One of my biggies as a teenager as doubts were mounting, if these impossible OT stories are demonstrable fabrications, why not the Jesus stories too? Who decides, what is the criteria?
Well that takes us into the various doctrines of the Atonement, which is a big subject in its own right and too much for this thread. Suffice it to say it should be obvious the churches that treat Genesis as allegory do not regard Christ’s sacrifice as merely “dying for an allegory”.
Depends who they are. I grew up in a family with one parent who was a an ex-Methodist convert to Catholicism, and whose father was a Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and the other was a committed Anglican. My parents met at Oxford where one read History and the other English. So these things were talked about at home, at a reasonably well-informed if rather bookish level. When I came to clear the family house I had to box up for disposal several shelves of books on philosophy, theology and history. A lot had been bought by my father when he was wrestling with his own faith. Some fragments of that learning have rubbed off on me, enough at least that I do not dismiss religious thought as without value to humanity, though I am personally sceptical about some of the doctrines.
My public school education in small town Texas, where the majority of the school board were members of the various flavors of Southern Baptist church in the region, didn't even cover evolution. In tenth grade (1974) my biology teacher told us that the school board was requiring her to skip a few chapters...
With respect exchemist your circumstances are not even close to typical, that is not a criticism, that is something to think about, enjoy and be proud of.
Yes that is annoying, as is the (related) smug question they sometimes pose: “Are you saved?”. My answer is always that I do not know and that it strikes me as arrogant for someone to claim they can know the mind of God, in effect. But they have this simplistic notion that one can be classed as “born again”, whereupon one is - shazzam! - in the clear, unlike everyone else in the world, who is presumably damned. Very unattractive and grotesquely unfair to the many very saintly people in the world - let alone ordinary but basically good people - who don’t happen to belong to their sect.My only real problem with any religion is when they try to force everyone else to follow their rules.
That, and being told I'm going to hell. That really ticks me off too.
Don't forget "I'll pray for you," with its sheen of benevolence over a deep layer of passive-aggressive blended with smug superiority. Add the little sympathetic sideways head-tilt and it all makes "you're going to Hell" seem pleasantly direct.My only real problem with any religion is when they try to force everyone else to follow their rules.
That, and being told I'm going to hell. That really ticks me off too.
Oh I do realise my background is atypical. But I’m not really sure where you are going with this. There is no doubt that every religious adherent will have only a partial and imperfect grasp of the detailed teaching of their branch of the faith. Maybe mine is more sophisticated, or just over-intellectualised, than some. But everyone will be heterodox to some degree, if only by accident. A good one is the doctrine of the Trinity. Every time I think I have a mental picture of that a priest tells me that it is wrong and actually corresponds to some obscure heresy or other from the early church! (With a certain amount of good natured leg pulling).
Too true! These people have no idea how annoying - and yet somehow clammy - they are. At uni we used to refer to them as the “God Squad” and gave them a wide berth.Don't forget "I'll pray for you," with its sheen of benevolence over a deep layer of passive-aggressive blended with smug superiority. Add the little sympathetic sideways head-tilt and it all makes "you're going to Hell" seem pleasantly direct.
Too much to get into now on your post but I will respond to this point quoted.
This forum no doubt has a whole menagerie of outliers. Probably few of us well-suited to probing the mind of the "average person in the pew" of any Xtian branch.
Which is kind of ironic for me. I discovered my first science forum when the "Theory of Intelligent Design" and associated Dover trial occurred. I heard of this "theory" and searched to find out what it actually said. Never found it. Just found a lot people saying, "That can't happen!". I stuck around trying to understand why they thought that way.
I think the answer lies at a more fundamental level: understanding what science is, what science can and can not do, and more importantly an acceptance on both sides of what is and what isn't in the purview of science to answer. I understand the point was made specifically in the context of this discussion re: evolution, but it speaks to first understanding what science is/isn't. People who refuse to accept evolution will nonetheless accept other scientific "truths" supported with the same level of scientific evidence - such as the earth orbiting the sun. The epistemic principle of both is the same, yet people might accept one but not the other. So, yes, teaching evolution in schools is of course an answer, but without teaching them where science fits in the grand scheme of things, they may still not see the epistemic inconsistency in their views.
Yes I too was very much energised by ID and spent a lot of time on line debating it. I read the judgement in the Dover School (Kitzmiller) trial and still have a copy on file somewhere. I even wrote to our then parish priest about it, after he rather thoughtlessly moaned in a sermon about the outcome illustrating the march of secular society. He had not done his homework on ID or what actually had gone on at Dover School. At the time quite a few religiously inclined people naively seized on ID as if it harmonised faith and science. Whereas really it was an attack on science, which I suspect is partly what galvanised the Four Horsemen of New Atheism into their campaigning.
You are right of course. As we so often see on these forums, people without a science background frequently have only a hazy grasp of what science is - hence for example the way ID was able to make so much headway around the turn of the century in spite of being fundamentally bogus.
These beliefs are not set in stone in young children, at the age when they should be learning for the first time about evolution. I agree that with adults who have a confirmed set of beliefs the concrete has already set, so that is much more difficult. Ideally in my view children should also be taught some religious knowledge (as they are in the UK though not in France or the US), in which context the apparent clash with bible stories can be handled.
If you're omniscient, surely all choices you make are deliberate.
Do you think we can confidently rule out the existence of a loving God, at this point? Or, at least, an all-powerful loving God?
Allowing suffering is certainly inconsistent with the notion of a loving omnipotent god. Isn't it?
