Too Many Extremes in Disbelief

[Rival]

There is a broader point here you seem to be missing; most of what we think we know about the ancient world in Europe and Asia Minor, comes from the likes of Herodotus, Thucydides, Suetonius, Livy, Julius Caesar etc. All are notoriously unreliable sources, but historians know how to interrogate those sources, and no one ever thinks of disregarding the entirety of ancient history as valueless myth, fable etc. No one says, for example, that the Greco-Persian wars never happened, or that Darius, Xerxes, Leonidas, Themistocles etc, didn't even exist.

Exactly.

 

[blü 2]

I didn't say anything about dying for a cause validating anything, I merely said that there were Christian martyrs. I saw someone on RF today throwing all martyr stories out as fabrications. Even if what they died for is nonsense, it doesn't mean they weren't martyred. So why throw out all the stories?

Apologies if I misread you. Yes, there were Christian martyrs. For instance, Robin Lane Fox's book Pagans and Christians (1986) has a clear sharp and informative summary in chapter 9, "Persecution and Martyrdom".

 

[Kenny]

Indeed. Those atheists who pride themselves on their powers of reason, logic, critical thinking etc., seem especially quick to abandon these principles completely when it comes to the subject of Christianity; to which they will afford no credit, no benefit of any doubt, and no pretence at impartiality. In many cases this may be due to bad experiences those individuals have had with various Christian denominations, most especially perhaps, those of the evangelical variety.

Justifying prejudice on the basis of personal experience, is of course neither reasonable nor logical, which makes a mockery of the appeal to those qualities which the anti-theists frequently proclaim. Be that as it may, I try to make allowances for those people who are clearly, as @Kenny once pointed out, often coming from a position of personal pain. I have no wish to make their pain any worse, and in any case getting drawn into a clash of egos is no good to anyone. So I try to avoid engaging with the worst offenders, except occasionally to argue philosophical points in instances where it looks like discourse and disagreement might actually be conducted in a civil manner.

Very good and very wise.

 

[ChristineM]

I've noticed that, among a large cohort of non-Christians and especially atheists on here, many of them take disbelief to what I would consider an extreme

Looking at it from the other side of the fence i see many believers taking their belief to extremes. But hey ho...

Christian martyr stories are made up.' Why?

Im not saying martyr stories of any faith (and most, if not all claim their martyrs) are made up or not. What i go by is evidence, without evidence what we have is 'bof'

Paul was xyz.'

See previous comment

Jesus didn't exist

I am not one who believes this although i do believe he didn't exist as described in the bible.

The minute something is classed as 'religious' it seems far too many people are willing to write it off as a complete waste of space.

And the minute someone s classed as irreligious it seems far to many people are willing to write off and persecute them, but again, hey ho.

I'm not digging at your op here, what im saying is it works both ways

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

There is a broader point here you seem to be missing; most of what we think we know about the ancient world in Europe and Asia Minor, comes from the likes of Herodotus, Thucydides, Suetonius, Livy, Julius Caesar etc. All are notoriously unreliable sources, but historians know how to interrogate those sources, and no one ever thinks of disregarding the entirety of ancient history as valueless myth, fable etc. No one says, for example, that the Greco-Persian wars never happened, or that Darius, Xerxes, Leonidas, Themistocles etc, didn't even exist.

I am certainly missing your point. Hopefully you're not comparing the historicity of Jesus with the historicity of Darius the Great.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I am certainly missing your point. Hopefully you're not comparing the historicity of Jesus with the historicity of Darius the Great.

I think you're deliberately missing the point now, so let me try to make it another way; I have never heard anybody suggest that it would be either possible or desirable, to eradicate from contemporary European (and thereby American) culture, the influence of Classical Greek philosophy, science, or mythology.

I have come across people on this forum arguing that the whole of The Bible should be completely disregarded because of references to slavery, but I have never heard this argument made in respect of Plato's Republic. That example, I think, speaks directly to the title of this thread.

 

[Audie]

I think you're deliberately missing the point now, so let me try to make it another way; I have never heard anybody suggest that it would be either possible or desirable, to eradicate from contemporary European (and thereby American) culture, the influence of Classical Greek philosophy, science, or mythology.

I have come across people on this forum arguing that the whole of The Bible should be completely disregarded because of references to slavery, but I have never heard this argument made in respect of Plato's Republic. That example, I think, speaks directly to the title of this thread.

I doubt anyone on this forum ever said such a thing.
You probably misunderstood.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I doubt anyone on this forum ever said such a thing.
You probably misunderstood.

Your doubt is noted.

It is also, in this instance, entirely misplaced.

 

[Audie]

Your doubt is noted.

It is also, in this instance, entirely misplaced.

Considering the number of claims I see that
cannot be verified with even one example- this
so- called " scientism" for example- it is highly legit
to doubt such an extreme claim as yours.

Which similarly will never be seen in real life.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I agree with this. Among the atheists here there is , as with the religious believers, a range of views. One might place them on a "Dawkins spectrum" ranging from the younger Dawkins, representing the fundamentalists, tilting at windmills and naïve strawman representations of religion, to the older Dawkins, who seems to have realised that being shrill and angry all the time is off-putting, counterproductive and actually a bit intellectually superficial.

Dawkins, of course, was - perhaps still is - one of the Four Horsemen of the New Atheism: New Atheism - Wikipedia. These four have been responsible for a fair amount of the vitriol thrown in the face of religion in recent decades. Their new idea has been to mount a crusade, preaching and evangelising against religion. They even at one point went so far as to produce a video, with consciously religious overtones, designed to engage emotionally with people's natural sense of wonder about the natural world. I found it faintly nauseating. I can't recall what it was called. Your "crusaders" will be the ones that embrace the New Atheism approach.

The attitude of these New Atheists is the antithesis of that of Stephen Jay Gould's concept of Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA). While NOMA has its critics, it seems to me a far more productive way to discuss the interface between science and religion.

Sociologically, I'm not sure whether the New Atheists are a product of the so-called "culture war" or among its architects, but it seems to me they have contributed to making it worse.

Yeah, as viewed from the point of philosophy, psychology and sociology some of it is rather naive and black and white for in the end:
There is only one way to undertand the world with rationality and evidence and we are the correct ones.

Now I notice that they are not the only ones represtenting atheism or even sceince here, but it gets old, when the debate ends in:
"I don't find that useful, but that I don't find it useful, is not at all really subjective, because I am rational and use objective evidence."

 

[Aupmanyav]

I. 'Christian martyr stories are made up.
II. 'Paul was xyz.'
III. 'Jesus didn't exist.'
IV. Sources that never seem to be good enough. Yet other histories are not questioned (ex. our best information for Alexander the great comes about 200 years after the fact and almost nothing contemporary survives). Ancient written histories and biographies are full of what modern folks would now consider nonsense and are yet still cited as acceptable histories and especially biographies, yet when one goes to the Gospels all of a sudden it's different, despite the fact that the Gospels are now squarely classed as Greco-Roman biography written in the style of every other such biography (ex. miraculous birth narratives, missing out childhoods, not in chronological order etc.)

The minute something is classed as 'religious' it seems far too many people are willing to write it off as a complete waste of space.

What difference all these things make? People will have different views.
1. People have died for their religion in all religions.
2. Paul is important to many Christian sects, but not to others.
3. Most probably, Jesus existed (that is the majority scholarly view), but so what? Ramakrishna existed, Vivekananda existed, Raman Maharshi existed. All exist in their time and then pass away.
4. Sure, religious scriptures and biographies may help in historical research, historians analyze what they say. Most stories are false, some are true. As far as miracles, historians and others in this 21st Century dismiss them for good reason.
Of course, I am an orthodox Hindu and very religious, so what if I am an strong atheist? Hinduism has a space for atheists.

 

[ratiocinator]

I have come across people on this forum arguing that the whole of The Bible should be completely disregarded because of references to slavery...

Can you link to one?

I haven't read every post on this forum by a long way, so I can't claim this is false, but it strikes be as very extreme and not something I'd expect from most atheists on here.

 

[Aupmanyav]

You are talking about scholars, I am talking about people on RF who are generally not such. If I would cite Herodotus, it would be far less criticised than the Gospels. Or Suteonius. Many of these authors go unchallenged.

Don't deride all members of the forum. We may not be academicians, but we are people with normal intelligence. We check the accuracy of what we write. I do not think any historian takes what was written by Herodotus as 'Gospel Truth'.
Most of the stories written in Hindu scriptures are also not true.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Can you link to one?

I haven't read every post on this forum by a long way, so I can't claim this is false, but it strikes be as very extreme and not something I'd expect from most atheists on here.

Well, it is simple The correct way to read the Bible is to do it fundamentally and literal and thus the Bible accepts slavery. Thus it can disregarded as you must accept everything in it as it stands and that it accepts slavery, invalidates all of it.
I have seen that one in the wild and even here.
It is a lesser version of religion is wrong, because it has been used to do bad.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Can you link to one?

I haven't read every post on this forum by a long way, so I can't claim this is false, but it strikes be as very extreme and not something I'd expect from most atheists on here.

You’re going to have to take my word for it. Or not, as the case may be.

 

[ChristineM]

Can you link to one?

I haven't read every post on this forum by a long way, so I can't claim this is false, but it strikes be as very extreme and not something I'd expect from most atheists on here.

OPTIMISTIC frube

 

[ratiocinator]

You’re going to have to take my word for it. Or not, as the case may be.

I'll remain provisionally sceptical then. It's not the first time on here that I've heard some claim about atheists that I'd seen no examples of. When I've asked for some actual examples, I've generally got no response. At least you bothered to respond, so thanks for that much.

 

[Whateverist]

I've noticed that, among a large cohort of non-Christians and especially atheists on here, many of them take disbelief to what I would consider an extreme. There are many issues so this will likely be a wide-ranging thread.

I. 'Christian martyr stories are made up.' Why? Yes, there are many apocryphal tales but it is absolutely true that Christians were at times persecuted and put to all kinds of terrible deaths by the Roman state. These figures are exaggerated but why should this mean that the whole idea behind Christian martyrs be questioned?

II. 'Paul was xyz.' (A Roman spy, a false Christian, didn't really see Jesus etc.) Please prove it. Paul probably had more enemies than friends, but the same might be said of Jesus.

III. 'Jesus didn't exist.'

IV. Sources that never seem to be good enough. Yet other histories are not questioned (ex. our best information for Alexander the great comes about 200 years after the fact and almost nothing contemporary survives). Ancient written histories and biographies are full of what modern folks would now consider nonsense and are yet still cited as acceptable histories and especially biographies, yet when one goes to the Gospels all of a sudden it's different, despite the fact that the Gospels are now squarely classed as Greco-Roman biography written in the style of every other such biography (ex. miraculous birth narratives, missing out childhoods, not in chronological order etc.)

The minute something is classed as 'religious' it seems far too many people are willing to write it off as a complete waste of space.

@Augustus @exchemist @RestlessSoul @Brickjectivity

It seems as though those atheists whose response mode toward all things religious is stuck in sneer mode are suffering from post partum angst about leaving faith as they knew it. Many online atheists will tell you they know the Bible much better than believers because they actually read it. Many Christians do seem to read it only provide ‘proof text’ for their own opinions and biases, a practice that deserves criticism. But to only read it to point out internal contradictions or conflicts with science is about at the level. Both are guilty of assuming faith as they knew it is typical of the experience of all believers. I’d suggest anyone who seriously wants to criticize religion first look for the highest forms you can find, then consider the best case that can be made for it and then tell us what you find lacking. Otherwise just admit you are butt hurt about how your relationship with religion ended and ask us all to give you the space to vent. Better yet do it in private or hire a psychotherapist to listen.

 

[Audie]

What difference all these things make? People will have different views.
1. People have died for their religion in all religions.
2. Paul is important to many Christian sects, but not to others.
3. Most probably, Jesus existed (that is the majority scholarly view), but so what? Ramakrishna existed, Vivekananda existed, Raman Maharshi existed. All exist in their time and then pass away.
4. Sure, religious scriptures and biographies may help in historical research, historians analyze what they say. Most stories are false, some are true. As far as miracles, historians and others in this 21st Century dismiss them for good reason.
Of course, I am an orthodox Hindu and very religious, so what if I am an strong atheist? Hinduism has a space for atheists.

Winner frubal

 

[Audie]

It seems as though those atheists whose response mode toward all things religious is stuck in sneer mode are suffering from post partum angst about leaving faith as they knew it. Many online atheists will tell you they know the Bible much better than believers because they actually read it. Many Christians do seem to read it only provide ‘proof text’ for their own opinions and biases, a practice that deserves criticism. But to only read it to point out internal contradictions or conflicts with science is about at the level. Both are guilty of assuming faith as they knew it is typical of the experience of all believers. I’d suggest anyone who seriously wants to criticize religion first look for the highest forms you can find, then consider the best case that can be made for it and then tell us what you find lacking. Otherwise just admit you are butt hurt about how your relationship with religion ended and ask us all to give you the space to vent. Better yet do it in private or hire a psychotherapist to listen.

Why worry too much about the few, the worst among us