religion and claiming the moral high-ground
Wednesday, 31 August 2005 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miriam_eGood grief! I get so sick of religious people waffling on about how their religion is the source of morality and that their religion is what makes people good. It completely ignores the large number of good and moral atheists and it certainly doesn't take account of the many hateful religious people crowding this little planet.
I have lost count of the number of religious people who in honest perplexity have remarked to me that they don't understand how I can be a good person with a deeply held sense of altruism when I have absolutely no religious beliefs at all. It makes me shake my head in despair sometimes.
Why do people think that people should be good simply because some misguided superstition says they should? Why can't they accept that it simply makes good sense to help others?
Altruism just is the most logical way co-exist with your fellow humans.
I have lost count of the number of religious people who in honest perplexity have remarked to me that they don't understand how I can be a good person with a deeply held sense of altruism when I have absolutely no religious beliefs at all. It makes me shake my head in despair sometimes.
Why do people think that people should be good simply because some misguided superstition says they should? Why can't they accept that it simply makes good sense to help others?
Altruism just is the most logical way co-exist with your fellow humans.
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Simple questions...
Date: 2005-09-07 02:36 am (UTC)And all I do is simply ask questions.
All the answers are in the Bible right? (this is where you bait the hook)
Why do you preach teetotalling/alcoholic abstinence when Noah's first act after getting off the ark was to get so drunk he passed out naked in his tent?
Why do Christians rant against prostitutes when Jesus himself loved one?
Why did Jesus refuse to let the leper woman touch the hem of his robe and be healed, when he had healed so many others?
Why was Lot spared from the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah for being such a virtuous guy after offering to throw his virgin daughters to a mob if they would just stop knocking on his door?
Why would you believe in a a God who would torment a poor man like Job just to win a bet with the Devil? Heck, why do believe in a God that gambles with the Devil over your soul in the FIRST place?
A quick read through the Bible will net you all sorts of paradoxical morality questions that will stump the religiously inclined.
If they try to waffle (and they will) to another topic, just repeat until they get that you are expecting an answer.
Gutenberg has eText of the King James version and several others which a good for grepping.
An excellent piece of weaponry if you can find it is "The Book Of The Bible"... I will have to find mine in storage to give you other details, and Amazon (strangely heheh) doesn't seem to list it.
In the Book of the Bible, Vatican scholars and such analyze the Bible from some pretty strange angles... one chapter is "The Top Ten Threat's God Made To Man"... with chapter and verse pointers. My favorite was #8 on their list: "He will toss thee like a ball into a large country." - Isaiah 22:18
The Bible itself is always your best weapon against it.
Re: Simple questions...
Date: 2005-09-07 04:05 am (UTC)I've always felt that the bet god makes with the devil over whether Job will break when god tortures him is particularly weird.
A nice one is the section of Genesis that got edited out of the bible by the Council of Nicea. It explains more about the bit where Adam & Eve lose the garden of Eden and in doing so makes it clear that it is a parable, not meant to be taken literally. The "fruit of the tree of knowledge" is the food produced by agriculture. Of course they lost the garden of Eden -- they chopped the fucker down to plant crops! But that got conveniently discarded.
Another is the crazy line about not suffering a witch to live, which was responsible for countless deaths at the hands of christian bigots. It is a mistranslation. It more correctly says that you shouldn't share your village with a poisoner. Nothing about witches at all.
A great place to peruse the insanities in the bible is the Skeptics Annotated Bible (includes annotated Koran and Book of Mormon):
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
Re: Simple questions...
Date: 2005-09-07 04:13 pm (UTC)And I nearly forgot the best one:
What were Jesus' last words on the cross (which was actually in the shape of an X)?
IIRC, each of the 4 books of the Bible that reports it reports it differently.
99% of Biblethumpers won't know WHY either:
The first book of the New Testament written about Jesus' life was written over 20 YEARS after his death. Not sure how good YOUR memory is, but can you remember that sort of detail about things over 20 years ago in YOUR life?
There are 4 main books about Jesus, each written 20, 40, 60, and just over 80 years after he died.
There was a great Discovery channel show about Biblical scholars dating the books of the New Testament... very cool stuff.
Applying facts to religion always seems to leave religion a little more wanting.
In Desmond Morris' Illustrated Catwatching, he talks about how Xtians were so misled by the witch line, they also nearly extincted all of the pure black cats in Europe by burning them as they were witches familiars, and that most black cats you see will have at least SOME patch of white on them somewhere.
So, you can also have fun asking Xtians why they hate cats so much, especially if they HAVE some!
Thanks for the link on the Skeptic Bible... gotta check that.