Ray a Day: 4:2

Today, Ray's angry skeptic brings up the fact that the bible has some funky things to say about wisdom. specifically:

So God doesn't like smart people/ the thoughts of the wise are worthless...that's flirting with contradiction. The unavoidable implication is that God like 'em dumb and ignorant.

Ray responds:

But let me see if you are a "wise" person. Can you make honey, from nothing? How about a glass of milk, from nothing? ... Make me a fully functioning eye, using no materials.

Since when does "wise" mean "having the ability to make those things for which their is no known maker?" You can't win arguments br redefining words to suit your own personal agenda. Besides, even when the Bible speaks of being "wise", it does not mean, "having the ability to make those things for which there is no known maker", so I honestly can't figure out what is even going on here. So we'll just move on:

The next skeptic wonders how one can accept that the bible is the word of god, taking as evidence only that those who wrote it claimed as much. Said skeptic also wonders how the Bible can be the inerrant word of God when there are so many differences and contradictions.

The interesting thing here is that when theists are presented with obvious contradictions in the Bible, they will move mountains to try to convince you that such contradictions are not, in fact, contradictions. It seems to me that the whole body of "apologetics" is about insisting, to patholigical and nonsensical degrees, that the Bible is perfect, even when it is abundantly clear that it is not. People like this can easily point out contradictions in other religions, I.E.the Top Ten Reasons Islam Is NOT a Religion of Peace. Here, a theist might argue like this: "Islam says it is a religion of peace, but the Quran advocates whipping adulteresses and adulterer. Thus, it is not a religion of peace:

(24:2 Strike the adulteress and the adulterer one hundred times. Do not let compassion for them keep you from carrying out God’s law—if you believe in God and the Last Day—and ensure that a group of believers witnesses the punishment. (MAS Abdel Haleem, The Quran, New York: Oxford UP, 2004)

When you point out that the same kind of brutality is present all over the Bible, people jump through hoops to try to justify it.

"And the man that committeth adultery with [another] man's wife, [even he] that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10)

To me, there's not much of a difference between Christianity and Islam - the texts on which they are based are both equally illogical and horrific.

Speaking of Islam, I'm on page 80 of Ray's book. On page 115, Ray goes on to say that atheists are "chicken-livered" because they criticize Christianity and not Islam, because atheists "know" that if they do, Muslims will "come after you to lop off your head."

It's almost as if religion is a brain-virus when people can easily point out the inconsistencies in other religions, can easily use logic and rationality to condemn religions other than their own, but when it comes to their own religion, somehow it is perfect, even in the face of identical contradictions. It feels like I am overhearing a conversation on a coffeehouse where all three women are of a victims of domestic abuse:

Woman 1 (to woman 2): If your partner beats you, you need to leave him. Your relationship is not healthy and he won't change.

Woman 2 (to woman 3): Yes, you are not to blame for your partner's abuse. He is wrong. You need to find someone better for yourself.

Woman 3: You guys need to end your relationships. My boyfriend, on the other hand,  is so awesome.

Woman 2: Wait.. Didn't I see him hit you the other day?

Woman 3: Oh no.. I totally deserved that. But you guys really need to end your relationships. NOW. Your partners are clearly evil for beating you. Don't let him convince you that you're the victim.

Woman 2: Oh no. My partner yells and might hit me a tiny bit, but I know he really loves me and is doing it for my own good. You guys though.. your partner can't possibly love you if he hits you and yells.

Woman 1: You guys need to get real and stop insisting your man is perfect - he can't be perfect if he hurts you. I don't know what you're talking about with my partner though, he's perfect for me. You have to understand the hitting in context. You're taking it out of context.

Woman 3: Duh, your man can't be perfect. What context? I know my man hits me only because I am a rotten person, and have been since we got into the relationship. I am the bad one.

... and so on.

If you define any given thing (The Bible, God, your hateful partner, whatever) as perfect and insist that everything that entity does/says is perfect even if it appears to be horrible, imperfect or contradictory, then you are not using observational evidence to determine whether or not something is perfect - evidence, in fact, does not matter at all. If you define something as "perfect" and do not use evidence to determine it's "perfection", then the whole idea of it being perfect becomes pretty much meaningless, as it's status of perfection is incapable of changing. This is what apologietics does - it takes whatever observations it has and twists those observations until it fits into the apropriate mold. This is not rational, it's certainly not scientific, and it gives logic a gigantic, leather-bound middle finger.

In every other aspect of our lives, we determine somethings goodness or perfection based on observational evidence - we observe it's lack of flaws, we observe it's apropriate fit, and we determine based on these observations that something is perfect.

We say that a round peg fits perfectly into a round hole when it actually fits. Apologetics is the fine art of saying that a square peg fits perfectly into a round hole after cutting, burning, carving and stomping the peg into a somewhat circular shape, and then carving out the round hole until the square peg finally fits.