When it comes to support for the Bible most people don't even believe in the Bible for physical, tangible or scientific reasons. We believe in the Bible by moral and spiritual experiences with the teachings of the Bible which can all be proven to be true by simple practice. Just like you can go outside and touch sand if you want to know that it is real not believe in someone else telling you it is real, you actually experience it using your senses. (ie. if you want to know if prayer works, you can actually pray and when you receive an answer then you have evidence that it actually works,and you don't stop there you keep trying the experiment watching it work over and over again. Plus you hear the experiences of many people all over the world who's results had been reproducible in your own life....etc...etc...) That is an experiment that is much more reliable to me in my opinion than someone taking DNA and putting through some chemicals and saying "yup, the apes are your cousins..." by some scientist whom I have no idea what motives lie behind their desires to disprove the claims of the Bible, nor whether they are acting out of bias or whether their claims are actually legitimate. Who's experiment's are not reproducible to me. It would be very very Hasty of me to discount the Bible because of someone elses claims especially not knowing their motives or verifying what they say. Which makes me wonder why so many of you are so Hasty to discount the Bible. If you have tested the bible on it's own claims about how to live your life then you would know that the principles work and bring greater happiness. No man-made system can nor does do that perfectly like the Bible can.
37 comments
Nice Wall of Text.
The Bible is a man-made system, stupid. We're not "Hasty" in discounting it; we slowly and meticulously check out all the contradictions and errors, and compare it to observable reality, and discuss it with others, and listen to what others have found. After all that, we slowly go from sceptics, to agnostics, to atheists. It often takes years.
1)The Bible disputes itself
Statistically, prayers only work if the person they're supposed to benefit knows about them. If I tell you I'm praying for you, you'll succeed/recover from illness/whatever, but if I pray for you without telling you, there is no effect. This has been shown through studies. It suggests that the effect of prayer is entirely in the mind, and God isn't doing jack shit.
The Bible also says that rape victims (yes, victims ) must be put to death under certain circumstances (Deuteronomy 22:23), but slave owners who beat their slaves are fine as long as the slaves survive for at least one day (Exodus 21:21). It is difficult to take seriously anything so obviously terrible.
I understand your argument, and its actually one of the better ones for religion, though fundies seldom recognise and articulate it properly. What you are saying is that if you practice christianity, you feel better, more positive and life starts going your way. Cause and effect, it does what it says on the tin, so what's the problem?
Unfortunatley, this is the very same effect experienced by every other adherent to religion, regardless of which one it is. So, although it feels like christianity does have actual positive effects on your spiritual wellbeing, that is not grounds for suggesting christianity is actually real, because we see these same effects in other faiths, and by your own doctrine you can't all be right. Basically, the feelings you have are not dependant upon, and thus not evidence of, your God actually existing
Sorry, but good try!
1. You've never actually, you know, read the bible, have you?
"That is an experiment that is much more reliable to me in my opinion than someone taking DNA and putting through some chemicals and saying "yup, the apes are your cousins..." by some scientist whom I have no idea what motives lie behind their desires to disprove the claims of the Bible, nor whether they are acting out of bias or whether their claims are actually legitimate. "
"Plus you hear the experiences of many people all over the world who's results had been reproducible in your own life "
Just thought I'd re-arrange these two gems of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. You can rely on the testimonies of people that claim that pray works but not those that don't?
"That is an experiment that is much more reliable to me in my opinion than someone taking DNA and putting through some chemicals and saying "yup, the apes are your cousins..." by some scientist whom I have no idea what motives lie behind their desires to disprove the claims of the Bible, nor whether they are acting out of bias or whether their claims are actually legitimate."
And what if the scientist in question has been brought up in the Hindu or Buddhist tradition and does not have the faintest idea of what the Bible says? How is she conspiring to "disprove" something she knows nothing about? How many molecular biology PhDs are being produced in Japan, India and China every year? How many have even heard of young Earth creationism?
These people are living in the past. They still think all science is done in the USA or just maybe Western Europe.
some scientist whom I have no idea what motives lie behind their desires to disprove the claims of the Bible, nor whether they are acting out of bias or whether their claims are actually legitimate.
Leaving aside the appalling grammar, this presupposes an intention to reach a pre-conceived conclusion. That's not how peer-reviewed science works. On the other hand, jbozz21 has told us that's just how he works.
Who's experiment's are not reproducible to me
To me being the operative words here.
It would be very very Hasty of me to discount the Bible because of someone elses claims especially not knowing their motives or verifying what they say.
For about four centuries now, it has been recognized that the world is too complex for anyone to know everything. So we specialize and we rely on specialists to tell us about the areas where their specialism lies. jbozz21's rejection that others might know subjects about which he knows nothing better than he does is a rejection of the idea of intellectual inquiry itself. This is not medieval, for there were plenty of people in the Middle Ages open to intellectual inquiry. jbozz21 aims not to open up possibilities of thought, but to close them down. jbozz21 is a propagandist aiming at creating closed minds.
" if you want to know if prayer works, you can actually pray and when you receive an answer then you have evidence that it actually works,and you don't stop there you keep trying the experiment watching it work over and over again. "
http://chem.tufts.edu/tufts-ssa/PrayerHealing.html
"f you want to know if prayer works, you can actually pray and when you receive an answer then you have evidence that it actually works"
I prayed to god to give me evidence of its existence. I received no evidence. That was the answer.
Most of the people I know that are no longer christians spent most of their lives trying to make themselves buy into it, myself included. It took me 27 years to stop trying to force myself to believe in the ridiculous claims in the bible and accept that this was just never going to work for me.
Church pressures, societal pressures (and if you think those don't exist, ask any of the Atheists here, many of whom have experienced either verbal or physical attacks because they aren't shoulders-deep in the fucking Flavor Aid), and pressure from family are very powerful things. The cost of being non-christian in this country is often very high in terms of personal relationships.
So don't even for a second assume (because we all know what happens when you do that) that leaving christianity is a decision made in haste. It's not just the faith someone leaves behind, it's frequently a large number of people who no longer wish to be associated with 'the hellbound' - family included, which blows my fucking mind. Hasty? No. Even when you've lost all faith, it's often a very difficult and painful decision.
Physical, tangible or scientific reasons have worked well for me in every application. Why make an exception for one ancient book collection?
Basing one's morality upon biblical teaching seems dicey at best. Do unto to other as you would have them do unto you seems pretty good (though stolen from earlier religions,) but slavery, genocide and racism are advocated or condoned in the Bible.
that's just it though, you don't have to "believe" anything any scientist has to say, if you're in doubt about something, you can research and test it yourself. the catch is that it helps to be completely unbiased when conducting experiments, otherwise you run the risk of misinterpreting the data to fit conclusions you already had to begin with. and once you come up with the same answer over repeated testing, it's best to show those results to as many people as possible to allow them to attempt to reproduce what you've found, that's called "peer review".
If we were to test the Bible
Genetics wouldn't involve the staff of goat herder
Bats and birds would be two different species
Water would not turn to blood
"If you have tested the bible on it's own claims about how to live your life then you would know that the principles work and bring greater happiness."
We know you haven't tested it yourself... because you haven't sold everything you own and given the money away yet. Until you do that, go fuck yourself.
Somehow this person has gotten reliable, confirmable, legitimate science and obviously taintable personal testimony so totally twisted that actually living with those standards could be harmful. After I was done laughing I'd feel obligated to help them cross the road.
"It would be very very Hasty of me to discount the Bible because of someone elses claims especially not knowing their motives or verifying what they say."
Their motive is to find out what is true. You can verify their claims for yourself if you were prepared to put some time and effort in.
"If you have tested the bible on it's own claims about how to live your life then you would know that the principles work and bring greater happiness."
That sounds exactly like the Little Book of Calm. The Bible, however, fails as a self-help book because of all the inconsistencies within it and its strange concepts of morality.
"When it comes to support for the Bible most people don't even believe in the Bible for physical, tangible or scientific reasons."
Of course not.
image
...not when you're the Church of England, who accepted "On the Origin of Species" with open arms, when it was first published. What was initially put forward by Charles Darwin (who in his early years was in training to join the Anglican clergy), whose paradigm-shifting, nay, potentially beliefs-annihilating theories could have spelled ultimate doom for the Church of England, as "OtOoS" sold more than the Bible at that time. Yet, the C-of-E still exists to this day. Darwin is buried & memorialised in Westminster Abbey. Seems they can reconcile their beliefs with scientific facts .
Why can't you ?
Because unlike you Bible literalists who can't admit that there are so many flaws (two words: talking snake) in your precious doctrine, because it would destroy the security blankie called your 'faith', the C-of-E openly admit that much of the Bible is purely fable and metaphor. As in it's not real .
Evolution (and the Big Bang) is taught as fact in Britain's schools; indeed, is compulsory , as per the National Curriculum (even for 'Faith schools', if they're to continue to receive state funding. And Homeschooling has to abide by the law too). No Kitzmiller vs. Dover required.
The C-of-E is still here.
(ie. if you want to know if prayer works, you can actually pray and when you receive an answer then you have evidence that it actually works...
You know, there's a story making the rounds on /tg/ about a guy who bricked his computer right before finals and, in desperation, drew the cogwheel sign of the Omnissiah on its case and lit off some incense. Sure enough, it started up! Praise the Machine God and the Emperor of Mankind!
Maybe that will explain how silly you look to the rest of us, jbozz. (Maybe.)
Prayer doesn't work. You don't understand statistics and actuarial tables.
Example: 2% of a particular form of cancer goes into spontaneous remission. It's not a miracle! Where's the miracle for the other 98%? And don't hide behind the world's oldest bullshit excuse, "you're not doing it right." It's as regular as clockwork when dealing with large sample sizes.
The ultimate proof is, if you had any advantage from prayer, insurance companies would charge non-believers more.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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