Answers, expansions, and clarifications

   There have been some really great comments made on the last entry I posted, wherein I answered some common questions posed by the religious to the irreligious. I wanted to reply to some of them, and to expand on some of my answers in response to requests by a few people.

Dan,
   Thanks for the compliment re: the "is sobriety an addiction" line. When I wrote my first draft of those answers I had the old "if atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby" adage penciled in, but I have never really liked that statement's use of the word 'not.' I preferred to make a more actively positive statement, and after a little thought I hit upon that. I'm glad you like it. Use it unattributed and your ass is grass.
   Regarding my answer about the world being better off (or not) without religion, I have to point out that there have been dark periods in the history of the western world. There have been times when the church has acted as a guardian of knowledge against a rising tide of barbarism. I believe it was called 'the dark ages.' During the long crawl out of that pit of chaos that peaked in the rennaissance, the church acted as a driving force in both education and scientific inquiry. There have been periods in our relatively recent history when the only people who knew how to read and write were the priests and monks of the Christian church. People who wanted their children to get an education, sent them to the seminary, or to live in an abbey somewhere.
   At some point that all changed. I suspect the tipping point was the increasing politicisation of the Catholic church during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. The whole inerrancy of The Bible idea was set in stone at about that time, and we all know what happens to things set in stone. They stay put. For centuries.

Simon,
   Ours is a corporeal existence. "Ugly bags of mostly water," we are little else. I touched upon this in two different answers yesterday, but only in passing, and not explicitly. When we die, that thing which we percieve as "us" ceases to exist. We have no non-corporeal segment of ourselves. No part of our consciousness survives our bodily death. This I believe. When I die, "I" will be completely gone, except in the hearts and minds of those who remember me. So it goes. (I was going to tap your chestwith a glowing finger and whisper, "I'll be right here," but I thought that would be over dramatic.)

Jenny,
   Did you have no exposure to religion in your childhood? Did you never attend church with your parents, or grandparents, or the Girl Scouts? Were you completely absent any kind of belief in God before you "met the living Jesus?" Somehow I doubt it. (By the way, what's this Jesus guy like? Tall, short? What colour are his eyes? Is he clean shaven or does he sport a little soul patch? What colour is his hair? What was he wearing? What does his voice sound like? I know you think these questions are flippant, but I ask them in all seriousness.)
   I have to say I found your resources interesting. I also found your angle of approach fascinating. When you talked about evidence supporting The Bible, I naturally assumed you meant evidence supporting what The Bible is about - the existence of God. I didn't think you meant evidence supporting the accuracy of what is essentially background information.
   I have never questioned the historical accurracy of The Bible. I'm sure some of the personages and events described therein are highly fictionalized. I also accept that a great many of the people and places mentioned actually existed. But this is all beside the point. The fact that archeological evidence supports much of the historical background of The Bible in no way supports its prime claim - that there is an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being directing our lives. Where is your evidence supporting that?
   Your comments also bring to the fore one of my biggest pet peeves: the intellectual dishonesty of religious apologetics. Those websites to which you provided links are lying to you. Sure, every single piece of information they provided is factual. Their falshood is one of ommission. By presenting a list of things in The Bible that can be shown to be accurate, or 'true' if you like, they are, without ever saying so, implying that the rest of The Bible is true as well. Even though they know this is not the case, when they are called on it, they can feign innocence by saying, "we never said everything was true." They are lying just as surely as those who claim there is strong evidence to suggest humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
   Regarding myth. Many mythologies have factual elements. In fact, adding factual elements to a story to lend it an air of "verisimilitude" is an age-old literary technique. For example...
fact: A fellow named Yeshua (Jesus) was executed by the Romans by means of crucifixion during the early first century.
myth: He rose from the dead three days later and walked around showing people the holes in his hands, feet, and side, then bodily ascended into the sky.
fact: The Israelites conquered, sacked and demolished the city of Jericho with a mighty military force.
myth: They blew their horns and the walls all came spotaneously tumbling down.

Tags: more, skepticism, religion, atheism, answers, and stuff