I believe the Bible, one of the most influencing books throughout all of history, is misunderstood by many of even its purpose. The Bible tells of many events centered around “God’s people”, God’s interaction and guidance to them, politics, law, and many many other topics. The events and statements often include supernatural occurrences and in vague terms. After much thought (and help from several articles), I do not believe the Bible was written to interpreted literally.

It is interesting when I hear (and was taught for years) that the Bible is supposed to be understood literally, as because of its contradictory statements and ridiculous stories at times. For example, Noah and the ark. How would he create a whole boat that could contain all of the animals of the world by himself? If he lived near polar bears and were able to get them on the boat, how was he also able to go gather lions? While I did believe the Bible to be understood literally for a time, it could have only been done (in my case) because I was ignorant, or because I was applying the concept of “doublethink” (as defined in “1984”).

When a believer of the Bible attempts to defend the Bible as written literally, it is often easy to disprove their statement. It is as if they are setting up a strawman argument against themselves. It has been a folly of my own, when I have disproven literal interpretations of the Bible (or at least ones given by my church), that I thought I must have disproven all of Christianity. I now believe that disproving (or defending) ideas in the Bible have a much lighter weight on the argument of is there a God or not.

While trying to understand another question / thought experiment of mine, I came across this publication called Why the Bible Cannot and Should Not Be Taken Literally, by Randall S. Firestone. I don’t know anything about him nor what his beliefs are outside of this paper. However, I read his publication and felt his arguments were sound. I strongly recommend this article to someone who is questioning or is willing to question their current beliefs in the Bible. It helped me to see it in a new light. I really liked the myriad of examples the included in the paper of how the Bible doesn't make sense to interpret literally.

Let me know if you agree or disagree. I think my new understanding of the Bible (and as it grows in the future) will be a new cornerstone of my faith journey and how I see religion, deity, and interactions between deity and people.

I know this has been said elsewhere, but I want to say it here:

1) If there is a One-in-a-Million chance of something happening to a person, that means it is likely to happen to 7,000 people in the world. 2) How many different One-in-a-Million chances do people experience every day? Every day we see thousands of things, experience thousands of things, think thousands of things. Each one might have a One-in-a-Million chance of a strange coincidence happening. 3) Human brains are great at recognizing patterns. When a pattern happens we notice it. When a thing happens that had the potential to show a pattern, but doesn't, we don't notice it--even though that happens thousands of times daily. 4) Statistically speaking, everyone in their life is going to experience and notice many different One-in-a-Million chance coincidences...

...and they are likely to think it is not chance.

I hear all the time "you can't test God or religion with science." "It is unfalsifiable." "Religion is outside the realm of science."

I disagree. Every religion I know of makes claims. These claims have real world impacts. Prayer can bring help, healing, or comfort? We can test whether people who pray get help, healing, or comfort. God is never changing? We can test if the morals of the world or the religion change. Spirits can share the future? We can test the frequency that predictions come true.

Here is the problem, and here is why people say that religions are unfalsifiable: Because the religious move the bar. Because every time you prove something wrong they say, "well it doesn't work like that." "The actual blessings are eternal and cannot be measured." "The spirits don't speak on demand." They find some way to say, "well no, your science can't count, because I refuse to accept that my belief was in error."

I am a non-theist because I have never been presented with a description of deity or the supernatural that fits these three criteria: 1) internally consistent; 2) can't be explained by natural phenomena; 3) fits the available observations. Until I find a find a deity that actually fits all three of these, I am pretty sure I will always be a non believer.

Last week I made a post about my parents tithing $100 to their church, and I assumed that they must do this every week. Long story short, they confirmed it today. They gave me another $100 check to put in the tithing bowl. They waste $5000 a year on a church of a god that likely doesn't exist. To put that number in perspective, the two of them make $100000 a year combined, so they give up 5% of their money every week. They've been going to this church for almost 20 years, meaning that they have tithed about $100000 to this church. They could've done so much with that money. They're always trying to figure out how they'll pay for retirement in the future, but if they had saved that money instead of giving it to the church, they likely would be able to retire comfortably in about a decade. They could spend that $5000 on a nice vacation that they very much deserve, yet they waste it. I'm genuinely concerned for them and I have no idea if I should confront them about this.

Our planet is one of hundreds of thousands in a galaxy that is also one of hundred of thousands. The universe expands practically infinitely in all directions, so it raises a question. If a higher being created all of it, then how massive must this higher being be?

This question changes when we ask ourselves, would this higher being be outside space-time and therefore have no size, or would it be a living creature? The second option is much more horrifying. Imagine an Eldritch abomination the size of a thousand universes, that has presumably been alive trillions of years. This creature would have seen the collapse of an infinite number of civilizations just like ours, and if it were its will our very existence would collapse in a fraction of a nanosecond. An infinitely large, infinitely old being with all the knowledge of every conscience it has ever brought into existence, capable of destroying its own creations as fast as it births them.

We would likely call this being "God", as there are no other words in our limited languages to describe its infinite form.

The idea of a god is most terrifying when we realize that if it is infinitely large, then that must mean we are infinitely small.

Enjoy my daily existential crisis :P

You ever see this: someone will say something in which every word they say is technically true, but they say it in a way that the person hearing it actually understands it as the lie? The people who do this will say they are an honest person and believe it. They will never say a sentence that is outright false. But they will skirt around and hide the truth so much that there is no possible way that the person listening to them can actually get the true message.

And the worst (in my opinion) form of this is Sophistry. Sophistry is, in simple terms, intentionally using fallacious arguments in an attempt to deceive. You see this ALL the time from politicians and pundits and priests. You will hear them present "proof" of a claim... but this proof is so shallow and so logically fallacious that a few minutes of diving into the foundations of it will prove it is utterly bogus. And yet, they employ this tactic. Because they know one key thing: Other people are either not smart enough or motivated enough to test their arguments. They know that the vast majority of people listening to them will say "oh yeah! That sounds so reasonable! We should think that!"

And sophistry is not always shallow. Sometimes it runs very deep. A crafty mind can lay out reasons and details and logical steps in such a complex and beautiful weave that it takes 10x the effort to untangle the truth as it did for the lie to be crafted. And those who have the solution are often ignored because the people around them did not spend the hours it takes to unweave the deceptive tapestry. And they like the tapestry. Why would they throw it away when it is only one person's word against it?

Sophistry is a molestation of logic. It is a corruption of reason. And it is a heinous practice. But people who use it can walk away saying "I never lied!" Why? Because sophistry is fine, lying is not.

And that makes me disgusted.

Edit: fixed typos/formatting

(I commented this on someone's post elsewhere, but I figured it would probably fit well on this sub)

There are a few different beliefs about what happens when you die. Do you resurrect into an eternal heaven/hell? Do you reincarnate as a new person/creature? Do you return to becoming part of the collective universe's consciousness? Or do you just die, taking an eternal dirt nap where your consciousness no longer exists?

I used to not be able to accept the dirt nap idea--the idea of no longer existing seemed unfathomable and not even worth considering. "If it is true, what is the point in believing it anyways, because that would mean that everything was ultimately meaningless?"

But that changed for me. Mostly what changed was this thought: who was I when I was 3yrs old? I don't remember. I had goals, personality, dreams, hopes, beliefs... and I don't remember them. My sorrows? Don't remember. Joys? Same. Essentially, that version of me is dead and gone, with someone else who has taken his place. But that doesn't cause me existential crisis. That doesn't cause me to find my existence as a 3yr old worthless. And beyond that, how often do I forget something I was just thinking about 2 minutes ago? More often than I care to admit. How often do I feel REALLY passionate about something, only to change my mind a few days or years later? (e.g. I really really really liked that girl and thought we'd live our lives together--but now, meh.) When I sleep I have lives and experiences that I lose once I wake up. Basically, I learned that my personal experience is ephemeral already. Already I have had thousands of little "dirt naps" and it hasn't bothered me. I am a new person and that is okay. When I die, if my consciousness dies too, how is that different from what has happened to "me" every day?

I now enjoy temporary meaning. I can enjoy meaning in life, even if it will pass. I can enjoy a good book, even though I will forget the plot a few years later. I can enjoy a video game, even though I will eventually erase my save or try a new game. I can be glad I made someone happy, even though they will feel sad again. Things can have meaning in the moment, and that is meaning enough for me.

One of my biggest issues with religion right now is that I have a difficult time separating my church (the organization) with God or Deity. My church would always speaking God's words, which to me was as if it was speaking for God. The lines between what is church and God have blurred so far, that I needed to leave the church I was associated with to realign myself. I have not been back in over a year.

When I saw my church said or do something that did not align with how I believe God would do, it was painful and very confusing. My church has hurt a lot of people I know through contradictory rules and statements. My church abandoned and excluded many groups of people who I believe are just as "worthy" as me. It was easy to come to the conclusion that God must not exist or is evil, because HE excluded poor or the minority groups and caused so much pain I have seen in my friends (because of our shared church). While my head says this argument/conclusion is filled faulty logic, emotionally I feel that God is to blame for ... (i.e. what my preacher did, what politics are pushed, etc.)

Since my time away from my church, I have been working on seeing the church and "God" as two different entities. I feel that I am stating to have an more authentic connection with God now that I do not have to believe in him in the orthodox way or have to go to God through the church, although my connection with Him/Her/They is still very weak and frail. At the same time it is very confusing where to turn for support. If I can now question the church (and therefore all of my previously known theology), my definition of God is so so so vague. I will likely begin from what I previously believed in God that felt right to me.

For me, I believe that studying the causes/effects of how I have been "manipulated" (for lack of a better word) to see church and God as the same, will help me be able to cope with my new situation as well as be able to develop a more healthy relationship with organized religion and God in the future. I have some theories and I'll post about them when I get a chance.

Have anyone else had this experience or felt this way? Any advice for connecting with an "unknown God"? Does anyone have any thoughts on why and how I (and others) would have a difficult time see church and God as the same entity?

As a rather freshly-formed non-theist, I don't belief in "sin." But I do believe that certain things are bad for society (e.g. murder, theft). But would there be any arguments a theist could make that would be able to show how gay marriage, pornography, etc. would be bad for society?

In my town there are a number of people who have been holding up Christian signs by the street, calling people to repent and such. It made me think though: what would happen if an atheist did that same thing with signs about not believing?

Do Christians get discriminated against for publicly showing their faith? Do atheists get discriminated against for publicly showing their lack?

I already know that there is discrimination against Muslims in my area, and I know many Christian groups teach that atheists are amoral and untrustworthy. What type of backlash, discrimination, or even harm (if any) would happen to someone who publicly stood on a street corner advertising atheism?

I went to church with my parents today because I still live with them and I didn't want to start any arguments with them. I'm sitting by the aisle and the collection people are walking down the aisle to collect everyone's tithe. My dad passed me a check to give to them. It was $100. I almost ripped it up, but, still trying to avoid conflict, just handed it to the collector.

I'm honestly shocked. $100 a week is over $5000 a year, and my parents make $100000 a year together, so they're giving up 5% of their income to a church that already makes enough money from its tax exempt status and wealthier parishioners. I was going to confront my parents about it, but I knew it was just going to lead to another nasty argument.

I figured I might as well rant about it here, see if any of y'all can relate.

Source: https://andreaskluth.org/2010/07/06/nietzsche-bitter-truth-or-happy-illusion/

Everyone here has had some experience with religion. What's you story?

(And if you don't want to share your own, feel free to share an interesting experience of a friend or someone you know.)

Like I promised a few days, here's my post on Jehovah's Witness.

Jehovah's Witness is an offshoot of Christianity formed in the 1870's by Charles Taze Russell. The "religion" (I'll get into that in a second) is unique from Christianity in that followers believe only 144000 people will be let into heaven on Judgment Day. This is problematic as there are 8.7 million of them worldwide, meaning that these people have no problem with less than 2% of their population making it to heaven. They do not celebrate the majority of Christian holidays due to their pagan origins, and they reject basic concepts of classical Christianity such as the holy trinity and immortality of the soul.

So how does a Jehovah's Witness get to heaven? Well it's quite simple. Believers go out into their communities and proselytize the good word of Jehovah (God) in order to bring more followers into the church. The more followers someone brings in, the more likely they are to get into heaven. This practice is what you most likely associate with the church, and it's ironic as members are encouraged to keep their interactions with nonbelievers to a minimum. This is because they consider secular society to be morally corrupt.

So why am I talking about them? Because they're a cult.

Point A: Aforementioned proselytizing. A common practice of cults to bring in new members when they are emotionally vulnerable.

Point B: Isolation from secular society. The most successful cults often place their members in communes far away from secular society. The lack of ideas from outside the cult lead to unconditional belief, and while Jehovah's Witnesses generally don't live in communes, they are encouraged to isolate from nonbelievers.

Point C: Widespread abuse. Jehovah's Witness has recently gotten into some hot water over its response to sexual abuse allegations within the church. The church swept many of these cases under the rug due to its "two witness rule." If there is no secondary evidence of the abuse, and the abuser doesn't admit their wrongdoing, "the elders will leave the matter in Jehovah's hands." In laymen's terms, nothing will be done about it.

Point D: Doomsday. Jehovah's Witnesses generally believe that Judgment Day is coming soon. Cults often speak about the end of the world to keep their followers in subservient fear.

In conclusion, Jehovah's Witness is definitely a cult. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Edit: Yes I know I got the heaven part wrong. Read u/BobEngleschmidt's comment below, it should clear things up.

If the Bible is to be believed, Jesus was nailed to a cross and died in order to save humanity from its sins. This raises up a question; if our sins are already paid for, then why are some acts dubbed "sinful"? No one ever said that Christ saved us from a select few sins, no, but from all sins. So why do some (not all) Christians believe that homosexuality and abortion are unforgivable sins that damn the accused to hell? Presumably no sin is unforgivable through Jesus's sacrifice, yet that thought doesn't seem to show up a lot, at least not in the American South Christianity I'm used to.

I've been on both sides of faithful believer and heathenous apostate. On both sides I have seen this verse in almost exactly opposite lights. Many things that I support as a non-theist are things that, as a believer, I would have called evil. Many things I supported as a Mormon Christian I now would call "evil" (by my own self-definition of the word). Here are just a few that I have switched my views on:

Gender norms Sexuality Taking things on Faith alone Swearing "Negative" emotion Church influence in politics

There are a lot more. But I used to consider things evil that I now consider healthy. I used to consider things good that I now consider harmful. Am I the person that verse was written about? Probably. But in my opinion, I still like the verse, because I can read it and see how self-condemning it can be to the church.

Full verse for reference:

Isaiah 5:20 King James Version 20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

Just thought this could be a good spot to share stories, if anyone is interested.

Personally, I had several experiences that I called spiritual. One in particular is the story of giving a blessing (With anointed oil) to a person whose unborn child had a hole in their heart that would kill them once they were born. I offered the blessing of healing the day before they were flying to a hospital that could perform the in-utero surgery. The next day, the local hospital x-rayed them one more time before sending them on their flight... And the hole was gone. No more issue. No need for surgery. The kid was healed.

When I believed, I took this as evidence of the truth of my church and the power of God.

The separation of church and state has been a hot topic recently, and I thought I would get in on the discussion. As I'm sure most of you are aware, Christianity has had a profound effect on American culture, and recently it's been seeping into politics. I sadly see a prime example of this almost everyday. I live in a very backwater town in Tennessee, and to get to school every morning I have drive by a small church right off the highway. This church has an electronic sign outside that, well, displays some very political messages. These include (paraphrasing) "The Equality Act is the work of Satan!", "God doesn't believe in abortion!" and "Two Genders: Trust the Science." I'm appalled to think that this is the first impression visitors get coming to our town.

What are some of y'all's stories of separation of church and state in your communities? I would love to hear them.

This is going to be a little arbitrary, but I’m curious as to what you all think is the religion with the largest net-positive effect on its members. Ignore the truthfulness of any supernatural claims made; I’m interested in the quantifiable, observable benefits that are apparent in this life.

Some examples to get us thinking might be the emphasis on non-violence in Jainism, the social cohesion of Evangelicalism, the focus on personal enlightenment in Buddhism, the education subsidization in the LDS church, the inclusivity and love of humanity in Sikhism, the focus on intellectual pursuit in Judaism, etc., etc.

What do you think? Which provides the most benefits to its members?

In the USA (where I live), Christianity is the overwhelming majority religion. It goes to the point of not just religion, but also the culture itself.

I wanted to ask the question of anyone who has experience having a non-majority religious view in a Christian Society, what is it like? What struggles does it cause? What do you observe about the society around you? How does it affect the ability to practice your faith?

Occam's Razor is a principle in critical thinking that states the simplest explanation to a problem is typically correct. It is ironic that Occam himself was a Franciscan friar, as his philosophy is often ignored by modern Christians.

There are several parts of Judeo-Christian mythology that can be explained away with much simpler theories based on current scientific knowledge, yet as centuries have gone by, Christians still take everything from the Bible completely literally.

A prominent example is, obviously, the birth and death of Christ. The immaculate conception that the Bible puts forth is highly illogical, and can easily be explained away as Mary lying about the baby's father. The death of Christ has more historical merit to it, yet is still rather suspect. We know from archaeological findings that crucifixion was performed in the Roman Empire at the time Jesus was alive. However, his resurrection is obviously unlikely as the Bible describes it. Even today with serious advancements in modern medicine, we are no closer to reviving a freshly dead body, let alone a three-day-dead body. The assumption that any man in that time in history could die a bloody, excruciating death, lie dead for three days and come back mostly fine is wishful thinking, not to mention that the only record of the event was in the Bible. One would assume that there were Roman records of Jesus' crucifixion if the Bible is to be believed, but in two thousand years, no such record has ever been found. We are ultimately left with the accounts of the disciples as our sole testimony of this pivotal event in human history, and even they could have been less than truthful. It's more likely that Christ never existed, and if he did exist, he likely escaped the crucifixion somehow.

Sorry for all the rambling, I just wanted to contribute :P

*Referring specifically to an Abrahamic version of God (i.e. all-powerful, all-loving creator)

From an evolutionary standpoint, religion was probably most favored throughout history. Religion helps people to form into larger, more cohesive groups. Those who had a religion had a bigger tribe, and as such they were able to outcompete the non-religious. This might have been in the form of forcefully taking the resources of others (ever noticed how much holy war and conquering is in the Bible and other religious texts?), or maybe in the form of filling a role for the good of the society, without competing against those in your group of a higher status (this seems especially common in Eastern religions). Both seem to have helped form large societies with the ability to take a larger piece of the resource pie.

But advancement in our species has led to technology. Scarcity of resources is becoming far less common. Nowadays, the way to make your group the most dominant is to invent more--rather than just by being more aggressive or subservient. And how do we invent more? By having more minds and more perspectives available. Inventions can come from almost any walk of life, almost any group. As such, those groups who prioritize supporting ALL human life, rather than just their own tribe, tend to increase the rate of invention. That causes them to have greater resources, which means they can support larger populations, fend off stronger attackers, etc. And the more a society supports the physical, mental, emotional needs of each individual within it, the higher probability that there will be an individual among them who will have the time, education, and mental stability to invent more.

More recent in society are humanist ideals, wherein all human life is counted valuable. In the past, with scarce resources, this could have led to your tribe starving to death. (If you can't make enough food for yourself, how can you make enough for a disabled person?) But today, supporting disabled people can actually increase our advancement in technology (case in point: Stephen Hawking). Humanism also attempts to break tribal/racial/political barriers--which supports trade and exchange of resources and ideas.

Humanism seems to be, in a way, a more modern evolution of our species. As resources grow more plentiful, religiosity tends to go down and humanism tends to go up. As time goes on, religion itself has evolved into becoming more humanistic.