Remember when "atheist" had a negative connotation?

I don't think "thejeff" realizes how much he has potentially devalued the kind of "faith" he is defending by comparing it to the ability of sentient beings to use simple pattern recognition to anticipate near-future events. My "faith" in the ability of an airplane to take off and land safely is actually just a species of pretty mundane pattern recognition + familiarity with the concept of expert systems (i.e. an understanding that rational beings like myself and the people I know can reasonably be expected to behave rationally almost all of the time, and especially when designing things like cars and airplanes). This kind of pattern recognition is really closer to what a dog does when it anticipates its dinner than what a human being does when he/she, say, accepts a guarantee of eternal life in return for taking a 2,000 year old story seriously as the literal truth!

Again, thejeff, you're not getting anywhere if you don't accept that this is fundamentally a question of belief versus not-belief. The idea of "faith" logically has to have an opposite in order to make any sense. Atheism is that opposite; it is not another species of belief or "faith". That would be a tautology.

This single post represents all that is good about the internet. (I guess buying stuff is good, too, lol)

Seriously, this made my day (even though only a fraction of it applies to me.) I feel like I am being arrogant in posting this, but I don't mean it that way.

Someone once said, "I care THAT you think more than I care WHAT you think." I suppose I could google it :-)

Hmm... you may be right... I see your point, at least...

I would still argue that the opposite of "faith that I am going to heaven" would be "faith that hell doesn't exist"... not "a lack of faith in anything"...

Kinda like, is the opposite of "love": "hate"? or "apathy"?

I've really enjoyed your post. Your fly-on-the-wall distillation of several hundred lines of text makes a nice summary. Although I've became exasperated with him a few times, I've really enjoyed the debate with thejeff.

To speak to what you said in point 3: I grew up in the Baptist church. I went every Wednesday and twice on Sunday from the time I was three until I was 18. I knew how to read the Bible in a "devotional" way. That is, I was taught that the stories were all completely true, and we should turn to them as a way to dive further into knowing and becoming closer to God.

Despite all of that, something just always seemed wrong to me. My guess is that it was cognitive dissonance. I just couldn't square things that seemed like magic to me in the text and God's nature when there is so much suffering in the world.

The real turning point for me was first semester of my freshman year of college. I took an Old Testament class because it seemed interesting. The professor was a liberal minister (liberal as in not a literalist). I discovered that Isaiah had two authors, the Four Source hypothesis, among other things. It made me realize that 1) the Bible was not put together how I always thought it was, 2) that religious leaders sometimes have an agenda, and 3) churches and more specifically pastors don't teach the actual history of how the Bible was put together or otherwise acknowledge the real scholarship they learned (or should have) in seminary; it's like they forget all of it once they take the pulpit.

While I didn't become an atheist immediately, it freed my mind to accept information that didn't fit the status quo I had always been taught. This spilled over into *the way I thought*, and not just about Christianity itself.

Since that time nearly 20 years ago, I've been fascinated Christianity's evolution: how do you go from a small group of persecuted zealots in Greco-Roman Palestine to the world's largest religion in 2,000 years time? Biblical study for me was borne out of pure curiosity, and it's also interesting on a sociological/psychological level: if the texts aren't true, how do you get millions of people to believe in them? It still fascinates me. As for arcane texts, the mystery religions (archeoastronomy, ethnobotany) have always fascinated me too. Ironically, they tie in to Christianity too.

Apologies for interjecting:-)

Just curious: would you classify your childhood church as "fundamentalist"?

PS-thanks for the transparency, even if your comment wasn't directed at me :-)

thejeff wrote:

I forgive you, cuz :-)

No worries, antie :-)

Interesting. I suppose one of the unintended consequences of traditions that, when taken seriously, are rooted in arcane text, is that they will produce some skilled, patient, and eventually critical readers. And once the acid of literary intelligence and simple human rationality eats through the bulkhead of learned religious "faith" I would imagine there is no stopping it! Maybe forcing kids to read difficult old texts, in an increasingly post-literate culture, is worth the risk that some of them might actually take them literally... The Catholic tradition seemed to realize the danger of letting the laity get its hands on the bible, or any other text for that matter (I understand that the once Catholic-dominated Canadian province of Quebec has no public libraries older than 40 years due to this fear of a literate laity). Yet it couldn't prevent the radicalization of some of the priesthood (see Liberation Theology, etc). Fundamentalist Islam may yet rue the day it sponsored all those Madrassas!

thejeff wrote:

Just curious: would you classify your childhood church as "fundamentalist"?

I don't know that I would call it strictly fundamentalist. When I was really young, we went to my Grandpa's Assemblies of God church. They were *very* fundamentalist: speaking in tongues, lots of singing and jumping around, with lots of literalists around.

I wouldn't classify the Baptist church as fundamentalist, but it wasn't exactly your Bill Clinton supporting liberal, evangelical church either. Most in the congregation were definitely literalists, but in a softer way. Suffice it say, we didn't have any Westboro types, but many would decry openly the sin of homosexuality. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit into a neat box.

thejeff wrote:

Augusto,.... Why, in a thread promoting atheism, are you attacking Christianity? ...??

"attacking"? You're not one of those "war on xianity" folks are you Jeff?

Wtfunny wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Augusto,.... Why, in a thread promoting atheism, are you attacking Christianity? ...??

"attacking"? You're not one of those "war on xianity" folks are you Jeff?

I am just surprised to see a Muslim in bed with atheists on this thread :-)

Wouldn't you expect to see a Muslim speaking out against atheism?

Stagger Lee wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Just curious: would you classify your childhood church as "fundamentalist"?

I don't know that I would call it strictly fundamentalist. When I was really young, we went to my Grandpa's Assemblies of God church. They were *very* fundamentalist: speaking in tongues, lots of singing and jumping around, with lots of literalists around.

I wouldn't classify the Baptist church as fundamentalist, but it wasn't exactly your Bill Clinton supporting liberal, evangelical church either. Most in the congregation were definitely literalists, but in a softer way. Suffice it say, we didn't have any Westboro types, but many would decry openly the sin of homosexuality. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit into a neat box.

Interesting. I think fundamentalism and literalism do more harm than good to our cause, tbh. If someone is completely inundated with the "perfection" of scripture from childhood, and then they find out that there were grammatical errors in Mark(?), how are they supposed to handle that? Answer: They simply aren't equipped to.

Anyhoo, I have enjoyed the conversation :-)

To the mods: thanks for not deleting this thread :-)

Its a little more than just "grammatical errors."

hmmmmmmmmm wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Interesting. I think fundamentalism and literalism do more harm than good to our cause, tbh. If someone is completely inundated with the "perfection" of scripture from childhood, and then they find out that there were grammatical errors in Mark(?), how are they supposed to handle that? Answer: They simply aren't equipped to.

Anyhoo, I have enjoyed the conversation :-)

To the mods: thanks for not deleting this thread :-)

Its a little more than just "grammatical errors."

Care to elaborate?

Here's just how non-neutral these conversations are.

Someone points out the inconsistencies and errors in the bible, they're "attacking Christianity".

Someone points out a major failing of the bible as any form of moral code and they're hateful angry atheists.

Christians suggest that slaves in the Middle East 2000-3000 years ago were treated much like what we think of as servants, and anyone who suggests otherwise is hateful and rude.

Do you guys honestly think the folks who built the pyramids (not the grain silo ones, the other ones) were really just there on a contract gig? Do you think that the slaves whose bodies are part of those structures were volunteers? Do you think the Romans, who nailed people to crosses upside down didn't engage a slave trade? The same folks who put people in a ring with lions for entertainment didn't engage a slavery system as brutal and horrific as that in the US nearly 2000 years later?

Because that would be remarkable.

Let's take it a step further. Where in biblical moral code does it instruct that burying people waste deep in the ground before hurling stones at them until they die is an abomination?

If by "actual serious sources" you mean "sources biased against the Bible", then I agree.

No, I mean unbiased sources relying on the evidence such as claims of cities the exodus supposedly passed by, that didn't exist at the time, but that did when the account was written years later. And the complete lack of corroborating evidence from the contemporary Egyptian history. It is the bible institute "studies" that are biased.

thejeff wrote:

...

Anyhoo, I have enjoyed the conversation :-)

To the mods: thanks for not deleting this thread :-)

I second this sentiment. I was very (pleasantly) surprised that the thread was not deleted before it even reached page 2.

+1 for the mods.

Extraordinary Claims wrote:

If by "actual serious sources" you mean "sources biased against the Bible", then I agree.

No, I mean unbiased sources relying on the evidence such as claims of cities the exodus supposedly passed by, that didn't exist at the time, but that did when the account was written years later. And the complete lack of corroborating evidence from the contemporary Egyptian history. It is the bible institute "studies" that are biased.

I have a thought exercise for you. Completely remove any preconceived notions about the exodus either way. Now begin to research whether it happened or not. You've got it backwards. Let the evidence lead the way; don't start with a conclusion and then fill in the puzzle pieces. Don't assume that the Bible is a history book, let the evidence prove the Bible is right. This is probably why you assume these studies are "biased against the Bible." Question everything. All the time.

Thanks for the response thejeff. I also think it's great that the mods did not delete this thread and it's good to see (most) people are being relatively civil in this discussion which has really drifted away from the OP.

Anyway, my main interest in this thread is not to defend atheists or to argue that atheists or non-religious people don't ever exhibit faith. My main interest is distinguishing scientific thought and religious thought which I think due to poor science and religious education in this country are often confused and conflated in inappropriate ways. These two very important ways of viewing the world do not have to be in conflict and are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I also want to point out that atheistic thought and scientific thought are not synonymous, which seems to have been implied several times in this thread.

For the record, I work in a scientific field but I do respect religion and have many, many religious friends, colleagues, and family members. I do not think religious people are stupid or inferior. Thejeff, throughout this thread you have implied that some posters seem to have a very negative view of religion and/or Christianity specifically. That is unfortunate but I don't think negativity / hostility is a one way street. In my life I have encountered extremists on both ends of the spectrum--religious extremists / fundamentalists and atheist fundamentalists / extremists. Many years ago in undergrad I attended a debate/discussion on religion and science that included a catholic priest, a rabbi, a Buddhist monk, several scientists who were devout atheist, and a Christian Nobel prize winning physicist (Dr. William Phillips). It was a great discussion and quite eye opening for me at the time. I think Dr. Phillips view of religion and science is one that we can all learn from.....see here.....

Getting back to your response to my last post thejeff....

I understand your knee jerk reaction re: animals and faith and I agree with you, I don't think animals are capable of faith of the religious sort. That is why I think the examples you used of a traffic light, etc. are really not examples of "faith". They are more akin to operant conditioning which both humans and non-human animals exhibit based on many years of psychological research (Skinner, et al are the pioneers in this type of research...too many references to list, you can look them up yourself if interested). Faith--especially religious faith--is something else entirely.

More recent research using functional MRIs to image the brain have begun to lend support that religious belief and non-religious belief are different. See hear for a synopsis....

and here for the primary source if you're interested ....

My hypothesis is that future research in this arena will continue to show distinct difference between religious belief and non-religious belief. To be clear, I am not implying that non-religious belief is superior to religious belief or vice versa, I am simply saying they are different. Based on these findings and they way I think most people use the term "faith" I do think it is inaccurate to use the term "faith" for non-religious belief--for example in reference to belief in the principles and/or findings of scientific experiments that one did not observe / conduct themselves.

Finally, I really think we--as a country (I am from the US)--need to focus on early science and religious education. Specifically, we need ensure that future generations understand the difference between these two very important subjects. One way to do this that I as a non-religious person would support is to have religion courses (specifically comparative religion courses--which would include lessons on agnosticism, atheism, and all major religions) in public schools probably starting in elementary school. It would be in these courses where things like creation stories would be taught, not in science classes. People need to stop trying to use religion to answer scientific questions and, conversely, they need to stop trying to use science to answer religious / spiritual questions.