Cherry-Picking (Not Literally)
There are three possible ways to view scripture. One can see it as all literal, all figurative or a combination of the two. These approaches are independent of the true / false dichotomy. One can believe or disbelieve from any of the three perspectives. I hold that the first two are intellectually honest, whereas the third is simply a cop-out to evade challenges rather than address them. For purposes of this post, I will be specifically talking about the Bible, but by basic idea should hold for any other faith’s sacred writings
Believers who hold that the Bible is meant to be read literally are called fundamentalists. They either ignore the blatant internal conflicts found therein or chalk them up to “divine mystery,” or some such thing. One way or another, they are not bothered by a literal, inerrant document with contradictions. Non-believers who read the Bible from this perspective see a literal document that can’t keep its story straight, and they therefore reject it. I fall into this latter category. When I read the Bible, which I do A LOT, it is clear to me that the authors intend for it to be taken as written. That is not to say that there are not figurative passages. Jesus uses parables heavily. The OT contains a number of allegorical stories in which the symbolism of various characters and locations is called out. These are what I will call “literal figurative passages.” They are not meant to be taken literally, and we are clearly told so. I base my literal reading largely on the presence of these passages. If we are told that some parts are figurative or symbolic, it is only reasonable to assume that the rest of the text is not.
Believers who hold that the Bible is all figurative are new age mystic types. They can’t really be called Christians, because if they even believe Christ actually existed in the first place, they don’t believe that he was crucified and resurrected. That one belief is pretty much the lynch pin that holds Christianity together. These people think there are valuable lessons to be learned from the stories in the book, but that’s it.
These first two perspectives, whether or not one believes any of what’s in the Bible, are consistent. Literalist believers have some consistency problems, but those issues stem from the combination, not from the literalism. The third perspective, however, in which the literal and the figurative are taken to stand side-by-side is absurd and intellectually dishonest. We call believers who have this perspective “most Christians.”
If some passages (aside from the “literal figurative passages” previously mentioned) are taken as literal and others are not, one must be able to defend the distinction. When challenged to do so, these people offer a few typical responses. One is to imply that all of the self-contradictory parts are figurative. This is a convenient but baseless argument that works backward from a comfortable conclusion. Another response is to say that some of the miraculous passages are figurative because they couldn’t really have happened the way they’re written. However, which is more absurd: the resurrection or the burning bush? If any of the extraordinary portions are taken as literally true, this argument falls apart. A third response is to insist that the difference is obvious and drop the matter. However, the most popular tactic is to rely on figurative interpretation whenever one is losing an argument. Let me illustrate:
Atheist: “Did god create the earth and everything in it?’
Christian: “Yes.”
Atheist: “How?”
Christian: “Well, he did everything in stages over six days. As for people, man came first, and then woman came from man’s rib.”
Atheist: “What about the other creation story?”
Christian: “What other creation story?”
Atheist: “This one.”
Christian: “Oh. Well, none of this is meant to be taken literally. That should be pretty obvious.”
Note that nice combination maneuver on the part of the Christian.
So, the perspective on scriptural literalism held by the majority of Christians is nothing more than cherry-picking. It is an interpretation of convenience designed to avoid conflict and prevent one’s own faith from being damaged by a rational argument. It allows one to go to church without having to learn how to say with a straight face that the earth is 6,000 years old. It allows for a god who comes to earth in human form, dies and comes back to life, but scoffs at a story about two naked people and a snake. In short, it is a line-item veto for faith, allowing any given Christian to decide for himself which portions of the Bible to believe. Frankly, it seems to miss the point.
~I AM~
January 13th, 2006 at at 1:40 am
Intellectually honest? Fundamentalism is certainly many things, but I have never thought of it as intellectual in the least bit. In fact, it is virtually the antithesis to intellectualism. Thus, I just question how fundamentalism could be considered intellectually “honest”? Isn’t calling fundamentals “intellectually honest” a bit like viewing a two guys in a bovine costume as a passable cow? Being “true” or “fully committed” to your dogma is one thing, but I would hardly term this activity as intellectual, honest or otherwise.
If I were being intellectually honest, myself, I would tend to think the opposite as you present here. Personally, I find the xians who choose to think of their Bible in a figurative way far more rational (and thus a little more formidable in debating) than any fundamentalist.
January 13th, 2006 at at 4:52 am
I always liked how religious texts refer to themselves as being the one, true, revealed text. They claim some divine power wrote or otherwise influenced the creation of the text. A character depicted in a book cannot write the book itself. This basic fact is missed by those who accept their texts as being literal and divinely inspired.
January 13th, 2006 at at 6:45 am
“We call believers who have this perspective ‘most Christians.’”
If any sane, conscious human being honestly takes the Bible literally, they’re…well, not sane or conscious. I don’t just mean the fairy-tale bits, but I refer to the deluge of contradictions (pun intended). I really don’t want to seem elitist, but these people cannot possibly have anything more than sub-human intelligence. They can’t possibly have one bit of reading comprehension. There is no arguing this point.
January 13th, 2006 at at 7:52 am
Intellectually honest? Fundamentalism is certainly many things, but I have never thought of it as intellectual in the least bit. In fact, it is virtually the antithesis to intellectualism… Being “true” or “fully committed” to your dogma is one thing, but I would hardly term this activity as intellectual, honest or otherwise.
If I were being intellectually honest, myself, I would tend to think the opposite as you present here. Personally, I find the xians who choose to think of their Bible in a figurative way far more rational (and thus a little more formidable in debating) than any fundamentalist.
I think you misunderstand my argument. Intellectually honest doesn’t mean intellectual. One can be honest and an idiot. An argument can be consistent and dead wrong. In theory, fundamentalists believe the Bible to be the true word of an all-powerful and inscrutable god. They believe this because the Bible tells them so. In practice, they take this book at its word and attribute internal conflict to flaws in their own understanding, because god can’t be wrong. So, their stance is ridiculous and their logic is circular, but they’re true to their own beliefs. They don’t make it up as they go along.
January 13th, 2006 at at 8:57 am
Nicely written and I 100% agree with how you describe the three groups. I would add one thing: WHY. That is: why do most folk who can operate cars,program a compuetr,build a house or serve on a jury etc. believe in illogical stuff.
IMHO: Crappy lives is one reason. They NEED to believe this stuff. So many folk have such crappy lives that are only made tollerable by the hope that it will get better when they die. Church is the drug that keeps them going. EGO is another. Many folk think they are something special and that the light goes out when they die is just not something they can believe. Then of course there is FEAR. The thought of going back to where we were before birth (no existence) is just plain scary to many folk. There are of course many others, but unless you look at the why and try to address that, I doubt too many who believe the fairy stories will be swayed. Do you even always want to anyway? To the unwed mom of x kids or the guy crippled in a car crash religion can offer a hope that only the strongest of persons can find in the rational. Many folk are quite simply just not that strong. Its this motive to carry on regardless in the face of obvious misery that is again IMHO the reason religion is so prevalent in society. It allows the weak to carry on.
January 13th, 2006 at at 9:00 am
Before I came to atheism, I suppose I was in your third category of “most Christians”. But I think you’re overlooking the likelihood that many of those Christians are not “solo scriptura”; i.e., don’t put the Bible front and center in their faith. It’s way easy to believe the Bible is both literal and figurative when you don’t consider it to be the very most important thing about your faith. This mitigates, I think, an accusation of “intellectual dishonesty”.
January 13th, 2006 at at 10:09 am
Truth is, some folks aren’t even aware there’s valid logical arguments against the bible. I had problems w/some of it for many years, & it wasn’t until I considered converting (which obviously, didn’t take) 100%, that I actually sat down & began examining both sides of the divide. Up until then, I’d been the standard Joe Schmoe, hey, all religions have validity, blah blah blah blah. It wasn’t until I read McDowell that I saw something seriously wrong w/Xtianity. Then I read Paine.
Up until this (early 2004), I was pretty much a lukewarm theist.
I’m a thorough apostate now. Freedom tastes so sweet.
January 13th, 2006 at at 11:30 am
I Am,
When I was a Christian, my beliefs about the how to interpret Buy-Bull went through several stages. When I was younger, I would just cling to a few passages that I liked and didn’t really think about any of the others. Later, as a fundamentalist, I tried to be much more rigidly literal (though not as much as the Reconstructionists who believe in setting up a theocracy and stoning disobedient kids and homosexuals). Before becoming an atheist, though, I was a liberal Christian. I didn’t think the Buy-Bull was to be taken literally at all, but it was a little more nuanced than that.
I believed in what I called an incarnational approach to interpreting the Buy-Bull. I believed that the Buy-Bull was a collection of ideas about how a god was “fleshed out” in a specific time period. My job, I thought, was to incarnate Christ in a different way for my time period. That way could be completely against former teachings (that’s how I explained contradictions in teachings). Just as “Old Testament” law was changed after Jesus, so should post-Jesus teaching be changed for our new generation. This approach allowed me to condemn the more horrific texts and adopt a more humane outlook.
Ultimately, though, I asked myself why the religion part was even necessary. Why not just be a good human without reference to some kind of God?
That said, I wonder if you overstate it a bit when you write, “They can’t really be called Christians, because if they even believe Christ actually existed in the first place, they don’t believe that he was crucified and resurrected.”
If I were still a liberal Christian, I would suggest that the Jesus narrative was an important stage in “incarnating” the words of God for humanity. I would say that I was still acting as a servant of God by incarnating new words for a new generation. I could appreciate the old incarnations without believing them to be literally true. I still considered myself a Christian at that time, though.
Is anyone else torn between the desire for Christians to take the Bible literally and the opposite desire of wanting them to take it all figuratively? I would certainly prefer a neighbor who takes the Buy-Bull figuratively to a literalist. That neighbor might be a progessive like me and would help make the world more humane. At the same time, it is much easier to demonstrate how ridiculous Christianity is if people take the Buy-Bull literally (I also think less people would be attracted to a rigidly literal interpretation of Christianity).
January 13th, 2006 at at 12:02 pm
It’s not a matter of cherry-picking. It’s a matter of understanding that different genres of literature are present in the Bible, such as poetry, prophecy, genealogy, history, and allegory.
You need not believe the Genesis story of creation to be literally true in order to be an intellectually honest follower of Christ. However, you DO need to believe the literal truth in the story of the ressurection and the virgin birth to be a follower of Christ IMO. There are good reasons for making such a differentiation and it needn’t be labeled intellectual dishonesty.
One of these is the fulfillment of prophecies. The Jewish religion believed strongly in certain messianic prophecies that needed to be fulfilled in order to reveal their God. 600 – 800 years before Christ was born, the authors of the books of Isaiah, the Psalms, and others had predicted the aforementioned pivotal events in Christ’s life. Dismissing the literal rendering of these passages would indeed be intellectually dishonest. I do not see any such prerequisites that would necessitate a literal interpretation of the Creation of the world. In that case, the story can still exhibit truth without being literal and historical scientific fact.
January 13th, 2006 at at 1:29 pm
I agree with I AM that the literal interpretation is more intellectually honest in the sense that, while they may be using horrid logic, you can usually predict what they’re going to believe based on their assumptions. “Most christians”, I would rather bet on the lottery than try to guess what their beliefs are, especially since their position can rapidly change in the heat of an argument. This is because it’s not about having a clear picture of their faith and what they believe in, it’s simply to defend their belief in a sky daddy and the sweet afterlife door-prize.
However, I would much rather live next to the majority of christians, rather than a fundamentalist that may sacrifice my cat for having “devil eyes”.
January 13th, 2006 at at 1:51 pm
Part of the problem is that a lot of people are ignorant of history and they look at history through the lens of the Bible instead of looking at the Bible through the lens of history. It was that way for most people in Europe and America until the maybe the last hundred years or so when Western archeologists, historians and so forth began to have access to Egypt and the Middle East so that they could study the history and culture of Egypt under the Pharaohs, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Assyrians and others. It was then that non-Hebrew influences on the Old Testament works could be detected, that the records of these advanced Middle Eastern societies had no records of a King David or a King Solomon and so forth. But while such knowledge became known to people who studied these ancient societies, their accumulated knowledge did not seep into the populace at large. I believe we are still living with this legacy today. People who take the Bible on faith assume that Solomon was a mighty monarch, not to mention the wisest, since they can’t be troubled to read about the empires and kingdoms that were alleged to be contemporaries of Solomon who themselves have no accounting of this supposed wisest and fabulously wealthy king.
But this problem is not restricted to Christians. I have a co-worker who is an Orthodox Jew who believes that everything in what we call the Old Testament is literally true. When I challenged him once that there are no records in Egypt of the plagues and all that stuff in Exodus, he said that it was deliberate because it was such a traumatic time for the Egyptians that they did not want to remember it. That strikes me as odd, because just about every society that has suffered some terrible calamity or defeat remembers it. Just try driving through the South in a car with a New York license plate and a bumperstick that reads “Billy Sherman kicked ass!” and see what kind of reception you get.
January 13th, 2006 at at 2:17 pm
Chad started down the road of the comment I wanted to make. It is intellectually honest to view some of the Bible as literal and some as figurative if you accept that there are different literature styles present. Which is which is inferred from way the specific book or story is written. The stories of Moses and Jesus are written in the style of history, and are, I think, intended to be taken literally. Genesis and Revalations are written in “mythic” styles and are, I think, intended to be taken figuratively. Song of Songs (or Song or Soloman) calls iteself a “song” and is written in a poetic style that indicates that it is intended to be taken as fiction. Leviticus and the Pauline letters are written in a style that indicates that they are intended to be taken as the moral prescriptions of holy men. Not only is this intellectually honest, but it also allows for intellectually honest debate among Christians as to which portions of the Bible are meant to be literal and which are meant to be figurative, as well as whether holy men such as Moses, Soloman, and Paul should be considered respected moral experts, or divinely inspired messangers of revealed truth.
Going further, one can accept all of the above and also believe that even the parts intended to be taken literally have been corrupted by the eggagerations of biographers writing years after the fact. Thus you might think that Matthew, Luke, etc. were good Christians writing history, but they were not divinely inspired, and cannot be counted on to be any more accurate than Plutarch or Herodicus. With this belief, you might further believe that miracles they all agree on, and which are central to the faith, such as the virgin birth and the resurection, are true, but that the accuracy of other stories can legitimately be called into question, esspecially where there are contradictions.
Going still further, one could accept all of the above, but believe that ALL the miracles, even the virgin birth and Resurection, are later eggagerations, and still call one’s self a “Christian” because you agree with the moral teachings of Christ. This was the position of many Christian deists during the Enlightenment, and is probably the position of many modern Unitarians. Obviously, however, the vast majority of Christians today would not accept the claim of such a person to be a Christian, unless that person happened to have wrote the Declaration of Independence.
January 13th, 2006 at at 2:50 pm
The problem I have with bible cherry picking, is that atheists are so often put down by xtians for not having an “absolute moral conviction”. The quote I hear so often is “if you don’t believe in insert deity of choice here/> then you must not believe in anything”. To most xtians no God (Jesus) means no morals because without God (Jesus) you do not have moral center from which to base moral convictions. The justification for that belief, invariably is “the word of God” as written in the bible. But, if you can just pick and choose which sections of the bible are (or are not) to be taken as “literal” then your “moral center” is no more arbitrary than that of an atheist. This is a clear double standard, “I believe in God so I can make up my own rules and claim they are morally absolute, but sense you don’t have anything to base your opinion on but yourself, your morals are arbitrary and therefore not as valuable as mine”.
January 13th, 2006 at at 3:21 pm
Your definition of “fundamentalist” is incorrect, technically speaking. A “fundamentalist” is actually someone who rejects modern innovations and only holds to the “fundamentals” of the Christian faith. The precise term for those whom you call fundamentalists is “biblical literalists”.
In common parlance, however, you are right that “fundamentalist” means someone who reads the Bible literally, much as “atheist” in common parlance refers to someone who says that God doesn’t exist, as opposed to someone who simply lacks of belief in any deities, which is the precise definition.
January 13th, 2006 at at 4:12 pm
It depends on which “technical” definition you use, though. In Christianity, the term “fundamentalist” came about after RA Torrey’s four volume book, The Fundamentals. The first “fundamental” in the book is biblical literalism (the subject of the first 26).
So, while it is possible to be a biblical literalist and not a fundamentalist, it is not possible (historicallys speaking) to be a fundamentalist and not a biblical literalist. Technically, though, I guess it is improper to say, “Believers who hold that the Bible is meant to be read literally are called fundamentalists,” because believers other than fundamentalists also “hold that the Bible is meant to be read literally.”
Those “prophecies” are very different than what we think of as a prophecy, though, aren’t they? When we hear the word, prophecy, we expect that somone is making a prediction like, “In 100 years a plane will fly into a building.” We don’t think of a “prophecy” as a piece of a story about entirely different people being re-applied a few hundred years later to someone else. We don’t think of a prophecy as someone saying that a country will undergo hardship but then re-applying that to an individual person. This, however, is “biblical” prophecy. The “virgin shall conceive” “prophecy” originally comes from a story about another boy born thousands of years earlier. The “out of egypt I called my son” “prophecy” originally comes from a poem that is talking about the nation, Israel, coming out of Egypt. These “prophecies” are then re-applied years later and we are supposed to be amazed.
Today, I said something that made my students (I’m a teacher) laugh. Thus I have fulfilled the prophecy,
Isn’t that amazing!!! Holy Shit. Make your checks payable to “bleedingisaac.”
January 13th, 2006 at at 6:08 pm
Bleeding Isaac,
You can attempt to explain away specific prophecies, but at some point it would seem to me that there are a whole lot of coincidences between what the old testament prophets where describing and the pivotal events in the life of Christ. There are in excess of 100 passages that are considered to be prophetic. And just because some verses may refer to the nation of Israel, it does not mean that these cannot also be referring to the coming messiah. Even many Jewish rabbis will reluctantly admit this to be the case.
And so, when you are not convinced by this one about a virgin birth:
Isaiah 7: …Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call him Immanuel.
…You then need to turn to refute one that tells of a sacrificial savior who himself was sinless:
Isaiah 53: …He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities…And by his stripes we are healed…He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth…
…And then contend with scripture that David narrates in the first person of a pretty vivid account of the pain of enduring a crucifixion:
Psalm 22: …All my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax: It has melted within me…They pierced my hands and feet…
There are enough of these passages that the merely flippant and condescending type responses are insufficient to really engage the issue.
January 13th, 2006 at at 7:31 pm
Chad,
Apparently you have a very low standard of what is considered a “prophecy.” At some point I would think you would think you would get tired of defending such poor reading.
I think when normal people think of the word “prophecy” they think of someone making a prediction, not telling a story.
Isaiah 7. Not a prophecy about Jesus. This was a story about the fall of two kings (Rezin and Pekah). Before the boy that was to be born was old enought to “refuse evil and choose good” the two kings would have no more rule. But this story is reapplied to Jesus.
Isaiah 53. Right in the middle of a bunch of passages about a “Suffering Servant” that Could Not be Jesus. And nowhere there does it make a prediction. Read a couple of the surrounding chapters. This was a story lifted by post-Jesus Christians and applied to Jesus.
Psalm 22. No prediction. A song sung by Israel re-applied to Jesus’ life.
Your examples (and all of the examples of biblical prophecy) are weak and should be mocked and laughed at by anyone with intelligence
January 13th, 2006 at at 8:01 pm
Hahahahaha. Oh, sorry.
January 13th, 2006 at at 8:02 pm
Oooh, I just understood the title. Very witty. Very witty indeed. Very, very, very witty.
But anyways.
January 13th, 2006 at at 9:24 pm
Chad wrote:
Isaiah 7: …Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call him Immanuel.
Chad,
What that passage that you cited to prove Jesus’ miraculous conception actually says, “And behold, a *young woman* shall conceive and bear a son…”
There was a proper word for “virgin”, and that’s not the word used in the original text.
The gospel writer just mistranslated it (on purpose) to support the idea that Jesus was special. Not to mention, when was Jesus ever called “Immanuel”, and by whom? And why does the verse go on to talk about “before the child shall know to choose the good from the evil”. Why would Jesus have to learn how to choose good from evil?
January 13th, 2006 at at 9:35 pm
I think you misunderstand my argument. Intellectually honest doesn’t mean intellectual.
Iam,
I think I got your argument, but I am pointing out the ambiguity of the language used. It confused me, at least. To quickly paraphrase you, I think your point was to persuade your readers that the xian cherry pickers were in someway “intellectually dishonest” and the fundamentalists and atheists are “intellectually honest”, right? I do think that the term “intellectually honest” does imply intellectual activity as well as honesty, otherwise, why not simply use the term “honesty” *? What is the difference in your mind between “honest” and “intellectually honest”? I am not trying to start a semantic argument, just trying to get your meaning.
yes, exactly — “true to their own beliefs” — I see this, but that isn’t intellectually honest to me. In my mind, fundamentalists intellectually acknowledge the problems with understanding the Bible (they all say it is not always easy to know what god is saying in the Bible) but shrug it off with an unprovable argument (i.e. its all part of god’s plan and beyond human comprehension). To present an unprovable explanation to a problem is what intellectual dishonesty is to me. On the other hand, to acknowledge the obvious issues within the Bible and try to explain them (the cherry-picker method) to me is far more intellectually honest. Though, I can see how one might see the apologist method as “back peddling” or “bailing water from a sinking ship” and many are undeniably deceptive, but to me, they are the only group who might ever produce an intellectual and honest xian — not the fundies.
(…and yes, I know, I am knit picking/splitting hairs/etc. — feel free to subjugate this thread to email if you think it’s more appropriate).
* yes, I understand that neither “intellectual” or “honest” implies correctness.
January 14th, 2006 at at 11:14 am
godsarefake:
What is the difference in your mind between “honest” and “intellectually honest”? I am not trying to start a semantic argument, just trying to get your meaning.
I see what you’re getting at. I think we agree, but we’re using words differently. To me, honesty is a character trait, but intellectual honesty is a logical tendency. An honest person will tell you the truth when asked a direct question. “Did you take the cookie?” “Yes.” Intellectual honesty means that a person’s conclusions, arguments and actions follow logically from his assumptions. It says nothing about the quality of those assumptions. Delta may have said it better than I did when he said “you can usually predict what they’re going to believe based on their assumptions.”
Now, if you ask an intellectually honest person whether or not he took the cookie, he may or may not tell you the truth. However, if he believes that god has commanded us to steal cookies and lie about it, then he will not tell the truth. Here you have intellectual honesty without actual honesty.
This is amongst the silliest analogies I’ve ever used, but there’s no going back now.
January 14th, 2006 at at 4:30 pm
I get your point now. Thanks for clarifying my semantic hang up. I am quite reluctant to admit that atheists have anything in common with fundamentalists, but in this case, now, I do believe you are very correct. Fundies are predictable because they are so damn dogmatic and atheists because we share a common sense of logic. This commonality, too, does set these two groups off from the cherry-pickers, who, like chameleons, often change the nature of the argument once it becomes apparent that they are defending a losing position. I frequently find them to be a very disengenuous group as well when it comes to defending their religion.
Perhaps this problem exists because the cherry pickers gain all of the “casually” xian/Jewish people who are simply born to these faiths. These people never really seem to connect with, or to reject, their faith and thus often come off as thoughtless and shallow when they are finally confronted, often, for the first time.
January 14th, 2006 at at 4:58 pm
Nicely written and I 100% agree with how you describe the three groups. I would add one thing: WHY. That is: why do most folk who can operate cars,program a compuetr,build a house or serve on a jury etc. believe in illogical stuff.
IMHO: Crappy lives is one reason. They NEED to believe this stuff. So many folk have such crappy lives that are only made tollerable by the hope that it will get better when they die. Church is the drug that keeps them going. EGO is another. Many folk think they are something special and that the light goes out when they die is just not something they can believe. Then of course there is FEAR. The thought of going back to where we were before birth (no existence) is just plain scary to many folk. There are of course many others, but unless you look at the why and try to address that, I doubt too many who believe the fairy stories will be swayed. Do you even always want to anyway? To the unwed mom of x kids or the guy crippled in a car crash religion can offer a hope that only the strongest of persons can find in the rational. Many folk are quite simply just not that strong. Its this motive to carry on regardless in the face of obvious misery that is again IMHO the reason religion is so prevalent in society. It allows the weak to carry on.
Nicely put. Karl Marx couldn’t have said it better.
January 14th, 2006 at at 5:03 pm
Thomas Jefferson took a scissors to his Bible, cut out the passages he liked, and then translated them into ancient Greek so as to be sure they hadn’t been altered in translation. It’s called The Jefferson Bible, and seriously you can buy it in stores.
It’s very short.
January 14th, 2006 at at 7:29 pm
IMHO: Crappy lives is one reason. They NEED to believe this stuff. .
I think another part of the reason is that they want to conform, to belong, to be reassured that they are good people.
This is why many people take the position that evolution was put into motion by the diety. They can reject creationism but still count themselves among the believers.
January 16th, 2006 at at 11:40 am
God or Not Carnival: “Scriptural Literalism”
This week, Back of the Envelope is hosting the God or Not Carnival on the topic of Scriptural Literalism. As host, I’m not allowed to talk about my own opinions on this topic, or judge the submissions other…
January 16th, 2006 at at 2:08 pm
Nonsense. The Bible is not some monolithic singular BOOK – it is a collection of books, of writings, of letters and coorespondance. Some writings are purely creative and figurative, some are historical, some are interpretive commentary. There is nothing intellectually inconsistent with analyzing different texts from different perspectives.
You just want to have a free pass to do your schtick here, debunking the entire bible from a literal, historical POV – and hold yourself up as some intellectual superior for doing it. Sorry – you’re just as narrow as the wackiest fundamentalists.
January 16th, 2006 at at 10:08 pm
There is nothing intellectually inconsistent with analyzing different texts from different perspectives.
Mainline Asshole,
Normally, your statement is perfectly true. One can read a text from any number of points of view. I can read a text as a post-structuralist, a feminist, a Freudian, a Marxist, etc.
The difference, though, is that Christians invest special significance to the Bible. They say that it contains truths, rules, and ideals that everyone should follow. We are told that an “improper” reading of the text will result in our eternal damnation so we do not think that we can be as playful with the Bible as we are with texts that do not consign us to the fire that is not quenched and the worm that dieth not.
It’s also interesting to me how differently Jesus read the Bible than his more liberal “followers.” Jesus seemed to believe the tale of Sodom and Gemorrah happened literally and used it to threaten others with (Matthew 17:22-36). Similarly, Jesus talks about the Jonah story as if it were true and makes parallels to his own life (Luke 11:29-32). Jesus seems to believe that Abel (son of Adam and Eve supposedly killed by Cain) (Luke 11:51). It appears Jesus believes that manna (magical bread) came down out of the sky for people to eat (John 6:49).
Similarly, Jesus reads other passages like a fundamentalist. To prove a point about his right to be king, he relies on one single word (i.e. “Lord”) in one of David’s writings (Matthew 22:43-45). Sounds like a “literal, historical” point of view to me. Jesus uses the tense of the verb “am” to prove a point about the resurrection (Luke 20:37-38). Jesus proof-texts a Psalm to keep from being punished for making himself equal to God (John 10:34-35).
Jesus also disagreed with most of your mainline protestant scholars about the authorship of the books of the Bible. He attributes the Torah to Moses (Matthew 19:7, 8; Mark 7:10, 12:26; Luke 5:14; 16:29,31; 24:27, 44; John 1:17; 5:45, 46; 7:19). He attributes “both Isaiah’s” to the same “Isaiah” (Mark 7:6–13; John 12:37–41). He believes Daniel wrote the book of Daniel (Daniel wrote Daniel: Matthew 24:15).
So, dickhead, you must forgive us narrow atheists for thinking the founder of your religion is a better representative than some asshole that spends his time reading atheists’ view of interpreting the Buy Bull.
January 17th, 2006 at at 9:18 am
bleeding isaac – so defensive. I never said you were going to hell.
Someone up above mentioned the Jefferson Bible. Do you know what it is? Being a good deist, Jefferson didn’t believe that all parts of the bible were to be understood literally. As an intellectual exercise, he sat down and cut the four gospels out of a Bible, then trimmed out what he thought was bunk, and assembled what he thought was the solid, teachings of Jesus. He had this little tome published – it’s called The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth.
Of the many things he left out – the miracles were dumped completely – along with the virgin birth.
Basically – Jefferson Cherry Picked. Now if you guys are saying you are intellectually superior to Jefferson because you have decided to take the whole bible literally – then excuse me if I find that laughable.
January 17th, 2006 at at 10:16 am
MP,
I’ll be the first to admit that Jefferson was smarter than Jesus. Would you say the same thing?
I find your logic laughable.
At a 1934 conference, Einstein said, “. . . teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God . . .”
Have you given up the idea of a personal God? No! You mean you are intellectually superior to Einstein!?
Do you believe the founder of your religion practiced the same hermeneutic that you do? If not are you a better representative of true Christianity than Christ?
January 18th, 2006 at at 5:17 pm
First of all Jefferson did not have his ‘bible’ published. It was published long after his death after it was ‘discovered.’
Second, has anyone taken into account the fact that the bible(new testament) was transcribed by hand for 1500 years (just multiply that number for the old testament)? And that during those 1500, the beverage of choice was alcoholic in nature (wine, beer, liquor), since it was generally safer to drink then the water. Also, many monastaries (at least the most successful ones) raised funds by producing alcoholic beverages.
Now, taking the above into account, how infallible should we view the beybull(I love that by the way)? And how seriously are we to take all the important stylistic differences being as how the book was copied by hand by borderline (at best, more likely full blown) alcoholics for 1500 years?
January 18th, 2006 at at 5:33 pm
That’s all fine, but we know for a fact that no scribes puked on the scriptures. In fact, it is believed that the Good Lord put a spell on the brain of each scribe that prevented him from becoming intoxicated. Furthermore, when transcribing a holy text, it is common knowledge that the Holy Ghost fills you, and, with the Holy Ghost, there is no room for alcohol. Duh, everyone knows that.
January 19th, 2006 at at 12:12 am
Decnavda:
What on Earth is a “Christian Deist?” Try as I might I can make absolutely no sense of that.
As a former Deist, I familiarized myself quite thoroughly with the history and essentials of the “religion”. That said, I really can’t see the two mixing – especially since so many of the most outspoken of Deists made statements about xianity that weren’t exactly flattering.
(I am familiar with a certain ex-minister who attempted to create a hybrid of the two, calling it xian Deism, and writing volumes about it on a wesbsite. His was a pretty novel approach to Deism though (actually more novel than his approach to xianity).
February 9th, 2006 at at 6:53 pm
DUB says:
“We call believers who have this perspective ‘most Christians.’”
If any sane, conscious human being honestly takes the Bible literally, they’re…well, not sane or conscious. I don’t just mean the fairy-tale bits, but I refer to the deluge of contradictions (pun intended). I really don’t want to seem elitist, but these people cannot possibly have anything more than sub-human intelligence. They can’t possibly have one bit of reading comprehension. There is no arguing this point. ”
Don’t worry DUB, you have no chance of seeming elitist or intellectual for that matter. Especially when you make uninformed statements claiming atheists are smart and Christians have ’sub-human intellegence’. The reality is that both quantitative and qualitative studies conducted by both atheists and Christians alike prove that in reality (not your fantasy world) Christians are smarter, physically healthier and more emotionally stable. But don’t take my word for it check out the evidence:
An evaluation of Atheist Claims
Who is Smarter?
There is actually a website which tries to argue that non-religious people are smarter than religious people, and that this should be a valid criterion for determining the truth! This is such an amusing argument, because to argue it is to demonstrate the opposite of the case. It’s really just an appeal to authority, and is aimed at bolstering the fragile ego of certain atheist types, and to dismiss thinking so that one need not engage in such a messy pursuit.
1) Pratt (1937) among 3040 students at regional state college, taking denominational affiliation as sign of religiosity, “found that non-affiliates recorded lower mean scores on the American council Examination than any students affiliated to any denominational group.”
2) Rummell (1934) also using denominational affiliation 1194 students at University of Missouri. “He found that non-affiliates recorded lower mean scores on his scholastic index compared with Methodists and Episcopalians.”
3) Corey (1940) 234 Freshmen University of Wisconsin positive correlation between scores on the Ohio State Psychological Examination and the Thurstone scale of attitude toward God. “‘The more intelligent were more favorably inclined toward God.’”
4) Kosa and Schomer (1961) 362 students at a Catholic undergraduate college: taking participation in campus religious activities as scale of religious attitude “intensive participants recorded significantly higher scores than non-participates on OSU aptitude Test and OSR reading comprehension test.
c.1997 N.Y. Times News Service
“Several recent surveys of American college professors, …, show that professors are almost as likely to express a belief in God as are Americans as a whole.”
Just for the thrill of it, here’s my list of recent nobel science winners who are Christians:
The scientific fraternity conducted a poll and found that on any given Sunday 46% of Ph.D. holders in science can be found in church. That compares with 47% for the general population (in Alan Lightman Origins: The Lives and World of Modern Cosmologists (Harvard University press, 19990).
Fritz Shafer, nominated for Nobel Prize in Chemistry, University of Georgia, himself a Christian: “it is very rare that a physical scientists is truly an atheist.”Martin Rees at Cambridge: “The possibility of life as we know it depends upon a few basic values which are constants. And it is in some aspect remarkably sensitive to their heir numerical values. Nature does exhibit remarkable coincidences.”
Charlie Towns, Nobel prize winner: “The question of science seems to be unanswered if we explore from science alone. Thus I believe there is a need for some metaphysical or religious explanation. I believe in the concept of God an in his existence.”
Arthur Schewhow, Nobel prize winner from Stanford, identifies himself as a Christian, “We are fortunate to have the Bible which tells us so much about God in widely accessible terms.”
John Pokingham, theoretical physicist at Cambridge, left physics to become a minister. “I believe that God exists and has made himself known in Jesus Christ.”
The world’s greatest observational cosmologist Alan Sandage, Caregie observatories, won a prize given by Swedish parliament equivalent to Nobel prize (there is no Nobel prize for cosmology) became a Christian after being a scientist, “The nature of God is not found in any part of science, for that we must turn to the scriptures.”
http://www.geocities.com/meta_crock/other/smarter.htm
University of Cincinnati professor George Bishop conducted an extensive cross-national study of attitudes, and initially presented his findings at the May conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research.
“Nearly a third of college graduates in recent Gallup polls still believe in the biblical account of creation,” and that about 45% believe that God created human beings “pretty much in (their) present form at one time or another within the last 10,000.”
39% believe in a form of so-called “theistic evolution,” where evolutionary processes developed over millions of years but were “guided” by God.
Only about 10% subscribe to evolution without any form of divine guidance or intervention as an explanation of how life began.
And the creationist message is often couched in scientific terminology, and concentrates on areas which its supporters claim expose deficiencies in Darwinian evolution. Ken Hamm of the Answers in Genesis group told the Post, “I believe that when people are taught science correctly, they see that evolution is just a belief and not a scientific fact.”
http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/evol4.htm
Stategy & Tactics: Religion and economic attitudes
By: Luigi Zingales
August 2, 2004, The Edge Singapore
Economists, sociologists and political scientists have long been interested in explaining the economic success of certain countries and the persistent poverty of others.
The first, and most famous example, is the German sociologist Max Weber. In his 1905 treatise, “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”, Weber attributes the emergence of capitalism to the Protestant doctrine of salvation and concept of good works.
Though the original debate centred on the economic virtues of Protestantism versus Catholicism, today’s debate encompasses the economic effect of all major religions.
In a new study, “People’s Opium? Religion and Economic Attitudes”, Luigi Zingales, a professor at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, Luigi Guiso of the University of Sassari, Italy, and Paolo Sapienza of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management take a new approach to answering the question of whether religion has an impact on a country’s economic development.
Previous research on this topic has focused on cross-country studies. The problem with this approach, however, is the difficulty of distinguishing between effects that are specific to religion and those that are specific to the country.
Zingales, Guiso and Sapienza’s new approach focuses on the differences in religion within a given country, pooled across 66 countries. In doing so they eliminate the spurious effect of other environmental variables and can focus on the link between religion and attitudes, such as trust, that have been found to be conducive to economic growth.
The authors find that religious beliefs are generally associated with “good” economic attitudes, where “good” is defined as attitudes conducive to higher per capita income and growth. Religious people tend to trust others more, trust the government and legal system more, are less willing to break the law, and are more likely to believe that markets’ outcomes are fair. There are exceptions, however. Religious people tend to be more racist and less favourable to the rights of working women.
Results are generally the opposite for self-proclaimed atheists: They are more tolerant of others; less trusting of the government and the police; have more progressive attitudes towards working women; trust the legal system less; are more willing to break the law; and have worse attitudes towards the market and its perceived fairness.
http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/news/hits/040802es.htm
The Religious Attitudes and Beliefs
of University Professors
David W. Richardson, Jr.
MTh. University of Oxford
(Draft based on the Power-point presentation)
Faculty Religious Demographics
General American Population
• 94% (Gallup), 95% (Barna) believe in God.
• 68% believe in God when described as the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect Creator of the universe who rules the world today.
• 40% describe themselves as born-again Christians.
• 5-7% are agnostics and atheists.
Religious Representation of the General Population in American Universities
Professors General Public
Protestant 66% *) 63%
Catholic 18% 27%
Jewish 9% 3%
Other 4% 4%
No religious history 3% 3%
http://chfpn.pl/index/?id=aa169b49b583a2b5af89203c2b78c67c
Are Atheists More Depressed than Religious People?
A new study tells the tale
by Franz Buggle et al.
________________________________________
The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 20, Number 4.
________________________________________
In recent years, the view that religious belief and participation in religious acts of worship has a positive effect upon the well-being of man has repeatedly been publicized in the German-speaking sphere by high-circulation magazines such as Der Spiegel and popular-science periodicals like Psychologie Heute, which cite epidemiological inquiries and quantitative research. These articles also suggest that religious people are able to cope with crises in their lives, with stress and psycho-social conflicts, more easily and develop highly effective coping strategies; moreover, they state that faith has a positive effect upon psychological and even physical health. A mass inquiry conducted in 1992 among members of the two major churches in Germany (Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant), for example, revealed that self-perceived satisfaction with life was more than 10% higher among regular church-goers than among those who do not go to church. This statement, among others, seemed to confirm the results of previous extensive studies, all of them suggesting that devout and practicing adherents of a religion were generally less prone to depression than persons who were brought up in religious faith but had turned away from church later in their lives. Other inquiries that were conducted among smaller populations, too, lead to the assumption “that religion has a slight positive sum effect on self-perceptions of happiness.” In his essay “Can Religion Make You Happy?” (FI, Summer 1998), John F. Schumaker gives a survey of seven quantitative studies dealing directly with the two variables and of 20 others that operated with components of “happiness,” all of them rendering more or less the same results.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=buggle_20_4