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New Atheism's big mistake: Debating creationists solves nothing
By Sandra Law 11 February 2014 @ 1:12pm Comments (2)
http://www.salon.com/2014/02/01/new_atheisms_big_mistake_debating_creationists_solves_nothing/
Bill Nye and Ken Ham debated creationism on Feb. 4. Ham’s young-earth creationism represents the distinct tendency of American Christian fundamentalists to reject science and use their religion to defend economic ideas, environmental degradation and anti-science extremism. But these views aren’t actually inherent in Christianity — they’ve been imposed on the biblical text by politically motivated and theologically inept readers. The solution is not anti-theism but better theological and scientific awareness.
- Can a technology be true?
March 16, 2023 - 1:27pm
Jon Dron
Atheists at Large
life as an atheist in a world that believes in freedom of religion but not freedom from religion
Comments
The trouble with the Bible is that it makes pretty much any interpretation possible if you look for long enough and pick the right bits to fit your biases. Way too many contradictions and inconsistencies which, by rules of inference, means any conclusion can be drawn. Killing is always wrong except sometimes it isn't, you should love everyone except for some people that it is OK to kill or enslave, God loves everyone but hates some large groups of people, etc, etc etc. It is therefore very hard to know what actually *is* inherent in Christianity.
As someone who has read the bible cover to cover a few times I could not agree more re: the inherent contradictions. At times the god described seems like a mass murderer at others a folksy hero (New Testament). The blatant and frequent misogyny is also disturbing. I just cannot engage in the kind of magical thinking that it takes to accommodate a belief in miracles. The Christian bible causes cognitive dissonance given the push me, pull me nature of the content (you should love ... no hate ... no love the sinner). And for me, moral outrage (e.g. the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children (by whom, actually other people in practice), children as chattel and innately 'sinful'). Sure there is some 'good stuff', the problem is that you have to overlook so much that is awful. And don't get me started on the Book of Revelations - only interpretable if you are on some kind of mind-altering drug or in a fugue state. But for some sad individuals it is a roadmap to the future.