@shinyblurry:

Your characterization of bible literalists as "idiots" and people with "sheep-like" credulity and the "so-called" faithful, not-withstanding, I will agree that a disagreement on origins doesn't necessarily make someone less Christian. It doesn't say anywhere in the bible that you must agree on a literal interpretation of Genesis to follow Jesus Christ.

Calling the literal interpretation of Genesis a "quasi-heretical" doctrine of "19th century upstarts" is completely ridiculous, though. Almost as ridiculous as quoting Origen and Augustrine and claiming they represented the majority viewpoint of the early church. If you think the early church didn't believe in a literal Genesis, how do you explain Ephraim the syrian, or Basil of Caesarea? What about Ambrose of Milan, who was the mentor of Augustine? They all believed in a young earth, as did many others throughout the centuries.

Let us not also forget that Christ Himself was a bible literalist, who spoke about the narrative in the Old Testament, including Genesis, as literal history, and literally fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah.


Could you perhaps refer me to some documents wherein St. Ephrem or St. Basil averred that the literal interpretation of the Bible is primary? Ephrem appears to have struck a middle ground between literalism and pure metaphorical interpretation, and St. Basil was a student of Origen's writings. Granted, St. Basil assiduously avoided the bizarre flights of fancy that plagued some of the Christian writers in the 4th century, but he was hardly a literalist in a strict sense--the literal sense was only one important sense in which to take the sacred writings.

If you want to support your point, a particular reference to Genesis will do best.

As far as Ambrose goes, it stretches the truth to say that he was a "mentor" of Augustine. Certainly, Augustine speaks rather highly of Ambrose in the Confessions. But Augustine writes with rather rose-colored glasses. A sober-minded approach to the life of Ambrose reveals that he was as much a political animal as he was spiritual. And even in the Confessions it is not recorded that Ambrose paid much attention to Augustine. If I recall correctly, Augustine doesn't record a single word that Ambrose said to Augustine outside of a public sermon in which Augustine was a member of the congregation.

In regards to Christianity, there is a mimimum requirement of belief, such as that Jesus was raised from the dead, to be a Christian.


In the traditional sense, certainly. There are other senses by which one might claim to be Christian--pointing out the tradition from which one derives one's moral compass, for instance. In this sense, many atheists can probably claim to be Christian atheists, rather than, e.g., Muslim atheists.

Simple observation shows most people, probably near the 99.9 percent mark, to be liars. There is no claim in Christianity that Christians are perfect. Far from it. Jesus was the only perfect man to ever live. Christians still sin, but hopefully they sin much less than usual. Christians living sanctified lives are comparitively rare, unfortunately. When you consider that half of the American church does not believe in a literal Holy Spirit or Satan, it isn't surprising.


Do they sin much less than usual? I haven't seen any sign of it. The statistics don't seem to bear it out. Nor does my personal experience. Of the best and most morally astute people I know, only one was Christian. The rest were Buddhist, Muslim, or Pagan.

In Christianity, it is to know God personally. Christianity is about Jesus Christ and nothing else. If you subtract Jesus, you don't have anything. You automatically get a new state of being; when you accept Christ you are a new creature, and you receive the Holy Spirit. You also have your sins forgiven and obtain eternal life.


To worship and devote yourself to a single God, like Jesus Christ, has a specific term in Hinduism--bhakhti yoga. It is the path of love and devotion.

No matter which god you pursue with this ardent and holy love, you will achieve the same result--sanctification, rebirth, and the descending dove of the Holy Spirit.

The forgiveness of sins is a psychological projection. Eternal life is yours regardless of what any god says.


Which spirit? Satan can make you feel ecstacy and love; it wouldn't be a very good deception if it wasn't deceiving. The question you should ask is, where is this coming from, and who gave me a spirit in the first place?

As far as intolerance goes, Jesus made it clear:

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Those are His words, not mine. A Christian is only telling you what He said, which is that you will face judgment for your sins. If you reject Jesus, you are telling God you want to stand trial for your sins on your own merit. If you are rejecting Jesus, it's for a reason that has nothing to do with anything you have written here.


As far as deception goes, I will quote to you the Gospels, Luke 11:17-19: 'But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges.'

How can a demon bring holy ecstasy? How can a devil cast out division and hatred, and bring in such divine love?

And with regard to intolerance, it's almost entirely pointless to quote to me the first apocryphon of John--the so-called Gospel of John. I'm well aware of what it says. I've spent a lot of time considering it. That's why I think it's incorrect.

It does no good at all to suggest that it's someone else who's being intolerant. On the one hand, it looks like you're blame-shifting, too much the coward to take responsibility for the statement. On the other hand, you are providing no reason to think that the quotation provides any authority whatsoever, and undermining your position by your own indolence.

When I speak of ecstasy, I'm not talking about a sense of awe or wonder in the presence of natural beauty or a particularly moving passage in a piece of literature. There is, of course, no religious barrier to experiences of that sort. What I'm talking about is ek stasis, standing outside yourself. The Greeks originally used this term to speak about the powerful trances that would come upon the worshipers of Dionysos at their holy revels.

When I say "ecstasy," then, I'm talking about visions of gods and angels. I'm talking about howling to the bowels of the earth to dredge up demons and bend them to your will. Or alternatively, quiet sitting, focusing the mind on only the tip of your nose for an hour at a time, until a vision of the Unconquered Sun comes on you and explodes your world. The kind of experience that causes you to walk around for the next week as if the blood in your veins has been turned into holy wine. I'm talking about experiences that are life changing, help you to break bad habits and come to epiphanies.

Literal belief in these things is not necessarily key. But our brains need a hook to plug into this transcendence. Very few of us are able to do it without some kind of religious approach. And, of course, literal belief can sometimes be quite dangerous, if the belief is not just wrong, but demands harmful action--the Pentecostals who literally demonize those who disagree with them, for instance.

So we're not just talking about metaphor here. Non-literal interpretation by no means implies metaphorical interpretation, in the sense of the metaphor as a literary device.

Not only do I live in the US, but I live Oklahoma, one of the most religiously conservative states. I don't have a great deal of respect for that brand of religion, for sure. Which is precisely why it's so galling to see a video that suggests that's just what Christians have to be like--that Christians who reject the Bibliolatry and hermeneutic cutting and pasting of those idiots somehow aren't real Christians, that rejecting the sheep-like credulity of these so-called faithful means that the thoughtful ones haven't actually thought it through. And somehow it is averred that those who cling to the ancient traditions of Biblical understanding are inauthentically Christian, since they don't accept the quasi-heretical doctrines of 19th century upstarts.

Clearly false. Yet that's the whole thrust of the video!



With regard to your last two paragraphs, I think we're starting to move away from straightforward commentary on the video. But that's alright with me, if it's okay with you.

As far as dogmatic authority goes, I think that you're partly right about some religions. Specifically, the big Abrahamic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It's important to remember that this is not the entire world of religion (even if they are important), so there are a number of statements about them that will be incorrect about other religions--in fact, most other religions.

It's true that the Big Three do indeed seem to require acceding to the truth of certain propositions in order to remain in their historical form: e.g., that the Torah was revealed by God, that Jesus lived, died, and rose from the dead, and that Mohammad received the Qur'an from Michael. (for each religion respectively) There is certainly an important sense in which certain very liberal theologians are still Christian, but this is something very different than historical Christianity.

Nonetheless, this is something separate from moral authority. One may deny that there is anything correct about the metaphysical pronouncements of the Bible, and still accept that its moral teachings are profoundly important. This is precisely what philosophy Slavoj Zizek has done.

For most other religions, the number of specific propositions that must be accepted is few to none. Pronouncements about gods or salvation are amenable to multiple interpretations. The ancient Greek philosophers, for instance, were quite religious on the whole. Yet read a book on Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Platonism, and tell me what proposition about the gods that they agree on. You'll find it quite difficult.

The same can be said of Shinto, Hinduism, Buddhism, Western Pagan revivals, etc.

Moreover, I myself don't think that moral authority is actually essential to religion. It's certainly related to religion, but as I'm sure you've observed--there's not much of a correlation between religious belief and moral behavior. Simple observation shows most Christians to be liars. Morality is not why they are Christian.

Instead, I think it's something else--transcendence, and the promise of new states of being. Morality has almost nothing to do with this. The same man can be capable of the most holy ecstasies and raptures before the beauty of the God or gods that he prays to, a writer of the most delicately beautiful hymns and homilies--and the worst bastard on earth outside of church. Cardinal Richilieu was just such a person.

This is why we'll never get rid of religion, of course. But it's also why the monotheistic religions can be so dangerous. They incorrectly tie the ecstasies of the spirit to crude and intolerant dogmas, then demand that all others agree or face the sword or the pyre.

>> ^shveddy:

@HadouKen24 - All that you say is very dandy and very well may be true, but you'd be shocked at how widespread it is to cling to 19th century literalist beliefs. I'm not sure what country you're from, but here in the US it's remarkably common and even presidential candidates manage to think it despite pursuing the most powerful office in the world. I grew up in a particular Christian denomination, one of hundreds, and we had an official statement of faith that stated the absolute, literal, inerrant nature of the bible. This particular flavor of Christianity has about 3 million adherants, and again, this is only one of hundreds - many of which are even more conservative in their biblical interpretation.
When you say that it has been common for some time to regard sacred texts in a metaphorical sense I think that's definitely true, especially in the case of liberal theologians. However, when you take away the literal interpretations and leave interpretative metaphor all that remains is an interesting and influential piece of literature that has no specific authority. And I think this is a good thing. But the fact of the matter is that it lowers it to the same level as Moby Dick, Oedipus, Infinite Jest and Harry Potter - all of which are books that have interesting, moralistic metaphors just like the bible.
Let's face it, religion needs the teeth of absolute truth and the threat of moral superiority to have any privileged relevance over other interesting, moral works. I see neither in any of its texts.

Rubbish. It's stuff like that that makes religious people dislike atheists.

I'm not an atheist--but neither am I Christian. Nonetheless, I think it's worth pointing out some serious flaws in the argument here.

First, the literal interpretation of the Bible has never really been primary. Actually, this is almost universally the case for sacred writings. The Greek myths were to be understood as metaphor, and the Koran is considered by many Muslims to be a repository of spiritual truths which are not necessarily on the surface, and which require study to glean from the text.

Interpreting the Bible as non-literal--as metaphorical, analogical, etc.--goes back more than 2000 years. One of the first writers on the Old Testament, the Jewish scholar Philo, wrote a treatise that regarded the sacred books as almost entirely non-literal. He viewed it as encoded with revelations about Platonic truths, the structure of the spiritual world, and not necessarily a history book.

This viewpoint was carried through to the Christian period. The Church Father Origen famously interpreted the book non-literally. The 4th century Church Father St. Augustine even wrote a tract called "On the literal interpretation of Genesis," in which he excoriated the Creationists of the day, who believed the world to be flat and the sky to be a literal blue dome--and who believed, contrary to all observation, that the world was only a few thousand years old, when anyone with eyes could tell that it was clearly much older. Augustine cautioned the Christians against such interpretations because they were clearly wrong, and because they made Christians look like idiots.

Augustine instead proffered the interpretation that the world had been made all at once, in one instant. The "days" referred to in Genesis he instead took as referring to the distinct logical elements of the instantaneous act of Creation. Incidentally, Augustine claimed that this was, indeed, a "literal" interpretation--the term "literal" meant something very different in those days.

Of course, the ancients also viewed the world in a very different way. In those days, it made perfect sense to see an actual, physical object as also metaphorical or analogical in some way. A temple or a statue of a god could be, in a very real way, the instantiation of the god in the physical world. According to Aristotle, every object had its natural goal, its "telos." An object fell because it was its "telos" to be at its natural resting point on the ground. And so on. There was no such thing as dead matter, devoid of an intimate relationship to mind or spirit, in the view of the ancients.

It was not until the rise of the scientific worldview in the 17th and 18th centuries that the literal interpretation of the Bible became popular. Matter came to be viewed in Cartesian or corpuscularian terms, as pure mathematical extension in space, entirely passive unless moved from the outside. In Cartesian terms, things like the "telos" were unthinkable for physical objects.

Seeing the popularity and utility of this new viewpoint, the Protestant preachers began devising literalist interpretations of the Bible. Their goal was to vindicate the Bible in scientific terms. Their effort might have been laudable, but it became occasionally silly. Some theologians argued that Jesus hadn't actually died on the cross--he had just fainted, and then woke up in the tomb later and walked out.

Nonetheless, their efforts were genuinely honest and took the newest and best science to heart as they worked on their interpretations. Some of these theologians were scientist in their own right, making important contributions to biology and geology. However, as time went on, their efforts proved ultimately futile, leading the best theologians to gradually abandon the literalist approach the Bible.

Unfortunately, there are still a number of Christians who cling to 19th century literalist approach. So-called "creation science" comes out of this tradition, for instance. It should be remembered, though, that these Christians are not only rejecting genuine science--they are also rejecting centuries-old traditions within their own religion.

Hah, very funny.

Oklahoma resident here. They didn't leave much in indicating Senator Johnson's intent for the amendment. She was actually trying to get abortion opponents to fall into just the trap that Senator Shortey fell into. (Senator Shortey, by the by, is no stranger to introducing bizarre bills.)

Senator Johnson is actually pretty staunchly pro-choice.

Hah, very funny.

Unfortunately, they nerfed Iron Flesh in the last major update. You can't quite get away with that level of blithe disregard for the various nasties in the game anymore.

I am not much of a Ron Paul supporter at this point. I definitely preferred him to the other Republican contenders last time in 2008, and I still prefer him as a candidate--but I have no horse in that race. I'm an independent and will likely vote for Obama in August.

That said, it really does look like we're dealing with voter fraud in Maine. The Republican Party is looking slimier by the second.

It's only fallacious if I'm actually making an argument, which I wasn't. Just personal comments on the man's work.

I didn't go into specifics simply because of time, but if you like, I can give you a brief rundown of what I find objectionable about his work.

The KCA: Craig seems to think that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is a very strong argument for theism, but it has numerous weaknesses. Craig argues for the impossibility of an actual infinite, whether in terms of a series in time, or of an infinitude of physical objects. His arguments in this regard are spectacularly weak. He believes, for instance, that the Hilbert's Hotel paradox shows that an actual infinite is absurd. This is not what the paradox shows, however--it only shows that an actual infinite would behave in unintuitive ways, breaking apart properties of numbers that we normally find together. Moreover, Craig provides no good reason to think that the first cause would have to be personal. He assumes that only a person could cause something to come from nothing, but doesn't back this up with any sound arguments.

Religious Epistemology: Craig asserts that philosophical arguments are neither necessary nor sufficient to have justified belief and genuine knowledge of the truth of Christianity--the light of the Holy Spirit is enough. He says this of himself as well, and is thus committed to his belief in Christianity regardless of any arguments that might be presented. He thus declares himself impervious to any argument that might vitiate Christianity--this is a profound philosophical failing. To declare that no conceivable argument can convince you away from your position is to declare the entire philosophical enterprise almost entirely purposeless with regard to that question.

The Resurrection: Craig uses Bayesian probability theory to argue for the likelihood of the resurrection, claiming that when the calculation of prior probability includes a belief in the existence of God, then the resurrection will be probable--and thus, the rejection of the resurrection by atheists just comes down to a dogmatic rejection based on a previously held belief. Craig is not the first to make this argument; Richard Swinburne first advanced it in the 70's. It is, however, a very bad argument. It only works if the "God" in question is in particular a Christian God to begin with. Not just any God will do, or the resurrection of Jesus is hardly more likely than the epiphany of Krishna or the revelations to Mohammad. But the specifically Christian notion of God was developed only out of belief in the resurrection in the first place. Thus, Craig's argument is largely circular.

If these are meant to be personal comments, then I don't see why Craig's argument's statements are necessarily all that horrible. As a student of philosophy, I was extremely underwhelmed by Dawkins and Hitchens. Sam Harris is somewhat better, but still not out of the woods. Their arguments simply aren't all that good.

Going on record as a scholar and saying it without backing it up is a bit gauche, of course. Which is what Bill Craig did. Bad form.

Craig is certainly better informed about the state of argumentation in philosophy about the existence of God, etc., than Dawkins and Hitchens are. That said, I'm not personally impressed by his arguments, and I'm not at all surprised to learn that he is very infrequently cited. There are philosophers on the atheist side who are far more convincing than Dawkins (and yes, even Denett), and far better informed about philosophy of religion. Craig is more of a philosopher than Dawkins, but he's still a hack.

Hah. Speaking as a person with a degree in philosophy, there is much truth to this.

Especially the drinking.

Holy crap, that was actually pretty impressive. It takes an immense amount of control to be able to cut through the tatami mat--and leave it standing there long enough to cut above the previous cut. Well done, Japanese swordsgirl.

Interesting from a game development standpoint, I suppose. Not terribly surprising.

Apparently, in the UK you just can't swing a cat.

So much for that idiom.

Hah, excellent find!

Background: Oklahoma, just minutes before this video was posted, had its biggest earthquake in recorded history. Which isn't necessarily saying much, but it's one of the few earthquakes we've ever had that did any property damage whatsoever. (The second biggest occurred just last night.)

It's terribly exciting. My Facebook feed blew up less than thirty seconds afterward with people chattering about it.

Be careful what insurance company you choose!

I work in the insurance business, albeit in a fairly low level position. (I hope to be an adjuster by this time next year--I have to have an adjuster's license in my position, but I only work very simple claims like rear-end collisions) I'm not aware of any major problems with the company I work for--there have been problems in the past, but we make changes very quickly for the size of our company, and I'm not aware of any major problems currently. But I hear about the problems people have with certain other insurance companies all the time.

Allstate is awful. DO NOT get your insurance with Allstate. When Hurricane Katrina hit, they denied three times as many claims as anyone else. There was a major lawsuit about it. They have also been sued, quite justifiably it seems, for under-paying injury claims on auto insurance.

State Farm is pretty good when it comes to auto insurance. My understanding is that if your vehicle is totaled, they tend to pay higher amounts than other companies. companies. They are not always great when it comes to homeowners insurance, however. They were also sued for claim denials on Hurricane Katrina.

Liberty Mutual's auto insurance is also quite good. I've not heard any complaints about them, and I got hit by a drunk driver with Liberty Mutual not too long ago. (No one was hurt badly enough that they had to see a doctor, fortunately enough, though I was a bit sore for about a week and a half) They are professional, and have been handling my claim quickly and appropriately. But I can't speak to the homeowner side of their business.

A friend of mine was an property adjuster for Travelers Insurance. If nothing else, I know for a fact that they have very rigorous training for their adjusters. They are trained well enough that they'll be able to spot the damage to your home or auto, and shouldn't miss much.

Do your research, folks! If the insurance company you're considering has been sued in the last six or seven years, be wary!