What I really don't understand about the christian psyche, is how they can justify in their own minds the blatant errors and contradictions in their holy book. I've pointed out a few of them in previous posts so I won't discuss any of them here.
The first problem with contradictions is that if your book was authored by god, do you really think he would make so many screw-ups in the book? I think not.
If you concede the point that god didn't author it, but it was written by men who were inspired by god. That leaves you with the problem of why god would inspire them to be wrong.
If you concede a further point (as some christians do) that it was merely written by men, then how is it supposed to be a 'guidebook to life' or anything remotely useful in the slightest. We're talking about a compilation of bronze age scribblings that were handed down over about a millennium, not written by contemporaries of the events in most cases, containing screeds of errors and contradictions, immoral teachings in some parts, contradictorily good moral teachings in others and compiled into one book during the reign of a roman emperor who used christianity to control his people.
That is your holy book. I really do not see the value in it at all, or why you insist to preach to people about how good and relevant it is.
Yeah I don't see what's so good about the 'good book' for most of it Gods a jerk and the rest is irrlevent crap nobody cares about (non christians). that prolly sounds bias but honestly how does most of the bible fit in with the world of today.
ReplyDeleteYeah I'm baffled by the reasons some people give for why it's relevant/good like
ReplyDelete"Because it's good" - Ryan
"[Insert random bible quotation here]" - most Christians
"Because it's the bible!"
"Because it's true!"
"Because it's gods word!"
None of those smart alic remarks are going to convince me to believe your book.
Even when people say things like "I've found it to be true when I apply it to my life" or "It helped me through tough times", that doesn't affect me in the slightest, because people of all religions claim exactly the same things. People even claim the same things for self-help books and hypnotherapy!
Personal 'testimony' as they like to call it isn't evidence for something being true, except to the person who experienced it.
KJ, I love the way you put up the quote that portrays me as a total doosh. Why don't you refer your readers to my more 'in-depth' posts? ;D
ReplyDeletelol
ReplyDeleteTo Everyone: Ryan doesn't use that as an argument he was just making fun.
What I don't get is how people think the bible is relevant to life today. Sure, it may explain where the world came from and how we should live. But today, we know the true measure of a man is how big his penis is, and not once in the holy book does it say how big Jesus's penis was. How are we meant to trust a man who may very well have had a very small penis?
ReplyDeleteHAHAHA, this Anonymous quote is these most crack ups so far :D
ReplyDelete*thee
ReplyDeleteThat was me, I just couldn't be fucked logging into OpenID at the time.
ReplyDeletei like God , hes strong
ReplyDeleteWas that you Blair?
ReplyDeleteFuck yeah gotta love his huge cock
ReplyDelete"The force is strong in.."
ReplyDelete"IN MY PANTS!"
"The first problem with contradictions is that if your book was authored by god, do you really think he would make so many screw-ups in the book?
ReplyDeleteScrew ups according to who?
If you concede the point that god didn't author it, but it was written by men who were inspired by god. That leaves you with the problem of why god would inspire them to be wrong.
Wrong by who's or what standard? The 21st century way or understanding, knowing, writing, living is more different than the time of writing that we could ever imagine in pretty much every way, so how is it "wrong" kj?
oooh, i love those questions, very sociological.
ReplyDeleteScrew ups according to who.... well this is all about subjectivity and objectivity. Firstly, it should be clear that objectively people/things can screw up.
For example, I was writing a formal politics essay and instead of typing 'sits' i typed 'shits'. is this objectively or subjectively a screw up?
Well with the framework in mind that shits is not an ideal word for a politics essay this is perhaps an objective screw up. That is to say that everybody would regard this as a mistake.
But consider this, someone subjectively [i.e. from their own perspective] believes that this is not a screw up. That my writing 'shits' was not a screw-up but instead some kind of triumph or at least supposed to be there. In short I did not make a mistake. Is this a fair conclusion for this person to make. Or are they so unreasonable in their conclusion that they can be disregarded?
Think about how these arguments apply to the religious question.
If the world was founded on subjective terms there would be what is fondly called anarchy. Reasonable (read in 'objective') standards are needed in order to provide legitimacy to any system; religious, political, social, economic, etc. Thus you cannot question who it is who is perceiving screw-ups unless you first decide if there is objectively a screw-up or not. This question, whether there is a screw-up or not, is the crux of the argument. The person who thinks my writing 'shits' is not a screw up challenges the objective nature of the screw-up itself.
Now, from a religious perspective it is ok for me to screw up. but it becomes difficult when one justifies a screwing up on the part of God based on the time a book was written. The point here is not for me to suggest whether God did or did not screw up. My point is that you cannot analyse who views what a screw up is or judge any other standards without first approaching the content of the argument.
Mr/Mrs/Miss Anonymous you are correct in assuming that context forms an important part of forming a judgment on an issue. But you must also consider the value of the content. For regardless of who interprets a certain set of facts when they are presented, the facts of the facts, that is to say the content of the issue, is still at hand.
:D
I would also substantively suggest that our current society is so redolent of ancient society in so many fundamental ways [systems of government, language, cultural groupings] that it becomes difficult to distinguish the two in terms of a religious distinction without being able to say that God does not change over time.
or rather *without being able to say that God -does- change over time.
ReplyDelete^^ what David said.
ReplyDelete