Light
Night Zero
People to complain about petty crimes?
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Religion and Lack of Religion
- Thread starter Harlequin
- Start date
People to complain about petty crimes?
Light
Night Zero
What the fuck? Must have been one pathos provoking speech. You're wrong, by a lot. Believe it or not, Christians are normal people, with normal emotions, meaning they actually care about other people. And when you combine this with the belief that without a certain paradigm of thought instead of experiencing perfect paradise one will vanish from existence, or worse, experience paradise's inverse, do you know what this makes someone? Nothing in life matters anymore but other people and their future. That causes a passion for other people's interests that is unmatched by any other motive of humanism.
And that's why Christians say the bigots are not true Christians. Because if you really believed in the tenets of faith, as you said, you would care deeply about other people, rather than express vehement hatred. If I see the words No True Scottsman again I am going to whack someone upside the head.
Dead, dead wrong.
Growing up in Sunday School I can tell you these are two of the most taught and referenced verses in the Bible. And Christians actually do take it seriously. Shocking, I know. And yes, the ones who pray regularly do pray for those "who don't know God" regularly, and for any kind of thing.
Too bad those people don't exist. [/sarcasm] >.> The comments in that article were specifically selected to show the worst of the shit Ahlquist has gotten. If you actually scrolled down you would see how many and how much Christians complained about everything was said. Every adult Christian I know would do the grave-rolling with disdain. On that point, the extreme majority of the serious Christians I know, age 0-100, think fowl language is wrong and avoid it, especially when they are saying anything that has to do with religion. Also, hell is a very (very) rare topic.
Hate the haters, disregard everyone else. Do NOT act like this represents most Christians.
If only you would sit back and dissect that sentence. Because it's hypocritical. Let's try the reverse.
This is exactly how the reverse side feels. (And more justifiably so -- the girl started it after all). Doesn't matter who's right. This is what creates war. This makes it okay to stir the god-forsaken pot just to make people react. Picking fights to be more concise.
Ahlquist says she's not anti-Christian. I say either that's a piece of poop(which is fine, but if that's the case she brought a little bit of this on herself), or she just likes to complain about everything that doesn't do exactly what the law says.
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
Stop trying to be funny. If you see all the vitriol EVERYONE SPOUTED AT HER for appealing the law to be upheld and all the crap they told her - you'd feel differently too. Are you seriously defending that? That is my proposition. You cannot, honestly, in good conscience, defend them for that.
For the record, I know moderate Christians exist. I don't give a shit whether they do or not, you cannot ever justify that type of vitriol. Bullshit, bullshit and bullshit once again. I implore you to fucking read the link, the comments, the whole thing.
If I ever see anyone defending that then I will have a legitimate reason to think they absolutely do not understand morality in any form or sense.
I am not interested in a debate about what causes more inspiration, but if you see the shit flung at her over a legitimate case - you should be fucking rolling in your grave, you should be asking the world for making sense.
It's not just the bullies saying what they did and the fundamentalist idiots spouting their worthless views. It's apologists like you who keep the dream alive.
And yes, for the record, No True Scotsman fallacy holds. They call themselves Christian. They call themselves religious. They believe in the same God the moderates do and they use it to SPOUT. THEIR. FILTH. You should be fucking putting them in their place, instead of attacking me for calling them out in this crap. Even if you don't consider them Christians, they do, and that's enough to tarnish the record for everybody else.
Oh right, I forgot, they're sorry we can't join their exclusive club of paradise-goers. Take the hint: if we are consciously atheists, we don't want to be prayed for. We don't want to go to paradise because we don't believe there is one to begin with. It's fucking discriminating and low to believe we're worthless because we ain't entering paradise. We're atheists for a reason, and we got the same rights as everybody else. If you want to be raised religiously, there are private schools for that.
I don't want sympathy. I want people to leave a girl who stood up for her rights alone and not require a fucking BODYGUARD TO MOVE IN SCHOOL. She complained, she is a fucking sixteen year old. She shouldn't be needing bloody protection at all!
I honestly find the fact you can bagatellise this away disgusting to the core.
For the record, I know moderate Christians exist. I don't give a shit whether they do or not, you cannot ever justify that type of vitriol. Bullshit, bullshit and bullshit once again. I implore you to fucking read the link, the comments, the whole thing.
If I ever see anyone defending that then I will have a legitimate reason to think they absolutely do not understand morality in any form or sense.
I am not interested in a debate about what causes more inspiration, but if you see the shit flung at her over a legitimate case - you should be fucking rolling in your grave, you should be asking the world for making sense.
It's not just the bullies saying what they did and the fundamentalist idiots spouting their worthless views. It's apologists like you who keep the dream alive.
And yes, for the record, No True Scotsman fallacy holds. They call themselves Christian. They call themselves religious. They believe in the same God the moderates do and they use it to SPOUT. THEIR. FILTH. You should be fucking putting them in their place, instead of attacking me for calling them out in this crap. Even if you don't consider them Christians, they do, and that's enough to tarnish the record for everybody else.
Oh right, I forgot, they're sorry we can't join their exclusive club of paradise-goers. Take the hint: if we are consciously atheists, we don't want to be prayed for. We don't want to go to paradise because we don't believe there is one to begin with. It's fucking discriminating and low to believe we're worthless because we ain't entering paradise. We're atheists for a reason, and we got the same rights as everybody else. If you want to be raised religiously, there are private schools for that.
I don't want sympathy. I want people to leave a girl who stood up for her rights alone and not require a fucking BODYGUARD TO MOVE IN SCHOOL. She complained, she is a fucking sixteen year old. She shouldn't be needing bloody protection at all!
I honestly find the fact you can bagatellise this away disgusting to the core.
Light
Night Zero
What the fuck do you think I am defending? I sent those people to hell in a gif. Sorry for not spelling that out in every line of my post. I'm not really interested in preaching to the choir: everyone with any idea what's going on knows the way those people treated her is disgusting.
I implore you to read my post, and you would see that I am saying someone who really cares about what the Bible says gives a fuck, gives every fuck they've got, about other people. If you think that Christians believe anyone who calls themselves a Christian and believes the right things gets a free pass to eternal paradise you are drastically mislead. It doesn't matter whether those people think they are Christians or not. That's not the measure of Scottsmanship, so to speak. No True Scottsman does not hold.
It doesn't matter whether they believe they are Christians or not. Saying that is enough to tarnish the record for everyone else is like saying terrorists who say they are Muslims is enough to tarnish the record for Islam. The values are fundamentally different, and it's A DIFFERENT. FUCKING. RELIGION. That's what I'm calling you out for. Also for idolizing Ahlquist. And for all your bullshit about religious people being self-centered and that being the whole story.
You lumping all religion together, throwing the baby out with the bathwater ignoring what Christian attitudes should and often do entail, and demonizing me for pointing this out is disgusting to the core.
I implore you to read my post, and you would see that I am saying someone who really cares about what the Bible says gives a fuck, gives every fuck they've got, about other people. If you think that Christians believe anyone who calls themselves a Christian and believes the right things gets a free pass to eternal paradise you are drastically mislead. It doesn't matter whether those people think they are Christians or not. That's not the measure of Scottsmanship, so to speak. No True Scottsman does not hold.
It doesn't matter whether they believe they are Christians or not. Saying that is enough to tarnish the record for everyone else is like saying terrorists who say they are Muslims is enough to tarnish the record for Islam. The values are fundamentally different, and it's A DIFFERENT. FUCKING. RELIGION. That's what I'm calling you out for. Also for idolizing Ahlquist. And for all your bullshit about religious people being self-centered and that being the whole story.
You lumping all religion together, throwing the baby out with the bathwater ignoring what Christian attitudes should and often do entail, and demonizing me for pointing this out is disgusting to the core.
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
Catholics do. Protestants don't.
It does, because they're operating UNDER YOUR FLAG. This isn't about paradise, either - this is about the quite simple fact that you don't get to pick "fundamental differences". They believe in God as much as anybody else. They have as much right to call themselves Christians? Why is their interpretation necessarily the wrong one?
Because Christians who act like you do, pick and choose and ignore all the little bits about homicide, slaughter, etc etc. The Bible is a monstrous book.
Dannichu
Tragically unbeyachted.
This is the opposite of true. If this were the case, nobody would ever get stopped in the street and asked if they've found Jesus or whatever. You don't get to call religious people selfish for only caring about themselves and criticize them for patronising atheists by praying for them.
I imagine most people would prefer it if religious people did only care about themselves re: God, because it would mean they'd never have to put up with Jehova's Witnesses trying to save them, or listen to complaining that the BBC's most recent gay scene has ruined British society's morals forever, or something.
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I don't think the banner itself was a huge deal, per se. If I'd gone to that school, it would have annoyed me every time I walked past it (from prior experience with prayers or other overtly religious things hanging on the walls of institutions that aren't supposed to have anything to do with religion), but I doubt I'd have cared enough to actually go trying to do something about it. (EDIT: No, actually, scratch that. I think if I lived in the US, where 1) atheists face real discrimination so this is something that actually means something, and 2) it is explicitly against the constitution to have banners like that in a public school, I probably would be pissed enough to do something about it.)
That being said, it is against the US constitution, and Jessica Ahlquist had absolutely every right to complain in that capacity. And you can't just brush off the way that so many Christians treated her after the fact with "but they're not real Christians" - it's not that they reflect upon all Christians so much as that it is a serious problem that there exist Christians who think that kind of abuse is okay simply because she's an atheist.
It's not your problem that they act that way if you're a Christian who could never imagine saying something like that, no - but you should see the fact there are Christians like that as something of a Christian problem, just like atheists should see the fact the atheist Reddit made rape jokes at a fifteen-year-old girl who dared to post a picture of herself with a book she got for Christmas as something of an atheist problem. Instead of going "Oh, but they're not real atheists" and waving it away as if that just makes it Somebody Else's Problem, we should be talking about sexism in the atheist movement and how to fix that. It doesn't mean atheism is inherently sexist, or that other atheists are sexist by association; it just means there is a prominent sexist influence in at least parts of the atheist movement, and atheists who care about sexism should take that seriously.
Likewise, seeing Christians heaping that kind of abuse at a girl for invoking a constitutional law regarding the separation of church and state should make Christians horrified and concerned and wanting to do something about it instead of sending them into throes of "Yes, but!"
That being said, it is against the US constitution, and Jessica Ahlquist had absolutely every right to complain in that capacity. And you can't just brush off the way that so many Christians treated her after the fact with "but they're not real Christians" - it's not that they reflect upon all Christians so much as that it is a serious problem that there exist Christians who think that kind of abuse is okay simply because she's an atheist.
It's not your problem that they act that way if you're a Christian who could never imagine saying something like that, no - but you should see the fact there are Christians like that as something of a Christian problem, just like atheists should see the fact the atheist Reddit made rape jokes at a fifteen-year-old girl who dared to post a picture of herself with a book she got for Christmas as something of an atheist problem. Instead of going "Oh, but they're not real atheists" and waving it away as if that just makes it Somebody Else's Problem, we should be talking about sexism in the atheist movement and how to fix that. It doesn't mean atheism is inherently sexist, or that other atheists are sexist by association; it just means there is a prominent sexist influence in at least parts of the atheist movement, and atheists who care about sexism should take that seriously.
Likewise, seeing Christians heaping that kind of abuse at a girl for invoking a constitutional law regarding the separation of church and state should make Christians horrified and concerned and wanting to do something about it instead of sending them into throes of "Yes, but!"
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My view on religion:
(please note: I am a 15 year old boy. I have not gone out and explores the world. My opinions are based solely on the people I have come in contact with in my life and some-what of television programming.)
I am of Christian faith, more baptist than catholic.
I understand that people have the right to their own opinions and views.
But that won't stop me from trying to, at the very least, talk to my non-religous friends about if they believe, have ever believed, or possibly will believe in any diety at all.
I have tried to get people to come to church before. Though I was usually met with a blatantly offensive reply of "Sure, I could use a good laugh."
I don't agree with roadside "preachers" who stand on the sidewalk yelling or with those who use chain mail or other forms of chain messages (such as signature % chains) as I believe those have a much higher chance of driving people away from faith rather than towards it.
If you (mainly referring to atheists and agnostics) think it is rude to try to convert people, take a look at school systems. They try to drill scientific theories that clash with the belief system of the majority. We are basically forced to learn about things like the big bang and evolution (which can take up chapters) so that if we don't learn it, we fail a test that effects our Overall grades. These are in mandatory classes that we have no way of getting around if one decides not to learn it due to their beliefs.
I don't know if I've ever known a true atheist, but I know several agnostics. I am not one of those odd people that believe that non-religious people are evil-spirited, in fact, the nicest person I know is an agnostic.
I think that the bible tells the truth. I believe it more than science.
Science is always changing. To the very last detail, it's all theory. It can be flipped on a dime.
The bible, on the other hand, remains the same general message. With a few translation variations, yes, but overall it's still the same thing.
I understand that this is a very biased post. I also understand that someone will say something in here is wrong. But this is all my opinion.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. :)
EDIT: It appears I have necroposted this topic. I am very sorry for doing so.
Would my post qualify as a "good enough reason" or should I delete this post?
(please note: I am a 15 year old boy. I have not gone out and explores the world. My opinions are based solely on the people I have come in contact with in my life and some-what of television programming.)
I am of Christian faith, more baptist than catholic.
I understand that people have the right to their own opinions and views.
But that won't stop me from trying to, at the very least, talk to my non-religous friends about if they believe, have ever believed, or possibly will believe in any diety at all.
I have tried to get people to come to church before. Though I was usually met with a blatantly offensive reply of "Sure, I could use a good laugh."
I don't agree with roadside "preachers" who stand on the sidewalk yelling or with those who use chain mail or other forms of chain messages (such as signature % chains) as I believe those have a much higher chance of driving people away from faith rather than towards it.
If you (mainly referring to atheists and agnostics) think it is rude to try to convert people, take a look at school systems. They try to drill scientific theories that clash with the belief system of the majority. We are basically forced to learn about things like the big bang and evolution (which can take up chapters) so that if we don't learn it, we fail a test that effects our Overall grades. These are in mandatory classes that we have no way of getting around if one decides not to learn it due to their beliefs.
I don't know if I've ever known a true atheist, but I know several agnostics. I am not one of those odd people that believe that non-religious people are evil-spirited, in fact, the nicest person I know is an agnostic.
I think that the bible tells the truth. I believe it more than science.
Science is always changing. To the very last detail, it's all theory. It can be flipped on a dime.
The bible, on the other hand, remains the same general message. With a few translation variations, yes, but overall it's still the same thing.
I understand that this is a very biased post. I also understand that someone will say something in here is wrong. But this is all my opinion.
Thank you for taking the time to read this. :)
EDIT: It appears I have necroposted this topic. I am very sorry for doing so.
Would my post qualify as a "good enough reason" or should I delete this post?
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- she/her
the fact that you've posted a whole bunch of things that have already been discussed at length (especially re: science 'all being theories') in this very thread kind of shows you haven't gone through and read the thread before posting. This is more of a problem than bumping the discussion again and it's honestly kind of rude. :V If you're only going to post the same points that everybody's already discussed, it's kind of not worth bumping.
in any case, it's all very nice to think that science is 'just theories', but the fact is that you rely on science for just about everything you do. :/ your medical aid, the mechanics that run your car and the quality of food that you eat are all based upon applied science and research, and there's kind of no way to get around that.
in any case, it's all very nice to think that science is 'just theories', but the fact is that you rely on science for just about everything you do. :/ your medical aid, the mechanics that run your car and the quality of food that you eat are all based upon applied science and research, and there's kind of no way to get around that.
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hopeandjoy
yan ya yan ya yaa iii yaaa
What your thinking of when you hear "theory" is a hypothesis. This the definition of a scientific theory according to Wikipedia:
Evolution is often mistaken for "just a theory". It is, in fact, easily observed. Genetically test a culture of bacteria for a few days. I promise you that there will be obvious changes their genetic code. (Bacteria bread quite rapidly. One bacteria becomes two in about 20 minutes, two to four, four to eight, etc. in some species.) Natural selection is harder to prove, but of course individuals who die before breeding age or males that have characteristics that females don't like won't pass on their genes, and thus their alleles won't end up in the next generation.
Science is always changing because the world is always changing. We get better technology, and we noticed this strange thing. We were testing waters near this underwater vent, and we found these organisms. Everyone's thought this for a century, but I have evidence that it's actually this. We discovered this new way of testing something. It's the nature of science. Humans want answers, they gather evidence, and maybe something in the evidence pops up that changes everything. It's the entire point.
Evolution is often mistaken for "just a theory". It is, in fact, easily observed. Genetically test a culture of bacteria for a few days. I promise you that there will be obvious changes their genetic code. (Bacteria bread quite rapidly. One bacteria becomes two in about 20 minutes, two to four, four to eight, etc. in some species.) Natural selection is harder to prove, but of course individuals who die before breeding age or males that have characteristics that females don't like won't pass on their genes, and thus their alleles won't end up in the next generation.
Science is always changing because the world is always changing. We get better technology, and we noticed this strange thing. We were testing waters near this underwater vent, and we found these organisms. Everyone's thought this for a century, but I have evidence that it's actually this. We discovered this new way of testing something. It's the nature of science. Humans want answers, they gather evidence, and maybe something in the evidence pops up that changes everything. It's the entire point.
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It's interesting that you see this as a point against science. Of course science is always changing - it's always changing because we are always learning new things. Do you think the Bible is so universal that, in the last 2000 years of human history, it hasn't needed to be changed in any way? What about those sections of the Bible which condone behaviours we would condemn? Wouldn't it be better if the Bible had changed, and got rid of those?
Science isn't perfect, but it doesn't pretend to be. Science is flawed in many ways, but for the most part, it works.
But yes, these things have all been discussed in the thread. I realise it's quite a long thread, and I realise everyone is about to jump on your post, so if you want to discuss these things in a vaguely constructive manner, do PM me. It's a topic I know quite a lot about and enjoy discussing.
Music Dragon
Doosic Maggon
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Most schools also teach you history and religion, whether you like it or not. You can deny gravity or the Holocaust all you like, but there are two reasons why you should definitely learn about these things in school: firstly, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that they're real, and secondly, they're crucial to understanding modern society. Even if you think evolution is a load of bull, knowing about it is useful, just as knowing about various political or philosophical ideologies and schools of thought is useful even if you don't agree with all of them.
And besides, how can you choose not to believe in evolution if you don't even know what it is or how it works?
This is a major failing, not an advantage.
Christianity is dogmatic. It doesn't change. It doesn't adapt. It's made an effort not to change for hundreds of years. The Bible is very, very old; how could it possibly be relevant to modern society? So much has changed in just a few decades!
Science, meanwhile, admits that it is fallible. It adapts, because it strives to be truthful, and when mistakes are discovered, they're corrected. Science is constantly being updated. That's not a bad thing. That's a good thing.
Basically, Christianity says "We'll never admit to being wrong and we'll never change anything!" whereas science says "We could be wrong about this, and if it turns out that we are, we'll adapt so that we're not wrong any more." That's the reason why science is much, much more applicable to the modern world. I mean, think about it for just one second. If somebody makes an error and you point it out to them, what kind of response would you want: "I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I'll go fix it", or "Nope, this is the word of God so you're the one who's wrong"?
And, as has been pointed out above, science being "all theory" is an ignorant statement. Science observes real phenomena and then tries to find the most plausible explanations. The only time science "changes on a dime" is when we discover something completely unheard of, which doesn't exactly happen every day. Even then, the changes rarely turn everything upside down. You use lots of devices all the time that are the product of science. Do you really think they're going to "change on a dime" and just randomly stop working any moment? The laws of the universe aren't changing, just our understanding of them. It's not all random, you know.
Gravity is an observable phenomenon: you throw something in the air, it falls back down again. Electricity is also an observable phenomenon - if it weren't real, there would be no internet and no computer for you to post with, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. And evolution, too, is an observable phenomenon: as suggested above, just let some bacteria grow and take a look at their genes after a few generations.
You can deny these things, but that wouldn't make any sense. Gravity is very much real. The proposed explanation for it could be wrong, yes, but the phenomenon is there for everyone to see. Same goes for evolution. It's a real thing that's happening all the time. The theory of evolution could be wrong, sure, but good luck coming up with a better explanation for why evolution occurs.
Comparing science and religion and regarding them as "things you just choose to believe" is an insult to science. Science is not a belief. It's got nothing to do with faith. It is based on logic, fact, evidence, real things that happen all around you all the time. Religion is not. There's a pretty huge difference there. You can deny science if you don't believe in logic, I suppose, but that's... no.
bulbasaur
Not quite e^(-(x-μ)²/(2σ²)) / (σ√(2π))
Sorry, but I'll just butt in for a moment
Science is a method and a way of thought. It is a collection of observations and explanations. I don't know why it's being used here as some sort of a magical glittering generality.
It also does take certain (very small) amounts of faith to believe even sound scientific theories!
"Religion is not [based on logic, fact, evidence, real things that happen all around you all the time]. There's a pretty huge difference there."
It's at the moment mostly based on historical evidence (certain religions anyway). Why would authors spend lots of their lives writing sacred texts, if they were just simply making it up? How could they, (again, some religions) while working independently, produce a text free of contradiction? How did some religious texts directly contradict early scientific theories, and turn out to be correct after hundreds of years? Good luck trying to explain (Judaism Christianity and Islam only, I think) Noah's ark on some mountain (http://www.arkdiscovery.com/noah's_ark.htm pardon this poor presentation; I'll see if I can get some better website).
Tarvos
helt plötsligt blev det tyst
It's hypocritical to rag on scientists and people who believe in physics (as you'd have it) for having faith that an aeroplane flies when you're the first to step into it going on holiday to Ibiza. This faith is something we all have, that when you hold a can of water upside down, it will fall out of the can! It doesn't mean anything to say that that is faith. Yes, we need to have faith that it will happen again because "gravity is just a theory" but you're the first one to use it to get yourself a glass of water, brush your teeth, sterilise your foods, etc.
If you want to call us fundamentalist for that, be my guest. But rest assured it has nothing to do with the truth (or falsehoods) of religion. It's bloody common sense.
In fact, in response to this I would like to post a good old rant written by Graham Hughes (a world traveller and awesome dude). Clicky, go down a little to skip the blog entry bit and read the stuff he wrote about fundamentalism. You will find it enlightening.
Anyone who complains people who set store by science and proclaim that it's the one and only truth should live up to their words and stop using it. They'd be dead within a day.
If you want to call us fundamentalist for that, be my guest. But rest assured it has nothing to do with the truth (or falsehoods) of religion. It's bloody common sense.
In fact, in response to this I would like to post a good old rant written by Graham Hughes (a world traveller and awesome dude). Clicky, go down a little to skip the blog entry bit and read the stuff he wrote about fundamentalism. You will find it enlightening.
Anyone who complains people who set store by science and proclaim that it's the one and only truth should live up to their words and stop using it. They'd be dead within a day.
Coroxn
An extremely equivalent exchange.
Yeah no. There's a lot in your post I want to talk about, but this is what I'm going for at the moment. The bible isn't consistent with itself at all. You can't criticise science for changing on a dime and love the bible for it's consistency when it's full of contridictions, with a good amount listed here.
Okay, so the "text free of contradiction" is null for Christianity and Judaism (and possibly Islam). Check above post for a sizeable list. Could you give some examples of "religious texts directly contradict[ing] early scientific theories, and turn out to be correct after hundreds of years?", instead of just stating they exist. And the Great Flood story is featured in the folklore of such diverse places as the Middle East, India, China, Australia, southern Asia, the islands of the Pacific, Europe, and the Americas. These religions cannot take claim for it as evidence of their own existence when this story was incredibly popular already. All they did was tack on their own religious names and themes. Not a full explanation, really, but I don't think there is one, at present. It certainly isn't a grounds for believing in the religion all on its own.
Music Dragon
Doosic Maggon
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I never called it magical; I called it "based on logic, fact, evidence, real things that happen all around you all the time", which is quite the opposite.
How so?
... What historical evidence are you referring to, and how reliable is it?
There could be any number of reasons, all of which are more plausible than God actually existing. Maybe religion originally came about as an attempt to explain various natural phenomena that were incomprehensible at the time (lightning, for example, or the sun). Then you just go from there. Times change, more explanations are made up, oral tradition twists stories and so on. There's loads of stuff out there that people try to pass off as real even though it's not - sometimes because they have ulterior motives, sometimes because they genuinely believe in what they're doing. The fact that sacred texts have been written doesn't prove that there's anything divine about them.
Besides, there are loads of religions and loads of religious texts. Are you suggesting all of them are right, even the ones that appear to be mutually exclusive? If not, then evidently sacred texts can be wrong, and more or less "made up".
What are you referring to now?
Again: what are you referring to? It would help if you tried to be a bit less vague.
In any case, the fact that a religious text turns out to be right about something doesn't really mean anything unless it turns out to be right remarkably often. "The Bible said something and it turned out to be right" does not equate to "everything in the Bible is true and God exists". That's not a solid argument.
I'm no geologist, so I'm really not qualified to pass judgment, but there are others who are. In fact, you might want to check out the Wikipedia article; it mentions some of the people who've questioned this Ark finding.
My mom, a former Catholic born and bred (now agnostic), told me recently that she tried to read the Bible all the way through. She said she couldn't get very far into it because it was so absurd - the way she put it, "it was written like a bunch of stuff someone made up to explain the universe". And it's not like my mom is a diehard atheist or anything - she's a former Catholic and even she admits the Bible seems rather suspect.
Additionally, claiming to follow the Bible even 2000 years later brings to mind an argument that two fellow atheists and I had with a very Christian (not sure which denomination) girl in our Calculus class earlier this year. She said that she accepts the Bible as truth, leading the other two atheists to immediately begin spouting some of the Bible's verses that I doubt even hardcore Christians follow nowadays - such as "no haircuts" and "no clothes with two different fabrics". Her response was "Well, some of it's outdated." to which I replied "How do you decide what's outdated and what isn't?" and she got extremely flustered and went "Okay - we're done talking about this!"
Additionally, claiming to follow the Bible even 2000 years later brings to mind an argument that two fellow atheists and I had with a very Christian (not sure which denomination) girl in our Calculus class earlier this year. She said that she accepts the Bible as truth, leading the other two atheists to immediately begin spouting some of the Bible's verses that I doubt even hardcore Christians follow nowadays - such as "no haircuts" and "no clothes with two different fabrics". Her response was "Well, some of it's outdated." to which I replied "How do you decide what's outdated and what isn't?" and she got extremely flustered and went "Okay - we're done talking about this!"
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helt plötsligt blev det tyst
Of course, that also shows the effects of being confrontational about this - but in a way it's also kind of sad that people have to adhere so rigidly to viewpoints even when they're being faced with a strong, debunking argument made against their ideas.
These people do exist, they are the same people that deny cancer treatment because it's God's Will etc. They are quite rare though.
These people do exist, they are the same people that deny cancer treatment because it's God's Will etc. They are quite rare though.