Response to a Friend

You'll find his original post here, and in quotes below.
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“Myth: Some great force is steering the destiny of mankind. No matter how bad things get, we'll be alright as a people because someone will save us from ourselves.”

By “myth” I assume you mean “an unfounded or false notion” and not a “popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society”. In either case, your statement of this “myth” is misleading by being overly simplistic; as in your posts on the Bible, you are constructing something of a straw man. Not that there aren’t people whose beliefs are this simplistic, but that this is a pretty easy belief to ridicule or argue against. You are painting with a very broad brush.

If my responses sound a little testy it’s because I am irritated by these same old double-standard arguments being trotted out ad nauseum. Double standard? Yes. Because there are atheists and agnostics whose beliefs are every bit as simplistic as the simplest and most provincial theist. But what does that prove?

”Response: Boy, this sure is a comforting thought isn’t it? By the thinking of some, it doesn’t matter what any destructive force does because they’re going to be saved at the last minute by some divine force. I’m sure that kind of comfort makes the collection plates fuller at the local purveyors of religious gratification but it’s way too convenient.”

First of all, there is the assumption that this sort of myth is comforting. But believing in a “great force steering the destiny of mankind” has very little to say about the destiny of little-old-expendable me. And the flip-side of believing in such a “force” is the accountability that mere creatures bear to such a “someone”. This is not at all a comforting thought. And the ignoring of this fact makes your “Response” a little like the pot calling the kettle “convenient”.

Next we have the statement of the straw man belief about the cosmic cavalry coming to the rescue. Yawn.

Lastly we have the cynical implication that this belief is only perpetuated as a means of profit. Now, I can understand this, especially in this country. I have long regretted the fact that so many Christians view their church as a vendor of religious goods and services that can easily be abandoned should a more responsive vendor be found. And of course if there are customers there will be producers. But in fact it is not those who preach a simple message of comfort and salvation in this country who rake in the most dough; it is those who promise that God will bless you if you give them money who really cash in on the gullible.

But there are still many who sincerely believe a more traditional version of Christianity, resist the zeitgeist of commercialism, and focus on community. So again, you’ve chosen a stereotype that’s easy to disbelieve.

“The fact is, there’s little or no evidence that the current religious fad is any more correct than the previous thousands that have come and gone. Typically, the throngs of the religious point to the bible as their ultimate evidence and proof that THEY (and only they) are in fact the ‘chosen’ people who are going to heaven. Let’s be clear, the bible is an ancient and historical document. Only a few dozen problems with the bible as a document of prognostication.”

I’ll merely point out the obviously loaded language referring to the several thousand year Judeo-Christian tradition as a fad (and it is clear that it is Christianity that you are aiming at). I am more interested in the “Little or no evidence” giganto-question that you’ve dismissed before asking. What would you consider valid evidence?

Typically, I find that atheists are indignant that God hasn’t provided a super-obvious, mathematically precise proof of His existence, and therefore angrily conclude that He is a creation of the imaginations of the great, ignorant masses. But this is a little like concluding that four-leaf clovers do not exist since your metal-detector with dead batteries didn’t find any in your basement.

And Christian apologists, typically, don’t realize that historical and philosophical evidence is not of the same nature as mathematical proof. (It seems that Gary Habermas does realize this, but I haven’t yet gotten around to reading any of his books.)

Agnostics, typically, I can stomach.

As for your “typical throngs of the religious”, I’m sure that their beliefs are neither more nor less simple than those of the typical atheist.

“Document of prognostication”? WTF?

”Firstly, the bible has been translated through half a dozen languages in series so inevitable transcription and translation errors have been multiplied and magnified over the years.”

I’m wondering where you got this information. Which languages would those be? I haven’t heard of even the most skeptical scholar refer to this.

”Secondly and more importantly, the bits and pieces of the bible we typically see are thoroughly picked over by the church (read that: Edited) to make sure the message conveyed is as close as possible to what the ancient church intended. What kind of audacity does one have to have to edit the very word of god herself?”

Well, if you view “the church” as a group of men who invented a set of beliefs to perpetuate their own power, then maybe you could call this audacity. But if this view of the church is correct, the Bible isn’t the “word of god herself” (oh, so clever). So where’s the audacity?

But if the Church is what she says she is, the Body of Christ, then the act of choosing the books that represent the most authoritative part of her written tradition is entirely appropriate. As for the editing, it kind of depends on what you mean by that. If you mean what I think you mean, then you’ll have to come up with some proof.

“Thirdly and more importantly of all, the bible does not constitute a consistent whole. The book is often contradictory, confusing and deals in a dubious level of symbolism. I mean come on… 7 days? Let’s get real. More on the ignorance of bible literalists later… “

To paraphrase you is to refute you: Fundamentalists are ignorant, therefore we can dismiss the beliefs of all Christians.

I’ll ignore the rest of your post because it’s a relatively massive non-sequitur that I find totally uninteresting…and I’m tired.