i honestly believe that Sam will defy your expectations of him. he made me reconsider my own beliefs(and consider projects of mind that i had been ignoring). and very few people have been capable of doing over the last 4-5 years of my life.
I like the part in the beginning where he talks about how the term "atheism" shouldn't even be a thing. Oh wait, I think I had a picture saved with that same kinda quote... Yup, here it is. "Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs". Fucking epic.
Sounds like something I've said before, only in like 1/100 of the words. Extraordinary claims outside the religious context are not given the same kind of respect. But most people are religious, so the majority view is that in the religious concept extraordinary claims demand respect despite that they are equally unworthy to those extraordinary claims made in another contexts.
I do not believe in the unproven belief of alchemy, and yet there is no label to describe me. I do not believe in the unproven belief of a deity, and yet, there is a label for me.
yeah, well you should just thank god they don't use one of the worse labels. there are many, and most of them imply you'll be forever spanked.
Oh, I loved this post on Reddit, where some poor atheist kid got kicked out of his parents house when they found out he didn't believe in god. And someone told him to leave them a note when he left, about Timothy... whatever. Something about not caring for your family was worse than being an unbeliever. Oh, here we go. 1 Timothy 5:8 "Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
I'm just fucking with you, man. You know I think you're awesome. Not as awesome as me, but... I mean... I'm pretty awesome, so...
They handed me some red wine and said "this is the blood of Christ". I drank the whole bottle and they told me to "GTFO".
As Christians, they should damned well know better than do that well before anyone should find a bible citation to convince them. WWFJD. Must be some sect that believes it's more important to listen to some mortal asshole wiping his ass with pages of the NT screaming about the OT god than to follow the Christ's example. This is exactly the problem with willful ignorance and devotion. Once you have an absolute moral authority, you no longer have to listen to your own conscience. Conscience being (in my view) where the underlying philosophy of the dogma came from in the first place, and what makes it convincing. It's hard to argue too strenuously with a philosophy that calls for kindness even in the face of aggression. I hope for their sakes that atheists are right, because that citation is pretty much right and I'm guessing Jesus would agree.
I dunno, from my perspective as soon as you have an "absolute authority" you should start questioning as much as you can. It seems to demand questions more earnestly.
But how many strongly religious people do you know who have actually read the whole Bible? My parents were religious when I was a kid. Hell, my mom cried and was upset with me for weeks when she found out I didn't believe in god. Yet a dozen years later she finally confessed to me that she has never actually read the Bible and doesn't really believe in a god anymore herself. Hell, you get women protesting against shit like gay marriage because the Bible says it's wrong, but you ask her about 1 Timothy 2:12 and get nothing but a blank stare. You get private religious schools saying they won't allow students to be gay and will expel any students at the school who admit to being gay because the Bible says it is wrong. Sure hope they don't have any female teachers!
The Bible hates women, if it hates anyone more it is uncircumcised homosexuals. A pox of babbling on Paul, a pox I say, a POX!
Those who stress the importance of reading the bible are usually people who accept no responsibility for critical study of it. I'm sure many study it for long hours, but with the goal of interpreting away the problems rather than accepting any responsibility for what is actually in there so that whenever someone points out a wicked verse they are ready with an excuse. There are those who want to modernize the scripture, but there is also the church's habit of excommunicating such people.
The Bible is a well-crafted book. Not because it seamlessly can explain away contradiction, but because it can, seemingly, embrace contradiction without seeming to give its hypocrisy away. I guess thousands of repeated words in many forms would give such an effect.
For suuuure. I love all the pictures of the younger kids from the Westboro Baptist Church protesting in their Glee and Twilight shirts. It's absurdly hypocritical in an "I feel really bad for you" kind of way. But yeah, I've been trying to read the Bible lately. I got a King James version from the local church hanging on my door knob a few weeks ago. I keep it in the bathroom, and I read it while I poop. Yes, I am a lady. I am lady who reads the Bible while she poops. My husband always bitches about all the "who beget who" shit, so I laughed my ass off for the entire first three paragraphs of "Blahblah was father to blahblah who was father to blahblah who was father to blahblah" "Who was father to blahblah who was father to blahblah who was father to blahblah!" And then I asked my mom is she had ever read the Bible, and she told me "I tried to once, but I got tired real fast of all the who beget who shit..." and I laughed my ass off even harder.
I have kind of the opposite view. I see the phenomenon as a human one, where the reader can in one thought express that the message is literal, and then in the next express that a literal interpretation is incorrect, all without recognizing the contradiction they're expressing. I think it arises from the acceptance of the ultimate authority that allegedly inspires the work, such that the believer is likely to defend it in whichever way is most convenient. I think the book itself is rather clumsy, even after all the work that has gone into the careful selection of canonical work. ^ that's pretty funny considering i only recall a few places where the begets are a big deal. those are the places i've read least, because i always scanned them thinking 'if i was a historian, this might be interesting... but i'm not.' only really interesting insofar as it instills a sense of how small the tribe was.