Reply To: Reeling from Christian friend's bigotry
The premise of the Bible – despite protestations otherwise – is faith* in magic and mysticism. There simply is no other way to avoid this elephant in the room. Consider: talking snakes, asses, & bushes and a virgin-born water-walking resurrected flying zombie whose bloody death supposedly substitutionally “atones” for mankind’s nature. To relegate belief in these to ANYthing but a complete suspension of all that is rational is intellectually dishonest. These have every mark of fairy tale and no credibility whatsoever. No word, let alone sentence, has EVER emanated from a snake, ass, or bush. This never, EVER happened. It’s preposterous to even consider it possible, let alone probable. If it’s “figurative” then this only opens up Pandora’s box of what, in that tedious book, IS or ISN’T.
To believe in such rubbish is a waste of intellect and, I’d argue, dangerous. I agree, @SimonMathews. Why not scrap the lot, stop frightening everyone with a gruesome (and completely bogus) fate for the “sins” of blasphemy or non-belief? Let’s pull this species out of that mucked up mindset. Your faith – and faith in general – isn’t a pathway to truth, @DrBob. It can’t be. If you pick and choose what to take literally or not, what to dismiss or not, you’re not exercising tenets of (your particular) faith, you’re proving that secular morality is superior to the morals often espoused in that wretchedly popular book.
*belief w/o evidence, or despite contradicting evidence
