Flann wrote:What's confusing about "You shall not murder" or "Love your enemies."?

Nothing.

What's confusing is finding those verses and ignoring the ten thousand other verses. You expect it to be easy to find a needle in a needlestack, and scoff at those that don't find it obvious which verse is the one true verse. Why should your verse be the one to follow, rather than Romans 1:24 to 1:28? Do you have a "How to pick a verse for dummies" book you reference? Or is it simply so obvious that a four year old should immediately flip to the correct page and follow that single verse?

This is all part of the American infatuation with guns.

I know, it was a low blow. My apologies.

Interbane wrote:What's confusing is finding those verses and ignoring the ten thousand other verses. You expect it to be easy to find a needle in a needlestack, and scoff at those that don't find it obvious which verse is the one true verse. Why should your verse be the one to follow, rather than Romans 1:24 to 1:28? Do you have a "How to pick a verse for dummies" book you reference? Or is it simply so obvious that a four year old should immediately flip to the correct page and follow that single verse?

When you look at directive commands from Christ or the apostles it's very clear and unambiguous. Romans 1;24-28 is descriptive as God's judgement on behaviours deemed wrong.
Modern society in the main disagrees with this. You never find commands to treat people abusively from Christ but the opposite.
So while we find many things classified as sinful there is no mandate to abuse people who do any of these things. Should there be a public campaign to abuse perjurers or swindlers as groups etc. Everyone is in the same boat really.

Interbane wrote:Quote:
This is all part of the American infatuation with guns.




I know, it was a low blow. My apologies.

I wasn't offended at all. It's humourous in a macabre way. I wouldn't have enjoyed inscribing Sam's nukes for him if you didn't. Call it an unintended consequence.

What's confusing about "You shall not murder" or "Love your enemies."?

Rhetorical obfuscation.

Flann wrote:When you look at directive commands from Christ or the apostles it's very clear and unambiguous.

When you find direct commands... it's easy. How long does it take for you to find direct commands? How do you know you haven't missed any? What if your pastor or parent stresses other verses? Who says you have to look at direct commands from Christ rather than from God?

Preliminary to your "very clear interpretation" is an entire army of assumptions. I'm sorry, but you're wrong Flann. It's not clear at all. Your particular hermeneutics are clear to you, after a lifetime of studying the bible. But even then, why isn't the same emphasis on Christs directives "clear" to Fred Phelps? If it were very clear, why are there tens of thousands of denominations? Are people to blame for being so stupid that they can't see what's "clear"? If it's the minority of people who can see what is "clear", then it isn't very clear, is it?

ant wrote:Rhetorical obfuscation.

Precisely. That's what you get with a collection of books totalling at over 800K words written by superstitious Romans. Clarity obviously wasn't their goal.

Interbane wrote:When you find direct commands... it's easy. How long does it take for you to find direct commands? How do you know you haven't missed any? What if your pastor or parent stresses other verses? Who says you have to look at direct commands from Christ rather than from God?

You make it sound all very complicated Interbane. If you want to find the teachings of Christ read the gospels. In fact the teaching is not even a huge part of the gospels. It's not complicated at all.
Fred Phelps is not following Christ's teachings.
You take an extreme and present it as the norm. It's called Christianity for a reason.
Do you blame Darwin's writings for eugenics? Maybe you do. The teachings of Christ could not be clearer than they are.
I can't psychoanalyze Fred Phelps, but what is obvious is that he had to violate the clear teachings of Christ to propagate his hatred.
You would agree with Lenin and Marx that religion is superstition and atheistic materialism is true and liberating from ignorance. You say you are agnostic but consistently argue for naturalistic materialism.
The difference is that you don't agree with using violence and coercion to promote your views. They just took it that step further.
The language of Dennett and Dawkins of "viruses of the mind" and the "universal acid" of Darwinism is not that dissimilar from the eugenicists language of "hygiene".
In Dennett's view theists brains have been hijacked by viral memes for their nefarious ends. So we are hapless victims in need of rescue.
Dennett's brain is immune to viruses of the mind. He's a freethinker.
Could not mind anti-viruses be developed and treatments be humanely administered for the normalization of the afflicted theists.
Maybe that universal acid can be chemically programmed into recalcitrant brains to kill those pesky viruses.

Flann wrote:It's not complicated at all... You take an extreme and present it as the norm.

Flann, the proof is in the pudding. People disagree over what parts of the bible should be studied. This isn't just WBC, it's every denomination. It isn't clear... and that's a fact evidenced by the millions of people who all disagree over what parts of the bible are the most important and what should be followed. I've jumped from church to church and have never heard a pastor using the same theme. Maybe it's because I don't have a favorite denomination. They are truly different, if you've ever travelled and experienced other churches.

I'm not saying it "isn't clear" due to my own analysis. Even though I could make that argument in a heartbeat, it isn't my argument. My argument is the irrefutable evidence of millions of disagreeing Christians (<- direct, irrefutable evidence that the bible isn't "clear"). There's no way around this other than denying reality. And the denominations need not even go so far as to disagree. All they need to do is emphasize different teachings and verses. That's it, and my point is proven. You absolutely have to be in denial to not see this.

Flann wrote:If you want to find the teachings of Christ read the gospels.

Right, as simple as 2+2. Flann, you're simply wrong. You're looking at this through a lens where you've had a lifetime to become familiar with the material and put on blinders to the verses you think aren't important. If it were as clear as you say, everyone would agree on which parts are most important. Testing this, I googled a few different versions of "which bible verse is most important." There were some lists that came up as the top hits, and 3 of the lists didn't share a single passage. Two of the lists were identical, and I suspect it was a click bait site. A few sites had questionable verses(from my perspective), and a few had the ones you champion. These are the top hits on Google, and my own experience matches this. Go read about different denominations, and you'll see all the differences in which verses they emphasize and the spin they put on their interpretations.

Flann, it ISN'T clear. It may be clear to YOU what YOU think should be clear... but how about the rest of the world?

Interbane wrote:Flann, it ISN'T clear. It may be clear to YOU what YOU think should be clear... but how about the rest of the world?

Actually, when Christ was asked which was the greatest commandment he answered. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and the second is like it; You shall love your neighbour as yourself.On these hang all of the law and the prophets."

That's a clear enough summary to me even leaving out the sermon on the mount.
The point is that these are the priorities stressed by Christ himself. What others may do with the bible against this must face up to this which he stressed in many ways.
Since we are talking about false beliefs can you suggest a remedy for these viruses of the mind, that have hijacked our brains causing us to have these false beliefs?
The universal acid is failing in it's duty to eat away the religious delusions we are afflicted with.
Funnily enough, Bill Nye the science guy in an interview, said he had failed because evolution was not universally embraced in the U.S.
He was being a bit hard on himself. No matter what people might think should be,there are reasons beyond religious that cause people to question this.

Flann wrote:What others may do with the bible against this must face up to this which he stressed in many ways.

Sure, I agree with you. Everyone else on Earth needs to face up to this. I'm not being snide.

The fact remains that people emphasize other verses. It doesn't matter if they're wrong. If there are a lot of them(and there are millions), then my point is PROVEN that the bible is not clear. I can formulate this in a logical structure, but I fear that might alienate you. But I don't think I need to.

Flann wrote:Since we are talking about false beliefs can you suggest a remedy for these viruses of the mind, that have hijacked our brains causing us to have these false beliefs?

Yes, build your worldview using proper method rather than heuristic. That's the antiviral you seek. Focus on adhering to proper method above everything else, especially any single conclusion.

Interbane wrote:Flann wrote:
Since we are talking about false beliefs can you suggest a remedy for these viruses of the mind, that have hijacked our brains causing us to have these false beliefs?




Yes, build your worldview using proper method rather than heuristic. That's the antiviral you seek. Focus on adhering to proper method above everything else, especially any single conclusion.

We always end up back where we started.I don't believe for a second that my brain has been hijacked by a viral meme.
I was an atheist for a while when I was younger but believe that Christianity is the truth now.
Many of the critiques of Christianity are hyper sceptical. Christ myth theory is an example. They say the prophecies are retro-fitted but there's not really a good case for this.
Simply because the sources are Christian they are dismissed. We know from Christian sources that Peter and Paul were executed under Nero, so they died for what they claimed to be witnesses of.
This fits with the dating of Nero's persecution of Christians as described by Tacitus.
There are lots of reasons that are persuasive. Isaiah prophesied the suffering and resurrection of the messiah as did Daniel and they were certainly not retrospective.
It's unreasonably desperate for some to deny historicity to get around this. They said that Pontius Pilate, Bethlehem and Nazareth didn't exist, but archaeology has consistently vindicated the biblical accounts of these things and will continue to do so.

Flann wrote:Many of the critiques of Christianity are hyper sceptical. Christ myth theory is an example. They say the prophecies are retro-fitted but there's not really a good case for this.

The burden of proof is on you to show the prophecies are true. That somehow, men could see into the future in a way that defies the laws of physics. The solutions here are that 1) the prophecies are retrofitted, or 2) the laws of physics broke down at this specific point in the past. If you want to show that #2 is truth, that is your burden, because #1 fits with existing knowledge. We don't have to make a good case for #1, because it fits in the web of knowledge. On the other hand, you DO have to make a good case for #2.

I've often heard that "proper method" is just a made-up set of rules that favors naturalism. And I'm sure that's exactly how it seems. Because when you follow proper method, you end with naturalism.

Flann wrote:I don't believe for a second that my brain has been hijacked by a viral meme.

It wouldn't make any sense for you to believe it yet do nothing about it. You can't see where you're at from the outside until you're outside.

The concepts aren't literal. "Hijacked" doesn't really fit. There are beliefs that are more believable than other beliefs. That's all it means. You've landed on a belief that is more believable. The key to understanding what's wrong here is that "believable" doesn't necessarily equal "true". True is found by following proper method. But what is more believable is what appeals to more popular heuristic. It has virality for reasons other than truthfulness.