Dawkins' Atheist Bus

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
people were utter savages back then though. it's not like they were tolerent or civil, minding their own business. All tribes continually invaded and enslaved other tribes, there were human sacrifices, etc.

Jesus was actually the first one to come in and counter all that and erase tribal lines. People forget that. Some "Christian" kingdoms or communities may have continued to act like animals, but hey that's humanity. But it's not like pretty much every tribe wasn't behaving that way before Jesus, and much more so.

I call Eurocentric bullshit.

Remember when our "tribe" attacked and enslaved all of those black people? All in the name of God, who cursed the descendents of Caanan, so that made it ok? I do.

When one culture does something wrong, they're "savage" animals, but when Christianity fails to root out all of the badness from a culture--hey, that's humanity!
 
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nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Well, there is more authority behind the New Testament because it involves the appearance of the divine incarnate, coming down to set the record straight.

Bear in mind that God needn't necessarily be 'nice.' God may well be wholly antipathetic to our interests.

The baptism of Jesus might represent an expiation of former sins (tho' Jesus is meant to be sinless).

So "God" incarnate is more or less Jim Jones with a beard and sandals?

Damn, maybe we should all be reading his followers diaries.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Well, I dunno about nice but God is held to be good isn't he? And if his interests are totally opposed then what is the rationale behind worshipping him other than currying favour and desperate self-interest? The moral low-ground in other words - and of course, it could all be pointless as in this case you have no reason to believe his word anyway. You might be tossed in the fire having wasted your life having proselytized for someone who hates you and having had no fun at all.

I always find this "God might not have to be nice to us" shtick from believers really funny. First, God is always good. But then if he does something that we would be thrown into "hell" for, he's still "good"? Are hypocrites good? I'm confused.

It's ok if Paul or Timothy, I mean "God", says women are weak and can't understand the Bible. Well, yeah, this one is sure having a tough time making sense of it, seeing as it's total bullshit, ESPECIALLY the New Testament.

I love it when people really think that the way they can answer any question someone may have about the obligations a God may actually have to its creation, when these involved the inconsistencies of the Old and New Testaments, is just claim that the New Testament is all goodness and light and negates the Old. Have you actually read the New Testament? It's one of the most bigoted, hateful pieces of trash I've ever heard every sunday for 15 years in my entire life.

This is especially dumb if you know anything, anything about Judaism, a much more reasonable religion that's based on building community awareness and taking care of the HERE AND NOW, not condemning everybody who doesn't believe like you to hell like Christianity does.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
It's not like the pagans were any more reasonable or peaceful themselves. It sometimes amuses me when Wiccans or whatever try to portray those cultures as these loving hippie cults who *didn't* burn people alive and constantly rape and pillage. I'm not talking about early early band-level tribes though, but early societies.

I think you drank too much of the kool-aid. Regardless of what you may have read in a Chick tract when you were 5, no, "child sacrifice" was not "common" in any culture, ever. That's bullshit propaganda ancient Israel used to get its army all riled up and ready to slaughter warring tribes.

The Israelites raped and pillaged. Tons of times. Remember those verses? I sure do.

If you *really* think the Old Testament is offering some sort of viable, preferable alternative to more "savage" societies of the time, you're nuts. It was part and parcel of its time.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I think you drank too much of the kool-aid. Regardless of what you may have read in a Chick tract when you were 5, no, "child sacrifice" was not "common" in any culture, ever. That's bullshit propaganda ancient Israel used to get its army all riled up and ready to slaughter warring tribes.

I think the Phoenicians/Carthaginians were fairly keen on human sacrifice, including that of children. Sounds like there's some solid archaeological evidence for it too, regardless of how much it may also have been used as propaganda by the Israelites (and Greeks and Romans):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Eissfeldt.27s_theory:_a_type_of_sacrifice

Child sacrifice was also pretty popular in pre-Colombian Meso-/South America. The Aztec rain god Tlaloc was especially kid-hungry.
 
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nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
and if there is a God, who's creation is by nature miraculous in it's absurd existence, then this track record could suggest room for possibility of natural laws being bent or changed, if God's plan is directly involved. Universe. out of nothing. All bets could be off here. I'm not making an argument for a Spagetti Monster, but a Creator that would obviously have power beyond our scientific understanding.

This is so way off I don't even know where to start. I was going to leave it, but no, it deserves a response.

Yes, you ARE arguing for a Spaghetti Monster. There is no more reason to believe there is a God than there is a reason to believe there is not one. Therefore, who gives a shit about Spaghetti Monsters? It's a stupid waste of time. People invoke the Spaghetti Monster so they can imbue their stupid, bigoted views with moral authority.

and if God does exist, there could by extention be the possibility of moral truth. if so, maybe that explains why certain ideas and themes have continued to emerge in different beliefs and arts.

Themes? You mean that everyone but straight white people are evil and going to hell? Well, two out of three Abrahamic religions believe this, but other than that it's a "theme" mostly in bigotry throughout the ages.

and if these truths are real, then, concerning the different characters who've claimed to be the Way, maybe it's a matter of realizing who's teaching seems closest to these truths. Christ, from what I can tell personally, is a contender. Jim Jones... obviously not. That's the difference between Jesus' claims and Jim's.

Know anything about the Peoples' Temple/Jim Jones? I do. Actually, his beliefs were much more tolerant and enlightened than Jesus'. He believed in all the same things Jesus did and then some extra stuff about how labor exploitation is evil and racism is a function of capitalism. He had some good ideas. You know what his problem was, though? He was a masochist with a God complex, just like Jesus. As his meth use got worse and worse, so did his paranoia, and he ended up planning and executing a mass suicide based on resistance to an imaginary breakup plot by the CIA. All so senseless. Just like all of the Deaths-By-Jesus.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
I think the Phoenicians/Carthaginians were fairly keen on human sacrifice, including that of children. Sounds like there's some solid archaeological evidence for it too, regardless of how much it may have been used as propaganda by the Israelites (and Greeks and Romans):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch#Eissfeldt.27s_theory:_a_type_of_sacrifice

Child sacrifice was also pretty popular in pre-Colombian Meso-/South America. The Aztec rain god Tlaloc was especially kid-hungry.

You mean human sacrifice?

Issues and practices relating to Moloch and child sacrifice may also have been overemphasized for effect. After the Romans defeated Carthage and totally destroyed the city, they engaged in post-war propaganda to make their archenemies seem cruel and less civilised.[5]

The Israelites claimed that everyone else but them was putting babies to death. Even though there's plenty of evidence that infanticide was common among ALL cultures back then.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Here's at least one "fact" the New Testament gets wrong.

Women are the weaker vessel. (nice word choice there, gotta love it...reminds me of Mr. Tea's joke about the Vase...)

Are they?

Women have a much higher tolerance for pain than men. Much, much higher. This is a medical fact.

Women score higher on nearly every standardized test there is. Including IQ tests.

Women excel in school throughout K-12 (with better grades and behavior than male students) and are entering college at much higher rates, and doing much better while there, than men are.

Women are less likely to hurt another person, less likely to rape, less likely to murder, less likely to be institutionalized, and less likely to go to prison than men are.

Women created language on a steppe in Africa. The idea that it would be too difficult for them to interpret language is, quite obviously, a total farce. They may, however, be able to call bullshit on your dumb traditions and sacred books that are meant to keep you in power and them subjugated. You might want to keep them from reading those.

Women weren't "taken out of men", all humans in fact begin as women. During the earliest stages in fetal development, all fetuses are female. They will remain that way barring a hormonal transformation that will change them into "males". So the vagina isn't an inside out penis, a penis is an inside out vagina.

Women have better endurance. They can perform vigorous exercise or other physical tasks for much longer than their male counterparts.

Women live longer.

Women are less likely to commit suicide.

Poor, weeak wittle women.
 
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nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Seems like if Jesus is God, like he claimed he was, he'd have known all of these facts. And he'd have taught his disciples about them.

But I guess he still believed in creationism and an earth that was 4000 years old at the time.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
You mean human sacrifice?



The Israelites claimed that everyone else but them was putting babies to death. Even though there's plenty of evidence that infanticide was common among ALL cultures back then.

You seem to have read that paragraph rather selectively, and missed the bit that said:

Also uncovered was a sanctuary to the goddess Tanit comprising a cemetery with thousands of burned bodies of animals and of human infants, dating from the 8th century BC down to the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.

Look, I'm not defending early Judaism or Christianity or anything like that at all, just trying to put it in the context of other early cultures in the region, which were undeniably often barbaric, even if no moreso than the Israelites.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
You seem to have read that paragraph rather selectively, and missed the bit that said:



Look, I'm not defending early Judaism or Christianity or anything like that at all, just trying to put it in the context of other early cultures in the region, which were undeniably often barbaric, even if no moreso than the Israelites.

First, you're looking at Wikipedia. Is there a reference on that? Unless there is, I'm rather dubious. It was probably added by some creation scientist.

It's pretty rare that we "uncover" bodies from thousands of years ago and can tell they were burned, seeing as they're, um decomposed and all. They may have found infant bones, but how do they know they were burned? I'd want to see the reference before I took that at face value.

I'm not going to deny that infanticide occurred, but let's not pretend it was only practiced by the "Barbaric"...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Women "less likely" to commit rape, lol.

What's the thinking behind women inventing language? Not heard that one before, sounds interesting though.

Also, whoever invented beer was probably female. That's the clincher for me.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
Women "less likely" to commit rape, lol.

What's the thinking behind women inventing language? Not heard that one before, sounds interesting though.

Also, whoever invented beer was probably female. That's the clincher for me.

Some women do rape though! Srsly.

But, yes, the theory goes that language was invented by women as a form of communication with babies, to teach babies things, etc. It was most probably grandmothers teaching grandbabies, since the mothers went out gathering and the fathers went out hunting.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
First, you're looking at Wikipedia. Is there a reference on that? Unless there is, I'm rather dubious. It was probably added by some creation scientist.

It's pretty rare that we "uncover" bodies from thousands of years ago and can tell they were burned, seeing as they're, um decomposed and all. They may have found infant bones, but how do they know they were burned? I'd want to see the reference before I took that at face value.

I'm not going to deny that infanticide occurred, but let's not pretend it was only practiced by the "Barbaric"...

I'm no archaeologist, but I'd bet anything you like it's pretty damn easy to tell that bones have been burned, even after thousands of years. I mean, these days you can tell with some precision where someone grew up by analysing the ratios of oxygen isotopes in their dental enamel...

I appreciate that you're no great fan of the Abrahamic religions - I hope it's pretty clear that I'm not either - but all the horrific shit that's been committed in the names of Christ and Mohammed over the millennia wouldn't necessarily have been all that different if any one of the other various cults in the region had achieved world-religion status instead. It's like the way the socio-economic conditions in Germany after WWI were such that were inherently conducive to Nazism or something like it, and if Hitler had been killed in the trenches there's no reason to think someone else wouldn't have done more or less what he did.

My point is just that no single group of people or ideology has a monopoly on fucking shit up in a bogusly unrighteous way - it's just that some ideologies are more virulent, more successful at aggressively propagating themselves, than others.
 

swears

preppy-kei
the universe exploded out of nothing

that's totally absurd. science will never explain it.

so there very well may be a God. We don't know... but... maybe.

If we start out with the idea that we have no clue of the events leading up to the big bang, then there are an infinite number of possibilities (from our viewpoint) as to what did.

If the idea of a conscious, intelligent creator, (an agent acting with goals) is just one of those possibilties then it seems so unlikely as to be negligible.

Also I am of the mind that surely the universe started simple and got more and more complicated over time, that makes a lot more sense than it starting with a perfect, all-knowing being on day one.

Things "just happen" with no direction all the time, intelligence and agency seem as rare as hen's teeth to me, we only know of one species that possess them (us) and only one planet with the prerequisite conditions for them existing (life).

Or perhaps "everything" didn't explode out of nothing, maybe "everything" has always been here, and time itself is a quirk of our perception, maybe the universe doesn't differentiate between existence and non-existence like we do.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
I'm no archaeologist, but I'd bet anything you like it's pretty damn easy to tell that bones have been burned, even after thousands of years. I mean, these days you can tell with some precision where someone grew up by analysing the ratios of oxygen isotopes in their dental enamel...

I appreciate that you're no great fan of the Abrahamic religions - I hope it's pretty clear that I'm not either - but all the horrific shit that's been committed in the names of Christ and Mohammed over the millennia wouldn't necessarily have been all that different if any one of the other various cults in the region had achieved world-religion status instead. It's like the way the socio-economic conditions in Germany after WWI were such that were inherently conducive to Nazism or something like it, and if Hitler had been killed in the trenches there's no reason to think someone else wouldn't have done more or less what he did.

My point is just that no single group of people or ideology has a monopoly on fucking shit up in a bogusly unrighteous way - it's just that some ideologies are more virulent, more successful at aggressively propagating themselves, than others.

There are definitely ways you could tell, forensically, with pretty good accuracy, how a given set of bone remains had come to be killed. In 1921, the time when the Wikipedia article claims these discoveries were made, these forensic techniques did not exist. If you check their "reference", it is a Bible verse.

No single ideology has a monopoly on fucking shit up, but don't expect me to pretend like your ideology of choice, esp if it's Christianity, is somehow above, or different, or better, in kind and type than the others in this respect.

And really, who knows? If we had different beliefs earlier, maybe we would've made better scientific discoveries earlier, and we would've gotten rid of more superstitions earlier and maybe circumvented some of the slaughter in the name of God/Christ.
 

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
If we start out with the idea that we have no clue of the events leading up to the big bang, then there are an infinite number of possibilities (from our viewpoint) as to what did.

If the idea of a conscious, intelligent creator, (an agent acting with goals) is just one of those possibilties then it seems so unlikely as to be negligible.

Also I am of the mind that surely the universe started simple and got more and more complicated over time, that makes a lot more sense than it starting with a perfect, all-knowing being on day one.

Things "just happen" with no direction all the time, intelligence and agency seem as rare as hen's teeth to me, we only know of one species that possess them (us) and only one planet with the prerequisite conditions for them existing (life).

Or perhaps "everything" didn't explode out of nothing, maybe "everything" has always been here, and time itself is a quirk of our perception, maybe the universe doesn't differentiate between existence and non-existence like we do.

Yes, exactly. See the article about coin tricks from the "evolution" thread under Thought.

If it's so hard to believe that everything came from nothing, why is it any easier to believe that there's an omniscient being that came from nothing? Who made God?
 

Chris

fractured oscillations
Remember when our "tribe" attacked and enslaved all of those black people? All in the name of God, who cursed the descendents of Caan, so that made it ok? I do.

the curse on Cain thing never implicated black people obv, this was just a racist excuse. Nothing to do with the teachings of Christianity.

When one culture does something wrong, they're "savage" animals, but when Christianity fails to root out all of the badness from a culture--hey, that's humanity!


No, when all people act hateful they're acting "savage", I also implicated Christian cultures have also acted savagely. Humanity is savage when it acts in it's self interest. Please stop trying to find some non-existent prejudice here by picking through needless semantic details.
 
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Chris

fractured oscillations
Once a fundie, always a fundie...

Not everyone who reasonably admits the possibility of a higher power is a fundie.

but I'm just not going to be the rabid, intolerant, fundie-equivalent of an atheist either. The hate on this thread is like the atheist version of those "God Hates Fags" assholes.


The hardest thing is always persuading such people that the comparatively decent, humane, rational, creative variety of religion practiced by people like my mum (a retired CofE priest) actually is a fully valid and historically tenacious form of Christianity, rather than defanged and watered-down vestigial remnant. As the punchline to the old joke has it: "they think they're the only ones here".

But if you studied Christ's teaching honestly, it's quite clear that the "fanged", warlike versions of Christianity are much further from what it's meant to be.
 
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