Organised religion debate

[ACubed]

Greetings! After a good debate in another thread it was suggested someone makes a new thread posing some questions about religion, so here are some talking points, I'll number them so easier to reference:

1. holy books - do people believe the stories actually happened? If so how can you square this with modern science/evolution, and if not how can you pick and choose what exists?

2. do people of faith acknowledge that the holy books contradict themselves?

3. is the sexism in the holy texts acceptable? How can this be the true word of God if it's so darn mean?

4. if you had been born into another religion would you follow it or convert? For example, if any muslims on here had instead been born in a Jewish family do you think you would have converted to Islam?

5. following on from that, is it not surely luck which faith most people follow? How does this affect your certainty in your faith?

6. why do none of the holy texts mention the evolution of mankind, other planets or galaxies, or any other modern science which has been proven?

Sure there are lots more questions but I've gone blank. I'm more than happy to answer any questions like these on my lack of faith!

Marking place - interesting thread.

I remember studying Bultmann for my degree, altik. Your students sound great!

Quick note on the nicea convention: there was a rigorous process of decision over which books to include. I can't remember all the criteria offhand and on phone/ in hurry so out of memory one was that the book had to be in constant and historical usage amongst the church as far as could be traced back; another that the book must not be in contention with the teaching of the church as received from the start; and a couple more - will have a look later. Gospels such as Thomas, Mary etc were left out not because the council fancied a bit of picking and choosing but because they were in direct opposition to the received teaching of centuries and contained increasingly bizarre stories which made no sense and offered no contribution to the life of the church.

It is a fairly common move by anti theists to portray all Christians as fundamentalists.
Im not an anti-theist, I'm an atheist. I know most Christians are not fundamentalists, and therein lies what I am trying to understand - why would you not be a fundamentalist if you believe that the entire bible is the exact word of god? I'm still a little unclear on how you determine which parts you will take literally and which you won't. For example all Christians believe in God and Jesus, but many do not believe in the creation story. I'm still trying to understand how people choose which parts to take literally and which to treat as myths.
Green why do you think that Genesis is a myth then, is it just because that's what makes the most sense to you? I'm not on here to attack Christianity, or any religion - as I've said before I don't have anybody in my life I can discuss this with and I'm very interested in other people's beliefs, because I think humans are interesting.
And, now this may be a very silly thing of me to say, but why is there any less truth to you in the book of Morman than to the new testament? (Assuming you are not a Morman)

Also (changing topic completely!)- there have been many people who have claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, yet they tend to be treated for mental health issues - talking point: do you think any of them could be telling the truth, and if the real thing was to return would anyone believe him/her?

must not be in contention with the teaching of the church as received from the start;

But who was to say what teaching they received at the start when not all the accounts were the same? Again, it came down to humans and what they thought should be included. I shouldn't be surprised. Only a few threads ago a Christian here on MN claimed that Jesus had to die because humans had got it into their head that people can only be forgiven if something is killed.

Acubed - as I don't believe that the Bible is the exact word of God (and very few Christians do) I have no problem taking in looking at the type of text I am reading ie myth, letter, petty, history, gospel etc and going from there. The Genesis stories are fascinating as they are trying to express a deep truth through narrative. If you look at the creation myths of the ancient near east you see similarities and differences between the two in the Bible and those in ancient Babylon for example. The same is true of the flood story which appears in other writings of the same period which hints at a real life localised event in the past that was remembered in oral history.

Does that help?

I don't know much about Mormonism. The ones I've met have been lovely genuine people with really good teeth.

Green - thanks that's v interesting, i'm sure there was a big flood around then. So do you think that none of the New Testament is the exact word of God either, but that the stories about Jesus are true, and documented by humans the best they could?

Ps all I really know about Mormonism is on every episode of South Park, but they made it seem pretty insane!

*one episode

OP you asked about people claiming reincarnation? If you believe in Jesus, and you believe what the Bible says, you will read it clearly outlines Jesus will return in the clouds, with a host alongside him, at an hour nobody can predict. People will be taken up in the air with him, which will be an unmistakable event.

This is why anyone claiming to be Jesus reincarnated doesn't get taken seriously. Perhaps even gets taken to the asylum for urgent treatment of their psychosis.

Also, OP, I think what you are realising is there are many people who claim to be Christian (followers of Christ), but they believe to different levels. Roughly speaking, and this is quite a generalisation, you often find state churches like C of E compromise and dilute the bible to the point they don't believe in it an awful lot of it. I think Green probably would say she's in that category (not truly believing much of the bible). They still values it, but they don't believe it to be the word of God like it clearly says it is.

They you have other Christian groups that DO believe in the bible fully. They are not prepared to compromise or dilute the truth of the word, they stick to every word of the bible, even if it's unpopular, and believe what it says. I suspect this is what you'd call a fundamental Christian?

So the interpretation differences come down to compromise, and disbelief; not accepting the bible is the accurate and inspired word of God.

Hit post too early!

As opposed to someone who believes and trusts implicitly that the bible is God's book to mankind, a believable account of His instruction and the true history of His followers.

Something else to consider about the bible is how often it has been translated. From Aramaic to Greek to Latin to most other languages. There is no doubt in my mind that things can get lost in translation, subtle nuances can become simplified. Genesis seems to hint at more gods than one for example. Concepts which exist in one language may not have a direct parallel in another. I don't think anyone can really be sure that they have the 'truth'- at best they have an interpretation.

Boldly the 'we' in Genesis refers to the trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit)not separate gods

Also the current bible is remarkably accurate when compared with the (original) Dead Sea scrolls. This blows the whole 'Chinese whispers' thing out of the water.

Gosh it says people will literally float up into the air at the rapture? Wouldn't that wrongly imply heaven is a physical place in the sky rather than something spiritual?
Christmas - so I take it you are a creationist and believe the world is only a few thousand years old? What do you think About all the science that seems to show the universe is nearly 14 billion years old, that it's untrue? And do would you also believe it's immoral for two men to have sex with each other?

So I understand that moderate Christians just turn a blind eye to the Bible and get all their ideas about their birth religion from popular culture etc. I like this recent Hollywood idea of the 'Rapture'.

Moderates seem to stick with the Jesus story. There is no evidence he even existed so nothing that historians can contradict, he didn't kill to many people so avoids the problem of evil, we don't know who wrote the gospels, no one actually saw his resurrection etc so its all very airy fairy and avoids the literal problems of the creation story.

Despite the fact that there has never been a world wide flood, which isn't even physically possible, why do moderates keep pushing this Noah myth? Well it seems to me that its a very handy tool for indoctrinating children. You leave out the whole genocide thing and that it is fiction and you have a very child friendly story. Who doesn't love animals , rainbows, boats, stone golems and happy endings. You have a whole brand to make toys, movies and songs from.

Then we have the fundamentalists who believe in the literal meaning of the Bible, and use mental gymnastics to explain the bad stuff in the book. We have poetic writing, historical writing, story telling etc. But I have heard this new one recently, 'Inspired by'. What does that mean? In modern usage it means, 'bears no resemblance to the actual facts'

If it was a nice sunny day I might be inspired to write a story about swimming to the bottom of the ocean and meeting Spongebob. The fact that I was inspired doesn't make anything I write true, does it? You weren't there so you dont know I didn't meet him and if I write it down in two thousand years it will even more true.

FYI there is no such thing as variable radioactive decay. Carbon dating is as factually sound as the theory of gravity. FFS sake, there are trees alive today that are old enough to disprove the literal bible creation myth.

Good points supermummy - thanks for mentioning carbon dating / radioactive decay, that's what I was trying to express but not being an expert didn't want to get the wording wrong. I find with scientific findings, such as dinosaur fossils, some people will say it's god trying to test us, but surely if you love someone you don't try to trick them or make things purposefully more difficult for them.

I am a 'real Christian' I am an average Christian in the street'. All the Christians I know believe in evolution as it's described in the Bible - first God created planets, sea/land, plants, animals then man. No Christian I know believe everything in the Bible should be taken literally (are you perhaps getting confused with another religion here?). I believe Adam and Eve/Noah's Ark are stories to teach us lessons. I believe the Bible was written a longtime ago and when things were culturally very different hence descriptions of men/women roles/marriage/sexuality seem very alien to us nowadays.
I am a Christian so follow the teachings of Christ in the New Testament/ the Old Testament has many interesting and useful lessons but they were to signpost the arrival of Jesus and were updated with his teachings.
This is how most Christian's view things. There is a problem with atheists on line trolling and insisting I must interpret the Bible literally which is not how Christians actually see the Bible except for a small minority. There are weird Christians and there are weird atheists!
You even get aethiests trolling pretending to be Christians with extreme views in order to portray the religion in a bad light!
Have a look at Christianity.org.uk for how most people live their religion.

believe Adam and Eve/Noah's Ark are stories to teach us lessons

Jesus referred back to the flood and Adam/Eve as literal events. If he was God wouldn't he have known they were allegories. And couldn't he have cleared up the confusion for us

You even get aethiests trolling pretending to be Christians with extreme views in order to portray the religion in a bad light!

Evidence? I think the bible itself is doing a very good job of portraying religion in a bad light.

Thanks for the response. Not sure if you were saying I was trolling christians...? Hope that's not the case. I'm not saying anyone should believe the bible literally, what I was trying to hear from people is how exactly can you justify believing in the New Testament literally but not the Old Testament - if it had references to god in it why are you so sure that they are metaphors , but that Jesus was not a metaphor? And wasn't the coming of the messiah predicted in the Old Testament, or have I got that wrong? So I'm guessing you would take that part literally if you believe in Jesus?
I'm sorry this thread seems to have focused on Christianity, any muslims or Hindus or Jewish people about who want to chime in? I'd actually be really interested to hear if the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament is the same as the mainstream Christian one - ie that it's just stories not fact?

Iv been following this thread and would to join in but they tend to get bitter very quickly when muslims do so here. Interesting to read though iv learnt alot from reading the christian explanations.

Oh no, do they? I've not read a thread about Islam on here, sorry if you've had any bad experiences.

Ps there's a funny video somewhere of someone reading Quran quotes to public and everyone's saying 'ugh Islam is such a violent religion!' Then it's revealed they're bible quotes!

Here is the link ACubed.
I am a 'real Christian' I am an average Christian in the street' No such thing. You can be avarage for your community, you can be an average xtain for your community, but the variation across the country can be massive even within the same denomination. And this is in general, the majority, not all. My anecdotal evidence is based on living in varying sized communities. It can be like living in different decades. So, London, your religion, your business, do not discuss, do not judge. The usual xtian expected privilege, never came across another religion doing this, is met with rolled eyes and attempts to prevent it. Though most religious individuals are perfectly average I don't know what they think as you don't discuss religion, but following the news shows the most varied extreme versions of all religions gather in our largest cities. To hold strong religious based anti LGBT, womens equality, etc would be challenging. A smaller city/large town xtians assume almost everybody is xtian, they consider themselves multicultural because somebody of a different skin colour attends their church and they know a Muslim/Sikh/whatever colleague/local shop keeper so think of themselves as worldly, though they are far from it. The bible is not literal to them, but a guide, they truly are moderate. They tend to accept that Noahs ark didn't happen, but not that xmas is a made up stolen pagan celebration. Like most xtians they judge according to their bible, but not so harshly. When my DM got one of the first Female Vicars it was considered a punishment to the parish, but didn't the congregation care (previous rogue vicar, bad feelings). Then you go back in time, but still today, to a large village/small town, only one high school and it's xtian. Noahs ark is real here (middle of Morrisons), Jesus visited England in a boat and they have found the remains (from school), It's unusual to have dc without being married (DS1's teacher actually said this to me), DC are laughed at for not believing in god (DS1's different teacher to OH). Holding strong anti LGBT, womens equality, etc must not be challenged, it's normal. Xtians assume that everybody is xtian, multicultural and worldly are bad world. Direct quote from my MIL 'I feel sorry for dc that don't get baptised so I buy them a baptism gift anyway' well that explained the tacky gift DS1 received and on collecting for xtian aid charity 'Nobody wants to give anymore, I said xtian aid and they still don't give, why Scaredy?' 'Well people aren't xtians so much, they prefer non religious charity.' 'Aren't they, but why don't they give it's xtian aid!' (there is nothing wrong with xtian aid they give freely, unlike the samaritan's purse/occ shoe boxes giving all xtian charities a bad name) They judge harshly and privilege isn't just expected it's a right. The small community churches are very extreme and literal, but as they are in a pack mentality they think their views are normal, because they are for where they live.

I'm sorry this thread seems to have focused on Christianity, any muslims or Hindus or Jewish people about who want to chime in? I'd actually be really interested to hear if the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament is the same as the mainstream Christian one – i.e. that it's just stories not fact?

Just wanted to respond to the above. I’m not Jewish - just a common or garden atheist - but interested in Judaism and Jewish culture.

There are Orthodox Jews who do think of the Hebrew Bible (essentially the Old Testament) as being the literal truth, miracles and all. At the same time they strongly disagree with the Christian notion that the coming of Jesus is foretold in their holy book and that he is the Messiah.

I was recently listening to The Jewish position is that the Hebrew Bible has been mistranslated, misinterpreted or quoted out of context - both in the NT and by Christians subsequently - in such a way as to erroneously give credence to the Christian idea that Jesus is/was the Messiah.

Yes, the rabbi’s analysis is a kind of propaganda in itself. But I think it is worth listening to the Jewish perspective, given that we are more often exposed to the Christian perspective here in the UK.

We are also more used to hearing critiques of Christianity from atheists who are dismissive of scripture than from rabbis who base their assessment on serious scriptural analysis and are bringing a religious mindset to bear on the issue.

The rabbi also compares the relationship of Christianity to Judaism to that of Mormonism to Christianity. I had never made the connection before but it is certainly an enlightening comparison – Christians have augmented the Hebrew Bible with additional writings that Jewish people do not accept as legitimate and Mormons have done the same thing with the Christian Bible with a similar response from Christians.