It's always encouraging when I discover my blog being linked on other places, particularly atheist websites. Here, we have an atheist website that saw fit to post an entire "article" about my site:
"Marshall Brain has setup a website here providing arguments against the Bible. One Christian poster has setup a blog called Brain is ignorant trying to rebutt those arguments. Not surprisingly his rebuttals are pathetic. Check out the rebuttal
about prayer. Let's take a look at it:"Okay. Let's analyze this conversation.
Norm: Pray for him to put $10,000 in my pocket right now.
I remember praying something along those lines when I was about five years old. Apparently Marshall Brain isn't passed that point of realization that prayer is not a gumball machine.
Chris: It is not God's will. It would eliminate faith in God if God answered an impossible prayer as you are suggesting. Our God is a God of faith. That is his intention and is clearly stated throughout the Bible.
Norm: So why did God part the Red Sea? Surely that took away faith.
You're right, it did. But since the amount of people who saw this miracle amount to about %.000000000000000000000000000000001 percent of the people who have ever lived, this is a non-issue.
Norm: So when Jesus said "anyone with faith can move a mountain," what he actually meant was, "No one with faith can move a mountain."
No. "Moving mountains" was an ancient metaphor for accomplishing what was difficult or impossible. In the same way you'd say, "You're driving me up a wall," but not be really referring to any kind of wall, Jesus wasn't even referring to a mountain at all.
Chris: He meant that. It is implied. You need to see Jesus in the context of the rabbinical doctrine in the early fist century AD.
This is very important. Prayer should be understood in the client-patron relationship that would have been familiar to Jesus and his contemporaries. It was considered dishonorable to request outrageous things like being able to fly like Superman. In an honor and shame society, this is crucial.
Chris: Quite clearly you have never bothered with any sort of exegetical understanding of the Bible's promises on prayer. God is under no obligation to answer any prayer.
And at this point, Marshall has essentially lost to himself. He's pointed out his own fatal flaw of not using exegesis or any sort of historical knowledge.
Chris: You are completely clueless, and an idiot besides. No biblical commentary, and no Christian denominational body agrees with any of your interpretations of these passages, nor do I.
Good point, and also very important. Why, since %100 of people who have been Christian for more than five minutes interpret these verses metaphorically, should we trust a fundy atheist's incredibly misguided interpretation?
As you can see no matter how much bullshit is in a religious book people will just re-interpret it. So out of the hundreds of religions out there, how do you know which is the correct one? A rational person would look to see if there was anything false in the religious text. If there was a false statement e.g. "The earth is flat", then we know that the person couldn't have been divinely inspired since God wouldn't have made such a mistake. With the Bible, things are so blatently false, that Christians simply ignore it. How then do they know whether their religion is false, if whenever they come across something that is blatently false they simply re-interpret it to match reality?
Hmm. Take note that this guy has done nothing against anything I said and has merely said, "Look at that. How silly is that? Here are a bunch of red herrings about religion! BAM." So let's disect it.
As you can see no matter how much bullshit is in a religious book people will just re-interpret it.
What's the flaw in a re-interpetation? But let's keep in mind that it's not really a re-interpretation. It's merely what the text conveys. I can't help the fact that you and Marshall Brain are fundy atheists and read every word of the Bible literally, even when it reaches absurdities like this. You're the one doing the reinterpretation, since 100% of people who actually believe the Bible disagree with your interpetation.
So out of the hundreds of religions out there, how do you know which is the correct one? A rational person would look to see if there was anything false in the religious text. If there was a false statement e.g. "The earth is flat", then we know that the person couldn't have been divinely inspired since God wouldn't have made such a mistake.Well, a rational person would see that even if an error is proven in the Bible, the book still has truth claims that must be analyzed and studied regardless. I don't see how one error somehow disproves the entire notion of inspiration, especially since you're the one misinterpreting the doctrine of inspiration to mean "dictation."
Uh-huh. Examples, please? This is a typical atheist maneuver: argument by soundbite."With the Bible, things are so blatently false, that Christians simply ignore it. How then do they know whether their religion is false, if whenever they come across something that is blatently false they simply re-interpret it to match reality? "
If you're by chance referring to the verses on prayer, there is nothing "blatently false" about hyperbole. Once you educate yourself on the usage and mechanics of ancient language, maybe you'll have some sort of idea of what you're talking about. And, once again, please demonstrate how one error would disprove the whole thing.
Now, I will comment on something else that's very stupid:
Hahahaha. His things that I must demonstrate are flawed from the start. 1) Christianity's validity has absolutely no bearing on the intellect or behavior of it's followers. This is quite obvious, especially since your opinion of Christians is not some sort of objective standard to determine intelligence.If you wanted to convert me you’d have to demonstrate the following:
1. That the majority of Christians are intelligent on the topic of religion.
2. That the Bible offers intelligent explanations.
3. That the Christian concept of God is that of an intelligent being.
2) Define "intelligent explanations." There are plenty of intelligent things in the Bible: Try Proverbs. This is incredibly nonspecific.
3) Intelligent by who's standard? What would you define as "intelligent?" Even if your childish paraphrases of creation (which is incorrect, by the way...He didn't create us imperfect, we chose imperfection ourselves) were proven incorrect, you'd still say God was "an idiot."
That takes care of him, I suppose. Try growing a brain.
PS: Stay tuned for an article about another one of my opponents (who happens to be of equal or lesser intelligence), "theapokalipse" of Youtube.
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3 comments:
Oh my super natural being!!!!!
Brain is just trying to show how being a christian requires one to be delusional, which christians will simply call "having faith." You can't ever argue against them because the final answer will be "You just have to have faith.
Wonderfull. There is NO empiracal evidence, or evidence of any kind for the existence of god. There just is not. There is only faith. You can't argue against Brian's concepts because they are correct. They may not always refer to you, but they are correct. You don't believe in vishnu (or you believe that is how god showed himself, which is quite selfish).
Brain's proofs are short and sweat. Yours ramble and are quite difficult to read. They don't offer proof that religion is delusion. They just offer reasons why Brain doesn't always make sense (although just not to you).
If you really want to write a rebuttal to Brains articles, write someting prooving why religion is not delusional. Unfortuntaley that is impossible. There is only faith. Faith is the only answer.
Brain is just trying to show how being a christian requires one to be delusional, which christians will simply call "having faith." You can't ever argue against them because the final answer will be "You just have to have faith.
It was at this point that I thought, "Why should I even bother responding to what you've said when you have no idea what the true, Biblical meaning of "faith" is?"
http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith.html
But I'll respond anyway.
Wonderfull. There is NO empiracal evidence, or evidence of any kind for the existence of god. There just is not. There is only faith.
You mean there's no "good" evidence. You can't pick and choose what's evidence and what's not. You can't simply wave away objective morality, or the fine-tuning of the universe, or the beginning of the universe, or any of the solid historical data backing Christianity, as "no evidence."
You can't argue against Brian's concepts because they are correct. They may not always refer to you, but they are correct.
*Snort*. This is equivalent to me sending an email to Marshall Brain saying, "You can't argue against me, because I'm correct." Care to actually prove that point instead of just begging the question?
You don't believe in vishnu (or you believe that is how god showed himself, which is quite selfish).
Do you care to present a positive case for the existence of Vishnu while still staying a non-believer? Or will you atheists continually resort to this red herring?
Brain's proofs are short and sweat. Yours ramble and are quite difficult to read.
Oh, I see. Everything has to be beat-you-over-the-head simple for you, right?
They don't offer proof that religion is delusion. They just offer reasons why Brain doesn't always make sense (although just not to you).
Despite your typos, I think I know what you were trying to say.
While I didn't right this particular proof, I did write the other forty-some. So please investigate the rest of the website and see if all I did was say, "Here's why Brain doesn't make sense, at least to me." See if I didn't use scholars to back up my points. Puh-lease.
If you really want to write a rebuttal to Brains articles, write someting prooving why religion is not delusional. Unfortuntaley that is impossible. There is only faith. Faith is the only answer.
Again, see the definition of faith that I posted above.
How would you suggest I would go about doing that, Mr. Anonymous? Prove God exists, I suppose, right? And how would I go about doing that? Making him right, "I EXIST!" on the moon or something?
Sheesh.
Actually, disregard "While I didn't right this particular proof." I did...I thought for a moment I was responding to Jimmie's comment.
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