braces_for_impact

Why do you assume we are here to trash anyone's belief system?

This is an atheist board, any christian that comes here is welcome, but if they start making statements, then they need to back them up. Come to think of it, the same applies to atheists here as well.

Celsus

treat2,

I'm convinced you haven't carefully read Peter's or my own posts. We are not bashing the Bible. Criticism is not wholly negative. What we do, rather, is look critically at the form and content of the texts and see whether they can tell us what the author is doing, whether there is historical basis to it all, whether it is metaphorical or structural or literal, etc. (and the answers to each of these is varied) It is a hobby for most of us, and we do it because it interests us. So if you think this is a waste of time, my suggestion is you stop wasting your time while we carry on doing things we enjoy. To each their own.

Joel

Doctor X

Hmmmmm . . . .

Then do not bother with it. I find baseball boring. I do not watch it. I do not try to dissuade others, unless they are godless heathen scum Yankees fans whose nethers should forever boil and bubble in a particularly hot caldron in whatever manifestation of hell exists.

Of course we could not learn this if we did not engage in criticism.

1. We do not wish to waste our time.
2. We are gentleman.

which is why you may not find these discussions on a virulently atheist forum.

--J.D.

Amos

It has nothing to do with morality but with the discovery of truth and that lies beneath the purpose of religion. In philosophy we do not leave even one stone untouched and now if I could only get Dr. X on board we may be going someplace.

Kosh

For the kids.

What would you do if a large organization called "Math Morons" came into town and set up shop? They started having social get togethers to promote their bad math. They then insisted on trying to persuade you kids that their traditional math (based on the equation 1+1=3) was the only way to think.
Then they began to polarize the kids so that they would think they're superior to all the kids who believed that 1+1=2? And then those kids started to get very aggressive about insisting others follow their bad math?

and they continued to teach this despite all the concrete evidence that they are wrong?

Would you ignore them?

Would you let them convince your innocent children?

Or would you attempt to voice your opinion about how bad their math was so you could stop the nonsense?

"1+1=3" is the most well documented formula in history! It must be right, look at all of use who believe it! If you don't believe it, you just have no faith, and you aren't enlightened. People have died defending that formula!

spin

Why criticise it?

We need to.

All literature must be evaluated for its intrinsic value. Uncritical reading means a text is usually left not understood. If the text has no importance to us, we usually ignore it. When a text dose have importance to us in one way or another, we need to understand it.

Biblical texts have importance for a number of reasons. It is the religious book of the powers that be. (There has never been an American president who has not professed xianity nor recently one who has not been forced to admit being xian.) It is a book which contains much of the imposed morals of our society. It is a window into the past, a past culture, which shows how that culture confronted its world, and the way it confronted the world should be extremely intersting to us -- well it is to me.

As our lives are influenced by the book, be it that we have a seven day week, or that we adhere to monogamy, or that our leaders seem to think it important, we need to understand it.


spin

Magus55

Well, that assumption may come from the numerous posts discussing how much people hate Christianity or religion in general.

Calzaer

I just hate how Christians expect us to take only PARTS of Psalm 104 literally.

CX

Why do people dissect other works of literature? Personal interest I'd wager. Criticism of the bible, at least as it's intended on this forum, generally does not have the same connotation as it does in the common sense. Here criticism means (or should mean) reasoned examination of the texts. Personally I do it because I find it interesting.

CX

As an atheist you should realize there's no need to capitalize the word "atheist" unless it's at the beginning of a sentence.


Um...okay...agreed. What precisely has that to do with Biblical Criticism & History? The fact is most of the scholars cited on this forum and the majority of people working in the field of Biblical Criticism are theists, generally Xian. Are you perhaps misunderstanding something?

So your presence here is for what purpose exactly? As JD mentioned there are all kinds of things I find boring. Consequently, I don't engage in discussions about them. Secondly not everyone who accepts Xianity or the Bible is an idiot. Not every nontheist is intelligent.

I must have missed a recent EAC memo or something because I am unaware of anything that is "REALLY important to" all (or even a plurality of) "Atheists" [sic] Nor did I get my ballot to elect you our spokesman. Fascinating.

In any event I'm not sure this thread is relevant to this forum. It might be better suited in GRD. Unless this gets onto a BC&H topic. I'm going to move it.