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Journal the_mad_poster's Journal: Why I Hate Religonists 21

Journal by the_mad_poster

Witness firsthand the inability of a religionist to accept something as simple as the real definition of a common English word.

If whacko religionists can't even use a dictionary, what exactly is my motivation for thinking that they're capable of understanding something as complicate as evolutionary biology or concepts born of general relativity?

Sorry, folks. I think that a necessary part of being religous, especially being christian and ESPECIALLY being a christian in America, is preponderance of ignorance. I don't think it's unfair of me to complain about that, and I don't think it's unfair of me to look down on religion as a disease of the mind as a result.

This discussion was created by the_mad_poster (640772) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Why I Hate Religonists More

Why I Hate Religonists

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  • ...exchange yesterday. Granted, I was working quite a bit yesterday afternoon, but here is a question that always boggles me from a Christian stand point. And hopefully I can make my thought brief and to the point.

    For those that disagree with the Bible, and I really can care less if you do or not, one of the first things they always say is that the book is a work of fiction. Well, quite a bit of it may be.

    But, if you strip out God, the miracles, basically anything extraordinary, what are you left with?
    • A lot of OT appears to be more or less historically correct, yes. It's corroborated by many Jewish and other sources. The New Testament bits, not as much. Well, pretty much not at all, actually.

      What it looks like is that someone made some shit up by borrowing myths and stories from Buddhism, Judaism, Sol Invictus, Paganism and ye olde Egyptian gods to write the gospel of Mark around AD 70. Then, some enterprising soul(s) expanded it, copied the juicy bits into the gospel of Matthew and Luke and made up s

      • I would disagree to some extent. I think there really was some guy named Yeshua who gathered followers and said a great many things, which as you say seem to be an amalgamation of many of the other religious paradigms of the time with a strong core of judaic "spirit of the law". There are plenty of textual hints (via deep pattern analysis) that indicate 1) the books were not all written by the same people or even with the same general outlook on the new religion and 2) they all seem to stem from some comm
        • There are lots of weird jewish sects mentioned in the Roman accounts at the time, including at least one other known as Christians (the Cult of Serapis). There are probably more historical facts in Life of Brian than in NT, the Judean People's Liberation Front of a Liberated Judea nonwithstanding. :-) There are other inconsistencies, but there is actually very little in the way of historical settings in the NT gospels compared to the OT so there's not very much to go on. Take the solar eclipse at the time o

    • what are you left with? A fairly good historical document of that area of the world in that time

      But the same could be said about a LOT of novels. Gone With The Wind. H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea". Everything by Edgar Allan Poe. Etc.

      People set their stories in familiar settings, with cities, recognizable figures, etc.

      So arguing that there are historical facts in the bible just doesn't cut it. I could make just as good an argument for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. [wikipedia.org]

      • You missed the point. Thanks for playing.

        I was addressing the fact that people dismiss the book as a whole as fiction because of parts they disagree with. And I do not disagree with you with anything you said. But then again, I was not making a point that was involved faith or religion.
        • Actually, I probably should of expanded this before I submitted. In the books you cited, there is very little doubt about those environments. Noone will dispute with you that the civil war did not take place, or that the England of H.G. Wells did not exist.
          • That's because there is recent, credible evidence to prove those things being true. Not so of the bible.

            It doesn't matter if X really did happen or not, you can't just say "oh, no, it happened" without any evidence and expect people to believe it. Until actual proof of event X surfaces, it's perfectly valid for people to dispute its occurrence, and it's invalid for people to just arbitrarily believe. Just because evidence surfaces later doesn't make those opinions at that time more or less valid. It would o
            • It's L.O.G.I.C. and this is exactly my point: religionists never seem to have any and it really irks me.

              And I agree with you. But I still don't know how we got to this discussion from my initial point of saying there is historically accurate information within the bible that was proven to be true from modern historical research.
              • Because the posit was either:

                a) An irrelevant, random statement.

                b) An unfair implication that the presence of historical figures, places, and events is some level of redemption for the bible as an academic reference regarding historical research.

                If it's (a) that's fine, I just sort of assumed you were implying that the bible was somehow something other than a work of pure fiction just because it used a few real places, people, and events to tell the story.
    • But, if you strip out God, the miracles, basically anything extraordinary, what are you left with?

      A really short book...

      A fairly good historical document of that area of the world in that time.

      I doubt there is any significant historical information in the bible that isn't equally or better recorded in other documents. Looking at the bible for historical information about a certain place and time is like looking at a ketchup bottle for nutrition information about tomatoes. You may get an extremely broad ove
      • Yeah...

        The OT misrepresents Moses and Pharoah. Moses was Pharoah! "Moses" is a Greek version of the Hebrew "Mozhe", itself a rendering of "Ra-Meses" - the familiar Pharoah of the Bible: Ramses II. "Meses" or "Moses" in the old Egyptian means "Son" - Ra-Meses is "Son of Ra," the sun-god. Similar stuff here: http://www.thecreativeuniverse.org/MOSES.htm [thecreativeuniverse.org]

        Jews were never "enslaved" in Egypt, a'la Charlton Heston movies. The Hebrew people were a part of the greater Egyptian world, and not yet Monotheist. http [wikipedia.org]
      • Looking at the bible for historical information about a certain place and time is like looking at a ketchup bottle for nutrition information about tomatoes

        That is a good one, I'm gonna have to use it sometime.....
  • The root problem is that so many people find it comfortable to let others do their thinking for them. Churches, political leaders, media - they all should be called to account for encouraging this mode of behavior. Will it change? Of course not. It is in their interest that it continue. Support me, buy my newspaper/magazine/TV channel, vote for me.

    From my point of view, willful ignorance on any subject is a denial of God. You were given a mind. Use it.

    The interesting thing about Revelations
    • i think you're onto something there. especially your first paragraph. i think it's very convenient to blame religion for what seems to be part of human nature.

      i'd add that self-righteousness is as ugly outside the bounds of religion as it is when it's a part of religion.

      tmp hates me. ok.
      • I hate everybody, it's just that only certain people and groups get singled out now and then because they happen to become high-enough profile to excessively annoy me at some given point in time.

        A good rule of thumb is that no matter what I'm saying about anyone at any point in time, odds are pretty good that even if you're not a part of that group at that time, you're still going to piss me off for some reason or other eventually.
        • i know it. that's why it's ok. if it weren't ok with me, it would have been my problem anyway.

          sometimes i hate everybody; sometimes i love everybody. depends how that day is going.

          someday i hope all the people can come together and just enjoy watching beyond thunderdome.
          • someday i hope all the people can come together and just enjoy watching beyond thunderdome.

            Goddammit, if that isn't one fucking ignorant statement!!! :D (i suppose i don't really need the smiley with you subgeek, but i cannae doit captain!)

            I usually love everybody and just get pissed at aspects of people. sometimes, i reckon, i do hate every driver on the road. it's that "type a" part of my personality i'm fighting to this day.
        • I hate everybody

          Come now, smoochybunnykins. I happen to know you're my very special snugglewoogums.

          Cheers,

          Ethelred

    • general relativity was conceived by a religionist.

      But not as we commonly understand such today.

      If you look at Einstein's words, he certainly did not believe in the fundamentalist God who is always fiddling with the works and breaking the rules by which the universe operated. To Einstein, God was the rules, and thus utterly remote, impersonal and ultimately mindless. This is deism, more or less.

      And on top of that, he was wrong. The Universe not only throws dice, it does it where they cannot be seen. Iro

      • I considered pointing that out, but I couldn't decide if he was using the statement as evidence that religionists contribute to science - which would be ironic given that the statement is about an issue on which Einstien found a correct answer and then rejected it because of his religion - or if he was using it as an admission of how religion does, in fact, impede progress when misapplied (e.g. - when it's applied at all).

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