@AxeElf Don't we have to go to the root of the Bible/ Religion? Whether it be Spacemen, Mother Nature, Wisdom, Astrology.....stuff that was here way way way before these Mono Theistic religions took it all away from the Ancients. What is the true inspiration for all of this besides sitting with Yahweh in heaven? Wouldn't "heaven" simply be the bribe to conform and accept the stories/ belief?

@AxeElf I don't learn about god and our relationship with him through memes. I don't believe in any gods to have relationships with. So when you say that that's the purpose of the bible, I guess we're making the same point. Secular teachings like the Golden Rule are OK in the bible, but they're just as meaningful in secular sources. (...and the Golden Rule can be found in writings that pre-date the bible)

You say the garden of Eden story teaches you about the differences in the fundamental natures of god and humans. This is meaningless to me.

Would I join forces with the rational folks against the irrational ones? Sure. That would be rational.

@AxeElf, I agree with @DangerDave. You really have to do some mental gymnastics to get something "good" out of a lot of bible stories. I don't have to waste a moment of my time trying to pry something decent out of the bible if the book has no authority to me.

It appears as though we were both typing almost the exact same response at the same time...

@AxeElf - I'm interested in how there could be there is a "rational faith". Perhaps we're viewing the phrase from different viewpoints, but I see faith as irrational by it's very nature of believing in something unseen with no evidence, proof, etc.

@AxeElf - Well articulated response, thank you. I guess where I'm coming from is the perspective that science requires far less faith than religious faith. Only a few oddball philosophers actually think we're just a brain in a vat; science is about approximations that satisfy the burden of proof in the majority of cases for the majority of people.

By definition, axioms are truthful statements that require as little faith as possible... you used the words rational and logical. Faith in science is IMHO a misnomer... it's much closer to a "knowing" than it is believing without evidence, which is the context I'm using the word faith.

@AxeElf Ah, the old "majority rules" chestnut...I was afraid you'd go there!

I see your "majority rules", and I raise you "separation of church and state.". (Just to be cheeky. I agree with your last bit about financial influence.)

@AxeElf Aye, that's the rub: if the majority doesn't want separation of church and state, should America do away with it? I think not, but I'm not smart enough to put together a cogent agrument to that effect. Not off the cuff, anyway. @IntellectualRN could probably make a better case, a la his recent thread about suspending individual rights when the "greater good" pleads it. I'm of the belief that people--even great, heaving majorities of them--don't always know what's best for themselves. And the country was set up to protect us from the "tyranny of the majority", was it not? I'm really just grasping at straws. I'm the worst debater: I immediately admit when I'm out of my depth and never hesitate to concede a point. You've got me, here.

Well, since I was summoned.... American wasn't found to be a straight "majority rules" democracy, it was founded as a republic where the majority elect officials to govern and there are three branches of government to check each other. There are guaranteed rights encoded in the Constitution that cannot be stripped away by a simple majority. There is a reason that the process to amend the document has a much higher bar to clear. Thus we are protected from the "tyranny of the majority" as you rightly quoted. It doesn't always work 100% and there have been encroachments, but they tend to get corrected with time. If I had to choose the most important features of the United States they would be the supremacy of the law, equality before the law (still a work in progress), and separation of church and state.

@IntellectualRN That's what I had in mind! TYVM

Can I like this 100 times? 1,000?! It's so true. I was miserably angry for years - but even that was a learning experience. I learned to cry instead, and then make art.

@Lydiaeli cool. I have had my time with it too. It rots your brain and heart after a while

@AxeElf You are of course entitled to accept your private evidence of God although you might want to think about how much stock you put into that belief. Here the facts on personal evidence, it's not reliable, it's self-fulfilling. I want eternal life, I want an all-powerful all-loving force watching over me, I want help....oh I got help, I want love .... wow God loves me....I want hope.....Well guess what God gives me hope......I'm not feeling great but when I think of God I feel better.....I wanted all this and there it is, therefore God is real. Wow! it's all true God is in my life. I don't know what your proof is but this most of what I have heard from Christians. It's fine for them to accept this line of evidence, they won't get any disrespect from me. I'm only pointing out to you why personal evidence is bad evidence because you're posting your position. I will add that I am happy to see you here doing that too, you seem reasonable and I appreciate that.

@AxeElf I have a question for you, and I respect that you may not want to share this information in a public forum so just disregard if that's the case, I'll take no offense.

In your opinion is it more rational to accept that a physically undetectable and a completely unprovable, all powerful, all knowing, all loving, supernatural God is interacting with you and is the explanations for those experiences you had? Should you ever accept a supernatural cause? Shouldn't you exhaust all other nonsupernatural possibilities? If nothing else supports a natural claim and you have no access to the supernatural, isn't it a more rational position to say, I don't know what the cause of this event was and then wait for more evidence? For example, when I saw a UFO (Unidentified flying object) swerving up and down, right and left at incredible speeds and then split in two and fly out of sight, I said to myself; I don't know what that was, whatever it was, that was pretty cool. What I didn't do was say I saw an alien spacecraft. To this day I put the likelihood of extraterrestrial spacecraft as a far-fetched possibility.

@AxeElf I respect your well-considered response. May I ask, do you consider yourself a Christian. I know you don't take every story in the Bible to be the word of God and that you believe much of what is written to be the creation of man's interpretation of Gods message, but given that is the fundamental narrative in the Bible something you follow?

@AxeElf That classification comes with a lot of baggage. Much you might reject, but being accepting of Christianity also means you allow for all the things Jesus taught to be true, which was the entirety of the Torah. This belief would include things we know are untrue, starting with Adam and Eve, the story of Noah, and then you need also to accept that God didn't condemn Slavery, abuse of women and that God interacted with humans in alarming ways.

Does that include all beliefs?

I shake my head when I see Bob and Tony Abbott.
These guys are an embarrassment to our country

Don't forget Barnaby

@AxeElf Being a politician isn't what makes them awful. Trump wasn't a politician and he is one of the most vile piles of human garbage that has ever held public office.

@AxeElf Precisely my point. I think the position attracts assholes, not creates them.

@AxeElf I am NOT in a war with anyone. I do resist religion, ignorance, intolerance, racism, bigotry, phobias that harm anyone. I think you are correct that religion itself does little harm but the adherents of that religion doing the harm in the name of said religion.

They legislate their beliefs. How is this not pushing their beliefs on others?

@JeffMurray well I was going to add keep your beliefs out of politic too. You beat me to it. Lol

@AxeElf Everyone that votes or supports organizations that support candidates legislates indirectly.

@AxeElf You probably support political parties and candidates without even knowing it. It's almost impossible not to. But you can think what you like.

@AxeElf I guess as long as you don't donate to any of the obvious sources like churches you can say that.

@AxeElf your Op touched on it briefly, as follows

"what had his knickers in a twist was that like 48% of the average people on the street in America believed that the stories in the Bible were literally true.

I was thinking, "Why worry about the idiots? Just appreciate that there is a rational way to understand the Bible, even if half the people who believe in it lack that deep understanding of it." Attacking the interpretations of the idiots while saying that the more erudite understanding doesn't concern you as much seems like the epitome of the low-hanging fruit."

48% is nearly half the population, and that same HALF think the Earth is in the end times, many of them think the Ark tale literal and the Earth itself 6000 years old and evolution a lie of the Devil.
AND they are actively legeslating twoard their beliefs, legeslating their religious ideology into law. A MAJORITY of the GOP in officestated recently that they think Christianty should be the national Religion, which would make America a Theocracy like the Talibhan. This same demographic deny climate science, think it is a hoax as they await the return of Jesus ANY DAY.

WORSE, this element has a hard fringe to it. The worst aspects of it do almost unimaginable things, like Christian Evagelical Churches who fund Extremist Hebrews who want to blow up the Temple mount, because the Temple Mount MUST GO, for the third temple to be built, for the Prophecy to be fulfilled in order for Jesus to return. They fundraise for this every year.

In politics they have created a great many organizations the sole purpose of which is to get candidates of their religious view into office, so they can enact their religion into law. I suggest you read this to get an idea of how this has grown in recent years.

[amazon.com]

@AxeElf No, half is no so extreme as all that, that is the extreme wing of the extreme wing
Actually, this is ass backwards, and our system was designed to prevent exactly this.
". If a majority of the people in this country want to be ruled by a Christian Theocracy, then that's what they should get"

OUR nation was set up so that a majority would NOT be allowed to lord thier desires OVER the minority, that they would be able to live, themselves as Christians if they so desired, but that NO majority should be able to force thier idea onto ALL against thier will.
OTHERWISE you cannot have Liberty for ALL, you would only have Liberty for the Majority. the Minority would be enslaved to that majority.

@AxeElf Actually the POTUS and some executives imposed that particular law on the masses, not a majority. It was not put to a referendum.
NOR are we a democracy, we were a democratic republic. Now we are a Democratic Oligarchy.

@AxeElf I hardly see it as nit picky, in a true democracy each person votes on every issue, in a representational democracy, one person is selected to represent millions of people, many of whom will not agree with that position.
In our current system, as the current research shows, if 80% or more of the population is against a policy or law, and 10% of the Donor class is for that law, the law will pass, and if 90% of the population is for a law and the same 10% of that wealthy donor class is against it, it will never become law. Both Harvard and Stanford research have show this in recent years.
That is a democratic Oligarchy.

If enough parts of the nation wanted to make the Nation a Theocracy, they would need to change the constitution, and it would result in either mass exodous or perhaps civil war, as even Christians do not agree on what a Christian is. Christians sects do not consider Catholics Christians (50% of Christians are Catholics), the same with Mormons, Jekovah Witnesses and many other sects, and those sects have the same opinion of other Christian sects.

It is because of this that I think any such efort would be doomed to failure due to eventual infighting.

@AxeElf You know, I have been here for two days now, and I must say that compared to something like FB, the conversations here are both more erudite and civil, even when folks are not fully in sync, or miscommuncating, or even in open disagreement.

I find that quite refreshing.

@AxeElf I live on Reality. Fantasy is for children.

Even if they don't argue with you verbally, don't you think that trying to enact laws based on their religion that can affect you in a way you don't like is a way of quarreling with you?

@JeffMurray I am not an activist. Our country is leaning toward progressive, and nothing is written in stone. I see religion losing more than they are wining, especially Xian's. If something earth shattering is looming, then I will take appropriate action.

@Leutrelle It'll be too late then. There are already religious based laws that suck. In my opinion, that's kinda like starting to use condoms after you already have an STI...

@JeffMurray They have new over turned the abortion law, for the most part they don't pray in school. Our government is resilient, and thing tend to swing from one extreme to another. Religion is a part of our society, and they have to live with us, and we have to live with them.

@Leutrelle they may not have overturn Roe v Wade, but they have made it exceedingly difficult to get abortions in certain areas of the country. [google.com]