Read and acknowledged.

Now I wait. >:D

I Haven’t forgotten you JonJon. It just has been a pretty hectic few days. Finally started actually writing out Nox’s 143rd Proof of Nogod today and it is nowhere near finished. But I wanted to get your feedback on a couple of things and give you a little more of an idea of where I’m going with this most recent tangent. And I wanted to tell you I appreciate your last post. I will try to avoid any irritating leaps. But I should warn you, what I’m posting right now may seem a little disjointed. I am still ranting about groundwork here (sorry but this is one of those times when the best explanation isn’t simple). There are some statements on both sides of a gap, but if you can follow me I think I can show you the bridge soon. I know I keep getting in trouble for hinting at things and posting incomplete arguments and/or parables, but I have to go to work in a minute and I just wanted to throw this out there and get your thoughts and make sure we are on the same page with the dissociation thing before we move on to the historical consequences of dissociation.

“Is the idea that because religious beliefs are so fundamentally different from the way the world actually is, that somehow this dissociation causes people to behave badly?”

Yes. This is in fact the idea.

Probably not in the way that I think you meant. But in my opinion dissociation is exactly the issue. The problem with believing something that doesn’t match with reality is that you will eventually have to make the choice between belief and reality. Sometimes this choice is made consciously. In my observation it is usually not. But on some conscious or unconscious level each of us makes the choice to prioritize faith (the evidence of things unseen) or evidence (the evidence of things seen).

If you have an incorrect belief about something which is currently unknown or patently unknowable, then for the moment that belief is not threatened (nor is it necessarily threatening, as long as you’re not telling others it is true). If you have an incorrect belief about something which is currently known, then the belief will be altered or the reality will be ignored. Obviously my main topic here is gonna be the second category (beliefs which are known to not be true). But first let me rant for just a moment longer about the difference between these two classifications of belief and just why the hell it matters anyway.

The key thing to keep in mind here is that as human knowledge increases, beliefs sometimes move from the first list to the second. To be fair, some beliefs which are currently unknowable will probably turn out to be true when the day comes around that we can properly test them, but statistically this has always been and will always be a small amount (or as Dara O’Briain put it, “Yeah, herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. And then we tested it, and the stuff that worked became medicine, and the rest is just a cup of tea and some nice potpourri”). But no matter how many astronomers the catholic church imprisons and forces to renounce heliocentrism (no I’m not making that part up, ask Vorjack), human knowledge will continue to expand. And as that happens, religious beliefs will continue to migrate from the “unknowable” list to the “demonstrably false” list. When a belief has been threatened by evidence, heresy, or just by the guys across the river having a different one true god than your one true god, then the believer faces a dilemma, and you have the universal setup for all the best religious atrocities.

I don’t want to go without mentioning that there is a very real danger from beliefs which are still on the first list. The danger of these beliefs is that they encourage people to be satisfied with a bullsh*t answer to an important question. When our knowledge does expand (and I hope no one takes anything in the previous paragraph as saying that expansion of knowledge is a bad thing) it is almost always because we admit the gaps in our knowledge and look for answers. When someone thinks they already have all the answers they usually don’t bother looking much further.

That religion teaches people to be satisfied with bad guesses is however only the first half of the problem. Of at least as much concern is how far religion will go to protect those bad guesses. Throughout history as things (people, books, statues, the Sun, etc) have threatened the guesses of christianity the church has made a monumental and frighteningly successful attempt to suppress these things.

This actually has a bit more to do with burning books than burning people. I made a brief and unexplained mention of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum earlier. You may or may not be familiar with this term, but it is rather central to what I’m about to say. So why don’t you take a quick look at this while I look up a passage in Acts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_Librorum_Prohibitorum

Now why do you suppose the catholic church wouldn’t want people reading certain books? Maybe there’s a clue in this book.

Acts 19:18-20
18 And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.
19 Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
20 So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.

(Sorry bout the cliffhanger ending but I'll get back to this a bit later with a more in depth explanation.)

Have fun off the grid Ursa.

Bye!

*watches video*

"Okay there are a lot of important issues on the table right now, and I don’t want to put any of them aside so I’ll be sure to whip up another wall-o-text within the next day or two that addresses the questions you raised in a lot more detail. But I’d like to go back for a moment and clarify that whole “imagine no religion?” thing since it seems to have caused a bit of a misunderstanding."

Please take your time. I'm (to my chagrin) not employed, so I tend to have lots of time. Don't burn yourself out.

"And right now I am a little more concerned with clarifying sh*t I’ve already said than advancing to new arguments. We were having such a nice little moment there, and I wouldn’t want a miscommunication caused by my penchant for speaking in parables (something that was very much influenced by religion) to send us off on a hostile and counterproductive tangent."

*hangs head*

Yes, I went on a bit of a tear. It certainly felt nice for a moment, but I confess I liked the tone we were setting before quite a bit better. I threw up a bunch of hypotheticals and shot them down. Partly, that's because I don't know what you actually think, and since this is something of a pet peeve I wanted to say *something*. The other reason is that I don't *like* the arguments I've so far heard for why religion is 'bad,' or perhaps I don't understand them properly.

I understand that "Imagine" is not in itself an argument, and I made a leap in presuming you would go on to make one, or were laying the groundwork for it. I have seen and heard people bridge that gap many times. Obviously, you would like to point out some of what you think is wrong with or unhelpful about religion, and I think you should do that. I apologize for jumping in and making that harder for you: even if you are going to go on and make an actual argument, it isn't terribly productive to rant about groundwork.

"I kinda feel like I’ve been the opposite of bitchy here. I think I’ve been at least reasonably accommodating (“saintly” is a word I would never apply to myself in any serious context). In the interest of productive discussion I’ve taken every opportunity on this thread to grant the legitimacy of your points (including [and please don’t take this as bitchy] some pretty f*cking iffy ones). And on this latest tangent I think I’ve already bent over backward to explicitly state that “a lot of the atrocities that are commonly blamed on religion have been largely based on other causes”. I mean I f*cking gave you the tea party and one of the crusades. The g-dd*mn crusades for christ’s sake. And one of the bigger ones at that (do you have any f*cking idea how many people died in the Second Crusade?)."

I insist on saintly. Take the credit, you earned it. Accommodating is an understatement. Trust me, I know how iffy some of my points are, and I know how far backwards you're bending when you let them fly.

"if I really was more interested in denigrating you than speaking accurately, do you actually think that (without even being asked) I would just toss out a political movement with the stated goal of establishing a christian theocracy, and a war to reclaim the holy land in the name of Jesus, as things that can’t be entirely blamed on religion? *Especially* when my openly stated bias is against christianity and my openly stated goal is to argue that christianity leads to sh*t like crusades and tea parties."

Fair point: I don't feel denigrated. I didn't mean to accuse you of being denigrating, merely to say what I thought arguments about the overall 'badness' of religion often had trouble distinguishing between. I suppose I should begin to presume that you won't make the same irritating leaps I have seen others make. My forum instincts tell me this is a bad idea, but I will make an effort.

Also, I don't think you are bitchy.

Well, guys, I hate to duck out while things are still lively, but I'm in the middle of packing for a two-week camping vacation and at best I'm just going to be lurking on the forums between now and Friday morning. Then it's off to the wilds of western Pennsylvania to spend two weeks in a yurt for the 39th annual Pennsic Wars (I invite you to google for images if you don't know what the Pennsic Wars or the Society for Creative Anachronism are). I am going to be offline, and off the grid as well.

Anyway, the next time you hear from me will probably be August 15, or when the yurt canvas has dried and been packed away, whichever comes first.

Cheers all, and I will try to catch up on the thread when I get back. Whoever produces the longest coherent wall-o-text in my absence gets a gold star.

“I have just never, ever understood this line of thought”

“This is one of the directions "imagine there's no religion" sometimes goes,”

Perhaps this will clear things up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GAHFrLAxzM&feature=avmsc2

(Please watch the video before reading the rest of this)

Okay there are a lot of important issues on the table right now, and I don’t want to put any of them aside so I’ll be sure to whip up another wall-o-text within the next day or two that addresses the questions you raised in a lot more detail. But I’d like to go back for a moment and clarify that whole “imagine no religion?” thing since it seems to have caused a bit of a misunderstanding.

“Imagine No Religion” is not meant to be an argument. It is meant to be a “what if” (and to be fair you’ve used a few “what if”s in place of arguments here). It is by nature a strictly hypothetical question. In this case I was presenting it to you as groundwork for an actual argument later. I was asking you JonJon to (not to admit anything out loud or here on UF that could be used against you in an argument or used to make fun of you or anything like that but simply to take a brief moment within the safe comfortable confines of your own mind and) “imagine” “no religion”.

I was not asking you to accept as true the premise that religion is harmful. Or to accept any premise at all for that matter. I was simply asking you to “imagine” how our species might have turned out differently (better or worse) if religion was not one of those fundamental human qualities that seem to have been present for most, if not all, of the species' development. “Imagine” how our values would be different (better or worse) if the natural evolution of those values had never become intertwined with theism. “Imagine” what kind of person JonJon would be (better or worse) if the development of your own values had never become intertwined with christianity (I wonder if you can). My goal in including your quotes was to put this in some context, not to be bitchy. If believing in god and abhorrent behavior are (maybe completely separate) both baseline human behaviors, then what would happen in a hypothetical scenario with a radically different baseline. And for the moment you can just ignore everything I have already suggested about how that scenario might play out. If you think a religionless universe would somehow result in more children being raped by priests, that is (even if it is patently illogical) a totally acceptable thing for you to think within this exercise.

There is as you noted, no actual right answer to this question (this question is not about “is the correct answer A, B. or C?” this question is about “what does this inkblot look like to you?”). We can only “imagine there’s no religion” and speculate about what we imagine that would be like. On a very related note, I don’t have to “imagine” that there are 23 churches within 4 miles of my house. Nor do I have to “imagine” that the current pope has personally overseen the cover up of child molestation. These are verifiable real things. I don’t have to “imagine” what a world where religion had gotten out of hand would look like. You don’t need that much imagination to imagine a world with too much religion. You just need a window. But a world with no religion? Well, you’d have to get pretty f*cking deep into parentheticals to address that one.

Here’s where I think we may be misunderstanding each other. I think that you think that I think that there are only two categories of human behavior relevant to this question. Something along the lines of “stuff that people *only* do because of religion which has *no other* contributing factors” and “stuff that has *absolutely nothing* to do with religion and to which religion contributes *nothing*”.

So let me just take a moment to state clearly that this is not the model I am working with here (and I don’t think that “by virtue of it's "religion-ness," religion causes people to behave badly”). As I see it, any complete attempt to address this topic would need to include at least four categories (actually a lot more than four, but this is just a simplified explanation so I’m gonna stick to four). A.“Human behavior to which religion has not been a significant contributing factor”. B. “Human behavior to which religion has been a secondary contributing factor”. C. “Human behavior to which religion has been a primary contributing factor”. And D. “Human behavior to which religion has been the main contributing factor”. As my central thesis here has been “f*ck religion” you might expect me to put every atrocity in category D, and every scientific advancement in category A (at least if I was more concerned with trashing christians than accurately pointing out problems with christianity). In my own calculations, the preponderance of the human experience (good and bad) falls pretty heavily into category B.

But that certainly does not mean the question of whether religion has done more harm than good is ethereal or unanswerable.

Questions of what the bible means to you or what kind of religionless world you would imagine are by nature subjective. But the question of how religion would affect humanity just might be the most well documented thing in all of history. After I look up a couple names and dates I’m going to present my case that history has conclusively answered the question of whether belief in god has been generally beneficial to humanity (but I am of course open to rebuttals). I think you can guess where I’m going with this but we can get to that in time. I certainly don’t want to fall into the trap of stating personal opinions without justification and calling it an argument.

And right now I am a little more concerned with clarifying sh*t I’ve already said than advancing to new arguments. We were having such a nice little moment there, and I wouldn’t want a miscommunication caused by my penchant for speaking in parables (something that was very much influenced by religion) to send us off on a hostile and counterproductive tangent.

So just to make sure we are all on the same page prior to the resumption of hostilities.

The reason religion causes people to behave badly is not because of it’s “religion-ness”. My personal belief on why some personal beliefs cause people to behave badly has very little to do with the belief that “there is a god”, even less to do with the belief that “there is no god”, and almost everything to do with the belief that “thou shalt have no other gods before me”.

I do not believe that religion is the primary causal factor in human behavior. At the very least I would put hunger and libido above religion. Religion is a disproportionately causal factor in human behavior (and I firmly believe based on a wealth of evidence that a disproportionate amount of behavior caused by it is not helpful). I may have made “agency” too big to fail (and I did clearly state that there are other factors), but I’ve given no such ground to religion.

I do not think christianity is evil because I am opposed to it, (and this point is absolutely central) I am opposed to christianity because I think it is evil. I did not come to this conclusion as an atheist who wanted to believe christianity was evil. I came to this conclusion as a christian who wanted more than anything to believe that christianity was not evil. And perhaps more fundamental than not believing in the doctrine, this is the first and still main reason why I am not a christian.

I do not entirely blame the institution of christianity for the actions of some random christian wackos. A woman in Texas who drowns her kids for Jesus is at most anecdotal evidence. But the issue is not just that people use religion as their justification to do terrible things. It is that the same people who made up the religion are commanding them to do terrible things. Any terrible things that happen to have been done by some random christian are not really related to my point (and neither is any terrible thing that you have to majorly twist christianity to justify). This is about the terrible things that have been done by the christian religious hierarchy. The issue is that the people who defined exactly what is and is not christianity for most of christianity’s history, the people who decided the exact beliefs that would later evolve into your beliefs (in case you still can’t guess who I’m talking about, here’s another clue: really big hats), are the exact same guys who ordered and carried out all the most terrible things in the history of your religion.

I kinda feel like I’ve been the opposite of bitchy here. I think I’ve been at least reasonably accommodating (“saintly” is a word I would never apply to myself in any serious context). In the interest of productive discussion I’ve taken every opportunity on this thread to grant the legitimacy of your points (including [and please don’t take this as bitchy] some pretty f*cking iffy ones). And on this latest tangent I think I’ve already bent over backward to explicitly state that “a lot of the atrocities that are commonly blamed on religion have been largely based on other causes”. I mean I f*cking gave you the tea party and one of the crusades. The g-dd*mn crusades for christ’s sake. And one of the bigger ones at that (do you have any f*cking idea how many people died in the Second Crusade?).

if I really was more interested in denigrating you than speaking accurately, do you actually think that (without even being asked) I would just toss out a political movement with the stated goal of establishing a christian theocracy, and a war to reclaim the holy land in the name of Jesus, as things that can’t be entirely blamed on religion? *Especially* when my openly stated bias is against christianity and my openly stated goal is to argue that christianity leads to sh*t like crusades and tea parties.

Just a couple more quick thoughts in closing. Something from someone named Duncan Hunter via Brian M on the “Is religion to blame for atrocities?” thread. And something I told you in our first conversation on “Why must we respect your beliefs?”. I think that both are particularly relevant at this moment.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/forum/topic/is-religion-to-blame-for-atrocities
http://unreasonablefaith.com/2010/06/03/why-must-respect-your-beliefs/

"I myself don't blame religion for human violence, because I regard religion as a human invention. To blame atrocities on religion is to take religion at its own estimation as an autonomous, superhuman (or other-than-human) force; I blame them on human beings projecting their own attitudes onto their gods and getting them back endowed with authority. This also means, however, that the good things about human beings are also our doing. I think we can do better, but I'm not sure I have much faith in that possibility. One way to advance in that direction, I think, is for human beings to own all our actions, instead of crediting gods for them for better or worse."

“I think what you are defending when you defend “christianity” is a much different idea than what I am attacking when I attack “christianity”.”

Perhaps.

But mostly I consider religion a tool, and one which focuses input and increases the output, in much the same way a hammer does.

But if you wanted nails not to be driven in, one good way to help would be to get rid of all the hammers?

I don't consider religion the cause of anything, much in the same way that I do not consider hammers the cause of nails being driven in.

If I am understanding JonJon correctly, he is saying that it is a bad idea to introduce emotional elements into a debate in a way that may distract or misdirect the debate from the argument itself.

I don't think anyone here has made the claim that religion is the root of all evil. I consider it to be the cause of some good and a whole lot of evil, but on the whole the balance sheet is negative and therefore we would be better off without it. Religious belief is not a force that can ever be safely harnessed for the good of mankind. I feel the same way about nuclear energy.

Rhetorical or explanatory. Maybe caricature? I have heard people say things like this before, but not this specifically. This is one of the directions "imagine there's no religion" sometimes goes, although it doesn't often get quite that far. At any rate, I primarily intended it as a hypothetical in order to explain myself to UrsaM. If it was out of bounds, then I take it back. :D

"religion is a root cause of evil, and that's why I'm not religious"

Has anyone said this? Or was that rhetorical?

That's very long, and I'm still trying to sort through my objections.

Let me answer UrsaM:

"Accurate diagnosis of a problem can be demonstrated independently of one's desires to merely denigrate an opponent. The diagnosis is either accurate or it is not; this is determined by checking the facts. To say that you cannot or should not denigrate something that you have diagnosed as a problem because you might be perceived as biased about the subject does not make much sense to me if the facts do indeed support your diagnosis. It is when your bias gets in the way of a correct diagnosis that the problem occurs."

I agree, with one caveat. I think the last sentence should read, "It is when your bias gets in the way of either making or communicating a correct diagnosis that the problem occurs." I don't think one should be penalized for having a side in an argument, or for believing one thing over another. Denigrating one idea is an important part of argumentation, and it is often justified. However, just because an argument is justified, does not mean that it is useful to make it. It is justified to say "I have diagnosed this problem: thing 'x' is quite bad for you. I have been saying this for years." However, it is not as useful as saying, for example "I have often thought that thing 'x' is quite bad for you; therefore, I looked into it and these results show that it is indeed quite bad for you."

Making an argument and then bolstering it with personal opinion is not the same as having a personal opinion and bolstering it with an argument. Either of these is better than not distinguishing between argument and personal feeling at all. Even if saying "religion is a root cause of evil, and that's why I'm not religious" is not in fact making an argument and then bolstering it with personal opinion- if it is in fact properly deduced and supported etc. -it is not useful to put it in such terms. If one has justification for one's argument, but that justification is not clearly demarcated from denigrating opinion, then the justification is not being used to its fullest extent: both sides will tend to confuse the two, which will make both sides look bad, one for confusing the two in the first place, and the other for being confused.

I hope that explains a little more what I meant earlier. Given what I actually said, your comment is spot on, and that's my fault.

"But if it’s fair to point out that society has historically been driven by an assumption that god or gods exist, I think it is also fair to point out that historically this has not been a good thing."

I really don't agree. I have never been convinced that this is true, and believe you me the idea has been pushed pretty hard. Not the fairness, it's fair to point out whatever you want. I categorically deny that religion is the root of all evil, that religion is fundamentally evil, or even that religion has caused disproportionately more evil than any other sort of ideology, philosophy, political theory, or social "imperative."

What is the reasoning? That by virtue of it's "religion-ness," religion causes people to behave badly? I think that's awfully ad-hoc, and probably not what you mean. If you do mean this, we need to put that right asap. That it is a strong belief in a specific set of tenets, carried down culturally, that causes people to behave badly? Even if we allow that people aren't nearly as responsible for their own actions as I personally think they are, strong culturally preserved beliefs are hardly limited to religion. Is the idea that because religious beliefs are so fundamentally different from the way the world actually is, that somehow this dissociation causes people to behave badly? I suppose one could try to argue it, but I don't know that you'd get very far, considering that people's beliefs about the way the world actually is are in my opinion fundamentally separate from their religious views; not to mention the fact that sometimes the way the world actually is "causes" people to behave badly.

Do we indicate that a "preference for superstition" is the problem? If we are looking at fundamental human qualities that seem to have been present for most, if not all, of the species' development, well, there are lots of those. How are we intended to choose? The correlation between "preference for superstition" and bad behavior doesn't seem necessarily more causal than, say, "preference for material comfort," "preference for a certain amount of meat in the diet," or "preference for societal approval."

If we are looking at fundamental human qualities that seem to have been present for most, if not all, of the species' development, well, there are lots of those.

How are we making the determination that one of these traits is more causally productive of "bad behavior" than another? Is it based only upon the rapid secularization of certain parts of the world; a sort of benchmark for standard of living associated (confusingly) also with a preponderance of material comforts, good nutrition, and a wide variety of socially encouraged career and hobby choices? Secularization is so closely linked to high levels of industrialization, and thereby to thousands of other trends, that it is difficult for me to see how they can be clearly extricated.

Unless your argument is that religion is unavoidably the primary drive in the human social consciousness (which I wouldn't know how to argue) I don't see how it can be said to be more causal than many, many other factors. If you think religion, ideology, preference for superstition, or what have you, *is* in fact the (or "a") primary human drive, then I think it is probably legit to assume its primary causal role in human behavior (or at least "a" causal role.) But then you've made religion (or whatever) too big to fail: it should be proportionately causal of "good behavior." The question would then become "which religion (or whatever) is *best*." And that's a very different question.

"That the institution was evil (and I’m sure some nazis were lovely people) would simply be self evident."

Self-evident won't cut it here for me. Or rather, self-evident to you is not self-evident to me. I'm not saying that institutions can't be evil; I think they can certainly be used toward evil ends, and I even think that some are more likely to be used thusly than others. But why is religion self-evidently more likely to be used for evil than anything else? Why is it more likely to be used to justify evil deeds? Is it fundamentally *easier* to do evil in the confines of religion than say, politics, law, or even familial relations?

We really can't just write these qualities into religion if we want to call religion a disproportionately causal factor in bad behavior. That makes any assertion tautologically true, and very very uninteresting: "religion is anything disproportionately causal of bad behavior, therefore religion is disproportionately causal of bad behavior, therefore religion is evil." I'm not accusing you of saying this, mind, but I'm pointing out the danger and the difficulty. In order to assert this, as far as I can tell, we would need some way to accurately diagnose primary causes of human behavior in isolation. Since this doesn't exist relatively often in the real world, I don't see how you can make this assertion.

@JonJon:

Accurate diagnosis of a problem can be demonstrated independently of one's desires to merely denigrate an opponent. The diagnosis is either accurate or it is not; this is determined by checking the facts. To say that you cannot or should not denigrate something that you have diagnosed as a problem because you might be perceived as biased about the subject does not make much sense to me if the facts do indeed support your diagnosis. It is when your bias gets in the way of a correct diagnosis that the problem occurs.

Even if you suspect that the questioner might be biased, there is nothing inherently wrong with being asked to imagine a world without religion. I think it might look something like Britain or Sweden, where religiosity is already quite low and still falling.

Sorry if you thought I was calling you evil. Try rereading after coffee and see if you don't get something a little different out of that post. And definitely get another cup before you finish reading this one…

But while we're on the subject, the fact that religion has inspired so much evil is a key part of my argumentative high ground. And I'm not even including things like the Tea Party and the Second Crusade, where religion has been cynically used to draw support from religious people for an agenda that has little to do with faith.

A lot of the atrocities that are commonly blamed on religion have been largely based on other causes. But just looking at the stuff that humans absolutely would not have ever been inspired to do without a preference for superstition still leaves us with a pretty bloody picture of the history of christianity.

I’m not trying to be bitchy about this but while I can easily believe that our species could still have behaved abhorrently on occasion if there had never been any religion to begin with (hey, resources are scarce, you gotta look out for the tribe), I don’t think I can imagine a scenario where an entirely atheist species would ever f*cking think to burn witches.

The problem is not exactly that religion is the problem. The problem is that religion is the blindfold that keeps us from dealing with real problems reasonably. Religion’s main solution to tangible problems like “hunger and suffering in third world nations” has been to exploit hunger, add suffering, sell religion as the answer to suffering, and occasionally tell people who don’t f*cking know any better (largely because religion has encouraged them not to) that condoms cause aids and homosexuals are possessed by the devil.

Imagine for a moment that you live in a country where nazism is the dominant ideology of a staggeringly large majority of the population and the semi-unofficial state religion. Where nazi ideology is taught in schools and churches to an entire generation of impressionable children. Where you can’t get elected city f*cking councilman if you don’t heil Hitler. Now imagine you’re jewish, there’s a mob of nazis marching past your front door with a bright orange and green “god hates jews” sign, and they’ve been doing their concentration camp schtick for almost two thousand years. You would probably spend a little more time thinking about nazis in your day to day life. That the institution was evil (and I’m sure some nazis were lovely people) would simply be self evident.

I know it seems like I’m being unfair. But if it’s fair to point out that society has historically been driven by an assumption that god or gods exist, I think it is also fair to point out that historically this has not been a good thing.

"Imagine no religion?"

Man, I have just never, ever understood this line of thought. I hear it a lot. It sounds, if you'll excuse me, bitchy. I don't like it because it takes any sort of argumentative high ground that an atheist might have had, and ditches it for the self-gratifying notion that their opponent is evil.

To put it another way: I don't like Nazism. I think it led to atrocities. That's all well and good, but if I am so opposed to Nazism that I diagnose it as the central problem facing humanity, my interests have come into conflict. On the one hand, I want to point out problems accurately with this system. On the other, I want to trash Nazism. When I say "Nazis" (or whatever) "are the primary problem facing the world today," it is harder to distinguish between my desire to be accurate in diagnosing a problem, and my desire to blame Nazis. You see what I mean? I woke up not twenty minutes ago, and the coffee is still settling in, so bear with me.

I'm willing to cut more slack to those who say "the biggest problem facing the world today is hunger and suffering in third world nations." At least that isn't a direct attack on opposed ideological views disguised as concern for humanity at large.

As to your actual point, well, I think it would be silly to say that people do not use religion as their justification to do terrible things. I do think that human tendency is independent of religion, but since they are so similar in age (having both existed since humans have) it would be very hard to establish with any certainty.

Edit: this comes off hostile. I think it's the lack of coffee...

@UrsaMinor

“Might I suggest that you explore the concept of "agency" as part of the evolution of religion?”

Good suggestion, sort of what I had planned. I think there are definitely some other factors that make the seed grow, but the human tendency to see faces in the clouds is clearly a major contributing factor, and seems like a pretty occam-friendly explanation for the origin of all gods.

@JonJon

“I note a fairly consistent human belief in God; our society and interaction with each other is historically driven in large part by the assumption that God or gods exist.”

“It is very hard for me to look at a human endeavor and point my finger at the black spots and demand change. It's all black spots. I tend to regard that as baseline.”

Imagine no religion?

You know, the next time something is demonstrated not to have a naturalistic explanation, it will be the first.

Just sayin'.

While I agree that Occam gets overused, and is in fact often wrong, it is not outside of logical thought to say that the solution that has, up to this point, been correct 100% of the time should be the default position until proven wrong.

@Nox:

You are absolutely right about Occam's Razor. It should be used as a logical tool, not worshiped as dogma. I believe the classic formulation is pretty close to "the simplest explanation that accounts for all the facts is to be preferred"- which does not come anywhere close to stating that "the simplest explanation is always right".

I also agree that a naturalistic worldview is the best default, as it is the simplest explanation for the universe that we see and measure. This may be overturned at any point in the future if new evidence comes to light that suggests that a naturalistic worldview does not account for all the facts.

Might I suggest that you explore the concept of "agency" as part of the evolution of religion? Human attribution of agency to events and inanimate objects starts very early; if a toddler injures himself playing with a toy, he will almost always attribute it to conscious intent on the part of the toy. It seems to me very possible that this mental quirk could be the ultimate root of the concept of god and other supernatural beings.

“Here's my problem. The most reasonable explanation *will always be* the naturalistic one. By default. I don't like worldviews which do not admit the occasional defeat, or at least some ways in which they might realistically be defeated, I find the resulting trend toward reading all historical texts naturalistically to be really irritating.”

That does make some sense to me actually. I don’t exactly find naturalistic explanations “irritating” (for reasons Ursa just addressed naturalistic explanations are quite useful). But I do firmly believe that Occam’s sharp cutty thingy should only be used to sharply reduce possibilities and never to eliminate them. The proper application of OSCT should be something like “the simplest explanation is *almost* always right”. On various occasions when I have encountered atheists (and sometimes others) who insist on applying OSCT dogmatically I have been quite “irritated” by it. So I don’t think the simplest explanation is *always* the best. In fact if I had to I could probably think of at least a few dozen examples where the simplest and most seemingly logical explanation turned out to be wrong.

While this is not a good reason why a naturalistic explanation should not be the default, it is certainly a good reason why a naturalistic explanation should not be viewed as “inerrant”.

”People in a bronze age (ish) civilization probably couldn't write anything that accurately indicated to us their contact.”

One more area where I would probably have to grant christianity some wiggle room. I still think there is a lack of evidence that Moses saw god, and a wealth of evidence that Moses was lying (or a fictional character but we can leave that to one side). But something else I think (and I hinted at this a couple posts back) is that if god did try to come to Moses and say “this is how an atom works”, it would have served no purpose for god, and it only would have confused Moses. So in my own internal calculus, I give theism at least as much credibility as “ancient astronaut theory” in this area.

Speaking of which (or perhaps not depending on how you interpret Ezekiel), here’s a thing which is possibly not unrelated to the question of “whether the "chariot" is actually a chariot, or just a weird vehicle that nobody understood” (not sure if you’ve encountered this concept already [or if this is specifically what you had in mind with that whole chariot thing] but I thought you might find it interesting):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkabah

“This is seriously the most in-depth and productive discussion I've ever been involved with here, which at this point is saying something, because I remember arguing with people long, long into the night.”

Same here. I’m having the time of my life. I’m all about the fusion of ideas, and this discussion has challenged me with new ideas, and forced me to sharpen and improve ideas I already had. Which is the exact thing I came to UF looking for.

“You're a saint (unless you don't want to be burdened with that label).”

Well I’d probably prefer a personal condemnation from the pope to full on canonization (maybe if I can skip the declaration non cultus part and still get my feast day off from work), but I do appreciate your comment.

“For posterity's sake, I'd like to…”

And you may be uncannily right to mention posterity. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating to say that memes have been created and shaped here which will inevitably spread beyond UF and may very well have some significant effect on the sphere of human ideas. Maybe in a relatively small way, but this is a debate that has raged for centuries, and as far as I know, no one has ever taken it to the level we have already reached in just eight pages (okay about 60 pages as books go, but we’re still talking about a pretty good anthology of most of the best arguments for and against christianity). In the end, it is doubtful that either of us will be admitting defeat or switching sides after what we have each already seen in our own lives. But for a posterity of random motherf*ckers on the internet who happen to stumble upon this page (or something written by someone who was partially inspired by something here), things said here may prove to be a deciding factor in their own personal subjective quests for truth.

Who knows? By the time all is said, done, and tallied up at the heat death of the Universe, it is entirely conceivable that your willingness to step in and play “whipping boy” here will turn out to have benefited humanity a lot more than that other “whipping boy” (No I’m not talking about GoatFeathers).

One particular depth of this discussion that I think it could be productive to explore in Whipping Boy Round 9,

“I think God exists independent of the Bible, or at least I like to think I do. I know it is probably impossible to accurately trace one's own beliefs that accurately.”

What I’d really like to dissect with you in the next round is not specifically your own belief in god (although I think both your beliefs and my own will still be inevitably central to this topic), but the genealogy of religious belief in general. What the source is. How it is transmitted. How it evolves. How ideas get from Augustine to JonJon or from Nietszche to Nox. I have some theories on the topic but I’ve already rambled on more than enough for one day.

Peace & Love
Saint noX

@JonJon:

I'm not trying to be harsh with what comes next, but I am going to be blunt.

The above post leaves me pretty much in the dark. I'll agree that it can be difficult to exactly pin down the origin of a believe held since childhood, but it seems to me you could at least quote one of the philosophical proofs of a philosophical god that you find convincing as a adult (although I highly doubt that such had anything to do with your originally adopting a belief in god- that sounds way more like confirmation that you sought after the belief was established).

Free will is an interesting question, but not relevant to the questions I asked. And to me, the free will question is important only if there is a god to judge our actions. A god who preordains our actions and then judges us by them is committing a grievous moral offense and is not fit to be worshiped. If there is no god judging us, it does not matter. Either we are making free moral choices or we are acting out a set of particles collisions and interactions predetermined by the laws of physics from the initial state of the universe. Either way, we do what we do. Free will or lack thereof without a god does not present me with any philosophical problems.

I'm especially left in the dark about question #2. I think you really do need to think about it more, because all I'm hearing from you (now, and in past posts) is "I feel warm and fuzzy about some unnamed aspect of the Bible." You have claimed to like some seemingly concrete things and I was looking for some specific examples illustrating things like, for instance, one of the brilliant logical and procedural jumps you mention above, or an example of one important discovery from another discipline that it "incorporates" (side note- I think this is not the word you meant to use). Or a thumbnail sketch of the coherent theological framework that you allude to. Or what is aesthetically compelling to you about Christian theology. These are all from your own words, but I'm waiting for some actual substance.

Again, I'm not trying to be harsh. I just feel compelled to point out that while I in no way believe you are deliberately sidestepping the questions, you haven't succeeded in answering them either.

I would absolutely agree that most of human history has been characterized by an assumption of the existence of a god or gods. It is interesting to note, however, that belief in a deity has recently fallen to historical lows in certain first-world nations, and continues to fall, and that sociologists have found a very strong negative correlation between religious belief and material well-being and security. People in socialist democracies like Sweden (to pick one example), who enjoy universal public education, good health care, high standards of living and a strong social safety net, have been abandoning religion in droves. Things that are positively correlated with high rates of religious belief are poverty, unemployment, social instability (including being in a war zone), poor access to health care, poor nutrition, lack of education, and lack of a social safety net for the disabled and elderly. Most of humanity has lived under the latter conditions for most of history; it is not surprising that we find that most humans for most of history have been religious.

Edit:

Thanks, JonJon. It has been an epic thread. UnFaithCon sounds like it would be a blast (if you don't mind hobnobbing with heathens such as myself).

"It seems a peculiar closed loop- the Bible (I assume) suggests to you the idea of personal god in the first place, the Bible is shown to inconsistent and unreliable on many levels, and yet your belief that there must be a personal god like the Bible says is unshaken, so therefore there must be some small kernel of True Theology in the Bible to support that belief, Q.E.D. This is where you lose me."

Right, that would for sure be a loop. I think God exists independent of the Bible, or at least I like to think I do. I know it is probably impossible to accurately trace one's own beliefs that accurately. But at any rate, I *think* that I would think this without evidence from the Bible or from Christianity proper.

I find some of the philosophical proofs for a philosophical god fairly convincing.

I note a fairly consistent human belief in God; while I know that this leads easily into a logical fallacy if I say "lots of people believe God exists, QED God exists," it is nevertheless suggestive to me that even if God doesn't actually exist, our society and interaction with each other is historically driven in large part by the assumption that God or gods exist.

I believe most authentic moral codes depend upon the concept of free will. I find that while I am comfortable with free will in a system which posits a God, I am not entirely comfortable with the fact that most systems of thought which do not admit of a God, also do not admit of authentic free will. (I'm not pinning blame on any specific system here, merely making a broad generalization. I am also not saying that authentic morality is not possible without a God, but I do think the two are harder to reconcile than they might be.)

I am in the privileged position of having met and conversed with some staggeringly intelligent people. Some have confessed their own confusion or apathy as to the question of God's existence, some have professed a firm opinion or belief. I have met people whose opinions I deeply respect who disagree with me. I find, though, that among these people whose knowledge and sheer intelligence I respect most, perhaps three or four out of five firmly believe in the existence of God, although often not the evangelical Christian version.

That's at least a start towards why I believe in God.

I find that Christian theology is aesthetically very compelling, although whether that is because so much of the western canon is built around it I couldn't tell you. I find it capable of brilliant logical and procedural jumps within its own closed system. It remains dynamic even after it has lost basically all of its once formidable academic credence. I think the way it can incorporate important discoveries from other disciplines is impressive, especially given its own history of extreme conservatism. I'm having trouble phrasing any of this theology stuff any less generally, which perhaps means that my own thoughts about it are not terribly well-formed. Maybe I need to think about it a little more.

Edit:

For posterity's sake, I'd like to thank everyone who is still talking with me here. Nox, you're a saint (unless you don't want to be burdened with that label, in which case you're a cool person.) Ty, you're awesome and I promise I'll buy a copy of your book when it comes out. UrsaM, for keeping track of my rambling long enough to find exactly the crucial point of my argument and forcing me to answer for it, I have to thank you. LMNOP and vorjack, thank you for knowing all those things I don't know. GoatFeathers, wherever you are, this was an epic thread.

This is seriously the most in-depth and productive discussion I've ever been involved with here, which at this point is saying something, because I remember arguing with people long, long into the night.

I'm totally going to UnFaithCon.

@JonJon:

If there were some independent evidence for alien space bats, I would be completely open to the idea that alien space bats exist, and completely open to the idea that they influenced ancient civilization. It would merit serious scientific investigation. But please note that given evidence that alien space bats exist, the alien space bat theory itself would become a naturalistic explanation.

I'm not sure why naturalism irritates you so much; it's the only reliable way we have of getting information about the universe. It covers everything that we can observe and measure. Every other form of "evidence" is just mucking around in our own heads. If God exists and interacts with the material world in a way that is distinguishable from blind physical processes, then we could detect that, and "Goddidit" would be a naturalistic explanation, too. If God exists and does NOT interact with the material world in a way that is distinguishable from blind physical processes, you have no reason to suspect God's existence in the first place. The problem with nonmaterialist/supernatural explanations is that you can posit absolutely *any* nonmaterial, unobservable process or entity to explain X, and the Christian god is on an equal footing with the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

You seem to have a good handle on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various arguments that have been bandied about. What I keep hearing from you, though, is that you have a belief in God that seems to come before the evidence, and which survives even after you've whittled away the authority of the Bible. It seems a peculiar closed loop- the Bible (I assume) suggests to you the idea of personal god in the first place, the Bible is shown to inconsistent and unreliable on many levels, and yet your belief that there must be a personal god like the Bible says is unshaken, so therefore there must be some small kernel of True Theology in the Bible to support that belief, Q.E.D. This is where you lose me.

Maybe we'd better back up if I am to understand you. Two questions:

1. Why do you "think God probably exists"? (or, if you prefer a drier phrasing, what is the cause for your belief in God?)

2. What, exactly, "hangs together" for you theologically in the Bible in a way that is "pretty cool"?

I like drink!

Look, I get what you are saying here. I don't think the Bible contains a whole lot of stuff, if any, that couldn't be explained by pure human effort. I don't think the book we have now "requires" divine inspiration.

I can't even think of ways in which, realistically, the opposite might be true. Let's suppose that alien space bats actually did come down and help build the pyramids or what have you. (There's a fascinating discussion about this on the forums, in which Ty talks about alcohol.) People in a bronze age (ish) civilization probably couldn't write anything that accurately indicated to us their contact with this civilization. A flying chariot coming down out of the sky and carrying off a miracle worker can mean a lot of things. We can assume, in the absence of archaeological evidence, that this Biblical story means a lot of things. We can assume that it is flat wrong, or mythologized, or metaphorical, or literally true, etc. We can argue about whether the "chariot" is actually a chariot, or just a weird vehicle that nobody understood.

Here's my problem. The most reasonable explanation *will always be* the naturalistic one. By default. Because I am a contrary person by nature, and because I don't like worldviews which do not admit the occasional defeat, or at least some ways in which they might realistically be defeated, I find the resulting trend toward reading all historical texts naturalistically to be really irritating.

So what I'm posing is a "what if." (Believe me, I'm aware of the ways in which this is not enough to support a firm belief according to the rules we all mostly agree on for what is and is not reasonable.) I regard the idea that the Bible was written and compiled by some old guys, who bickered about what went in it and who couldn't even seem to find very much compatible material, to be not only boring, but actively irritating. Thus, I check to see if a "what if" can step in for a naturalistic explanation. I check to see what kinds of assumptions would be necessary. If these are assumptions I've already made, then I'm inclined to give these "what ifs" slightly more credence than someone else might.

I believe in God. It doesn't sound pretty to my secularly-trained ears, believe me, but it is true. I look at the Bible to look at some people's thoughts about what that God might be like. What I see is a complex, interesting, challenging idea of God that certainly shows some societal evolution, but which also hangs together in a theological framework that I think is pretty cool. Some of this complexity seems like a good fit for the God I think probably exists.

Would it take divine inspiration to write the Bible? Pssh, naw. Would it take alien space bat intervention to explain the weird stories? Same answer. But if, independently, I had reason to believe that alien space bats hung around during the bronze age and had the opportunity to move some big rocks for people, then even if everything that we know is explicable without their introduction, then we might be justified in trying to figure where they might have stepped in. Does that make sense? I don't need cave paintings to be anything but cave paintings, and I don't need tribal histories to be anything but tribal histories. But if I think there might be a divinity that cares about what people do, then it does make sense to see where there might be room for him in a crazy religious document like the Bible.

Some stuff can be ruled out by this approach! For example, I think I've fairly firmly ruled out a divinity which wrote a perfectly accurate, completely error-free book so that people would believe he exists. I just don't think that's viable at all, and I gave it a pretty fair shake. Better than fair really, because I'm willing to go out of my way. I'm willing to go that far out of my way to look at what might be "divine inspiration" too. And while I don't think there is much independent evidence for it, it does mesh better with the rest of my thinking. Being completely biased toward giving divine inspiration every chance, I find that it actually doesn't completely fall to pieces like scriptural inerrancy. I obviously have to extend it every chance, but when I do, some things do work.

Is this good, independent evidence for Biblical inspiration? No. In fact, I'll admit that that may not exist. I don't know that I've found any. But it wasn't really what I was looking for. I, in my cocky, self-assured way, don't really care about good, independent evidence for what may be nothing more than a metaphysical construction.

I’m sorry if anything I’ve said has come across as “You’re imagining this JonJon”. That has not been the intended point of any of it (but I do have the bad habit of sometimes speaking cryptically). The fact is I don’t exactly know you. I don’t know exactly where you are in your own journey or how you got there. I don’t know exactly what you have personally seen or experienced. All I know about you is what you have posted here and what I can extrapolate from that to fill in the blanks. At this point I would probably consider it unwarranted and pointless to argue against your personal experiences or aesthetic tastes.

But I really am trying to understand you. I really do want to know what it is that you see that I don’t see that allows you to look at that whole mangled ridiculous picture and get something sensible out of it. I don’t mean this to offend. I mean it to clarify. What f*cking piece of the puzzle am I missing here? You are obviously aware of a lot of the things that convinced me the book was not divinely inspired, yet you seem to find something on the other side more convincing. And I honestly want to understand what that is.

It’s not like I don’t get the idea of literary themes. Literature is kinda my schtick as well. And I agree that there are some recurring literary themes in the bible. My actual point was that as far as I can tell the cause of these recurring themes appears to have more to do with editing than divine inspiration or the intentions of the original authors. But I do fully agree that some literary themes do recur. But if you don’t mind my asking perhaps you can expound a bit more on these themes and how they tie in with divine inspiration.

“It doesn't make sense to pin the entirety of the canon's creation on one guy.”

True, hence the “or whoever” after “Esdras”. Once again my bad habit of speaking cryptically. I did vastly oversimplify a complex process, and you were probably right to call me on it. But my intended point was a pretty important one so let me see if I can put it a little more clearly.

I was not trying to say “one person decided what would and would not be in the bible”. If I said that I would be wrong. And if you thought I was saying that you would be right to point out that I am wrong. What I was trying to say would be more along the lines of “pretty much all modern forms of the old testament and/or Tanach can trace their divergent ancestries through one source. We can be fairly certain that many jews before and after this point compiled different canons containing different books (and a lot of the same books). But most of those canons do not have any surviving copies today (and there is no particular reason to think the version that was picked up by Christianity was the original form of said canon). The canon has taken many divergent roads, but at one point in it’s history, every road either dead ended or converged to cross one single bridge, diverging again afterward and giving us the multiple disagreements as to canon that exist to this day. Even at this particular bottleneck in the canon’s history it would be overly simplistic to attribute all editorial choices to one guy. But we are still talking about a closed group of scribes working under a rigid editorial process defined by the goals of the jewish religious hierarchy which was ultimately overseen by one guy.”

If the canon is not collected and edited by a limited group of people then I have a few margin notes I would like to submit for the 2011 edition of the King James Bible.

“It is surprising that things are as coherent as they are. If I took your anthology of geometry and added my own books to it three hundred years later, what would that look like?”

It would be well on its way to looking like the bible.

“I don't think it makes a lot of sense for the Bible to actually still thematically match the themes I'd expect from a "divinely inspired" book. Nonetheless, some of those things still seem to be there.”

Perhaps the issue is simply that we have slightly different expectations of what we would find in a divinely inspired book. I’d expect transcendent timeless truth. I’d expect the coherence to outweigh the incoherence. I’d expect more recurring philosophical themes with less concern for literary themes. I’d expect the author of the laws of science to have a better grasp on science. I’d expect the god of friendly reasonable christians like JonJon and my parents to not be issuing such barbaric commandments. I’d expect that if our only way to know what Jesus said is through the gospels, then they should agree on what he said. I’d expect that if god went through the trouble of divinely inspiring a book, he would have put some effort into preserving the accuracy of a message which in theory is supposed to be kind of important.

The issue is not that I think you are necessarily wrong about what kinds of things we might find in a divine book or that I don’t think the bible meets these criteria. I have no problem granting that the bible is “thematically/symbolically linked with itself”, “complex when taken as a whole”, and “primarily concerned with man’s relationship with the divine” since these are all true statements about the bible and since you already granted that these points alone are “certainly not proof of divine inspiration”. “More or less coherent with itself”, might be a little more of a problem, but we’ll get to that.

The issue is that I find *none* of the things I would expect to find in a divinely inspired book. To my mind, the concept of “divinely inspired” explicitly invokes the claim that “humans could not have written this by themselves”. But my own examination of the circumstances which produced the bible suggests to me that the bible is exactly the book that would be produced by such circumstances without any supernatural interference. It reads like a book with “fractious, completely opposed intelligences behind it”. Any overall consistency or recurring literary themes that I am aware of appear to be “a coincidental remnant from the original texts, or even more likely a later introduction by people who consistently wanted the same things out of their book, even if only unconsciously”.

I’m still willing to entertain the idea that you are seeing something I am not. But what is it? What do you see that I don’t? What piece of this puzzle am I missing that enables you to look at the bible and say “yeah, that really does make sense”?

And on the whole pi thing,

“I wouldn't look for ten people writing…pi to the nth digit.”

“According to 1st Kings 7:23 pi=3.”

“I've always been curious about pi=3, just because it is such a heated debate.”

I actually just brought it up half jokingly because pi was already a part of your analogy from before. I knew I should have left it out, and I’m gonna admit wrongness on this point and correct myself.

The bible does not contain the wrong value of pi. Nor does it contain the right value of pi. As far as I can tell the concept of pi is completely absent from the bible (unless you want to get into qabbalistic readings but that is a whole other thread). As someone who has spent a great deal of time cataloging errors in the bible, I do not actually consider this verse to be a real error, and I would never have even thought of it if one of your christian brethren in a previous online debate had not claimed the “accurate” calculation of pi in 1st Kings 7:23 as absolute proof of divine inspiration. What the verse in question actually says is (still using KJV here): “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about”. No mention of any universal ratio of circles, nor any explicit claim that Solomon’s tub even was a perfect circle, or that the two ends of the line were touching or even that thirty cubits was a completely accurate measurement. Of course an inerrant reading is “completely accurate” or “completely inaccurate”, so the bible must contain pi if it describes a circle. But there is a much more reasonable reading, which is simply that this verse (without addressing pi in any way whatsoever) simply gives a rough description of the size of a pool rounded to the nearest cubit (“we made this pool for Solomon, it was basically a circle. Like ten cubits across and about thirty cubits around”). Not wrong, not right, and probably not a productive debate for either side.

By the way, whatever else I have said here, I want you to know that I find you to be a thoughtful and interesting person and a worthy opponent. Not just any random schmuck could go five on one at this table, and I do respect you for it. If we ever get that UnFaithCon thing off the ground I would very much like to have a drink with you JonJon.

Also, I randomly found this article. I've always been curious about pi=3, just because it is such a heated debate. Most internet resources are firmly biased in one direction or another, and I have a very difficult time trusting articles about this topic. This seems pretty interesting though:

http://u.cs.biu.ac.il/~tsaban/Pdf/latexpi.pdf

@ Ty

"But, you know, scholars don't have to spend thousands of hours writing treatises on why Lord of the Rings is telling the same story. It just is. The fact that a great deal of thought and interpretation is necessary to try and force the bible into one story is quite telling, to me."

I feel like you're putting words in my mouth at this point, man. I've been trying to emphasize that the Bible is *not* the same story, and I've said it multiple times. LotR is written by one guy, over a period of a few years, and is intended to be one story. I *know* it isn't similar to the Bible in any of these ways. Why would I argue that it is? Maybe I'm just being oversensitive on this one.

@ UrsaM

"The hoop-jumping that one must go through in order to attempt to make the Bible appear philosophically or logically coherent is insane."

I think that while it is certainly possible to go through this much hoop-jumping, and that some people do it, it is also possible to arrive at similar conclusions without excessive hoop-jumping. Coherent and consistent don't have to mean "perfect," "perfectly coherent," or "perfectly consistent." Frankly, I think expecting a book like the Bible to be those things *does* require unrealistic hoop-jumping.

@ Nox

"And yet for all this kvetching, it could still be said that the Talmud is a book about how Judaism was practiced and how jews lived at the time at the time of the writing. This is about how much thematic similarity I see in the old testament."

This is probably my biggest point of divergence. I see a great deal more thematic similarity in my own reading, but in all fairness that's kind of my schtick as a literature person.

"We can be fairly certain that when Esdras or whoever decided to formalize the old testament canon, he had a lot of texts to choose from. A lot more than wound up in the bible. So it would seem that whatever common thread runs through the books could be more logically traced to the religious beliefs and literary tastes of the editors than divine authorship."

What I'm saying is that since there were so many different "editors" with so many different religious beliefs and literary tastes (because after all it doesn't make sense to pin the entirety of the canon's creation on one guy, not when multiple disagreements as to canon exist to this day) it is surprising that things are as coherent as they are.

If I took your anthology of geometry and added my own books to it three hundred years later, what would that look like? Especially if I added "Flatland," Plato's geometric proofs, and Godel? I could easily turn a geometry anthology into a philosophy anthology. Someone who came after me might excise a lot of the stuff you originally left because it didn't match, etc. What I'm saying is that with the sheer number of "editors," I don't think it makes a lot of sense for the Bible to actually still thematically match the themes I'd expect from a "divinely inspired" book. Nonetheless, some of those things still seem to be there.

At any rate, all this could be explained in other ways besides "you're imagining this JonJon" -which might not even be wrong- This could be a coincidental remnant from the original texts, or even more likely a later introduction by people who consistently wanted the same same things out of their book, even if only unconsciously. This is certainly not the best evidence in the world, but I don't think it is possible for me to suddenly present conclusive evidence on this score. I merely find this suggestive, and perhaps a starting place.

I'm with Nox and Ty. The hoop-jumping that one must go through in order to attempt to make the Bible appear philosophically or logically coherent is insane. And it doesn't succeed.

As far as I can see, the only motivation to do this exercise is an a priori desire on the part of the apologist to find the Bible divinely inspired, self-consistent and true. There are a variety of emotional reasons why one might desire this to be so, and a variety of emotional reasons why one might personally accept the [logically unsatisfactory] results of the exercise as proving the premise- but there are no rational reasons for either. It is far more simple, straightforward, honest, and to my mind, productive to say "The Bible is a book that contains both good stuff and bad stuff", and then put it away and live your life according to the good stuff you have found in it and, equally importantly, that you have found in other sources.