354 Comments
User's avatar
oraxx's avatar

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.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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."

Maltnothops's avatar

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.

NOGODZ20's avatar

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.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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.

NOGODZ20's avatar

I think of YHVH as capriciously malevolent.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

That too, and plenty of other adjectives as well!

Donrox's avatar

Is this Yahweh orange, by any chance? Just going by your description ...

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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! 😉

SPW's avatar

And a nasty misogynist on top of being a putz.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

One wonders if these people hear the words coming out of their mouths... 🤪

Stephen Brady's avatar

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.

Munchygut's avatar

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?

Then he is impotent.

Is he able, but not willing?

Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?

Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?

Then why call him God?”

-Epicurus

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Ah, the Epic Cure for Us. Would that those who insist on irrational belief could understand what ol' Epi laid down.

Stephen Brady's avatar

There are many trenchant observations on religion from antiquity. Truly, there is no new thing under the sun… at least regarding human behavior.

Maltnothops's avatar

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?

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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.

ericc's avatar

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.

Bensnewlogin's avatar

It was big. And a building.

ericc's avatar

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!

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Sorry, but it doesn't look a bit like Rura Penthe!

SPW's avatar

I hope you all have had time to get to know of Monte Mader on You Tube and she may be here on Substack now? Not sure about all that but if you don’t know about her, she is a deconstructed Fundy who can bring the goods and throw down and debunk the religious fables with the best of them. Check her out if you haven’t already.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

I've seen her work. She is sharp as the proverbial tack, and she communicates well.

Well worth your time.

oraxx's avatar

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.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Have you noticed that the average Sunday School doesn't teach any of this. WHYIZZAT??? 😉

Claudia's avatar

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?

Troublesh00ter's avatar

As it comes to the whole synoptic gospel trip, check THIS out:

https://ibb.co/NdFm9LJh

Whitney's avatar

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.

Claudia's avatar

The John gospel is part of a different tradition to Mark/Mathew/Luke.

I didn't actually want to kick off a discussion about who wrote the New Testament and when, my point was that I learned about it in school. In RE class. In a school run by nuns.

Because the idea was not to proselytise, the idea was to educate, that was the whole ethos of those nuns, they had joined this particular order which had been founded to provide excellent education to girls.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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!

Claudia's avatar

This is a good graph, thank you.

Stephen Brady's avatar

And there is no surviving attestation to Jeezus or any of the gospel story miracles from the time of one Pontius Pilate...

David Graf's avatar

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."

Vanity Unfair's avatar

Unfortunately, without the possible other sources one cannot make any reasoned argument about the validity of an account, or accounts, of otherwise ungrounded events supposed to have occurred thirty or forty years previously. Saul/Paul, the putative author might have invented some/most/all of the story. Again, unfortunately, the paper trail is poor and polluted.

For example; Star Wars was released on an unsuspecting world in 1977 (and that makes me feel very old: which I am) and in the 2011 UK census for England and Wales 176,632 respondents claimed Jediism as their religion- the option was not allowed in 2021. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29753530

2,000 years pass.

All the intervening films, books and web sites and most of the later have become all but unreadable but the tradition has persisted and somehow flourished because enough people wanted it to. Would that make St. Luke the Sky Walker a real person?

I really do not like arguing by analogy but must point out that using lack of evidence as actual evidence is just not on.

Vanity Unfair's avatar

The argument has move on while I was checking sources. Apologies for any stepping-on-toes.

Hyder Simpson's avatar

Is it time for the obligatory recommendation to read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett?

David Graf's avatar

We have a far better textual history for the NT than for other documents of ancient times and so we're not in the same situation as your St. Luke the Sky Walker. Even if you discount much of the text, there are points such as the resurrection of Jesus which are referenced not just in the gospels but other parts of the NT which were written before them. The texts in themselves do not "prove" the truth of Christianity but do demonstrate what early Christians believed.

ericc's avatar

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!

David Graf's avatar

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?

Claudia's avatar

Oh, go away, I've got better things to do than argue the bible with you, I've got a sock drawer to iron!!

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Ummm ... ironing the SOCKS or the DRAWER??? 😁

David Graf's avatar

Please feel free to ignore my comments. I don't expect anyone to necessarily respond to them.

Boreal's avatar

They are based on bullshit. Myths pilfered from earlier cultures. There are no eyewitnesses. All fantasy. You keep coming here and writing checks with insufficient funds. Are you incapable of learning?

Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

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.

Donrox's avatar

On top of that, church committees voted on which books were "scripture" and which were not. Gospel of Thomas anyone?

Maltnothops's avatar

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!

Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Vader never said “Luke, I am your father.” He said “No, I am your father.”

avis piscivorus's avatar

Rick Blaine never said: "Play it again, Sam".

NOGODZ20's avatar

Nor did James Kirk ever utter "Beam me up, Scotty."

Karen Locke's avatar

What? You don't respect the Bronze/Iron Ages Goatherders Guide to the Galaxy?

Okay, so that was snarky, and I apologize to Christian readers. An apology is probably also owed to the people who composed the books of the Bible, undoubtedly doing the best they could within the limits of knowledge, culture, and tradition.

I was raised Catholic, and attended Catholic schools through high school. The lessons of how to treat other people that my liberal, post-Vatican II nuns taught have served me well, and those were by and large the teachings of Jesus. I'm now an atheist, but I still revere the nuns who dismissed all the anti-human notions that the church and toxic relatives drilled into my mother, and distilled the will of God into being excellent to one another.

So, while all the religions I've encountered have holes big enough to drive a planet through, being excellent to each other is time-tested advice.

scenario's avatar

Religious nutters were trained to be nutters from a very young age for the most part. When someone is taught that believing in fantasy as reality is moral vs believing in reality and evidence is bad, your going to end up with a messed up person who won't fit into society very well.

Maltnothops's avatar

OT: I’ve got commenters at CP trying to argue that rainbows are the property of god.

ericc's avatar

Kinda circular. If you take as a premise that the bible is true, then you conclude that the bible is true.

larry parker's avatar

Rainbows have been around a lot longer than their god.

Len Koz's avatar

I've seen rainbows multiple times. Their god is still the all-time champion of hide-and-seek.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

I had tickets to see Rainbow but they canceled due to an illness.

Len Koz's avatar

I have a friend who has been to see Blackmore's Night.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

I look every once in a while, I don't think I've seen them leave europe.

Len Koz's avatar

They must have at some point because he saw them in the USA.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Said commenters need to acquaint themselves with the laws of physics and more specifically, OPTICS.

Maltnothops's avatar

I copied in from Google an explanation. Response: God sure worked out the details.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

[chuckle] SUUUUUUUUUUURE he / it did! 😝

Len Koz's avatar

Not the sharpest bulbs in the potato patch, are they?

Bensnewlogin's avatar

That’s not fair.

Not the sharpest bowling balls in the medicine cabinet.

Claudia's avatar

That's a new version, it made me smile, thank you.

John L's avatar

If rainbows are property, are they taxed?

Donrox's avatar

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?

Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

Has gawd trademarked it? Checkmate kkkristers.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

Property of Dio!

Well, Ritchie probably..

Anri's avatar

Copyright has long since expired.

wreck's avatar

“First of all, as a believer, I would push them to read the Bible,”

And drive them to atheism? Mmmkay.

Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

““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.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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.

PhillyT's avatar

It's such a blanket cop out and allows them to just look like victims. These people simultaneously want to use the bible as a bludgeon and a shield when it's convenient.

Joe King's avatar

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?

Maltnothops's avatar

“Love the faithful, hate the faith.” That’s what I say.

Len Koz's avatar

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."

Claudia's avatar

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 ...

Maltnothops's avatar

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

ericc's avatar

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."

PhillyT's avatar

Exactly, you can't love people and also think they deserve to die. Those 2 things don't match up. Then again most evangelical Christians don't maintain any logical consistency. I had an argument with one recently where he stated that everyone who isn't his version of Christian was going to die, and I said that it means God is going to genocide billions of people, and he said it wasn't genocide if you have the moral high ground. These people are insane and argue in bad faith.

NOGODZ20's avatar

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?

Boreal's avatar

Wonder if they've ever trained (worked) on the Sabbath (Saturday)?

Claudia's avatar

Good point!

Someone should ask the lads about the rule of mixed fibres.

Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

I might pay to see that.

Boreal's avatar

Gay people exist.

"god" does not.

NOGODZ20's avatar

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.

Gail Smith's avatar

They should put the commandment (3 or 4) about the sabbath when they play on Sunday and see how MLB feels about that.

NOGODZ20's avatar

No games between sunset Friday to sunset Saturday (the Jewish Shabbat).

Maltnothops's avatar

Who was that Tiger who sat out a World Series game in the 30s because it was Yom Kippur. Hank…..?

Troublesh00ter's avatar

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.

John L's avatar

Apparently back in the Bronze Age, people were quite familiar with donkeys and horses!

(Ezekiel 23:20)

Len Koz's avatar

And cooking baby goat in its mother's milk must have been considered quite the treat.

Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

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.

Sallyfemina's avatar

Ain't nothing in the Bible mentions lesbians. Apparently, like a lot of men, God likes to watch 2 women going at it.

Len Koz's avatar

I'm pretty sure gay men lack vaginas, so doesn't that make it difficult for them to have sex with one another like straight men have sex with women?

Kay-El's avatar

OT: Just read the sextpot Jackson Lahmeyer resigned his campaign. Boo fucking hoo.

NOGODZ20's avatar

The Trump kiss of death strikes again.

NOGODZ20's avatar

Maybe he should've prayed to his deity to make him a better pitcher.

larry parker's avatar

Sometimes god says no. ; )

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Frankly, I think it's pretty freaking rare when Yahweh says ANYTHING.

ericc's avatar

God was busy answering the other team's prayers for hits.

PhillyT's avatar

He did say God was the reason he was in the position he was in. Maybe that is why he is such a bad pitcher and their team sucks. God hates them lol.

Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

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.

Stephanie G Wilson, PhD's avatar

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.

larry parker's avatar

Pink Floyd owns the rainbow. Eiter them or Skittles. Or maybe LeVar Burton.

Troublesh00ter's avatar

Not to mention Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, here on the North Coast. They do real, actual GOOD.