Honestly, for me the easiest thing that knocks down the notion of a singular god is the fact that damn near every culture for human history has had some form of religious belief, and all of them have been convinced that their belief is the correct one and everyone else is wrong. The idea that somehow we've always been getting it wrong but now SUDDENLY, the bible's got the ultimate truth and is the right one, is ridiculous to me.

I don't begrudge anyone their faith (and in fact really appreciate and like having multiple perspectives here in the FIYH community), but for me personally, it's infinitely more likely that everyone is wrong, than any one particular sect being right and everyone else being wrong.

Whether an all powerful creation-entity of some form exists is an open question that is simply not answerable, since if it doesn't there'd be no evidence of that, and if it does, we are so micro-scale by comparison that we'd have no realistic way of measuring it, at least not until we start exploring the boundaries of the universe.

I'm damn certain though that none of the specific theologies that have developed over the course of human history are accurate, and none of the more modern texts are any more plausible than the roman or greek mythologies of old, they're just as ridiculous and outdated.

The more we learn about the universe the more it is apparent that humanity is an infinitely tiny piece of the larger puzzle, and if there is any creator running the show, they operate at such a larger scale that they certainly don't give a shit about humanity's "sins", or any other human-specific emotional construct that we've happened to develop as a civilization over our measly couple thousand years of existence.

Last edited by bullet3 (2013-11-13 08:52:46)

This is true, but, as I said, the textual evidence is compelling enough reason for me to continue on. Given the number of manuscripts, fragments or whole books, the texts we have points towards the Bible being accurately copied. Archeological evidence continues to point towards the potential for stories to be true but that is something we will never know for sure. Though, some stories refer to people, places or events that have been verified in history.

That, of course, is where faith comes in, Personally, I take it on faith that the Bible is true, and will continue to weigh the evidence as I get older. For me, it is as interesting to study the evidence as it is the Bible itself.

But, even I, as a Christian, find other philosophies interesting to study too.

If you don't believe the Bible is true, you don't believe in the God of the Bible. You may say or think you believe in that same god, but it's not the same god.

I completely disagree with picking and choosing what parts of the Bible you want to believe. Of course people have different ways of interpreting everything the Bible says; but, however you want to interpret it, you'd have to do some serious snipping of the text if you want to make the case that God is evil - so much so that you wouldn't be left with the same god at all.

We don't know so much as the identities of the Gospel writers (we know who they are traditionally attributed to, but that is not the same thing). We have no way of knowing whether they believed they were writing anything more than fiction at the time. In fact, we have apocryphal Gospels which, having been dismissed from canon, demonstrate that even Christians necessarily believe that people were writing fictitious Gospels at that time. And the ones accepted as "true" were so chosen in the 4th century for largely political reasons. If society collapses completely and in 2000 years archaeologists were to discover the Potter books -- and only the Potter books -- how would they know what Rowling did or did not believe?

You didn't answer my question, by the way. Although I guess it wasn't formed as a question:

What is compelling about the idea that the books were accurately copied, considering this says nothing about the factual accuracy of their contents?

Last edited by Dorkman (2013-11-13 09:21:04)

Many early Christians were, but we can't be sure that the Gospel writers were among them, since as I mentioned, we do not have solid evidence (disregarding "tradition") of who said writers actually were.

Which question did I miss? Sorry that I did.
Even if we never know what the biblical writers believed, there is still evidence, archeological and otherwise, that compels me to investigate the Bible's claims. The Bible is a strange book, written by 40+ authors over many hundreds of years, yet there is a consistent theme and a consistent message. For a book that old, that is interesting. Especially, as I have said, when we have historical, non-fiction works, that are considered accurate with less evidence of textual accuracy.

I'll never have 100% proof that all the Bible says is historically accurate. But, the Bible does claim to be the Word of God, in several different places. Yes, I know, there are different parts of the Bible not included in canon, Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, etc. But, even in those, there is still consistency. In all of those, the Bible claims to be true. That compels me.

This, I definitely don't understand.

It's a book written to be the core of a religious faith. It's not going to have a couple lines going "JK guyz we just wrote this out back of the 7-11 one day, we were high as fuuuuk. Jerry thought it would funny." Any more than than the official rules of the NHL is going to have a section about how "Hockey's actually kinda a dumb sport don't you think guys?"

EDIT: In case it wasn't clear, I'm totally the kid at the back of the class with his hand glued to his head going "How does pencil?" when it comes to this stuff. No offence meant or implied, just genuine confusion and curiosity.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-11-13 09:39:03)

Exactly, and this is always where I get caught up in these sorts of talks (And where I did for a long while when I was trying to figure this all out (and eventually leading to my deconversion)), is that all of these people are still human. And humans haven't really changed since then. Propaganda, and fiction were still as strong of forces back then as they are now. People were still just as easily led into cults and lies. So how am supposed to trust these people who we have no idea who they are, if it can proved, anything. And the only thing thing telling me that this God is real is the thing written by people who have a vested interest in me believing this God is real.

Basically I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of something being written decades if not centuries after the fact by people who most likely weren't even there, for a reason that obviously wasn't accurate representation of the events as they happened, and then edited and curated after the fact, as something I should put my life in the hands of.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-11-13 09:54:57)

Thank you for clarifying. The textual accuracy is one facet that is compelling. The claim that it is the Word of God, and is a claim maintained by the authors across the centuries is another one I find compelling.

Book of Mormon is not compelling because the history does not line up. Quran is interesting because it actually puts more stock in Jesus than it does the Mohammad, though their Jesus and biblical Jesus are different. There was a whole book written couple of years ago by Muslims who investigated the role of Jesus in Islam. That was interesting.

Dianetics was written based on a bet.

I really, really don't want to derail this thread and create the "fireproof's come to Jesus" hour here. Quickly though, BDA's thing about propaganda would be compelling, if, like the Gnostics, it was a small group of people pushing for the exact same thing. But the Bible spans centuries and multiple people, not all of whom were working for the same goal.

Textual accuracy is one aspect that interests me because it shows what was historically written, to the best of our knowledge. Textual criticism is a whole field in archeology and I am probably doing a poor job relating it here. Hopefully, this helps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textual_criticism

BDA, the idea that the Bible was written centuries after the fact is a common one, but isn't fully accurate of the situation. Textual criticism helps us to see what a document was when it was written. That's also part of biblical interpretation, which basically analyses the original language and what the readers would understand from the writing.

I guess that is why the Bible compels me so much. There is history, poetry, letters and songs that take a lifetime to understand but is fascinating nonetheless. There is so much there to discover, including the claims the Bible makes.

I guess I go back to the nature of man, and the fact that I think that man is basically evil. I think man needs a savior. My study of psychology (and working in retail) hasn't really convinced me otherwise.

I wish I had all the answers, guys, but I don't. Experience has taught me a lot about the importance of faith too, which is a long answer too

Well, that helps, I think I can kinda see where you're coming from.

Alright shifting gears based on your last sentence.

Can someone please explain to me this idea of "faith" being more important than "knowing what you're believing in to be true". It seems to be something that a lot of people tell me whenever I try to talk religion with them, that 'It doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense, so long as you believe in it." or "So long as you believe it, it will be true."

Which I find to be an entirely mind boggling sentiment. I'm not sure if it's me being an atheist and approaching the universe from a more thinking based perspective or what, but it always blows my mind whenever I hear it (And when I hear it in movies, especially used as a plot device it really pisses me off, in cases of actual magic powers notwithstanding) and I've never had it or the idea behind it explained to me in a way I can comprehend.

So, any takers to try and teach the kid currently taping the class hamster to a paper airplane?

Faith in its proper form is important to every day life. Every time you step into a crosswalk, you're having faith that the people in the death machines around you will obey the laws and not turn you into paste. Every time you tell your best friend a secret, you're placing faith in him or her to keep it for you. You cannot know that a drunk driver will not come careening through that crosswalk, or that your friend won't decide to betray you, but based on past experience you take that leap. Faith is not based on proof, but it is based on evidence.

Religion has corrupted the word to mean believing something, not just in the absence of both proof and evidence, but often in the face of conflicting and even contradictory evidence. I do not accept that as a valid definition of faith. To me that's just gullibility.

And that's the thing that really confuses me Red, is because it feels like a mental escape hatch for religion.

"Oh it doesn't make sense? Obviously you don't believe hard enough." (<90% of my conversations with my religious "mentors" when I was going through it, before I gave up and said fuck it I'll figure it out on my own)
or "It doesn't really make sense, but that's okay because I still believe."

It just feels weak and cheap, and I don't understand how human thinking adults could devote their entire lives to something that requires that level of dissonance.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2013-11-13 10:47:57)