Why all the Bible talk?

Religion and Secularism
1

In the mean time I started to watch live streams of AxP, Talk Heathen and occasionally of Seth Andrews.

In most cases there was a lot of debate about the content of the Bible, or other holy texts. Now … my innocent mind is so innocent that I havent read Bible, Quran or Torah yet, and i have a particular reason to not do so at the moment. All these books start on accepting the premise of deism, which is then continually (throught the reading) evolving into specific form of theism, and later religious belief.

I happen to be agnostic, who is negative atheist.

I dont possess any knowledge of supernatural being, or being which can be described as a god, not even creator (which is a completely separate claim).

On other hand i read few catholic doctrines and parts of catechism. Both texts accepted not just gnostic theism, but also claim authority of the church based on “Church is bride of Jesus Christ” (you got it right "Holy Church is apparently female) and “Church is infallible because the Holy spirit is with it”.

I see that as non-sequitur, jumping to conclusions, making breathtakingly arrogant claims of authority and infallibility.

At that point i scratched those doctrines and katechism, i scratched the Bible (which is not source of roman catholic teachings anyway), i scratched all the mythology and all what remained is the agnostic state with “I dont know”. I dont even claim the gnostic statement “i know there is no god”.

Hitchens elaborated on this statement by “even if you prove deism or theism, the whole work is still in front of you”, when he regarded to all myths and claims in various holy books, doctrines or laws inspired by religions.

I wonder why american atheists (who are mostly ex-theists or ex-deists, but more specifically ex-members various religious denominations) discuss Bible that much. I understand they want to point all the contradictions and change views of people who are using it for arguing, but anyway…

Apparently i happen to be a nightmare for Jordan Peterson. A man who is unaware of “all the wisdom of the bible”, does not have any “metaphorical substrate” (wicked drinking game btw), and ultimately does not care about contents of the Bible.

Because I have nothing to say about the Bible or any other religious teachings, I am still at square one - prove to me there is anything we can call a god. Then you can start to prove all the associated mythology - start with the creation of all. Weasel wording or using “private” terms wont work…

2

Looking for “edit button” … But back to topic. I will try to explain my view on “bible talk”.

Imagine an individual who is not only agnostic and atheist, but also was not in contact with religious myths of any sort. In my own case (born in ex-communist country) i am very close to that but on scale 1-10 (where 10 is someone who had no contact with religious culture) i am 9.

I took some time to exactly specify what would make me re-think my current agnostic - negative atheist view.

 

  1. Conviction from Agnosticism to positive Gnosticism.
    Bring me an objective proof that there exist a being which can be described as a “god”.
    (And lets define “negative gnosticism” as knowledge that gods do not exists).

My opening position for this is “Open Agnosticism”, the result will be “positive gnosticim” widely described as “spiritual belief”.
This is the point when Hitchens said “you conviced me there are some gods, now all the work is in front of you”.

  1. This god or gods was a creative force of the Universe and Earth
    The result is form of (positive) gnosticim to Deism.

  2. Convince me that this creating god is still acting.
    The result is shift from Deism to Theism.

  3. Convince me that this “acting creator” is the God of your myth
    This requires acceptance of Old Testament, New Testament and eventually The Quran.
    Result is still theism but now specified by the culture. Result can be pantheism as well.

  4. Convince me that “acting creator of your myth” has anything to do with your religious sect, group of church.
    Result is shift from “2nd grade Theist” to “Religious”, where individual accepts specific group, doctrines and laws of the group as “its own”. Keep in mind that myths and doctrines are separate issues.

 

As you can see the whole process cannot be done in 1 step, but in at least 5 and … according to known and given “proofs” by the religious people, I see even more problematic to be converted.

So when someone say “I am roman-catholic” he basically makes 5 different complex claims. Ask 5 questions in this particular order:

  1. Do you claim that your church has a covenant with higher being?
  2. Do you claim that Old Testament, New Testament or Quran are true? (Do you believe that myths associated with your belief are true?)
  3. Do you claim that God(s) still act on Earth/Universe? On what base?
  4. Do you claim that the god(s) created Earth/Universe? On what base?
  5. Do you claim of having knowledge a being or person which can be described as a god? On what base?

If the answer to 5th question is “no, but i still believe” the other four claims are then insincere, and also the Faith is completely insincere. Without such knowledge its not logically possible to conclude that god created universe, god is still acting, that the myths are true, and that religious organizations have any sort of authority.

Now to “Bible talk”… People in USA tend to work on level of 4th claim - that the myths are true or untrue. I would rather see the discussion move closer to the core, to the ultimate assumption and ultimate claim.

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The why is because this is the US. Other nations even with a Christian heritage don’t bother the world with such gibberish.

4

The Bible is an easy target.

Not to mention most American atheists are from Protestant backgrounds where the Bible is simply considered the ultimate authority on religious belief. Picking apart the incoherencies in the Bible must make them feel like they are blowing up the foundation of Christianity.

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy don’t place as much importance on the Bible, and we have less atheists making noise from that side.

5

The Edit selector is at the top right of your post where the post number is. It’s kinda greyed out so easy to miss at first.

On the topic of God or gods in general, I think it’s fairly obvious that gods exist. It’s just that they don’t always exist in the same context as they’re claimed to exist.