Biff the unclean

There are so many accusations of bias made on the board by Christians. Atheists do not believe the Christian stories because they have decided before hand that they won't believe this type of story. This seems more decrement than bias to me.
What seems to be bias would be rejecting one set of stories for a specific reason and then suspending that reason for the same set of stories…if they came from a different group.

For instance, Yahweh separated the waters and he separated the land from the ocean. He also hung the stars from the underside of the sky to serve for signs and seasons.
Okay…
But in Polynesia we have the God Maui. The world was all water and Maui was fishing from his outrigger canoe. One by one he hooked and then pulled to the surface all the Hawaiian Islands. He then hung his fishhook, the constellation Scorpio, from the sky as a sign of his wondrous deed.

During a great battle the Israelites implored Yahweh's help. So that it wouldn't get too dark to keep slaughtering the enemy, Yahweh stopped the Sun from moving.
I'm am told that it is a bias to think that this never happened.
Okay, but….
Maui's mother wanted to make tapa cloth. But the sun sped through the sky so quickly that she could never finish in such a short day and the cloth was always ruined.
Maui climbed to the top of Mount Haleakala-which translates as "the house of the Sun"-with his sacred rope. He roped the sun as it sped by with a lasso and caused it to stand still. He threatened the sun saying that he would never set it free unless it promised to travel the sky more slowly. Which is why, even today, days are 24 hours long.

Two different sets of stories; both with similar concepts. Where does bias come in deciding if any are fact and if any are fiction? If bias is all that makes one reject the stories from the Middle-East as fiction is it bias that would cause one to reject very similar ones from the Mid-Pacific?

Keith Russell

Good grief!

Of course I'm biased.

But, it's a rational bias...

Keith.

Jobar

I'm biased against the idea of the world being flat, and against the idea that Santa brings presents to all the good little girls and boys. One should be biased against extraordinary claims, barring extraordinary evidence.

rebelnerd

Yes, deciding that I wouldn't believe in these types of stories is what led me to atheism. This is an atheist board, right? Why are xtians so surprised that we have a bias against their types of stories?

Filo

beyelzu

i agree with every post so far on this thread. a bias towards rationality and a bias towards reason. hey i am downright prejudiced against the supernatural.

and i am so bigoted towards elves that i reject even their right to exist.

Selsaral

I am biased against stories and personal accounts. I mean, we've all heard so many ridiculous stories to take anything seriously. Ever read about scientology? The Raelians? The bigfoot cult? All the people convinced they were anally probed by aliens? As a child, right when I was trying to figure out, geographically, where Santa Claus might live, I'm told he's just a fun myth for children.

How can you fault people for being suspicious about a bunch of stories, personal accounts, and an old book?

Biff the unclean

Well, this is disappointing.
I had hoped that a Theist would show up to explain why it is bias to not believe the story that Yahweh stopped the sun so that a battle could be won. But not biased to not believe that Maui stopped the sun so that his mother could make cloth.
To me it sounds like both the Polynesian and the Semitic stories meet all the same criteria of believability.

luvluv

Biff:

I assume I started this, so I'll answer.

I have no problem with you DOUBTING my claims, or the claims of any theist. What I have problems with is you making the positive claim that beliefs are false. To be frank, I don't even necessarily believe that all of the Bible's claims are literally true. I don't believe that the Maui claims are true. I, however, don't make the positive claim that their beliefs are false.

That's my beef around here. Most of you profess to be weak atheists, but you constantly make statements that betray a strong atheism which very few of you are willing to back up. I think this is partially because the evidentialist system of justification is so absurdly stringent that, though many of you claim to abide by it, you can't hold back from making claims when they go against your beliefs even when you don't have any evidence one way or another. It's only when an atheist comes to me saying I should proportion my beliefs to evidence, and then starts saying things like "God doesn't talk to people", or "Religious experiences are all in the brain" that I protest.

The evidentialist position is to WITHHOLD belief when there is a lack of evidence, not to declare that claims for which there is insufficent evidence to be false. To make the counter-claim that A is false would require evidence that A is false. That A is not sufficiently supported by evidence is not evidence that it is false.

FWIW, the bias around here is not based on reason. I can point out a lot of fallacies in a lot of arguments used here against God's existence. (For example the notion that since many people report having contact with different gods, no gods exist.) The bias around here is that of materialism, and in my opinion you folks do not question it enough.

Biff the unclean

Actually it was Arrogancy who inspired this thread. You are only one of five Theists I have heard gripe about "Bias" since the beginning of the year. It makes me wonder if you are all on the same mailing list. Each time it has been in conjunction with an Atheist scoffing at a ridiculous Bible story.
While such claims, as an Almighty God are not falsified because they are based entirety on imagination and are free of any evidence these stories are not. The evidence that the Sun is a star that is ninety-three million miles away is quite pertinent to the above.
Deciding that symptoms that resemble those of bi-polar disorder are a religious experience can be as dangerous to yourself as deciding that a melanoma that looked like the Virgin Mary was a religious experience. Seek "materialistic" treatment.

If you claim that God exists then how you define Atheists is correct. However if you change that claim to "God does things" then there is no longer a lack of evidence and you can no longer hide behind that dodge. Yes, the bias is for materialism because that is reality as opposed to fantasy.

Now please tell me if you think that the above Maui stories are true and on what do you base your opinion?

luvluv

I doubt they are true, basically because I have no reason to believe they are. I've never heard of the story, so I don't even have reason to believe you aren't making it up.