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GAINING WEIGHT...
Mar 26, 2007

See? Science proves the JewsMuslims are inferior and must be purged! I'm not a racist, honest!

Who What Now posted:

*looks at post*

*looks at title of thread*

Golly, this sure is a tough mystery!

Right. It's the hardliners - of whom there are many, especially in the US - who consider the Bible to be the True Word of God, on the same level as the Quran. I've met these people, I've asked them about their faith. One girl I knew was of the opinion that if she found any part of the Bible to be untrue, she would likely stop being a Christian. Of course those verses that she didn't like, such as "women can not speak in church", had clever explanations as to why they didn't have to be followed.

When you think about it, though, this isn't too insane an opinion to have. In a sense, it actually makes more sense than a more liberal view where the Bible is a vague guidebook at most. I mean, if Christianity is the true religion, and the Bible is that religion's book, then wouldn't it be flawless? Wouldn't God's Word be without a single error? Or ask it from the other direction: why would God provide a book with his desires for human action, but muddy the waters so that we can't know for sure whether something Biblical is actually God's will?

If the Bible is just a collection of musings from men, then fine, but if that's the case then something else has to validate the Bible's supernatural claims. If the Bible saying the Jesus is God made man is not enough to prove that claim to be true, then something else claiming that has to be brought in to verify it, and nothing of the sort exists. The best we can do is read Josephus's history of the Jews, which states the Jesus existed and had followers, but nothing more. So Christianity kind of falls apart, at least as an objective, verifiable claim.

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icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


The problem is that in reality the Bible is a composite of at least 3 texts with entirely different theologies and authorial intents stapled together: the Old Testamant, the Gospel of John, and the synoptics, and standard Trinitarian Christian theology relies on a very specific interpretation of those texts that really isn't all that apparent at first, even given that they were chosen and edited specifically to support that interpretation and there are lots of letters and poo poo in the New Testament from Paul et al pushing it. The Catholics/Orthodox deal with this by giving the Church the exclusive right to determine what the correct interpretation is because of apostolic succession, but Protestants just have the Book, and if you try to take things too literally it just sort of short circuits because if you look too closely it becomes obvious it's an incoherent mess theologically

Basically Protestantism tries to substitute Islam-style infalliability of the text for church authority, but the nature of the text means it doesn't work very well

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 18:58 on Jul 21, 2015

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Shbobdb posted:

That's fine and perfectly understandable but it's not a justification. People presenting agnosticism as anything other than a rhetorical device are doing the whole discussion a disservice.

What's wrong with it as a standpoint?

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

The other problem is that do to various pyschological things, a pre-canned response handles the things that would normally break cognitive dissonance.

If a tri-God is perfect and loving, how could it make the conditions and biology or spirituality of a creature that turns evil (works for Satan AND Adam) since that person is nothing more than a combination of those two things? Free-will. But that makes no sense with the parameters in the Bible and you didn't answer the...FREE WILL.

Many fundamental churches raise these types of questions that inevitably break Bible literalism to their congregations, that basically almost everyone asks to themselves when actually thinking about it, and then pre non-answer it with something before someone logically breaks it apart themselves. Then ignoring any troublesome scriptures that go against that answer (since no one actually reads the BIble for themselves outside of the good feeling passages), and repeat it over and over.

It's really rough to manage the early Judiasm "god is good and evil" of the OT with the philosophy influenced, "god is in us" of the NT if anyone read them back to back, but that's managed by the preachers leading the congregations quite well.

FuzzySkinner
May 23, 2012

Abner Cadaver II posted:

You're confusing long-established Christian theology with American Fundamentalism, it's a very common mistake. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only_movement

Wow.

Yeah I heard a raving lunatic get on the radio, and kept trying to proclaim that anyone that didn't follow that particular version of the bible? Was a "False Christian". He also started to rant on about how Free Masons were satan worshippers and didn't belong in the church. Claimed they worshipped "two gods" and such.

MrNemo
Aug 26, 2010

"I just love beeting off"

icantfindaname posted:

The problem is that in reality the Bible is a composite of at least 3 texts with entirely different theologies and authorial intents stapled together: the Old Testamant, the Gospel of John, and the synoptics.

Well not really, it's far more than three. The OT is composed of many different texts, every 'book' of the OT is in fact a separate text that was compiled into a kind of cultural library for the Jews over the centuries. It's likely the first 5 were brought together and heavily, heavily edited during or just after the Babylonian exile by Israelites who had turned to monotheism and so there are some weird bits in those books where, if you read it through the lens of polytheism/henotheism, the stories make a bit more sense (like the creation myth where God talks with the others, usually described as angels or the whole fact of God not being obviously omnipotent).

I'd also say that Paul's letters really form another area of text separate from, but in modern christianity just as important, as the gospels. Paul made major changes to the practices and beliefs of the early church even coming into conflict a few times with Jesus' brother (who didn't think gentiles could be Christians) but ultimately Paul won out and so his instructions to various churches and guidance on matters take as much authority as the stories we have of Jesus.

Biblical literalism, especially the type that take the King James version of the bible as the inerrant word of god, is so pants on head retarded I get embarassed for people who profess it.

twistedmentat
Nov 21, 2003

Its my party
and I'll die if
I want to
I know a decent number of people who grew up in Evangelical households, and all of them had very similar bible experiances as kids. There was bible study, which was not "read the bible and see what you got out of it" but more "we are going to tell you where to read and what that means'. Reading ahead or beyond was a big no no because that would create uncomfortable questions like "if this passage says we should hate gays, shouldn't we also nail women's mouths shut if they speak out of turn?".

One clever Pastor said that all the extra stuff in the bible, the stuff we're supposed to ignore, was added by God so you can identify false prophets because they will quote that stuff.

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene

OwlFancier posted:

What's wrong with it as a standpoint?

What does "agnosticism" mean? What does "god" mean?

OwlFancier
Aug 22, 2013

Shbobdb posted:

What does "agnosticism" mean? What does "god" mean?

Broadly, agnosticism is "I don't know." It is professing a lack of knowledge about god, either not knowing whether god exists, or whether it is even possible to know if god exists.

God differs depending on who you ask, but I've yet to find one that agnosticism doesn't apply to.

The MUMPSorceress
Jan 6, 2012


^SHTPSTS

Gary’s Answer

Wade Wilson posted:

The thing to keep in mind here is that the Bible itself is the god that Christians in America worship. The actual deity described within it is irrelevant and most of the denominations straight up claim this.

The Bible is The Word and The Word is Jesus Christ. Worship The Word. Etc.

You seem to be confused about the translation of the word Logos. It's often translated as "The Word", but it's not meant in the manner you're stating.

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


LeftistMuslimObama posted:

You seem to be confused about the translation of the word Logos. It's often translated as "The Word", but it's not meant in the manner you're stating.

I think that's supposed to be a joke

MrNemo
Aug 26, 2010

"I just love beeting off"

OwlFancier posted:

Broadly, agnosticism is "I don't know." It is professing a lack of knowledge about god, either not knowing whether god exists, or whether it is even possible to know if god exists.

God differs depending on who you ask, but I've yet to find one that agnosticism doesn't apply to.

Atheism is the belief, founded on a metaphysical position of some type (nowadays typically some form of Physicalist empircism that seeks scientific proof), that there is no God. This can be soft atheism (we don't have any proof for God so we don't know the answer) or hard atheism (we have effective proof that there is no God).

Deism is the belief that there is some creator God or force but one that is on some fundamental level unknowable. You can worship God but all we have to go on regarding the 'Good Life' is the evidence of our senses and intuition.

Theism is the belief that there is a God and, typically through some religious text or prophet, we can know some of his intents and/or desires.

Agnosticism properly is the claim that the question of whether there is or isn't a God is by its nature unanswerable for us. It's analagous to trying to determine the truth value of 'This sentence is false', at best it demonstrates there's some problem with the question.

These are the meanings of the terms I've come to be familiar with, I'd be interested if someone has some radically different understanding. For some reasons a lot of New atheist types feel the need to co-opt agnosticism as soft atheism, accusing people who hold it of just being cowardly about denying the existence of God when the position is that thinking about whether there's a God is an exercise in futility.

ToxicSlurpee
Nov 5, 2003

-=SEND HELP=-


Pillbug
Agnosticism is more or less a lack of religious beliefs. Some people thought about it and went "gently caress, I have no idea" and left it at that. Others just don't have a set belief. Agnostics aren't answering the question. The agnostic view is that gods may or may not exist and we may or may not be able to understand them if they did. Maybe there is one god. Maybe there are thousands. The agnostic doesn't claim to have answers. Agnostics don't have any hostility toward any religions they just have no idea which one is right or if none of them are. Or if all of them are. Who really even knows? To some agnostics the question is largely irrelevant because if gods did exist they wouldn't pay much attention to us, especially not as individuals. To them we would be less than what ants are to us. Maybe I'll take notice of some ants, or even an individual one, on occasion but as a whole I don't really pay much attention to ants. I know they're there but I mostly ignore them.

Atheism is the deliberate, total rejection of all religions. The atheist view is that all religions are inherently made up and false. No gods exist, no gods have ever existed, and no gods can ever exist. All supernatural beliefs are inherently false.

There is actually quite a major difference between merely not having a religion and declaring that all religions are false. Even so fundies dislike both camps for very similar reasons. Both are suggesting that Christianity might be wrong. The atheist is standing there going "your god does not exist. Why do you believe he does?" while the agnostic is asking "well how do you know your god exists? You might be wrong. He might not or you might be misinterpreting Him." Both are viewed as terrible blasphemy. One is rejecting God. The other is questioning Him. Neither are acceptable to a fundie.

MrNemo
Aug 26, 2010

"I just love beeting off"

Oh don't get me wrong, both are going to be totally anaethema to fundamentalists. I think the question over agnosticism is more one for the whole New Atheist movement, which I've seen people who identify with on a few occasions simply claim agnosticism isn't a real position, it's just an intellectually dishonest cover for 'soft' atheism (the position that we don't have proof for God's existence, so there's no proof of God). Most atheists would also claim to be soft atheists, in the sense that they allow if they were shown incontrovertible proof of God's existence they would accept it, which neatly sidesteps charges that atheism is as much a faith as religions. I won't derail the thread with discussions of the New Atheism thing though, although I think that part of the cause for that whole movement was the increasing power and political influence of fundamentalist and evangelical Christian groups in Western nations combined with increasing awareness of fundamentalist Islam and Islamism.

Honestly I find biblical literalists and fundamentalists with a set interpretation of the Bible and their theology kind of sad. There's no awareness of the incredible history of the religion, the rich possibility for understanding in the book itself, the different ways people can experience and be helped by the faith. I say this as someone without any particular faith myself but I find the ideas fascinating, I've got friends who have devoted their lives to studying it (one of who has found faith through that) and then I see these people using it for magical thinking, talking in tongues and as a form of social club and yet they're the ones who insist everyone else is doing it wrong.

Shbobdb
Dec 16, 2010

by Reene

OwlFancier posted:

Broadly, agnosticism is "I don't know." It is professing a lack of knowledge about god, either not knowing whether god exists, or whether it is even possible to know if god exists.

God differs depending on who you ask, but I've yet to find one that agnosticism doesn't apply to.

What does that mean? "I haven't made a decision on a term I refuse to define" isn't a meaningful statement. Existence (and pretty much every other possible attribute) can't be applied to an undefined term.

grate deceiver
Jul 10, 2009

Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

MrNemo posted:

These are the meanings of the terms I've come to be familiar with, I'd be interested if someone has some radically different understanding. For some reasons a lot of New atheist types feel the need to co-opt agnosticism as soft atheism, accusing people who hold it of just being cowardly about denying the existence of God when the position is that thinking about whether there's a God is an exercise in futility.

I kinda agree with people who say theism/atheism and gnosticism/agnosticism are answers to completely different question. I mean, sure, if you know something to be true, then it's usually implied that you also believe it to be true, but the reverse is not necessarily so. You could be an agnostic theist or an agnostic atheist, or a gnostic theist or gnostic atheist.


ToxicSlurpee posted:

Agnosticism is more or less a lack of religious beliefs. Some people thought about it and went "gently caress, I have no idea" and left it at that.

Yeah, no, that's just atheism. If your answer to the question "Do you believe in God?" is anything other than a "Yes", then congrats, you're an atheist. Notice it's not about knowing or not knowing, but accepting the statement as true.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal
It depends if you're talking about weak agnosticism (I don't know) or strong agnosticism (the nature of God is inherently unknowable, and therefore all formal religion that professes knowledge of God is fallacious). The latter can be directly contrasted with gnosticism, that there is some hidden or mystical path to knowledge of the divine.

Some Pinko Commie
Jun 9, 2009

CNC! Easy as 1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣!

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

You seem to be confused about the translation of the word Logos. It's often translated as "The Word", but it's not meant in the manner you're stating.

Take it up with the pastors that literally preach what you quoted, not me.

MrNemo
Aug 26, 2010

"I just love beeting off"

Guavanaut posted:

It depends if you're talking about weak agnosticism (I don't know) or strong agnosticism (the nature of God is inherently unknowable, and therefore all formal religion that professes knowledge of God is fallacious). The latter can be directly contrasted with gnosticism, that there is some hidden or mystical path to knowledge of the divine.

The strong agnosticism you mentioned there isn't agnosticism, it's Deism in that it accepts the existence of a God.

I guess I'd define agnosticism as the rejection of the question itself, the answer to a question isn't always "yes/no".

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

MrNemo posted:

The strong agnosticism you mentioned there isn't agnosticism, it's Deism in that it accepts the existence of a God.

I guess I'd define agnosticism as the rejection of the question itself, the answer to a question isn't always "yes/no".
I guess in this case I'm saying 'completely unknowable' includes actual existence, to the extent that we can't even know if there is anything to know, because that would constitute knowing something. In that way it goes beyond Deism, which presupposes a creator god.

grate deceiver
Jul 10, 2009

Just a funny av. Not a redtext or an own ok.

MrNemo posted:

I guess I'd define agnosticism as the rejection of the question itself, the answer to a question isn't always "yes/no".

It is to this one. I guess people have trouble with the word 'believe' sometimes, but it can be rephrased as "Do you accept the statement "God exists" as true" if you want to be spergy about it.

This is not a question about the ultimate reality and truth, this is about your personal evaluation. It's also not a question of what might be possible or plausible. You either buy it, or you don't.

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
People who identify are agnostics are atheists who, for whatever reason, don't want to identify as atheists. Which is understandable, because atheists poll low in terms of likability in places such as the US, where evangelicals have hold a stable position. It's a distinction of political convenience, not one based on any kind of logical divide. You either believe or you don't believe.

GAINING WEIGHT...
Mar 26, 2007

See? Science proves the JewsMuslims are inferior and must be purged! I'm not a racist, honest!
I've waffled myself between the labels "atheist" and "agnostic" quite a bit in my life. I think agnostics make the mistake of seeing "atheist" as a strong statement about there being demonstrably no God, while atheists make the mistake of seeing agnostics as wishy-washy and intellectually dishonest.

I think there's two sides to the question: the philosophical and the practical. On the philosophical side, there is essentially no way to call oneself an Atheist and be intellectually consistent. The atheist demands proof and evidence, yet declares there is positively no God? That type of statement is by its very nature unprovable. This is further confounded by the fact that most conceptions of God mark him as hidden and mysterious. So your lack of evidence is even less of an indicator of his nonexistence. Thus, if we are not to accept a God, there is only one position that makes sense: we don't know if God is there, and we don't know if we can know if a God is there.

However, practically speaking, if you don't live your life as though there is a God, you are an atheist. The question of "do you act according to any God's will?" can be answered with a yes or no - if yes, even if that "God" is a vague, mother-Earth spirit type God, then you are not an atheist. But if no, then you are one.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth
I always like to use these definitions because they seem like the most clear and useful:



Also, this:

grate deceiver posted:

Yeah, no, that's just atheism. If your answer to the question "Do you believe in God?" is anything other than a "Yes", then congrats, you're an atheist. Notice it's not about knowing or not knowing, but accepting the statement as true.

And this:

rudatron posted:

People who identify are agnostics are atheists who, for whatever reason, don't want to identify as atheists. Which is understandable, because atheists poll low in terms of likability in places such as the US, where evangelicals have hold a stable position. It's a distinction of political convenience, not one based on any kind of logical divide. You either believe or you don't believe.

Are 100% true and accurate.

EDIT

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

On the philosophical side, there is essentially no way to call oneself an Atheist and be intellectually consistent. The atheist demands proof and evidence, yet declares there is positively no God?

No they don't. Or, at least, most atheists don't, but antitheists or contratheists (the "hard" atheists) do, while the majority are agnostic-atheists. The burden of proof is on the positive claim and it's completely fair to say that you do not believe in the claims of 'X' God because there isn't sufficient evidence to warrant that belief without also needing to actively disprove that same claim. You're shifting the burden of proof and you probably don't realize it.

Who What Now fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 22, 2015

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth
Double Post

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

GAINING WEIGHT... posted:

However, practically speaking, if you don't live your life as though there is a God, you are an atheist. The question of "do you act according to any God's will?" can be answered with a yes or no - if yes, even if that "God" is a vague, mother-Earth spirit type God, then you are not an atheist. But if no, then you are one.
What if you strongly believe that there is a God (or more than one), but also that its Will is so above any kind of human comprehension that it is impossible to try to act in accordance with it without tying oneself in knots, therefore the best thing to do is look for a humanistic moral code like 'don't be a dick' instead?

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

Guavanaut posted:

What if you strongly believe that there is a God (or more than one), but also that its Will is so above any kind of human comprehension that it is impossible to try to act in accordance with it without tying oneself in knots, therefore the best thing to do is look for a humanistic moral code like 'don't be a dick' instead?

That's a Diest.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Who What Now posted:

That's a Diest.
Yup, which is neither atheist nor agnostic, but doesn't fit any of the question "The question of "do you act according to any God's will?" can be answered with a yes or no - if yes, even if that "God" is a vague, mother-Earth spirit type God, then you are not an atheist. But if no, then you are one."

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

Guavanaut posted:

Yup, which is neither atheist nor agnostic, but doesn't fit any of the question "The question of "do you act according to any God's will?" can be answered with a yes or no - if yes, even if that "God" is a vague, mother-Earth spirit type God, then you are not an atheist. But if no, then you are one."

Deism is a theist position and doesn't necessarily touch on the a/gnostic position, so yes it's not agnostic or atheist, I guess? I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. If your point is that "Do you act according to God's will" isn't a great question to determine atheism or theism, then yeah you're completely right.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Who What Now posted:

If your point is that "Do you act according to God's will" isn't a great question to determine atheism or theism, then yeah you're completely right.
That was my point.

In keeping with the thread topic though, that does seem to be an Evangelical interpretation of 'theist', with everyone else being some degree of 'secular/atheist/satanist'.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

rudatron posted:

People who identify are agnostics are atheists who, for whatever reason, don't want to identify as atheists. Which is understandable, because atheists poll low in terms of likability in places such as the US, where evangelicals have hold a stable position. It's a distinction of political convenience, not one based on any kind of logical divide. You either believe or you don't believe.

Yeah, pretty much. An analogy is basically someone asking you, "do you like the food I made for you or not?" and you answer in a way to deflect the question or start blabbing for an hour saying what you did like but things that could be changed in avoidance of just saying "no" and offending them.

Discendo Vox
Mar 21, 2013

We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.
Efforts to incorporate the different agnostic positions under the umbrella of different flavors of atheism should be viewed with a degree of suspicion, since they're relatively recent redefinitions in service of the new atheist movement, which likes being able to switch between positions as needed to gain rhetorical leverage. Who What Now, where did you get that image?

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.
I've always been skeptical of agnosticism as it's own thing simply because I've never met a self-professed agnostic who wasn't functionally (i.e. in terms of it's impact on their life) an atheist. I don't know anybody who says they don't know if God exists, so they only go to church sometimes. I've known agnostics who studied a lot of religions looking for truth or something that called to them, but in that case they were generally less settled agnostics and more settlers looking for direction.

Xae
Jan 19, 2005

rudatron posted:

People who identify are agnostics are atheists who, for whatever reason, don't want to identify as atheists. Which is understandable, because atheists poll low in terms of likability in places such as the US, where evangelicals have hold a stable position. It's a distinction of political convenience, not one based on any kind of logical divide. You either believe or you don't believe.

Bullshit.

I'm an agnostic. I honestly do not know if there is a god or any supernatural power.

Discendo Vox posted:

Efforts to incorporate the different agnostic positions under the umbrella of different flavors of atheism should be viewed with a degree of suspicion, since they're relatively recent redefinitions in service of the new atheist movement, which likes being able to switch between positions as needed to gain rhetorical leverage. Who What Now, where did you get that image?

"Agnostics are really atheists but don't know it yet" is the same bullshit that religious groups pull with the "Everyone is really ${OUR_RELIGION}, they just don't know it yet".

Both are attempts to ignore a belief that contradicts with their simplistic worldview.

Darko posted:

Yeah, pretty much. An analogy is basically someone asking you, "do you like the food I made for you or not?" and you answer in a way to deflect the question or start blabbing for an hour saying what you did like but things that could be changed in avoidance of just saying "no" and offending them.

The food analogy would be "I have a dish you can't detect in the kitchen, do you like it or not?" Some assume it is something they like and say "Yes", some assume it is something they don't like and say "No", others say "How can I know?".

Of course, the saying "the devil was the first to reason by analogy" applies here.

Xae fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jul 22, 2015

Dairy Days
Dec 26, 2007

Pope Guilty posted:

I've always been skeptical of agnosticism as it's own thing simply because I've never met a self-professed agnostic who wasn't functionally (i.e. in terms of it's impact on their life) an atheist. I don't know anybody who says they don't know if God exists, so they only go to church sometimes. I've known agnostics who studied a lot of religions looking for truth or something that called to them, but in that case they were generally less settled agnostics and more settlers looking for direction.

Why is it so offensive to not be prepared to accept an/any understanding of god or related notions until I'm reading about it in Nature? Or does it make me seem inherently untrustworthy to not want to declare a position until I have access to more knowledge?

VideoTapir
Oct 18, 2005

He'll tire eventually.
This got posted on Facebook a couple days ago. Seems appropriate here now, the way the conversation's turned.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/07/10/the-sequel-in-my-classroom/

quote:

The Sequel to God’s Not Dead Happened in My Classroom, But In Reverse

July 10, 2015 by Neil Carter 639 Comments

Given that the first installment of God’s Not Dead only took $2M to make but grossed $60M, Pure Flix Entertainment decided to bless the world with a second installment, rather uncreatively entitled God’s Not Dead 2: He’s Surely Alive. It takes place in Arkansas and centers around a fictitious teacher named Grace who had the audacity to openly admit her Christianity in a public school setting (The horror! In the Bible Belt no less!).

With the principal and superintendent teaming up with a zealous civil liberties group represented by an attorney with no love lost for God, Grace faces an epic court case with the help of sympathetic and charismatic defense lawyer, that could cost her the career she had always dreamed of — and expel God from the classroom once and for all.

The teacher, portrayed by Melissa Joan Hart, gets sued by an atheist student who couldn’t countenance an open demonstration of faith, and somehow she has the support of the principal as well as the superintendent (clearly the writers have never been to Arkansas). This scenario even puts the teacher on trial for her crime of openly speaking about Jesus. Just as with the previous scenario in which an atheist professor demanded his students publicly renounce their faith on the first day of class (You can read my review of that cinematic train wreck here), the writers seem to have no idea how educational environments work. I’m guessing they also have no idea how the First Amendment is supposed to play out in government sponsored spaces.

Christian movies like this exist because real life doesn’t sufficiently validate people’s persecution complexes. Something more dramatic is needed to justify their fears. That’s where outfits like Pure Flix come in. They exist to feed Christian paranoia stemming from the belief that even though they make up the overwhelming majority of Americans (doubly so in Arkansas), somehow they are being mistreated by having to let other people occupy the same space.

Well, something like this plot does in fact happen in real life, and it happened in my own classroom—except in reverse, and minus the dramatic courtroom scene (again, that’s not how these things work). Let me tell you a story. This one, by the way, isn’t made up.
Confronted By a Student During Class

A few weeks into my previous teaching job, a seventh grader confronted me in front of the class, asking me if it was true that I am an atheist.
At this point in time I wasn’t open about that, but she was digging around my Facebook profile and found evidence which I had not yet realized could be seen by the general public. I knew better than to openly admit my atheism in Mississippi, especially since I had only transferred to this school to be where my own children were. I didn’t want to jeopardize that, so I dodged her question and said that I wasn’t at liberty to discuss my religious affiliation in class.

She shot back, “Why didn’t you say no?!”
See, just like with almost any other public school in the Bible Belt, at this school Christian teachers are free to be quite open about their religious beliefs. In fact, when my eldest was taking the same history class just the year before, her teacher livened up the story of Israel by marching around the room, blowing an imaginary trumpet to make the walls of Jericho come a-tumblin’ down. In case you wondered, no, that isn’t in the curriculum. But this is the Bible Belt. You can get away with stuff like that here and most people just eat it up. The parents in my county love that their children’s teachers are so demonstrative about their faith.

Well, that girl told all her friends and their parents that her teacher is an atheist. I refused to discuss the matter with anyone who asked me about it from that moment on, but it didn’t matter. The word had begun to circulate anyway. Which would explain why my principal showed up to my classroom, coincidentally enough, on the day I was slated to cover the history of Israel myself. Instead of sitting in the back and observing my instructional methods as our evaluation protocols prescribed, she interrupted my lesson and took over teaching the unit for nearly half an hour. I was a bit stunned. It was very awkward.

She grilled them about the Old Testament judges and asked them if the Israelites walked through the parted Red Sea on wet ground or dry (they all replied “dry!”) despite the fact that our text doesn’t cover miraculous claims from the Bible. She basically took over my class and turned it into a Sunday School lesson. After she left the room, one of my students turned to me and said, “What the heck was that?” They had never seen her just take over teaching a class like that before. It was out of the ordinary, and they weren’t exactly sure why it happened. It wouldn’t be the last intrusion.

Called on the Carpet

Finally one day this principal showed up to my room before the start of class to begin outlining a host of topics I was not to discuss in my class. Nothing controversial, nothing that would stir up debate among the students. “They’re talking about your class out in the hallways and at home!” she told me. “That’s…good, right?” I asked. “It stops, right now!” she replied. She went on to prohibit talking about politics or religion (in my history class!) for the remainder of the year. Nothing that would get the kids talking too much about what Mr. Carter said in his class. At last I had to ask her, “Why? Why can’t we talk about these things?”

“Because there’s talk in the community that you told your students you’re an atheist,” she said. I assured her that I hadn’t discussed my religious beliefs with my students at all, but that wasn’t good enough for her. She reiterated once more the parameters of what I was allowed to discuss: For example, it was the morning after the 2012 Presidential election and she told me I wasn’t allowed to discuss the outcome with my students. That one really stung because I had succeeded in getting the students highly motivated to follow the race, and two weeks before the election we collectively predicted 50/50 states correctly, waiting only for Florida to make up its mind (we got that one right, too, btw).

I clammed up about anything remotely controversial, and did my best to follow her instructions because I really wanted to keep that job. I wanted desperately to teach where my own girls attended and I wasn’t willing to jeopardize that over an identity that I wasn’t even ready to publicize.

But then a couple of months later, she removed me from my history class in the middle of the year, placing me instead into a math class in a lower grade for the remainder of the year. My students cried, even some of the teenage boys. They begged me to stay and then went over her head, circulating a petition to get the head principal to bring me back, but to no avail. I finished the remainder of the year teaching math only to discover that they never had any intentions of bringing me back. At contract renewal time, they called me into the office and informed me that I wouldn’t be returning to that school—or any other school in the district in any capacity—ever again. They put it in writing but didn’t include any explanation for why I wasn’t welcome back. I felt like a convicted felon.

Incidentally, two weeks later I started this blog. That was just over two years ago, although this is the first time I’ve written this story out.

One Last Shot at Classroom Teaching

By the time I found out I didn’t have a job to return to, it was so late in the year that the only school system still hiring was the inner city school district. I took a job teaching math there and stayed for two years. After becoming the target of religiously-motivated bullying and what I came to call “evandalism” I decided to tender my resignation with that school district and now I’m looking to figure out what I should do next.

It seems to me that teaching in my area is a bad idea because now that the word is out that I’m an atheist, no one is going to want to hire me. I’ll be a liability for them because parents and students simply will not tolerate having an atheist in their classroom. It doesn’t matter that I never discuss my beliefs with them, nor did I even come out of the atheist “closet” until after people virtually pushed me out against my will. The point is that the reality of teaching in the Bible Belt is the exact opposite of the fictitious scenario in God’s Not Dead 2. It’s a religious fiction concocted in order to feed the fears of Christians who interpret every minor loss of privilege as bona fide persecution.

They’re not converting people anymore (check the stats). They are no longer winning souls. They’re still selling a cure to a disease which people of this generation don’t even believe they have. But they’ve got to be about something. They have to matter to the world somehow. So now they’re manufacturing conflicts in order to have something to rally behind. It makes them feel more in touch with the early Church’s tumultuous beginnings. But it takes a lot of smoke and mirrors to make it look like the people with the most privilege in a region (like Christians in the Bible Belt) are being mistreated by the people who run things. Where I live, all the judges, jurors, and attorneys are devout Christians. So are the teachers, the principal, and almost all of the parents.

That’s why they have to make movies like this. Because in real life it doesn’t play out like this, unless it’s in reverse.


If you don't deny it, you are.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth

Discendo Vox posted:

Efforts to incorporate the different agnostic positions under the umbrella of different flavors of atheism should be viewed with a degree of suspicion, since they're relatively recent redefinitions in service of the new atheist movement, which likes being able to switch between positions as needed to gain rhetorical leverage. Who What Now, where did you get that image?

I have the image saved on my computer, I don't remember where I got it. What specific issues do you take with it, or is vague allusions to the spooky "New Atheist movement" all you have?

Xae posted:

Bullshit.

I'm an agnostic. I honestly do not know if there is a god or any supernatural power.

Ok, but do you believe there is one? Knowledge and belief are not synonyms (although there is an argument that knowledge is a subset of beliefs, being beliefs held with maximal reasonable certainty) and when talking about theism and atheism the only question being asked is whether or not you believe, not what you claim to know.

quote:

"Agnostics are really atheists but don't know it yet" is the same bullshit that religious groups pull with the "Everyone is really ${OUR_RELIGION}, they just don't know it yet".

Both are attempts to ignore a belief that contradicts with their simplistic worldview.

How does "I don't know" contradict "I don't believe"?

quote:

The food analogy would be "I have a dish you can't detect in the kitchen, do you like it or not?" Some assume it is something they like and say "Yes", some assume it is something they don't like and say "No", others say "How can I know?".

Of course, the saying "the devil was the first to reason by analogy" applies here.

The food analogy is bad. A better analogy is that of the courtroom. When you're on a jury the prosecution makes a positive claim about the defendant and their job is to show that their claim is true and that the defendant is guilty of their claim. When you as a juror vote do you vote "Guilt" or "Innocent"? No, you vote "guilty" or "not guilty" because while not guilt does include innocent it does not require you to actively know the defendant is innocent to vote not guilty. If you're a juror and when asked "Is the defendant guilty" and you answer "I don't know" then that's a not guilty vote.

So let's say that God is put on trial for existing. Do you believe God is guilty or not guilty of existing?

Xae
Jan 19, 2005

Who What Now posted:

I have the image saved on my computer, I don't remember where I got it. What specific issues do you take with it, or is vague allusions to the spooky "New Atheist movement" all you have?


Ok, but do you believe there is one? Knowledge and belief are not synonyms (although there is an argument that knowledge is a subset of beliefs, being beliefs held with maximal reasonable certainty) and when talking about theism and atheism the only question being asked is whether or not you believe, not what you claim to know.


How does "I don't know" contradict "I don't believe"?


The food analogy is bad. A better analogy is that of the courtroom. When you're on a jury the prosecution makes a positive claim about the defendant and their job is to show that their claim is true and that the defendant is guilty of their claim. When you as a juror vote do you vote "Guilt" or "Innocent"? No, you vote "guilty" or "not guilty" because while not guilt does include innocent it does not require you to actively know the defendant is innocent to vote not guilty. If you're a juror and when asked "Is the defendant guilty" and you answer "I don't know" then that's a not guilty vote.

So let's say that God is put on trial for existing. Do you believe God is guilty or not guilty of existing?

Belief is not a court of law. You're attempting to force a binary answer to a non-binary question. So I'll reply with a proper binary answer: NULL.

You have fallen into a narrow minded view of the world so you can separate it into Us vs Them.

You have then tried to deny the existence of a group of people who disagree with your viewpoint.

Guavanaut
Nov 27, 2009

Looking At Them Tittys
1969 - 1998



Toilet Rascal

Who What Now posted:

So let's say that God is put on trial for existing. Do you believe God is guilty or not guilty of existing?
I believe this post is guilty of existing.

You're making the argument that somebody is an atheist unless they specifically believe (presumably beyond reasonable doubt, being as you invoked the courtroom standard of evidence) in God. Does it have to be the one big God? Can you believe in only a limited fetish or river god or something, but believe in them fully or honestly? What about the Eastern religions that have a significantly different conception of what it is that is actually believed in?

You're lumping a lot of different people into the atheist tent here by not having them be active believers, which is similar (but less exclusive) to the Evangelical grouping of "people that have a personal belief that the Lord Jesus Christ died for their sins" and "heretics".

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Darko
Dec 23, 2004

The food analogy works only in that context where it was presented because it is a relate-able statement of subjective opinion that is avoided with a different answer in order not to ruffle any feathers, which "I am agnostic" often is. Just like people avoid direct answers of subjective feelings about things like food that other people make for them, they avoid a direct answer of how much they believe in god(s) to not give a certain appearance. Arguably the supposedly in-the-middle "I don't know" popular agnostic answer came about in the first place because of avoidance of religious persecution (not to be confused with the ancient agnostic position, which was basically "we won't ever know the real truth").

Now there are people who functionally don't understand the difference between active belief and knowledge. Gnostic refers to knowledge, and is not an answer to the question about belief. Atheism is an absence of belief - which "I don't know" pretty much always falls under. The issue here is only when you explain the difference and people fight it, which is probably again, due to the "image" of atheism as opposed to what it actually is. It took me a few years to switch from a self definition of agnostic to atheist for that reason, though, so I may be projecting there.

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