I wonder if you can grasp the irony of "quite literally ******ed" people writing books during an era of non-prevalent literacy.

Bravo.

Commonly held believes from that era are considered ******ed nowadays: creationism, flat earth, whatever fairytales and myths people actually believed back then.

Religious scriptures may have had some value for conveying norms but there's only historical relevance in today's world. People seeking some kind of truth in them are wasting their time and lack critical thinking.

Non-sequitur at its finest. Gotta love it.

But these are commonly held beliefs today as well, so that doesn't demonstrate a difference in intelligence between now and the past.

This is clearly false. I'm doubtful that any book has more direct impact on the moral views of Americans today than the Bible. Go take a class on ethics at a college and there is a good chance you'll read some classical philosophy - not just for historical reasons, but as arguments and ideas still relevant today.

Heh, the repsonses to my inflammatory comments don't disappoint.

Really, if you'd be be able to teleport someone from 2000 years ago to today and talk to them, I'm pretty sure you'd have the impression you're talking to a ******. I don't understand why people place so much value in books from that time, beyond the historical aspect. More refined philosophical and moral works have emerged since then.

As far as I am concerned, everyone can believe whatever they want. But I do have severe issues with religious zealots trying to impose their irrational worldviews onto other people. People like Jesus, Buddha or Muhammed may have been fine people but why should anyone believe they possessed supernatural powers? It seems that organized religion is more about power than anything. With a lot of sunk cost, lol.

IMO we should get rid of "Religion as the Opium of the People": the more dogmatic, organised and controlling a religion becomes, the more evil it seems to become.

Have you ever read a book written by someone from 2000 years ago or are you just listing your uninformed prejudices? For instance, Plato's argument against divine command ethics from the Euthyphro: this is still considered by many philosophers as the best argument against this popular way of grounding morality.

Sure, I agree, everyone should be free to believe what they want. However, I don't have a problem with irrational anti-religious (or religious) zealots trying to persuade other people to accept their irrational views. Not sure if that is what you mean by "impose."

They would probably say the same about you.

I'm no anthropologist, but this one time I sat through a lecture by one who detailed his project of studying some archeological remains in some obscure part of the world or another. One of his pet peeves, which he felt compelled to share, was the modern "misconception" that people in the past were somehow stupider than modern peoples. While they certainly didn't have the same access to information (and misinformation) that we do in the modern age, and didn't yet have the same "shoulders of giants" to stand on, as it were, he insisted that evidence pointed to the fact that they were actually smarter on average (as far as strict intellectual capability) than modern peoples.

That is all. Now kneel before the power of my one data point.

Which is better, fundamentalism or gnosticism ...and why?

Which is better, dogma or evolving knowledge thru learning and discovery ... and why?

You're no statistician either. Since the subject in question was abstraction capability (I.Q. test) and the masses had no schooling and training in critical thinking, believing in magic and superstition routinely with no conception of the scientific method, said masses, though practically intelligent, were utter fail at abstraction that was utterly foreign to them. Same reason I'm utter fail at deciphering hieroglyphs. Never done it. Lobbing that point in is fail. So we are evolving toward less intelligence, eh? This has survival value?

It is only one data point. But it's a data point from a presumably knowledgeable source. Even statisticians recognize that this has value, and should be weighted more than anything you have to say. (Unless you're going to assert the poster is a liar, but that's a different conversation entirely.)

Clearly, you're no historian, and no evolutionary psychologist, or religious expert, or anything. It's hard to tell from your presentation the level of education you have. And yet you continue to opine as if your opinions should be taken seriously...

Uhhh... did you not get my joke about the supreme power of my one data point?

Hey, don't kill the messenger, bro. If you want to argue with somebody about this point, find an anthropologist and bore him, not me.

Eh indeed. So what kind of selection pressures do you think exist in a modern developed society?

I'd say intelligent 11th grader. Excellent potential if he starts reading serious scholars. Good polemical style. Could be the next Christopher Hitchens if he gets serious and does the work.

Edit: Promoted him to 11th grade.

WWJD?? Apparently ad hominem attacks avoiding at all costs the central points about the religion ... which he himself would disavow as fantastic. It turns my stomach how disingenuous Christians are to maintain and defend the implausible. "What difference would a talking snake in the critical origin story make ... this critic/critical thinker is 11th grade level?" "What difference would 20 million killings of people, their penalty for being human, the killer having created their humanity ... of what significance is that?"

When one of your children is rebellious and sinful, why not just kill them ... like the Old Testament says? Or why not just sacrifice someone else for them like the New Testament does?

The answer: because we know it is actually barbaric insanity of man's making. There is nothing about it that's right. No sacrifice, human or animal, was ever right ... for the same reasons they are not right now.

Actually, the 11th grade accusation is not a problem, as that is about 8 grades past the level where one can see that such killings, sacrifices, slavery etc. are not okay.

I've had the polemical gloves off because that just isn't my bag. But I think it's warranted now. To say that such killings are okay because it says so in a book of stories from 2000 years ago is totally defaulting on being a moral agent in the world. It's "I'm good because of faith," which in fact is a subversion and sacrificing of consciousness, awareness, thinking ... turning morality upside down in the process.

3rd grade is a good place to start to see that, but I'm glad to be the relayer of the message to those who whiffed on it so far. It's never too late. If you are saying that mass killing is okay, including babies of the guilty, because they didn't act right, you are in the immoral ... now and forever.

Kinda amazed that you didn't see the bolded as a huge complement. Maybe it's because you have no idea who Christopher Hitchens was? Which would be consistent with my earlier point that you seem to have not engaged serious writers.

I addressed several of your questions in posts 7 through 10. Did you read those posts of mine? After you engage the responses that I already gave, we can then pursue more questions.

I am not doubting your assertion, but I am interested where it says this in the Old Testament.

As soon as you actually make a point relevant to the "central points" we can talk about that. Until then, you've shown yourself to be intellectually disingenuous, and the premise of this thread shows that your argumentation is lacking.

Also, you really want to read about what "ad hominem" actually is. Nobody has diminished the quality of your arguments based on you as a person or your characteristics. The implication has gone in the other directions. The quality of your argument is rejected, leading to conclusions about you as a person.

It's interesting to me that you would conclude that an Old Testament passage is a "central point" of Christianity, when Christianity is primarily about how Jesus supersedes the Old Testament by making it obsolete.

He's probably referring to this:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage...21&version=NIV

Of course, he's probably never actually read any rabbinical interpretations of this passage (as this is a *Jewish* scripture), as that would require some effort and something beyond just rambling ignorantly.

https://www.thetorah.com/article/the...n-and-daughter

https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/rel...ebellious-son/

I would definitely say it's a complex and interesting topic to pursue. It challenges some or our notions of responsibility and individual autonomy. But it's not just a blind "My kid won't clean his room, so I'm going to stone him." That perspective is simply ignorant of context.

It’s low hanging fruit to say that the Old Testament God is simply a projection of the pathologies of earlier people. I’m going to try to give a more charitable explanation for why this depiction of God would be preserved even after the New Testament established a benevolent God.

When you believe in a benevolent, omnipresent God, another way to think about that is that you believe benevolence or goodness is what is most real. The danger in that is there is a high probability that a believer in a benevolent ultimate reality can perceive the world in a distorted way by filtering out inputs that contradict that belief (conflict, deprivation, etc).

By keeping a benevolent God associated with or responsible for atrocity and tragedy, you are affirming that ultimate reality is benevolent, but also discouraging followers from filtering out conflicting evidence to that belief.

In this view, part of the motivation is to orientate believers toward the good through truth. To see God through everything that troubles you about the world. There is a good reason to teach this.

Okay let's try the 7-10 challenge. If this establishes Jesus as literate, the Harry Potter novels and the Mark Twain writings establish Valdemort and Huck as literate.

With Jesus, we need to integrate the idea that he knew every word in every language, past, current and future ... and never wrote a word. Leaving it instead for some fabulists to wax god-like about him decades later. Good plan?? "You have to believe it ..." Hitchens would say.

And what is the reason? They're not godly for one ... not any more than anyone else. Indeed, less so because of the default in the moral realm to a 2000 year old book that has witches, talking animals, magic galore as a primary aspect of the religion. I repeat: a default in the moral realm to a 2000+ year old book with witches and talking snakes as characters.

Your actually okay with all the killings?? And if it was your baby? Oh well, this invisible god needs his "justice." He killed everyone on earth save a handful, including babies and children and those trying to follow "His" edicts.

In what sense is killing justice? Because it says it in an ancient book that we cannot un-indoctrinate ourselves from? "Well, you know, it was written down by this invisible god, the 10,000 invisible god. I really don't think anyone would make up a religion ..."

Meaning, in lieu critical thinking. You don't seem to find that very significant.