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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Another religious freak died, scammer, creeper bit golly gee wiz he was a church going dude!

The Louisiana native was best known for being a captivating Pentecostal preacher with a massive following before being caught on camera with a prostitute in New Orleans in 1988, one of a string of successful TV preachers brought down in the 1980s and ’90s by sex scandals. He continued preaching for decades, but with a reduced audience.

Religion is always the scam. And it’s never been the drag Queens.

OPPs why do people stay religious?? They are either stupid or scammers or child molesters or morally corrupt. Or all of the above. [/quote]

There are lots of religious people who are educated.  They're intelligent and have good jobs and are decent people.  They're just dumb when it comes to religion.[/quote]
So they are essentially followers, which is fine, I don’t think I am better than religious people, I just wish people had more evolved critical thinking skills. [/quote]

DP: Don't you think it odd to just assume highly intelligent people are dumb about one thing? Has it occurred to you that maybe they've studied and thought about it more than you have? Maybe they have a better and more nuanced understanding of their own beliefs than whatever it is you are assuming they believe?[/quote]

I hear you, pp. Most of the people arguing against religion on this forum have a third grade education in it or less.
Why would OP assume that adults believe in things the way they were explained to them when they were eight?
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I cannot fathom how anyone on modern day earth literally believes stories from ancient times, like word for word. Learned adults are doing this. I may not be a religious scholar but this seems insane to me. It’s fine to learn ethics and     cautionary tales, etc., but not literally following these texts.[/quote]

Yeah.  It’s really easy to not understand something that you know almost nothing about.

It’s also very easy to be sure that you are right about something when you don’t know much about the subject.  That’s why anti-vaxxers are so confident in their rhetoric while medical research papers end with a discussion of where they might have been wrong.  It’s easy to feel certain that you are right when you have a simplistic view of a subject.

If you think that educated adults believe the Bible stories in the way you were taught them when you were eight, you are mistaken.

And the Bible is liter-ary.  It isn’t liter-al.  If it were literal, it wouldn’t make any sense.  But there is more than one kind of truth than a description of literal facts.  If you were to describe a rainbow to someone who had never seen one by talking about the different light waves bouncing off water droplets in the air and hitting your retina, you would be describing a literal event, but you would be missing something essential about the rainbow.  Same thing if you only talked about its beauty.  You need to understand some things in multiple ways before you can start to grasp the truth of what they are.

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I am guessing you are the same guy that repeats this trope when challenged by the obvious problems with the Bible. Why not just describe the methodology to know what is true and what is metaphorical?   Telling people “you just don’t understand” is a clear cop-out.

If it is all literal, then, well no it can’t be as any thinking person can see.

If it’s all metaphorical, then who gives a hoot what it says because it’s no different from any other fiction?[/quote]

I don’t normally post on this forum, so I’m not familiar with who you are talking about.  I’m a doctor, and I find this same kind of thinking frustrating when talking to people about science and medicine.

I thought my rainbow analogy was pretty good on describing why both the literal and metaphorical descriptions are needed to understand something.  I’m sorry you didn’t find it helpful.   
[/quote]

What is a metaphorical description of a rainbow?

Why bother with all that anyway?  Why not just describe the process used to tell what parts of the Bible are truth and which are metaphor?  And don’t just respond with “textual criticism” because that has been done by experts and shows the many flaws in the Bible.  [/quote]

I am not familiar with the “process”you are talking about.

If you were to describe a rainbow to an alien who had never been to earth, you would describe light waves, but that’s not all, right?  There is more to a rainbow than that. It is beautiful.  It makes you feel a certain way. 
I’m not sure why you say that a metaphor isn’t true.  Would you say that a poem is a less true description of love than an article about oxytocin and dopamine release?  [/quote]
The feelings one gets from reading the Bible or any religious text is not fact. A feeling isn’t fact. [/quote]

So are you saying that a love poem is not as realistic of a description of love as a textbook entry on oxytocin and dopamine release during intercourse?

Or are you saying that love doesn’t exist because it is a feeling?

I will say that if you believe that love is simply a release of neurotransmitters and nothing else, and a rainbow is simply light rays hitting your retina and nothing else, then I understand why you don’t believe in God.

[/quote]

And I, a DP, think you're trying very hard to make pp look stupid so you can say you understand how such a stupid person would not believe in God -- as if believing in an invisible, supernatural being makes sense.    It does not.[/quote]

NP.  It only matters if it makes sense to the person who believes.  It does not matter to that person if it does not make sense to you.[/quote]

It almost sounds like you're saying that a person can make up anything and if they believe it, then it makes sense.[/quote]

To that person, yes.[/quote]
This can be beneficial and provide hope and comfort for people, however are you unable to see the many downsides, the dark sides of religions?[/quote]

So, let those people find hope and comfort in their religion.  [/quote]
Fine just don’t hold nonbelievers to your delusional standards and beliefs.[/quote]

I'm not.  I don't care what you believe/don't believe.[/quote]

Do you think people who don't believe in God will suffer for eternity in hell?[/quote]

I don’t think anyone will be suffering for the eternity. They don’t know Jesus, but he knows (and loves) them.  I do believe, however, that they are missing out big time in this life.  Faith is like a third dimension, which gives my life so much depth and joy.[/quote]

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