Biblical Fatal Flaws: How can anyone take the Adam & Eve story seriously?

Started by OrangeDon, April 08, 2021, 09:30:30 AM

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Cassia

It really is a crime when a child's virgin brain being ripe for learning the wonders of the real universe is instead filled with fiction from a much more ignorant time. It sets up a lifetime of rational conflict and guilt for many, or even worse a life of futile delusion. Ultimately modern theism amounts to cowardice inciting a fear of death, truth and reality.

Gawdzilla Sama

Given that the universe was flat out terrifying to those ignorant camel jockeys I'm not surprised that they thought up characters to control the 'verse and promise protection in exchange for the smoke off tasty cuts of meat. I hope we outgrow this eventually.
We 'new atheists' have a reputation for being militant, but make no mistake  we didn't start this war. If you want to place blame put it on the the religious zealots who have been poisoning the minds of the  young for a long long time."
PZ Myers

Feral Atheist

Quote from: OrangeDon on April 08, 2021, 09:30:30 AM
I cannot grasp, to this day, how believers in something like the Bible can so easily dismiss the glaring, painful gaps in logic and reasonableness when they encounter them in the Bible. 
Generational bad parenting is how.

Keep in mind that most of these people were receiving religious training as infants long before potty training was attempted, by well-meaning parents, who suffered the same bad parenting starting as infants, as did their parents, and so on.  The "family tradition" of utter and willful ignorance.

Combine that with the fact that religion teaches that thinking is in fact a sin, they are bound to simply accept what they are told, no questioning allowed.

Oh, and they are out there... in alarming numbers.  I overheard a conversation between a barber and his customer about their visits to the "ark encounter" in KY, like people talking about their trip to Disney World.  How great it was, how wonderful that someone was putting out the truth.... blah... blah...  OMG, let me the hell out of here before I lose it.
In dog beers I've only had one.

Feral Atheist

Quote from: Cassia on April 10, 2021, 09:59:12 AM
It really is a crime when a child's virgin brain being ripe for learning the wonders of the real universe is instead filled with fiction from a much more ignorant time. It sets up a lifetime of rational conflict and guilt for many, or even worse a life of futile delusion. Ultimately modern theism amounts to cowardice inciting a fear of death, truth and reality.
How sick is it to force a child to pray the BS of "if I should die before..... blah... blah…" at a very young age when in fact they really don't have a concept of death yet?  Start of the process to train small children irrational fear, and they should spend their life preparing for death vs. enjoying life.
In dog beers I've only had one.

trdsf

It was contemplating the Adam and Eve myth that booted me out of Christianity once and for all.  It seemed to me that it was more an allegory of a new monotheistic myth of a spiritual and impersonal deity replacing the old polytheistic one of approachable and relatable gods.
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution." -- Barbara Jordan

ester518

I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist but instead of a god, I'm more inclined to believe in the existence of a creator, not a god.
One of the reasons is like the original post on this thread. If God really is how the Christian Bible says he is, why did he create that damn tree as bait. I mean, even in modern times, if you see a button that says do not press, you'll be very tempted to press it. You just need someone to dare you to press it.
Also, in some parts of the Bible, it is said that the sins of the parents are not passed to their children, then why did he let every single human being be cursed because of the sins of the first 2 people said to be his creations?
Doesn't that make him ungodly? Creating people that he can trick and later ask them to worship him?

Mike Cl

Hey, ester, why not hop on over to the intro page and introduce yourself?  Meet you there....................
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

SGOS

Quote from: ester518 on May 19, 2021, 08:41:53 AM
I'm more of an agnostic than an atheist but instead of a god, I'm more inclined to believe in the existence of a creator, not a god.
One of the reasons is like the original post on this thread. If God really is how the Christian Bible says he is, why did he create that damn tree as bait. I mean, even in modern times, if you see a button that says do not press, you'll be very tempted to press it. You just need someone to dare you to press it.
Also, in some parts of the Bible, it is said that the sins of the parents are not passed to their children, then why did he let every single human being be cursed because of the sins of the first 2 people said to be his creations?
Doesn't that make him ungodly? Creating people that he can trick and later ask them to worship him?
As far as there being an actual creator, it comes down to the fact that all we know is that "stuff" exists, but how it got there we just don't know.  The fact that stuff exists is evident, but it does not support a creator god, any more than it supports that "stuff" came from something, or came from nothing.  The common reaction in such a vast field of unknowns is, "Well it had to come from something," but that is an assumption that cannot be verified either.  In fact, the best theory we have so far is that the original stuff came from nothing in a rapid expansion of a singularity, which is not stuff, but an event.  An event of unknown origin.  Not knowing where this all came from, apparently drives most humans a bit batty, so they grasp at straws, and fill in the blanks with their imaginations.  This is not knowledge.

I believe that the big expansion has a cause.  This is a belief, but not knowledge.  And that cause could be anything.  It could be a non sentient creator or an accident of physics or many other things.  But a creator with some strange and indecipherable plan is low on the list of possibilities.

Hydra009

Quote from: SGOS on May 19, 2021, 09:16:14 AMAs far as there being an actual creator, it comes down to the fact that all we know is that "stuff" exists, but how it got there we just don't know.  The fact that stuff exists is evident, but it does not support a creator god, any more than it supports that "stuff" came from something, or came from nothing.  The common reaction in such a vast field of unknowns is, "Well it had to come from something," but that is an assumption that cannot be verified either.  In fact, the best theory we have so far is that the original stuff came from nothing in a rapid expansion of a singularity, which is not stuff, but an event.  An event of unknown origin.  Not knowing where this all came from, apparently drives most humans a bit batty, so they grasp at straws, and fill in the blanks with their imaginations.  This is not knowledge.
Exactly.  And the god hypothesis just makes this problem worse because now we have to figure out where this god being came from.

The scientific explanation is quite challenging conceptually - fields of particles and antiparticles winking into existence and annihilating each other is certainly not a very intuitive fact - so this retreat into magical explanations is understandable.

But does anyone truly believe that the mystery of existence will ultimately be solved with religion?  Our finest minds spending millennia delving deep into this mystery only to conclusively discover that God did in fact speak the universe into existence.  Talk about long odds!