This is Why It’s Worthwhile to Discuss Religion with Theists

In my humble opinion, Neil is one of the best voices to emerge from the atheist community in 2013. I am really enjoying his work, and I think it is great that you are giving him some love here.

You do realise that it can work both ways, don’t you? Talking to a Christian might sow seeds of doubts about atheism that will one day bloom and grow into full-fledged faith in God!! 🙂

But that’s not what fundamentalism means. Fundamentalism means a strict interpretation of the Bible, not the extent to which it controls one’s thinking on other issues.

Isaac Newton would be called a fundamentalist today, although the term wasn’t in use during his lifetime. He actually spent more time philosophizing about angels and metaphysics than math and physics. But he didn’t think his Biblical views meant that “God did it,” was acceptable theory.

Fundamentalism means a strict interpretation of the Bible, not the extent to which it controls one’s thinking on other issues.

R. Joseph Hoffmann has a more expansive definition:

To be a fundamentalist, you have to have a book. And you have to forget the book has a history.

http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/defining-fundamentalism/

LOL 🙂 (But what does Jesus do with all those wheels?)

There is another reason to engage. Debates are rarely for the purpose of changing your opponents mind, they’re done for the benefit of the audience. You may make no headway with a theist but it’s impossible to know how your argument will be received by spectators, assuming there are any.

I am generally more apt to converse with a theist when there are others listening. I might win over the theist but if I don’t I might just give the others listening something to think about.

I like number 4. Lots of people I disagree with still make interesting arguments.

Yes, the rough times when the beach showed only one set of footprints… that was because Jesus was riding on your back, causing those rough times. What a jerk!

Head for the repair shop.

That’s an accretion. The story was written by Mary Stevenson, a teenager, in 1936 or 1939 (I’ve seen both dates), but she didn’t copyright it, and it circulated as anonymous. However most people still accept it is just a story. I use it to demonstrate how tales attach to religious figures.

/sarcasm defeats the purpose.

Sarcasm is implicit from being heavy handed on certain inane memes in Christianity.

When people come to my house I normally do not engage in any form of discussion, I am usually trying to get rid of them. However, if these people have brought children along all bets are off.

I don’t really get why some people don’t think the discussion is worth having. Most of us were theists at one point, and then we heard something that made us start doubting. No you’re not going to change everyone’s mind, or even most people. Religion is too deeply ingrained into their life and worldview for that. But there are people out there who might at least start heading towards the right direction.

The vast majority of atheists in the United States were once those people.

Hmmm…. I guess it’s based on my belief that we humans are inherently selfish and, if you really dig down, we pretty much do everything only for our own good, but I think #5 is the most important.

Nowhere in these “List of Reasons Talking To Those Bible Wavers IS A Good Idea” is it ever mentioned that…..perhaps they may be right. To be sure, the opposite lists, “Reasons to Talk To Those Evil Godless Atheists” is also missing that reason….because they may be right. Or at the very least “Those guys might be wrong, but they still have good points to make.

Perhaps that’s why the discourse on so many divisive issues fail. Everyone goes in from the point that they’re right, “those guys” are wrong, but I want to make a show of politely listening.

I used to feel the same way. But sometimes, listening to a gay rights activist, or an atheist, or a feminist, or a communist exposes me to FACTS I wouldn’t have encountered trapped among of Bible thumpers all quoting the same verses over and over.

Simply because we disagree on what the facts mean, doesn’t mean we can’t still seek out the facts together.

Where would I fit? I’m a Biblical literalist (I really do think God made the Earth and the Universe in 6 days, or 144 hours) and I don’t compromise on Scriptural doctrine (homosexuality is wrong, so is polygamy, so is premarital sex, no exceptions).

But when I call myself a fundie, people balk, saying a fundie would never actually fraternizes with “godless sodomites and unbelievers”.

I believe in keeping talking about it because if you surrender all the talking to the extremist theists, you might end up in some horrible dystopia like the one in The Handmaid’s Tale. Being quiet means that things just fester.

It’s like any other issue. You might not change people’s minds immediately but women got the right to vote and (sadly) in various parts of the word including our own, that attacking women sexually is something to take seriously. Keeping silent does nothing to change things.

We have to keep pointing out that inserting religion in textbooks will keep us back as a society among other things.

Some Budhists are atheists, some are theists. There are those who are of the opinion that all the theistic and mystical elements of Budhism are the result of the corruption of the philosophy of Budha by people insisting on reading him theistically. Shrug. You give an example of a secular Hindu (who would then also be an atheistic Hindu).

But the supernatural is never the actual explanation for any explained mystery. That’s so true a tautology that you can even make bets with full certainty you’re right if the other persons position assumes a supernatural entity.

I put the odds on gods existing at -0- or essentially identical to -0-. I find little value in trying to find what doesn’t exist (lacks evidence) these days.

Absolutely. David it could happen. But look how much “faith” non believers have in their position compared to theists. Most non believing parents I know do not teach non belief to their children even though childhood indoctrination is one of the best ways to perpetuate viewpoints to the next generation. Religious people always do.

We’ll take our chances with discussion. We have nothing to fear.

Yeah, I caught it the second time through. Thing is, we often see people say stuff like this in complete earnestness. Funny how easily Christian apologetics turn into their own charicature.

Ummm… Atheism only makes sense if you’ve been exposed to a Judaeo-Christian (Islam is judaeo-christian, even recognises Jesus as a very important figure…) worldview?

No. Atheists existed prior to Judaism’s propagation/expansion. Atheism is literally – (a) –
without, (theism) belief in a deity (or deities). A religious
worldview, you’re right – has been the default for most (if not all) of recorded human history – but it has nothing to do with any particular religion. Nor does atheism require religion at all to make sense – except in the tautological sense, in that if no-one believed in god, there would be no label for someone who didn’t believe in god(s).

In fact, by strict definition, a ‘Hindu wise man’ claiming that ‘gods are metaphors’, who doesn’t believe in their ‘reality’ is at best a deist – but most likely actually an atheist – they just don’t choose to apply the label. They might be other things (‘spiritual’, etc), but atheism isn’t anything more than a lack of belief in god(s)

Poe’s Law. It was hard to catch as sarcasm because some of us hear or read things from theists almost every day that sound exactly like that.

How fun for homosexuals that you are willing to demean yourself by socializing with people that you think are sinners going to hell.

Where do you stand on shellfish?

Actually, just believing in the central doctrine of Christianity demonstrates a willful surrender of your critical faculties.

I LOVE shellfish. Assuming it’s prepared properly (meaning no curry).

Trite as the example is, since he was raised in the Church of Ireland, fell away in his late teens, and famously re-converted, CS Lewis would appear to give an existence case. Contrariwise, conversions from highly religious upbringings to highly irreligious outcomes (even temporary) or vice versa are relatively rare; it thus seems unsurprising that double-conversions would be rare-squared.

Nohow, Altemeyer and Hunsberger’s “Amazing Conversions” study (examining both sorts) noticed the two tended to look quite different psychologically. To oversimplify the trends indicated by their book, contemporary irreligious-to-religious shifts tended to be a relatively abrupt sort, associated with an emotional trauma, the presenting of a (religious) social support network, and a wholesale adoption of the dogma by someone with unusually high authoritarian follower (RWA) tendency; while the religious-to-irreligious shifts tended to happen over much longer time, resulting from protracted intellectual inquiry, and gradual rejection of dogma piece by piece, culminating in eventual disidentification by someone with an unusually low-RWA tendency.

Given the contradictory tendency on RWA, this would indicate such full-blown double-switches would be even less common than rare-squared. On the other hand, RWA is at least somewhat environmental, which suggests a change in social pressure to conformity might play a factor. So, the most likely case to find a religious-to-irreligious-to-religious would seem to be someone of median-RWA tendencies, brought up in a religious household, sent off to college where exposure to new ideas causes them to fall away, sustain the irreligiosity through a relatively low-stress couple years in some environment encouraging conformity (say, equivalent of a classic 1950s type organization-man job), but then encounter some significant trauma (say, death of a close friend, or possibly loss of a job) which drives them back into religiosity for social support. Though the gradual nature of his re-transition suggests that it may take time to construct complex rationalizations to paper over the cracks of the previous shift, CS Lewis has elements of this trajectory; moderately religious family, some time in the British schools (to inculcate such submission), the emotional stress of WWI, followed by gradual reversion to religiosity.

The likely sort of counterpart irreligious-to-religious-to-irreligious example would seem someone raised irreligious, who enters the military (environmentally inculcating authoritarian submission), converts (triggered by exposure to indoctrination sessions for getting out of barracks cleaning Sunday mornings), serves relatively uneventfully, goes off on the GI Bill to college, gets a PhD in sociology… and gradually rethinks that conversion. (Marrying outside the faith, to someone slightly but not particularly religious, might help reduce social costs to the final disidentification.) However, I’d expect these to be rarer — the prerequisite initial irreligious upbringing being scarcer.

(All this neglects quasi-religious “conversions” to non-theist identities, which in the West seem to have fallen by the wayside since the decline of the Communist Party in that part of the world.)

Regardless, either kind of double-switch seems to require conditions near “perfect storm” rarity. Far more common would be minor shifts in one direction or the other.

How so?

I feel the same after repeatedly hearing atheists dismiss the gaps in their own theories with a “Whatever,” or some variation thereof.

Atheist have theories? You mean like gravity?

lolwut?

I guess I’m trying to figure out why you’re privileging the Bible and the desert god of one particular tribe of people as “real”, when everyone else is apparently just making stuff up.

I see no reason to do that.

You know it’s Jesus because he takes a size 9.

Well, there are other reasons I privilege the Bible. Many of them fall under “just because”.

My statement isn’t meant as a rationale for why the Bible is provably correct. I can’t do that. It’s simply meant to show there are ways to reconcile it with reason and logic, if imperfectly.

Eh, I’ve spent too much of my life at universities. The speed of light and energy density are pretty strong limits on a bunch of sci-fi. So too are there very real known limits like how cold you can get molecules or on how fast you can move in regular space. I don’t think we know everything but What we do know bounds what is theoretically possible.

Can you provide chapter and verse on that?

Because the idea that something omnipotent and omnibenevolent is incapable of forgiveness is absurd. Human beings forgive each other all the time without ever thinking about sacrificing their children in order to do it, let alone actually going through with it. Just to accept the idea that you require forgiveness simply for existing in the first place makes no sense but to go from there to “Thankfully the creator of everything killed his kid for me”? You’ve stopped thinking.

This is where we completely disagree. As our scienctific knowledge expands at an exponential rate, the limits of what we can and can’t do change seemingly on the hour.

It’s not that we suddenly discover gravity is bullshit; but we discover different levels of physics and methods to manipulate those physics. Thus, whereas walking on the Moon was once considered flatly impossible, we know look back on the Saturn V and say “That was cool, but oh so pedestrian. Our next models will blow it out the water.”

Mark 10:6-8: “But from the beginning of
the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall
leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, ‘and the two shall become
one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.

But the supernatural is never the actual explanation for any explained mystery.

I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.

Well, fortunately, this is a free country and you don’t have to socialize with whoever you don’t want to socialize with.

To a Westerner, atheism (there is no God) and secularism (religion shouldn’t play a big role in political decision making and everyday life) go hand in hand. The more strongly you believe in one, the more strongly you’ll believe in the other.

But that’s no so true outside of the West.

LOL Typical Fundamentalist. You have no idea how condescending you sound. I’ll repeat my sarcastic retort: It must be such a joy for gay people to get to spend time with such a condescending asshole.

But the funniest part is “if I’m reading my Bible correctly”. You don’t know. You can’t know. There are so many ways to read it that lead to contradictory conclusions and you can’t see the obvious problem with that.

I agree.

It’s clear it’s all based on the primitive idea of ancient blood magic. The only way for your god to not be angry with something you did was to sacrifice something – kill it and spill its blood.

But human blood is more “magic” than animal blood, and a god’s blood is the most “magic” of all. So to fix the reason that the god is mad at everyone who ever lived is to spill the god’s blood. Problem permanently solved.

There’s a lot of layers of supposedly sophisticated candy-coating on that over the centuries, but that’s basically it.

What modern person would buy this if the idea was totally brand new and nobody had ever heard it before? Does it sound like it makes any sort of sense?

I take it on faith.

Well, to be fair, the idea that you can be found guilty of something, but, through some sort of penance or retribution, avoid the proscribed punishment is an accepted part of our legal system.

The commonsense definition “an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in God” is good enough for everyday speech, but not philosophically or historically. The line between deists and atheists is hard to draw, and one merged into the other.
There’s not much difference between “there is no God” and “there might be something out there, but we can’t know it or communicate with it in any way”.

If the Bible was suddenly revised by god again to state that polygamy was now not only acceptable, but the preferred family status, what would it take for you (or Christians in general) to accept this new revision as Biblical truth? Would Biblical literalists then go out and add more wives to their families? I’m asking this sincerely, not sarcastically. I’ve always wondered what happened back in the day as the Bible was going through its growing pains; like if people were “grandfathered” in under the old rules as exceptions to any new rules.

I appreciate the exercise in logic and reason. Even if the needed recipients aren’t getting it, I am. I’ve gotten more practice & education in logic arguing against Xians on the internet than I ever did in school.

You never heard that stuff about blood sacrifice before? THAT is why it is said that you surrendered your critical faculties. That’s pretty basic stuff for anyone who has ever thought critically about biblical god-worship.

A very interesting hypothetical. But the thing you have to consider is that Biblical literalists fail to meet the standards that are already in the Bible. So even God revising it wouldn’t necessarily change their behavior.

Would some Christians, in an effort to be true to the Bible, add more wives? Yes. Some would do it because, hey, who can turn down multiple women?

Some wouldn’t do it. They’d say, “Naw, I’m good with my one. More would mean more money, more headaches, and I don’t want to be bothered, even if it is God’s will.”

I have. I don’t think I suggested I hadn’t. I just don’t take the same view of it.

But you can’t believe the universe was made in 6 days on the one hand and on the other hand accept evolution and the reality-based age of the earth and the universe. They’re in conflict.

No need for the sarcasm. It happens.

Looked at the way most do, yes, they are in conflict. Here’s my view.

If we take the Arthur C. Clarke view that the “fantastic” is simply rational science on a level we haven’t reached, I don’t see why a highly advanced being could speak the world in to existence. I mean voice recognition and voice activation are mundane aspects of everyday life now.

As for the age of the Earth, I accept that my science’s best guess, they get 4 billion years. Most scientists freely admit there’s a lot of guessing and blank spots in that theory. In short, it could very well be wrong.

And lastly, I tend to view evolution as further proof of an intelligent designer. It would make sense that God would create life to be able to adapt to a changing environment and thus survive for the long haul. Kinda like making computers that automatically download patches and updates.

Oops, I guess my comment was meant for Rain.

Studies of generational conversion rates favour non believers.

http://www.secularnewsdaily.com/2010/08/religion-switching-in-the-uk-and-usa/

Hm. That is a really good point actually.

I notice a distinct lack of “…and only one wife at a time” in that verse. You have to read that into your interpretation, because it isn’t stated specifically.

But back in Genesis, we have this: (Gen 35 22-26)
“Jacob had twelve sons. The sons of Leah were Reuben (Jacob’s oldest son), Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. The sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin. The sons of Rachel’s slave Bilhah were Dan and Naphtali. The sons of Leah’s slave Zilpah were Gad and Asher.”

That’s two wives and two concubines, and apparently this was OK by god. And how many wives did Solomon have? Can you find anything in the bible that says “In the days of old it was permissible for the Patriarchs to have many wives, but I command you not to do that any more” ?

Really? Then why comment simply, “Hm. Interesting.” as if it were a new idea to you?

Because I’m not in the habit of making comments based on how it would appear to someone else.

The “Hm, interesting” is what I say when someone presents a good point, or even illustrates a point I’ve heard before in a really good way. It neither signifies agreement or disagreement.

To answer why I think that’s inaccurate; like many things, the Bible, especially in the OT describes a time and a place different that the one we live in now. Buying and selling slaves, having concubines, and slaughtering goats were all accepted and normal aspects of everyday life.

The New Testament specifically states that with Jesus’s arrival, there’s no need for such arcane measures. Thus I don’t believe in using those arcane beliefs, that the Bible has already stated are outmoded, as a basis for determining whether the Bible makes sense.

But “silly blood sacrifice” is the entire basis for Christianity. Without it, the religion suffers a fundamental existence failure.

I agree that he was a bit sloppy using the term “religious people” to refer to that narrower segment of people. There are plenty of people who call themselves “religious” who do not fall into his category. “Fundamentalist” is closer, but as others have noted, is not perfect either.

Conceded.

I think you’ll find that most churches have people from church-going families who left as teenagers and then found their way back again; but maybe that wasn’t what you were thinking about?

How old do you believe the Earth is?

Of course you don’t. My reply still stands. This is still why people say you do not think critically. YMMV, of course.

Actually, there is a huge difference between the two.

And when did religion started caring about empirical facts?

Sure, yes.

So when Genesis provides two different creation accounts, you—? What?

I agree. Years ago when I was a believer a priest remarked that in a sermon one never knows what phrase or sentence in his homily would register with the listener, sometimes weeks, months or years later. He said it’s why he took great care in preparing his presentations.

Having experienced my deconversion to atheism through the writings of D., D., H. and H, I agree.

I’m not aware that Genesis provides two different creation accounts.

No. I doubt that most people who just quit going to church for a season should be called “atheists.”

And C.S. Lewis is a hard call. His autobiography doesn’t make him sound like he was very religious as a youth or a young man. I wouldn’t say he “thought his way out” of a personal faith like the second group I’m describing.

I will stop repeating the lie when you point to ANY evidence that states what you state.

I can’t speak for “religion”. For myself, and the theists I know, we most CERTAINLY care about facts.

The Bible encourages us to be seekers of the truth, not seekers of doctrine.

Very clever. I don’t know how claiming you have 90% of the puzzle counts the same as actually having 90% of the puzzle complete.

In my experience, a fact have to be in potential falsifiable. Pick any of your religious facts and explain what evidence could falsify it for you?

Can someone point me to these two different accounts in Genesis?

Genesis 1 is different from Genesis 2. The consensus of non-fundamentalist scholarship on the matter is it’s two different sources put together. The order of creation differs, among other things.

Yes that is true. It just that educated people can make stupid guesses too. The “Nobody can get past the sound barrier” was people not really caring. Jaegers actually might be impossible given the mind thing, Gundams are impossible and the show never attempts to say otherwise, (“Gundaniam” anyone?) a Metal Gear might actually be possible if you give us a few decades though.

Yes, we do. And it’s just as wrong and disingenuous.

Many Christians do claim to have empirical proof that is flatly impossible to have. I wasn’t there when God created the Universe, so I cannot possibly know for sure. I didn’t write the Bible so I cannot possibly prove beyond a doubt that it is true.

The mistake is that Christians, based on my experience, are taught to have faith, and they take this to mean it’s okay to misrepresent your faith as undeniable objective fact.

It’s not. It’s okay to say “I believe this, and for me it has worked remarkably well, but I could very well be wrong.” And it’s true. I can be wrong. It might be the Bible is bullshit and we’re all wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time a bunch of people believe something false.

Is the Qua’ran literally true? The I-Ching? The Torah? The Shruti? The Book of Mormon? The Gospel of Thomas? The Talmud?

You stated you’ve determined the Bible is literally true. Fine. Than explain to me which of the passages, verses, people, places or things, from these other religions, convinced you the Bible is the one to follow.

And you still wonder why we think you don’t do the critical thinky-thing.

There is no God:
This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.

Shelley: the necessity of atheism.

He’s using the word “atheism” to describe a position most would understand as Deism. The two merge into each other, and there’s a series of gradual steps connecting them. Shelley is on the atheist side of the fuzzy line between them, but not quite 100% there.

I did say that. Good point. Although it seems to me his assertion is that the presence of a brain truly denotes the beginning of human life, which is a compelling argument.

This seems to be part of the personhood argument, which is not the same as saying a zygote isn’t a unique human and that it’s alive.

I can’t. They might very well be true and the Bible false.

Yes, that’s why I didn’t include him; although I think his mother was “religious”, as everybody in Ireland would have been back then, and he did think it through to quite some extent. Both ways!
Kudos anyway for actually having read his autobiography!

Your mistake lies in thinking that Christians are interested in rational arguments. They are not. They often quite irrationally use them for other purposes.

Clearly you’ve never been to Gamefaqs. Protip: Keeps it that way.

X-men examples: Sentials are improbable and a stupid idea even in-universe, Mutants as they are known in that series are impossible.

Um, actually that’s not true. The consensus of people who study the Bible, whether fundamentalist or not, is that this more a turn of phrase, not a contradiction.

It’s not that God made Adam first and then brought the animals, it’s simply that God brought the animals he’d already created to Adam for naming.

That alleged contradiction, like the mistranslation of homosexuality, is not really espoused outside of anti-Christian circles.

No, you’re just able to intelligently assume my responses based on the evidence in front of you. Way better than clairvoyance if you ask me.

But if the Bible is literally true(as I believe you’ve said), then turn of phrase really means nothing.

“Anti-Christian circles”? You mean non-fundamentalist circles. The Documentary Hypothesis isn’t a new idea and it wasn’t invented by atheists.

Again, you’re doing the typical fundamentalist harmonization. You’d never do that if we were talking about any book other than the bible, which people like you insist is “special’ and can’t be treated or analyzed like any other book written by humans. You wouldn’t feel the need if we were discussing the Babylonian myths or the Koran.

The scholarly consensus is that The Flood story is two versions mashed together also, but you’d probably deny that too.

Well, you’re just wrong about that.

Ah, I see your point. I think there’s a bit more to it than just “God angry, but God stop being angry if you kill something” but, yes, even I don’t fully understand the whole mechanism or reason behind the need for Jesus to die.

On what basis do you question it? We’re surrounded by evidence that science reliably identifies properties of reality. There’s no evidence that the universe was created in six days; quite the contrary.

You are reduced to special pleading.

Okay, so you have no “proof”. Do you at least have “evidence” that the Bible is literally true?

There’s no mystery about this. It’s barbarism.

Christianity has its moments of sublimity, but the orthodox view that Jesus was the perfect sacrifice who died for our sins is barbaric.

Biblical scholars don’t tend to be “anti-Christian.”

But you already believe the Bible is literally true, so any analysis or rigorous authentication effort you’re likely to make will be directed to justifying that belief. Confirmation bias doesn’t just magically strike “anti-Christians” only.

I do say so.

We’re not talking about something on the fringes of science, like whether coffee is good for you or not, or something like that. This is more like coming upon the scene of a murder, and every piece of forensic evidence you have points to the next-door neighbor as the killer. Nothing you have says otherwise. It’s open and shut. Slam-dunk.

Until someone like you comes along and says since we weren’t direct eyewitnesses to the murder, we need to entertain the idea that space-aliens committed the murder instead. We weren’t there at the time, right? Anything could have happened!

This is how it looks when someone decides that an old book written by humans simply can’t be wrong “just because”. Such an attitude isn’t a reliable path to knowledge. It’s not being an intellectually honest broker – even if you think you are.

There’s a reason the only significant political and societal objection to evolution come from people with fundamental religious objections. Don’t you find that suspicious? They have a vested, theological reason to not buy into it, no matter the evidence. Can’t you see that?

That’s a good stance to hold. But I don’t see how that idea is compatible with biblical literalism.

This is true. And I try to stay fully aware of that. Especially since Christians have a unique talent for confirmation bias.

I think this falls under the meme-phrase, “Words means things.”

Fundamentalism comes from a series of books written at the beginning of the 20th century called “The Fundamentals.” Fundamentalists adhere to five principles as the foundation of Christianity:

The Bible is inspired by God, and therefore inerrant.

Jesus was born of a virgin. (Mary wasn’t, though. That’s a Catholic belief called the Immaculate Conception.)

Jesus died to atone for the sins of man.

He was then resurrected.

The descriptions of miracles performed by him were historically accurate.

I’ve only recently began studying it, since it has so many close parallels to the Scripture I follow.

If a process works just fine without the addition of invisible, omnipotent, inter-dimensional beings, and there is no evidence of such beings’ involvement in that process, why would anyone feel the need to add them?

“We’d love it if we could cherry-pick. Like science, we have to take the whole Bible. Even the personally inconvenient parts.”

And yet you eat shrimp, celebrate the Sabbath on the wrong day, and don’t stone disobedient children (at least I hope you don’t). Even though there are specific commandments about each of these.

I don’t know anybody who actually follows the whole bible. (I don’t think it’s actually possible to do that.) Every believer cherry-picks and interprets to some extent. Even the ones who call themselves literalists.

To focus on God vs. not God keeps the conversation in familiar territory for the theists, giving them the upper-hand and forcing you into their conceptual framework. Why do that?
Best to frame the conversation as naturalistic vs. super-naturalistic worldviews. Discuss their religious beliefs from a naturalist perspective:
How can you determine between those people who have received privileged information from some creator of the universe and those that are making it up?
Why do you follow one religion and not another?
If science was wrong, then technology such as your smart phone would not work. So how can you claim that science is wrong about evolution, the age of the universe etc.

Let me see if I understand you correctly: you are asking me to provide evidence that sperm cells and egg cells are living cells, is that correct?

“However, the Bible is replete with several people including God stating that one woman should marry one man and that should be it, for life.”

So reading the bible completely means not reading it at all and making up your own version of what you assume it says?

The bible is replete with several people including god endorsing polygamy. Aside from one Jesus quote which, in context, is about something else, the bible is completely lacking anything close to “one woman should marry one man and that should be it, for life”.

atheism= have no belief in god(s)
(the difference is usually moot, but occasionally crucial)

Other than that, I agree, there are many secular theists in other countries, but I know many in the U.S. too.

Do you expect you’ll be convinced enough to change?

So you ADMIT that whatever evidence I cited, you’d dismiss it?

That’s kind of backwards and disingenuous of you. I tend to assume that if someone expresses ignorance in a statement, it is because they don’t know something, not because they enjoy being able to say, “Ah ha! Gotcha! I knew that all along!” or maybe they just go google it once it comes up so they don’t look as ignorant as they did at first… It’s pretty hard to tell.

Which of these reasons are you saying led you to “give up debating Atheists”?

Okay. I believe you’re referring to orthodox as meaning a long standing belief. Just for the record, many Christians are now rethinking substitutionary atonement mostly because it is impossible to rectify that and evolution. Whether they are going back to the beliefs of the first century church or simply evolving in order to survive is hard to say. But regardless the theory of penal substitutionary atonement is no longer a hook those who desire to disprove Christianity can hang their hat on.

Not happening with me. I require evidence, which Christianity sorely lacks.

“I can’t. They might very well be true and the Bible false.”

I will keep this firmly in mind whenever you post about it.

You know ignorance of the workings of evolution doesn’t bolster your argument as much as you think it does.

I don’t see how that would work. After all, when anyone claims people live forever, and have it backed by zero evidence and wishful thinking, I question their commitment to honesty. The truth can be painful, but at least we learn something from it.

OK, you get the best of both worlds, atheism and Christian art. I’m envious.

I can’t make judgments about you and your sister because I don’t know either of your families and I feel her version of what goes on is probably different from yours. That being said, I can truthfully state that all of the atheists I know IRL and most that I see in the online communities I participate in are freethinkers and raise their children to be critical thinkers as well. Freethinking parents teach their children about all of the religions/myths and let the children come to their own conclusions. That is pretty much the exact opposite of indoctrination.

LOL They that god is just nature which is natural not supernatural. If that’s the best you’ve got then you should admit that you’ve lost the argument.

No, it wasn’t god that stated it. It was Paul. Bit of a difference.

After a few months I’ve decided debating is not worthwile (yes, I know you don’t care). Theists you meet online (i.e. reddit) will probably have read pros and cons of theistic and atheistic arguments and won’t be swayed by anything you say because they have heard it already (and the opinion of their favourite apologist on the topic). Debating takes up time and energy, it’s just not worth it. Even if I knew for certain that I changed some minds I wouldn’t pick debating up again.

Right.
Framing the conversation is very important with theists.
Here are some tactics I use outside of the actual arguments themselves:
-Use the name of the god they worship. This allows for clearer separation between deistic & theistic arguments, and puts “God!”, usually Yahweh, on a level playing with Zeus, Allah, etc. rather than being some nebulous redefinable concept.

-Frame “atheism” as the default, or neutral position. (Because it is; lack of belief is where everyone begins.)
As well as putting the burden of proof where it belongs (on them), it allows you to pose atheism as a gateway or stepping stone away from theism’s veiled POV toward an active, moral belief system more in tune with reality, i.e. one that uses evidence and empathy rather than doctrine and often inhumane revelation.

-Call theism what it is: myth & superstition. Or stories, if that’s too harsh.
-Call the Bible what it is: “your holy text”, putting it on par with the other “holy texts” out there making different claims about reality.

-Focus where you disagree by first framing where you do agree. As well as letting you avoid making strawman fallacies (and them too), it disconnects a lot of the collateral issues from being ‘theist’. Theists often put a lot of non-theist issues under the theist umbrella (family, civility, morality, and so forth) and many will use these against you, both distracting you from the myths and scoring emotional/rhetorical points with the audience. Sometimes it even puts you in a hole (reinforced by stereotypes) where you’re validating your worth (much less your view’s worth). Ex. We both believe in democracy, doing good to others, and children need nurturing adults, right? (If they’re argumentative there, then good luck, and do it for the audience.)

-Acknowledge what is and isn’t good evidence. (This tangents into Peter Boghossian’s methods re: faith, which are worth Googling if you don’t know them.) Since almost all Christian evidence applies equally to other gods and religions, this will save you some time. Ex. “prayer works”, “holy text says”, “I feel it inside”, “This coincidence occurred”, “this guy performed miracles with witnesses”, etc, etc.
This also clears out some clutter before moving on the myths.

Hope those help you atheists, or maybe planted a seed elsewhere.
Cheers. 🙂

Well LDavidH, the only circumstance in which I would convert to Christianity is if someone offered me objective evidence for God’s existence, which no theist has offered me, so…..

The person who first proposed the Documentary Hypothesis was a christian. Wellhausen wasn’t looking for something to go “See? We told you it’s wrong.” As a man whose christian faith survived his rejection of mosaic authorship, he was not looking to discredit christianity in any way. He was looking to better understand his book and that study took him face to face with details which changed how he saw that book.

Those same details are something you can see for yourself.

You just have to read the book for yourself.

Most bible scholars today would not say it is possible to cleanly divide every word of the hexateuch into four authors, but there are completely verifiable strains of multiple authorship. You have different creation stories
(with different details in a different order, and a suddenly different name for god), different flood stories, different stories about the sacrifice of Isaac, stories about Abraham being repeated as stories about Isaac, different versions of god’s commandments, different versions of how god delivered those commandments, plagiarized babylonian myths and Moses narrating his own death in the distant past tense.

And that’s just the first few books of the old testament. If you take your own stated advice and do read the bible completely, and if you can get past what you expect the book to say and look at what it really says, you can see
this confused story for yourself.

You asked where the two creation accounts were, and then when told that the creation account in Genesis 2 gives a different order of events than the account in Genesis 1 you dismissed this as a turn of phrase. This suggests you do not really understand what the alleged problem here is, which suggests you have not read the first two chapters of your own holy book (where you would have seen these two accounts you say you are not aware of). This “turn of phrase” glosses over Day 1, does not mention anything from Day 2, contradicts the Genesis 1 account of Day 3, does not mention anything from Day 4, does not mention anything from Day 5, contradicts the Genesis 1 account of Day 6, and is placed immediately following the phrase “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made”.

The issue is not simply that there are two tellings of the
creation story. The bible repeats lots of stuff. That in itself tells us very little. But in the case of the first two chapters of Genesis those two accounts are in explicit disagreement with each other.

In Genesis 1, god creates the heavens, the earth, and sunlight (Day 1), separates the water from the water (Day 2), creates dry land and plants (Day 3), creates the Sun (three days after creating sunlight), the Moon, and the stars (Day 4), creates whales and birds (Day 5), creates land animals, and later humans (“male and female created he them” Day 6). Genesis 1 ends with the end of the sixth day.

Then Genesis 2 opens with Day 7 and god resting. Then we get the second creation account. No days are specifically mentioned but there are events mentioned, and those events and the order they are mentioned in calls into question the days in the previous chapter.

Genesis 2:7 (12 verses before Genesis 2:19)
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:19 (12 verses after Genesis 2:7)
And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

And where is Eve this whole time?

Genesis 2:20-22
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Wait a second I thought it said

Genesis 1:27&31
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;male and female created he them.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Okay now I’m confused. How long was Adam in the garden naming animals before he got bored and horny and it occurred to god to make more humans?

Were Adam and Eve both created on the sixth day after the other animals as we are told in Genesis 1:27?

Or

Did god create Adam, then rest for a day, then create a garden, then put Adam in the garden, then make a bunch of trees, then tell Adam not to eat from one of them (before he created Eve, slight oversight by god there), then create all the other animals, then have Adam name “every living creature”, then put Adam into “a deep sleep” for an unspecified amount of time, then take one of Adam’s ribs and then create Eve as we see in Genesis 2?

If one phrasing is literally true the other cannot be.

We mean old atheists keep asking them questions they can’t answer and tend to know their bible better than they do.

Find some evidence to back up your hypothesis. Then we’ll talk. Otherwise we might as well be discussing flying monkeys.

“Barring a drastic change in medical science, none of us will live long enough to watch a horse evolve, over time, into a bald eagle, or whatever.”
Sometimes debating is worthwhile because you come across funny crazy things like this.

Fundamentalists are known for being closed minded, but that isn’t what the word means. Their desire to not have their fundamentals challenged often leads them to associate only with other fundamentalists, but this is an effect and also not what the word means.

The liberal/fundamentalist spectrum is about whether you
think the will of god changes over time.

As science has uncovered more information many previously reasonable positions have become unreasonable in the face of new evidence. Some of these now unreasonable positions, such as geocentrism or six-day creation are stated as fact in the bible or have been previously endorsed by the church.

Some believers have modified their beliefs to fit with what
they understand of modern science. They sought to avoid the discrediting of their religion by swapping out some of the more obviously ridiculous elements. Some other believers saw this modification as a betrayal of their faith. They insisted that the word of god as previously believed could not be changed, and if it could it would be less special. These believers sought to avoid the discrediting of their religion by rejecting science and modern changes to doctrine. This second group, whose members may or may not associate with any godless sodomites, is what the word “fundamentalist” is originally intended to refer to.

Ooooh, you’re good.

The black churches I’ve attended (rarely, to be sure) were the quintessence of awesome. Great oratory, great music, great singing, great groove. One of the great art forms of our time, I’d venture.

And this is why you are a repulsive, ignorant bigot. You don’t care who your beliefs hurt or what kind of climate of hate and fear they create. You are truly dangerous, and you can’t even explain your actions beyond “durrr faith”. You’ve never had a thought that was truly your own.

I can’t generally eat the food product known as sausages. :(. Either nitrites from curing or smoke flavoring would give me a migraine.

Heretic!

No, not a trick.

You could say it’s only supernatural if it’s contrary to nature.Or you could say it;s supernatural if it implies some sort of meaningful patterning to nature..

There is no way that it could be supernatural. The facts as stated are a coincidence. Coincidence proves nothing and allows you to predict nothing.

At least they call back.

To you “Yahweh” is just a meaningless name.
Hebrew doesn’t have the verb “to be” in the present. There’s a past and a future, but no state of being in the present. But the grammatical form would be “hove”. No-one actually knows what “Yahweh” means, but it’s obviously related in some way to the root “hove”. It means something like “I am”.
By using a language neither you nor your listener understand, you can make anything sound arbitrary and ridiculous.

No, “Yahweh” is one name of the biblical god.
(If you want to call that meaningless, be my guest.)
Names do not have to have meaning to have use.

Your argument is like saying I can’t call my buddy, Steve, “Steve” because I don’t know what the definition of “Steve” or “Steven” is. Or can’t call my buddy, Kenji, “Kenji” because I don’t speak Japanese. Which is to say, your argument has no substance.

I have yet to meet a Christian who doesn’t know exactly who/what I’m referring to. In practice, nobody has ever been disgruntled by this except you, who should know better than to quibble about trivia.

If there were communication issues, (or I met a quibbler such as yourself) I’d happily use “Elohim” if they preferred (or were Mormon) or even the name the biblical god gives himself, “Jealous”.
Or will you argue using a god-given name is worthless too?

Cheers, to all you non-quibblers that is

I predict that, with an attitude like that, in ten years you’ll be an atheist.

I don’t actually want to convince people to stop believing in their god(s). I just want them to understand why I don’t believe in them and why faith cannot supersede evidence and logic.

And how exactly does giving up and saying “God did it” advance science and advance our understanding? With that line of reasoning we would have never gotten out of the dark ages.

Curiosity is a good thing. It’s what granted you the developed, high-tech society you live in today. You said atheists (and by extension I assume you mean scientists because they’re not “atheist theories” they’re scientific theories) just give up and say whatever. That’s not true. Science continues to seek clearer answers. Saying “God did it” and leaving it at that is saying, “whatever.”

Because we don’t currently have the answer for something doesn’t mean we’ll never have one. The only way to insure we won’t is by giving up the search.

The egg and sperm are already living so I guess life begins well before conception!

It is. These events were so long ago!

Who knows what it was about Jesus, but his followers obviously loved him enough to keep his memory alive, and well, here we are. I guess they believed Jesus was the Messiah and God controlled everything, therefore God must have willed Jesus’s horrific fate and that it was all full of meaning. It’s an atrocious story about God, but a moving one about humans.

You did not address the ‘toledth’ part. Nor do you explain the difference in the initial state of the land, or the difference in the relationship between the man and the woman. There are also differences in the name of the deity and the character of the deity between the stories.

In any case, your response assumes the two accounts are part of the same story and fanwanks a very forced reconciliation. (Yes, many traditionalists use such and similar fanwanks. Doesn’t make them anything better.) Meanwhile you are missing an insight into the thinking of the various authors and their respective cultural perspectives. It is your reading that takes away from the text and impoverishes it, not mine.

Hey, Harry Potter fans work just as hard to harmonize Rowling’s inconsistencies!

> there is plenty of evidence for Christianity if you’re willing to look.

Yeah, sure there is. I see Christians around me all the time.

But that’s not what you meant to say. You meant to say you think there’s evidence that the claims made by Christianity are factually true.

Uh huh. Let’s see it, then.

Since I’ve just completed a philosophy degree, I’m quite well aware of what an atheist is, and is not (amongst a number of other things).
That definition is not a ‘commonsense definition’ at all – it is as textbook as they come. However, I will note that there are two ways of looking at atheism – and that is as a:
1. lack of belief in a god(s) (passive atheism)

2. disbelief in a god(s). (active atheism)

While they look basically the same, and for most common purposes, they can be interchanged – there is a technical difference. Perhaps this is what you were alluding to? Never being exposed to, or thinking about any religious idea – passive; review of the ideas, and rejection of them – active. While personally, I find active atheism the more appropriate position (nothing should be disavowed without thought) – if someone was never exposed (however unlikely) to any religion, and simply sought out answers in appropriate ways, limiting their answers to the evidence – then their ‘atheism’ would not be ‘lesser’.

I’m really not sure how you think animals not believing in god means anything. By strict definition, we don’t know if they have gods or demons. Who knows, humankind could be their image of the devil. I’ll simply say that for purposes here, it matters not. We can’t know everything – not now, and highly unlikely that we’ll ever be able to do so.

However, as someone else pointed out – Buddhists can indeed be atheistic. Their way of life could be thought of as a ‘philosophy of life’, a way of living, rather than as a religion per se.

There is a distinction between atheism and deism – and while that line may sometimes indeed be ‘fuzzy’ – there are pretty clear examples of each. We can debate the specifics, but…

You’re overstating the case. All we ever said to our spawn was “We don’t believe in this God business. Count yourself lucky.”

I hope most of them could testify to the grace and power of God in their lives!

Every data point is evidence for something, but not for what you want it to be. Those testimonies are good evidence for the effects of religious belief on a person’s state of mind. They are not evidence for religious claims being accurate representations of physical reality. It is possible to have faith whether or not there really is a god.

Aside from that, well done. The usual apologia which is utterly unconvincing because by evidence I mean (and have always meant) observable physical phenomena which is both likely under your theory and highly unlikely under competing theories. You want me to believe dead people can wake up in caves and push their way out? Show me a case of such occurring. No, not that one. You can’t use it as evidence for itself.

I don’t expect it. But then I don’t expect a lot of things that wind up happening to me.

I’m glad someone does. 🙂

“observable physical phenomena” – an empty tomb? Jesus seen by hundreds of eye witnesses? I have no other evidence for Hitler, Julius Caesar or Charlemagne either – I can’t observe them, I can’t do tests on them, I can’t repeat them. So should I assume they never existed? I have no tangible evidence for the United States of America either, for that matter. I have seen satellite pictures (photoshopped?) and met people who claim to be Americans (deluded, obviously, especially as they all speak Engflish which is a European language).

“You want me to believe dead people can wake up in caves and push their way out? ” Not at all. I certainly don’t believe that. But I do want you to consider that a supernatural being could bring a dead person back to life and move the stone away. If you’re going to disbelieve in the resurrection, at least make sure the story you reject is actually the story we believe!

“You can’t use it as evidence for itself.” Why not? I’m the only evidence for myself; the first dinosaur bone was evidence of itself; the first lunar landing is evidence of man’s capability of landing on the Moon. So why can’t the first (and so far only) resurrection be evidence that God can resurrect dead people?

an empty tomb? Jesus seen by hundreds of eye witnesses?

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2006/03/07/tomb/

I have no other evidence for Hitler, Julius Caesar or Charlemagne either

Yes you do. Historical documents that make mention of these people, independently written and no plausible motive to be misleading, like birth or death certificates. Artifacts which mention them while being incidental to their existence (like Caesar’s name on coins or something). Contemporaries who are still alive (possibly) and can provide a recounting of their experiences. Documents authored by them. Photographs. The existence of these things is a physical phenomenon (loosely stated) that is likely only if the people they spoke of were real.

I have no tangible evidence for the United States of America either […]

Nor do I, having never been there. I accept its existence anyway, because there are other kinds of evidence other than “I saw it myself”. I have no reason to suppose a conspiracy of falsified evidence for the existence of the US, not to mention the probability of a conspiracy on that large a scale is vanishingly small given how many different things it would require.

I do want you to consider that a supernatural being could bring a dead person back to life and move the stone away.

No. Not until I’m convinced I should take seriously the probability that said event happened at all. Even if I did, why should I postulate a supernatural anything? It is surely not the most parsimonius explanation for events – suppose a person were publicly killed and then appeared to rise from his grave. Far more likely that body doubles were involved, than “magic”.

I’m the only evidence for myself […]

You don’t understand how evidence works, do you?

Photographs of you are evidence for your existence because they are more likely to occur under the assumption that you exist (or, if you prefer, in universes where you exist) and far less likely under the assumption that you do not. So the same with documents that mention you, people’s ability to interact with you, so on, so on. Your existence is the hypothesis. The photographs, testimony, ability to interact with you are the evidence in support.

Dinosaur bones are evidence of dinosaurs, because they are more likely to occur and to be seen if dinosaurs existed, and highly unlikely if they did not.

So why can’t the first (and so far only) resurrection be evidence that God can resurrect dead people?

Many many things are wrong with this statement. The first is that the occurrence of the event in question is not in evidence. The second is a generalisation from one point of data. A third is that what you present as a single event is actually a series of occurrences which may have easily understood, parsimonious explanations for each occurrence. The fourth, well…

http://www.jesusandmo.net/2006/03/07/tomb/

Now wait just a minute, evidence for Christianity being “true” and evidence that Jesus existed are two entirely different issues.

Oh? Like not being able to own slaves or sell your daughter to some dude as his personal sex-slave? And what about that animal sacrifice or how women are unclean are each month? Or how guys are supposed to get their sisters-in-law pregnant if their brother died without producing a child?