This is just my opinion, but when I listen to Muslims explaining their religion to each other, I get the impression that Islam is hateful and violent, but that it’s also pretty stupid; “full of shit”, as my dad would say -because none of it can be justified or shown to be true, and what little they do know can’t really imply what they say it does.
The same thing goes for Christians. When I listen to Christians discussing their religion, I get the impression that they’re hateful too, but their violent reactions are culturally inhibited. So they compensate for that with a staggering level of bewildering stupidity, coupled with dishonesty. It sounds to me like pots and kettles accusing each other in the perfect example of the blind leading the blind.
But when I listen to those Jews who still believe in God and the Bible, and I hear them arguing aspects of their beliefs, it strikes me that the foundation of Abrahamic religion is utterly empty, devoid of any possible meaning or value. I don’t want to say “who cares?”, because way too many people do. That’s what confuses and alarms me! How could anyone imagine that any of this is really true or really matters?
I mean, think about it this way: If you listened to two grown men arguing about what Zeus really meant by what he supposedly said to Hera according to a confused mystic’s interpretation of man-made mythology, would you, could you manage to feign any interest in that discussion?
At least in the case of Greek mythology there was an understanding of the fallibility of the gods. The thing that I can’t move beyond is that in the Abrahamic faiths, there are no guidelines included in the scripture that express what is to be taken literally and what shouldn’t. This should be clear to a reasonable person that you shouldn’t take anything at all in the works literally, especially topics that involve massive consequences affecting your eternal soul. What omniscient being would omit such an incredibly important element in the holiest of words? How is there to be any effectiveness in spreading the truth among non-believers if your own flock is entirely divided on nearly everything that you’ve allowed to meet the pen?
I don’t see the big deal about Zeus…. But I have to hand it to AronRa… In is youtube debate in 2012 with some dude named Bob Dutko, He was very convincing…He convinced me that there could bea God, and I’M NOT an Atheist after all!
Aron convinced you, or Bob convinced you? Heh. I think I’m missing a bit of context for the joke. You should flesh that out a little.
Aren’t discussions like this the basis of a heck of a lot of internet traffic? Did the Balrog really have wings or was it just an allusion to winglike smoke and who’d win in a space battle-the USS Enterprise or a Star Destroyer?
You would think so MickII but it is not that nice.
Yes if they were discussing such BS in the manner you suggest than yes it becomes an interesting but Who Cares thing.
But when they are discussing BS and then continue it with well we now know that Zeus wants us to not have sex then we should have some law in place to ‘protect others from Zeus’ ,like the discussions of the Abrahamic aHoles do, we soon find us hip deep in real manure. Not lighting the stove or a string around the block is totally silly & most likely pretty stupid but that is them putting restraints on THEMSELVES not me, so I could live with that, but when their discussions lead to ‘lets make it unlawful for anyone to go thru the string’ or ‘kill the gay’, they are now very dangerous to others, they are more then welcome to kill themselves but I object to them killing me or others. That’s why their silly-stupid-BS discussions are important.
As a teenager, I had quite an interest in mythology. This ended up being one of the factors that lead me away from Christianity. I began to see that there was no essential difference in the types of stories in the Bible and in mythology. And everyone agreed the mythological stories were just-so-stories with very little if any truth behind them. Ergo, weren’t the Bible stories likely the same? One more factor eroding my belief.
That’s one of the many things that I’m sure contributed to my very young rejection of Christianity, too. I learned a lot about Greek and Norse mythology, as early as kindergarten or first grade.
I also saw a lot of stage magic when I was in the single digits. The miracles in the Bible seemed pretty pitiful, compared to the things that I saw magicians do.
Stargate SG-1 might have filled that particular niche for my deconversion.
It’s too much like children discussing the merits of the Easter Bunny vs. the Great Pumpkin.
I thought I saw on the interwebs a scenario of a Star Destroyer vs the Enterprise from TNG — The Star Destroyer’s screens couldn’t stop transporters, and the turbo-lasers couldn’t get through the Enterprise shields.
I just remember Picard (TNG, remember) saying “How quaint, beam a photon torpedo onto their bridge and let’s go.”
#3
Kind of like someone arguing that since the Hulk tcould totally beat Superman in a fight, we’d better do as the Hulk says lest he get angry at us – you wouldn’t like Him when He’s angry after all – and it just so happens that Hulk doesn’t like gay marriage… better ban it!
… better
banBanner it!I fixed that for you.
your 100% correct about the amount of hatred and contempt they all have for those not like themselves. the muslims are rotten to their own as well as everybody else, the jews think they are better then everybody else seeing how they are gods “chosen” people, the other day i saw a snowbird driving along with 4 bumper stickers on his car, first one read, “illegal means illegal” the second read,”beck/limbaugh 2016″ the third read, “its not the 10 suggestions” and the forth read “not a liberal” as if that is a point of honor or anything we needed to be told after reading the first three.
a theocracy of people just like themselves would suit most of these types to the bone, but it is only because they are culturally inhibited that we do not hear many saying this aloud in public…. yet.
Illegal means illegal? What is that even in reference to? Do you have any idea?
Oh, I just thought of it, although I had to turn my brain and empathy down a few notches, first. That would be the conservative douche-bags’ habit of calling them just ‘illegals’, wouldn’t it?
si amigo 🙂
Hey, don’t look at me, man. My ancestors came over here back when it was perfectly legal to wipe out the native Americans and steal their land. 😛
“its not the 10 suggestions”
so, are we talking about those ten rules that include not boiling a wossname, domestic animal in its mother’s milk? Or the other ten ones? Or all twenty?
— — — —
If you want a good decription of typical gods, read Glen Cook’s humoristic urban fantasy “Petty Pewter Gods” (Garrett, P.I.) The thing about gods is, they are shaped by fantasies by herders nad iron-age warriors, and the average god has problems out-thinking a rock.
Aren’t there three sets? I’ll have to look those up again.
Another fun take on gods and their less-than-overwhelming brilliance: “Small Gods” by the late Terry Pratchett, a Discworld novel.
— — —
(OT) No gods needed:
“Chemists claim to have solved riddle of how life began on Earth” http://phys.org/news/2015-03-chemists-riddle-life-began-earth.html
My favorite Terry Pratchett novel, yes.
Ive in no way read anything like this just before. So nice to find somebody with some original thoughts on this subject, really thank you for beginning this up. this internet site is something that’s essential on the web, someone with a little originality. helpful job for bringing something new towards the world wide web!
I’m afraid I have to admit I looked at the time and considered the debate not worthy of 150-ish minutes of my life. So I’m going off of Aron’s summary, which is accurate from what I have previously heard of the Abrahamic religions. Primarily an extensive exposure and education on Christianity in my case, but additional minor exposure to the other two Abrahamic faiths led me to think that once you’ve seen one studious bozo rambling on about ineffableness you’ve seen them all. Changing the clothes, the sacred names and wearing a different expression while staring into your navel doesn’t really change the basic problems with the whole procedure.
I have to admit I might find it slightly more interesting if Zeus were being argued about. I’d likely assume the people doing the arguing were roleplaying and I’d be curious about what game they were playing, although the focus on third-hand sources of the quotes would leave me not very interested in playing with them: that just sounds boring. 🙂
That’s an inescapable point about the supposedly sophisticated theologians, yeah. You can sit around reading an old book all you want, making up rationalizations for the massive contradictions. Why should we believe that anything that your god has revealed to you through your meditation has any bearing upon reality? How are you going to demonstrate the truth of your claims, beyond a mindless appeal to your authority as a rabbi/priest/imam?
Long time listener, first time caller…
Lookey what my town is doing…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUj-fUBKxMw
Probably yeah, out of sheer morbid curiosity and incredulity that such a discussion was happening at all.
Apart from anything else everybody knows Zeus usually lied to Hera to go off schtupping some mortal woman. Disguised as a bull or a swan or suchlike.
Depends which time. I’m sure he’s used almost every disguise at some point, given his sexual history.
I read the Koran before 9/11, and was disheartened by how vacuous and insipid it seemed. The Bible may not be much of a moral guide, but parts of it at least have some literary value.
I think we can thank the Jews for most of that, although they got pretty mind-numbing at times, too. Genesis and the first half of Exodus were okay. Joshua and Judges were decent, as were the histories … the Samuel and the Kings books, at least. I’m not as impressed with the Gospels, but at least they’re still reasonable narrative form.
From what I’ve heard of the Koran, it’s mostly comparable to Leviticus and Numbers … maybe the Wisdom books of the Old Testament, which I’m also not all that impressed with.