The God Delusion

[_Jersey Girl]

DrW,

Would you mind telling me if you are exLDS?

[_Jersey Girl]

DrW,

Just looking through your comments...

While Evangelical Christians might be a little more willing to look at the Old Testament as metaphorical as compared to the New Testament, from the non-believer's perspective neither scripture is much more than a compilation of Bronze Age tradition, myth and legend.

Are you saying that you think/suspect that Ev Christians might be a little more willing to look at the WHOLE of the Old Testament as metaphorical?

Are you saying that you think/suspect that Ev Christians might be a little less willing to look at the WHOLE of the New Testament as metaphorical?

[_MrStakhanovite]

The biggest Achilles Heel of these books is their understanding of Christianity in my honest opinion. I would be wary of that Jason.

[_Hoops]

It is fair to say, I think, that both Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins look at religion, and especially American Evangelical Christianity, through a "long lens

I would love to see them take on Islamism.

Since both are foundational documents for Christianity, then Christians can rightly be held to account for their professed beliefs, as set forth in both.

Yep.

It really asks Christians some tough questions:

"Do you really believe all of this stuff?"

"Do you understand the extent to which religion, and the contemporary practice of religion, is based upon demonstrable lies?"

He goes into this latter issue in some detail, and for good reason.

The follow-on questions are no easier:

"If you do not believe all of it, then where do you draw the line and on what basis do you make that decision?"

"Are you really going to simply pick and choose?

"For example, are you really going to disregard the New Testament apocrypha as scripture when they have been arbitrarily distinguished from the canonized books of the New Testament based on the decisions of a group of men with a clear political agenda?"

you must be quoting the wrong section. Where are the tough questions?

Once someone figures out that the whole set of work is nothing more than an internally inconsistent and largely arbitrary set of myths and legends based on superstition, misunderstanding and tradition, and that they no different from the hundreds or thousands of other creation myths and consequent religious texts from other societies and from other times, the rest is easy.

I wonder why this is so hard to figure out?

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hoops,

Sam and Richard have quite a lot to say about Islam, and it isn’t pretty.

[Guest]

DrW,

Would you mind telling me if you are exLDS?

Jersey Girl,

Thanks for asking.

I remain a member of the LDS Church at the request of my German born BIC wife, who is slowly working her way out. I no longer attend and self-identify as a low probability agnostic and a Mormon apostate. Nonetheless members in our ward who know me (not so many any more) seem trust me . Now and then they will confide in me more than they would other TBMs.

My children and grandchildren are TBM. However, since we have had strong tradition of "Family First" in our home from day one, our extended family does very well, in spite of (or perhaps because of) my apostasy.

By way of explanation as to where my biases come from, I served in the US Marine Corps and am a scientist. I was trained mainly in Europe, and have spent a lot of time in Europe and the Middle East.

I see American religiosity as a aberration and believe, from experience, that it puts this nation at a huge disadvantage in the world.

[_DrW]

DrW,

Just looking through your comments...

While Evangelical Christians might be a little more willing to look at the Old Testament as metaphorical as compared to the New Testament, from the non-believer's perspective neither scripture is much more than a compilation of Bronze Age tradition, myth and legend.

Are you saying that you think/suspect that Ev Christians might be a little more willing to look at the WHOLE of the Old Testament as metaphorical?

I would say that most EV's (at least those I have talked to about this) would more readily admit that the Old Testament is not to be taken as literally, overall, as the New Testament.

Are you saying that you think/suspect that Ev Christians might be a little less willing to look at the WHOLE of the New Testament as metaphorical?

Yes.

[Guest]

[quote="Hoops" I would love to see them take on Islamism.
[/quote]

Then you should read The End of Faith by Sam Harris.

Because in this book, that is exactly what Harris does.

And as Stak says, it isn't pretty.

[_Jason Bourne]

Short wiki about what I'm referring to, Jason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

Note the consideration of the 7th possible stage.

Very interesting

[_DrW]

The biggest Achilles Heel of these books is their understanding of Christianity in my honest opinion. I would be wary of that Jason.

As a doubting Mormon, I don't think that Jason would be at much risk because of a less than perfect academic understanding of Christianity by the authors.

This is sort of like warning an American M1A2 main gunner that he needs a thorough understanding of the Iraqi T-72 his fire control computer is tracking before he pulls the trigger. (IMHO)