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"The Bible has written all over it the fact that it was a human-edited, socially constructed collection of books put together by humans over many centuries."
"Smart people are very good at rationalizing things they came to believe for non-smart reasons."
"It's mythic storytelling and nothing more. The more we learn about archeology and history of Biblical times, the more we realize that most of the stuff in the Bible is fiction."
"It's an article of faith. It's part of a religious belief system that really doesn't fit the way we think when we think scientifically, when we live in the age of science when we're supposed to live in the age of evidence and challenge beliefs."
"We can start right off with the first two books of the Bible in Genesis. In the first chapter, God creates Adam and Eve at the same time. In the second chapter, God creates Adam, and then Adam does a few things -- he names the animals, he does this, and he does that -- and he gets lonely, and he talks to God and says, 'I'm lonely.' God then says, alright, I'll provide you with a mate, and then he takes the rib and he creates Eve out of the rib and sowhat. We all knows these stories. These are two different creation stories."
"Now, believers will say, 'Oh, well that's just two different versions of the same event.' Fine. But then don't, in the next breath, tell me, 'Oh, we have to take the Bible literally. When it says this, it means this.'"
"There's no possible way that Noah could've retained all 10 billion species on a single boat and then distributed them appropriately, where the marsupials are all in Australia and so forth. This is just ridiculous. It is so ridiculous, I find it embarrassing for people who attempt to prove that it's true. This is not a literal story. This is a story about destruction, redemption, starting over, begging anew, forgiveness, redemption, and so on. To try and read it literally is to miss the point of the story."
"We are told that these people spent 40 years wandering around in the desert, they escaped as slaves from Egypt and so forth. There is not a shred of archeological or historical evidence outside the Bible that this is even true, that it ever even happened. You would think that if people spent 40 years wandering around in the desert, they would leave some archeological evidence. There's absolutely none. There's no evidence that even somebody like Moses even existed."
"An important question is, 'Did Jesus actually exist?' Within the community of people who study this stuff, there are some who are skeptics. I would go so far as to say there probably was a man named Jesus."
"Jesus was not the only Messiah at the time. There were lots of messiahs. In fact, there was another fellow named Appolonius of Tyana, who in the First Century was claimed by his followers that he healed the sick, he raised the dead, he was able to walk through walls and buildings, that he was in fact persecuted for his religious beliefs, he was brought to trial by the local Roman courts, he was crucified and after he died we are told he ascended to heaven and he came back where his followers saw him. This is not the Jesus story; this is Appolonius of Tyana. Who the heck is that??"
"Look, most of the things attributed to Jesus are miracles that could easily be performed by Penn & Teller on their stage show."
Thoughts?
Last edited by DeathGreetsMeWarm; 02-04-2014 at 09:55 PM..
I'll go along with that. Of course, while I agree that the Gospel story, if taken as rather partial and somewhat gullible eyewitness could be explained as a series of hoax miracles, I hold to the hypothesis that it isn't eyewitness, but is a story of a Christian - type Christ foisted onto a story of a Jewish failed messiah.
The mentality of some people comes very clear very quickly sometimes. Like rather than present any evidence for certain stories in the Bible, the speaker attempts to present hypothetical reasons that explain why that evidence is unavailable.
I wish I could press a button and install a mental alarm that goes off glaringly when people attempt to present a total lack of evidence AS evidence.
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