Why does God hate amputees?

Psycho Smiley · Post by **Psycho Smiley** » 2005-10-29 10:46pm

I stumbled across Why does God hate amputees? earlier today. I've only read about a quarter of it and skimmed the rest, but it seems to do a good job of taking fundies' favorite claims and quotes, and systematically demolishing them. Not that many of them would bother reading through such a large site, but it might be a good resource for debates.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2005-10-29 11:49pm

That's an excellent site. It's the clearest explanation I've ever seen why atheism makes sense, and it's very well written. Thanks for posting it.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-10-29 11:56pm

I'm going to use this with my mom. She has an intelectual mind, but some times it takes time to get it in use in regards to religion.

sketerpot · Post by **sketerpot** » 2005-10-30 12:13am

Here's a very interesting (and certainly controversial) part on biblical literalism:

The book wrote:If you do not believe that God wrote the slavery passages in the Bible, then the obvious question to ask yourself is this: How can you possibly know which parts came from God and which parts were inserted by primitive men? How can you pick and choose like that? You have absolutely no way to know whether the slavery passages came from God or primitive men.

It is when you start thinking about the Bible in this way that you understand something very important about the Bible. Either the entire Bible really is God's Word. The entire Bible is the infallible, inspired and inerrant word of God. [ref] Or the entire Bible was written by primitive men with absolutely no input from God. There are two reasons for this very strong dividing line:

1. An all-powerful God would not allow false teachings (like slavery) to get inserted into and pollute his holy message to mankind. Why would an all-powerful God take the time to write a book, and then allow ungodly material to pollute it?

2. If part of the Bible came from God and part came from primitive men, how can you possibly know which is which? How do you know if Jesus really is resurrected, or if that's just a make-believe story inserted by primitive men? How do you know if God wrote the Ten Commandments or not? If any part of the Bible has been polluted by primitive men, you have to reject the whole thing. There is no way to know who wrote what, so the entire book is invalid.

There really is no middle ground. The Bible has to be an all-or-nothing book. Either the entire Bible came from God, or none of it did.

Link. Can any of you find reasons why this is invalid? I'd never thought about it that way before.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2005-10-30 12:23am

The people who scare me most are people who think that its ALL from God and thus every bit of it is valid. Even the bits that contradict the other bits.

CorSec · Post by **CorSec** » 2005-10-30 01:24am

sketerpot wrote: Can any of you find reasons why this is invalid? I'd never thought about it that way before.

There are quite a few True Christians™ who believe that the Bible is, at a minimum, inspired by God. Heck, I was once one of them. I believed that every word of the Bible was truth.

It's odd looking back now. I hadn't even read all of the Bible, yet my faith assured me (most accurately, I willed myself) that it was just so.

I had read some of the less pleasant parts but didn't think anything of them. Those silly Amelikites, they shouldn't have been living in God's territory. It wasn't until recently, a little over two years ago, that I saw it for what it was: Ethnic cleansing.

As far as invalidating that mode of thinking? I'd like to think that it's as easy as pointing to the proposterous nature of the claim. If you'll allow the assumption of there being a God, then it's possible there's a book that can have inspired portions that includes parts not inspired. While there may be some consensus on what's inspired and what isn't, there will be as many variations of what is and is not inspired as there are denominations.

Shortie · Post by **Shortie** » 2005-10-30 05:29am

sketerpot wrote:Here's a very interesting (and certainly controversial) part on biblical literalism:

Link. Can any of you find reasons why this is invalid? I'd never thought about it that way before.

I believe the normal answer is that you know which bits are true because they're the bits your priest\preacher\whatever tells you are true. And the rest are in there to teach you a lesson.

The vast majority of believers only ever read a tiny fraction of the Bible. What makes you think they're going to listen to the theories of an atheist over the words of their leaders?

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-10-30 05:35am

sketerpot wrote:Here's a very interesting (and certainly controversial) part on biblical literalism:

The book wrote:If you do not believe that God wrote the slavery passages in the Bible, then the obvious question to ask yourself is this: How can you possibly know which parts came from God and which parts were inserted by primitive men? How can you pick and choose like that? You have absolutely no way to know whether the slavery passages came from God or primitive men.

It is when you start thinking about the Bible in this way that you understand something very important about the Bible. Either the entire Bible really is God's Word. The entire Bible is the infallible, inspired and inerrant word of God. [ref] Or the entire Bible was written by primitive men with absolutely no input from God. There are two reasons for this very strong dividing line:

1. An all-powerful God would not allow false teachings (like slavery) to get inserted into and pollute his holy message to mankind. Why would an all-powerful God take the time to write a book, and then allow ungodly material to pollute it?

2. If part of the Bible came from God and part came from primitive men, how can you possibly know which is which? How do you know if Jesus really is resurrected, or if that's just a make-believe story inserted by primitive men? How do you know if God wrote the Ten Commandments or not? If any part of the Bible has been polluted by primitive men, you have to reject the whole thing. There is no way to know who wrote what, so the entire book is invalid.

There really is no middle ground. The Bible has to be an all-or-nothing book. Either the entire Bible came from God, or none of it did.
Link. Can any of you find reasons why this is invalid? I'd never thought about it that way before.

Mother of all black/white fallacies. Of course, I actually do conclude that the Bible was written by Man with no input from God, but that does not validate his reasoning. Let's suppose you believe in the SkyGod BabyKiller; the fact that you can't figure out which parts of the Bible came from him and which parts came from Man doesn't mean that a 50/50, 30/70, or 90/10 split could not have occurred; it only means that you can't evaluate it. And the argument about this "all-powerful God" who wouldn't allow his words to be adulterated is a circular logic fallacy; it presumes the truth of the Bible's description of God, based on the very Biblical literalism it seeks to prove.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-10-30 04:25pm

I think he takes it too far, but it is either corrupted, or not corrupted at all, and if they throw out parts of it as being Man's insertion, then they have rather opened that question up to any part of the bible.

Again, I don't believe in the Bible being anything but bullshit, but anyway...

I like the book. Good explanations.

Zero · Post by **Zero** » 2005-10-30 04:48pm

Nah, I hate shit that portrays the bible as either absolutely right or absolutely wrong, becuase fundamentalists, the dangerous nutjobs in the religious crowd, are more likely to be swayed towards believing the bible is absolutely right.

Psycho Smiley · Post by **Psycho Smiley** » 2005-10-30 05:35pm

After reading the rest of it, it looks like he's saying "If any of it is suspect, all of it is suspect. In that case, you might as well reject it all, for all the good it will do. Therefore, we will assume it's all bullshit."

Not much of a functional difference, but at least it isn't intentionally based on a black/white fallacy.

As per the circular reasoning bit Mike mentioned, I believe he mentions somewhere (or at least intimates) that we are to assume the God being discussed is restricted to the literal God of the Bible.