I have a bunch of stuff I want to wrap up into one post.- Craig the Christian has started his own blog, based on his conversations with me. You can visit it at Simul Eustis et Pecator. On that note, he had emailed me several days ago and I finally replied. So I'll post that conversation down below.
- On Friday, I posted my story to de-conversion. It's basically the same as here, but they invited me and I thought I'd cross post over there to give support to others de-converting.
- I finished The City of Ember
, the book. I know a couple of you commented and said you were going to get it. Well, I have to say the movie was better in several ways and the book was a bit disappointing. I don't want to ruin it for you, but if you're interested I'll give you a review. Let me know.
- I've basically made the change to this new theme for the blog. I hope you like it and find that it looks and works better. If you see anything that needs fixing, please let me know and I'll do my best to get it working even better.
Conversations with Craig the Christian 3
The other day, I wrote about Bible Quotes and Craig didn't like it. He said:
"...it was taking pop shots at Christianity. What came to my mind was "If you can't beat them, join them. ....I interpreted it as since Christians tend to cherry pick and logic doesn't work on them, we'll do the exact same thing."
Here is my response:
I have to say no, that is the opposite of what I was trying to express with that post. I was basically saying this:
If you Believe and have Faith that the bible is the true and faithful word of god, then you must take the bible in its entirety, with all the hate, jealousy, killing, wars, murder, sacrifice and horror that it encompasses. You don’t get to cherry-pick just the happy, touchy-feely verses and sweep the rest under the rug, pretending they don’t exist.
No. In fact, you might want to look at the bible’s uglier side (which is much larger than the nice bits) and really contemplate if this god you worship faithfully is really who you think he is. Are you sure he’s even a god? He sounds pretty much like a very angry jealous mythical creature. That’s what I meant.
Cherry picking is how Christianity has survived over the centuries.
ReplyDeleteIf you're A Christian, you can justify almost anything by cherry picking from the Bible.
"Christians tend to cherry pick"
ReplyDeleteTend? Tend? They have to. I've started to hate the term, cherry picking, because it's absolutely BS. There is no such thing as not cherry picking by the definition. By the definition, ALL Christians cherry pick. In fact, everybody does.
I'm sick and tired of the cherry picking 'defense'. "Oh, your cherry picking that!" And think that that is somehow a reasonable defense. When somebody claims that somebody is cherry picking, it means they have no better argument. They have met a piece of information that they can't possibly defend reasonably, so they claim the stuff is cherry picked. They don't even provide backup of such a claim.
I'd also like to point out, that cherry picking is hardly ever used against a Christian, although it should all the time. It is actually, more true against a Christian as well, since the bible contains far more negative verses and lessons than positive ones. What also ticks me off is the same positive verse is used against the negative ones. I don't even see how in the first place, one quote overrides many. That thousands of examples of terrible acts being acceptable are swept away by one verse.
How many times have I heard "Well my bible says love thy neighbor" to counter the thousands of quotes from the bible basically amounting to kill thy neighbor? Endless, and they don't even bloody understand that the quote doesn't even mean what they think it does. 'Neighbor' refers to people of their own beliefs. It in and of itself is a negative quote with terrible connotations. Knowing this fits... it follows all the other quotes.
Oh yes, as I said from before, you should be sure to remind him that he just ignored difficult texts, as in his #2 action that people take with the bible: "2. Ignore difficult texts".
Very well said and thought out post, it's not too often you find this anymore.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I read that post. Sheesh.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with GMNightmare about context, but even still what both Craig and GMN failed to state was that the end result was FORTY TWO DEAD PEOPLE! Regardless of their age, heritage or disposition, 2 she bears ripped `em apart because they made fun of the prophet.
Grade for being a loving deity? FAIL
But it's so easy! You don't have to back up your arguments, you don't have to cite sources... :)
ReplyDeleteHi Poguemark,
ReplyDeleteI agree, they sure do justify just about anything they like. Of course, it doesn't stop with cherry-picking...
And you get to jump around and keep changing the subject whenever things get a bit difficult! GRRR!
ReplyDeleteHey GMN,
ReplyDeleteCherry-picking is definitely very common. I think it's a natural tendency of how our minds work. That's the impression I get from different studies I hear about. It doesn't make it any less annoying though.
Thanks for the reminder about ignoring difficult texts. :P
Exactly. That's what I was thinking too. FAIL indeed!
ReplyDeleteThanks Cedric! :D
ReplyDelete