It's not an argument I expect to win any time soon, but the religious nutters are the people with the problem. They can't prove a single one of their claims, and all they have is some ancient writing preserved in their magic book written by people who, by the standards of the modern world, really didn't know much of anything.
Worse, their magic book has HOW MANY different versions, never mind translations that may have a poor relationship with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. What happened at the fictional Tower of Babel has nothing on this supposed "holy scripture."
Tell them the Tower of Babel was built by a unified people all speaking a single language. The biblical god feared that if they could accomplish such a feat that NOTHING would be impossible for them. So he screwed everything up by having them all speak different languages so they couldn’t work together.
And yet people STILL pull together and accomplish things that would have been unimaginable, not that long ago, current global political madness notwithstanding. Just one more indicator that, if it does exist, Yahweh is an inept, clueless, bumbling fool who, if it knows what it is doing at all, is operating on the barest idea of what is going on.
I don't think that something that doesn't exist can have a color. However, there is a dipshit out there who seems to think he can stand in for Yahweh and has a pretty orange-ish appearance! 😉
I have never been able to internalize the cognitive dissonance it takes to BELIEVE. Not even as a child. Don't they claim to believe in and worship an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful god - the creator of the Universe and everything in it? Quod Erat Demonstrandum, he created gay people... So, by them they believe in a god who creates evil gay people. I do believe there are evil people in this world, but most of them are die-hard religionists who couldn't think their ways out of wet paper bags.
No, no. As someone just “explained” to me, everything was perfect until the Fall. Only after that did stuff like disease and gayness show up. Me: how did the Fall cause genetic mutation?
This is what kills me about the thinking (if you can call it that) that believers indulge in. We are PERFECTLY DESIGNED, and yet it's a fallen world and we fell with it.
The contradictions scream at us, and yet they remain deaf.
Well clearly it wasn't perfect. Before the fall, you still had:
-Disloyal serpent
-Humans who question God
-Fruit that brings death into the world if you eat it sitting handily in the middle of the garden, at easily reachable height.
-A god whose understanding of human psychology sees "hey, look at that fruit tree over there! You see it? Yeah, that one! Yeah, don't eat that, it will give you knowledge" is a great way to keep naive young people from eating it.
A place where all the people of the world come together in common language, to build something so strong that it causes God to fear what else they might accomplish.
There are no original copies of the gospels, and nothing is signed. It's often over looked that after the Bible was organized (More or less) every single copy of it for the next thousand years was copied by hand. Bart Ehrman has pointed out there are multiple variations. Never the less, they keep retreating to the 'divine inspiration' rationalization.
I can remember being taught, that the oldest parts of the new testament are the letters from St Paul. The next oldest parts are the Mark/Mathew/Luke gospels which were written in the 60s, 70s and 80s, with a good bit of .... ahem 'overlap' in them. So, even the oldest parts were written 30 years after the events and everyone's memory is affected by a 30 year time gap. Also, Mark/Mathew/Luke weren't actually present, they were pretty much just writing down hearsay.
I learned the above in RE class. But then that class was giving us an education in religious matters, it was not a proselytising class. Have I mentioned before that my school was run by nuns?
It may be true that the gospels were written decades later but that doesn't mean that they were not based upon earlier source material. Here's an example from the opening of Luke's gospel - "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word."
This is circular logic. You cannot use a statement in the bible saying "this was based on earlier material" as evidence the bible is based on earlier material.
By that logic, you should believe the Koran was dictated by the angel Gabriel, because look David it says so right there in the Koran that it was dictated by the angel Gabriel!
It's not circular logic anymore than when modern historians reference earlier works in their books. It's not uncommon for ancient historians to refer to works which no longer exist. Are we to automatically presume that they are lying? Why does it seem incredible that there would be accounts of Jesus written down prior to the writing of the gospels?
It isn’t even written by the people that came up with the stories, it was written by folks who came along centuries later who wrote down the spoken traditions and misheard them. The stories were put through a centuries long game of telephone and that’s how we got a god and a savior and a fancy spook to worship. Then the folks who wrote them down inserted their agenda, with malice and foresight.
All anyone need to do wonder about the accuracy of the gospels is try to accurately recall something from popular culture and go doublecheck it. Odds are that one’s memory will be off to some degree. Possibly a lot.
Here’s a good one: How many times did Captain Kirk say, “Beam me up, Scotty”? Answer: Never!
So does that include the spectrum that I see from the prism my grandson put in my dining room window?. Did light not get refracted and dispersed before Noah?
““First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible,” Roupp stated.”
Have you read the bible, Roupp? Or have you just had it read to you by your preacher/pastor/priest? Have you read it for understanding or just inspiration by picking and choosing verses to follow?
Please don’t think that there are people n this world that haven’t heard about your god and Jesus and whatnot. Maybe, they all have and already made decisions regarding their own belief. You sharing his kingdom or whatever is just hubris on your part and incredibly rude.
Like so many others, Roupp has had the bible READ TO HIM. Oh, he's likely got his own copy and picks it up and reads along when the leader of the bible study group tells him to turn to Luke 6:27 or whatever, but never touching on something like Judges 19:22-30 or even worse examples.
And the one thing this tells me is that those who lead such lessons KNOW that the bible has serious liabilities in it, and the last thing they want is to let their s̵h̵e̵e̵p̵ congregants find out.
Hey Roupp: "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Sure, Jan. How about "love the believer, hate the belief"? Does that help you understand why expressing your belief is hateful in and of itself?
Grown men who believe in childish nonsense acting like children.
If they're going to claim that their specter in the clouds somehow owns an atmospheric/meteorological phenomena, then that same specter can also own destructive hail, lightning, tornadoes, cyclones, windstorms and blizzards. After all, their bible says that its God creates both good AND evil. Says so right in Isaiah 45:7.
And we all are genuinely supposed to believe that, eh? Oh, and that business about "push them to read the bible." What happens when they run into Leviticus 18:22 or 20:13. Better yet, let's put Ezekiel 23:20 on the list for bible study, while we're at it. This is the brand of disingenuous crap I've come to expect from believers who barely know the bible, and yet have the temerity to proselytize others.
The other shame is that Major League Baseball won't grow a backbone on this issue. I wonder if they know how many of their fan are of the LGBTQ+ community. My guess is: a lot more than a few.
Okay, they could have just not worn the caps with the tiny rainbow colored emblem that is very subtle and performative anyway. But nooooo, they had to wear the caps and put an insulting message on it. But please, tell me again that it wasn’t about hate.
Providing the thread of support organizations is more helpful than just having one game with displays of rainbows. It feels performative without the thread for sure. But I also understand that in this social climate, it is a risky performance. I think there was a time where businesses could get away with throwing a little rainbow flag on something and call it good, to get the social clout for being supportive, but behind the scenes they were really ambivalent at best about the support. But lately the more profitable tack is to accept the Christian hate as the standard. Let the nasty bigots run down your LGBTQ employees, move your performative support to a corner in the back of the store or remove it altogether. So I can appreciate that the team management didn’t approve of these players being dicks. And even that they are still having pride nights. I hope this does not give the team and the sport reason to stop trying to support LGBTQ people.
There's just so much fodder here. A. Where did they think they were playing? Anti-pride in San Francisco? B. What idiotic bible verses...the rainbow belongs to god b/c of a covenant. Didn't anyone ever tell them that any covenant has 2 sides? C. What assholes, just to be assholes. D. MLB will only care if this hits them in the wallet, and I urge Bay Area residents to boycott going to games (Giants suck anyway, so this shouldn't be too hard). These players are asinine and hateful, and even more importantly, they're dumb as a box of rocks. And I mean no disrespect to the rocks in question. Maybe I should say dumber than a box of rocks. "My invisible friend in the sky owns rainbows," isn't the own they think it is.
I really do wonder who Christians think they're kidding when they do stuff like this. Sure, the claim they're doing it for the right reasons is always there, but at this point, that's just an admission that the point is to hurt people they don't like. Do some Christians think that they'll convert someone by slapping a verse from their holy text on their clothing or something? The kindest interpretation is that it's religious dog whistling, and from what I've seen, it's always the worst sort of bigoted jerks that do this sort of thing.
If you don't want to support a cause, don't wear the flipping hat. It's simple, really. Trying to slap ownership on the rainbow is the sort of thing a prepubescent bully does, and it's never going to be a flattering look. Either way, you're still going to be the bigoted jerk expected of Christians when any non-normative sexual preference is mentioned.
None of it is surprising. MLB is a money-making organization, so it's going to attempt to be all-inclusive and avoid taking sides. They want to be commended for promoting LGBTQ inclusion but they don't want to potentially alienate bigoted fans by condemning the actions of these few players. This middle-of-the-road nonsense is completely self-serving.
It's not an argument I expect to win any time soon, but the religious nutters are the people with the problem. They can't prove a single one of their claims, and all they have is some ancient writing preserved in their magic book written by people who, by the standards of the modern world, really didn't know much of anything.
Worse, their magic book has HOW MANY different versions, never mind translations that may have a poor relationship with the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. What happened at the fictional Tower of Babel has nothing on this supposed "holy scripture."
Someone at CP said that the Obama Library looked like the Tower of Babel. I politely inquired how he knew what the tower looked like.
Tell them the Tower of Babel was built by a unified people all speaking a single language. The biblical god feared that if they could accomplish such a feat that NOTHING would be impossible for them. So he screwed everything up by having them all speak different languages so they couldn’t work together.
And yet people STILL pull together and accomplish things that would have been unimaginable, not that long ago, current global political madness notwithstanding. Just one more indicator that, if it does exist, Yahweh is an inept, clueless, bumbling fool who, if it knows what it is doing at all, is operating on the barest idea of what is going on.
Yahweh is a putz.
I think of YHVH as capriciously malevolent.
That too, and plenty of other adjectives as well!
Is this Yahweh orange, by any chance? Just going by your description ...
I don't think that something that doesn't exist can have a color. However, there is a dipshit out there who seems to think he can stand in for Yahweh and has a pretty orange-ish appearance! 😉
It was big. And a building.
One wonders if these people hear the words coming out of their mouths... 🤪
I have never been able to internalize the cognitive dissonance it takes to BELIEVE. Not even as a child. Don't they claim to believe in and worship an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful god - the creator of the Universe and everything in it? Quod Erat Demonstrandum, he created gay people... So, by them they believe in a god who creates evil gay people. I do believe there are evil people in this world, but most of them are die-hard religionists who couldn't think their ways out of wet paper bags.
No, no. As someone just “explained” to me, everything was perfect until the Fall. Only after that did stuff like disease and gayness show up. Me: how did the Fall cause genetic mutation?
This is what kills me about the thinking (if you can call it that) that believers indulge in. We are PERFECTLY DESIGNED, and yet it's a fallen world and we fell with it.
The contradictions scream at us, and yet they remain deaf.
Well clearly it wasn't perfect. Before the fall, you still had:
-Disloyal serpent
-Humans who question God
-Fruit that brings death into the world if you eat it sitting handily in the middle of the garden, at easily reachable height.
-A god whose understanding of human psychology sees "hey, look at that fruit tree over there! You see it? Yeah, that one! Yeah, don't eat that, it will give you knowledge" is a great way to keep naive young people from eating it.
A place where all the people of the world come together in common language, to build something so strong that it causes God to fear what else they might accomplish.
I'd take it as a compliment!
There are no original copies of the gospels, and nothing is signed. It's often over looked that after the Bible was organized (More or less) every single copy of it for the next thousand years was copied by hand. Bart Ehrman has pointed out there are multiple variations. Never the less, they keep retreating to the 'divine inspiration' rationalization.
I can remember being taught, that the oldest parts of the new testament are the letters from St Paul. The next oldest parts are the Mark/Mathew/Luke gospels which were written in the 60s, 70s and 80s, with a good bit of .... ahem 'overlap' in them. So, even the oldest parts were written 30 years after the events and everyone's memory is affected by a 30 year time gap. Also, Mark/Mathew/Luke weren't actually present, they were pretty much just writing down hearsay.
I learned the above in RE class. But then that class was giving us an education in religious matters, it was not a proselytising class. Have I mentioned before that my school was run by nuns?
And there is no surviving attestation to Jeezus or any of the gospel story miracles from the time of one Pontius Pilate...
As it comes to the whole synoptic gospel trip, check THIS out:
https://ibb.co/NdFm9LJh
This is a good graph, thank you.
That is a good graph, but it really makes me wonder where the heck John was.
And why Christians don't ask where John was, come to think of it.
You're talking about Johnny-come-lately, whose gospel didn't show up until around 100 C.E. Mark had a 30-year head start, by comparison.
Oh, and the gospel of John is alleged to be a [gasp!] FORGERY!
It may be true that the gospels were written decades later but that doesn't mean that they were not based upon earlier source material. Here's an example from the opening of Luke's gospel - "Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word."
Oh, go away, I've got better things to do than argue the bible with you, I've got a sock drawer to iron!!
Ummm ... ironing the SOCKS or the DRAWER??? 😁
Please feel free to ignore my comments. I don't expect anyone to necessarily respond to them.
This is circular logic. You cannot use a statement in the bible saying "this was based on earlier material" as evidence the bible is based on earlier material.
By that logic, you should believe the Koran was dictated by the angel Gabriel, because look David it says so right there in the Koran that it was dictated by the angel Gabriel!
It's not circular logic anymore than when modern historians reference earlier works in their books. It's not uncommon for ancient historians to refer to works which no longer exist. Are we to automatically presume that they are lying? Why does it seem incredible that there would be accounts of Jesus written down prior to the writing of the gospels?
Have you noticed that the average Sunday School doesn't teach any of this. WHYIZZAT??? 😉
It isn’t even written by the people that came up with the stories, it was written by folks who came along centuries later who wrote down the spoken traditions and misheard them. The stories were put through a centuries long game of telephone and that’s how we got a god and a savior and a fancy spook to worship. Then the folks who wrote them down inserted their agenda, with malice and foresight.
All anyone need to do wonder about the accuracy of the gospels is try to accurately recall something from popular culture and go doublecheck it. Odds are that one’s memory will be off to some degree. Possibly a lot.
Here’s a good one: How many times did Captain Kirk say, “Beam me up, Scotty”? Answer: Never!
On top of that, church committees voted on which books were "scripture" and which were not. Gospel of Thomas anyone?
OT: I’ve got commenters at CP trying to argue that rainbows are the property of god.
Kinda circular. If you take as a premise that the bible is true, then you conclude that the bible is true.
Rainbows have been around a lot longer than their god.
I've seen rainbows multiple times. Their god is still the all-time champion of hide-and-seek.
Said commenters need to acquaint themselves with the laws of physics and more specifically, OPTICS.
I copied in from Google an explanation. Response: God sure worked out the details.
[chuckle] SUUUUUUUUUUURE he / it did! 😝
Not the sharpest bulbs in the potato patch, are they?
That’s not fair.
Not the sharpest bowling balls in the medicine cabinet.
That's a new version, it made me smile, thank you.
If rainbows are property, are they taxed?
So does that include the spectrum that I see from the prism my grandson put in my dining room window?. Did light not get refracted and dispersed before Noah?
Has gawd trademarked it? Checkmate kkkristers.
““First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible,” Roupp stated.”
Have you read the bible, Roupp? Or have you just had it read to you by your preacher/pastor/priest? Have you read it for understanding or just inspiration by picking and choosing verses to follow?
Please don’t think that there are people n this world that haven’t heard about your god and Jesus and whatnot. Maybe, they all have and already made decisions regarding their own belief. You sharing his kingdom or whatever is just hubris on your part and incredibly rude.
Like so many others, Roupp has had the bible READ TO HIM. Oh, he's likely got his own copy and picks it up and reads along when the leader of the bible study group tells him to turn to Luke 6:27 or whatever, but never touching on something like Judges 19:22-30 or even worse examples.
And the one thing this tells me is that those who lead such lessons KNOW that the bible has serious liabilities in it, and the last thing they want is to let their s̵h̵e̵e̵p̵ congregants find out.
“First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible,”
And drive them to atheism? Mmmkay.
𝑆𝑜, 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝐼 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑛𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙
Hey Roupp: "Love the sinner, hate the sin." Sure, Jan. How about "love the believer, hate the belief"? Does that help you understand why expressing your belief is hateful in and of itself?
“Love the faithful, hate the faith.” That’s what I say.
Can't I just smite them? They like when they get to do it in the name of their imaginary friend. I'll just tell them "God told me to do it."
Smiting is very underrated these days, I think we should have lots more smiting.
Like last Sunday evening, that was a perfect opportunity for a bit of smiting. Alas ...
Listen to the very end if you haven’t heard this one before. Zimmerman has a bunch of irreverent songs, btw.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw&list=RDMyE5wjc4XOw&start_radio=1
Giving up 4 runs in 5 innings, maybe we should say "There's no hate in it at all. I just think your pitching is crap."
The modern baseball uniform (hat, jersey, pants and cleats) consists of polyester, spandex, cotton, leather mesh and plastics. IOW, mixed fabrics.
Oops. Gonna play naked, xtians?
Wonder if they've ever trained (worked) on the Sabbath (Saturday)?
Good point!
Someone should ask the lads about the rule of mixed fibres.
Gay people exist.
"god" does not.
Grown men who believe in childish nonsense acting like children.
If they're going to claim that their specter in the clouds somehow owns an atmospheric/meteorological phenomena, then that same specter can also own destructive hail, lightning, tornadoes, cyclones, windstorms and blizzards. After all, their bible says that its God creates both good AND evil. Says so right in Isaiah 45:7.
Wear THAT one on your caps, xtians.
They should put the commandment (3 or 4) about the sabbath when they play on Sunday and see how MLB feels about that.
No games between sunset Friday to sunset Saturday (the Jewish Sabbat).
Who was that Tiger who sat out a World Series game in the 30s because it was Yom Kippur. Hank…..?
Greenberg?
How about Sandy Koufax from the Dodgers?
https://baseballhall.org/discover/sandy-koufax-sits-out-game-one
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑛𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙. 𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑖𝑛.
And we all are genuinely supposed to believe that, eh? Oh, and that business about "push them to read the bible." What happens when they run into Leviticus 18:22 or 20:13. Better yet, let's put Ezekiel 23:20 on the list for bible study, while we're at it. This is the brand of disingenuous crap I've come to expect from believers who barely know the bible, and yet have the temerity to proselytize others.
The other shame is that Major League Baseball won't grow a backbone on this issue. I wonder if they know how many of their fan are of the LGBTQ+ community. My guess is: a lot more than a few.
Apparently back in the Bronze Age, people were quite familiar with donkeys and horses!
(Ezekiel 23:20)
This is what he stands for and in: 💩
Gay men don't have sex with each other they way straight men have sex with women*. So no problem.
*. The woman's sexuality being irrelevant.
Okay, they could have just not worn the caps with the tiny rainbow colored emblem that is very subtle and performative anyway. But nooooo, they had to wear the caps and put an insulting message on it. But please, tell me again that it wasn’t about hate.
Providing the thread of support organizations is more helpful than just having one game with displays of rainbows. It feels performative without the thread for sure. But I also understand that in this social climate, it is a risky performance. I think there was a time where businesses could get away with throwing a little rainbow flag on something and call it good, to get the social clout for being supportive, but behind the scenes they were really ambivalent at best about the support. But lately the more profitable tack is to accept the Christian hate as the standard. Let the nasty bigots run down your LGBTQ employees, move your performative support to a corner in the back of the store or remove it altogether. So I can appreciate that the team management didn’t approve of these players being dicks. And even that they are still having pride nights. I hope this does not give the team and the sport reason to stop trying to support LGBTQ people.
There's just so much fodder here. A. Where did they think they were playing? Anti-pride in San Francisco? B. What idiotic bible verses...the rainbow belongs to god b/c of a covenant. Didn't anyone ever tell them that any covenant has 2 sides? C. What assholes, just to be assholes. D. MLB will only care if this hits them in the wallet, and I urge Bay Area residents to boycott going to games (Giants suck anyway, so this shouldn't be too hard). These players are asinine and hateful, and even more importantly, they're dumb as a box of rocks. And I mean no disrespect to the rocks in question. Maybe I should say dumber than a box of rocks. "My invisible friend in the sky owns rainbows," isn't the own they think it is.
There is nothing more evil than right wing billionaires. Which is who owns MLB.
I really do wonder who Christians think they're kidding when they do stuff like this. Sure, the claim they're doing it for the right reasons is always there, but at this point, that's just an admission that the point is to hurt people they don't like. Do some Christians think that they'll convert someone by slapping a verse from their holy text on their clothing or something? The kindest interpretation is that it's religious dog whistling, and from what I've seen, it's always the worst sort of bigoted jerks that do this sort of thing.
If you don't want to support a cause, don't wear the flipping hat. It's simple, really. Trying to slap ownership on the rainbow is the sort of thing a prepubescent bully does, and it's never going to be a flattering look. Either way, you're still going to be the bigoted jerk expected of Christians when any non-normative sexual preference is mentioned.
None of it is surprising. MLB is a money-making organization, so it's going to attempt to be all-inclusive and avoid taking sides. They want to be commended for promoting LGBTQ inclusion but they don't want to potentially alienate bigoted fans by condemning the actions of these few players. This middle-of-the-road nonsense is completely self-serving.
Pink Floyd owns the rainbow. Eiter them or Skittles. Or maybe LeVar Burton.
Not to mention Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, here on the North Coast. They do real, actual GOOD.
Rainbow Brite?