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Nutty

Entry 385, on 2006-08-24 at 14:12:46 (Rating 4, Religion)

I'm really getting sick of listening to nutty Christians! I'm beginning to think that even the Christians who appear reasonable on the surface are really hiding a nutty personality underneath. The two events which cause me to say this are these: first, an interview with the principal of a Christian school; and second, a podcast debate on ID vs science I listened to last night.

The reason the first subject has become prominent is that there is a bill about to be introduced into our parliament which would outlaw smacking children. Christian schools want the option of corporal punishment because they think it is supported by the Bible. I have two problems with this: first, the Bible can be used to support anything if the appropriate parts are read and other parts ignored, and second the Bible is only marginally appropriate as a guide to modern morals anyway and using it as an absolute guide is very dangerous.

Maybe we should just kill badly behaved kids. After all, the Bible says: Whoever strikes his father or mother shall be put to death. (Exodus 21:15 NAB). Seems straightforward enough. Maybe Christian schools should just stone or crucify the kids instead of hitting them. And its not just for striking. If a kid curses his parents he should also die: All who curse their father or mother must be put to death. They are guilty of a capital offense. (Leviticus 20:9 NLT)

Of course, if we are going to follow these laws why not apply them to everyone? This one should take care of a large section of the adult population: If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10 NLT)

Anyone who blindly follows the Bible is an idiot. The principal sounded reasonable until he started taking that line, then he was revealed in all his zealous Christian mindless stupidity. I think we are capable of making reasonable laws ourself without taking them from an antiquated book with little relevance to most people. And if the opinions of this person are an example we shouldn't even provide this as an option for Christians - they are clearly incapable of sensible thought and need to be protected from themselves!

The debate involved a prominent follower of Intelligent Design: Dr Paul Nelson. He's not stupid and made some good points supporting ID, but his true lack of reasonable thought was revealed in the end when he admitted he knew the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but still accepted the literal truth of the Bible with its age of about 6000 years. He didn't even try to explain how these could both be true. That's also a bit nutty!

Comment 11 (517) by OJB on 2007-03-19 at 13:27:10: (view earlier comments)

Please do some research and find out how much material about Jesus was actually written. Then find out how the church decided which parts would become part of their dogma. Then find out how some gospels were based on others, just with a different religious spin. Then have a look at the contradictions and errors. Do you still think its the real word of God. This must be a really confused god you believe in!

Comment 12 (560) by Anonymous on 2007-03-23 at 02:53:56:

I have been reading a book discussing what scientists have and have not proven. One they have proved is the prophecies. How could a human predict the future? They can't. Scientists have already proven that God wrote the Bible through His chosen people, how else could they have done it?

God put in the Bible what He thought would matter. If He decided not to put in something, that is because it wouldn't matter once we died and saw Him in heaven.
There are four gospels all from different people and I think you know that. Yes they are the same story with a religious spin on all of them but they are from different people that lived with Jesus. They told it how they saw it, with God there, and people do see things differently and take out different lessons than others. Like in a fight, somebody might learn that fighting shouldn't happen while the other learns how to stop it before it happens.

There are no errors in the Bible. If there were, it wouldn't be from God and you out of all people should know that many scientists have already proven that.
My God is not confused.

Comment 13 (566) by OJB on 2007-03-23 at 07:52:13:

Let me guess, this book is written from a religious perspective. Books don't count for much - most are full of lies. Show me the peer-reviewed scientific papers. The prophecies are irrelevant. Can you show me where scientists have proven God wrote the Bible because that's just nonsense.

They told how they saw it? But none of them did see it. I wonder why no one wrote about Jesus while the alleged events actually happened instead of many years later when they were trying to organise a new religion. A bit suspicious, don't you think?

The Bible is full of errors. I have found dozens on the first page, as listed here.

Comment 14 (650) by Anonymous on 2007-05-14 at 15:04:11:

How do you know that the books on evolution you read are true? Let's be fair here.

Comment 15 (651) by OJB on 2007-05-14 at 16:11:35:

We can never be sure anything is 100% true. We just have to provisionally accept the best theories at the time. To establish the best theory we just have to look at the methodology used in investigating the phenomenon and see how rigorous it is. Also evaluate whether it fits in with other areas which are also considered rigorous and based on unbiased research, response to criticism, repeatability, and observations of the real world.

I work in a University so I have access to the views of many scientists. I am an amateur astronomer and understand how the Universe works fairly well. Evolution fits in with everything else I see. Creationism is just a myth which contradicts everything else I know.

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