Raf

The pot here is having a delightful conversation with the kettle. You see, when I disagree with you, it's because of my sh-t-colored bias. But when I agree it's because I've opened my mind to the possibilities of what Scripture really means underneath those pesky little words it actually uses. I'm curious to know what color glasses you wear when you approach the Book of Mormon and the Q'uran. Since you've established in this post and several that precede it that this kind of tone is fair game, I would like to point out that this one sentence (well, comma splice, anyway) may well be the stupidest, most refutable piece of dung you've ever written on this site, and that's saying a lot. [Sorry: YOU brought dung into the conversation as an acceptable reference to my point of view, so it's only fair]. Of course, there IS a cosmology in Genesis 1 that is actually laid out in Genesis 1. Had you taken a deeper look into the history of the Semitic people and the ancient Canaanites, you would see quite clearly that Genesis 1 reflects an actual ancient belief about what people once thought the universe looked like. Of course, you can't DO that without some degree of humility and acknowledgment of the possibility that you MIGHT be WRONG about something, so I wouldn't expect you to undertake this honest kind of inquiry that you have labeled "poop" to absolve yourself of the responsibility to read a f-ing book or two. The ONLY reason those elements are considered symbolic today is that they have been disproven literally. There is no indication that the writers [plural: there was more than one and likely none of them were named Moses] meant anything other than what they said: that the sky is a giant glass wall holding back an ocean above us, and that there are windows in that wall that were opened to create the flood in Noah's day. It would be delusional to say he was mentally abusing children. But to say someone made up all the stories? Of COURSE someone made up those stories! They're preposterous. But if YOU want to say the stories are TRUE, then it is incumbent on you to document the historicity of each account. You can't even tell me who wrote which gospel! Now, you can call it "delusional" to believe the stories are all made up, but you do that while at the same time dismissing all the miracles of the Q'uran and the Book of Mormon as delusional, and you do so without even making room for the faintest of possibilities that they might be a "record" of something that actually happened. Funny how that works. It's okay to be dismissive of the miracle stories of other holy books, but not of your own. It's almost like, what's the word Jesus [allegedly] used all the time? Hypocrisy? That is LITERALLY what you are doing. You say these stories are true unless we prove them wrong, absolving yourself again of the responsibility in dialectics to prove the affirmative claims you are making. Meanwhile, again, you ignore "probabilities of any kind" that you are wrong to dismiss the miracle claims of other religions. Why is it okay for you to do that to every other religion but it's not okay for us to do that to yours? Yes, but the Epic of Gilgamesh does not hold itself to be the Word of God, and its history is not put forth as a real accounting of events. Also, Spider-Man does not live, even though his comics say he lives in New York City. The fact that a story is placed in a real place, even at a real time, and its characters interact with real people, does not make the story true. Gilgamesh is fiction and never intended to be treated otherwise. Genesis didn't become symbolism until skepticism exposed it as ahistorical. Ok,, number one, the f'ing namecalling has to stop. I let you get away with it before and I regret it. Second, we LITERALLY do not believe we are the center of the universe. You have us confused with Christians, who actually believe the purpose of the universe is earth, the purpose of the earth is life, the purpose of life is man and the purpose of man is God. Actual Chrisitan dogma. The flipping NERVE to accuse us of that which you do! The second stupidest thing you've written in this post, but probably only fourth or fifth stupidest overall on GSC. So it's my responsibility to accept that you are right, period, shut up. Right? Because that's what you are actually saying. "Shut up and accept my views or, if you don't, YOU'RE arrogant." GET YOURSELF I refer you to the previous thread: Religion has a vaccine for the Reason virus. This is magical thinking, not reason. The whole POINT of using WORDS as the means of communication is reason, our ability to discern meaning from words. The ARROGANCE to suggest that because YOU have a proper attitude toward a Creator while the rest of us have a "bias to tear down everything!" The GALL. I have news for you. It's not your humility to the Creator that allows you to excuse away any honest examination of scripture. It's your gullibility. The amount of projecting going on with that statement... there isn't that much projecting at Cannes. Literally not my problem. And you’re the only one having trouble following logic here. Reported as namecalling. Knock it the hell off. Jesus called out the hypocrisy of people who had a surface understanding of scripture but refused to look deeper. I'm just saying, if there are Pharisees in this conversation, it's not the people saying "do what Jesus did: look closer." To me there is absolute gullibility and a nearly psychopathic desire to accept any explanation under the sun as long as it means not having to admit that you are wrong in how you are presenting your arguments for taking Scripture at your word instead of reading it in context and learning a bit more about the history of the people who produced it. You seem to have us confused with Christians again. I think the scripture intends to say what it actually says. God may not have a purpose for every adjective, but writers do. And when you eliminate “perfection” as a goal of the writer, the bottom line is that they choose words for reasons. Had they meant to say the sky was an “expanse,” they would have. They said it’s a firmament because that’s what they thought. They were wrong. End of story, unless you think God was the Author and He meant something deeper. He wasn’t and He didn’t. There is such a thing as an "anti-fundamentalist bias," a rejection of a thought or idea because that thought or idea is held by fundamentalists. The idea that the Bible is anti-gay is a fundamentalist bias. It’s also pretty dead-on accurate, isn’t it. That the scripture can be read and understood because of the words it uses, that's fundamentalist. It's also completely consistent with reason and scripture. But the idea that "I don't like what this says so I'm going to pretend it doesn't really mean that even though it says that quite clearly and historical analysis of what the people of that time believed and taught bears it out. Because I am humble" is indefensible. You have rejected the claims of every one of those groups, and I would bet good money that you did so without giving them a FRACTION of the deference that Charity and I have given your views. Now, I'm going to take a break from this thread so I am not tempted to put the modhat on and treat this obnoxious post of yours with the respect it so truly deserves. This is the Atheism subforum. Christian scripture gets no special treatment here, and that is what you are explicitly demanding of us, under penalty of being subjected to juvenile namecalling and a level of hypocrisy that is astonishing in its lack of self-awareness. If you cannot handle this forum, you are welcome to stay off it. But post this kind of bulls hit again and the response will be, within the rules of this site, appropriate. [Moderator edit to correct formatting issues]

The Challenging Counterfeit, by Raphael Gasson, if memory serves

That's Clark, nice. Anyone wondering what a Gish Gallop looks like, there's a prime example.

William Lane Craig is the master of the Gish Gallop, a form of debate in which you efficiently spout as much bulls hit in the time allotted as you possibly can. Since it takes more time to clean bulls hit than it does to defecate it, the opponent will leave some arguments unanswered strictly because there's not enough time in the world to answer it. Then Craig cites all the points he made that were not refuted and declares victory. Meanwhile ALL his arguments are bulls hit. All of them, without exception or distinction.

Define glove. And fits. I should be able to use whatever definition of fits I want. Shoes don't have epileptic seizures. Therefore faith makes no sense.

Thank you for the education.

Then you will be intentionally derailing the conversation and it will be handled accordingly.

Well in the context of this conversation that is not the meaning. A naturalist in philosophy is someone who believes the natural world is all that is. It is incompatible with spirit or the supernatural. All these words have histories and overlapping definitions. Best bet is to allow people to label themselves and articulate what they mean by these labels.

WordWolf knows the answer but has chosen not to give it. It is not Bob Dylan or To Make You Feel My Love.

One person in this conversation is actually a naturalist by definition. The one bloviating about what naturalists would know, while saying something no naturalist would say, is not that person.

Um. No. Not without a clear definition of what you mean by born again. No naturalist would say this meaningless drivel

It was mishearing the lyrics. Next song: When it almost seems too much I see your face and sense the grace And feel the magic in your touch

I used to call this song "Aunt Bunny Love." As opposed to "Can't Buy Me Love" by The Beatles.

Naturalism is a motive for humanism. You can be a naturalist and a nihilist, but I can't imagine any humanist would put up much of a fight if you equated humanism with naturalism.

Less polite than Sweeney but still entertaining. I actually laughed at this BEFORE my deconversion, but it resonates more now.

Same goes for a being "outside of time, space and matter."

I think the best I can do is point you to reviews that capture how this made other people feel. https://www.amazon.com/Letting-Go-God-Julia-Sweeney/product-reviews/B001J21JRQ

This has always been my favorite deconversion story. This is Julia Sweeney, who played the Androgynous "Pat" on Saturday Night Live.

Yeah I don't know what this means.

Nobody goes through deconversion. They only realize they've gone through it. We don't set out to lose faith. It just happens and we realize it almost after the fact. Deprogramming imposes a change of belief from without. Deconversion takes place within. It is slow and steady right up until the end, when the cognitive dissonance between what you believe and what you call yourself becomes unbearable. The final "decision" is conscious, but it's after-the-fact. By the time you call yourself an unbeliever, the believing is long gone. My entire journey played out in front of all of you. You can see it in the arguments I made and in the arguments I stopped making. Afterward, there was a period of reflection, retracing steps, realizing where, when and how things changed. Anyway, just some thoughts.

"When you have ruled out the impossible..." There's the rub. Nothing about the origin of the universe as it is known today makes sense to most people, especially not laymen. I've read renowned scientist after renowned scientist try to explain it, and my mind cannot grasp it. Science is funny that way. Imagine you're at a point in space and you send two objects in opposite directions, both at the speed of light. One object goes "east" at the speed of light for one year. The other object goes "west" at the speed of light for one year. When that year is over, how far apart will those objects be? Two light years, right? Right. So what is the relative velocity of those two objects (in relationship to each other). It should be 2 times the speed of light, right? But it's not. It's still the speed of light. How is that possible? I HAVE NO IDEA. But I do know it is correct. And THAT is why I am not an astrophysicist. Because I can't get that to make sense in my head. Relativity changes our normal understanding of the way natural laws are supposed to work. "When you have ruled out the impossible..." When it comes to the beginning of the known universe, I DARE YOU rule out the impossible. SO much easier said than done. How did nothing create everything without a Creator outside of time, space and energy? No idea. I have yet to see any evidence the universe was EVER in a state of "nothing," but even if it were, that "nothing" became "everything" is MORE probable than a being outside of time, space and energy sitting around forever and ever and ever without origin and without beginning before finally deciding to do what he always knew all along he was going to do! At some point our understanding breaks down. Whether it breaks down at the dawn of the universe or the dawn of a deity, it breaks down. We KNOW there's a universe. We surmise a deity because, what, we can't account for the beginning of the universe? OK. We can't account for the beginning of the deity either. So can we then surmise the existence of a superdeity, a God's GOD, to account for His existence? Great, let's do that. So now the universe has a God. That God has a GOD. But why stop there? Clearly, GOD could not have come from nothing. Maybe GOD came from GgOoDd, who came from GGOODD, who came from... Turtles all the way down. We have not established the existence of the first God, much less His,HIS, HhIiSs or HHIISS! Eliminate the impossible? I DARE you? But we DO know the universe exists. That it came into existence is evident. What happened before that? We have no idea, and any speculation is just that. "Whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The elimination of the impossible has not been established, and the inclusion of a deity in the field of "whatever remains, however improbable" has likewise not been established. Far from it.

Doctrinally, I'm inclined to agree. That Jesus is quoting a Psalm seems far more likely [and in keeping with his character] than the notion that he cried out a similar but not identical phrase with no scriptural foundation.

"I don't know" is a solid humanist response. I would say that we, as humanists, have no basis for knowing how the earth, the universe and matter came to be. There are multiple explanations that could be compatible with humanism. I'm partial to "Who ever said the universe was ever in a state of nothing?" On another note, I think the realization that we are one species among millions living one one planet among trillions circling one star among trillions and that there is nothing cosmically special about us... I don't know about you, but I would consider that position as far from "arrogant" as can be conceived. It's certainly less arrogant than "the creator who shaped the rings of Saturn and makes it rain diamonds on Jupiter has a deep interest in where I put my penis."

On the substance of that portion of the discussion, I don't see why it would be so strange to have an unbeliever ask a believer to take a deeper look at scripture. Why wouldn't we? It's from a deeper look at scripture that we realize the evolution of Yahweh as a character (we would add "fictional" to character, but that would be presumptuous). It's from a deeper look at scripture that you realize the cosmology of Genesis is incompatible with what we know to be true. There is no firmament (big solid wall) holding back water from the sky. I personally WELCOME in depth analyses of scripture. What I don't accept is ad hoc explanations that force scripture to say things it doesn't say. The firmament is not "the expanse" or "the universe." The Exodus from Egypt was not a secret prediction that Jesus would spend a couple of years as a baby in Egypt. The "virgin shall conceive and be with child" has nothing to do with the messiah. When you take a deeper look at the verses that are supposedly fulfilments of old testament prophecies, you will find more often than not that the prophecies are not talking about the messiah at all. Oh but they're types. Nope, that's made up.

What I like about the Humanist label is that it places the emphasis on what we believe while merely implying what we don't. That someone is an atheist only tells you what he doesn't believe. A humanist is to be distinguished from a nihilist, who believes life is ultimately meaningless. I personally believe nihilism = humanism + time. I'll agree with nihilists a billion years from now, but not today.