If Catholics really believe the Bible is the word of God,  then why is it that so few of them read it?!

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Why read it?

The Pope and and men with unusual hats memorized, summarized, cherry picked, interpreted, re wrote and explains it in a dead language for the benefit of all man kind. Why read it your self?

Or as the religious skeptic say: God created the universe but that says absolutely nothing about his skill as a creative writer.

Or as the tv-generation says: Read? I did watch the Passion of Christ four times.

Or the layman says: Are you really suppose to?

Or the honest: It’s a bit long isn’t it?

Or the ones that did read it: It’s quite a effort, Gods friend YAHWEH (How are they related anyway?) is quite a nasty fellow, and Jesus only seem smart because he is surrounded by 12 idiots. And why is there four different gospels when their is just one truth?

Or as I say: Wide spread religiosity is incompatible with a large, cover to cover, reading or the Bible. As Mr. Saramago and so many others claim.

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The human mind is desperate to look for a book of truth. The atheists who are entrenched in scientism have their books of truths and the religious have their books of truths. Neither can see clearly that once we accept our books of truths as truth the mind goes into a shut down mode of being.

Once a person identifies himself or herself as an atheist the rest is mere formality. Paradigm paralysis sets in and in spite of the evidence; the mind has the ability to not see that evidence.

One must stand between religions and atheism and claim nothing to be free only partially free of this paralysis.

Neither the religious nor the atheist will have any idea of what I am saying in these words. Both will attack me with the atheists attacking the worst, as their “god” is their intellect. They reveal their belief in their “god” as their intellect every time they profess to be the only people of reason and logic. Their personal attacks give them away as to what the worship. I.e. their intellect.

What I find most interesting is that the atheist lives on a steeper and slipperier slope than the religious person. One unexplained phenomena and their whole paradigm and system of beliefs goes rolling down the slope. They must defend their beliefs at all costs.

The religious just punt. The world was not created in six days you say well god’s day is longer than 24 hours. On and on they punt to keep their god made in the image of them intact.

Their god is a jealous god an angry god a god with chosen people and asks a father to kill his son and they worship him and call god perfect love that will send about 2/3 of everyone that has ever lived to eternal hell of fire. But not them of course but they fear that outcome for themselves. Always.

The mind is an interesting phenomenon. But on the other side are groups of people that are smart very smart and think they are here by chance. There is no meaning to life just chance occurrences. Materialism gone amuck.

Smart is not intelligence. World of difference between the two.  But intellectual capacity or aptitude may well indeed be a more advanced path to intelligence than religious beliefs about a god made in the image of man.

Maybe first we must reject an ancient ideology and create a new ideology to be open to seeking deeper into the mysteries of life. Or not.

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We see with our thoughts. As our thoughts identify with a certain belief or ideology such as atheism, religion, capitalism, communism, socialism, patriotism, nationalism or any ism we lose our ability to be skeptical of our thoughts. This creates for our individual mind a system of beliefs.

That system of beliefs soon manifests itself as a paradigm effect. The paradigm effect can soon reveal itself as paradigm paralysis. We don’t have a clue that we have such a paralysis within our mind. We cannot see the effects on our thinking process due to this paradigm effect. It is hidden from our view, meaning our consciousness.

Now how do we break this paradigm effect or can we ever move away from it in our lives. We seldom do but once in a while a significant emotional event comes into our lives and we have the opportunity to see the world anew as they say. This is not a religious conversion but a transformation of thoughts.

This is why I keep stating one must stand between atheism and religion to remain a skeptic. The more we defend our beliefs often displayed as personal attacks the less certain we are of our beliefs. The appearance of certainty is not based in a knowing beyond knowing but doubt. Inner doubts cause us to attack those that challenge our beliefs.

The mind is an interesting phenomenon.

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>>The atheists who are entrenched in scientism have their books of truths and the religious have their books of truths. <<

Scientism? That’s kind of like calling arithmetism the belief that following mathmatical rules is some sort of religion. Science is simply a method of finding truth. The only real book is one line sentence describing its process.

It just so happens to be the method that has led to essentially every advancement of the human race.

Superstition, religion, supernatural belief, etc. is science’s antithesis.

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Researcher, have you ever considered commenting on the actual stories within the threads? Once again, you’ve gone off on an off-topic, somewhat incoherent rant and started an argument with yourself. There’s a whole section of this website dedicated to comments of your kind. It’s called the forum. Try using it sometime and have some consideration for those of us who do not wish to read your off-topic comments on the homepage threads.

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Researcher, one may be challenged finding the most confused section of your posting. But the most obvious mistake you make is calling Atheism an “ideology” or a even a belief. Atheism is merely the noise reasonable people make when less reasonable people want to impose their imaginary friend(s) on them.
As far as the bible is concerned: If “god” had a hand in it, it’s truly a proof that he’s not omnipotent - he cant write.

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Researcher,

    Please… actually answer some questions about your ideas. The repetitiveness of your diversions is only matched by that of your statements.

    We don’t get to define rationality or logic however we want. If i claim that i believe that a fairy named Bruce deleted the universe and made a new one last Thursday at about 1ish (even if i claim revelation) i cannot redefine rationality to match.

  The fact that any religion (etc) is internally cohesive within its own theology (even explaining its evident contradictions) is not surprising or in contest. It is after all built to be this way. The test is whether it is ‘externally’ cohesive. They fail this.

  Science updates itself, always trying to remain externally cohesive. This is why it is so different to 1000 years ago. The belief that it works is also externally cohesive, in contrast to mythic explanations sculptured by people to ‘appear’ factual.

  The fact that scientific ideas can fall overnight should not be seen as a fault or a weakness.

    You are grouping atheism as if it were like a religion, which’s shows a misunderstanding. Disagreeing with someone based on the best available comprehensive and cohesive understanding is not the same as making up a claim because you like the sound of it. Surely you see the difference.

  I think there is a strong possibility you are philosophising about a subject without really understanding it. It should not be compared using the same fictional ruleset used to choose between religions, but against its own much higher standards. If you fail to see beyond your own paradigm and into the nature of evidence based reality then you are not standing outside of paradigms, but simply choosing one.

  Failure to see this is the best evidence of not seeing the wood for the trees.

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“a fairy named Bruce deleted the universe and made a new one last Thursday”
- Fuc** me sides ways Ben. This is good news, nothing in my past, like bad grades in high school, is actually my doing! Now all I need is to spread the Good news and in about 45-50 years some one can wright it down and pass it down the coming generations and maybe evolve it’s own theology!
You are truly blessed Ben!

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