I'm about to talk about religion. Be warned. I know there are people who read this site who have completely opposite beliefs to mine and I absolutely hope to not offend anyone...
I just finished reading a really short "pro-atheism" book called Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Basically I decided I needed to read an "atheist manifesto" (my words, not a description of the book) to learn about what intelligent, learned atheists have to say.
For part of the book (mostly the beginning) I had a bit of a hard time - I guess it felt like an attack on Christian morality and I personally, am very much of the non-confrontational, what you believe is what you believe nature. I think a lot of my problem with it was that, while I do find it incredulous that intelligent people can take the word of the Bible to be the be-all, end-all of moral teachings, I can't judge a Christians morality based on a silly belief. Yes - if they act out some of the more ridiculous teachings, then they would be immoral (kill your wife if she's not a virgin on your wedding night, etc). But I think a lot of morality is based on action rather than words. (I do want to state though, that I found it interesting that Harris used abortion/stem-cell research as an example of skewed morality. Believable to me).
The questionability of the prophecy stuff was totally interesting (why didn't God specifically predict that major tsunami? The internet? Katrina? If he's omniscient/omnipotent, he should have known upon creation of the Bible that these things were going to happen...so where is mention of them?).
And then he got into the science stuff. The proof that God exists. And this is where I really agreed with the whole thing. Not believing in evolution? The fact that our country is one of the only developed countries that has a contingent of people rallying to put creationism/intelligent design in science books? The fact that our country is sort of stunting itself with all this religious stuff? SCARY. Makes me love the UK all that much more...
I actually would sort of recommend this book to anyone - believers and non. It's only 91 pages, so a quick read. I'll probably read more this summer, so watch out. And, if any of you have read a book about where atheism has gone askew, I'd be interested in reading the other side too...
A quick random note: I agree that it is sort of random to have the term atheist at all. Sam said something like: We don't have a word for other nons. You don't have a term for a non-astronomer, for a non-biologist..so why have a word for a non-theist?
"The questionability of the prophecy stuff was totally interesting (why didn't God specifically predict that major tsunami? The internet? Katrina? If he's omniscient/omnipotent, he should have known upon creation of the Bible that these things were going to happen...so where is mention of them?)." Mention of those events in the Bible? Is that what you are asking?
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeleteI think that those items were not predicted in the Bible due to the fact that those who took down the writings would not have been able to comprehend such things. How would have Paul, John, or Peter been able to understand there would be something like the internet literally thousands of years from now. And on the same level how would someone born B.C. have the ability to comprehend that hundreds may have died, thousands of homes were destroyed yet life went on. A natural disaster the size and magnitude of Katrina would have desmiated many a civilization during Moses's time.
ReplyDeleteIn short I think the reasoning for the absence of the items that you mentioned is due in part to to 'penned' the Bible and for the length of time the Bible has been around.
And now being at work and being forced to work I have completely lost my train of thought... Stupid work. :o(
To play devil's advocate: Um, wasn't the flood in Noah's time an event as great (if not greater) than Katrina? And the flood doesn't predict Katrina, obviously. It's pretty clear that biblical writers COULD conceive of huge disasters, because they got the flood.
ReplyDeleteMy .02 of rationality.
(Also, Kate, you don't have to approve this. I just thought you'd find this interesting.)