Interesting "Why do you believe in god" pamphlet / image

[scalyblue]

I found this while I was browsing around...it's too big to not thumbnail, but it looks like a proto layout of a pamphlet



--and apparently photobucket sucks and resized the thing. If anybody's having trouble reading I'll see if I can get it somewhere else

 

[Aught3]

Yeah the quality sucks. Where did you find it originally?

 

[scalyblue]

Use this one, I'll edit my original post as well. Apparently the site has a resize by dimensions and resize by filesize, picking the latter let the file be uploaded in its original quality.

 

[borrofburi]

I need to go dig up the "bad arguments atheists use" thread, because the "Did adam and eve sin?" section clearly sums up one of the dumber arguments atheists use. A short summary for those who don't want to bother looking at the image, it goes something like this: adam and eve didn't have knowledge of good and evil, so they couldn't eat the fruit of the tree they were forbidden from with informed consent, so it's not their fault. No, any half witted christian will point out that it's "experiential knowledge"; e.g. I can have some understanding of the effects of drugs without ever having taken them, and thus my "no thank you" is an informed "no thank you", but I don't have "experiential knowledge" of drugs.

While this response isn't necessarily as strong as I'd like, it is plenty enough for the believers, because if an atheist wants to keep using the argument they've come into semantics and things like "come on, the verse doesn't *say* 'experiential' it just says 'know'", and all this comes across as pathetic pandering and special pleading (even if it's not).


Other parts like "I think inheritable sin is wrong, and blood sacrifices are dumb" don't come across as strong, just some guy's opinion (and if I were still a fundy, I would see it as a bitter god-hating atheist's opinion (ok, I wouldn't have (I strove to understand people, even then), but I wouldn't be surprised if fundies and many christians see it this way))

Anyway, I only read the first column, I'll read the rest tomorrow; now it's time to finish reading a couple threads, and then off to sleep.

 

[monitoradiation]

I can have some understanding of the effects of drugs without ever having taken them, and thus my "no thank you" is an informed "no thank you", but I don't have "experiential knowledge" of drugs.

I don't think that's necessarily comparable to what the pamphlet is saying. The pamphlet's idea is that Adam and Eve did not fully appreciate the good or bad of any action and the consequences of their actions, so blaming them for committing some kind of arbitrary sin system prior to knowing that you shouldn't do it is unjust.

The reason that the idea that you don't need to have experiential knowledge is not useful here for two reasons:

1) They were the first humans; nobody's EVER experienced eating the apple before. We know that "drugs are bad, mkay?" because we can clearly see its effects on people who DO have experiential knowledge. Our knowledge comes from other people's experiential knowledge, and thus, to some degree, it's still an experiential one - the difference is who experienced it.

2) The pamphlet isn't saying that god is unjust in punishing Adam and Eve for eating the apple; it's saying that god is unjust in punishing Adam and Eve for a bad action when they don't know what good and bad is.

The most abhorrent idea in the story is that obedience is better than knowing good and bad. If what god says is really always good, then what's wrong with knowing good and bad? Would it not be most convincing if Adam and Eve knew good and evil, since god would always be good anyway? Why would god have to punish them at all for it? It makes no sense.

 

[borrofburi]

2) The pamphlet isn't saying that god is unjust in punishing Adam and Eve for eating the apple; it's saying that god is unjust in punishing Adam and Eve for a bad action when they don't know what good and bad is.

Right, the pamphlet asserts that adam and eve had no concept of good and evil. The christians will assert that adam and eve had a concept of "obey god" and "not obey god" (which is good and evil, more on that later), and then when they ate the apple the very act of eating the apple let them know experientially what disobedience was like even though they only knew theoretically. I will of course admit this is not at all a convincing argument, however it is plenty good for the flock, and thus the "punishment of adam and eve was unjust" argument is not a working one.

Moreover, many christians have no distinction between "good" and "obedient", as well as "bad" and "disobedient". In their world where god dictates morals, "good" is by definition "obedient to god's dictated morals".

Though I think at this point in time things like this should probably go in the adam and eve thread.

I see I never got around to reading the rest of the pamphlet...

EDIT: fixed the close quote bracket to make it look prettier.

 

[RichardMNixon]

It also goes into Mithras and other Jesus-like mythological figures. There are some similarities there, but my understanding is that the connection between Jesus and Mithras isn't nearly as strong as the pamphlet makes it out to be.

The collection of quotes from the bible is very nice though.

I also think the blood sacrifice bit is a valid argument for reasonable people, just not for fundies. Basically, Jehovah just wants blood. Doesn't really care whose blood, the important thing is that someone gets tortured and dies. One fundie tried to insist that this was in fact just and tried feebly to compare Jesus to a bail bondsman.