bible is the word of god then you have a lot of explaining to do as to why you don't do some of the things god tells you to do. You know why you don't? Because you are a good person. A good person who just won't shed those stories told to you in an attempt to control or reassure you about your own mortality. If you can't believe everything in the bible then why bother believing anything in it?
TheExodu5 said:
I'll answer this myself, because my previous posts might sound a little mean.
Yes to me people can believe whatever they want, but I think us non-believers have a hard time understanding how someone can believe something without evidence, something that is dependent on where you live, and something contains passages you have to disregard. I mean we don't care when people aren't doing any harm, but you live in the US. You know the amount of people who take the bible literally and try to effect policy with it. Just watch CSPAN and see some of the senators we have in congress. Some of them believe that the global warming doesn't exist because god will bring about the end of earth no humanity. Gay marriage is another example of extremism that actually effects policy. Before the civil rights movement you had more of it. If they didn't take their values from every aspect of the bible they might not hold these assbackwards views.
And to explain why we don't like it on a message board is quite a bit different then going to congress and yelling "I want religion banned for everything!!!"
slidewinder
Banned
LAUGHTREY
Modesty becomes a woman
Ever since 10th grade when my history teacher said something about some medieval king that had the bible translated into English and how he probably fucked it up makes you wonder.
Except I think the Vatican still uses the old Latin version, so between now and then it's probably been re-translated better to the source.
I don't know, anything written down is always going to change. Something that's been around as long as the bible has probably been messed with a few times. How is this new?
Except I think the Vatican still uses the old Latin version, so between now and then it's probably been re-translated better to the source.
I don't know, anything written down is always going to change. Something that's been around as long as the bible has probably been messed with a few times. How is this new?
JoshuaJSlone
Member
One is the Prime universe, the other is an alternate reality.Guybrush Threepwood said:
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Cartman86 said:
Although worries over the validity and dangers of the source material is valid, it is also fair to point out that the core dogma of Christianity is misrepresented by a large number of its followers. It cannot be denied that the interpretation of these tenets have been consistently manipulated in accordance with a variety of - often non-spiritual and very "earthly" - interests since the last days of Jesus. Furthermore, in the context of Christianity, having to disregard the precedent of the Old Testament does make sense from the standpoint of internal consistency.
I say this with some confidence in the reliability of the predictive function of inductive reasoning: You also believe things without indisputable evidence. Scientific, or inductive, reasoning is just as illogical as supernatural reasoning.
"The study of wisdom, I perferred it
The understanding, it gave me mental freedom
I even learnt Caucasians were really the Tribe of Edam
The white image, of Christ, is really Cesare Borgia
and uhh, the second son of Pope Alexander
The Sixth of Rome, and once the picture was shown
That's how the devils tricked my dome"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Borgia
All religion is BS.
The understanding, it gave me mental freedom
I even learnt Caucasians were really the Tribe of Edam
The white image, of Christ, is really Cesare Borgia
and uhh, the second son of Pope Alexander
The Sixth of Rome, and once the picture was shown
That's how the devils tricked my dome"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Borgia
All religion is BS.
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Doc Evils said:
The visual imagery of Jesus is definitely something a lot of people, within and without Christianity, ignore. It's largely derived from the culture wars of the Middle Ages and the European need from on-high to grasp closer ties with something they saw primarily as the glue that helped hold together their autocratic society. The result was a baseless Caucasian representation of a Jewish man invented for the benefit of certain interests.
Side-note: The Muslim world was very much the protector of science and medicine in this era; their tolerance of Jewish people was comparatively superior to that of the European-Christian domain, and their jurisprudence led the world in terms of women's rights. Obviously, times have changed.
Wikipedia does a good job here in mentioning the fact that Alexandre Dumas, who opened my eyes to this topic at a young age, wrote about this more than a century ago. (he was also largely discriminated against in his lifetime due to his part-African heritage)
The one that always got me was, Jesus is supposed to be the descendant of King David, and they show you how Joseph is the descendant of King David. But then we have Jesus being the son of God and Mary, not Joseph, so how is he the descendant of David? EAASY PEASY, just do a bit of reaching here, a little bit of filling in the lines here and we find out that Mary and Joseph are kinda related... maybe! So kinda sorta have them having the same Lineage.
(Even though in the Bible, correct me if I am wrong, there are no other instances in which they cite lineage through a female).
(Even though in the Bible, correct me if I am wrong, there are no other instances in which they cite lineage through a female).
fortified_concept
Banned
max_cool said:
Well, mind numbingly stupid or mind numbingly ignorant. Either way the book shouldn't be taken seriously. I've had a couple of arguments for example with religious GAF just for the fact that the book has been translated differently in English than ancient Greek I read it from (good example is the prophet who was ordered by God to eat human feces).
And let's not forget the thread a while ago where parts of some versions of the English Bible had been altered in order to serve the homophobia of fundamentalists. If that happens in the age of information where forgery is apparent imagine what these books went through during the middle ages. It's ridiculous that people take this book seriously. I bet even Homer's Odyssey had less alterations compared to the Bible. :lol
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
Tim the Wiz said:
:lol Nice try. But no.
GoutPatrol
Forgotten in his cell
OpinionatedCyborg said:
Muslim/Confucianism?
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Dani said:
It is. Your experience, quite understandably, tells you otherwise. Moreover, illogical does not mean improbable as you think. The hubris of inductive reasoning is that its predictive funtions are based on natural laws that are not entirely provable. However, since it often provides clear successful results, this is ignored. (see: problem of induction)
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
Tim the Wiz said:
No, quoting the problem of induction as a reason why scientific reasoning is the same as fairytale reasoning is just complete bullshit.
Science is about explaining things to the best of our ability, hence why nothing in science is 100%, we can always learn something tomorrow that may better explain something than we can today and science allows and is designed to incorporate this.
You are saying that the problem of induction means that science is just as viable as make believe fairy tales is just retarded. Science is the best tool we have for explaining the universe around us, you simply cannot discount the reasoning behind every fact, theory and areas of science on the obvious fact that humans do not know everything about everything.
If we drop a ball on Earth, it will fall. Science proves this. It is also true that there is a possibility that something else would happen instead of it dropping, but science tells us that this is also possible, but highly unlikely. This is then backed up by repeatably dropping the ball, over and over, it becomes clear that the science behind the explanation is correct. Science allows for clearer or superior explanations to come in future if it better fits and hold up to repeated scrutiny.
Your assumption that the problem of induction that made up lies hold the same value and weight as science is laughable at best.
If you really are such a strong believer in the problem of induction, I'm surprised you haven't starved to death as relying on that reason for certainty, you couldn't guarantee any food would provide you with life sustaining elements, as seeing it before, even a million times, wouldn't guarantee it for you either, so why risk eating any food at all? It couldn kill you instant for all you know! =P
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Dani said:
I never said or proposed an assumption that religion had the same value and weight as science. That is an avenue into the subjective.
You didn't take into consideration my numerous points that while you cannot logically prove - as with the supernatural or astrology or reading tea leaves - the conclusions of inductive inferences as absolute truth, the predictive function of scientific thinking has proven to be accurate many times with clear results - hinting towards the probable effectiveness of such reasoning.
I was merely using the problem of induction as a rebuff to the argument that "us non-believers have a hard time understanding how someone can believe something without evidence". It was an attempt to point out that the situation was simply more complex than that.
Slightly Live
Dirty tag dodger
Tim the Wiz said:
:lol Here I was ready to break out deductive falsification. =)
There are thousands of versions of the Bible, and I have read one that clearly implies that the world is flat. Genesis says something along the lines of "...and a dome of sky to cover the Earth", obviously only possible if the world was flat.TheExodu5 said:
With so many versions of the Bible, and even with my 6 year old brother able to spot the countless contradictions, it is unbelievable that people still devote their lives to this thing.
I just finished reading this book two days ago. It was pretty good. I've read another book of his as well, Misquoting Jesus. I like his style, it's easy to read and fast moving. This isn't a very in depth book, it's more of an introduction to the subject. For anyone who is interested in this kind of thing and not familiar with it, it's a great place to start.
Tim the Wiz
Banned
Dani said:
Judgmental assumption? Thinly-veiled insults? I have to say, your earlier post was quite a pleasure to read.
I'd like to know whether you think the unprovability of theistic existence means equal probability of either possibility.
PhoenixDark
Banned
speculawyer said:
I'm no longer a Christian but if you're going to "debunk" the bible do it right, and be honest instead of copy/pasting nonsense
Isaiah: God can see everything, his position in the astral plane is rather irrelevant when he's omnipotent
Ezekiel 7:2 doesn't say what you claim it does. In that chapter the prophet is visited by god in dream, and is told the end is coming to Israel - not the earth.
Daniel: Daniel is a book of prophesy. The very passage details the empire of Nebuchadnezzar, making an analogy to the Tower of Babel; its power covers the earth and rises to heaven, yet its corruption ultimately leads to a downfall.
Isaiah 11 is controversial because it does say "four corners of the earth," but if anything the verse is proof that the translation of the bible (even the King James) is not infallible - not that the bible teaches the earth is flat.
From the same book
More on Isaiah 11: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c017.html
Mgoblue201
Won't stop picking the right nation
One could argue that the gospel writers weren't trying to present total facts. People now make a big deal about the empty tomb and how no one would have believed if Jesus had been dead and buried, but I don't even think that the empty tomb was a rhetorical argument at the time. Christianity probably did not begin as Luke described (since the number of converts seem impossible). It was a much smaller cult, and those who believed were probably more caught up in different elements - that the things Jesus taught were more important than his life. Even the gospels themselves give different accounts and have their own agendas. Many of the events written about follow classic and extraordinary themes that are meant to say something in and of themselves. In other words, the gospels are kind of parables that give the basic outline of Jesus the messiah, his teachings, and his death, but the details of his life form an obvious "hero" tale, if you know what I mean. I don't consider this a virtue, as how is one supposed to derive truth from something that isn't necessarily truth? That's why nobody can ever decide on the truth in religion to begin with.
Mgoblue201 said:
For me it comes down to a couple of very simple exercises:
Consider the Source.
Christians choose to ignore the teachings of Islam and to a certain extent, the Old Testament, in spit of near identical sources - Middle Eastern religious zealots who wished to instill their teachings on the broader public. All are Abrahamic and all claim a common deity. And all are demonstrably and even canonicaly written by men (even the Koran is said to be penned by a person, not the literal hand of God, but rather his "guidance.")
That's why miracles are attributed to these folks later - to give their claims supernatural credence. Otherwise they carry no special weight beyond the content of their prose.
It also comes down to a selection of philosophy, since it fails at a logical level. Christians or Muslims as societies have selected the one that they prefer and even more vitally, the one they inherited. You can't ignore the legacy aspect. Conversion numbers at the time of those teachings are tiny, but multiply exponentially over time. Choice is a small percentage of faith selection. The vast majority of faiths are inherited at birth with no choices offered.
The fundamentalist is a little late to the party but it's a party of truth why not out what the biggest fear mongering religion believes in the deeper aspect. Creation of the current known canon is a complete crock and easily shows the current infrastructure cherry picked what they wanted and didn't while purposely mistranslating to mislead.
Honestly the commandments and language alone make me question those following any organized religion. Know anyone religious who doesn't have idols of consumerism around them they worship and build their lives of convenience more around instead of god. Here's a good one do you think god would approve the various forms of stealing society seems to accept on various levels? Where in the commandments does God become semantical about the act of killing? Didn't the creator express extreme disdain for those that change the form by which the deity is addressed? Why does creator seem to be good at fear and destruction over lover and inspiration? For all the crap the bible spews about being a better person with faults both new and old testament seem to show most individuals of power inevitably corrupt warmongers waiting to strike when they had power to do so.
Enoch
Lilith
Holy Grail mythology
Solomon's downfall
Cannite History
Nephilim
Paul's teachings and their contradictory nature
Are all enough to show me that church wasn't totally in to what some members were thinking or on the flipside had a lot to lose if even fraction of what is mentioned in some circles is true. At the very least why trust when the whole can't even agree to the true story? The bible is nothing more than jesuit hit piece designed to confused the masses any real history lies with the vatican and other sources we know with a vested interest in holding most of our species back through intellectual materialism. What's the difference between religion and cult, success.
Honestly the commandments and language alone make me question those following any organized religion. Know anyone religious who doesn't have idols of consumerism around them they worship and build their lives of convenience more around instead of god. Here's a good one do you think god would approve the various forms of stealing society seems to accept on various levels? Where in the commandments does God become semantical about the act of killing? Didn't the creator express extreme disdain for those that change the form by which the deity is addressed? Why does creator seem to be good at fear and destruction over lover and inspiration? For all the crap the bible spews about being a better person with faults both new and old testament seem to show most individuals of power inevitably corrupt warmongers waiting to strike when they had power to do so.
Enoch
Lilith
Holy Grail mythology
Solomon's downfall
Cannite History
Nephilim
Paul's teachings and their contradictory nature
Are all enough to show me that church wasn't totally in to what some members were thinking or on the flipside had a lot to lose if even fraction of what is mentioned in some circles is true. At the very least why trust when the whole can't even agree to the true story? The bible is nothing more than jesuit hit piece designed to confused the masses any real history lies with the vatican and other sources we know with a vested interest in holding most of our species back through intellectual materialism. What's the difference between religion and cult, success.
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