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If your holy book fails to match reality ...

Looncall

Well-Known Member
In several discussions here recently, religious participants appear to privilege scripture over reality.

Creationist organizations even state this openly in their "statements of faith"

Recent examples here involve the Noachian flood and claims that ordinary processes can transmute elements.

How can people honestly sustain such intellectual dishonesty?

If your holy book says the moon is made of cheese, will you take crackers when you go there?
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
In several discussions here recently, religious participants appear to privilege scripture over reality.

Creationist organizations even state this openly in their "statements of faith"

Recent examples here involve the Noachian flood and claims that ordinary processes can transmute elements.

How can people honestly sustain such intellectual dishonesty?
Pure and simple, it's need. In order to buttress their faith many people need their religion to be unequivocally right in all its aspect, which includes pronouncements of "fact." It's one of those, "How can I trust my Bible if anything in it is in error?" things. "If god, who wrote the Bible, said X,Y, and Z are true, and we find out that Z is false, how can I be certain X and Y aren't also false?" So the solution is to believe everything in the Bible is true no matter how preposterous it may be.


People are free to believe whatever they want to believe as long as it hurts no-one.
How would believing something hurt someone else? At most it would take acting on a belief before any hurt could take place. Moreover, whether or not it hurts anyone they're still free to believe it. So :shrug:

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Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
How would believing something hurt someone else? At most it would take acting on a belief before any hurt could take place. Moreover, whether or not it hurts anyone they're still free to believe it. So :shrug:
I mean, say, teaching it in a science class...
 

sooda

Veteran Member
Pure and simple, it's need. In order to buttress their faith many people need their religion to be unequivocally right in all its aspect, which includes pronouncements of "fact." It's one of those, "How can I trust my Bible if anything in it is in error?" things. "If god, who wrote the Bible, said X,Y, and Z are true, and we find out that Z is false, how can I be certain X and Y aren't also false?" So the solution is to believe everything in the Bible is true no matter how preposterous it may be.



How would believing something hurt someone else? At most it would take acting on a belief before any hurt could take place. Moreover, whether or not it hurts anyone they're still free to believe it. So :shrug:

So without the Exodus myth and the Joshua myth and the Adam and Eve myth, Christians lose their faith?
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
I mean, say, teaching it in a science class...
Well if someone were to teach whatever they wanted rather than just believe it, it could very well end up misleading a student, which isn't the aim of any education. So it could hurt them. Meaning that people should not be allowed the opportunity to teach whatever they wanted. Science classes are established to teach science, not the religious whims of a teacher.

.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
So without the Exodus myth and the Joshua myth and the Adam and Eve myth, Christians lose their faith?
I'm sure Christians would survive quite well if these myths never appeared in the Bible or even elsewhere, but the fact is, they do appear, and therefore beg explanation. And for some people the explanations demand that they be accepted as fact.

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sooda

Veteran Member
I'm sure Christians would survive quite well if these myths never appeared in the Bible or even elsewhere, but the fact is, they do appear, and therefore beg explanation. And for some people the explanations demand that they be accepted as fact.

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That's actually scary... for people to be willing to believe the impossible????

Maybe Christians really are a flock of sheep.
 

danieldemol

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
In several discussions here recently, religious participants appear to privilege scripture over reality.

Creationist organizations even state this openly in their "statements of faith"

Recent examples here involve the Noachian flood and claims that ordinary processes can transmute elements.

How can people honestly sustain such intellectual dishonesty?

If your holy book says the moon is made of cheese, will you take crackers when you go there?
No, instead I liberalise cherry picking what is true from a religion and rejecting what is false.
 
In several discussions here recently, religious participants appear to privilege scripture over reality.

How can people honestly sustain such intellectual dishonesty?

To be fair, it's not like the religious folk here have a monopoly on stridently arguing for historical absurdities or things rejected by the vast majority of scholars.

You can't go more than a couple of weeks without seeing one of the following on here, usually espoused by someone operating under the conceit that they are highly rational:

  • Jesus mythicism
  • Jesus was simply copied from Horus/Mithras/etc
  • Constantine created the Bible
  • Constantine invented Christianity
  • Religion was invented to control the masses
  • There was a Muslim genocide of Hindus that killed 80 million
  • Religious wars have killed 800 million people
  • The church ruthlessly oppressed science creating a 'dark age' that set us back a millennium
  • Muhammad 'plagiarised' the Quran
  • The early Islamic Empire was characterised by forced conversions
  • The scientific revolution occurred because science was freed from religious constraints
  • Marx/Lenin's atheism was not a significant component of their political philosophy
  • Western Liberalism was in no way influenced by Christianity
  • The theology of numerous natural philosophers/scientists from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment had absolutely nothing to do with their scientific views
  • Al-Ghazali killed the Golden Age of science in the Islamic Empires
  • Christians destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria setting science back centuries
  • Bruno was a martyr for science
  • etc. etc.

It's more noteworthy when someone doesn't privilege ideology over evidence.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
To be fair, it's not like the religious folk here have a monopoly on stridently arguing for historical absurdities or things rejected by the vast majority of scholars.

You can't go more than a couple of weeks without seeing one of the following on here, usually espoused by someone operating under the conceit that they are highly rational:

  • Jesus mythicism
  • Jesus was simply copied from Horus/Mithras/etc
  • Constantine created the Bible
  • Constantine invented Christianity
  • Religion was invented to control the masses
  • There was a Muslim genocide of Hindus that killed 80 million
  • Religious wars have killed 800 million people
  • The church ruthlessly oppressed science creating a 'dark age' that set us back a millennium
  • Muhammad 'plagiarised' the Quran
  • The early Islamic Empire was characterised by forced conversions
  • The scientific revolution occurred because science was freed from religious constraints
  • Marx/Lenin's atheism was not a significant component of their political philosophy
  • Western Liberalism was in no way influenced by Christianity
  • The theology of numerous natural philosophers/scientists from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment had absolutely nothing to do with their scientific views
  • Al-Ghazali killed the Golden Age of science in the Islamic Empires
  • Christians destroyed the Great Library of Alexandria setting science back centuries
  • Bruno was a martyr for science
  • etc. etc.

It's more noteworthy when someone doesn't privilege ideology over evidence.
'Pagans were basically free-love hippies before Christianity/Islam.'
 

ManSinha

Well-Known Member
So without the Exodus myth and the Joshua myth and the Adam and Eve myth, Christians lose their faith?

Guess you are one of the people on here with impeccable knowledge of ancient history - at least that is my perspective from reading your posts - I read that the Codex Sinaiticus is the earliest verified version of parts of the OT and most of the NT and it does not mention the virgin birth or resurrection

Is that true?
 
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