The value of Bible literature for atheism and the value of atheism for Bible literature

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The atheist Right is the growing menace. It affects disdain for Christianity, but it really only seeks to destroy the Christian Left. It anchors its doctrines in the theory of evolution, with all the attendant viciousness in the social realm.

The atheist Right is the growing menace. It affects disdain for Christianity, but it really only seeks to destroy the Christian Left. It anchors its doctrines in the theory of evolution, with all the attendant viciousness in the social realm.

There are lots of christianities. Most christians I know treat their religion and the bible as charms. They keep them around for luck.

 

[skepticalbip]

The atheist Right is the growing menace. It affects disdain for Christianity, but it really only seeks to destroy the Christian Left. It anchors its doctrines in the theory of evolution, with all the attendant viciousness in the social realm.

The atheist Right is the growing menace. It affects disdain for Christianity, but it really only seeks to destroy the Christian Left. It anchors its doctrines in the theory of evolution, with all the attendant viciousness in the social realm.

There are lots of christianities. Most christians I know treat their religion and the bible as charms. They keep them around for luck.

That and as a social club. Some even see church as a good place to pick up chicks or for women, a good place to pick up a man.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The atheist Right is the growing menace. It affects disdain for Christianity, but it really only seeks to destroy the Christian Left. It anchors its doctrines in the theory of evolution, with all the attendant viciousness in the social realm.

I'm making a Turing plea.

 

[Jarhyn]

The atheist Right is the growing menace. It affects disdain for Christianity, but it really only seeks to destroy the Christian Left. It anchors its doctrines in the theory of evolution, with all the attendant viciousness in the social realm.

I will agree insofar as there are long term threats within the nonreligious movement stemming largely from interests of "hard materialistic determinism", social Darwinian, and Solipsistic Nihilism.

Even so, I would prefer an honest asshole over someone who is "Minnesotan" about it.

The same thing happens among religion, but the religious folks just couch the terms of it in "god" language, letting "god" just be a stand-in noun to refer, essentially, to whatever group/process the underlying solipsism is pointed at, whether that's "my family" or "my tribe" or "my religious group", all of which are generally proxies for "my racial group" by some extension.

Only by abandoning the use of "god" and forcing oneself to insert a real noun may one truly be honest in this way, and religion gives it cover, because religion allows use of "god" rather than the real and proper noun intended.

 

[Jarhyn]

In some ways I do not advocate ending the discussion of god, but recognizing it often as a word we use when we don't know, or won't admit what we are talking about, except where otherwise stated.

Personally, I try to be clear about what usage I intend to make. Still, by recognizing that many of the things called "god" by folks are either: sensible concepts if far-fetched and unevidenced; or are actual material things, systems or objects that they do not understand except dimly or perhaps have obfuscated from them by an aspect of their own mind; or systemic concepts that are implied by any concept of materiality at all (such as math), truly mindless things... By those recognitions we may meet the spiritualist in the middle and coax them across the divide at this narrow gap.

 

[No Robots]

Here’s a good one for any of you who watches “I Think You Should Leave”:

Jr. Robots and I were having a talk about sometimes wanting to be free of family, but feeling guilty about it. I said, “Well, the great man said, ‘You must hate your father and your mother.’” Then I flashed on one of our favourite bits and said, “Your family hates you! Only I love you!” Jr. said, “That’s pretty much the whole Bible right there.”

 

[dbz]

The reason that socialism has stalled is that it has become anti-Christian. Without continually asserting its basis in the Bible, socialism quickly degenerates into absolute materialism and thereby becomes reactionary. In the ultimate irony, this reactionary pseudo-socialism plays directly into the hands of the pseudo-Christian conservatives.

With the caveat: " The devil is in the details", the gist of what you say, strikes me as true.

 

[dbz]

The Bible is more hollow than a chocolate Easter bunny. Much better, much shorter texts came out much earlier in Asia.

"Some Ancient Chinese Philosophy on Why We Ought to Be Moral • Richard Carrier". Richard Carrier Blogs. 12 June 2022.

These philosophers, West and East, all have arrived at the same similar sense that a fully cognizant person will find personal satisfaction in being moral (and dissatisfaction in being immoral) sufficient to motivate them; and that the only reason anyone is immoral is that they have failed to arrive at this cognitive understanding. The foolish, paranoid, and bitter rich man does not comprehend how much more content and fulfilled he’d be in a different attitudinal state, much as Dickens fictionalized for Scrooge. He labors under the false belief in the reverse; or in total ignorance of the fact. And so, too, all other villains—even sociopaths, who but for their incurable mental disorder could realize this as well.

 

[dbz]

Even so, I would prefer an honest asshole over someone who is "Minnesotan" about it.

"Ten Things I Hate About 'Juno'". 19 April 2012.

6. Grossly Unfair and Inaccurate Portrayal Of Minnesota and Minnesotans

I’ll let Jake Schindler (SFS ’12), my Minnesotan roommate, take this one: “If Juno were set anywhere else, most viewers would dismiss the dialogue as being awkward and unrealistic. But because it’s Minnesota, I’m afraid people are actually willing to believe that all the hip indie teens at Ridgedale Mall actually talk that way. (By the way, there is nothing hip or indie about Ridgedale, St. Cloud or really anything outside the borders of Minneapolis and St. Paul proper.) We let the Cohen brothers get away with exaggerating our accents and mannerisms because, unlike Diablo Cody, they’re Minnesotans. But Cody was born in suburban Chicago, raised in suburban Chicago and went to school in Iowa. She lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years before bolting to Hollywood. I’m glad she enjoys some of our fine cultural exports such as Sonic Youth, but I’d like to request in the most polite Minnesotan way possible that Ms. Cody set her next awful screenplay somewhere else.

 

[Jarhyn]

Even so, I would prefer an honest asshole over someone who is "Minnesotan" about it.

"Ten Things I Hate About 'Juno'". 19 April 2012.

6. Grossly Unfair and Inaccurate Portrayal Of Minnesota and Minnesotans

I’ll let Jake Schindler (SFS ’12), my Minnesotan roommate, take this one: “If Juno were set anywhere else, most viewers would dismiss the dialogue as being awkward and unrealistic. But because it’s Minnesota, I’m afraid people are actually willing to believe that all the hip indie teens at Ridgedale Mall actually talk that way. (By the way, there is nothing hip or indie about Ridgedale, St. Cloud or really anything outside the borders of Minneapolis and St. Paul proper.) We let the Cohen brothers get away with exaggerating our accents and mannerisms because, unlike Diablo Cody, they’re Minnesotans. But Cody was born in suburban Chicago, raised in suburban Chicago and went to school in Iowa. She lived in Minneapolis for a couple of years before bolting to Hollywood. I’m glad she enjoys some of our fine cultural exports such as Sonic Youth, but I’d like to request in the most polite Minnesotan way possible that Ms. Cody set her next awful screenplay somewhere else.

I live in Minnesota. I'm not talking about the accent, but rather how people get away with being some of the most passive aggressive assholes I have EVER seen.

 

[Politesse]

Not all teenagers are idiots. I read quite a bit when I was an adolescent.

 

[Jarhyn]

There is nothing wrong with or problematic with "absolute materialism", at least in theory.

The "problem" with absolute materialism is that the materialists often miss that there are a great many things that are real material systems that are traditionally thought of as (non-existent) supernatural woo.

When you can understand how the math still works out to "love yourself and love your neighbor as yourself", it makes no difference whether you are a materialist.

The issue is showing the work of how the math works out so anyone can pick it up and accept it.

 

[No Robots]

There is nothing wrong with or problematic with "absolute materialism", at least in theory.

A theory is not a material object. That is one problem.

My old boss, an Israeli chemist, told me a good one: "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, their is."

The "problem" with absolute materialism is that the materialists often miss that there are a great many things that are real material systems that are traditionally thought of as (non-existent) supernatural woo.

When you can understand how the math still works out to "love yourself and love your neighbor as yourself", it makes no difference whether you are a materialist.

The issue is showing the work of how the math works out so anyone can pick it up and accept it.

The math has shown for over a century now that matter is unthinkable. In response, absolute materialists have tried desperately to transform math itself from a mode of thought into matter.

 

[Jarhyn]

A theory is not a material object

I beg to differ. A theory is an arrangement of charges on neurons in a brain, or an arrangement of inks on a page that, exposed to a brain through the eyes, invokes an arrangement of charges on neurons in a brain, among other such arrangements of material that lead to such arrangements of decisive switching systems.

What all of those things have in common is that they are made of material.

 

[No Robots]

But matter itself, that is another matter.

 

[Jarhyn]

But matter itself, that is another matter.

Matter/energy itself is the most basic form of material. Saying a single marble doesn't count as a set of marbles is as sensible as saying matter itself is not material.

Which is to say, it's silly to say so.

Even physics is a mere description of the emergent properties of material.

Again, it's material all the way down, and I personally have no issue with that. It's when people say "material can't do ___" when it's clear that material is indeed doing whatever-it-is, and they just can't fathom how that can happen in and among and of the material that I take issue.

Such is "the argument from incredulity."

 

[SIB]

The benefit? The answer is probably in-between deity and no god or gods of any type. With a mind set that observations drive the beliefs we form. Then we compare all the beliefs side by side to see what ones match what we see better.

 

[bleubird]

I lost my faith many years ago by reading mythology books.So,the bible is just some more interesting mythology to me.

 

[AdamWho]

The bible is an excellent tool to de-convert Christians and the bible is a ready example of the absurdity of western religions.

One day we will look back and wonder "what the hell where these people thinking".

 

[Jarhyn]

The bible is an excellent tool to de-convert Christians and the bible is a ready example of the absurdity of western religions.

One day we will look back and wonder "what the hell where these people thinking".

Spoilers: they weren't. Someone was long ago, and then folks wrote that down and used it as an excuse to not think.

Rinse.

Repeat.