The Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[I_Like_Swordchucks]

Originally Posted by fifthfiend

Okay so here's something I'll just throw out there about fundamentalist religious beliefs regarding sex (which are really just fundamentalist beliefs regarding sex, since the particular religion involved typically has fuck-all to do with the beliefs being espoused), which is: They are fucking retarded and insane.

I mean yeah maybe it made sense to have a bunch of restrictive rules about sex, like, three thousand years ago when there were countless life-threatening harms that went along with sexual activity, it's just that at this point it seems most major religions are mainly dedicated to preserving all the life-threatening harms that go along with sex, so they have an excuse to go on having the restrictive rules. Ostensibly because the Invisible Sky-Man wants it that way, but mainly because they're just terminally pissed off at the idea that somebody might have an orgasm without feeling guilty about it.

Harmful things just 3000 years ago? Okay lets look at this one for a second... lets imagine a world where every marries one and stays with that one person, so everybody is faithful to their partner. That means every single person has sex with only one other person.

Does the world get better or worse? No STDs, no unwanted teen pregnancies (also no unjustified abortions), no divorce, no broken hearts...

The flaw in the Christian view of sex is in the world itself, not in the Christian view. I'm a virgin, and I've been going out with the same girl now for three years. If I get married to her and we have a happy life and only give ourselves to each other, I don't see how we've harmed ourselves. But we sure as all hell kept ourselves from a lot of harm.

I mean seriously fifth, you can't say that fidelity and monogamy doesn't have some clear benefits. In fact, I don't think there are any clear negatives.

[Sithdarth]

I don't know if anyone has pointed it out but even with the church's whole sex out of wedlock being evil thing it still happened a hell of a lot through the ages. Same thing with STDs, though not the same ones we have today. (This is not counting rape too.) The only thing that's changed is how crazy public damn near everyone's sex life has suddenly become. I mean there might have been a time in the 50s or around the Victorian era when premarital sex was way down but through the time of Christ and the Dark Ages I'd say it was nearly as prevalent per person as it is today. (Also we have a crap load more people.)

((The whole connection between sailors and prostitutes and/or nonprostitute girls in every port didn't start in the 60s. If I'm remembering my history right even royalty tended to end up with a crap load of illegitimate children.))

[Archbio]

I_Like_Swordchucks,

Okay lets look at this one for a second... lets imagine a world where every marries one and stays with that one person, so everybody is faithful to their partner. That means every single person has sex with only one other person.

Does the world get better or worse? No STDs, no unwanted teen pregnancies (also no unjustified abortions), no divorce, no broken hearts...

The big question on this "thought experiment" is: do you mean to posit a "perfect" world, smoothing out some realities of individual will; or a world in which everyone agrees with you or a world ordered according to your opinion. Perhaps this is injecting too much realism in what is obviously a flimsy mental exercice, but what the hell.

Yes, if people never had any want, desire, cause or necessity for divorce then no one would get divorced. At this level the thought experiement has no meaning. In reality, however, there are many factors that lead to people divorcing. In reality, yes, you could convince people that divorce is a bigger evil than any of these factors (or outlaw or restrict divorce, as was the style not so long ago), then yes, they might not get divorced but they would still suffer for these other ills.

As for pregnancy and abortion, the tortured phrasing is confusing me. Is this a fantasy world in which every pregnancy in marriage is wanted; or a world where married women are convinced that their wanting the pregnancy or not doesn't matter; or a world in which abortion is controlled in such a way as to make their agreeing with your opinion on what is a "justified abortion" uncessary?

And as for no heartbreak... well, this is the most stupendously circular portion of a circular thought experiment. If every marriage is happy enough to avoid heartbreak, there is no heartbreak. Not only is this is not reality, it's not possibility.

In the real world, or at least a world that isn't the fantasy construct possibly implied, safe-sex conduct can be the equal in protection against these problems than religious minded monogamy (which can include non-virgins, once we strip down the fantasy presupposition). Or at least roughly on the same scale of safety. A similar fantasy world could be imagined, with safe-sex (without the religious emphasis) as a model. It would also be much better than the real world, which is fallible and uncertain.

Only total abstinence is on a truly higher level of safety. Also, total abstinence would also be superior if injected in a similar fantasy scenario. No downsides, as long as we don't consider people's individual desires. I think you wouldn't even need to ignore pesky material realities with this one.

So I agree: the problem with your view is reality.

I'm a virgin, and I've been going out with the same girl now for three years. If I get married to her and we have a happy life and only give ourselves to each other, I don't see how we've harmed ourselves.

I don't know that you have, and you might never harm yourselves. The real problem is when that sort of thinking is applied, to the whole of society. Conversely, I hope you don't take my deconstruction of your counter to Fifthfiend as a personal attack.

Ryanderman,

Why was Archbio so surprised when I identified myself as fundamentalist? Was it because my viewpoints that I expressed during my time here don't exactly match his idea of a "fundie?"

You're totally going in the wrong direction with this.

I wasn't surprised that you would call yourself a fundamentalist, but rather that anyone would call themselves a fundamentalist. That is, I had just read Fiftfiend's post, and as I had interpreted the term in the way it was used then, I was still interpreting the term, in your posts, in the way that Fifthfiend had used it. I was surprised at what I intrepretated as someone taking a strictly negative label to describe their personal view.

I wasn't thinking at all of the original, concrete use of the term. It's a term of self-identification and it has a fairly straightforward, if still broad, definition.

Fifthfiend's use wasn't as a term of self-identification, not at all. I think both operate as completely different definitions of the same word, as nearly different concepts (not that there's no conceivable overlap between the two). There are several reasons why I don't like the word "fundamentalist". Even if we strictly take fifthfiend's use of it; it's a very ambiguous term. Not to mention superfluous. There are no shortage of terms for religious literalists, bigots and hegemonists. Not that I'm concerned that using "fundamentalist" to describe policy's or statements of the Catholic Church would offend by making it seem like I'm trying to insult the Catholic Church by calling it too strict in its interpretation of scriptures, but just for clarity's sake.

Also, now I'm concerned that "fundamentalist" is too much associated with one very particular religious tradition, where it is meant to be used across several religions.

It's a very flawed term.

On the other hand, the things it means to describe are very real (and I can't sympathize with the people involved), so that's not one of the reasons I dislike it.

PS: You used the wrong pronoun.

[Ryanderman]

I apologize for using the wrong pronoun. I'll be sure to remember that in the future.

I tried to be sure to specify Christian fundamentalist in my posts, though I didn't use the full term every time after establishing what I meant. I agree the label is flawed (see my post on stereotyping, though I know that's not in the same way you feel it's flawed).

I identified myself as a fundamentalist, because even though Fifth painted it in an incredibly negative light, he was aiming it at me, my friends and my family. Just because he's completely wrong doesn't make his intent or aim any different.

EDIT: you know, every time I come back to this thread, I get more and more offended, even though there's really no need to. I need to step away for now.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Originally Posted by Ryanderman

If I come across a contradiciton, or someone brings one up to me, I try to work it out. To figure out what it really means. Most of the time, apparent contradictions are really misinterpretations, or taken out of context. I know you've got a whole list ready to spring on me if I give you a window, so go ahead. If I'm going to get in this discussion any deeper, I might as well get all the way in.

Right you are! There are plenty, and I do know that most of them can probably be sorted out through their context, or by noting an ambiguous translation (though that's a whole other can of worms), but then there are some that provide clear, plain, one-interpretation, contradictory information. Stuff like how many sons Abraham had, how many of Arah's kids returned from Babylon (a whole bunch of issues there, really), how old Ahaziah was when he took the throne (and therefore whether he was born 2 or 22 years before his own father), David's kill count, when the floodwaters dired, the genealogy of Jesus (or Joseph if you want), some crazy army size numbers, and so on.

I need to step away for now.

......this took me a while to write...

[Ryanderman]

First off, I can discount the floodwaters and genealogy contradicions myself.
The Floodwaters one, discribes two different stages of "dry." The two verses quoted occur one right after the other. Noah looked out of the ark and saw dry land the first time. The second time was when the flood waters had actually finished recedeing.

The genealogy is explained, because one is the line of Joseph, the other is the line of Mary. I know it says Joseph in Mary's line, but that's just because of the patriarchal naming conventions. Jesus was decended from David through both Joseph and Mary's lineage (though only genetically through Mary's)

I had to look up the answers to the contradictions for the rest, but it seems that the site you linked to has already done my work for me. Beneath each comparison of verses is a response from various Christian sites. Most common is lookinguntoJesus.net

Is there something about the responses on that site that don't work for you? I know that in some of them, the concensus is that the contradictions are due to copy errors. Which I think definitely happened over time. People aren't infalible. I know that throws in to question the trustworthiness of the Bible, but all contradictions due to copying have been found to be quite small, numbers of armies or age when taking the throne, etc. Even the similarity between the numbers that contradict each other indicates a copyist error. But there aren't any contradictions larger than small copyist error that I know of.

So I guess the Bible isn't entirely infalible, like God isn't entirely omnipotent - he can't act against his nature. But for all practical purposes, the Bible is accurate.Besides small errors, the Bible has proven itself many times over. If you feel that small copy errors are enough to disprove the accuracy of the Bible, then there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.

Sorry if that response dissapoints you in my lack of trying to disprove every contradiction. I can't

EDIT: Oh, and the 2 or 22 years older. The question actually is was he 2 years older or 20 years younger. I think that in particular was an example of copyist error.

[42PETUNIAS]

Originally Posted by Ryanderman

First off, I can discount the floodwaters and genealogy contradicions myself.
The Floodwaters one, discribes two different stages of "dry." The two verses quoted occur one right after the other. Noah looked out of the ark and saw dry land the first time. The second time was when the flood waters had actually finished recedeing.

The genealogy is explained, because one is the line of Joseph, the other is the line of Mary. I know it says Joseph in Mary's line, but that's just because of the patriarchal naming conventions. Jesus was decended from David through both Joseph and Mary's lineage (though only genetically through Mary's)

I had to look up the answers to the contradictions for the rest, but it seems that the site you linked to has already done my work for me. Beneath each comparison of verses is a response from various Christian sites. Most common is lookinguntoJesus.net

Is there something about the responses on that site that don't work for you? I know that in some of them, the concensus is that the contradictions are due to copy errors. Which I think definitely happened over time. People aren't infalible. I know that throws in to question the trustworthiness of the Bible, but all contradictions due to copying have been found to be quite small, numbers of armies or age when taking the throne, etc. Even the similarity between the numbers that contradict each other indicates a copyist error. But there aren't any contradictions larger than small copyist error that I know of.

So I guess the Bible isn't entirely infalible, like God isn't entirely omnipotent - he can't act against his nature. But for all practical purposes, the Bible is accurate.Besides small errors, the Bible has proven itself many times over. If you feel that small copy errors are enough to disprove the accuracy of the Bible, then there's nothing I can say to convince you otherwise.

Sorry if that response dissapoints you in my lack of trying to disprove every contradiction. I can't

EDIT: Oh, and the 2 or 22 years older. The question actually is was he 2 years older or 20 years younger. I think that in particular was an example of copyist error.

I'm going to have to agree with you. Not many of these things seem like big contradictions, just small things that would obviously happen over time. A lot of it also seems to be taken out of context (for Abraham's sons, my understanding was that he had only one son, and was said because of this, but then had another son, with a slave or something. So it seems like more of a matter of only having that many sons at one time, but as the story progresses, he has more.) What matters to me is the contrdictions in gods powers, etc. This thread hasn't gone so low to discuss clerical errors.

[Ryanderman]

Contradictions in God's powers, I can discuss, I think. What do you mean? The idea that he's supposed to be Omnipotent, but can be shown to be not really? Or something else?

[42PETUNIAS]

Originally Posted by Ryanderman

Contradictions in God's powers, I can discuss, I think. What do you mean? The idea that he's supposed to be Omnipotent, but can be shown to be not really? Or something else?

It isn't omnipotence that raises problems for me, it's more the idea of omniscience, and all the problems that it raises. Apparently, God knows everything. Everything. This means, that when he created Adam, he knew that the fruit of knowledge would be eaten, and that adam and Eve would be expelled from the garden of eden. He knew exactly what would happen by creating adam, he knew that the world would be as it is now, right this moment. He knew that millions of people would go to hell every year, simply because they were not exposed to the christian faith. God essentially created Adam knowing that he would send millions of people to hell, simply because God didn't spread his word around well enough.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Originally Posted by Ryanderman

Which I think definitely happened over time. People aren't infalible. I know that throws in to question the trustworthiness of the Bible, but all contradictions due to copying have been found to be quite small, numbers of armies or age when taking the throne, etc. Even the similarity between the numbers that contradict each other indicates a copyist error. But there aren't any contradictions larger than small copyist error that I know of.

But that's the thing. We're only finding these errors because they make themselves clear by being contradictory. Who knows what other issues there could be with the texts?

Originally Posted by 42PETUNIAS

It isn't omnipotence that raises problems for me, it's more the idea of omniscience, and all the problems that it raises. Apparently, God knows everything. Everything. This means, that when he created Adam, he knew that the fruit of knowledge would be eaten, and that adam and Eve would be expelled from the garden of eden. He knew exactly what would happen by creating adam, he knew that the world would be as it is now, right this moment. He knew that millions of people would go to hell every year, simply because they were not exposed to the christian faith. God essentially created Adam knowing that he would send millions of people to hell, simply because God didn't spread his word around well enough.

I would just like to point out that I am in total agreement with these views.