Spiritual but not religious?

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 Epignosis wrote:

You ask why I criticize your interpretations of biblical passages, and yet you exhibit difficulty in interpreting my last post, which was written in plain, modern English not an hour ago.

 Epignosis wrote:

let's say the story of the Great Flood 
(which is what you love to harp on more than anything) is but an 
allegory.

 Mr ProgFreak wrote:

And a few posts ago you said that the evidence against the flood doesn't
 convince you, and now you opt for "it's allegorical". 

Give me a facepalm if it makes you feel better. You at least took it into consideration, which is something most conservative Baptists would not do, to my knowledge.

 Epignosis wrote:

I go to a conservative Baptist church, and no one calls me an atheist.  A theist is someone who believes in God, not magic.  I would wager that I have associated with more fundamental Christians than you have.  I have never once been called an atheist (a "heretic," a time or two, but never an atheist).  

Do you tell them about your particular views about the Bible? And is "heretic" so much better than atheist? Abandoning your faith has got to be worse than never having believed in the first place. At least from the perspective of religious people that is ... to me apostasy/heresy is admirable, at least if done for the correct reasons (truth, reason).

 Epignosis wrote:

If you criticized astrology, I wouldn't care.  But if you said "Capricorns are born in August," then I might correct your statement.

You mention bias.  Let's say you discovered proof Jesus walked on the sea (the Bible never says "on liquid water," but I'll leave the linguistics out of this since it doesn't matter).  Would that convince you that he is the Son of God and Lord of all, and would you become a Christian?

There are many videos on YouTube of people walking on water. If you really could show me a person to whom the laws of physics did not apply ... wait, we could stop here - you can't. Even then I would apply Occam's Razor - it's much more likely that I am being tricked than that it's real.

 Epignosis wrote:

You call the Bible a "magic book."  I'd call it a book of observation using the limited language and scientific understanding of the day.

Mike - "No magic tricks" = "The Bible isn't true"
Me - "No magic tricks" = "The Bible is even more true than I thought it was"

Biases at work. But yours is worse than mine. Why? Because you take something that is a very important reason for many - if not the majority of - people to believe in God and say "if it isn't true that even strengthens my belief". Reminds me of that example I read in "Mistakes Were Made - But Not By Me" (great book btw). A leader of a small cult promised that the world would end at some given date. The cult prepared, but of course it didn't turn out to be true. Some members of the cult stopped believing, but the majority got even more fanatic. They invented all sorts of reason why the fact that their leader's prediction didn't come true actually supported their belief. One reason was "by our intense faith and preparation we prevented the world from ending". 

My bias is simple: Once bitten, twice shy. The more I learn of the Bible, the more nonsense and lunacy I discover. Knowing how religious people will see the same verse as a pillar of their belief that makes my toenails spike through my shoes, I (un-)politely decline. My bias may be very outspoken and politically incorrect, but I stand by it, and I do think that it is simply much less "out there". 

Edited by Mr ProgFreak - June 08 2010 at 14:37