Why I Had to Lose My Religion Before I Could Support Gender Equality

[cbayer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/samantha-eyler/why-i-had-to-lose-my-religion-before-i-could-support-gender-equality_b_5358474.html?ir=Women

Posted: 05/22/2014 12:53 pm EDT Updated: 05/22/2014 1:59 pm EDT

At 17, I lost my religion. Today, at 27, I want my faith back, but I can't find it again.

And how I wish I could.

The kind of religion I used to have has been in the news recently after Bill Nye the Science Guy debated the founder of Kentucky's creation museum, Ken Ham. It's called Biblical literalism (or what my preacher-father used to proudly term "independent, fundamental, Bible-believing Baptist&quot , and its logic is straightforward: Everything written in the King James version of the Bible is taken to be true and right in a literal (including scientific, historical, documentary and moral) sense.

Hence, if the Bible says the world was created in six days, that, unquestionably, is what happened; and so on ad infinitum for everything from Noah and the Flood to the morality of homosexuality to the appropriate roles for men and women in the family and society. When I was growing up, the Bible -- supplemented by interpretation from a hierarchy of males in my life (father, pastor, teachers) -- was the final authority on all of life's questions.

more at link

[Thinkingabout]

1. I realize we have the bible thumpers who follow the bible to the end but the history of the

Earth world is much older. We know all humans did not evolve from Adam and Eve. The bibl can be used as reference but we are taught a day is like a thousand years also. I live stem when Jesus taught us to love one another, to me it means just that, to love everyone and it does not matter their or sexual preference.

[AtheistCrusader]

2. The bible purports to be revealed truth.

If it isn't revealed truth in so many areas we can clearly demonstrate, how can it be reliably used for a reference in any area?

[Thinkingabout]

3. It does not contain the history of the Earth world, doesn't make it wrong

Just incomplete just as US history books does not contain the history of the world but doesn't make it wrong. As far as someone believing the bible it is one's personal choice, respect should be given to another's belief.

[cbayer]

5. Kudos and welcome to the religion group.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. I'll accept that.

I think it's wrong on issues not related to the material earth for a whole host of reasons.

Should I respect someone who believes in Mein Kamph? In 'Contingency Cannibalism'?
Which books, and accompanied belief therein, be respected, and which not?

[cbayer]

4. The bible is a collection of books and doesn't purport to be anything.

There are people that purpose that it is revealed truth and there are people who claim that it should be taken literally.

There are also people who think that those people speak for everyone, then use their reasoning to beat others about the head and ask how in the world it can be reliably used for a reference for anything.

Pretty twisted logic for those who consider reason and rational thinking to be so very, very important.

[AtheistCrusader]

6. Wrong.

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim 3:16,17 NASB).


Rommel you magnificent bastard! I READ YOUR BOOK

Edit (I'm not likening you to Rommel or calling you a bastard, it's meant to lighten the mood, via a funny scene in an otherwise serious movie)

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Also

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Peter+1%3A20-21&version=NASB


Clearly the material of the bible claims to be revealed, divinely inspired truth.
So, you've got that wrong. Not only do I argue against fundamentalist literalists, but also against the works itself, because IT too claims to be divinely inspired/revealed truth.

[cbayer]

10. The material was written by men.

If someone thinks it was inspired, so be it, but they do not speak for anyone.

Only literalists, both believers and non-believers, claim what you do and they are clearly and patently wrong, as can be easily seen by the contradictions contained within the book.

But keep claiming that the book itself has more authority than those that read it if that's working for you.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Not 'someone', the AUTHORS claim it is divinely inspired writing. IN it and about it.

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. (2 Pet 1:16 NASB)


Pretend it's just 'literalist fundamentalists' all you want. As if they are an aberration. THE SOURCE MATERIAL makes such claims itself. Without them to read it.


I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11,12 NASB)

Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (1 Pet 1:20,21 NASB)

How in the hell does someone 'believe in it' in an abstract sense, when it, itself, claims to be literal, divine truth?
You're trying to have it both ways here.

[cbayer]

13. OMG, are you just hanging out on fundamentalist sites??

Take it up with literalists. I don't think you will find any of them here.

Clearly it suits a purpose to believe that and have faith that you are correct, but what that purpose is really escapes me.

I guess it makes it hard to make the argument that the bible is just a bad book to use for guidance if one doesn't take the literalist stance, but come on.

You have actually anthropomorphized a book and talk about it as if it is a living being. It's kind of weird.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. Again, I specified, at the beginning of this, that the source documentation claims to be revealed

truth.


Everything I have supplied thus far supports my assertion. The literalists are unimportant, when the source doc itself claims to be literal, divinely revealed truth.

I want to know the basis for non-literalists to invest belief in the book, when the book contains numerous obvious errors AND claims to be revealed truth. Not the literalists, talking about the bible. The bible texts themselves claim it.

What in the hell is the point of picking and choosing bits from a book as 'faith' or 'belief' when it can be clearly demonstrated as fiction?

[AtheistCrusader]

12. AND there is a third possiblility in addition to the two you assert.

"Only literalists, both believers and non-believers, claim what you do and they are clearly and patently wrong, as can be easily seen by the contradictions contained within the book. "

*I* maintain those contradictions show it as the 100% pure fiction the writing is. Hopefully a condition/outcome you are at least willing to entertain as possible.

[cbayer]

14. Lol. You think that if there are contradictions in a book, then it is 100% pure fiction.

There are all kinds of books out there with contradictory information, including science book.

The conclusion is ridiculous.

Got proof that it's 100% fiction? Show your evidence.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Well, there are thousands of them, actually.

If there is ANY non-fiction in the bible, I'd like to know what, and how one is supposed to differentiate the truth, divinely revealed or human historical, I don't care which, from the fabricated fiction.

[Prophet 451]

18. Non-fiction in the Bible

OK, I'll bite. We know for a fact that Pontius Pilate existed (although he was a cruel tyrant, unlike teh Biblical account of him). We know that the Romans did indeed use crucfixion as an execution method. And most historians think that there probably was a man called Jesus on whom the mythology is based.

That about covers it.

[okasha]

17. Well, no, it doesn't.

Pseudo Paul (Timothy) and Pseudo Peter (2 Peter) claim respectively that all scripture and all prophecy (a somewhat more restricted claim) are divinely inspired. They are not "the Bible" or "the material of the bible." they are two letter-writers, real identity unknown, who corresponded with recently-established Christian congregations. Literalists agree with them; non-literalists generally don't. As cbayer has pointed out, you're not likely to find any literalists here.

These are two extremely short passages from short letters that were not a part of the Bible at the time they were written. Indeed, there was no such thing as "The Bible" as we know it until the fourth century CE. Pseudo Paul and Pseudo Peter may or may not have been aware of the now-canonical gospels, and we don't know how well acquainted they may or may not have been with the Hebrew Bible. Possibly not very, if they were gentiles.

The Bible is not a single book. It is a small, portable library that includes narratives, a law code, and wisdom literature. Some narratives--the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan--fall clearly into the category of foundation epics. They were written by men who were literate, sophisticated and clearly aware of the genre in which they were writing. Other narratives (Kings, Chronicles, eg.) are believed by scholars to be actual records of the royal court at Jerusalem, and quite a bit has been archaeologically validated. So has the existence of some of the prophets (Jeremiah, eg.). Now, if you are willing to toss out the contents of a whole library as fiction because some of the books on its shelves are novels, even though there's also a credible history section, and some poetry and philosophy--well, that's just not a very rational position. But by all means cling to it for emotional reasons if you have a need to.

[trotsky]

9. Rather condescending piece, I think.

It's a tone common to those like the author, who are sometimes referred to as "faitheists" - atheists who deplore the term, who berate other atheists if they dare criticize religious belief, who seem like they view religious believers as little children who need protection from big, bad questions.

Gotta take away points from her though, she didn't include a snide remark about Richard Dawkins. Not up to HuffPo standards there.