Agnostic.com

20 16

I have a religious friend. I mostly ignore his crap but I’m concerned/bewildered how adamant he is about the Bible being the only tool we need. Transphobic comments, doomsday prophecies and no finally convinced about the flat earth theory and that earth was only created 6000 years ago. I just find it hard to believe that someone can dismiss all the scientific knowledge gained throughout history.

antman 7 Feb 25
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

20 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

They think their way is literally the only way. Messenger screwing up BTW 🙁

Yes. See my other post about that 😀

@antman did any of the replies go through on your end? It's not working at all for me so I tried yesterday via the computer instead.

@QueenofThrones negative captain!

@antman well non goddamn it

5

I am involved in an endocrinologist-led group to control/reverse diabetes type II (it's working) and one of the things we study is how mankind evolved eating certain things, not resembling 90% of what is available at supermarkets now...example: crabapples, seasonally, not Honey Crisp year-round which incidentally have more sugar than a Snickers bar.
There is deafening silence in some disussions from those who have learned the science of proper food intake, and proved it on themselves, but still embrace the "6,000 years" thing...Such a disconnect!!!!!!

I just don’t get how they can dismiss things like carbon dating. And then the claim that space exploration is just a conspiracy- I mean several governments have sent satellites up there yet all of them are in on the ‘conspiracy’.

3

Do religious people ever discuss all the contradictions of the bible? Do they question the theft of pagan holidays? Do they realize Santa has all the qualities they wish a god has? I don't know how anyone can NOT question a contradictory book filled with terrible ways to die. And how could there possibly be 2 of every species on an ark?? i just find most of it amusing. It's amusing people go to church and give money to them.

7

I still have friends in the clergy, though not as extreme as your friend, we simply no longer discuss religion. There are safe subjects and there are subjects we can disagree on and have meaningful debate, and there are subjects that we will never agree on. They do not try to convert me and I do not try to convert them. If you can't find and agree on that middle ground, then you need to exit.

The preacher who knew me for most of my teens and who performed my first wedding, admitted to me that most of the bible was just a collection of stories. He had taken religious studies and earned a degree, though.
People that do that are more likely to be sane than someone who was a high school drop out and just feels "touched by the gud lawd to preach his wurd."

@BufftonBeotch Almost all the clergy I know have Masters of theology and more of them than will admit it to their congregations are actually agnostics, but do what they do to pay the bills.

@glennlab You cannot study the bible in depth and still believe it.
Just as Aesop's fables are not things that actually happened.
But they are good lessons.

6

Well of course the horse may be at the other end of the cart, he may want to. "dismiss all the scientific knowledge gained throughout history." And the bible is simply his way to do so.

8

I had a work associate tell me the end times were near because they had just seen the moon during the day.
How in the mutterfuq do you get to the age of an adult with decades on the planet and have been so unobservant of the world?

I can’t imagine the fear of never knowing the moon can come out during the day and then seeing it for the first time.

@antman It was a new one on me. I mean, I have heard people say some really stupid things and claim them as fact. (Like men have one less rib than women, and this is how forensics determine the sex of skeletal remains.)
But I was astounded a grown human had never noticed the moon was sometimes out in the daytime before.

@BufftonBeotch did they never look up as a kid 😂

7

Well . U used the word “ friend “. Friendship is important . He is not your friend that u go for brains obviously , and he doesn’t seem kind either 🙁
But if he has some qualities that make u been his friend , then I say be just that, and let him be just that . Not all friendships are ride or die , and u can’t make him see the light either . I have a friend like that , I do love her , but can’t stand her . I visit once a yr , we spend 2 days catching up , and avoid politics and gods , bcz if I lose my temper this friendship will be over in 3 minutes max 😂.

5

I bet that your friend has not red the bible though.

8

Keep in mind that your friend was probably force fed the religious nonsense since he was very young. Its ingrained into his mind. And the comfort of believing in an afterlife is extremely important to people.

I do see that there seems to be a different mindset for conservatives and very religious people. They all seem afraid. They're afraid of so many things... anyone that is different from them. I think it may be genetic. I was raised around bigotry and frequently heard homophobic talk at school as (during the 80's) well as being raised as a Baptist and forced to attend church, but none of it really ever stuck with me.

I can't understand how some people seem to so fully and willingly embrace hatred and bigotry and intolerance.

5

I immediately shut down people who try to to convert me. "I'm an atheist, " I say firmly. "I never believed in an invisible being that lives somewhere beyond the clouds."

While they try to puzzle this out, I exit stage left.

5

Ignorance can be fixed, but stupid is incurable.
Don't waste your time.

6

The Bible? What about the Book of the Dead, the Koran or the Analects?

And what about Cosmology 101?

6

I would quickly ditch my religious friend. I had one that I met when we were both about 12. The reason I remained his friend is because of the time I knew him, and he knew I used to once be just like him. He never understood why I became atheist but he died a year ago.

1

That's because those things you're talking about are things you understand and accept as true. The problem is, no one has a choice what concepts they will encounter and accept, reject, or not encounter at all, thus, no one has any control what they'll believe or find ridiculous.

4

Doesn't sound like he is anyone's real friend.

6

if one brick is removed from the fragile fortification of biblical faith it all falls. so irrationality becomes the mortar. nothing sticks and holds so well as a lie desperately held. chinks in the walls are denied, logic is denied, rationality is not trusted. the destruction of faith is quite an undertaking and it must be a personal endeavor. guilt and fear are powerful sidekicks. what is seen as the shortcomings of science etc. serve as further evidence of the deceit logic provides. because that is all that is seen, that is all there is.

0

Religious belief has nothing too do with science unless it has a value of faith, no matter how illogical or insane!

Scientists are a major factor for religion because they are going beyond imaginary gods and bible written by humans. NOT GOD. All the quoting of passages of the bible are irrelevant because humans wrote it contradictory, often inaccurate people.
The discovery of subatomic particles and naming one the god particle makes for a different approach. "God Particle".The smallest particle of the atom composing all life.

1

It depends on which scientific theorem you are talking about. The Earth's shape can be seen so I don't understand the flat insistence, either, so that is one for science. Weather science is pretty good. I think gravity is magnetism (though mathematics for both are very similar) and evolution doesn't happen in an illusion. Things just pop into existence when we first open our eyes and end when we last close them so science is wrong (quantum physics will demonstrate this so it's still science). History we haven't lived, and stuff we haven't personally seen, is supposed by bonded electrons experiencing a frequency wave. None of our Universe or Earth is real. Life is literally a dream.

Interesting thought.

@antman Which is why i really like Poe. Wrote this a long time ago.
A Dream Within a Dream
Edgar Allan Poe - 1809-1849

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

1

Does you friend help widows and orphans in need while avoiding worldly corruption? Or, are you saying your friend is a widow or orphan?

Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27

Word Level 8 Feb 25, 2023

He would help others…unless they were trans or gay 😂

"Religion ... pure and faultless is" is a sentence whose ending is irrelevant as the beginning of the sentence, "American politics... civil and without corruption, is". Nonsense, my friend, pure nonsense.

@ChestRockfield yes, poly means many; ticks are blood sucking parasites. Politics is many blood sucking parasites.

Looking at etymology of religion as it correlates and corroborates with biblical text:

Religion comes from etymology of being about taking an oath of responsibility to be careful opposite of neglect.

...popular etymology among the later ancients (Servius, Lactantius, Augustine) and the interpretation of many modern writers connects it with religare "to bind fast" (see rely), via the notion of "place an obligation on," ... In that case, the re- would be intensive. Another possible origin is religiens "careful," opposite of negligens.

Religion ... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27

When ever it comes to illogical atheist types wanting to insert a god thingie to redefine religion to as to be defined as, "sarcasm worship and sarcasm praise to the non-existent philosophical flying spaghetti monster sky God making fun of Christians that doesn't know Jesus is lucipher the devil meme mind virus organism that evolved to mimic homo sapien form ", scholars would say this definition is nonsense.

...however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion.[2][3]

Morreall, John; Sonn, Tamara (2013). "Myth 1: All Societies Have Religions". 50 Great Myths of Religion. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 12–17. ISBN 978-0-470-67350-8.

Nongbri, Brent (2013). Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-15416-0.

So, spaghetti monster worship not required to do religion of having empathy to help people.

@Word I used my one "pure nonsense" claim of the day one comment too early. 🤣

7

Long ago, and far away, I gave up trying to convience irrational people to see things rationally....sometimes I find other qualities in them that is admireable. Often though, just have to consider as loss cause.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:711414
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.