Am I crazy or...

is this clearly and unequivocally circular reasoning?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=127647&mesg_id=128006

Just checking if I am still capable of reasoning.

And yet even after explaining it multiple times these theists just don't get it. They are using their interpretation to justify their interpretation.

The bible is right because I say it is right.

I am right because the bible says I'm right.

Are you dizzy yet?

:think:

..religion never makes sense.

They are trying to rationalize dark age religious literature, attempting to justify the babble's relevance in the 21st Century and in reality, the babble has no place in the 21st century. It was written by irrational peoples who had no understanding of how the world/universe works, so they used their superstitions and took from earlier religions(Sumerian primarily)to scatch out something that they could comprehend and used the words they knew that best fit.

Religion does nothing but run in circles and accomplishes nothing. Religion has never progressed and it can't, it was not made by the men at the time to progress into the present. It's purpose was for their time and their way of understanding, it has no place in the 21st century.

...came from Dr. Randal Helms at a meeting of the Skeptics Society. Helms is a famous Bible scholar who regularly outrages the faithful.

e.g., in his book Who Wrote The Gospels?, when Helms suggested the Gospel Of Luke was probably written by a woman. Part of his evidence really cracked me up--the author of Luke depicted Jesus and the apostles as a bunch of deadbeats who live off women. Pretty much like pimps.

Also, a Big Miracle Story in Luke has JC resurrecting the dead son of a poor widow. Helms noted that this would have been a powerful message to women in the social context of that time, when a childless widow had no financial support and would have been forced to beg in the streets. The Miracle Story itself, as usual, was swiped from a similar yarn in the Gospel Of Mark, where Jesus resurrects the dead daughter of Jarius. Like most objective Biblical scholars, Helms noted that Luke and Matthew are a direct steal from Mark, with extra miracles and other Bonus Materials.

Sorry, got carried away there for a minute, as usual.

Anyway, Helms said one thing during his lecture that has always stuck with me:

"When you read the New Testament, you always have to remember that you are not reading history or biography. You are reading propaganda, written to help start a new religion."

Whenever I talk about facts in the bible they talk about context as if that helps their position. It was wrong then and it's wrong now. The context is that they were superstitious pastoralists who had no learning outside of an oral tradition. It was easy for them to be taken by a ride by the authors of the bible. That's the context. We know better. We have long outgrown such nonsense, but some people still cling to it.

because I've had fundies hurl phrases taken completely out of context at me to prove some unprovable point and I've been able to cite the whole verse in context, one that completely demolishes their argument then and there. I've been able to shut more than one fundy up permanently using that technique.

Personally, my best advice on the buy bull is to read it cover to cover, like a novel.

My mother finally did it in her 60s. She was so angry by the end of it she was positively hissing and spluttering. "This is what they tried to make me afraid of all my life? This is the crap they've been pushing?"

That's the reason the Catholic church discouraged its members from owning babbles, let alone reading them.

Both my parents died unbelievers and both had easy passings.

:shrug:

And that's how so much evil is done in the name of religion. People interpret the Bible (Koran, whatever) to fit their world view then use that to justify all sorts of heinous shit.






“More people have been slaughtered in the name of religion than for any other single reason. That, my friends, that is true perversion.”

Harvey Milk

that's just painful to read.

:banghead:

that everyone decides their interpretation and then saying that a single interpretation (theirs) is the correct one.

As well?

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale