Are Bible thumpers willfully ignorant?

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"There's a verse in". I wish I had just a peso for every time I hear that silly remark. There is no verse in Revalation that specifically says that. Don't make me dig into the Scrivener's Textus Receptus, you won't find any notion like that in the Greek.

It's in the King James.I don't really feel like digging it out tonight,but it's there.Yes,I have read the bible,all the way through.Numbers sure is a boring chapter.

Facepalm. Folks couldn't be more undereducated about "literalism" and what it is that the bible actually talks about.

Hahahahaha! That's even richer. As if everyone just uses the King James nowadays. That's like saying Christians use Strong's Concordance still, yeah they do if they are ass backwards I guess. I mention Scrivener's and you want me to look at the KJV?

This seems like just another thread that singles out backwards Christians and acts like they are a moronic segment of the population that shouldn't exist. Well what about the dumbasses who think that the God Delusion is a brilliant book? Hmmm... They sure haven't heard of anything like peer review, proper citation methods, and academic dishonesty yet, because Dawkins is just as moronic as any bible thumper. He's just as willfully ignorant as the rest of his ilk, and we don't see that put under the spotlight very often.

I'd like to issue a playful little challenge to everyone in this thread: Why don't you demonstrate that you yourself aren't willfully ignorant? Have you any formal education on these subjects? Are you truly intellectually honest and know well enough how to research such topics? Does it even matter to you enough that you have versed yourself deeply in subjects like textual criticism, historiography, physics, biochemistry, anthropology, philosophy? Where is Aristotle's sea battle argument on determinism found? What are the laws of thermodynamics? What is the Planck temperature? What is confirmation bias? How do we determine if one ancient account is any more accurate than another ancient account (I'm sure it flies way past a lot of folks heads that a rigid science like historiography is out there, and that our legal system has convicted people of murder on the basis of such evidence before)? What is the principle of embarrassment? Or the accumulation of legendary details? Any familiarity with oral tradition?

I ask all of that because quite a few Christian academics who are much more honest and well respected in their field than hacks like Dawkins, happen to be familiar with a lot of that and use that knowledge to support their faith. Christians don't have to believe that the earth is six thousand years old, that's not even how Hebrew genealogies or even a proper understanding of the Hebrew used in Genesis 1 works. They don't have to believe that the whole earth was flooded because that isn't even indicated in the original texts, erets can just as easily mean a field, a land, a dominion, a kingdom, a pasture, etc. before it has to mean the whole world. It's okay that there have been dubious scribal changes made to the NT because they are transparent to modern day scholars who even have fragments that date back to the first century and thousands of full texts to compare.

The canon wasn't put together at the council of Nicae, if anyone would actually read the text of the Nicene council and creed they would realize that the majority of the council concerned a guy named Arius and the dissent he spread, with just an afterward at the end that everyone all over the church (which spanned from all over Asia minor into some areas of western Europe already) seemed to be using the same texts and seemed to agree that the same set of texts were authentic, so that became canon.

Concerning Genesis 1: We see the word yod being used before any mention of the celestial bodies required for a day. Yod literally means "day cycle" so there's no way that a literal seven day creation is tenable. Hebrew literature is a lot more varied and interesting than just a set of literal works. There are actually different genres of literature seen in the bible, and one must be familiar with each genre to make proper sense of each book in the first place. And it's every bit as sophisticated philosophically as Saul Kripke's possible world semantics or Descartes, Hume, or Bultmann. Denigrating it as just a primitive "bronze age religion" not only betrays a deep ignorance of the subject but it is laughable because Christianity isn't even a bronze age religion.

It has been developing for as long as Hinduism and has shaped modern society. There's a whole lot of difference between Saul of Tarsus, John the Apostle, St. John Chrysostom, Eusubius, Papias, Tertullian, Kant, Kierkegaard, Aquinas, Kripke, Plantinga, Sherwin-White, Bultmann, Frost, and Lane Craig. It has had a dynamic scholastic history from the start, and is in no way "bronze age". These bible thumpers you guys are going on about don't even resemble first century Christians, in fact they use quite a few modern concepts like sola scriptura, sole fide, modus ponens, middle knowledge, the immaculate conception of mary, infant baptism, re-baptism, or baptizing consenting and understanding adults, being a "born again" Christian, modern evangelism, etc. Everything about them is pretty much new.

So who is willfully ignorant?

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 01 Apr 2014, 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why the hell would I invest in those books?King a James was bad enough.I said that as a joke.

And you don't see how you're being just as willfully ignorant when you say that? When I refer you to an actual academic source and you tell me to look at an outdated translation that tons of Christians don't use because it is inaccurate? How hard is it for people to just admit they don't know? To admit that a subject is terribly complex and they aren't informed enough to make a meaningful decision? You don't see me going around and telling people that Hawking Radiation is true/untrue because I'm not enough of a math whiz to understand the equation in any meaningful way. But people tell me all the time that my religion is stupid when they know nothing of ancient history, of the philosophy of religion, of cosmology, etc. It doesn't matter whatever academic leaps and bounds I make I'm just a stupid segment of the population and religion is a virus. That is the essence of willful ignorance.

Reading the bible in Greek or Hebrew doesn't magically make the contradictions and problems contained within the bible go away. And though you may disagree with the many Christians who take the bible extremely literally they still exist.

Let's here from those tons of Christians that don't use the King James,and I'm not saying its accurate,I never did.I live in the Bible Belt,that's all they use here.A better use of your time would be to go door to door telling them they are using the wrong bible,they'll love you for that.
I really don't care,and I doubt Jesus would either,he doesn't seem like much of a nit picker to me.

No it doesn't, but it actually opens up the subject in a meaningful way. Christians who take the bible very literally do exist indeed, but that doesn't make Christianity itself stupid and that isn't any good way to form a decent idea of the whole picture. So some of you live in the bible belt. Well the world is an awful lot bigger than the bible belt. It isn't even that heavily populated of an area for that matter. Where I live I'm just as likely to meet a sensible Christian as an ignorant one. In fact, in my area most of the atheists I meet are demonstrably undereducated and conduct themselves very arrogantly. They happen to be just as willfully ignorant as your texas bible thumpers. That doesn't mean that atheism as a whole should be assessed that way or that it's fair at all to single out that group.

You guys don't see the hubris in insulting bible thumpers ad nauseum, that it is offensive and irritates more sensible Christians because the spotlight is always in the same damned predictable and boring place? Yes, we get it, we are E Fundamentalus Bapticus and we're a bunch of dumb hillybilly f***s who shouldn't be a part of society any more. When are we collectively going to get this worthless crap out of our systems? It's terribly droll and honestly it produces a lot of bigoted people. And here we are on a site full of autistic people who are tired of being lumped in with a stereotype. How hypocritical we can be...

Go to practically any church in CA and you'll find a very sizable portion that uses ESV, NIV, Living Bible, Good News for Modern Man, the Amplified Bible, or even references to the Greek. Where I live it is actually pretty commonplace to hear references to Greek words and agape, fellio, etc. are part of the normal Christian vocabulary. I can ask most Christians I meet what agape is and they will tell me that is is selfless and unconditional love. It's actually considered a staple of preaching around here because it's hard to say it much better than the original, the words used in Hebrew and Greek involve a lot more visualization and poignant concepts than our sterilized English versions.

Take this conversation between Peter and Jesus as an example (John 21:17):

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep."

There's the English. We can see a commonly referenced mirroring of Peter denying Jesus three times. But what we don't see in the English text is the Greek words that were used for "love" and the marked differences between them. The first two times Jesus says "do you agape me". The third time He actually says "do you fellio me". So what Jesus is saying is: "Do you truly love me? Really, do you? Hmmmm.... Peter, do you even like me?" Fellio means "like", basically.

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 01 Apr 2014, 9:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm a hillbilly,sixth generation.Most of the real hard core thumpers are further South.The little churches here are mostly all right,more for socializing than thumping.Really good food and music.If you like socializing,I don't.

Well, there is always a high tradition and a low tradition and the low tradition is easy to take shots at. I do find Christianity and Judaism on the whole to be silly but I tend to stay focused on the people who present the low tradition and try to nudge them toward something a little more reasonable.

And given that Christianity remains a majority view in this country I don't think lions are in the cards. I just think you'll have to get used to a more vocal modern atheist movement. You had a nice long run with socially enforced silence on the issue.

Oh puhlease, as if that's a step in the right direction at all. If the "high traditions" would just engage each other and get proper coverage this crap wouldn't be an issue. I shouldn't have to get used to this new brand of ignorant f***s as much as you should have to get used to bible thumpers. As if it's any better that there is a double standard against me now, where I live? Why do we have to trade something backwards for something else backwards? There should be just as much coverage of the fraud and stupidity in atheism as there is of the same in theism.

! !! !!

^^You've really got trouble if you have to face down a homosexual T-Rex,first he'll rape you,the eat you.

Would that be a Tyranasaur-ass?