If there is one thing that I have learned from theism is that it relies on the ignorance of its followers. The whole idea of faith over reason is a major component of theistic beliefs, faith requires that you accept theistic principles without question. Theists have come up with apologetics out of necessity to justify their beliefs to skeptics. If you analyze for instance the bible and its various themes you will see them for the myths that they are, theist themselves admit that the bible makes no sense if you try to interpret it in a literal manner.
So to counter this problem the church has come up with several means of interpreting scripture, there is the literal, allegorical, and historical. Generally when a text either contradicts known facts and scientific discoveries then the text is not meant to be taken literally, it is mean to be interpreted allegorically. If a text is not too improbable then it is to be taken literally, but if it can be confirmed through secular means by historians then it can be interpreted as an historical document.
Christians go out of their way to reconcile the bible and their silly beliefs to the modern world and modern discoveries. They grasp at straws to try to rescue their beliefs from sounding and looking silly from a logical perspective. One of the most common arguments is that of the seven days of creation. Some branches of theism say that it was indeed a literal seven days of creation, but others state that it was not meant to be interpreted as a literal seven days. I believe this latter interpretation is due to the pressure coming from the scientific community that states that the world is not seven thousand years old but rather 4.5 billion years old. In order to bring scripture inline with this discrepancy theists have come up with the allegorical interpretation that basically states that it's not a literal seven days but rather an indeterminate amount of time.
Between verses one and two of chapter 1 of Genesis some christians have inserted this undetermined amount of time to fill in this discrepancy between science and religion. It seems that every time that biblical interpretations come into conflict with scientific discoveries the theists must then reinterpret their holy texts to make them agree with science. I personally as a theist had many questions regarding my beliefs, and when I came across something in the bible that did not quite make sense I then had to try to make sense of it. I would read books on biblical exegesis and hermeneutics to try and see the various viewpoints that the so called church scholars would come up with.
Science on more than one occasion has proven theology wrong and has time and time again shown how false their beliefs are and how their deity God did not and could not have inspired the bible. The most frustrating thing was when you went to those that were supposed to help you with these issues (church elders) you would get some silly replies about doubt and how in the end times God would make all these things known to us and not to worry about those things now. I was not satisfied with that answer, and even to this day my curiosity pushes me to delve even further in to those things that grab my attention. Religion no longer serves as a stimulus for intellectual pursuit, I see it for what it is: a myth.
Here's one I hear a lot of preachers use.
ReplyDeleteGod is not the author of confusion!
The reason he's not the author of confusion is because a god never wrote one word of the bible.
Ancient man is the author of confusion!
Theists have all these stupid cliche's as an answer for everything you can throw at them. As usual, none of them are based on reason or logic and are rather based on ignorance.
ReplyDeleteI would say it is based on imperfect reasoning. The many instances of bad logic have to do with the default assumption that God exists and therefore, how do we provide evidence for its existence. Rather than the more correct way of stating the problem: I have all this evidence, what does it point me towards? This way, you haven't artificially narrowed the scope of your thought process and it becomes much more difficult to arrive at a supernatural explanation.
ReplyDeleteI end up with the conclusion that a godless world looks exactly the same as one with the X number of gods people claim to rule over it.
I hate the "you must believe before you understand" argument and anyway "you are too evil to really get it, so you must be saved first". If you doubt cast it aside, follow like the good sheep you are supposed to be. It is so dangerous that the Bible condemns our intellect and curiosity. Why would God give us a questioning brain and then tell us not to use it? Not listening to our doubt would like us to kill our son on an altar or kill our daughter who just walked in through a door.
ReplyDeleteI honor my brain and my questioning. I truly want to understand. I honor the "designer" that brought me here which is evolution by natural selection.
I completely agree with all of you, minister it is because of what I learned that I could never go back to God. Using my brain and common sense pulled me away from believing in myths and fairy tales. I would feel like a fool holding my arms up in the air praising a non-existent God.
ReplyDelete