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The Gospel According to Carrier

Started by Unbeliever, March 09, 2018, 07:44:22 PM

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Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on March 12, 2018, 06:39:54 AM
The 20th century was pretty insane.  The 21st century is stacking up to be more of the same.

Maybe, maybe not.  We will only know as it develops.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Blackleaf

Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 02:39:50 AM
"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane."
Robert G. Ingersoll

If people followed strictly the New Testament, they'd be poor, homeless, without a job, without friends, and estranged from family. You cannot make a living giving away all of your possessions, traveling the world and expecting people to take you in to their homes and feed you.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Cavebear

Quote from: Blackleaf on March 12, 2018, 10:22:43 AM
If people followed strictly the New Testament, they'd be poor, homeless, without a job, without friends, and estranged from family. You cannot make a living giving away all of your possessions, traveling the world and expecting people to take you in to their homes and feed you.

Hear, hear!  And dilly-dilly, or something like that.  SOME of us have to keep the world going or we would all still be living in caves and eating rats.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 10:29:45 AM
Hear, hear!  And dilly-dilly, or something like that.  SOME of us have to keep the world going or we would all still be living in caves and eating rats.

You underestimate rats.  Rats would be eating people, ask Winston Smith.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

Quote from: Cavebear on March 12, 2018, 08:11:51 AM
Maybe, maybe not.  We will only know as it develops.

Well in 10 years will will probably have advanced from 4G wireless to 10G wireless, and technophiles will proclaim that is progress, from their homeless shelters.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Cavebear

Quote from: Baruch on March 12, 2018, 12:51:24 PM
You underestimate rats.  Rats would be eating people, ask Winston Smith.

I know about that.  I gear hornets myself.  Put that in your smoke and pipe it...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

fencerider

to me the most logical place to start looking for the existence of Jesus would be the basement of the Vatican. I’m going to guess that somewhere down there a record of what is truth and what is lies has been kept.

Baruch you are an interesting puzzle. You know that the Bible is a collection of myths. You know Jesus is fictitious. You know that several other religious writings are mythical and yet you are still confident in the existence of some kind of deity.

“those poor unfortunate souls” for some Christians proof that Jesus is fiction would lead to a mental breakdown. - Baptists, Presbyterians.. however there are quite a few Catholics that accept the idea of god but they dont necessarily believe that god exists the way their church has taught them. They would still believe in a god minus the Bible or the Catholic church
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

Cavebear

Quote from: fencerider on March 16, 2018, 11:28:45 PM
to me the most logical place to start looking for the existence of Jesus would be the basement of the Vatican. I’m going to guess that somewhere down there a record of what is truth and what is lies has been kept.

Baruch you are an interesting puzzle. You know that the Bible is a collection of myths. You know Jesus is fictitious. You know that several other religious writings are mythical and yet you are still confident in the existence of some kind of deity.

“those poor unfortunate souls” for some Christians proof that Jesus is fiction would lead to a mental breakdown. - Baptists, Presbyterians.. however there are quite a few Catholics that accept the idea of god but they dont necessarily believe that god exists the way their church has taught them. They would still believe in a god minus the Bible or the Catholic church

I think I understand that Baruch has his own Personal God.  It is probably impossible to push him away from that.  THat's why I gave up on him.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

#23
Quote from: fencerider on March 16, 2018, 11:28:45 PM
to me the most logical place to start looking for the existence of Jesus would be the basement of the Vatican. I’m going to guess that somewhere down there a record of what is truth and what is lies has been kept.

Baruch you are an interesting puzzle. You know that the Bible is a collection of myths. You know Jesus is fictitious. You know that several other religious writings are mythical and yet you are still confident in the existence of some kind of deity.

“those poor unfortunate souls” for some Christians proof that Jesus is fiction would lead to a mental breakdown. - Baptists, Presbyterians.. however there are quite a few Catholics that accept the idea of god but they dont necessarily believe that god exists the way their church has taught them. They would still believe in a god minus the Bible or the Catholic church

People, not just atheists, use stereotypes to characterized people.  All stereotypes are false.  Everyone is a unique individual.  But we can't handle that level of complexity.  We can't even handle well the complexity of dealing with even one other person, let alone ourselves.

So as a master of all facts (a brainiac) I am sure you don't have that problem?  Yes, I think a lot of people would have a mental breakdown if their false narrative was challenged, let alone overturned.  How about the 2016 election?

It would be elitist of me to say, that more sophisticated people have more sophisticated ideas.  Certainly atheists believe that ;-)  As a mystic, I don't believe in any scriptures or other authority.  This is why mystics are the disruptors of organized religions.  But there aren't many of us.  I would hope that many religious people are able to at least partially see past the authoritarianism or biblicism of their religions, but I am not holding my breath on that.

Catholics, technically, aren't biblicists like many Protestants.  They see salvation thru the Church, not thru the Bible.  Salvation thru the Church as a whole, but the whole is a hierarchy of power (authorized by G-d).  Clergy and laity each have their part, and the Bible is just one of many tools.

Rabbinic Judaism and Islam are similar.  For Rabbinic Judaism, salvation is thru a people (ethnos) who have a permanent contract with G-d.  The Tanakh is extended with the Talmud and rabbinic interpretations.  Along with Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism and Islam are consistently medieval.

For Islam, salvation is thru the Mosque (a hierarchy with Arab Muslims at the top for Sunnis, a hierarchy with ayatollahs at the top for Shia).  Sunnis are similar to Protestants, and Shia are similar to Catholics.  Biblicism (with Quran) is primary with Sunnis, less so with Shia (whose ayatollahs have exclusive interpretation of the Quran).

Catholic = any kind of "high" church.  Shia = Iran, Ismailis etc.  Mormons don't count as a form of Christianity, since the Book of Mormon makes them separate, and they have a clerical hierarchy (so a "high" church).
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Baruch

#24
Quote from: Cavebear on March 17, 2018, 03:06:29 AM
I think I understand that Baruch has his own Personal God.  It is probably impossible to push him away from that.  THat's why I gave up on him.

An impersonal god, as many religious have, makes no sense to me either.  But yes, my personal god is more individual than what that term means to Evangelical Christians.  Mystics are like that.

Why are you an evangelical atheist?  Usually here that means ... to push the holy agenda of the DNC or some other Leftist group (malcontents determined to anarchy or revolution).  For political reasons, y'all find it necessary to endorse your own flavor of totalitarianism.

If I see G-d everywhere and in everyone (and in everything), then my opposite is a cosmic/anthropic nihilist.  Some people here are some kind of nihilist.  So I will seem incomprehensible, because I am actually variant to their gestalt.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: Baruch on March 17, 2018, 03:44:34 AM
An impersonal god, as many religious have, makes no sense to me either.  But yes, my personal god is more individual than what that term means to Evangelical Christians.  Mystics are like that.

Why are you an evangelical atheist?  Usually here that means ... to push the holy agenda of the DNC or some other Leftist group (malcontents determined to anarchy or revolution).  For political reasons, y'all find it necessary to endorse your own flavor of totalitarianism.

If I see G-d everywhere and in everyone (and in everything), then my opposite is a cosmic/anthropic nihilist.  Some people here are some kind of nihilist.  So I will seem incomprehensible, because I am actually variant to their gestalt.
Insults and stereotypes veiled in a matrix of Baruchian gibberish.

Cavebear

Quote from: SGOS on March 17, 2018, 06:54:59 AM
Insults and stereotypes veiled in a matrix of Baruchian gibberish.

Well, that IS what he does, for reasons I probably never will understand.  He lives in a world of his own construction.  And why I finally put him on the ignore list.  There came a point where his 90% pointless arguments made the 10% slightly sensible ones just not worth the effort of bothering to read.
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

Baruch

Quote from: SGOS on March 17, 2018, 06:54:59 AM
Insults and stereotypes veiled in a matrix of Baruchian gibberish.

If you aren't an ape ... a Leftist ... an atheist ... a Rightist ... a theist ... then what are you (plural)?  I think I covered all reasonable possibilities.  I certainly don't agree with X or Y, but I don't oppose X or Y, because I don't have a political agenda.  I don't need to make all people have the same language, or the same culture, or the same political agenda.  And at the very first paragraph, I dealt with the question of stereotypes.  I don't know anyone posting here who doesn't use them (each in their own way).  And insults is what many posters are all about ... though often veiled insults.

And yes, it would seem, given that I am maximally variant to many people here, my semantics (damn that philosophy stuff) is going to be hard to parse.  I do think, that I understand most other posters, if not every post made.  The stereotype of "common" humanity is my mistake perhaps.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Baruch on March 17, 2018, 03:41:24 AM
Mormons don't count as a form of Christianity, since the Book of Mormon makes them separate, and they have a clerical hierarchy (so a "high" church).
The Mormons believe that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God - that makes them Christians, whatever form their particular religion takes. The early Christians had many forms of worship, but that didn't make any of them not Christians either.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

fencerider

#29
Quote from: Baruch on March 17, 2018, 03:41:24 AM
People, not just atheists, use stereotypes to characterized people.  All stereotypes are false.  Everyone is a unique individual.  But we can't handle that level of complexity.  We can't even handle well the complexity of dealing with even one other person, let alone ourselves.
sometimes its easier to deal with other people than ourselves.


So Baruch is a mystic. I will have to leave it at that. Y’all have spent a great deal more time studyin religion than I have. I’m not going to pretend I know something that you don’t.

I get Baruch’s point about individualism. I work with a guy that was raised Catholic. He never goes to church and doesnt do things Catholics are supposed to do, but he has a belief in a Catholic god mixed with something else. My ex from Equador has a belief in a mix of a Catholic god, south American paganism and a universal energy field. and I know a Japanese woman whose parents are Shinto. She went to a Mormon church until they tried to force her to marry a guy she didnt like. Interesting combination.

I guess there isnt much difference in believing in something written down in a religious writing or believing in your own combination of religious ideas; except social acceptability.


O.P. maybe the world would be a better place if the myth was exposed back when it was created. But people in power discover the joy if manipulating the people they control. Burying a myth may have ended their fun
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.