Jeremy Pallant

I know of many reasons why Christians don't respect us. According to the Bible, we are all "fools". Hardly an expression of respect, yet one frequently expressed based upon Psalms 14, verse 1:

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good. The LORD looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are any that act wisely, that seek after God. They have all gone astray, they are all alike corrupt; there is none that does good, no, not one.

Goliath

Rational BAC,

I find your demanding me to respect xianity to be completely absurd. For your beliefs, I have nothing but a white hot burning hatred that will not die until I do. (NOTE: This does NOT mean that I hate all--or even most--xians).

Sincerely,

Goliath

Jeremy Pallant

Goliath reminds me of something.

Christians like to say "love the sinner, hate the sin."

Inspired by that philospophy I like to say "respect the believer, hate the belief".

What do you think about these two perspectives, Rational BAC?

JCS

Christians say I am selective when quoting from their book also, so I guess I'm a cherry picker myself.

ROTFLMAO!!!! Let the demands begin. I deserve fresh squeezed OJ, HELL NO I DEMAND fresh squeezed OJ!

Why waste time filtering out your world view bit by bit from an antique book? Surely you can find a philosophy that doesn't require you to hold your nose and close your eyes while looking for something palatable.

I'm sorry, I thought the big picture was comprised of the details.

Not a damn thing, since I find christianity silly whether it be in pieces or as a whole.

Why?

JCS

Well I don't agree with you and understanding your position would require me to forgo the meaning of understanding. Since you subscribe to argumentum ad populum will you be switching from christianity to Islam when that surpasses christianity in popularity as it seems destine too do?

Rational BAC

Back again. Happily, if I just stay on line everything works fine. Will have to shut this 'puter down pretty soon and then don't know when I'll be back----------


A few things anyway, while I'm here.

I don't hate anybody (at least because of their religious or non-theist beliefs.) Love the sinner and hate the sin means very little to me. I don't know why so many of you think I am a fundamentalist Christian anyway. For the umpteenth zillionth time ---I am not.

Seemingly one of the things that Christian fundamentalists and some non-theists have in common is that some get all upset emotionally about what could be and should be a rational metaphysical discussion. Cherry pickers rarely (maybe never) get upset about these things.

Seems like there were a few other things recently brought up on this thread.--------(Will have to recheck thread and come back. My memory is not that good. )

Rational BAC

Back again.

Not that much to add. I thought I did state that I am a Christian mostly because that is familiar to me. I just brought up the fact that Christianity is the #1 religion in the world to emphasize it is not something that should be casually dismissed.

And no-------when Islam takes over #1, I will not become a Muslim.

(I will leave open the option that at the pearly gates, if I happen to run into Allah----I will say "Hey Bro-- Knew it was you all the time")

Will make this pretty concise if I can----

I believe that SOMETHING happened 2000 years ago. Not sure what exactly, but it was important enough to have led to the largest religion in the world today.

Of course I do not take the Bible literally. What sane man would? However I do read through it just like someone going through the trash in order to find something of value.

I do believe in the logical existence of a Supreme Being. Can debate that if you want to---but probably better to start a new thread for that---

From that point---that is very logical to assume the existence of a Supreme Being of some kind or other.---I have chosen Christianity (or you can say it was chosen for me) Makes no difference really.

All I want to do is to use my rational mind to "go through the garbage" =read the Bible -----and cherry pick out what I consider to be jewels, and try to find some kind of truth that is acceptable to me in Christianity.

And "that is a good thing" --as Martha Stewart might say.

Jeremy Pallant

Okay, I can go along with that. Ignore, therefore, everything I've said up until know...and if I make little sense now, consider it a part of my having spent the last three hours asleep in front of my computer.

Yeah, I have no life. Your point?

What would you consider "the jewels" in the Bible? Starting with the Old Testament. How do you determine what is a "jewel" and what is not? For example, take the Genesis story. Are there any
"jewels" in there? How about the Flood, or the Exodus, or the invasion of Caanan?

These aspects of Christianity would be a good place to start.

Wyrdsmyth

It's intellectually dishonest and cowardly. I'm not saying that to be mean, just to be blunt. Cherry Picking shows you know there are problems and inconsistencies with the Bible and Christian teachings, and parts you "don't like" (i.e., ignore), and yet you refuse to take this process to its logical conclusion. It's easier to be a Cherry Picker -- a sort of ambiguous, psuedo-agnostic, watered-down Christian -- than to be either a fundamentalist or an atheist... and that is for social reasons. In our current society, 'atheist' and 'fundamentalist' are both dirty words, to some extent. Most people don't like those labels, and don't want to be too closely associated with them. I think it has a lot to do with reputation, peer pressure and self-image. It's easier to go along with the flow, and when people ask what religion you are, to say "Christian" -- but only to the point that you can easily adapt to either extreme... like when you're around atheists, say that you don't believe everything in the Bible, you have a lot of doubts and reservations, and things you don't understand, etc... and when you're around the more conservative sorts, assert that you do indeed believe in God, Jesus, salvation, and the core tenets of Christianity. It's all a matter of emphasis. But, ultimately, I think you're selling yourself short when you do this. It's just being wishy-washy. To me, Cherry Picking is knowing everything doesn't quite add up, yet still being unwilling to closely examine why.

On the other hand, I think many atheists and agnostics are former Cherry Pickers. I would guess, in our country, an awful lot of atheists come from that crop. I am one of them, myself. I went through a period when if people asked me what I was, I said "Christian," and I meant it... but only to the extent that I picked and chose what I believed, and rationalized it in my head. It didn't all make sense to me, but it was what I was taught, and was what the vast majority of everyone around me believed as well, and it was much easier to just go along for the ride. It took a certain amount of intellectual maturity and courage on my part, to finally admit -- to myself and others -- that I really didn't believe Christianity was true.

Clutch

Is that what you think this silent majority of Christians thinks, then? Ie, hand Christians worldwide a questionnaire including: "True or false: The Old Testament is probably mostly garbage with some really good stuff in there", and the majority will answer "True"?

Well, neither of us has anything other than our personal acquaintances with Christians to guide us here. But according to my experiences, this claim is not merely false, but utterly bonkers.

Now, more to the point: Because there are many kinds of Christian, there are many kinds of sceptical arguments and challenges. Faced with an inerrantist, an atheist will quite rightly look for the weakest links in the bible, irrespective of their centrality to the theological structure of Christianity. Faced with a cherrypicker, an atheist will go to the heart of the matter and frame the challenge in terms of the divinity of Jesus and other bits of core silliness. If you are not an inerrantist, of course you need not directly address arguments about, say, the contradictory accounts of Judas' death. But you thereby inherit an obligation to explain how your picking and choosing is principled -- "I sure wish I didn't have to explain that contradiction" not being a principled choice -- and you retain in any case the obligation to defend your belief in the passages you do decide to embrace. If the passages you are willing to thumbs-up are robust enough to really merit calling you a Christian, how are you more "rational" than a fundy?

"Oh, I don't believe all the crazy things those fundies believe. I just think that a morally perfect God arranged things so that only death and a blood sacrifice can expatiate sin, then magically impregnated an unknown woman in one corner of the world, creating a son who went virtually unnoticed, got killed, stayed dead for a couple of days, then came back as a spirit, and eventually flew away into the sky. I'm the rational sort, you see."

Was Jesus a god? Answer No and you're a fellow non-theist. Answer Yes and you've got asymptotically close to the same burden of proof a fundy has.

So I don't see what you're on about.