riven3187: Is there any reason to believe in anything in the Bible?

Question

My answer would be not if you first contrive a fictitious interpretation only to knock it down. This is not an exercise in intelligence but an exposure of very poor research skills.

I won't address each of your complaints because they're too long for a single answer. If you think your 13 years of school is up to the challenge, please address them one at a time for us.

Why not start with the hardest ones first? Can Atheists actually be baited into intellectual discussion? The real question: can Atheists debate without name-calling or hate-speach?

I don't think so, myself, judging from the answers I've received so far. I've not debated a WORTHY Atheists in a long time.

Good points from several Atheists here. Yes, I am stereotyping. That's because I usually don't hang out in religious forums, I usually go to Atheist forums. Normally what I find there are Atheists patting themselves on the back with how well they can criticize Christianity and the Bible. So my stereotype of Atheists being uneducated bigots is based on observation.

If there are exceptions, I would welcome the "non-dumbed-down" debates promised. I don't call it hate speach until you specifically level an accusation you can't back up.

riven3187: Your answers are contrived and don't address any real issue. I find it difficult to take any of them seriously.

It's easy to find man-made philosophies and knock them down. I asked about the Bible, not interpretations that came later. I hope I never use the doctrines of organized religion to interpret the Bible; it's a fundamental mistake. No writer of the Bible has ever heard of the "5 proofs", it is therefore irrelavent in discussing the Bible.

If we can't take the Bible on it's own merits, we accomplish nothing.

(And before you start bragging about a "firm understanding" of science, take note that I'm rated in electronics and certified in 5 areas of science. Many Americans have college level education and can make your claims. Try to avoid the arrogance of pretending you're the last one in the world with such access to knowledge.)

Answer 1

Dude you are stereotyping. I am an atheist. I am nice. I can stereotype too but I don't. If I were like you, but atheist here's what I would say: From what I see, all Christians believe every single word of the bible is absolute fact, believe that everyone but other Christians who are just as super devout as them, will burn in hell, and yell at everyone for it.

Now you don't match that description. I don't match the description you have of atheists either. If you would like to discuss my beliefs, email me and I will try to explain as best as I can. I may be only 15 but I am good at calm discussions and providing evidence and support for my thoughts.

Answer 2

Then you haven't really tried to find a serious debate because I am an atheist and I don't result to name-calling or hate-speech. I don't dumb-down my arguments and I don't hold back my true opinions, but this doesn't constitute hate-speech.

Answer 3

Don't go acting all holier-than-thou. I have debated many Christians who resort to name-calling and hate-speech, and I'm not even an Atheist. Try debating homosexuality with some Christians. Their entire argument is hate-speech.

Answer 4

Wow, a question directed at me. That's a first.

The reasons that athiest name call is because they are tired. They love to argue and debate, but Christians come up with the same questions every time, and never look for an answer outside their book. I see it every single day, because most of my friends are Christians.

The "five proofs" (Quinquae viae) that my schooling taught me was disproven through one trip to wikipedia.
Why would a omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God care about the rules that we must follow?
How can we honestly believe that a multi-millenia old book can dispense more scientific knowledge than the sum total of all that mankind has come up with to this point. True, there are somethings that we don't understand, but that isnt an excuse to place an "insert God here" label.
How can Hell exist with an omnibenevolent diety?
Speaking of which, how is it free will, if we go to Hell if we believe otherwise. THats about as free as elections in Cuba.

I won't deal with them individually, because I can sum them up. Much of the world we live in can be put to mathamatics, can be proven. WE can analyze just about anything, and come up with some good ideas about how it works. And all of this is separate from mysticism. We don't need religion to understand the world.

Once you can accept that humans--not god (or gods), spirits, angels, or demons--can understand the world, then it is simply a matter of asking yourself why you believe. To use an example from the debate (link posted later), Why do you accept the Christian god and not the Muslim god? Or the Greek Gods? Norse? Egyptian? Chinese? Babylonian? You have decided on the Christian god. WHy do you dismiss the others? FOr that sam e reason, athiests dismiss your god. Why? For athiests, who don't accept the bible (or any relious text) as true, that makes all those gods equally true. And in an absense of evidence, upon which everything must be based, that means equally bogus.


Once again, the reason that athiest get angry is that many fundamentalist preachers (who come to campus all the time) blatantly deny science. They have utterly no faith (excuse my term) in mankind's reasoning ability. And athiest, most of whom are analytical, and many who are scientists and mathematicians, can have no respect for people like that. What makes us human is our ability to reason. People who don't, or refuse, to use it are less than human.

I guess it all really comes down to is that athiests don't believe what can't be verified.

Athiests also aren't stuck in a Christian mode of thinking. Many assume that Christianity is the default. THey ask athiests questions like, "What happens when we die if there is no heaven?" There was no reason to belive that you are going anywhere in the first place. Heaven wasn't disproven; it was never proved. Most people never go beyond thinking like that.

You speak of interpretations. Couldn't an omniscient diety say it in such a way that he couldn't be mistaken. An 11th commandment, "Don't kill Jews" would have helped millions of people. Why would an all-knowing diety leave things to interpretation? If God wanted us to act a certain way, and would punish us if we don't, couldn't he have said it in a way that couldn't be mistaken?

To your first question, No, there really isn't a reason to belive in the Bible. It is a book of fairy tales. Unproven, often blatantly untrue.

Before you say it, yes, there are some athiests who don't believe because their parents never taught them, and thus they don't think about it. And there are some who just hate the Church. But most thought about religion and began to question.

If you ask me why I don't believe, the reasons are many.
#A firm understanding of science, i.e. how the world works.
#Knowledge of history: Jesus is one in a long line of virgin born savior gods: Perseus, Herakles, Mithras, Dionysus, Osiris.
#Philosophy answers many of the questions of life with resorting to faith.
#Psychology, specifically why people create religions (scared of death? Join Chrstianity, where you can have Eternal Life).

Oh, and by most Christians, I didn't mean you. You have asked a question. THat puts you above most.

I recommend that you look here:
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904_1.html
Its an argument between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan. Sam Harris is much more eloquent than I.



RESPONSE:

Ah, now I see the problem. Perhaps some of my answers hit a little to close to home, perhaps you simply misunderstood them. Either way, you took them very offensivly, and are now openly hostile. That is why you find an absense of (in your words) "worthy athiests": Nobody wants to deal with a person so quick to anger.

Anyways, back to the topic.

I mentioned my schooling. You inquired about. Now you go back and say, "I asked about the Bible, not interpretations that came later." In case you didn't know, Catholicism is based on Tradition and the Bible. Which is why I mentioned the 5 ways: becasue you asked.

You have made assumptions again: I wasn't bragging about my knowledge of science. In fact, I'm still in school. I know that there are gaps in my knowledge. However, I do know that science is verifiable. It's dependable. It can explain the world to us. If anyone is bragging, it is you, with your certification in 5 areas of science.

Finally, I demonstrated that we don't need religion; that Christianity is no different from other religions; that, being no different, it is equally bogus. That a book so full of absences and mistakes and ambiguous sections could in no way be written by a perfect diety. In light of these things, discussion of the bible is irrlevent. It is irrelevent because there is no god, so the book is relegated to simply that: a book.

Perhaps the only thing worth reading in your response was: "If we can't take the Bible on it's own merits, we accomplish nothing."
I had already answered (hows that for omniscience) that with this: "To your first question, No, there really isn't a reason to believe in the Bible. It is a book of fairy tales. Unproven, often blatantly untrue."
And I enumerated many of the points in the thread that led to this.
The Earth was not created in six days. There was no great flood. Even today, we would have trouble fitting a small portion of the animals in the world on a boat. Noah did not live 500+ years. There were no giants (Gen. 6:4). Etc. Unless you believe in magic, you can't believe in this stuff.


Try actually reading what I write, instead of picking a point or two to misinterpret, declare me wrong, and pat yourself on the back.

This is the reason no one will argue with you. I answered your question. You responded by picking apart a small piece of my answer and ignoring the rest. Now that I think about it, that's how people become fundamentalists: they pick and choose what they want to read.

Oh, and don't be so hostile. I'll put up with it, but most won't.
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Actually, I am kinda tired of this. So go to these places to read more:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html
http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical%20Contradictions.htm
http://www.evilbible.com/Top_Ten_List.htm

I can't verify them, accept the first. That's because I just search "Biblical Contradiction" on Yahoo, and all of these popped up. You see, the knowledge is out there, whether or not you choose to see it. Before you start talking about the merits of the bible, read the long list. The Skeptics Annotated Bible is my favorite. It is just the Bible + commentary.

Answer 5

Can you stop generalizing? Must I bring up your
Christian friends like Sifting who don't do anything
but mock Atheists? We all have idiots and bigots.

Answer 6

Well i certainly don't want to believe in the old-testament god. he is very harsh with his 'chosen people'.

No hate speech here.