tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851578517872251953.post4137252991426930070..comments2023-10-10T05:07:13.577-07:00Comments on En Tequila Es Verdad: Dear Smarmy Christians: Knock it the Hell OffDana Hunterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00890312745525306991noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851578517872251953.post-28163081496834705802008-05-27T22:33:00.000-07:002008-05-27T22:33:00.000-07:00Now I feel like an idiot... never even thought to ...Now I feel like an idiot... never even thought to ask Bible literalists what's happened to burning bushes and falling cities. Although I'm sure they'd yawp about hurricanes and such.<BR/><BR/>Here's my theory from back when I was becoming agnostic: we don't see miracles and such anymore because God got disgusted with all the fundies, grabbed Moses and Jesus, and headed over to a parallel universe for a few millenia of golf. He plays with a little ball that looks like Earth. Fellow golfers know better than to bring up that whole "earth" thing around Him.<BR/><BR/>'Twas always good for a laugh.Dana Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00890312745525306991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851578517872251953.post-51631467639697863382008-05-27T10:37:00.000-07:002008-05-27T10:37:00.000-07:00I don't accept superior strength as a moral argume...<I>I don't accept superior strength as a moral argument; the God of Eternal Damnation For Sin is a goddamn bully, and I wouldn't accept his authority even if I believed in him.</I><BR/><BR/>That question sticks for me sometimes. If God is good because he's in line with some standard that transcends him, then morality comes from God. If morality comes from God, it's still being chosen arbitrarily (not in the sense that it's random, but in the sense that someone has arbitrated it and made a personal decision) based on what one entity likes. God's morality is only "absolute" if God has absolute power to enforce his own standard. Maybe he does have that absolute power, but he doesn't seem to use it anymore. <BR/><BR/>Then again, no one seems to expect him to. This blog entry (http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-one-believes-that-god-of-bible.html) talks about the changing expectations of God. Even so-called Biblical literalists don't expect real life to play out the way the Bible shows. <BR/><BR/><I>The title of this post is not a complaint; it is merely an observation. No one confronts the representatives of another tradition with a contest to see which one's deity will send fire from heaven as Elijah did. No Christian blogger claims that those who comment negatively will be struck with blindness for doing so, as apostles did. God is depicted in many parts of the Bible as knocking down city walls, parting seas and so on. Yet no Christian dominionists are likely to march around Washington D.C. and see it fall into their hands.<BR/><BR/>Those who claim they "believe the whole Bible" and "take it literally" are being dishonest. Their pastor may have preached recently on the story of the fall of Jericho, but it was applied to God "making the strongholds of sin in your come life crumbling down", not to a battle plan to take a city.</I>Cobalthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00276860017599044287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851578517872251953.post-89114135575483914342008-05-26T16:45:00.000-07:002008-05-26T16:45:00.000-07:00@Cobalt: You. Are. Amazing. @Woozle: so are you...@Cobalt: You. Are. <I>Amazing</I>. <BR/><BR/>@Woozle: so are you.<BR/><BR/>Outstanding.Dana Hunterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00890312745525306991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851578517872251953.post-23019419841203897832008-05-26T11:53:00.000-07:002008-05-26T11:53:00.000-07:00"it doesn't matter what religion you are as long a..."it doesn't matter what religion you are as long as you're religious", etc.: This is very much the sort of thing that makes me think that the best religionists -- the sincere ones who aren't just powermongering manipulators -- are in it because of (what I call, for lack of a more precise word) "idealism", by which I mean something like "the will to do good".<BR/><BR/>If a religionist is claiming that any atheist who behaves morally "[isn't] all that far away from God", or is really religious but just isn't admitting it, this tells me that the speaker sees "belief in behaving morally" and "religion" (or "belief in God") as more or less equivalent. Note that the word "good" is derived from the word "god", which I submit as strong circumstantial evidence that these ideas are closely related.<BR/><BR/>I couldn't get Progressive Conservative to admit that belief in God was an expression of idealism, so maybe I'm wrong... but show me how it's different, dude. If you say "God makes me a better person" in an approving way, that implies that you <I>want</I> to be a better person -- and that's what I mean by idealism: the will to do good.<BR/><BR/>(Any suggestions for a better word than "idealism" to describe this concept?)<BR/><BR/>--<BR/><BR/>Also, I had another thought on Active Atheism, towards the goal of thoroughly trampling the "atheism is just another religion" meme: Atheism is just a corollary of "free thinking", which demands freedom from the requirement to believe any particular thing if it doesn't make sense. Which is basically just rationality.<BR/><BR/>If atheism is a religion, its god is reality and its one unquestionable item of Infallible Holy Writ is this: Question everything (including this rule).<BR/><BR/>--<BR/><BR/>(I just can't shut up today...) Personally, I'd rather face the real actual Fires Of Hell For All Eternity than go against my conscience. I don't accept superior strength as a moral argument; the God of Eternal Damnation For Sin is a goddamn bully, and I wouldn't accept his authority even if I believed in him. So, tell me again how I'm really religious and just won't admit it?Woozlehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17948248776908775080noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851578517872251953.post-72902859340799530272008-05-26T10:07:00.000-07:002008-05-26T10:07:00.000-07:00Romans 2:12 "All who sin apart from the law will a...Romans 2:12 "All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)"<BR/><BR/>I always took that to mean that if you don't utterly fail at being a human being, God's gonna notice. Just as there are believers who've theoretically got the book of rules right in front of them <I>and miss the point anyway</I>, there are non-believers who intuitively know what it means to not completely suck.<BR/><BR/>This is the charitable way of seeing the "atheists aren't that far from God" argument, and it's be super super cool if I saw it more often. <BR/><BR/>My personal view on atheism is the same as it is on Christianity or Buddhism or Asatru or Shinto. People will believe what they need to believe to make spiritual progress. Many people can make more progress through Judaism or Wicca than through Hinduism, and that makes those paths productive for them. I apply that to atheism, too. Even though I do believe in The Divine Power OMGZ, that doesn't mean everyone is in a place where that's productive for them. It doesn't mean they or I or anyone is "further along" than anyone else. It just means that different people have different needs, and just as I expect not to hear from atheists that my way of fulfilling my needs makes me a backward irrational savage, atheists won't hear from me that <I>their</I> way of fulfilling <I>their</I> needs is somehow morally deficient. <BR/><BR/>That was a long rambling comment. But you get the idea.Cobalthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00276860017599044287noreply@blogger.com