God totally thinks like me.

[MontyMoor]

I've been wondering - what is the believers answear to the argument that If there was a god - such a complex and obviously highly evolved being, so intelligent, that It knows how to make whole universes - could be explained by a book written by a bunch of bronze age half-barbarians ?

And wouldnt It be too huge-egoish to assume that the humble human mind can even comprehen how such a thing thinks ?

[Fizzle]

Iron-age urban elites, actually, if memory serves me right.

[Gurdur]

Bronze Age, more. Iron made a very deep impression on the Old Testament.

[MontyMoor]

Aw. :/ Iron age barbarians then. And by barbarians I mean - the amount of knowledge about the ways of the universe was tiny in their times.

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

My take:

(1) The book is held to be the Inspired Word of God(tm) -- i.e., god is the author; the humans who wrote it down were merely "taking dictation."

(2) God's Ways(tm) are not to be explained or comprehended, merely believed and trusted, no matter how little sense they make. However fancy the theological wording may sound, at base it amounts to no more than "Because I said so!" or "Because I said NO!" Thus, fully grown adults are expected to acquiesce to disciplinary practices used on toddlers.

(3) And of course, the above gives the believer a free pass on behavior that would otherwise be abhorrent, as the book's "transcriptionists" can sincerely believe that all their own projections, revenge and control fantasies, etc. came from outside themselves.

[MontyMoor]

Originally Posted by Deacon Doubtmonger

My take:

But If gods ways are mysterious why should we think his ways are written in the human religion books ? There are so many of them, looks like noone has a clue what those ways are.
And the bible has been written by many fellows, so what If one of them didnt have a divine guidance and just pretended for the lulz ? What part of the book can be trusted and what part was misheard ? Also, there has been more than one version of the bible, who're the editors and can they be trusted ?
There was a study about religious people being less anxious and in turn less critical of mistakes, thus - sucky at analysis. I figure thats the reason they can put such a half-assed thing as religion as the centre of their lives.

[Seeker630]

Most believers have never read much of their own holy book, and have also never bothered to actually think through the story logic of their own professed religion, whichever it is. They believe because it's what they were taught as children, and then never questioned it as adults. At least not seriously enough to cause them any internal discord.

Basically they are in denial of reality.

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"!

I understand now why The Wizard of Oz was so often banned in libraries and schools in the past.

[Quath]

I think a lot of it is because the idea of gods started out to explain nature and gradually they gained human attributes. So with any such idea, you can only change and still be acceptec.

For example, you can change Romeo and Juliet around as much as you want, however, they both have to die at the end. Likewise, either a religious person appeals to old stories or they have to admit they just made up sopmething up on the spot. The can change some parts of an older religion. The biggest change is by new relavations, but even then, they are limited in how much things can change.

Christianity's biggest achievement was to make it so anyone can selectively believe in some parts of the Bible and ignore the rest. This is what truly amazes me about religious belief. Any halfway logical look at this shows the flaws.

For example, my mother was talking about God's plan for marriage. So I asked her if she liked his plan to make women marry their rapist. She didn't know about that part. So after looking at it, she said that we should focus on the New Testament. I asked her if that meant we should ignore God's plan for marriage as well then? She said that I needed to talk to a preacher who knew as much about the Bible as I did. No critical thinking whatsoever.

As an aside, I had a Christian recommend the book I thought best would deconvert a Christian. I recommended the Bible.

[grumpy]

Here's what this uneducated dumbfuck thinks accounts for the probable origin and success of religion. It is a confluence of two phenomena, one evolutionary and one cultural, which, working together yield religion as a byproduct.

1. Children who accept uncritically whatever their elders tell them have a better chance of survival and reproduction than those who don't. "Don't go into the water with those crocodiles."

2. The very human inability of shamans to say, "Gee, I don't know what lightning is, or why the hunting is so lousy this year."

[Don Alhambra]

There was actually a nice post on Pharyngula about a new paper on the origins of religion the other day:

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2...or_by-prod.php

Essentially the new research claims that rather than being an adaptation (e.g. grumpy's first point), religion is a byproduct of other cognitive functions. I think the second point is still valid though in terms of how the belief systems get built up.