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Ch. 10: The Bible and Morality

#58: Dec. - Jan. 2009 (Non-Fiction)
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DWill

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geo wrote: So far, I don't see Barker doing much to try to understand the believers.
I thought the quotation from Chris about the pyramid of Christian belief looked promising. It seemed to point the way to a more nuanced view. From what has been said about the book, this doesn't seem to be the case at all.
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seespotrun2008

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I have to say that I am really not impressed with this chapter. I am wondering why he is wasting his time trying to debunk a particular type of Christian belief. Atheism means that he does not believe in God. Does that mean that it is also an atheist's mission in life to convince everyone that belief in a particular type of Christian God is wrong?

He takes verses from the Bible to prove points about morality but does not fully explore the meanings of those verses or the culture that those quotes came from. He does not seem to know or care about the various cultures that the Bible was written in, the fact that the Bible is a translation from various languages, etc. He does address this once. "If we freethinkers were mature and sophisticated enough to study the scriptures as they should be studied (higher criticism, context, metaphor, cultural elements, and so on), then we would have fewer problems understanding them. But this is nothing more than saying, "If you held my point of view, then you would hold my point of view" (page 185).

I disagree. I think that studying "higher criticism, context, metaphor, cultural elements" biblical history, language, etc. is a reasoned, intellectual way of approaching a text, especially an ancient text that is pretty far removed from our current culture.

In addition, he trys to throw Judaism and Islam into the mix which is completely misguided. While they are sister religions to Christianity they are certainly not practiced the same way and to bring them into the argument as if he could sum up the problem of all three religions in 40 pages is not reasonable.

Finally his discussion of the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, love your neighbor, turn the other cheek is shoddy analysis along with the rest of the chapter. People have been analyzing and interpreting these scriptures for hundreds of years. People have had the very same questions that he has and have answered those questions much more eloquently than he does in this chapter.

Anyway, just some of my thoughts. :razz2:
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seespotrun wrote:
I have to say that I am really not impressed with this chapter. I am wondering why he is wasting his time trying to debunk a particular type of Christian belief. Atheism means that he does not believe in God. Does that mean that it is also an atheist's mission in life to convince everyone that belief in a particular type of Christian God is wrong?
seespotrun, this same difficulty you express here has been the cause of my frustration with some arguments made by people who sound as if they think that refuting Christianity amounts to showing there is no God. I'm with you in having trouble with that fallacy. But then I realized, all these people are actually doing is sharing their spiritual journey, not proving an absolute. It isn't fair to say that people who believe in a God or other spiritual notions that come to us through specific life experiences are allowed to tell that incomplete story without it being all explained and absolutely proven, yet atheists have absolutely and completely to prove a negative. Atheists can have an incomplete, individual spiritual search and story that brings them to where they are right now as well. And I can not be an atheist and have beliefs or doubts or ethical principles in common with them as I do with people on other spiritual paths.

For example, where realiz quotes him:
Page 170
"Speaking for myself, if the biblical heaven and hell exist, I would choose hell. Having to spend eternity pretending to worship a petty tyrant who tortures those who insult his authority would be more hellish than baking in eternal flames. There is no way such a bully can earn my admiration."

Barker seems to forget that his admiration was there for fifteen years during which he did study and read his bible. Did he ever really believe in the bible or was it just an act? The bible did not change during this time, it was not as if he was unaware of what the bible said. There is something that just does not seem completely authentic about Barker.
I remember in my 11th-13th years having a spritual crisis about whether or not I was Christian and in what way I might be or not. I entertained as deeply and authentically as I could the belief that there might be a God who would send many people to Hell for eternal punishment while saving others based on the attitudes they held about Him and about Jesus. This was first of all incongruent with my understanding of Jesus' behavior, which was to rise above what other people thought of him and how they treated him, taking responsibility for his response rather than trying to control theirs. The notion that God would put a person like Jesus through torture and crucifixion intentionally to save people who had no further moral responsibility themselves except to believe his blood would wash their sins clean and everyone else would burn eternally, left me wanting to do the cosmic civil disobedience of going to hell rather than letting such cruelty and injustice support me in bliss in heaven. How could any decent person feel bliss while others were being burned forever?

Pondering this type of question and coming up with different answers to it and perspectives on it throughout one's life is not a sign that God has changed or that one was insincere before. It's a sign that we can grow, spiritually, that we can seek, relentlessly and tirelessly for that One True Love of Our Spirits and never give up seeking until we find. For some, the form that True Love takes is something they want to call God, for some it might be Truth, for some it might be Love, for some it might change and change, like having several intimate partners instead of marrying your high school sweetheart for life. One thing I think we can't judge well from the outside is the sincerity of one another's longing and search. Each person feels that for himself or herself and knows how deep and painful or filled with joy and a sense of richly present partnership with something Real his or her questing and finding is. I've decided it's part of my program of spiritual growth to try to learn to see and engage people at their most sincere expression, to the degree that I can where I am in my own personal spiritual evolution at any given moment, sometimes far, sometimes near, when earnestly trudging, sometimes just at play.
"Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words so that I can talk with him?"
-- Chuang-Tzu (c. 200 B.C.E.)
as quoted by Robert A. Burton
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seespotrun2008

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GR9 wrote:
seespotrun, this same difficulty you express here has been the cause of my frustration with some arguments made by people who sound as if they think that refuting Christianity amounts to showing there is no God. I'm with you in having trouble with that fallacy. But then I realized, all these people are actually doing is sharing their spiritual journey, not proving an absolute.
Hi GR9. I wanted to take some time to think about what you said. I agree. We each have a personal journey and we each have a right to that. Barker believes in reason as he sees it and that is great. However, I get the sense that he is not entirely willing to let other people have their beliefs.

On page 68 he says
"You thought you were right before, and you think you are right now." Well, yes. I do think I am right now, and I am zealous about it. If zealousness is a fault, then all preachers are guilty. If advocacy is good, it is good for all of us. You were wrong before, maybe you are wrong now." If that is true, I will admit it and apologize, like I have already shown I know how to do . "If there is no God," they say, "why do you care? Why be obessessed with something that does not exist?" (In other words, why not shut up) (pg 68 ).
Are there atheist preachers? Actually I think that zealousness is a fault whether it is an atheist zealot or a Christian one. Maybe it is zealousness that creates war and violence not religion.

His interpretation of the Bible is a literal interpretation of the Bible, even as an atheist. Literal interpretation is not the most scholarly or intellectual way to look at a piece of literature. Yet even by those standards his reading of the Bible is sloppy in places. For example Luke 12:47, 48.
Jesus said: "And that servant {Greek doulos = slave} which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes." Jesus encouraged the beating of slaves!" (page 178).
That is not at all what is going on in those sentences. Jesus is taking something that was very common in that day and using it to make a point so that people would understand better. It would be like if I took something very common in our day, a parent and child relationship for example, and used it to make a point. It is completely inappropriate that Barker would say that Jesus was encouraging slavery or the beating of slaves.

GR9 wrote:
It isn't fair to say that people who believe in a God or other spiritual notions that come to us through specific life experiences are allowed to tell that incomplete story without it being all explained and absolutely proven, yet atheists have absolutely and completely to prove a negative. Atheists can have an incomplete, individual spiritual search and story that brings them to where they are right now as well. And I can not be an atheist and have beliefs or doubts or ethical principles in common with them as I do with people on other spiritual paths.
I do not expect Barker to know everything. However, he is a scholar who claims that reason is the best way to look at the world. To me that would mean that he would do a better job of Biblical interpretation. Chapter 11 is somewhat of an improvement because he tries to look at the original language. However, he does not go much farther than that. I think that making blanket statements, as he often does, or being disrespectful to people who do not believe the way that he does, as he also at times does, is what I am having a problem with. Tell us your personal journey, Barker. I am all for that. But do not be disrespectful to others because they do not have that same journey.
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GR9
this same difficulty you express here has been the cause of my frustration with some arguments made by people who sound as if they think that refuting Christianity amounts to showing there is no God. I'm with you in having trouble with that fallacy. But then I realized, all these people are actually doing is sharing their spiritual journey, not proving an absolute.
This is a good angle for me to think about when I read what Barker is saying rather than getting frustated with his arguments.

seespot
Actually I think that zealousness is a fault whether it is an atheist zealot or a Christian one. Maybe it is zealousness that creates war and violence not religion.
Yes, I agree with this. It is not what is believed but the belief that others should share those beliefs. Beliefs in absolutes fuels this fire and zealousness usually comes from the assurance that one is absolutely right. Despite Barker's journey, his basic personality did not change and he seems to be someone who needs to grasp an ideal and prove it and live it with all he has.
However, he is a scholar who claims that reason is the best way to look at the world. To me that would mean that he would do a better job of Biblical interpretation.
He is really using the Bible in a manipulative way, to prove his argument, much in the way he would have used it before to prove his Christian version of the way people should live. This is the way he was indoctrined into Christianity and in this sense all his reason and education has not advanced him to seeing between black and white.
Tell us your personal journey, Barker. I am all for that. But do not be disrespectful to others because they do not have that same journey.
Good thought and I agree to some extent, but when debating one side of an argument you sometimes have to totally submerge which tends to cloud the vision somewhat.
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Gentle: The notion that God would put a person like Jesus through torture and crucifixion intentionally to save people who had no further moral responsibility themselves except to believe his blood would wash their sins clean and everyone else would burn eternally, left me wanting to do the cosmic civil disobedience of going to hell rather than letting such cruelty and injustice support me in bliss in heaven. How could any decent person feel bliss while others were being burned forever?

When I confront the crucifixion (and confrontation is the correct term...there is no dispassionate or detached way to simply analyze, inspect or consider such brutality) I am always reminded of the terrors that actually and really plague human existence...not imaginary, mythic or merely religious concoctions...but factual abuses that wound real people in actual locations at certain times...genuine wounds that bleed real blood and cause real suffering....Jesus crucified is a graphic mirror of the horror that fills our world.

Jesus crucified also stings my own conscience, forcing me to consider how I have and am currently supporting the crucifixtions of others: in this sense it becomes a symbolic accusation and metaphorical challenge to admit to where my actions (or inaction) lends power to the torture and wounding of others...what is my part in the terrible injustices and cruelties that fill the contemporary landscape...again, not imagined or mythic wounds- but actual bodies in real places suffering in real ways?
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Oy. Here we go.

I agree with most of what Seespotrun and realiz said about what I said. I'm not defending the totality of Barker's book. (Can't: didn't read it; not going to. If narrow-minded people can disagree with books they haven't read and try to ban them, I can agree with aspects of books I haven't read and try to defend them.) I actually like to try to agree with everyone about this kind of thing. It's much more intellectually stimulating and challenging than trying to disagree about religion, which is like shooting fish in a barrel. Any narrow-minded, ignorant dogmatist can do it, explaining where everyone else is wrong. It's also more spiritually valuable for me to look at what people are saying that makes sense or could stand for something of value than it is to pick it apart, waiting to pounce on the least danger of evil.

That said, I'm most likely to pick apart and nitpick over things that threaten most to turn me intense or dogmatic by way of my emotionally-charged agreement with something horrific in them. For instance, Dissident Heart, with absolutely no mercy to shed upon my sensitive little soul wrote:
When I confront the crucifixion (and confrontation is the correct term...there is no dispassionate or detached way to simply analyze, inspect or consider such brutality) I am always reminded of the terrors that actually and really plague human existence...not imaginary, mythic or merely religious concoctions...but factual abuses that wound real people in actual locations at certain times...genuine wounds that bleed real blood and cause real suffering....Jesus crucified is a graphic mirror of the horror that fills our world.

Jesus crucified also stings my own conscience, forcing me to consider how I have and am currently supporting the crucifixtions of others: in this sense it becomes a symbolic accusation and metaphorical challenge to admit to where my actions (or inaction) lends power to the torture and wounding of others...what is my part in the terrible injustices and cruelties that fill the contemporary landscape...again, not imagined or mythic wounds- but actual bodies in real places suffering in real ways?
All I can say is, if you would like me to be able to live to do the kind of support and service work I do in my daily life, you will keep the bloody crosses and exhortations to imagine how I may be lending power to the torture of others to a minimum.

Many of my life choices, good and bad, have been based on an exaggerated sense of my power in this area. You and I are not the only people on the planet making choices, Dissident Heart, and I find that my capacity to effect a change by taking more responsibility than is my share corrodes responsibility into guilt, rescuing, enabling, crusading, ranting, and ultimately, self-destruction.

I live a modest life with an emphaisis on service and self-care, and I try to stay right-sized about how much I am actually entitled to control. Nobody ever consults me before they exploit and torture people, to my indignation. If they did, I would surely make them stop.

I have a dear, retired friend who went to prison for crossing the line at Fort Benning, Georgia (Formerly School of the Americas, where they teach and export torture). She had to do it twice to make the judge punish her because she was so old, they didn't want to. I picked her up at the train station when she came back and arranged for her to give a presentation to the community. I have also supported survivors of torture. I try not to buy products linked to practices like child slavery (nearly impossible).

That's enough. I am not going to look at bloody pictures of Jesus and meditate on the blessed sorrows of the holy martyrs because I just don't think it helps me or anyone else. (You can see how hard I have to struggle not to get "intense and dogmatic," huh?) I like to go to nature for my prayer and meditation, grow pretty plants, pick up shells and pinecones and pretty rocks and leaves and pet my purring kitty. Life has beauty in it and joy and love, and its Creator needs a safe place to store these treasures, a safe heart will do. Why not mine? Why not yours? We are so fortunate and privileged. If we aren't at peace and grateful, who in the world will be?
"Where can I find a man who has forgotten the words so that I can talk with him?"
-- Chuang-Tzu (c. 200 B.C.E.)
as quoted by Robert A. Burton
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Crosses paid for with our Tax Dollars


United States and weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta ... estruction

The USA is the world's biggest polluter http://www.vexen.co.uk/USA/pollution.html#Pollution

Too Many Guns http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5619
The United States is the world's largest arms-supplying nation. In 2007, the United States entered into over $19.1 billion in Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreements with other nations and for 2008, sales of military goods and services mushroomed to $34 billion - triple the volume of the Bush administration's first year.

U.S. exports range from combat aircraft to Pakistan, Greece, and Chile to small arms and light weapons to the Philippines, Egypt, and Georgia. Since the beginning of the war on terror, the United States has transferred more than $88 billion in weapons and military material through the Foreign Military Sales channel. In 2006 and 2007, U.S. weapons and military training went to over 168 states and territories. But it's not just big weapons systems transferred legally.
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DH, we understand how these things are bad, and are attempting to eliminate them. The exception is the arms trades, which I'm sure is far more complicated than what it appears on the surface. If there are warlike countries with their self-built weapons, and we could save innocent lives in a neighboring country by lending them weapons, the issue becomes more complex.

I don't see how flaunting such evils supports your point. We can, and are, working together to reduce nuclear arms and pollution production. What more can feeling guilty about this situation as individuals benefit us? We don't need to picture a man tortured on a cross to prompt us to take responsibility.
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Interbane: DH, we understand how these things are bad, and are attempting to eliminate them.

If you feel the need to speak for we, that's your perogative...it's inaccurate and impossible, but it's certainly possible to type it when you feel the desire to do so.

Considering the terrors of nuclear war and the generations of toxic waste that accompany the production of nuclear weapons...the costs and risks are awesome, profound and terrifying...making your absurd statement "we understand how these things are bad" sound as glib as it is ridiculous...these weapons systems and their waste products can, and probably will, annihilate the biosphere as we know it, or can even imagine it...creating a moral crisis of global, cross-species and generational proportions..."we are attempting to eliminate them" is like saying, "we have built our cities upon mountains of TNT, but we are trying to walk a little softer"...this is a horrific nightmare that our civilization has simply learned to live with: making believe that it really isnt there...that we actually have a handle on it...that we understand and are working to minimize and even eliminate its threat...all the while crucifying ourselves, the biosphere and countless generations to come. You're right, we don't need images of Jesus crucified: we need to simply look in the mirror.
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