Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
Atheist Penelope
Surgoshan:
No serious theologian, perhaps, but the average theist? They very often rely on that argument. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" really gets thrown around far too much.
Jackie Blue:
And here is where we get to the part of this endless discussion that stops everyone from learning anything: When people start saying "Oh, well, I'm talking about the average religious person". It's anecdotal, it's ultimately meaningless, and it's hard as shit to talk about because do you mean the "average" Buddhist, or the "average" Christian, or the "average" Discordian, or the "average" Deist, or...?
Why must atheist-religious talk invariably focus on the anthropomorphised version of the Judeo-Christian God, a focus that ignores centuries of mainstream Judeo-Christian theology that refutes the concept of God-as-big-dude-in-the-sky?
Dotes:
--- Quote ---Why must atheist-religious talk invariably focus on the anthropomorphised version of the Judeo-Christian God, a focus that ignores centuries of mainstream Judeo-Christian theology that refutes the concept of God-as-big-dude-in-the-sky?
--- End quote ---
Because then it's not the Judeo-Christian God, but rather a God that mainstream Judeo-Christians have created for themselves? The God of the bible is the big-dude in the sky. End-o-story. Of course, the average Christian in the U.S. barely reads the bible. But, I suppose I should admit, that I may have been a little rash in my defense of Penelope and her ilk, because whether I like it or not, they certainly exist. There are certainly pig-headed atheists as well as theists. Not sure about deists. Eh. I'm tired of discussing religion. It's too much work. :laugh:
pwhodges:
--- Quote from: Jackie Blue on 19 Dec 2008, 15:14 ---Why must atheist-religious talk invariably focus on the anthropomorphised version of the Judeo-Christian God
--- End quote ---
Does it? I hadn't really noticed, because I don't find it makes much difference to the arguments anyway.
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: Dotes on 19 Dec 2008, 16:09 ---The God of the bible is the big-dude in the sky. End-o-story.
--- End quote ---
Er, no. The God of the Old Testament is presented as such, but not all theologians take the Bible literally. God-as-dude is never mentioned in the New Testament, unless you count Jesus, but he was an anarchist and a political criminal who was assassinated for going against the established order more than he was a "God". A lot of mainstream Christian theologians contend that Jesus' assertion boiled down to "I am God, you are God, we are all God"; in other words, that God is not an entity, but a part of the human experience. To quote the Stone Roses who were paraphrasing people who explore that line of thought: "The Kingdom's all inside".
Of course, they were talking about taking LSD, but I know plenty of people who have seen God while on that drug (and just as many who lost him on it, too).
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