I find it hard to believe in the Bible, when it was cobbled together by the Council / church about 100-300 years after Christ's death. Essentially Man, through the best of their abilities, decided what was supposed to be the word of God and what wasn't, which doesn't exactly scream reliable to me about the Bible...
The problem with atheism, for many religious people, is That there is not an organized atheism, every atheist has there own believe and moral code. So you really cannot say: an atheist thinks this or that. So claiming atheism is just a backlash against religion is not accurate, ofcourse for some atheist that can be the reason. I do not believe in a god. It has nothing to do with religion. Imho every religion has its positive and negative sides. But that has nothing to do with wether I believe in a diety or not. I just do not believe in a diety. That being said, I do not think there is a diety who created human kind, and I definitely do not believe in an afterlife. I do believe aliens excist, and they can be much more evolved or technological advanced than us, in which case when we do meet them, they may appear as a god to some of us.
He identified as Jewish but he himself was not a believer. It's also important to remember that when Jewish people talk about "the bible," they don't mean the New Testament. Einstein's views on religion were pretty clear and pretty nuanced. There's even a wikipedia article just on his religious views. Also in the article you posted, it mentions:
I use a lot of generalizations but I know there's plenty of gray in the world. It's just my style but don't think I don't know exceptions exist. Just because I said "many so called atheists" doesn't mean I said most, which would imply at least more than half. How about this: a sizable amount of so called atheists are actually achristians. And the reason I say that they generalize all people who believe in God as those who believe in Abrahamic version and can only picture that version is because I've jumped into many of these debates on multiple boards over the years and some atheists are quick to start putting words in my mouth as if I'm about to start parroting typical Christian speak. So yes, I do feel it's fair to say that the achristian type does this because it's happened to me over the years Ultimately, I think you misunderstood me, as my post was only in reference to the achristians, not all atheists. I actually find most atheist more reasonable and sound than many Christians FWIW.
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Ahh yes the taking out of context of certain verses in order to discredit an entire claim. Nothing you posted changes or shows anything I posted invalid. Either you believe in love or you don't.
I don't know. I certainly don't believe in God the way Christians do. I have a hard time accepting everything came from nothing. Even the Big Bang Theory involves a cloud of dust, but how did it get here? Is God a cloud of dust?
This is probably the best explanation I've encountered to explain the Big Bang: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/7ImvlS8PLIo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Context? Under what contexts these are supposed to be a force of love? Under what circumstances these said actions are acceptable?
Under no context are the actions acceptable. I don't think anyone should read the bible without realizing when it was written and that men were writing. I don't know that it's interesting enough to you, nor that I'm expert enough to fully explain it in the limited space of a text. I'll make it as brief as possible. I'll also fully admit that I don't know everything about the bible, and I'm not an expert. Let me start by stating that saying that the things for which people are supposedly going to be killed in these old testament books were receiving a punishment for something bad being done. So the broadest message is don't do crappy things. But the punishment listed in these old testament books certainly don't appear just to us today. Thank goodness we are more enlightened than the people thousands of years ago who wrote those stories, or told the oral histories and traditions for others to write down. I don't find that as time as gone on there is great enlightenment to really be something that would prove that God isn't love. At best you would have some passages that would go against that idea, and others that state directly that God is love. The passages that talk about God being love are in the new testament. There are also passages in the new testament that could point to people misunderstanding the message and what is in the old testament to begin with. Either you believe that God is love or you don't. The bible says directly that's what God is. So you can choose to believe the passages like those in Jeremiah that you quoted, and then because you believe in that think that other passages like the one that says God is love are false. But my question to you then is why would you want to believe the passages that go against God being love? What's the point of that? I'll say one more thing when looking back thousands of years at the way society was and trying to gain the insight. The big concepts of good and bad may have been clear. Tell the truth, don't steal, don't murder etc. But the idea of justice certainly wouldn't be as evolved and enlightened as it is today. That's clear looking at history of just about all people civilizations and cultures throughout history. In fact it would be sad if the ideas of justice hadn't grown and evolved since then. Believing that when reading the bible is a good thing. I think it would be a great and harmful misuse of the bible.
FB, if God's word is infallible why would his message or his justice for that matter require evolution? Why does a 4th century Bible need revision, why isn't it every bit as applicable today?
You bring books into the equation and the answers changes. Do I believe in a God? Hell yeah and have fun doing it!
Because it was written by humans. In fact Jesus himself in the bible talks about the idea of trying to make things better, and in fact make earth like it is in heaven. Right there he's stating that it's not but that people will hopefully grow until it is. When you see the word God substitute love. It's not that God is a humanoid type creature but that God is actually love. So Love's word or words spoken out of love seem pretty close to infallible. Man's application and understanding of that should hopefully continue to evolve and become more enlightened.
