lucaspa said:
I would say the interpretation is not ALWAYS different. There are many differences, after all there are 20,000 Christian denominations! Not all of those are based upon a different interpretation of scripture, but many of them are.
It was a bit of hyperbole on my part. Obviously, there must be a few Christians who have the same ideas about Scripture and God. I'm saying there's a lot of diversity, I would say more so than any other religion of which I'm aware.
lucaspa said:
SOMETIMES atheists do this. There are Rules for Interpretation. These apply to ALL texts:
*links removed for post limit*
I've come to understand that lately in this thread. Thanks for the articles, though. Hopefully having a more centralized view on these rules will be more useful.
lucaspa said:
Why do you say those need "additional interpretation"? [...]
I think you need, like most atheists need to do, to distinguish between Biblical literalists and Christians.
I think I intended this question to apply to Biblical literalists, but I imagine Christians themselves must have to deal with such passages at some point or other, unless they believe that the Bible was at least slightly edited for other reasons.
When I say "additional interpretation," I mean to invoke the standard by which Christians, when reading these passages (assuming they believe them to be indicative of God's nature), judge them to be not as straightforward as, say, the feeding of the multitude. I'm wondering if they are teasing apart the "good" passages, like the miracles of Jesus, from the "iffy" ones like many of the rules in Leviticus, using morals they've derived from elsewhere.
lucaspa said:
And why do you think we haven't? If there is the faintest possibility that God is real, isn't it worth it to you to try to find out? Sauce for the goose.
It's a hypothetical question. To answer yours, my being here is a testament that it is worth it to me.
lucaspa said:
First, I never said atheism was a "religion". I said it was a faith. There are some technical aspects to the definition of "religion" that atheism may not meet. That said, I also should add that, as the years go by, atheism is acquiring more and more of the characteristics of religion. It has its own dogma (more on that later), for instance. Also, [on Dawkin's site, people provide] testimony of how Richard Dawkins brought them to atheism. Wow. Talk about "religious"!
It's a quibble, but you said the fact that atheists profess uncertainty puts atheism into the category of "religion" or "faith." Again, quibble, trivial, doesn'treallymatter.
People being brought to atheism by some prominent figure does not bring it closer to a faith or religion. Tolkein brought me to high fantasy. Bill Nye brought me to science. Heck, Mr. T brought me to play WoW. This, in particular, cannot be said to be an aspect of religion so much as an aspect of any popular movement. Celebrities have a lot of reach, that's just the way the world works.
lucaspa said:
Now, about that dogma. Look at what you said: " I don't think a God exists" Let's take this apart a little bit. What is the difference in this context between "think" and "believe"? And what is the difference between "I don't think a God exists" and "I believe a God does not exist"? That second is definitely a statement of faith. Which brings me back to dogma. A very central dogma of atheism for many (but not all) atheists is that atheism is not a faith.
I don't see the point you're trying to make. Why are you invoking "I believe a God does not exist," a statement I didn't make? To be clear, I lack a belief in God. I do not have positive belief that He does not exist, I just don't currently believe He does.
Where does dogma enter the question? Are you saying many atheists dogmatically believe that they have no dogma?
Also, an answer to the first question in this paragraph: "think" means the view I hold at the moment, "believe" was not given a context so I don't know in what sense you mean it. If you mean "belief" as in belief in God, then belief is simply whether I assert God exists. (The second question is answered below, in my reply to your next post)
razeontherock said:
Um, this was based in Princeton NJ? Have you ever been there? It is not representative of the Nation, not by any stretch.
From the bottom of the article:
Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted May 5-8, 2011, with a random sample of 1,018 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
The article is based in Princeton, NJ. Not the poll, which was nationwide.
GA777 said:
That's not what modern Christianity teaches but what the bible does
I meant that's the current view from many modern Christians of what the Bible teaches.
GA777 said:
He was talking about the road, which means the process, and not about heaven or hell which is the end point coming after the process. Of course he said that one road leads to life and the other to destruction, but that doesn't mean that they will go to the destruction or to life *snip* sinning after the confession, and maybe blaspheming the holy spirit may cause some time in purgatory I think and the more they are in numbers or severity, the longer the time will be spent there.
I guess I can understand that. Purgatory was never really explained to me as well as it was probably explained to you, though. I had no idea it had anything to do with whether you'd confessed your sins. I actually read the Bible with Purgatory in mind because I wanted to know more about it, since I thought that was the place I would most certainly go after death. I couldn't find anything, so that just bothered me more. (Also I was pretty sure I'd skipped over it in among all the "begats"...)
lucaspa said:
Some of the laws in the OT are in the context of the time. Human ability to understand morality and what is "moral" changes over time. It also changes with technology. For instance, up until 1850 it was moral to kill someone with a penetrating abdominal wound (like a gunshot). Why? Because peritonitis would invariably set in and the person would suffer a very painful, lingering death. Killing him/her quickly was mercy. Since the discovery of antibiotics, killing someone with a penetrating abdominal wound is immoral.
The 10 Commandments transcend the context of the time and represent some basic morals.
I'm not sure the onset of antibiotics was the reason behind that becoming immoral, but you may be right. Of course, killing anyone now for any reason other than necessary defense is immoral, or at the very least highly contested.
Some of the 10 Commandments have little to do with basic moral values, "I am the Lord your God" and "remember the Sabbath day" being examples. The ones about covetousness are also arguable because they're thought crimes, but God's law is not human law so I guess I can't completely disagree.
lucaspa said:
Absolutely important. The data for evolution is so strong that it is impossible to deny it. However, I see you also have the misconception: evolution = atheism. Listen carefully: EVOLUTION IS NOT ATHEISM. Instead, evolution is HOW God created. *snip*
Aah, you need to give me more credit! I said earlier in this thread at least twice that evolution is not important at all to my atheism. I do not suffer this misconception, I just asked this question of the forumgoers here to see whether they thought so.
lucaspa said:
Thus, science remains agnostic.
High-fives, totally agree.
lucaspa said:
That's absolutely wrong. Have you ever heard of deductive logic or science? What science does ALL the time is "prove a practical negative" or disprove hypotheses. The only absolute statements in science are the negative ones:
1. The earth is NOT flat. Proved the negative, didn't we?
2. Proteins are NOT the hereditary material. (that was a hypothesis around 1900) Again, proved the negative.
3. The sun and planets do NOT orbit earth. Again, proved the negative.
So, it's not that we CANNOT prove a negative, it's just that we haven't been able to prove THIS negative. Which is part of what makes atheism a faith. It's also one of the reasons atheism can be so dangerous to science. In the interests of your faith, you are sabotaging the basis of science. You are saying that we can't do what science does every day.
The person I was addressing in the post you're talking about here told me that you can't disprove a negative, therefore you can't introduce doubt that God exists. I meant to appeal to that sort of negative, i.e., something does not exist. "Practical negative" was the way wrong term to use because practical negatives exist all over the place in science. Prove 2+2 does not equal 5, prove my leg is not a planet, etc.
You really should give me more credit. This is starting to get tedious.
lucaspa said:
IF ekpyrotic is correct, then God is not Creator of the universe. As it turns out, ekpyrotic predicts different gravity waves than Big Bang. We don't have a gravity wave detector. Yet. When we do, then we'll see. But obviously, I have investigated it, as the references demonstrate.
I can get behind that. I really do appreciate that you would investigate any doubt you had. If you were to discover that God did not create the Universe, would that fundamentally change your belief in Him?
lucaspa said:
That is pretty crappy investigation on YOUR part. You really are going on faith, aren't you?
What this would lead you to is: "I don't KNOW if God exists or not." But what you said is "I don't THINK God exists". What did you base that "think" on?
This is a point you raised in your previous post, as well. I split my response accordingly.
To answer your last question: I mean that I don't hold the position that God exists.
The two statements are not the same, but the second implies the first. If I don't think God exists, I necessarily must not know that He does. This does not mean I think He doesn't.
Saying "I don't know" is crappy investigation? Do you think the onus is on me to decide for myself a belief on what caused the creation of the Universe, before I can say I don't believe something completely different occurred?
Say you were to ask me if I prefer football or baseball, and I've never seen or played either sport. I don't think football is better, nor do I think baseball is better. I do not have to do any research to make this determination, nor do I need faith. Do you see where this line of reasoning falls apart?
Also why the fixation with accusing me of having faith?
lucaspa said:
So you stopped believing because you had a mistaken idea of Christianity. Well, that fits your crappy record at investigation. At least you are consistent in your failure to investigate things.
I was 12 at the time. In Canada, that means after 3 years it goes off my record.
I fell out, ultimately, with the realisation that there's no real reason for me to think God exists aside from anecdotes. That's where I stand now. I'm operating from a position of negative belief, with the burden of proof on the religion, which is why I haven't re-converted. As I said, belief isn't like flipping a switch for me. Otherwise I would have come back as soon as I realized I was wrong in some areas about what I believed, back when I believed it.
lucaspa said:
So this has nothing to do with "truth" or objctive reality, but on what you feel. Nice to know.
There is a very big difference between deism and atheism. But, with your lack of investigation, I would guess you didn't find it.
Quit picking on child version of me! He didn't do nobody no harm!
Deism and atheism both result in a universe that operates without the intervention of a god. It's a very, very small leap in my mind between the two in terms of faith.
lucaspa said:
a Universe that acts independently of a god,
And THERE is the basic statement of faith of atheism: natural = without God. Tell me, what evidence did you have this is true?
The part you quoted was from the middle of my explanation of why pantheism, deism and atheism seemed very similar in my mind. I said it was because all three result in "a Universe that acts independently of a god." (Pantheism, where the Universe is god, has the Universe acting independently, at any rate) That being said, where the heck did you get the idea I said natural = without God? I didn't say pantheism, atheism or deism were natural or supernatural or any -natural.
lucaspa said:
1. Did it ever occur to you to investigate how theists falsified other versions of deity? And why they think Judeo-Christianity is NOT falsified. Yeah, yeah, another bit of evidence of your inability to investigate.
2. Define "valid". You see, that qualification lets you deny anything you don't want to believe. BTW, it's exactly what creationists do with evolution. They say there is no "valid" evidence for evolution or an old earth. It's also the excuse for people who deny the moon landings, that Obama was born in the US, and flat earthers. Congratulations on belonging to such a fine club!
1. Yes, it did, and I have. Many theists I've met haven't falsified other versions of a deity other than by simply having faith in their god. Many said that it was because Christianity was based on faith alone whereas the other religions and deities require works/deeds. There are a plethora of other reasons I've heard that are not relevant to this discussion.
2. Valid means evidence that's relevant, verifiable and non-anecdotal. I don't know where this accusation comes from. Is it wrong in your mind to use the term "valid evidence?" If you have a problem with my definition, let me know, at any rate.
In conclusion to lucaspa, yes, I stopped believing for shoddy reasons, but I had shoddy reasons for believing in the first place. My falling out happened about a decade ago now and I'm well past the mindset I had back then. I feel as if you're judging me based on the actions of other atheists, or something like that? I've been defending myself against accusations that I have faith of some kind or other (which is just weird because I haven't denied that), that I can't investigate properly (when the burden of proof is not on me), and that I'm downright dishonest (that I'll deny anything I don't want to believe). I feel like these are attempts at manipulation because they're so accusative, odd and out of left field for me. You're ascribing a lot of traits to me and I have no idea where you're getting them from.
Ah, well, I guess I'll find out more next time you post.
Looking forward to hearing from you guys again. Replies might be a little slower because it's midterm season.