Modern Bible Interpretation

[emberling]

I reject it because there's no logical evidence for it. I reject it because there's also no evidence for the idea that humans have intuition like that. I reject it because of the principle I stated before: that the universe is already well explained without adding meaningless, unproven elements to an already complex equation.

The hypothetical person-with-a-valid-religious-experience does have evidence for it that you keep dismissing as invalid because of your faith that it falls under some scientific principle that you know about but this hypothetical person does not. There is no claim that humans have intuition like that, that is a projection of your prejudice against God: the claim is that God has the power to be felt. Accepting the current explanations of science and rejecting, even on a hypothetical basis, the possibility of new ones is antithetical to rational and scientific thought.

God may well exist, as I've said elsewhere what 'God does not exist" in atheist shorthand basically means (at least I hope it means)that the likelihood of God as described existing is exceedingly slim and since it's not proven nor is it likely to be proven above other theories we should proceed as if it isn't true.

The part you forgot is "unless new evidence shows otherwise," but apparently that part is counter to your faith-based atheism.

AS far as science can tell, and I'm willing to admit that I may be wrong here, people don't have the ability to perceive such things in a bizarre, extrasensory way. The most likely explanation is that their viewpoints are flawed, and for them to use those viewpoints as justification is still troublesome because even they admit the fallibility of human instinct (a lot of religious people are convinced that all those other certain people are wrong).

- Again, it is only the atheist that claims the seer-of-God manifests extraordinary mental powers (of self-deception). The seer-of-God is, according to his perspective, only a witness of God's extraordinary power.

- Telling me that human instinct is fallible is very different from telling me that it's night when I can see the sun.

- I doubt your average non-fundamentalist Christian is particularly vehement their way being Right and all others Wrong, though they would be likely to exhibit the usual confirmation bias.

Even the possibility of them being right doesn't matter that much, they're still asking us to take subjective information at it's face value against the evidence that it's most likely a benign delusion.

Nobody is asking you to do anything. You are defending the position that it is not possible to be Christian for rational reasons. I am providing a counterexample. At no point is your belief in God expected or desired, only the concession that a belief in God may be warranted in a situation other than your own.

"Which is more likely, that your brain should tell a lie or that the laws of physics no longer apply?"

Plenty of people have reconciled physics and God. I'm hardly an expert, but I have no idea how they conflict, since God is beyond all that.

You're trying to shift the argument to make me try to prove that there is not God. It is not for me to prove a lack of God, it is for you to prove his presence and that you're (I'm just using you because you're the closest defender) not being irrational by believing that subjective feelings prone to human error count as proof.

No, the thesis that 'belief in God is necessarily irrational' requires proof. The thesis that 'belief in God can theoretically be rational' does not require anything but a demonstration with possibly-false premises, which I have provided. There is no such thing as proof unsusceptible to human error; the premise specified that the presence of God was felt as convincingly as I perceive anything inarguably 'real'. In other words, that God was observed. Whether any actual occurrences of 'observing God' are this rigorous is not provable in the negative.

If God is not indeed omniscient or omnipotent then the faith loses it's precious objective morality. This is of course more valuable to some religions than others but it is a blow.

I don't see how this follows, and furthermore don't see why it would matter outside of the fundamentalist set. Though my perception of what matters to a moderate, rational Christian is entirely guesswork.

Omnipotence isn't that much a problem for me, it's the huge logical leaps. There's a God--> He's the god of X religion---> Everything that was said about him in the canon is true. None of those beliefs are justifiable.

You're again describing a caricature of Christianity derived from literalists/fundamentalists. I would expect it to be more along the lines of There's a God -> I'm pretty sure he's this one, and will act accordingly -> but that stuff they say in that one thing is wrong. Or There's a God -> All the denominations are the same as far as I'm concerned but this church has nicer people -> though they say some weird things sometimes.

[TerraPrime]

Are you aware how little part the Bible is actually plays in Catholicism? Three brief selected readings per week (old testament, new testament, and gospels) and then it is interpreted by a priest in his homily. Catholicism definitely does not teach that believers must read, understand, and follow every word of the Bible; rather the assumption is made that it's a difficult document to untangle, and that we must draw on tradition and the interpretation of clergy to figure out which parts are worth taking to heart and how they can be applied to modern life.

This is both good, and bad. In the good sense, yes, you have a mechanism to siphon out the really inapplicable (relative to the time and culture) bits of the Bible. In a bad sense, there is plenty of room for human prejudice to become codified as sacred. You see the same problem in Islam, where the major differences between the sects arise not from their approach to the Quran, but from the accumulated hadiths. To a lesser extent, Judaism has this issue, too, and that's not too surprising since all 3 religions share a common root.

First of all I think there is a huge difference between the Bible stance on gender roles vs. homosexuality. While there are dozens if not hundreds of rules about relations between the sexes, homosexuality is only mentioned a couple of times in very vague terms. It is accurate to say "certain close readings of the Bible will uncover a kernel of anti-homosexuality" but a big jump to say "the Bible is anti-gay." Regarding the role of women, the case is much easier to make, I would not argue with the statement "gender roles in the Bible are difficult to reconcile with modern feminism."

I disagree. While there are not that many mentions of homosexuality in the Bible (OT + NT), the few times that it was mentioned was unarguably and explicitly in a context of irrefutable condemnation. The big 8 passages have their apologies, and I have personally used all of those apologies before to argue against anti-gay Christians. But it came to a point where I can no longer continue to use those excuses, because I really don't think that they are accurate interpretations of the Biblical passages.

I would dearly love the Bible to be NOT anti-gay. It would please me greatly if that were so. Alas, I can no longer cling to those interpretations. For my LBGT brethren who are Christian, I'm happy for them that they find solace in their interpretations, and that they can still feel God's love to them in spite of the Biblical passages. I do not begrudge them at all for their joy in their faith. I, however, cannot agree with their interpretation.

However I do think there's a major cognitive leap from "different" to "anti." It might be hard to wrap our heads around with all the modern notions of political correctness, but in certain religious communities it is believed that differences between the sexes are a beautiful and holy thing.

I wish you'd stop using "political correctness" as if it's some sort evil thing where being tagged by it is a bad thing. Being in favor of women's equality is not "political correct," no more than objection to racism is "political correct."

If a woman feels called by God to be a good wife and mother, and to be subservient to her husband in worldly matters, then I think that is a very blessed and beautiful thing, and I believe that is her religious freedom, to the extent it is not used to infringe my own freedoms.

If a woman in a otherwise liberated environment comes to that decision through her own interactions with God, without social pressure and without tacit coercion from her community, then, sure. But in many cases, such as the fundamentalist groups in the U.S., women are brought up to believe that it is their role, that it is their place, that it is God's will that they do so. I see no reasons to believe that their decision to then act in a subservient way, to be dominated by their husbands, and to serve them in that capacity, is a genuine calling coming from their faith, and not just a result of social pressure and indoctrination. I suppose it is possible, but I contend that there's no good way to tell the two apart, and given how we know that people do conform to social pressure on all sorts of things, it seems more parsimonious to assume that social pressure is the factor.

[TerraPrime]

The hypothetical person-with-a-valid-religious-experience does have evidence for it that you keep dismissing as invalid because of your faith that it falls under some scientific principle that you know about but this hypothetical person does not. There is no claim that humans have intuition like that, that is a projection of your prejudice against God: the claim is that God has the power to be felt. Accepting the current explanations of science and rejecting, even on a hypothetical basis, the possibility of new ones is antithetical to rational and scientific thought.

Say what?

Science doesn't have to accept any and all hypotheses. Hypotheses are not just "what could possibly be true," but rather, they are explanations supported by current evidence to provide falsifiable venues of testing. Rejecting the possibility of some sort of intuitive ESP is not antithetical to science, at all. Repeated rounds of experiments to demonstrate the existence of ESP have yielded nothing but negative results, so it is absolutely justified to reject its existence as of now.

[emberling]

When I said 'antithetical to rational and scientific thought' it was in direct reply to this:

the universe is already well explained without adding meaningless, unproven elements to an already complex equation.

which seems to suggest that e.g. Newton's theory of gravity was good enough, why would Einstein quibble about a few discrepancies?

The data in the hypothetical, unlike in the ESP tests, is positive, and the criteria for 'believing a thing without being irrational' are much less rigorous than for 'proving a thing using the scientific method'. There may be actual real-life tests on 'divine experience' that shows it to be a physiological phenomenon with a clear cause, but if there are, it is not common knowledge and being unaware of that does not make a person irrational.

[Seli]

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The part you forgot is "unless new evidence shows otherwise," but apparently that part is counter to your faith-based atheism.

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Which is always a part of the evidence based and taken for granted, but it could be added explicitly for those not used to it.

edit:

When I said 'antithetical to rational and scientific thought' it was in direct reply to this: which seems to suggest that e.g. Newton's theory of gravity was good enough, why would Einstein quibble about a few discrepancies?

...

No scientific model is ever perfect, and of course Einstein's model resulted in an additional explanation, a better fit to observations, or in other words was a meaningful provable addition (which could be easily distinguished from other possible ideas). Something sorely lacking by definition in supernatural explanations.

[MisterOJ]

Whenever I click on a thread that has reached 20 pages and is about to hit 400 posts, it's almost as if I can just feel the mods just hovering around in the ether, waiting to slap a lock on things...

Oh, yeah, this thread is about the Bible and Christianity. Better post something about that.... Do you know what annoys me the most about fundamentalists? That many of them think that all alcohol is bad. Hello? Jesus turned the water into wine.

Easily my favorite miracle. Although, I think it woulda been neat to be with Moses when he crossed the Red Sea too.

[Fragile Bird]

Wine yes, and dance. Don't various fundamental sects ban dancing? Why? Is it deemed wrong in the bible somewhere? Do you know MisterOJ?

[MisterOJ]

Wine yes, and dance. Don't various fundamental sects ban dancing? Why? Is it deemed wrong in the bible somewhere? Do you know MisterOJ?

Honestly, I've never understood the dancing thing. There's some odd story in the Old Testament about a woman dancing lewdly before the king and him lusting after her that they use to back up their no-dancing belief. Those are the denominations that tend to only approve of women wearing skirts (no pants, ever) and making them were their hair long. I think they might actually be Ferengi.

[Fragile Bird]

I see Ormond lurking - perhaps he knows the answer to the dance question. In view of who the OP is, I thought it suitable to try to answer this question before the thread closes. :)