A vast majority of theists are only marginally familiar with the details of their supposedly chosen faith. This shouldn't be surprising considering that most people refer to children of religious people as if they were already members of the faith. There are few tests to be admitted to the faith, and in fact in some places, even attempting to leave the faith is a capital crime. It is no wonder that the median level of follower's knowledge about a given faith is spotty at best.
One might think that this would be a concern for the faithful. Perhaps they might worry about skipping some ritual or ceremony that is an absolute prerequisite. Certainly atheists, among others, have criticized the masses for going along and not really paying too much attention to the details. "How can anyone NOT be obsessed with the supposed divinely inspired Word Of God?" It is a fair criticism, and one that I often like to bring up. There is, however an apology that can be made. These people have "Faith". They have faith that the spirit of the scripture will back up what they know in their hearts to be right, if not the letter.
This is clearly cherry picking and confirmation bias, but that doesn't stop people from doing it. One could line up all the contradictions of a given holy book and put the theists to the task of explaining the discrepancies, and it would be fun, but most likely useless. This passage is right and that one is allegoric, or an example of human failings, or misinterpreted, or told from a different point of view. My experience is that even when one can truly shock and befuddle a theist with what their holy book says, they will just push it out of their mind. Go back a week later and make the same point, and they will still say something completely noncommittal about how, "That is a tough question." or "God doesn't give us all of the answers." but they will almost never say that God IS in fact evil or unjust. Everything is measured by the standard of Goodness that they hold in their mind. anything that doesn't fit is swept under the carpet. And the less they have to think about these sort of conundrums the better.
It can be very frustrating to debate the nature of God with a person like this, but I can at least walk away with the knowledge that this person is not as evil as God because of the specific attributes, passages and tenets that they reject.
The fundamentalist or extremist is another case entirely. These are the ones who would not reject a passage just because it indicates a mindnumbingly evil deity.
If you do not agree with God then it is you who must alter your beliefs. No argument must be made. It's in the book so deal with it. God has every right to do whatever he wants. He made the law but is not subject to it. Those children deserved to die. It is only by God's grace that they live in the first place. God is a higher order of morality that we cannot understand.
These are the people that concern me.
I find it hard to believe that the moderate Christians that I know would continue to associate with the fundamentalist if they were to sit down and have a nice ling discussion about the nature of God. Often times the only thing holding these two groups together is belief in the divinity of Jesus and the resurrection. Sometimes it is only that Jesus was a good man who tried to lead people to be nice to one another. Strangely, they have a much greater agreement on the nature of Jesus than on the nature of God. Somehow they have been roped into the same religion despite their differing views of God. I guess that is what a messiah is for.
If we could convince the moderates that they are actually Deists or Pantheists or whatever... perhaps they would recognize the insanity of the fundamentalists. If somehow they could understand that their belief in God is more important than their belief in their inherited messiah, they would drop the charade and build a new church. Better yet they might decide to worship their own personal God personally and privately. But they go to church with the nut jobs and pray with them and nod together saying how great God is. The questions that we atheists and anti-theists ask, don't come up in Sunday's sermons and certainly not on Friday's sermons.
This map demonstrates the problem. It divides people by their labels; Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindi et cetera, but it doesn't really tell us much about the populations values, or morals. What would be more useful is a map that shows us who believes in a woman's right to become a religious leader. Who thinks that people of other religions goes to Hell? Who thinks that torture is an acceptable form of punishment? Who believes in daemonic possession? Who believes that God punishes people with violent acts of nature?
I posit that if people paid more attention to the nature of the God they worship and less time with the labels, dogma, rituals and tradition, that crazy religious fanatics would surprise the rest of us less often.
I posit that if people paid more attention to the nature of the God they worship and less time with the labels, dogma, rituals and tradition, that crazy religious fanatics would surprise the rest of us less often.
