Need anti-inerrancy resources help

[Brian63]

Everyone else being sympathetic to them is not a problem. Everyone else being nasty is disturbing to watch but I have been on the receiving end of it before. Them having a vastly different ideology is not enough of a reason to deter interaction.

The only sufficient reason I am aware of to avoid them is if there was significant enough risk for physical harm. That will be better measured after a polite introduction to them. They may very well be of the Christian flavor who is very End-Times heavy but also they see it as their goal to convert people, so they are willing to have calm discussions about this very topic that they are so focused on.

My own approach is to not make a public spectacle of it, I will not disrupt their event at all. I will simply not participate and then see what kinds of smaller and more intimate discussions can be had either immediately afterwards or through invitation to a more in-depth conversation at a later date.

 

[Jarhyn]

My own approach is to not make a public spectacle of it, I will not disrupt their event at all. I will simply not participate and then see what kinds of smaller and more intimate discussions can be had either immediately afterwards or through invitation to a more in-depth conversation at a later date.

This more than anything is probably the safest way to go.

Do your best to keep an eye peeled for other atheists who will almost certainly be there. The less experienced of them will make complete asses of themselves.

You might even get a chance to watch one or two be ejected from the seminar.

 

[Brian63]

The "safest way to go" would be for people to never engage in activism of any kind. Do not do anything that has a remote possibility of making others slightly upset. Do you think we should be aiming that low though?

I view religion as a significant enough threat that it warrants investing more effort. It harms religious people themselves and non-members. It inevitably will carry some risk, but how much will vary. How much risk we are willing to accept will vary from person to person, time to time, situation to situation. At this particular event right now, I am willing to risk merely attending and introducing. It is worth that much. Then I will gauge their reception and decide how to proceed.

 

[Jarhyn]

The "safest way to go" would be for people to never engage in activism of any kind. Do not do anything that has a remote possibility of making others slightly upset. Do you think we should be aiming that low though?

I view religion as a significant enough threat that it warrants investing more effort. It harms religious people themselves and non-members. It inevitably will carry some risk, but how much will vary. How much risk we are willing to accept will vary from person to person, time to time, situation to situation. At this particular event right now, I am willing to risk merely attending and introducing. It is worth that much. Then I will gauge their reception and decide how to proceed.

No, that's not safe either. If you just let folks run amok with fallacious, junky thinking while never challenging it, you will promptly end up in a fascist state.

I will disagree with others, insofar as I DO absolutely think going will be a valuable experience for you.

I can say right now though that you should temper your expectations as to what reception you will get should you out yourself there, and be prepared for a shitshow, and for some Liars for Jesus to attempt to make your life quite difficult for a while.

Some churches that will have members representing there will almost certainly be of the litigious kind.

 

[Brian63]

You do not know what my expectations are. I do not know what my expectations are. I have had plenty of experiences already across a variety of friendly vs hostile encounters. But I do not know where on the different spectrums this particular place will be. I am cautiously preparing for the worst of them but have less clarity on what to expect of them.

That is the plan. Nothing said by anyone in this thread has been a good enough reason to either not attend at all or attend but do something differently than what I already had planned.

 

[Jarhyn]

You do not know what my expectations are. I do not know what my expectations are. I have had plenty of experiences already across a variety of friendly vs hostile encounters. But I do not know where on the different spectrums this particular place will be. I am cautiously preparing for the worst of them but have less clarity on what to expect of them.

That is the plan. Nothing said by anyone in this thread has been a good enough reason to either not attend at all or attend but do something differently than what I already had planned.

So, a bit of background so you understand my language because you just spoke past me.

Here, "tempering your expectations" is to take those unfixed expectations that are intentionally out of focus, and to "predict" of them "the most likely set", and to have that set mostly center on "keeping one's head down".

I had a hard enough time as an intelligent rational thinker when I was one of them, and my thoughts while rational were initiated from a very fucked up starting point.

I asked certain kinds of questions, made certain kinds of statements that poked the occasional hole, and I found myself promptly managed as a Christian.

If you want to know what to expect from them, you just got a thread of it: a bunch of fundamentalist christians who all think that just because they have an old book with a lot of answers (and a couple smoking dog turds in the brownie mix) figured out that there are zero observable or logically implied gods, that they are smarter than everybody else.

I have a list inside my head of people here who never once have admitted they were wrong in all the years before I started to put folks on my ignore list and enjoy when others curate their stupid for me.

This place you are going to is filled with folks just like that. That is what to expect. Expect people who have spent their youths trying their very best to feel like the guy or girl who is always right.

I was there.

That was the reason I was there.

In all honesty it's too hard for me to say I'm wrong sometimes, but I feel like looking at myself and trying to recognize the wrong parts is important so I try hard to do that.

These people haven't, and most likely won't ever experience that level of personal growth and I have mixed feelings about a number of atheists as well, and some of those mixed feelings are about you.

I unlike others won't say that I am not a troll. I'm absolutely a troll. I love trolling.

I just try to not do it because it's not nice, though occasionally I vent on folks who aim their hate cannons with an intent to splash, or for those who seek the power to forgive themselves of anything.

Some of the folks, most of them even who are being shitty to you right now, though, they are not trolls.

They are absolutely being shitty right now, but they are not trolls.... they just don't really entirely know what they are talking about.

Some of those hate cannon folks will be there too, though: those who wish justification for spewing ire.

And there will be a lot of them. These are the folks who want to convince people that there aren't errors because they want to point at things that I would argue are steaming dog turds*. There was a rash of them spamming here earlier and we may get a rash of them here after.

I love what you are doing with the churches and not because I'm a troll. I mean yes, I'm a fucking troll, mostly reformed, but it's not that. I think it's important to be seen and known as a human and a part of the community and to be a person who has ethics and believes this can be figured out!

That doesn't happen unless you go and seek communities to be seen by, and to be a good example of your fundamental beliefs for.

But here you're going into a den of things much more fucked in the head than lions.

*Fascism and killing gays and enslaving women.

 

[Brian63]

Some things you say I agree with and others I disagree with, but I do not consider it worthwhile to nitpick to a small point.

In general though I will just say that I have spent much of the last couple decades debating religion online with people, and have noticed it too often brings out the worst in us, self-included. When I first joined this forum over 20 years ago, I learned a tremendous amount from several high-quality posters and loved the new way of thinking. In the years since I see Facebook and Twitter and this forum have degraded the quality of discussion significantly. Combined with the growing threat of Christian nationalism, I wanted to do something different and better. Be more effective at having Christians understand our view through lengthier and in-person discussions, and that would also help remind me that people in the pews and the pastors are all human beings with their own bundles of problems, like everyone. They are not just names on a monitor for me to harass for kicks. So I have become a better person as a result of engaging in my church-visiting activism, on top of helping a lot of Christians think about other perspectives. Win-win.

Then I come back to this forum and see a lot of ignorance and trolling on display, effectively trying to tell me what I am doing is futile or I am unprepared or will be an embarrassment and disaster, etc. I have firsthand experiences that they do not, and know far better than they do. So their remarks are useless as far as being sound advice.

I started this thread for the purpose of compiling a list of resources that run contrary to the inerrancy worldview. My use of them does not require that I have personally read or understood or agreed with them. For all I know, these resources are very flawed. Posters in this thread endorsed them but I have little-to-no reason to grant credibility to those posters. Their credibility was not established and was also irrelevant for my purposes. The only purpose I have for the resources is to acknowledge their existence if they came up in conversation and make the case that if a person is interested in studying the subject themselves, it would be healthier to study several sides of it rather than just the side the group endorses. There are some history books about the bible that I have read, espousing various views, and I have drawn certain conclusions from my reading of them. With Christians I have also had discussions already about the importance of reading from contrary sources and what happened to me personally when I did so. I could explain it all in this post, but it is too much to convey accurately. It is much easier to present in person. Also, I have learned to not think highly of many posters on this forum anyway, who are more interested in trying to beat me up than have a decent discourse. With those 2 factors combined, I have no interest in having that specific discussion. I do have it in-person though and it has been productive. Posters on this forum just do not understand that conversation despite thinking they know what I would think and say. They actually are far off the mark.

 

[Brian63]

I will add that whenever I enter a church building, I never believe that everyone inside is fully onboard with everything inside the church. Experiences with myself, other Christians-turned-atheists, and current-Christians have made it clear that that is not the case. Instead I have a presumption that among the large audience there will be some mixture of people who are 100% true believers, some who secretly disbelieve much of what is being said but are afraid to privately or publicly admit, some who believe parts of it but not others, etc. My realistic expectation is NOT that everyone is going to soften their stances against atheism as a result of discussion with me, even if they have one. Instead, I aim to make more modest gains. Let secret disbelievers know that they are not alone. Correct some misunderstandings of the believers about atheists. Expose some flaws in their apologetic arguments. Get them to question the appropriateness of indoctrination of religion into children. Etc. That is often easier to accomplish through smaller, more intimate conversations that last a longer time than any kind of public speech from me (especially since I have a fear of public speaking).

If anyone here is imagining that I am planning on anything like the latter, you are mistaken on my plans.

 

[Jarhyn]

The only purpose I have for the resources is to acknowledge their existence if they came up in conversation and make the case that if a person is interested in studying the subject themselves, it would be healthier to study several sides of it rather than just the side the group endorses

One of the biggest things for me was being exposed to real arguments on all sides of an issue and actually accepting that I have the power to form my own opinions.

That's a fairly effective strategy, but not one that works in good faith, so I wouldn't try working it.

The only direction that works from is them convincing themselves they can adequately analyze an argument. It takes making them read something like Origin of the Species with an intent to find flaws in it.

When it's from an outsider, or worse an operative, then all bets are off.

Though "if Dawkins has stupid shit like that in his book, why wouldn't you want to read the rest of it to find out what else there is," could be a pretty effective angle to strike against an ego.

 

[Brian63]

If I have the opportunity, instead of doing that I describe what I find interesting and appealing to learn about evolution (along with correcting some misconceptions of theirs). Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene" was a worldview-changing book for me, and I describe to people why I enjoyed it so much. I believe that would be more effective than trying to rhetorically shoot them in some way. That is not going to endear them to research the subject more. It will be a turnoff for them.

 

[steve_bank]

Maybe nobody here has any books to post. As somebody said, do our homework.

The Internet is your friend.

If you had a list of s[specific theist calms you wanted to respond to that woud be a differnt matter.

What I heard you say was 'Give me a list of books with refutations of theists for which I do not have to do any work'. I don't know if there are any books like what you want.

You may want to familiarize yourself with the usual theist references. Behe is a common theist reference.

Theism and atheist responses or more properly skeptic responses cover a wide range of topics.

Archeology, biblical interpretation, cosmology, and evolution. There is no one set of simple responses.

Atheists on the form have qoted Dawkins almost like theists quote the bible. I never read him but listened to part of an interview.

Michael Behe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Michael Joseph Behe[2] (/ˈbiːhiː/ BEE-hee; born January 18, 1952) is an American biochemist, author, and advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design (ID).[3][4] He serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. Behe is best known as an advocate for the validity of the argument for irreducible complexity (IC), which claims that some biochemical structures are too complex to be explained by known evolutionary mechanisms and are therefore probably the result of intelligent design. Behe has testified in several court cases related to intelligent design, including the court case Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District where his views were cited in the ruling that intelligent design is not science and is religious in nature.[5]

Behe's claims about the irreducible complexity of essential cellular structures have been rejected by the vast majority of the scientific community,[6][7] and his own biology department at Lehigh University published a statement repudiating Behe's views and intelligent design.[8][9]

Richard Dawkins - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941)[7] is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An atheist, he is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design.[8]

Dawkins first came to prominence with his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which popularised the gene-centred view of evolution and introduced the term meme. With his book The Extended Phenotype (1982), he introduced into evolutionary biology the influential concept that the phenotypic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment. In 2006, he founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

In The Blind Watchmaker (1986), Dawkins argues against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any designer. In The God Delusion (2006), Dawkins contends that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. Dawkins's atheist stances have sometimes attracted controversy.[9][10][11]

Dawkins has been awarded academic and writing awards, and he makes television, radio, and internet appearances, predominantly discussing his books, atheism, and his ideas and opinions as a public intellectual.[12]

 

[Brian63]

could be a pretty effective angle to strike against an ego.

Addendum:

Whenever someone comes off as having an ego, I do wonder if they truly do have that inflated ego or if they really have a fragile self-confidence and are trying to hide it by overcompensating. Or other. So when engaging with an egotistical person I tend to be more undecided on the best approach---take down their ego at first and then move on to more productive matters? Treat them kindly but then they may use that to footstomp over me? I do not know. It can vary from situation to situation a lot too.

 

[steve_bank]

I have an ego, I never leave home without it. The idea of not having ego is silly. Being egotistical is another matter.

Ateist, theist, man , woman, gay, straight, black, white, brown I relate as a human being. Not as somebody who is different. I have no partcular or attitude.

I am not out to make a theist atheist or a gay hetero. I do ot go by categorical labels, I go by how we relate. Of corse there is alwys bias and attitude lurking.

If you go into a church with an anti religion bias people will pick up on it. Body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. If you go in with tension you e will crate tension.

While I have issues with aspects of religion, I do not see someone's personal faith as a threat to me. I have no need to argue his or her's faith, and I have no need to justify myself.

 

[TomC]

Whenever someone comes off as having an ego, I do wonder if they truly do have that inflated ego or if they really have a fragile self-confidence and are trying to hide it by overcompensating. Or other.

The Irony!
It burns!
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

Search on atheist reading list and atheist book list. Talk to the local atheist group.

The Portable Ateist
The God Delusion Dawkins
Atheism the case against god
How Religion Poisons

And of course, Atheism For Dummies.

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