Bible Bashers

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I don’t mean some Holy Roller Evangelical from Dayton, Ohio. Quite the opposite. I mean those people who are always bashing the Bible.

”It’s a bunch of fairy stories’. Yes Bible stories have like a fairy- tale like quality but a Bible story has I believe a connection to historical fact.

Chesterton called the Bible -‘The Fairy tale that is true’. Tolkien-‘The myth that is true’.
Bible bashers read it the wrong way. Or put another way the New Atheist is as fundamental as the Fundamentalist.

They take everything so literally. There they are with their great big sausage fingers in the text ‘but it says here that the Ark was…’ 80 cubits this and 40 cubits of whatever it is ‘so we know that it couldn’t float…’ or some such…but that was only a literary convention. A lot of ancient writing is like that. Very detailed. The Iliad is.

We often hear of some terrible disaster as being of ‘Biblical Proportions’. But I always think that ‘Biblical Proportions’ should rather mean a smallish disaster. In the Bible it says the Flood ‘covered the whole world’. But the whole world back then would have been ancient Israel. I have heard that it could be translated as ‘The Flood covered the whole land’.

I think Noah existed. He is described as a crank and drunkard. Very human. He was ridiculed and scoffed at for putting all his energy into building ‘his Ark’. Just like some American ex-forces building a bunker in the desert to escape nuclear Armageddon.

There is truth in the story I mean. It rings true. I know some moron who’s only read it in Wikipedia will mention Gilgamesh. That there is a similar story there. But that just proves there were catastrophic floods back in ancient days. Like there was a huge catastrophic flood in 2004. Like there have been floods throughout history. I just believe some visionary could have predicted it and prepared. Like Noah.

The animals went in two by two. Once again that would be the animals Noah had. His livestock. This is what I mean- about literary convention- one of them was HYPERBOLE. Something happened and it was deliberately exaggerated. But SOMETHING DID HAPPEN.

The Parting of the Red Sea. A miraculous escape. We know that the Red Sea can at times under certain atmospheric conditions PART. See link. I am not saying the Red Sea Pedestrians were waiting for the little green man to appear and then they crossed but SOMETHING, something as in the link could explain it.

The 10 plagues of Egypt. I always think of that line in Shakespeare – ‘“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions”. When one load of suffering is compounded by more and more suffering (a bit like now).’Could things get any worse?’ we often think to ourselves. Well they did for the ancient Egyptians. And once again all the 10 plagues can be explained scientifically. See link. The Burning Bush. That burned and was not consumed. I just can imagine that. Can’t explain.

Balaam’s Ass. The Ass who could talk. Now this is a difficult one. Cardinal Newman said he was prepared to believe it. I remember once a bird singing and I felt it was talking to me.

Old Testament times are known as ‘Sacred History’. When fantastical things happened. A time of supernatural events, a special time.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11383620

https://www.livescience.com/58638-science-of-the-10-plagues.html

Nominated by: Miles Plastic

110 thoughts on “Bible Bashers”

  1. Whichever cunt wrote the Book of Revelation must have been on some quality drugs.
    School teachers were fucking hilarious. Lecturing about the evils of drugs, but then teaching us about the scariest and most fucked up LSD trip ever committed to text.
    And yes, my early education was from nuns.

    • Religious belief gives a similar dopamine rush/reward endorphin rush as hard drugs from what I understand.
      This might explain why many hardcore religious types (such as Young Earth Creatards) refuse to acknowledge contrary evidence to their beliefs when presented with it………. same kind of science-denying mentality as Flat Earthers and Vegans.

  2. The bible? A topping read in parts provided it’s not taken too seriously.
    Jesus? Top lad, seems a bit of a hippy but he did no wrong and pissed off the rich, privileged, powerful and avaricious hierarchy of the time so gets a free pass from me! 😀👍
    Whether he was the Son of god or a radical social activist and reformer remains a matter of debate!

    • He wasn’t completely perfect. He did commit vandalism when he overturned the money-lender’s tables in the temple and he also instructed a couple of his disciples to steal some donnkeys which directly contravenes one of the 10 commandments.

      Aside from that though, a thoroughly bloody nice chap (as Tim Nice-But-Dim would say.

  3. 🎶 “It ain’t necessarily so, things that you’re liable to read in the bible, it ain’t necessarily so” 🎶
    Mind you, I expect Jimmy Somerville objects to the line “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination”
    The big shirt lifter.

  4. The RSP’s pinched quite a lot of their history, in fact, not just Gilgamesh (the similarity of Utnapishtim with Noah is still more than superficial. Details:

    https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-bible-is-fiction-a-collection-of-evidence/
    .)

    Though I like the theory that the reason flood myths are pretty universal is that you get that kind of dream when your bladder is telling you it’s time to wake up ffs.

    Above all, the RSP’s pinched their religion. You are invited to go into this yourself, Miles, as you certainly won’t believe me. But if you call your alleged creator The Lord, that is simply a translation of the Canaanite El, the regional deity pre-Exodus. And that name appears several times in the Bible, untranslated.

    All that happened was the competing sky fairies of the old pantheon were gradually edged out – not even all at once; see under golden calf! – to leave El/ Ea/ Jaw-Ea/ Old Nobodaddy demontrating his love of the Jews by getting a good half of them slaughtered because of their religion in WW2.

    • @Komodo I see you are also quite well-read on the history/mythology of the ancient Levant. A man after my heart.

      • It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Got on to the area after a visit to Ephesus – where St Paul got firmly told to fuck off – and picking up on the Diana/Artemis cult. From then on I was doomed!

      • Oh shit I remember that! Although I was rather drunk and peeved at the time (for a change) so either I wasn’t explaining myself well or Komodo either wasn’t understanding what I was saying or was being deliberately obtuse. Could be any of the above really.

      • That was a rattling good thread. With liberal helpings of shitstirring from…name escapes me…ruff something…

  7. Miles Plastic you really have a way with words and give many examples to back up what you’re saying.
    I think you can measure your success with the amount of Godless folk on here slating you, they seem have all the answers when it comes to denying religion, yet have no answers to how the world was created (a big bang that came from nothing apparently), they also believe in love yet can’t prove love exists or what it is.
    They can go fuck themselves.
    Amen.

    • Errr – would I be right in thinking that a self-created creator creating the universe is for you an improvement on a self-created universe? I say do not multiply hypotheses unnecessarily.

      As to love, it is an experience or a complex of physical and mental perceptions* overriding the normal cautions and inhibitions in order to encourage mating. As it is an experience, the first question to be asked before wondering if it exists is ” what do you mean by ‘exists? ‘ ”

      * and secretions, of course

      • Afternoon Komodo,
        Science cannot prove how the world we live in was created, this world which we enables us to live and survive and provides all we need to live and thrive.
        Perhaps there was a big bang, which the Creator enabled.
        As for love, love is felt towards family members as well as potential partners so I disagree abaaaaaht mating only.

      • There is no self created Creator, the Creator always was and always will be.

        No beginning and no end.
        Praise God. ✝️

      • @Black and White Cunt Have you ever heard of Occam’s Razor? The basic premise is that of all possible explanations for an occurance, the one that makes the least assumptions is most likely.

        What the God hypothesis does is not only add an extra layer of complexity to an already-complex question, it also lends itself to an infinite regress – if God created the universe, who created God, if something created God, who created that something……. etc etc.

        Carl Sagan put it rather eloquently “If the general picture of an expanding universe and a Big Bang is correct, we must then confront still more difficult questions. What were conditions like at the time of the Big Bang? What happened before that? Was there a tiny universe, devoid of all matter, and then the matter suddenly created from nothing? How does that happen? In many cultures it is customary to answer that God created the universe out of nothing. But this is mere temporizing. If we wish courageously to pursue the question, we must, of course ask next where God comes from. And if we decide this to be unanswerable, why not save a step and decide that the origin of the universe is an unanswerable question? Or, if we say that God has always existed, why not save a step and conclude that the universe has always existed?”

      • I should have said “fruitful mating”, which would cover your objection. Naturally* humans, being K-strategists, tend to protect their relatives, to give their genes the best chance.

        Science cannot prove…sure. Nor can you. Stalemate at best.

        It’s a question of belief, ultimately, and the physical evidence of a material universe works better for me than the very varied and contradictory spiritual insights of some rather primitive people, however beautifully stated, and however much they insist they got them directly from the Eyes in the Sky.

      • Ahhh, you meant “pituitary secretions”. I thought you were referring to the combined output of the above pornstars, laced lovingly over “Dick Emery” as he kneels down in the confessional box… or something similar.

    • Agree with you B&WC.

      The Big Bang theory, conjured up by a Jesuit priest, doesn’t solve jack shit and is just another creation myth that relies on its own set of metaphysical miracles and untested assumptions.

      People who adamantly defend it whilst attacking other creation myths do my head in. You’re all fighting over fictions.

      • Big Bang Cosmology has been hypothesised, then the evidence for it has been predicted by mathematics, then confirmed by the presence of cosmic microwave background radiation. It happened, deal with it.

        Religious people know nothing whilst claiming to know everything, scientists don’t claim to know anything for certain (as per the scientific method which is based on doubt, certainty) but scientists know a fuck ton more than any alleged “Holy Man”

        Science makes no philosophical or metaphysical claims regarding the question of “why” because why is not a scientific question. Science deals with the “how” and mostly succeeds in answering that question.

        Physicists can’t know for certain what “came before” the universe (which is a ridiculous statement considering that time came into existence with the universe) but they are investigating possibilities……….. unlike religiots who are happy to settle with “well God’s what done did it obviously!”

        If you need to know about what current physicists think regarding the Big Bang watch this video (word of warning, the host AronRa is a lefty cunt so might slip in unnecessary anti-conservative comments. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scIEKOUSO1E

      • ‘Religious people know nothing whilst claiming to know everything’.
        That’s quite an assumption there TITS, I choose to believe that the Creator created everything we know and don’t know, I believe the creation that happened back then is beyond our understanding, and as man is obsessed with explaining and understanding everything man then looks to science to explain what happened way back then.
        I don’t try to tell others what is truth or fact as I wasn’t there to say for sure, I simply choose to believe what I think is right and truthful.
        I respect your science has the answer belief, although I think in parts it’s bollocks.
        Science can’t cure cancer, science cant explain how the universe and whatever else is out there began, science does not have the answer for everything I’m afraid. Deal with it.

      • “That’s quite an assumption there TITS, I choose to believe that the Creator created everything we know and don’t know”

        You CHOOSE to believe? Right you are Chief. I don’t form my understanding (not the same thing as choice) through what I WANT to believe but through what reality reveals to be true………. or in the case of non-belief, what reality reveals to be not true or evident.

        “I believe the creation that happened back then is beyond our understanding”

        So you are an agnostic then? As am I.

        “and as man is obsessed with explaining and understanding everything man then looks to science to explain what happened way back then”

        There is a reason that we are Homo Sapiens (no homo) and that is because we seek wisdom and knowlege – Homo Sapiens is Latin for wise man and science is Latin for knowledge.
        I fail to see how the search for knowledge or wisdom are bad thing…….. although from a Christian perspective, I guess it’s blasphemous because it presumes that we could ever be as knowledgable or as wise as the Homophobe/Misogynist/Racist/Genocidal Maniac-in-Chief known as Yahweh/El/Hashem

        “I don’t try to tell others what is truth or fact as I wasn’t there to say for sure, I simply choose to believe what I think is right and truthful.”

        Probably a good idea Mate as you seem ill-equiped to lecture anybody on issues of truth or fact. Also, there you go again with the whole “I choose to believe” schtick.
        If you are talking about what is right and truthful as it pertains to morality then I would say that those good lessons you get from the Bible are largely universal as exist in most cultures in the world.
        Also quite interesting that you CHOOSE to ignore the nasty parts of the Bible because they aren’t to your tastes……….. it’s almost like morality is inate and doesn’t require narration from a magical sky fairy.

        “I respect your science has the answer belief, although I think in parts it’s bollocks.”

        Science has answered many questions and is constantly searching for the answers to many more whereas religion already claims, quite arrogantly, to know answers to questions it can’t possibly know the answers to.

        “Science can’t cure cancer, science cant explain how the universe and whatever else is out there began, science does not have the answer for everything I’m afraid. Deal with it.”

        Science can’t cure cancer……….. but medical scientists are workign on it. Prayer-based cancer treatments have a proven track record of fuck all.

        Scientists are always trying to work out how the universe came to be. They aren’t content with “Well I don’t know the answer, I guess it’s God what done it!”

        You are right – science doesn’t have the answer for everything but religion has the answers for pretty much nothing so I think I will err on the side of caution and go with science which has had a proven track record of impressive achievements and the progression of the Human species.
        Sadly there will always be Philistines who enjoy the benefits of science but ungratefully denegrate it when it challenges their infantile beliefs.

      • Sorry TITS, but every point regarding the big bang can be contested. The fact is our measurements and observations are astronomically limited relative to the scale of both space and time. Extrapolating with any degree of certainty is retarded.

        More than that there are other cosmological possibilities and aspects of science that never get a look in because the establishment of science is full of biased and corrupt individuals.

        Do you think the elite would ever willingly allow the plebs to entertain the notion of a universe without beginning or end, and where everything is dynamically related and not just isolated particles? Our prevailing paradigm is one of a dead, pointless, isolated universe.. perfect for keeping everyone in a state of perpetual dread.

        There’s a reason why I mentioned the Jesuit priest…

      • Oh for fuck sake, I should have seen this one coming.

        What shape is the Earth? Go on, fucking say it.

      • Aside from your seeming word salad there, I would just like to also point out that most physicists understand that the universe DID being with the Big Bang but that there was probably something before that and also speak of multiverse theory too.

      • I’m not a flat earther. I just don’t buy the consensus opinion of modern materialist science, of which the big bang is a central tenet.

        It’s far more likely that the universe has no beginning and end – time is a human concept we project upon the world, it has no objective existence.

        That is known as the Steady-State model, an alternative to the expanding universe theory. When all evidence is weighed I find it to be more probable than a finite expanding universe.

        Science doesn’t like it for the same reason the church doesn’t. Infinity. Infinity can’t be contained, conceptualized, or controlled.

      • Some of what you were saying had the hallmarks of your average, garden variety conspiratard. I apologise for implying you are a Flerfer.

        “I just don’t buy the consensus opinion of modern materialist science, of which the big bang is a central tenet.”

        Expert scientific peer review is the very essence of science. Laymen like you and myself don’t have a seat at the table so deal with it.

        “It’s far more likely that the universe has no beginning and end – time is a human concept we project upon the world, it has no objective existence.”

        Everything you just said is philisophical, metaphysical ponderings and not scientific or based on mathematical physics.

        “That is known as the Steady-State model, an alternative to the expanding universe theory. When all evidence is weighed I find it to be more probable than a finite expanding universe.”

        Fred Hoyle’s “Steady State Universe” hypothesis of the late 40’s/early 50’s has been thoroughly discredited so I am not sure why you would bring it up. You might as well start talking about how blood-letting is a viable way of getting rid of bodily pathogens.

        “Science doesn’t like it for the same reason the church doesn’t. Infinity. Infinity can’t be contained, conceptualized, or controlled.”

        No……….. the hypothesis was debunked using mathematics and observations. Nothing to do with fear, just truth. With every word you type, you sound more and more like a paranoid conspiratard.

        Cracking debate you two, but let’s not go down the road of trading insults. You know the rules. Ta – NA

      • Awesome video . And what’s left of us will be present trillions of years in to the future. Just as we were part of the very beginning.

    • @Admin I agree that this has been an absolutely superb debate/discussion but I’m not sure what forum rules I might have violated.
      I never called my opponent a cunt. The words flerfer, creatard, conspiratard, religiot and possibly religitard might have been featured but I still consider that I was being respectful……….. respectful for me after 12 bottles of 5.4% San Miguel G-F I hasten to add.

      The very few rules of the site are in Important Stuff which you’ll find underneath the main site banner. Basically no trolling (insulting other cunters). If you argue your point this well after a skin full, I can’t imagine your debating acumen when sober. Carry on – NA

  8. Miles, do you have a giant pair of foam hands that you wave around to the sounds of gospel music when you think these noms up ?
    Hallelujah.P.T.L
    Brother,Brother Brother Lee Love……

  9. The Old Testament is a collection of fairy stories. Impressive, but still fairy stories. Fortunately Christians and Jews, by and large do not take it literally or slavery, genocide, sacrifice and whatever else is in there would be prevalent. Like it is in Islam where there has been no Enlightenment. Rather the opposite..
    The New Testament is more a work of philosophy. Partly believable but concocted after the event. The intentions are good but unfortunately man has ill used it. Both Catholics and Protestants. And no end of loony sects.
    What I dont get is why the mealy mouthed cunts of the Jehova’s Witnesses think anybody wants to share their delusions. Or missionaries impose their values on others. Just like commies or Nazis.

  10. I like this cunting.

    Regardless of whether or not you believe Jesus is the Son of God, the Bible is a great and hugely, influential work of literature.

    It tells much about the region, as well as the history, culture and beliefs of the indigenous peoples. It lays out moral and legal codes and establishes a foundation for societal behavior. It guides people in secular and spiritual matters and as such has influenced millions, if not billions of people throughout history. Hell, it even civilized your heathen ancestors.

    And if it’s not correct in every detail…there’s still a lot to learn for those who wish to.

    Well cunted Miles.

    Full disclaimer; I was baptized and confirmed a Methodist but I haven’t set foot in any Church for over 40 years. I’m not a fundamentalist nor have I been born again.

    Furthermore:

    The American experience with religion is different from the English or other European countries. Our history is such that I would rather associate with traditional Christians of good faith than with the New Age Progressives and their religion of secular humanism and it’s dogma of false reason.

    I prefer Jesus to Marx…or Lenin…or Stalin…or Mao…or Pol Pot…or BLM…or Antifa…or anyone of a number of others too numerous to name who have darkened the pages of history with their quest for an earthly utopia.

    I’m not real fond of the religion of carpet kissing or any of the bullshit that passes for eastern esoteric wisdom either.

      • Good point Cuntstable and one on which I will have to give considerable thought, as it never occurred to me when I crossed over the river Styx back into the realm of the living.

    • Good comment General. I agree that the religious experience of Americans is significantly different to that in the UK based on our cultural and historical differences.

      In the US, there probably aren’t many openly atheist conservatives much as there probably aren’t many openly working class conservatives in the UK (recent red-wall collapse notwithstanding).

      It is quite ironic that the US has the 1st amendment which guarantees freedom of and from religion yet the US is the most christian society in the west. The UK on the other hand has no such piece of legislature separating church and state, plus our Head of State is also the head of the established CoE and yet the UK (chiefly England) is the one of the most irreligious countries in the west.

  11. Dear Cunters,
    May God continue to bless our rotten souls,
    And because I wrote this, protect me from the inevitable trolls,
    God is love they say, and most believe in love,
    Yet they happily deny the the Almighty above,
    I believe in God, and although I’m an awful sinner,
    God still loves me and has made me a winner,
    I ask God’s forgiveness and give thanks to God everyday,
    Some may laugh, but still I pray,
    God forbid if any of them were looking at certain death,
    I am am sure a prayer would be muttered with their last breath.

    Go fuck yourselves.

      • I am alluding to the anti religion mob. A lot of them cannot accept people having a belief in God and get very aggressive and almost expect everyone to be on their side.
        I as a believer let them get in with it and I get in with my life.

      • I am a live and let live kind of guy but I like to challenge poorly-thoughout beliefs.
        I’ve no problem with religious people or personal religious beliefs.
        I just take issue with beliefs that don’t exist within a vacuum, which affect policy and education as well as retard scientific and societal development.

  12. Bizarre. Possibly heretical if the author is a Christian.

    With all due respect, religion is making a hypothesis about the universe – that it was created by a supernatural deity. There is not one shred of evidence for the existence of such a being.

    Religious people seem to think they win by default when scientists or historians don’t know the answer to a question. I think not

    There is not one religion that can stand up to a two word statement ‘prove it.’

    • @CMC.

      Let’s stare into the abyss together:

      Many religions certainly present stories of creation and provide a justification of existence. But they also present a foundation for living a moral life. We may argue the correctness of those morals but in the end they are fundamentally no different than those of the secular humanists.

      As for scientists…I realize that 104% of them agree with the child prodigy St. Greta of Dumberg…but that’s the exception and not the rule.

      Their views change over time and reflect the cultural beliefs of their time as much as they do the “new evidence” they claim to uncover.
      Which is only “evidence” until someone else comes along to dispute that “evidence” with some “new evidence” of their own.

      The truth is from Ptolemy to Newton. From the physics of Einstein to today’s Quantum Mechanics, the scientists change their views every generation or so to reflect what they think the truth is.

      Is that so different from religion?

      It makes no difference if it’s the scientist or the priest…the only truth is that which we experience for our selves rather than that we are told to believe.

      • Yes it very much is different. Religious belief is based on faith and faith is defined as “strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.”

        The scientific method is based on methodological naturalism and this is based on evidence and doubt.
        Science uses the null hypothesis and the purpose of a scientific hypothesis is to DISPROVE it through repeatable experimentation, observation and expert peer review so that no orthodoxy can be established.
        If an hypothesis withstands all of these academic rigours then it graduates to the status of theory – the highest level of confidence in science (not to be conflated with the colloquial term theory).

        A scientific theory is a body of evidence based on established facts, laws of nature and evidence but is never stated as “settled” or “absolute” so is always up for review, improvement and additions. Some times theories can be over turned and replaced but that is the exception, not the rule.

      • If I may propose a variant of Arthur C. Clarke’s 3rd law:

        Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.

        Leaving that obscurity to dangle precipitously…Let me say that I’m feeling a bit “quantum” today.

        And lest I give the wrong impression, perhaps I should stick to subjects like BLM where the cunts and their cuntishness are a matter of metaphysical certitude.

      • Any advanced technology is only indistinguishable from magic to those who don’t understand it or lack the ability to understand it as they also lack the utility to understand it (ie education, reading, mathematics, critical thinking etc) .

        The people of the modern world have no such get out clause.

        PS. Please stop being so insufferably pretentious – you sound like a post-modernist.

  13. The bible and history were controlled by very few people, stories are just that, some may have a basis in fact others not.

    What is more important is the the evil that has been thrust upon the world in the name of religion and if the bible and other comics are responsible then it/they deserve to be cast into pits of hell 😂

    • “I beleive in miracles!”
      Sang Hot Chocolate in a stand against heresy and Science.
      Undermined the message by calling us sexy things a bit but still!
      I wish I believed in God
      I think faith makes you a stronger person.
      Not sure what the talking Donkey is about, but I can’t point the finger Im always talking out my ass.
      Great nom Miles!👍
      Ps
      Put in a good word for me with the big fella up there, dont think im on the naughty list but you never know?
      Cheers!👍

  14. Even though I’m writing this at the beginning of my reply, it should be at the end as I realised upon completing it that this entire nomination might actually be an unintentional straw man of Atheist Anti-theists but I am going to respond anyway so here goes.

    I agree that there are historical truths in the Bible as it mentions real places and there are people and events which have been proven with science such as ancient writings from contemporary cultures showing King Solomon and David existed, that there were Israelites in slavery in Egypt (as per Hieroglyphic reliefs I believe)and that in the 10th century BCE, Egyptian Pharaoh Shoshenq I invaded and sacked Israel and Hebrew writings mention being invaded by an Egyptian king “Shishak” meaning he who crushes under wheel (as the Egyptians actually used Chariots of war). There is however no material evidence of the Israelites spending decades in the Sinai Peninsula.

    Regarding the scientific explanations in the BBC article about those naturally occurring plagues and natural disasters, I have read quite a few of them before and they seem sound.
    What the article shows is that natural disasters and plagues occur naturally but it doesn’t show that people who witnessed the disasters, documented it even in their lifetimes as the Israelites originally used oral tradition which is susceptible to embellishment and editorialising and as such, wasn’t written down until the Babylonian Exile in 5th/6th century BCE.
    What the examples categorically do not demonstrate is that “It’s God what done it” – that is the God of the gaps argument and I have no time for it. Fancy that…….. using genuine science to prove a point and then inserting (or at least implying) God into gaps in human knowledge. For shame.

    As for the Red Sea article, that is one hypothesis among many but another one is that the old Hebrew “Yam Suph” was mistranslated as Red Sea as opposed to Sea of Reeds…… nothing miraculous about parting an exaggerated sea of reeds.

    Much of the bible however is clear and obvious allegory so can not be taken as historical fact or even possible. Examples include, but are not limited to:

    – Talking snake
    – Jonah living in the belly of a whale for 3 days & nights
    – Jesus killing a fig tree with his own will because it had no figs for him to eat (basically he had a tantrum)
    – Samson tearing a lion apart with his bare hands
    – Noah being 500 years old
    – Lots wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back
    – Moses doesn’t eat food or drink water for 40 days and 40 nights
    – Goliath was ten feet tall
    – David kills a lion and a bear
    – God sends two bears to rip up 42 little children for making fun of Elisha’s bald head
    – Ahaziah is 2 years older than his father
    – God makes Ezekiel lay on his right side for 390 days, and then on his left side for another 40 days
    – Jesus went up on a mountain and healed “a great multitude” of lame, blind, dumb, and maimed people
    – Jesus says the abilities of believers include drinking deadly poison without harm
    – Jesus turns water into wine
    – Peter’s shadow had miraculous healing powers
    – People got out of their graves and walked around after Jesus rose from the dead
    – Jesus rose from the dead

    To your comment “Or put another way the New Atheist is as fundamental as the Fundamentalist. They take everything so literally. There they are with their great big sausage fingers in the text ‘but it says here that the Ark was…’ 80 cubits this and 40 cubits of whatever it is ‘so we know that it couldn’t float…’ or some such…but that was only a literary convention. A lot of ancient writing is like that. Very detailed. The Iliad is.”

    I have had the Iliad for years and yes it goes into enormous detail about every hoplite, his family history and even a detailed description of the insignia emblazoned on his cuirass and aspis/hoplon.
    What reading the Iliad demonstrated to me is that, although based loosely on a seemingly true event, it was massively over-editorialised in great detail by the Autist-in-Chief – Homer, a guy who lived hundreds of years after the events in question.
    Also worthy of note is that atheists may read the thing literally, but don’t TAKE it literally, Christian biblical literalists however read AND take it literally to support their absurd, unsubstantiated beliefs.
    If something is not to be taken literally by the people whose beliefs rely on it being literal then what is the point in believing any of it? I don’t get the point you are trying to make here.
    I will admit however that the New Atheist movement which was prominent in the US in the last 20 years is bloody ridiculous as a bunch of people meeting en mass to talk about how much they don’t believe in something is absurd as well as pointless.

    “In the Bible it says the Flood ‘covered the whole world’. But the whole world back then would have been ancient Israel. I have heard that it could be translated as ‘The Flood covered the whole land’.”

    So a coastal country with a large river and an inland sea, on a planet with a surface covered by over 70% water on a planet where precipitation occurs……… flooded. Seems reasonable.
    Although, what the primitive, ignorant people of the ancient world knew is irrelevant. You are pretty much just admitting that the claims of divinity attributed to the flood story in the bible are bogus and man made, not inspired by an omniscient being. Thanks for that tacit admission by the way.

    “I think Noah existed. He is described as a crank and drunkard. Very human. He was ridiculed and scoffed at for putting all his energy into building ‘his Ark’. Just like some American ex-forces building a bunker in the desert to escape nuclear Armageddon.”

    Yes because Humans have an innate survival instinct and there’s a tendency for human cultures to make prophecies about the end times based on past history of civilisations which fell and all that might follow from that – Societal, economic, moral & ecological breakdown.
    Remember that a lot of what is written down in the old testament occurred at around the same time as the fall of the ancient civilisations of the Eastern Mediterranean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse which also explains why the Philistines colonised a coastal area in the Levant at that time and were referred to as “Sea People”. I’m sure that all the people living nice lives in those ancient cities being pillaged and burned thought that it was the end of days.

    “There is truth in the story I mean. It rings true. I know some moron who’s only read it in Wikipedia will mention Gilgamesh. That there is a similar story there. But that just proves there were catastrophic floods back in ancient days. Like there was a huge catastrophic flood in 2004. Like there have been floods throughout history. I just believe some visionary could have predicted it and prepared. Like Noah.”

    On this we kind of agree – Gilgamesh, the Chaldean flood story etc. Mesopotamia being a land with 2 large rivers, on a planet with a surface covered by over 70% water, on a planet where precipitation occurs……… floods regularly. Clue is even in the name Mesopotamia “Land Between Rivers”

    “The animals went in two by two. Once again that would be the animals Noah had. His livestock. This is what I mean- about literary convention- one of them was HYPERBOLE. Something happened and it was deliberately exaggerated. But SOMETHING DID HAPPEN.”

    Citation needed regarding your livestock claim. Many Young Earth Creatards believe the ark included ALL animals.
    This is the problem with oral tradition being passed down the generations by illiterate ancient peoples. Once they are finally written down, they have little resemblance to the original source material and become almost a work of fiction.
    I doubt any atheist doubts that a flood happened or even that a livestock herder built a boat to whether a flood, but the exaggerated scale of the fable and then accompanying claims of divinity is what grips my shit (and the shit of a lot of atheists I would imagine).

    “The Parting of the Red Sea. A miraculous escape. We know that the Red Sea can at times under certain atmospheric conditions PART. See link. I am not saying the Red Sea Pedestrians were waiting for the little green man to appear and then they crossed but SOMETHING, something as in the link could explain it.”

    Just because a thing is scientifically possible, doesn’t mean it happened in the case of Moses. Also, see my previous comment about the alternative Reed Sea hypothesis

    “When one load of suffering is compounded by more and more suffererng (a bit like now).’Could things get any worse?’ we often think to ourselves. Well they did for the ancient Egyptians”

    Another statement I kind of agree with. It’s all part of the human condition to be fearful of uncertainty, to be afraid of what we can’t control or foresee and to think the worst so as to always remain vigilant in case the worse were to happen.
    This is why humans experience things like paranoia, fear of the dark and fear of the unfamiliar because these are traits which allowed our ancient ancestors to survive in dangerous environments.

    “And once again all the 10 plagues can be explained scientifically. See link. ”

    Agreed. Science has proved that such things CAN happen, but nothing has proved that they DID happen, least of all simultaneously and certainly not due to a God as one first has to demonstrate that a God does exist or even can exist.

    “Old Testament times are known as ‘Sacred History’. When fantastical things happened. A time of supernatural events, a special time.”

    More likely is that those uneducated people millennia ago had no explanation for naturally occurring phenomena or the improbable nature of co-occurring phenomena so they turned to the notion of miracle (a suspension of the natural order is impossible by definition).
    They also turned to the notion of a divine consciousness controlling everything because they were viewing things through the lens of primitive ignorance and just used their only frame of reference for things happening……… a cause, but a conscious causal agent, & one that can’t be seen, we are afraid of what we can’t see, therefore God did it, therefore fear God.

    As humanity progresses, the gaps in knowledge that existed back then have been filled to the point where there are very few gaps in which the elusive Abrahamic God can hide.

    I’m not saying that there aren’t good, introspective, moral and philosophical lessons to be learnt from the Bible but most of those come from the New Testament.
    Fact is, the bible contains too many inconsistencies, contradictions, mistranslations, immoralities and atrocities to think that a wise, noble and ethical God could have anything to do with any of it.

    When I read any of the Abrahamic holy books, all I see are the writings of men, flawed, imperfect men and nothing more.

      • True enough but unlike the bible, it was compiled by only one man and just like the bible, it wasn’t written or inspired by a God ………although I have heard many women cry out that name when I am balls deep so who knows?

  15. 2 Corinthians 4:4
    “In their case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
    ……………..
    Certain contributors on this site are on a par with the Sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah…they will deservedly meet the same fate unless they renounce their wicked ways.

    For Shame.

    • Literally.

      How you feeling, Sir Bert? I recall you being under the weather recently. Hope you’re back fighting fit. Cheers – IY.

      • Hello IY. I’ve had trouble getting rid of a urinary infection so I’m about to start on a second course of antibiotics!
        However, with God’s help, I think I’ll overcome it!
        You’ve not heard anything about Lake Jackson, Texas, where a brain-eating microbe was found in the city’s public water supply?

        https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/10/07/water-boil-notice-lifted-in-lake-jackson-after-brain-eating-amoeba-found-in-water-system/

      • If the Republicans win the White House and Congress in Texas…………. expect the Dems and the MSM to contest the result on the basis of the brain-eating amoeba. I called it!

      • Sir Bert. Hope the second course does the trick.

        I did see something about the brain pox lurking somewhere in TX. Lake Jackson you say? That’s waaaaaay south of me. Near the Gulf Coast. Hundreds of miles away, thankfully. Well, if the hurricanes don’t get you, the brain eating night crawlers will. Maybe we should open up a gimmegrant commune there.

      • It’s incredible when you think Texas is just over the size of France!
        😀

  17. My mam and dad weren’t religious, I wasnt raised with any religious teaching, wasnt christened.
    Neither were my kids.
    But the only people who’ve ever preached about God to me is Atheists!!
    😀😀

    • Hardly a fair comment on the veracity of a religious claims vs an atheist’s lack of belief.
      Although that’s more or less a similar observation I make about Flat Earthers – they believe that the Earth is flat but they pretty much ALL own globes which feature in their Youtube videos.
      Most people who know the Earth is an oblate spheroid don’t need a globe on the shelf to help reinforce that fact.

  18. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

    …and to finish,
    Ha ha ha
    😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

  19. Interesting nom.

    The problem I have with the Bible is the ‘convenient’ interpretations of what it contains. It’s supposed to be the word of god and since god is supposed to be perfect, then it stands to reason ‘his’ text should also be perfect. In the sense that it should be a true and accurate account of events. Trouble is the Bible contains a ton of inaccuracies, contradictions and accounts of things which (let’s be nice) seem a little far fetched.

    The people who take the Bible as ‘the word of god’ cling to certain passages as being 100% true, but then other passages which are (let’s be nice) a little far fetched suddenly become metaphorical and shouldn’t be taken literally. How convenient.

    Then we have the New Testament god who’s loving and forgiving and generally seems to be nice. As opposed to Old testament god who’s a sadistic and genocidal lunatic. But let’s not dwell on that because that doesn’t support our belief of ‘his’ holiness being a loving and forgiving Mr. Nice Guy. All rather convenient.

    In closing my sermon, I’ll say this. Any club, association or whatever that requires you to have complete faith in its rules, regulations and by-laws without any shred of evidence to even support its existence and at the same time threatens you with eternal damnation if you don’t agree, should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism. Just sayin’. 😉

      • Exactly, CG. I don’t think that’s healthy for anyone.

        Why would ‘our maker’ give us intelligence and the power of reason, then turn round and say ‘believe everything I say and do without question….but if anyone gives you a hard time about it, just say that I move in mysterious ways. That’ll fox ’em’. Too fucking convenient.

      • It does seem a little odd that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnisapient deity would create reality in such a way that it makes his existence seem impossible or unlikely at best.

        Even stranger is that he would reward those who have unquestioning faith in the face of compelling, contrary evidence yet he punishes those who use scepticism and reason to find the truth in the face of extraordinary claims which don’t comport with reality.

    • @Imitation Yank Even more weird regarding the supposed divinity of the bible is that it was edited by popular vote at the Council of Nicea during the late Eastern Roman, pre-Byzantine period.
      I can’t remember the exact number but something like 16 books of the New Testament were excluded from the Bible by a bunch of stuffy old Bishops.

      • Yep and the chapters which were rejected and never made it to the final ‘draft’. And when I say draft, are we talking about the original text written in Hebrew (I believe) or the countless translations/interpretations.

        Jeez!

        If I wrote down on a piece of paper that some bloke I know cured someone’s cancer by willing it so, then buried said piece of paper such that it wasn’t discovered for hundreds or even thousands of years…..still doesn’t make it true! FFS!

        People should be free to believe what they want. No problem with that, but at least engage that dormant organ between your ears before lecturing the rest of us about the divinity of god. That’s right Pope, I’m looking at you (and others). My first question would be…which god? I like Zeus. He’s the sky and thunder god. We can see the sky and hear thunder, so he must be real. Plus he’s the king of the gods which makes him in charge and better than your god, so fuck off.

      • I like Thor……… or should that be Chris Hemsworth? He’s my man-crush ………. (no homo)

  20. Leave the Middle Eastern bigotry in the Middle East. Fucking Ridiculous that we are still debating the role of organised oppression (aka religion) in enlightened times.
    Man created God, Miles.
    Fact.
    The claim that the bible is only allegorical is fucking weak.

    There is only one true religion-it’s called nature-it surrrounds us and we are all part of it, like it or not.

    • Most things that come out of the middle East are shit, including made up religions. believe what you want but most religions try and impose there beliefs on others.

      Some of those Israeli lady’s are nice though.

      The best god’s were the Greek ones they like to shag lots.

    • Quite so.

      Christianity: a foreign, Middle Eastern religion, tailor made for controlling the plebs, appropriated by the Roman Empire and imported into England around 1500 years ago, thus undermining and supplanting our indigenous pagan belief systems.

      Thank God for the Enlightenment.

      • Christians who deny science would probably say “thank the enlightenment for God” as they think that engaging critical thinking, using one’s brain and questioning what they are told is heretical all due to the enlightenment.

    • Flat Earthers need a cunting but I think we need to wait a few years so they can make even bigger cunts of themselves.

  22. At some point something had to come from nothing.
    The only way that could happen is if a power already existing (self existing) brought all the matter in the physical universe into existence. That power was resident in something or someone. I know that power as God. At some point this cunt came from that matter (mostly carbon and bovine feces).
    The Bible is God’s way of communicating His will purpose & plan & revealing history too.
    That instant that all the matter and energy in the universe came into existence sells me on God’s existence.
    However religion is man’s way of telling God how it will be and is the greatest manifestation of human arrogance ever.
    ‘Nuff said at the moment.

    • There are a few current physics models as to how the universe came into existence and none of them is based on creatio ex nihilo but they are also too complex for them to be attributed to creation ex materia.
      I don’t know enough about it but I also take an agnostic stance on the subject and don’t resort to “well I don’t know, therefore Muh Gowd dun did it!”

      From a philisophical standpoint, I find videos by Scott Clifton AKA Theoretical Bullshit quite interesting https://www.youtube.com/user/TheoreticalBullshit/videos
      Although he is an American atheist/skeptic so probably a lefty cunt as well.

      If the Bible is God’s way of communicating his will, purpose and plan then he did a piss-poor job of it considering the massive number of interpretations and denominations within Christianity alone.

      If God were all powerful then wouldn’t it make sense that he could and would write the Bible in such a way that it would be read and interpreted identically by everyone in every geographic location globally, simultaneously? If not, then it’s not a very effective revelation.

  23. Vicar at the Sunday service asks the congregation to raise their hand if they have forgiven their enemies. Everybody does it except one old lady.
    The Vicar asks why she hasn’t forgiven her enemies. “I don’t have any” she replies.
    “That’s amazing Mrs Smith, you’re 102 years old and you’ve never had any enemies.”
    “Not quite” She says, “ I outlived the cunts.”

  24. Great nom Miles. Different from the usual stuff. Remember ISACers Man needs God more than God needs Man. It is never too late to open your mind and go with the (spiritual) flow.

    • I don’t think people need imaginary friends more than imaginary friends need people.

      Imaginary. Clue’s in the name.

      Just saying.

  26. At each end of the spectrum we have “I don’t know” and “I know.”
    The bit inbetween is filled with “I think” or “I believe.”
    Science has all the answers.
    Unfortunately, today’s scientists do not

    • Knowledge isn’t a spectrum, it’s a dichotomy of claims regarding certainty. Agnostics do not/cannot know if there is a God and Gnostics CLAIM to know that there is or is not a God. Considering the loose definitions of the Abrahamic God and it’s inconspicuous nature, neither of those claims are intellectually honest.

      Atheism is merely the lack of belief in dieties and the rejection of the the claims of theism.
      Theists believe in a God, atheists do not believe in a God, simples.

      The distinction can be made between weak atheism “I do NOT believe there is a God” (probably about 99.99999% of athiests) and strong atheism “I believe that there is NOT a God” (the remaining less than 1% of atheists)
      One is a passive rejection of an affirmative claim, the other is an active, affirmative claim.
      The former needs no evidence to back itself up as it is not a positive claim therefore doesn’t bear the burden of proof, the latter on the other hand requires evidence of proof.
      Theistic claims on the otherhand also require evidence of proof but fail regularly and consistently.

    • Maybe for the uninitiated. I’ve heard the same theistic/apologist claims made, then subsequently debunked many times so for me, not really thought provoking, more anger-enducing and shit-gripping.

      • I find it thought provoking. That’s why I said what I said.

        To each their own. Live and let live.

        Blessed are the cheese makers.

  28. What I don’t understand is the atheists being as fundamental as the fundamentalists. I’ve never seen any cunt on the street pushing atheism, or had any cunt knocking my, or anyone else’s, door questioning people’s beliefs. I don’t know of a building that’s sole purpose is for the enjoyment or study of atheism, although I imagine any science or natural history museum may come close.
    I don’t know of a single instance where an atheist has planted a bomb and killed people because they thought their way of life was being threatened, or their non belief had been insulted. And, if any cunt had done such a thing, other atheists would never condone their actions.
    Atheists can’t hide behind a few Hail Marys for absolution, no can they be enticed by 72 virgins to murder. Sure, they can be every bit as murderous, rapey, and criminal as any cunt, but belief, or lack of it has nothing to do with it.
    All my friends are godless, and it’s a subject that never comes up. Because it’s meaningless.

  29. I’m so pleased I came to this site. The quality of discussion is truly heartening. Whether you believe or not, you discuss and debate, and that is by far the better road to understanding.

    If I may answer . Religion has its place for those who live in hope, and in a world that ( quite frankly ) teeters from one crisis to the next., is a last redoubt.

    • I once saw a picture of a piece of toast with a face burned into it which some dopey, Latin American Catholics thought was the face of the Virgin Mary – although I’m not sure what their frame of reference for her face was (could just as easily have been the face of Demi Moore).

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