Argument made by religious people that just isn't valid

[KevinFinnerty]

A lot of people justify their belief in a certain religion by claiming that there is basically no difference between believing in religious texts and believing in commonly accepted historical texts. They'll say something like, "What's the difference between believing in the Bible and believing all the written accounts of the Civil War, for example? You choose to believe those accounts, even though you weren't actually there, just like I choose to believe in the Bible even though I wasn't actually there. Therefore, they both deserve the same respect with regard to their validity." However, this comparison just doesn't hold water.

The fundamental difference between believing in the Bible and believing in, say, historical accounts of the Civil War is that when you accept the Bible as being true without a shadow of a doubt, you are also accepting without a shadow of a doubt that those who don't believe in the Bible are subject to eternal damnation for not doing so. This is HUGELY different from believing in historical accounts of the Civil War. Nobody is saying that if you don't believe said accounts you'll be subjected to eternal damnation. Also, opponents of the commonly accepted accounts of the Civil War would not claim that you'll be subjected to eternal damnation for believing in what you believe about the war.

I don't want to hear any more religious people justify their belief that non-followers of their religion will endure eternal pain and suffering simply for not "accepting" Jesus (or Muhammad, or whoever) by saying that it's the same as believing any historical text. It's simply not even close to being the same, and anybody who offers such justification is way off-base.

KevinFinnerty Reviewed by KevinFinnerty on 09-08-2007. Argument made by religious people that just isn't valid A lot of people justify their belief in a certain religion by claiming that there is basically no difference between believing in religious texts and believing in commonly accepted historical texts. They'll say something like, "What's the difference between believing in the Bible and believing all the written accounts of the Civil War, for example? You choose to believe those accounts, even though you weren't actually there, just like I choose to believe in the Bible even though I wasn't Rating: 5

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

You haven't actaully explained why the argument is logically invalid, you've only explained why it's immoral.

[JaggedEdge]

From Thomas Paine's Age of Reason.

CHAPTER II - OF MISSIONS AND REVELATIONS.

EVERY national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses; the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints; and the Turks their Mahomet; as if the way to God was not open to every man alike.


Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.


As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word 'revelation.' Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man.
No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.


It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication. After this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner, for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.
When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the commandments from the hand of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some historian telling me so, the commandments carrying no internal evidence of divinity with them. They contain some good moral precepts such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver or a legislator could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention. [NOTE: It is, however, necessary to except the declamation which says that God 'visits the sins of the fathers upon the children'. This is contrary to every principle of moral justice.--Author.]


When I am told that the Koran was written in Heaven, and brought to Mahomet by an angel, the account comes to near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second hand authority as the former. I did not see the angel myself, and therefore I have a right not to believe it.


When also I am told that a woman, called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not: such a circumstance required a much stronger evidence than their bare word for it: but we have not even this; for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves. It is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not chose to rest my belief upon such evidence.


It is, however, not difficult to account for the credit that was given to the story of Jesus Christ being the Son of God. He was born when the heathen mythology had still some fashion and repute in the world, and that mythology had prepared the people for the belief of such a story. Almost all the extraordinary men that lived under the heathen mythology were reputed to be the sons of some of their gods. It was not a new thing at that time to believe a man to have been celestially begotten; the intercourse of gods with women was then a matter of familiar opinion. Their Jupiter, according to their accounts, had cohabited with hundreds; the story therefore had nothing in it either new, wonderful, or obscene; it was conformable to the opinions that then prevailed among the people called Gentiles, or mythologists, and it was those people only that believed it. The Jews, who had kept strictly to the belief of one God, and no more, and who had always rejected the heathen mythology, never credited the story.


It is curious to observe how the theory of what is called the Christian Church, sprung out of the tail of the heathen mythology. A direct incorporation took place in the first instance, by making the reputed founder to be celestially begotten. The trinity of gods that then followed was no other than a reduction of the former plurality, which was about twenty or thirty thousand. The statue of Mary succeeded the statue of Diana of Ephesus. The deification of heroes changed into the canonization of saints. The Mythologists had gods for everything; the Christian Mythologists had saints for everything. The church became as crowded with the one, as the pantheon had been with the other; and Rome was the place of both. The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

The Age of Reason

[miley]

I think that the fact that reading and writing at that period in time(biblical times) was not such a common thing for people to do and the fact the the majority of the bibical texts(the christian at least) were recording a long long time after the fact. Ever heard of a thing called a tall tale. Now i'm not saying that they are all lies but it would have been very easy for the generations of people passing the stories down to alter them slightly each time. Civil war accounts were documented as they occurred and copied many many times. That is the difference between the bibical and the historical thing.

[sd6515]

Dead sea scrolls that agree with the Bible, and the fact that many of the events in the Bible are backed by historical facts and documentation in non religous texts?

[Hardcore Newbie]

A common feature in some fiction is to detail it around real events so that the fiction seems more realistic. It's easy for a reader to identify with new york as a real place, because it is. But just because the writer puts in real events into their book, that doesn't make the book true.

[krazy chino]

i believe most of the bible, its a good book ....nothin bad in it

[Divestoned]

there is a huge difference between text writin' by historians...and text writin' by some guy, who climbed a mountain, and say's god spoke to him.

Dive:stoned:

[mfqr]

i believe most of the bible, its a good book ....nothin bad in it

Then I suppose you don't consider the idea of chopping people up into little pieces for not believing in God, and killing everyone in a whole town of non-believers, is nothing bad. And I suppose you don't consider the support of sexism and slavery bad either. Oh well.

[sd6515]

Then I suppose you don't consider the idea of chopping people up into little pieces for not believing in God, and killing everyone in a whole town of non-believers, is nothing bad. And I suppose you don't consider the support of sexism and slavery bad either. Oh well.

I don't, not in the time that the Bible was written, the Bible doesn't preach to do these things it was what was considered acceptable and moral in that time, there are stills laws on the books in the US restricting women and minorities rights but that does not mean that we now condone it in fact we are working daily to remove them. But this argument sounds like a typical atheist rant which makes no sense when thought through a logical mind, are history books bad because they talk about the horrible act committed by the nazzis etc., no. Not to mention that the parts in the Bible you are reffering to are more of a history of our religion and definately not saying how we should act as Christians. Sure there are insane fundalmentalist Christians out there, like Bush and his war, but that is not what the Bible preaches to us in any way.

But anyways if we all were high all the time every thing would be a lot better. Well I'm of to smokem peace pipe