3 Common Defenses of Religion

[Taraz]

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I was just merely pointing out that they aren't experts.


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Was listening to a recent archive and they mention this
article
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They claim this is a piece of original research published in a peer reviewed journal. One of the authors is a regular on the show, Ph.D. in biochemistry, the other is a chemistry professor at some university. I have no idea if the article is any good or if the journal is respected. Just thought I would mention it and would appreciate anyone who can comment on it.

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I don't know much about the journal, but the article seems to deal with the origin of life as we know it and not macroevolution and speciation. Those waters are much murkier for science.

[hexag1]

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The are all the way on the right with the fundamentalists, they just cite the subtle difference that they interpret the text, which they swear blind IS God's word, differently from the way it was written.


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Have you even read the New Testament?

"Love your enemy"
"Be at peace with all men"
"Do unto others"

Many more like that. There's nothing in Christianity that authorizes violence in the name of Christ. It takes far more than misinterpretation to try to justify it.

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And that is why seemingly harmless belief in, say, Catholocism, is NOT comparable to a child believing in Santa Claus.


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It's easy enough to show that people like Dawkins and Harris are more likely to be responsible for people like Stalin and Mao than Christians.

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so you can just disregard passages like this?

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it." Matthew 10:34-39



As you approach a town to attack it, first offer its people terms for peace. If they accept your terms and open the gates to you, then all the people inside will serve you in forced labor. But if they refuse to make peace and prepare to fight, you must attack the town. When the LORD your God hands it over to you, kill every man in the town. But you may keep for yourselves all the women, children, livestock, and other plunder. You may enjoy the spoils of your enemies that the LORD your God has given you.
(Deuteronomy 20:10-14)

[NotReady]

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so you can just disregard passages like this?


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The first quotation isn't about violence, obviously, as Christ says to be His disciple you must take up a cross and follow Him. The second quotation isn't from the New Testament and was specifically given to Israel.

[hexag1]

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Nor if they say "I believe in God because it's written in this book."


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I think you should rethink your opinion of the Bible. Just calling it a book is unfair. I've said this to DS: It isn't unreasonable to think that a good God would communicate to us. If that's true, what other religious writing begins to compare with the Bible?

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How is it unfair to call the Bible anything but a book? its a long document of written words, collated into a single volume, bound together at a hinge. If you don't think that constitutes a book, then you are confused about what a book is. I could say the same thing about any book. I could say that the Lord of the Rings is the word of God, and JRR Tolkein is Gods prophet. Once I take that attitude, then suddenly its unfair to call the Lord of the Rings a book.

you say its not unreasonable to think that a good God would communicate with us? maybe. but is it reasonable to think that God, the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe and man, would communicate to us only in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek?
This claim that the Bible is the word of God is the height of arrogance. This is claiming that God only spoke to a certain chosen people, and anyone else who got the message did so because of the kindness of the chosen few. What are we to say to people who spoke other languages, or who couldnt read? What happened to the millions who died waiting for the word of God to be translated into Chinese? It took centuries for the Bible to get that far. You mean to say that God just said '[censored] em' They should have spoken my language? How supremely arrogant.