Positively Non-Religious

Atheists vs. Fundamentalist Re: Creation Museum

• After our April trip to the Creation Museum, I put a link to my blog post on Garrison's facebook wall (a link to that blog post is in the comments below). As it just so happens, Garrison's fundamentalist Christian sister read this post, and shared her thoughts. Here's the exchange that followed.
• Paula: Unfortunately, you have no interest in making sense of who God is and why He does what He does. In reference to your thoughts on His doings to Noah and family/friends; He's the Heavenly Father who just like earthly parents, after many warnings and scoldings can't do anything but punish His children. He warns us over and over again that punishment will come for those who do wrong, it's US who ignore HIM and decide to go with our own decisions thinking we know everything and how to run our lives. How can a creation know more than the Creator? BEFORE you automatically look at the "bad" God has done to his beloved children look at all the warnings He has given to the Israelites who CONTINUOUSLY disobeyed Him. Besides if He was so heartless, why would He give His beloved Son to die on the cross? P.S. There was no disease before Garden of Eden, it's after they had sinned disease was established, it's in the Bible, the book that never changes and where every book backs each other up.
• Schmidt: I think punish is too soft of a word here. I was a rotten kid sometimes, but my parents never murdered me. And they created me. The idea that creating someone gives the creator the right to make endless, illogical demands and then abuse or threaten to abuse if not obeyed does not fly with me. It sounds like the actions of an egomaniac, no matter how omniscient or powerful that creator may be. No one knows God, nor can they. If there is a God, he has made himself so unknowable, so unreachable that it is in no way my fault if I simply choose to live my life according to my own demands. God is a negligent father. And the whole story of Jesus dying on the cross never really made sense to me. How does some guy (yes, even the son of God) getting crucified absolve me of my sins? Okay, I'm a pretty decent guy. I've never killed anyone or robbed anyone or beat anyone up, but what about serial killers? Does it absolve them too? There seems to be some questions of proportionality. If I were going to pick a religion, I would pick one with a better story than Christianity. I like the more fantastical ones with multiple-headed beings and gods of the sea and sky and so forth.
• Tristan: I lol'ed.
• Chris: And Schmidt serves up a delicious retort. Bravo, sir.
• Shane: Good points Schmidt. I can't help but add my two cents. (1) God is like earthly parents? Okay, then. That would be like someone having 30 kids, realizing that all but one of them are brats, and deciding to throw the other 29 in the ocean to drown. That's not acceptable parenting, it's mass murder. (2) But God's alright because he did some good stuff? That would be like saying an abusive father (or husband, etc.) is actually a great guy because he bought you a new car, or paid for your college tuition, or bailed you out of jail, or whatever. That's not how any healthy relationship should work. Good deeds don't make atrocities go away, and nothing can atone for terrible atrocities. (3) If God existed and he were all-powerful, then why would he need to sacrifice himself to himself in order to change a rule he himself had made up? Schmidt is right -- this story doesn't make any rational sense anymore. It only made sense when it was new, and animal sacrifice was a common way of trying to get on gods' good sides. But it's the 21st century, and people should be smart enough to know that animal sacrifice is just a barbaric superstition. Same goes for demigod sacrifice. (4) If the Bible never changes, then why was there any need for the Council of Trent? Why does the Catholic Bible have more books than the Protestant Bible? What about the apocryphal books? Why are there new English translations of the Bible coming out all the time? (5) If everything in the Bible agrees with everything else, then how do you explain this: http://www.project-reason.org/gallery3/image/105/ or this: http://www.wordwiz72.com/bible.html#Contradictions ? (6) Of course I'm not interested in making excuses for God. Because there's no good reason to think that he's anything other than fictional. Same goes for Jesus. Along the same lines, I could criticize you for not trying to understand Krishna. Or Vishnu. Or Buddha. Or Thor. Or Zeus. Or Ba'al. Or Baphomet. You dismiss these and countless other gods without taking the time to try and understand them. Likewise, others dismiss your God and believe fully in their own. There's no difference, though -- they're all fiction.
• Garrison: Paula, those replies were excellently written, and I have nothing to add. All I'm going to do is plead with you. I'm literally begging you, please answers the questions posed by Schmidt and Shane. These aren't questions these guys came up with just to pick on you. They're fundamental problems with your religion. Ones that have NEVER been satisfactorily answered. Please take the time to seriously answer. Don't tell us to just read the Bible. Don't give us the name of a Biblical scholar. Don't give us Biblical verses and rehearsed retorts that you've been taught. Give us in-depth thought and scientific evidence. Please. As it stands now, we don't have compelling reasons to believe what you believe. If someone gave me irrefutable proof that God exists, I'd have no choice but to believe in Him. And I think I speak for all intelligent atheists when I say that.
• [She never replied.]