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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly makes the following comment:

badger3k

I'll admit to the squirming part. It's like a cat "playing" with a mouse. However, getting them to admit to some of the more rabid thoughts (such as "mankind deserves to die" or "genocide is ok when god commands it, children deserved to be slaughtered") can cause a bit of digestive upset and general disgust at the lack of empathy and humanity in some of them. Plus, the level of arrogance and ignorance displayed can be stunning, even though both my head and desk suffer for it.

Mat

אתה מ דבר עברית

eccles

I just joined here. I am a bedraggled refugee from the "Holy" Roman Catholic Church, so I can speak from that point of view. Roman Catholics do not understand the Bible because many never read it except fot eh TN Gospels and Epistles and Acts and they are read to them at Mass. When I was at Jesuit College we did only Genesis and Exodus and skipped the rest. I am researching the foundation of Judeo/Christianity and to get up to speed on the OT I just read it up to Kings II. I got fed up after that - all the slaughter ordered by YHWH. Now I know why the Roman Catholic Church bypasses the OT.

I am now fully convinced the Bible was plagarized from other Religions and their myths, especially the Egyptian Religion. Moreover there are no original authored manuscripts and the authors are unknown.

For me the Bible is the worst book of fiction ever written.

I am now Atheist.

Joan of Bark

Rubbish. Modern copyists don't give a damn about uneducated people? The word of God is only for the educated (and are you aware that the better educated people are, the more likely they are to be skeptical?)?

Modern translators HAVE changed the words in the Bible, evidenced by a dozen different versions of God's 'word'.

Oh, really? Then why can't Catholics and Protestants agree on the Pope? Or birth control (which has affected literally billions of souls)? Why do some Christians think euthanasia is acceptable, and others not? Why are countless hours of our courts' time spent debating on the ethics of various laws? If the Bible had laid them out clearly, we wouldn't have these problems, which your omniscient God should have forseen. Hell, Christians can't even agree on when it's permittable to kill another human being. You'd think God would have been clear on that point.

Besides which, if God had transmitted the information directly to our brains, EVERY HUMAN BEING for the last two thousand years would know about His wonderful 'word'. As it is, billions have died without ever getting this information. Did God not care about these people?

Face it, God is either a lousy communicator, or He doesn't exist.

IBelieveInHymn

Jesus said,
“And I give to them eternal life, and they shall never ever perish, and not anyone shall pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:28).

If they cannot differentiate right from wrong, they cannot be held accountable for their actions.

spin

That helped.


spin

spin

Yo eccles! Welcome.
A lot of people who have lost religion pour their anger over the past out on the bible.

The bible is a work of its time and reflects ideas and values in circulation at that time, so you will seem similarities with other old ideas. It has a lot of problems, such as being inappropriate as a guide for modern living (which you'd expect when it was written for a recently sedentary culture that was rather primitive and times have so changed) but it is also a worthy of study for its illumination of the past, for its literary and historical value, to understand how christianity (and Judaism) has effected modern society, to see why christianity doesn't have an intellectual contribution to today's society, being yoked with a work that reflect the social theories of 2000 years ago.

The book is just a book. It's the users of the book who should know better, but are usually too ignorant to seek out more realistic approaches to the world.

Anyway, we like to hate the book. I hope that you stick around and enjoy yourself. We're an argumentative bunch. We like to pull legs of fundies in the hope of getting some sense.

But feel at home.


spin

mrunicycler

Are not either.

Roger Pearse

A curious claim indeed.

The numbers of atheists are so tiny that this claim also seems curious. It is likewise somewhat odd to make the claim that atheists are specially educated or intelligent purely because they object to the views of someone else.

Is there any evidence that atheists are no more educated than anyone else, after many years of encountering them. Nor would this be a surprise; after all, renouncing the views of our parents for motives of convenience is unlikely to promote education, and most likely to promote the collection of excuses.

In an age such as hours, the uneducated are more likely than anyone else to conform to societal values. It would be again curious to claim that these values are Christian.

Probably best to think more about these claims.

A large, vague claim. Since Christians use these versions indifferently, it seems like a misleading claim at best.

It is certainly possible to argue that every Christian must agree on every detail of teaching with every other one. Whether it is evidence of anything might be questioned, however.

The value of this comment is unclear to me. If the sky fell, we should all catch larks. And considering the resentment atheists feel on merely driving past a billboard talking about religion, the demand seems again a curious one.

Merely repeating stock atheist excuses does not exactly help the claim to be specially educated or intelligent made earlier.

I am wondering, at this point, what the connection of all this is with BC&H, tho. Should this thread be moved?

Lots of theological assertions in here; perhaps we could have some evidence that atheists are qualified to talk about God before proceeding, otherwise this is merely vituperation.

Neither seems to follow logically from any of this. I perhaps could comment that a grasp of logic is also not something for which atheists seem to be conspicuous, although admittedly you have not claimed it.

Atheism is merely a religious position. It is one held by very few people, and those who do hold it enjoy a dubious reputation among the rest. It would be best not to make exaggerated claims for it, therefore, surely?

All the best,

Roger Pearse