Subjective Morality

[dave_littler]

I’ve had a thought rumbling around in my head in recent months - a product of one of my occasional and innumerable hypothetical debates with theists - which a post this morning on the atheist community prompted me to begin to formulate more textually.

It runs along similar lines to a lot of my thoughts on this topic (which you can view as pedantry,

Comments

[dave_littler]

No, I know, I know. And I debate that internally all the time. I mean, you can look at my "atheism" or "religion" tag, and see me arguing on about eight different levels, right? Debating the logic within their mythology, discussing the history of their mythology, discussing the social implication of literalistic or liberal interpretations of the mythology. They're all worthwhile areas of discussion, but sometimes there's something like this, and I just say to myself "do I even want to dignify this idea that the serpent is supposed to be the devil? Seriously?" On a certain level, it's almost like by doing so, I'm giving them a win. I'm letting them get away with their stupidity and ignorance, you know? And I feel like I can do better than that.

As to books: The best I can think of is a book by Tim Callahan called "Secret Origins of the Bible." It's a dense and very scholarly book, but it's just jam-packed full of data on what we know about the history and development of the bible, and how different historical events and cultural trends impacted and influenced the different books of the bible over the years. Solid, solid stuff.

If you want something a little lighter, and which deals with this topic in particular, look for a Nova documentary entitled "The Bible's Buried Secrets", which you can probably find online, still. It's really well-put together and very easy to absorb.

[skittish_derby]

well, my only reaction to what you are saying is that myths change like definitions of words change. I agree with you though. it is like talking to people who think that 'in god we trust' was ALWAYS on US currency. just :head slap:

thank you for the book suggestions.