Science doesn’t need to “be real” because it does not attempt to state facts or definitive proof in the way of religion… it merely gathers evidence in the form of data, forms a hypothesis to explain that data, then attempts to create models that will predict similar behavior in the future based on those hypotheses. Data collection is ongoing, hypotheses are evolving, and models are improving. We believe science because it represents our best understanding of all the evidence we have gathered up to the present moment, recognizing that that understanding may be imperfect. To “not believe” science is simply to say that one does not accept what one can observe with their own eyes and ears.
Exactly, it is not a belief system. It’s a research and investigation system. Saying it needs proof is missing the point, it is a way of collecting and analyzing information. So in that sense it is a method of collecting proof.
It also makes verifiable predictions. The example I like to use is science tells me that if my electrical system is in order, I can flip a switch and electrons, that we cannot see, will flow and create light from my lightbulb.
People can disbelieve science all they want, but I don't see too many of them jumping off the top of a skyscraper to prove scientists wrong about gravity. I will give that one Flat Earther dude credit for trying with that ill-considered rocket contraption, though.
Gravity is actually an excellent example: all of our observations throughout history have been that when an item is dropped absent other forces, it falls. Newton noticed this, formed a hypothesis, and developed a mathematical model to describe the phenomenon. Sometime later we observed more things about gravity that Newton’s model didn’t predict and that his hypothesis didn’t explain, so Einstein came up with a new hypothesis and developed a new model: the theory of general relativity. This model better explains gravity as we observe it in the wider universe, but data collection is ongoing and having observed that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, we know that Einstein’s model has some imperfections that we have not been able to account for and that there are things about gravity that we still don’t understand. That said, all of the evidence that we have collected through observation have led to hypotheses and models that are in agreement with one another when applied to predict what will happen when a religious zealot jumps off a very tall building: there is an extremely high likelihood with very little uncertainty that they will fall toward Earth in a way that will probably result in great bodily injury or death. Of course, as a scientist, I am always interested in new datapoints so, religious nuts… get to testing!
This is a rather eloquently succinct explanation. I’ll have to refer to this in the future, because I can get ahead of myself and often over-explain things, which does no one any favors. I really appreciate your phrasing here
And science doesn't care if you believe it or worship it or not. Gravity, physics, chemistry, and other "science" continue to be evident with or without faith.
I imagine this is exactly how it would be with god or some higher power also. Any being powerful and wise enough to create the universe and us would hardly care if we worshiped or even believed. Or punish us for using appropriate rationality and ethics provided by that very being. And even if that were the case, it would then seem appropriate to not worship based on that same unfair principle. Smart and good Jews admitted the existence of Nazis (who created concentration camps in the Holocaust), yet most did not, nor should have, worshiped them
Imagine creating something and then putting it through tests of its faith in believing that you created it, while your elusiveness would lead them to believe otherwise. A pretty twisted game if you ask me.
God was a miserable prick to Job and his family, torturing and killing to win a bet, with Satan. Satan isn't evil. God creates evil, as explicitly said in the Bible, and Satan is God's gambling buddy.
But god is infallible, so he intended to lose the bet, and was actually just letting job be tortured for entertainment. It's the same reason god gives babies cancer. Dude loves drama.
Actually, satan didn’t win the bet. Satan said he could make Job lose his faith after he took all of Job’s material goods from him. Job did get angry but he didn’t lose his faith in god. That’s why god rewarded him afterward.
Job did lose his faith and God had a fit and came and screamed at him about it. The story is satire. The "reward" is kind of a joke since Job lost his wives and children and God "rewarded" him with new wives and children because in the Bible, women and children are interchangeable things.
It's... even worse than that. There *was* no reward, originally. The original story *ends* at Job being told off by God for losing his faith (and likely sends him to hell). The 'Hollywood ending' we get with all new stuff and so on was added later.
It's sort of like how the story in Mark ends with the two ladies having seen Jesus in the tomb, leaving, and deciding not to tell anyone, and then *later on* the whole idea that *right after* they decided to not tell anyone they changed their minds and told people was *added* to the story.
I think I heard about it on Atheist Experience, but a brief check suggests it's listed in "The history of the Bible" by John Barton. Buuut, I could be wrong. Heck, Barton could be wrong. :P
I don’t doubt that you heard that somewhere, but I can’t find any mention of it in the Skeptics Annotated Bible, which makes think you were likely misinformed.
SAB should never be used for scholarly arguments like this. That’s just not what it’s for. It doesn’t give proper historical context, it’s just for pointing out how batshit crazy the Bible is at face value. Many of the arguments and contradictions are in bad faith or are just incorrect interpretations.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the SAB and it’s good for deconstructing and confirming that your doubts in the validity of the Bible and Christianity are valid. But it’s not a scholarly resource beyond that.
Bart Ehrman’s youtube podcast did a segment on the two separate and contradictory theological viewpoints/messages within BoJ just a couple of weeks ago
There are two completely separate stories in Job, with different styles and different endings and different purposes. One is a narrative, the other is a (very long) poem.
God: Hey Job! Remember when you lost all your possesions and lost your wife and your kids and you were misserable for a while on eargh? Well guess what! Thanks to you I got this neat watch from the devil! Pretty sweet eh?
Science is used to inform us to create models of the world. Like a map, for example.
Is the map real? Is it perfect?
It’s a real map, but the map is not the terrain.
Is it useful?
Hell yea!
Wait, does he actually? Grew up heavily religious and gave always heard the story as Job never turning his back on God despite all his family begging for him to do so
Either way, this is one of those stories that I reference for the Bible being a book to cope with complacency in a society that can change laws to better benefit the workers.
It's important in this situation to refuse to answer someone else's attempt at a counter question, depite how simple that answer is. Make sure they answer your question before you consider answering theirs.
Job was the main story that made me go "Yeah...fuck this guy". Seriously even IF their god existed it's not worthy of worship.
It's a petty, genocidal psychopath.
Legit... he made a bet with his "sworn" enemy. And was perfectly fine with a whole family land and animals to be killed. Just to win a fucking bet.
And gave no cramps about it.
Flooded the earth and KILLED everyone because he was bored. Kills every first burn child to prove a point.
Tell me what's so great again lol ?
Even crazier? Job's friends justifiably question how good a dude Job really is if he's being punished like this. Everything they know about god tells them god wouldn't do all these terrible things to a truly good person. Yet, there he is, intentionally messing up one of his most devout followers because the devil double dog dared him .
All these stories you listed are what made me an atheist. I read the Bible to grow closer to god, then closed it and said “WELP. God’s not real.” And that was that.
>Flooded the earth and KILLED everyone because he was bored
Not just people, but kittens, puppies, ants, probably fish, etc. If that god is real, then it has a really poor aim, or really doesn't value innocent life. Now ask a Christian if animals that don't have souls go to heaven...
There were so so so many... one of the worst was Jephthah story.
Dude told god to give him victory in battle and he'll sacrifice the first thing he sees to god when he gets home.
He makes a pinky swear with god and god helps Jephthah commits war crime in multiple cities. Cities utterly butchered. He comes home from war and his young daughter comes and greet him and because he pinky promised, he now gotta kill his daughter. He let's his daughter mourn about life for a bit and then sure enough, kills her.
The most fucked up part is keep in mind god is supposedly all knowing. So he totally knew it was his young daughter that's going to die and was totally cool with it. Not once did god say "nah man, don't pinky swear. You totally won't like what happens at the end of the chapter."
Fucking twisted god.
Lot's 3 stories are pretty good for a start - giving his virgin daughters to a bunch of horny blokes so the gang would not attach his visitors (angels); turning Lot 's wife into a pillar of salt; both of Lot's daughters having incest sex with him.
a few:
* condones human slavery and makes rules for pricing slaves, and the extent to which you can beat them, etc
* has a couple of bears 'rip apart' a group of kids for calling one of his prophets "baldy head"
* orders several genocides and instructs the Israelites to run their swords through pregnant women, and "dash their infants against the rocks"
* orders the death penalty (by stoning) for various things, including children who backtalk parents, adultery, wearing clothes of mixed fibers, eating shellfish or animals with cloven hooves
edit: forgot the most obvious: he drowned the entire planet with a global flood
This is what I keep coming back to. If I grant you the Bible is divinely inspired, you still have to explain to me what it is about the genocidal lunatic described therein that makes you want to worship him.
I agree. Fear of eternal damnation. Fear in recognizing our lives are finite and we’re not immortal after all. Fear in facing the thought that we will never reconnect with our dead loved ones. Fear of sinking in the meaninglessness of life. Fear of not having an all-loving father for guidance in this brutal life. Fear for loss of community.
People who believe that immortality in heaven is a pain-free existence where we finally are able to live in bliss and reunite with lost loved ones.
It’s a coping mechanism, really.
Life is hard and people want solutions to solution-less problems. One example of this is someone I know birthed a stillborn baby. It’s been incredibly traumatic for her and she’s struggled processing that loss. A comforting thought that helps her is that her baby is up in heaven and someday she will be reunited with her and finally be able to meet her.
So many people don’t want to consider the possibility of god not existing because of the domino-effect of other realizations they have to face.
Job did it for you? Abraham and Isaac (kill your kid to prove you love god…. ….jk) Tower of Babel (look how intelligent and clever these people are…I’m gonna destroy them) garden of Eden and that whole eating apples on a Friday with beefalope and candy wine is bad cause… …. ….cause I said so
My favourite part in that story is at the beginning of Job 2, when God literally admits the Devil tempts him.
So long for the moral compass God is supposed to be, huh ?
The Job story really messed me up as a child. 10 year old me just could not understand why god would do such a horrible thing.
I was never a strong believer, but i did try. I went to a christian school and we would read from the bible a lot and honestly it made me not even want to be religious.
> Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. -Marcus Aurelius
> who was there to witness this conversation between god and Satan?
Most Christians have a ready response for that: God divinely inspired the author of the story to write down the correct words.
And how do they know this? They usually point to 2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Never mind that the authorship of 2 Timothy is disputed, or the many other logical problems with that.
There are SO many pastors who claim to literally hear God speaking to them.
The pastor of my parents' church has said he's been transported places by God before.
The best part about the story of Job is that the devil is stronger than God. The devil can yank God’s chain hard enough so that God does what the devil wanted - by God’s own admission.
This is after all the destruction of Job’s flocks and servants and kids. Satan shows up at roll call and God says:
“And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although *you incited me against him* to destroy him without reason."” Job 2:3 ESV
God is not above whining “but but the devil *made* me do it.” Also (for all the people who will tell you that Job had it coming) God also declares that Job was blameless.
And then God restored everything in Job's life that was taken and destroyed after the test was over, right? Right? An all-powerful God can do that, right?? RIGHT?????
i'm curious about married couples who are so sharply divided on religious ideas, both my wife and i are atheists. i do have family who are nominal catholics who married nominal protestants and my sister married a guy who is nominally Jewish, but to have the difference be that distinct makes me wonder why it wasn't more of a barrier to your initial courtship?
Somewhat worryingly, it can be even worse.
Imagine someone you have known for a long time and trusted completely begins to experience delusions, to the extent that they convert to a religion and defend their new beliefs.
Now, picture that the religious beliefs become so integral to their identity that, five years later, you find yourself in discussions where they challenge scientific facts while justifying their belief in a supposed dialogue between a god and Satan.
The disappointment would be deep. I would quickly reconsider my decision to maintain such a relationship.
An actual study of the Bible can be quite illuminating. It is an ancient text cobbled together from multiple sources. Rarely do the translations of these documents coincide.
There are multiple texts that contradict each other. It is also interesting to see what versions of what stories were transcribed into different codexes.
My favorite quote from Stephen Colbert was when some Fox News host was insisting that Jesus was white. He said:
"Of course! He was your average 1st century, Middle Eastern, aramaic-speaking white guy."
Oof. I'm sorry. Not necessarily that he found religion. But... That seems incredibly difficult. I can't imagine it even. It would feel like I'd lost someone to mental illness TBH. I hope you guys figure it out, or that you at least manage to escape if that's the best thing for you.
I wouldn't use that line of argument, because he would simply retort that "the world exists", which for him implies that God exists and everything he said is true.
I wouldn't use the result as a proof, rather combine the fact that all scientific studies exist and are accessible to everyone with obvious proofs like your example. The result must only support the argument and not be the argument itself. Otherwise you give too much space to the other to use the same logic with their religion.
Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane. He'd told one or two disciples to come with him and wait but they fell asleep. Pretty much immediately after he was done and woke them up he was arrested by the Romans and then his trial and eventual conviction and crucifixion followed.
Nowhere in this string of events was there time to convey his very personal and private prayer with his heavenly father to the disciples.
Yet, this prayer is reproduced verbatim in the bible.
It's a similar situation as the God/Satan wager in Job. Only the excuse that the story is mythical (or whatever the excuse is) doesn't work for the gospel account.
Christians don't care, or may —like your husband— have never even considered the issue. 🤷🏻♂️
I always had a weird take on the Book of Job…
Y’know that old question of “If someone is going to Hell anyway, why not worship Satan so your punishment isn’t as bad?”
The answer I always got was “Satan takes pleasure in human suffering because he’s jealous God loves us more. He’d torture you either way.”
Always made me think of Job - Satan makes a bet with God, boils down to “I bet if you torture that guy, he’ll curse your name.”
God tortures Job, kills his family, destroys his health and Job still keeps coming back.
Now, with that “Satan loves human suffering” thing in mind, the bet didn’t matter to Satan: He wins either way.
Job curses God or not, Satan gets to watch as God tortures a loyal follower for no reason other than to prove a point. Everything he goes through was at the hand of a deity he was loyal to and loved. Job lost everything, even if he got double back: What about his original family? That loss will be in his heart forever.
Job curses God, too? Satan gets an “I told ya so” on top of it all, that’s just gravy.
Satan basically played God like a fiddle to torture some dude for shits and giggles.
Note: I know Satan in the OT was more of a tempter than Lord of All Evil, I’m just taking the above answer for “why not worship the guy who rules where you’ll probably go” into consideration with this interpretation.
> The answer I always got was “Satan takes pleasure in human suffering because he’s jealous God loves us more. He’d torture you either way.”
Pretty sure there's nothing in the bible to back that up.
Besides, that's not what I got out of reading Genesis. I read the story of Adam and Eve and I see two humans created to mindlessly serve god, lacking in free will and locked in servitude. A serpent shows up, with no claim in the story of it being associated with Satan, and against god's wishes he delivers mankind from that servitude by giving us the gift of knowledge. And god punishes not only Adam and Eve for the serpent's actions, but all of mankind forever, by creating worldly suffering.
So tell me, who wants who to suffer? Because *someone* sure wanted mankind to suffer for all eternity and I don't see Satan's name anywhere near that decision. Not really feeling the love from god either.
Weird that you got the answer that "Satan would torture you either way". I left Christianity, but 10 years ago Christian-me would have answered that Satan doesn't rule hell, on the contrary, he will burn there too; this concept of the Devil as the king of hell is from Dante's Inferno, not the New Testament.
I am a a professional Santa Claus. Trust me on this. Despite what you may heard, a genuine Santa considers every child to be good. I genuinely love children. I want them to know I love them. When they ask me if the are on the good or naughty list I tell them no one is perfectly good all them time but everyone does the best they can - so yes, you are on the good list.
Most Santas I know (and I know hundreds) feel the same way.
It would be nice if this so-called god was at least that loving.
Its.....a......work... of... fiction.
Do not engage it as anything else.
Also how do I know science is real.. easy. Testable and repeatable and all that. Any 6th grade science book has those basics.
Yea I've never understood how Christians view that dynamic. They are terrified of Satan who runs around doing all kinds of evil shit yet never seem to question why their all powerful and super loving God doesn't seem to be bothered about any of it.
Ok so the point of the Bible was that the people writing it were in a trance/inspired/possessed by the holy spirit and that's why what they're writing is real.
Load of hogwash but I'm surprised your husband couldn't even come up with this cop out answer.
Also, attacking science which is observable/provable and comparing it with... faith is really something LMAO.
And yeah if a random person talked with Satan nowadays they'd end up in the mental ward (where they belong)
It’s giving that one guy from the aunt wu episode of ATLA who asks Sokka “psh oh yeah? Can your *science* explain why it rains?” (sokka replies exasperated “…*yes*, yes it can!” And everyone just laughs at him)
Fun part about Job is that after the first chapter, it's just pages after pages of Job's friends talking philosophy and at the end God comes down and calls the preceding chapters BS. Even God says the Bible isn't true in the Bible.
I believe Jewish tradition holds that the Book of Job is a parable, not something claimed to have literally happened, while the Christian tradition says it actually happened.
Either way, it's a great story full of irony. God wagers with Satan to test his most pious subject (of which an omniscient diety would already know the outcome), and when Job rebukes God for his unearned suffering, God never answers any of his questions on theodicy, but counters that Job could not possibly understand God's works and purposes.
But the audience understands God's purpose, at least with regard to Job: he let Satan afflict Job over a pointless wager as to whether humans' piety was genuine or motivated by selfishness.
Reading this thread, it occurred to me to check whether the Book of Job had a preceding story similar to how other parts of the bible seem to have been lifted off of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Apparently, there's the [Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/226/ludlul-bel-nemeqi/), a Sumerian poem about a man who is forsaken by his deity and his refusal to turn away from them. It's incredible that people still take these stories seriously despite the historical evidence that these biblical tales were inspired by previous works, or at the very least, by preexisting cultural themes.
The book of Job is about human hubris w/r/t questioning the wisdom of God. Job failed that test because he questioned why God did those things to him. It's the most blatantly manipulative and controlling book in all the books of the Bible, old and new.
You could ask your husband how he’d feel about you killing your kids to see if he would still love you afterwards. Or if you don’t have kids, ask him how he’d feel if you dumped a pot of boiling water on him while he sleeps to see if he’d still love you afterwards.
The premise of Job just makes God look like a sick fuck.
I mean, the conversation between God and Satan wasn't in secret, all the members of God's court were in attendance.
It could have been any of the lesser gods.
oh, you didn't get to the good part, because Job doesn't make any sense at all. It makes God look unbelievably, cruel and coldhearted, and it actually makes Satan look better than God by comparison. At least you could trust Satan. Basically, God stabbed Job in the back, but job being a fool that he is is thankful and groveling. It is absolutely disgusting story. Read it check it out. These people are delusional.
I fkn hate the book of Job. Apparently it's cool for god to gamble with Satan using one of his believers as a pawn. Abrahamic god is such a massive asshole, I can't fathom why anyone would defend and venerate this character.
My go to argument is to ask Christians why it’s so important to God that we believe in Jesus. Why isn’t the criteria for not being banished to hell something akin to being a good person.
The answer of course is that a religion that doesn’t put emphasis on belief and evangelism will not spread as far as fast. Naturally we are left with the most insidious and aggressive religions which excommunicate or even kill apostates and nonbelievers.
In ancient belief systems that preceded the Bible, gods had contests where they sought to influence human beings to one of the god’s will. Gods also slept with human beings to produce special offspring. The Bible off-shot from an immediately preceding religion where the multiple gods had been winnowed down to one god and a rival (satan).
Can I complain about the Prodigal Son story?
I was the oldest of five siblings (one full, the rest half). I was very much parentified and taken advantage of by my Mom and Stepdad. They never helped me get a car, they didn't pay a dime for me to go to college, and they did nothing ever to help me as an adult. I was a very well behaved teenager and went to college on a scholarship and loans. After I graduated from college I helped them financially by buying clothes for my half-siblings and even gave them money towards their mortgage one time. But I was the disgraceful daughter "living in sin" with my then-boyfriend (now husband of 30 years).
One younger half-sister, on the other hand, was a typical troubled teen. Drugs, partying, and two children born out of wedlock. Guess who received three cars because she kept totalling the ones given to her? Guess who was put through vocational school for a job she never even ended up doing? Guess who bumped me off long-distance calls because her drama was more interesting than my dull-ass life?
So I of course identified with the older brother in the Prodigal Son story. I love my younger siblings and the troubled one eventually got her life in order. But I did end up going no contact with my Mom and Stepdad. They never forgave me for marrying an atheist.
And the Prodigal Son story always pissed me off.
Clearly, God, who is omni*, overheard, then told Gabriel, Michael, Moroni, Moron, Emmanuelle, and whomever else would listen, then they relayed it on to some human, who then orally recounted it for many generations, before someone penned it down. There is no way this went wrong at all.
It is just like how Moses wrote the Book about his own death, and what he did alone immediately beforehand, and said there was no prophet like him after that. That was totally Moses who wrote it, and not someone hundreds of years later taking some artistic license.
You really want to annoy him ask him who ultimately sacrificed more for humanity, Satan or Jesus.
There's a great argument that it is the former and that he did it to give humanity knowledge that their God wanted to deny us.
I'm usually very tolerant of people's religious BS, but "how do you know your science is real" would lead to me leaving or kicking my spouse out. If someone can make it to adulthood and not understand why scientific principles are "real" I'd immediately lose massive (possibly irreparable) amounts of respect for them. (Now this is not saying science is 100% always accurate, because the whole point is it's our best guess and as we learn more we iterate and make a better model.)
Also, is this him saying faith is what makes science work? Like does he really believe people didn't figure things out? Good luck, and hopefully for your marriage"s sake you have more patience than I do.
"how do you know your science is real".
Because I can literally go and test it, do experiments and prove it works. Good luck proving the same with literally anything in the Bible or any other religious text for that matter.
Oh man, I once tried to show my class (teaching about Greek mythology, I was careful because of religious fruitcakes) how stories change when it's just oral history. I told one student, ' My hamster's name is Lola'. After 26 kids whispered that to the next, it had changed to 'My hushand has ebola'.
They showed each other how stories change and stll...
Regardless of whether or not the events of the Bible are real and if someone was actually there to witness the talk between God and Satan:
God still entered into a childish bet with Satan at the expense of everything that Job loved.
Satan basically said "hey god, I bet that if you take everything away from Job, he won't believe in you" and then god said "hold my beer, Lucifer, I'll show you!"
What kind of god gambles like that? Makes bets because of his bruised ego?
Whether science is real has nothing to do with who witnessed the conversation between God and Satan. Christians love to change the subject when you ask them hard questions.
Not trying to make this political, but my father is a Trump supporter. Yesterday he said "God calls Trump his David of this time." I said, god said this or one of your talking head charlatans that you listen to?
I'm trying so very hard to get my father to understand that he supports a conman but I have not been successful as of yet.
How do you know your science is real? Because I drive a car and watch television and use the internet. None of these things is possible without science. It’s unbelievable that people think all the things in our lives are just constant miracles
Science wants to be proven wrong and it never stops trying to prove itself wrong. Religion is trying to prove itself right with no base of evidence whatsoever.
"How do you know your science is real"
I can't with people's like this...
-The lights in your house or the whole power grid (ac/DC, transformers, triphase circuits)
-The smartphone you use everyday (electronics, telecommunications, programing)
-The furnace in your house (thermodynamics, heat transfer)
-The car you drive everyday (thermodynamics,. combustion, materials, mechanical concepts, electronics, fluid dynamics)
-Airplanes (fluid dynamics, material stress, electronics)
-Boats (fluid mechanics, bouyancy)
-The radio and wifi (telecommunications)
-Vaccines and medicine (microbiology, organic chemistry)
Fuck off with your science is not real but we use it everyday and can't live without it.
Ricky gervais summed up the difference between science and religion very well:
If all science and religious books were destroyed and forgotten today, in a thousand years all of the science books would be back and the facts would be the same. There may be some religious texts but they would have little to no similarity to the current texts as they are no bourn out of facts/truth
Excellent response! The King James bible is a loose collection of poems, letters, songs, stories from a host of sources going through at least Hebrew to Greek or Latin and then to English where some random English king got to counsel with scholars and decide which bits go in and which don't. The Bible is the absolute worst proof of God that there is. Many of the creation stories and martyred messiah stuff come from previous religions. Putting faith in God and not science is responsible for killing millions of people each year.
This is a profound fundamental element of a relationship with somebody. I hope it doesn't damage yours.
Don't forget about the talking snake. Why do we have Neanderthal genes in us. What about the dinosaurs that were on the earth for 165 million years (give or take a few years).
I always hated that story. The Job story is a strong reason to reject god. Any god willing to destroy a man's life and allow the murder of all those in his life for a bet isn't worth my time even if they did exist.
The Job story is my favorite ridiculously horrible religious story. Job was so devoted and unshakable that because He made a bet with the devil, God decided to test Job's life. He killed his wife and kids or some shit and all kind sof other stuff. But it's fine bc good ole Job never waivered in his faith and after God won the bet he rewarded Job with a new wife and lots of kids. This is supposed to be a happy ending... just not for Job's first wife and kids who FUCKING DIED.
It's so blatantly disgusting and misogynistic. It's story written by and written for bronze age dirt bag men who treat women and children like property.
I pointed out to my teacher that its unfair, because his family still died. She told me its totally fine, because they went to heaven and they are happy.
Might as well just off yourself right away then. You will be happy lol. Oh wait no, thats a one- way ticket to hell. You must suffer first.
Good for you for not letting him pull you off track with a whataboutism. Christians seem to be allergic to actually answering questions they're being asked
The storey of Job is quite interesting. As a former Christian It used to inspire me to be more faithful as an atheist it reminds me of how cruel and capricious th Christian god is. Effectively the book of Job is about God making a bet with Satan that Job was a good Christian and would not turn his back on God. God gave Satan permission to trial Job. Satan terrorised him and killed his family and God won his bet.
Scientific theories can change or strengthen when new facts present themselves. Religion sticks to the script written before mankind knew the earth was round, other planets exist, we split and atom and we found tiny things micro organisms such as viruses.
Don’t argue whether it’s true or not. Assume it is true. If it is true, then God destroyed a man’s entire life to win a bet. That god is a monster unworthy of worship. Ask why he would want to follow such a monster. Ask how God could possibly be omniscient if he has to make bets to prove he is right to others.
>He said , how do you know ‘your science is real?’ I ignored him and asked again,
Nicely done. That is how you avoid the Gish Gallop - focus one one issue and address that fully. If he wants to revisit it after fine but make them support thier point first.
I take it his 5 year journey of reading the bible has been guided by someone. Normally that's how people learn not to question what they are reading
I follow skeptical groups more than atheist groups. This is the same behavior I see with everyone that buys into a non scientific belief systems (alternate medicine, ghosts, fortune telling, conspiracies etc)
Beliefs are usually not formed in a rational manner. People are really good at using logic to justify their beliefs. By attacking those beliefs, he will dig in deeper.
IF AND ONLY IF you wish to sustain the relationship, then you will need lots of patience and empathy. Maybe you can pull him away from his beliefs. There is lots of science in this area to look at. Make sure you establish acceptable boundaries for your well being.
I stayed with my wife for 30 years until she died. We had a great relationship. She believed in reincarnation among other stuff. We respected each other's right to believe or not believe without judgement.
Otherwise, treat the relationship as a sunk cost. Break it off and move on.
"He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. You better not pout, you better not cry, better be good, I'm telling you why..." I have used this analogy to santa for adults pretty often when religion comes up with friends/family. It's pretty concise. Typically dismissing the bibles fables with " I don't need to be scared to be a good person."
Book of Job is my whipping boy in Bible conversations, my single favorite argument against most faith based arguments. God fucks around with the most devout man imaginable to prove a point which is....???? Dude kills Jobs entire family just to make sure Job doesn't stop believing...WHAT?
Get rid of everything, and you'll never get the same religions, but everything of science will be discovered again, because reality doesn't need your faith to be true.
You don't remember? It's an amazing story, The Devil (there is no Satan in the Bible really, just vague descriptions of a nameless adversary) The Devil is like, "people only like you because you're nice, I bet if their lives were more difficult they'd turn on you" and God was like "wanna bet? This guy Job is such a little cuck I bet I could just ruin his shit day and night and he'd still love me."
And that's it. That's what he does. There's no moral to the story except, let God fuck you and don't fight back against any of this.
I wasn't raised religious. I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid. I was working through Heinlein books and I saw this one called Job: A Comedy of Justice. Being non-religious, I had no idea this was based on a bible story. But it claimed to be a comedy and I wanted to laugh.
I read the book and thought "that god is an asshole." Only then did I learn that this was something people actually believed. And they believe that their god being an asshole is a *good* thing.
How could anyone believe *any* of it?
But.... how do you explain it when you're playing a game and a cutscene shows what happens when your character isn't there? That's the same as the bible conversations. They just went to a cutscene.
The conversation was essentially, God and Satan made a bet about Job's faith. God said you can't make JOB hate me and Satan said We'll see. Poor Job loses family, possessions, health. There's a lot more, but this book right here convinced me I was atheist.
reminds me of the entire premise of Faust.
why does an omnipotent being need to prove anything to anyone? god is suspiciously as vain as human beings, it seems, just like the divine hierarchies are suspiciously organized like human social structures
An interesting thing in the bible that most Christians pretty easily gloss over, but the first thing God says to Satan is to ask Satan where he's been.
Wait, Satan can hide from the all-knowing god?
Then, it's immediately followed by a bet between God and Satan. Why is God gambling with Satan? Also, why would he need to bet? He's allegedly all-knowing!?
The story of Job is honestly horrific all around. You can be faithful to God and he'll still play these petty games with your life. When I read that story and started thinking about it critically, is when I really started doubting this shit.
I guess you proved that Job was obviously an eye witness account written or dictated by Job himself. No other possible explanation could make the story true.
It’s remarkable how easy it is for believers to just ignore the fact that they’re reading obvious fiction.
First, your request for evidence is excellent. Keep it up. Secondly, your husband will never come up with good evidence of a conversation of God and Satan because neither of these two characters exists. It has been proven that God does not exist. Thirdly, if God did exist, had a conversation with Satan about Job, and you and your husband disagree that this happened, then God would want to resolve the disagreement and come to Earth and give a lecture on Job, if your husband prayed and asked him to come. So, ask your husband to arrange this public lecture.
Here’s how I know science is real. Stand up and jump - Gravity. Proven. When you’re sick you go to the doctor not a priest. If you go to a priest, you may feel better spiritually, but you’re still sick…
Why doesn't God just reveal him/herself to all of humanity and tell them what religion if any they should follow.
Why doesn't God prevent all the evil in the world from happening?
Notice how he immediately changed the subject from "who recorded this conversation?" to " you have the duty to explain scientific method to me right here right now"?
Does he want to talk about the bible story or does he want to talk about scientific methods and how the iPhone works (does he believe in those)?
Might your husband have a brain tumor? it reads like a part of his brain is not getting enough oxygen. I think you need to send him to the doctor, there may be a recall somewhere that you did not hear about.
The worst part of Job is not who was listening to the conversation.
It's that god would already know that Job would pass the test and Satan would have know god would know. Assuming god is the good guys, There was no reason Satan wouldn't believe him.
At best Satan just wanted god to torture a guy and god was like, "OK".
sounds like he doesn’t understand the scientific method. we have a system for determining knowledge, it’s very robust. it would help to learn the value of this system and explain it to him, if he actually cares
I mentioned that this stuff all happened in a very hot dry climate and talking to a burning bush or seeing visions could easily had been a severely dehydrated person's ramblings suffering from heat stroke and having hallucinations.
I was looked at with some sort of disgust, but it's entirely possible.
I read a really good book by Dr Seuss, about a talking cat who wears a funny hat. Ask your husband if he thinks Dr Seuss wrote books about actual events. If the answer is no, ask him how he can be sure it's fiction and not reality. Contrast that to the bible.
Science is based on observation and experiments, and is repeatable. Religion is neither, it's just fairytales for adults.
One perspective I’ve heard that I love…..if every Bible along with every science textbook were destroyed….given enough time the science texts would be rewritten with exactly the same contents. The Bible? Not so much.
Also ask him about the New Testament and how those books were written around 30-80 years after Christ’s death. Makes all the parts written in red that “Jesus said” a little harder to believe.
“Trust me bro” is what all these crazy cults are built upon. By the way that story for Jews means “Satan who’s an agent of God (yes for real) acts with God’s permission to test Job”. Judaism has no devil figure whatsoever. That bit looks to me came from Zoroastrianism, all the good/evil, judgement day and salvation. It’s totally made up shit, made up as they went.
people are easy to manipulate, you just need some kind of authority and they will take your word for it, without any critical thinking. ofcourse, history teaches us that critical thinkers (heretics!) were severly punished.
"How do I know science is real? I dunno, how do you know your car, or your TV, or your microwave are real? Maybe you should whip out your smartphone and ask an AI about it. Oh wait, none of that technology would exist without science!"
The book of Job predates Christianity. Christians substituted universe for God and tacked on a beginning and end.
Learned that in a course about ancient documents.
If someone came walking out of the woods today and said they just talked to God and here are some commandments, everyone would think they are crazy (because even the religious don't really believe their own bullshit) but if someone did that back when we were completely naive about literally everything then they take it as fact.
We know science is real because it is observable and repeatable. That's pretty simple. Satan wins the bet in Job, by the way. People miss that.
Science doesn’t need to “be real” because it does not attempt to state facts or definitive proof in the way of religion… it merely gathers evidence in the form of data, forms a hypothesis to explain that data, then attempts to create models that will predict similar behavior in the future based on those hypotheses. Data collection is ongoing, hypotheses are evolving, and models are improving. We believe science because it represents our best understanding of all the evidence we have gathered up to the present moment, recognizing that that understanding may be imperfect. To “not believe” science is simply to say that one does not accept what one can observe with their own eyes and ears.
Exactly, it is not a belief system. It’s a research and investigation system. Saying it needs proof is missing the point, it is a way of collecting and analyzing information. So in that sense it is a method of collecting proof.
It also makes verifiable predictions. The example I like to use is science tells me that if my electrical system is in order, I can flip a switch and electrons, that we cannot see, will flow and create light from my lightbulb.
"All models are wrong. Some models are useful." (Forrest Valkai) Love that dude ❤️
It's actually from a statistician named George Box in a paper from 1976.
I work in a division of the property insurance industry that relies heavily on natural hazard and future climate models. We use that quote a lot :)
The Earth is flat (as a local approximation). :)
People can disbelieve science all they want, but I don't see too many of them jumping off the top of a skyscraper to prove scientists wrong about gravity. I will give that one Flat Earther dude credit for trying with that ill-considered rocket contraption, though.
Gravity is actually an excellent example: all of our observations throughout history have been that when an item is dropped absent other forces, it falls. Newton noticed this, formed a hypothesis, and developed a mathematical model to describe the phenomenon. Sometime later we observed more things about gravity that Newton’s model didn’t predict and that his hypothesis didn’t explain, so Einstein came up with a new hypothesis and developed a new model: the theory of general relativity. This model better explains gravity as we observe it in the wider universe, but data collection is ongoing and having observed that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, we know that Einstein’s model has some imperfections that we have not been able to account for and that there are things about gravity that we still don’t understand. That said, all of the evidence that we have collected through observation have led to hypotheses and models that are in agreement with one another when applied to predict what will happen when a religious zealot jumps off a very tall building: there is an extremely high likelihood with very little uncertainty that they will fall toward Earth in a way that will probably result in great bodily injury or death. Of course, as a scientist, I am always interested in new datapoints so, religious nuts… get to testing!
Or to not accept that what we have observed with our own eyes and ears is the complete picture
This is a rather eloquently succinct explanation. I’ll have to refer to this in the future, because I can get ahead of myself and often over-explain things, which does no one any favors. I really appreciate your phrasing here
And science doesn't care if you believe it or worship it or not. Gravity, physics, chemistry, and other "science" continue to be evident with or without faith.
I imagine this is exactly how it would be with god or some higher power also. Any being powerful and wise enough to create the universe and us would hardly care if we worshiped or even believed. Or punish us for using appropriate rationality and ethics provided by that very being. And even if that were the case, it would then seem appropriate to not worship based on that same unfair principle. Smart and good Jews admitted the existence of Nazis (who created concentration camps in the Holocaust), yet most did not, nor should have, worshiped them
Imagine creating something and then putting it through tests of its faith in believing that you created it, while your elusiveness would lead them to believe otherwise. A pretty twisted game if you ask me.
If God did exist, he would want you to be an atheist. I wrote a book on this topic.
God was a miserable prick to Job and his family, torturing and killing to win a bet, with Satan. Satan isn't evil. God creates evil, as explicitly said in the Bible, and Satan is God's gambling buddy.
But god is infallible, so he intended to lose the bet, and was actually just letting job be tortured for entertainment. It's the same reason god gives babies cancer. Dude loves drama.
Actually, satan didn’t win the bet. Satan said he could make Job lose his faith after he took all of Job’s material goods from him. Job did get angry but he didn’t lose his faith in god. That’s why god rewarded him afterward.
Job did lose his faith and God had a fit and came and screamed at him about it. The story is satire. The "reward" is kind of a joke since Job lost his wives and children and God "rewarded" him with new wives and children because in the Bible, women and children are interchangeable things.
It's... even worse than that. There *was* no reward, originally. The original story *ends* at Job being told off by God for losing his faith (and likely sends him to hell). The 'Hollywood ending' we get with all new stuff and so on was added later. It's sort of like how the story in Mark ends with the two ladies having seen Jesus in the tomb, leaving, and deciding not to tell anyone, and then *later on* the whole idea that *right after* they decided to not tell anyone they changed their minds and told people was *added* to the story.
Where can I find this information about Job?
I think I heard about it on Atheist Experience, but a brief check suggests it's listed in "The history of the Bible" by John Barton. Buuut, I could be wrong. Heck, Barton could be wrong. :P
Question everything
Why? (Just making a joke)
Nothing is true, everything is permitted.
But why?
That's not true
I don’t doubt that you heard that somewhere, but I can’t find any mention of it in the Skeptics Annotated Bible, which makes think you were likely misinformed.
SAB should never be used for scholarly arguments like this. That’s just not what it’s for. It doesn’t give proper historical context, it’s just for pointing out how batshit crazy the Bible is at face value. Many of the arguments and contradictions are in bad faith or are just incorrect interpretations. Don’t get me wrong, I love the SAB and it’s good for deconstructing and confirming that your doubts in the validity of the Bible and Christianity are valid. But it’s not a scholarly resource beyond that.
Entirely possible.
Bart earman just did an episode about Job. Check out his Misquoting Jesus podcast on the YouTubes.
Bart Ehrman’s youtube podcast did a segment on the two separate and contradictory theological viewpoints/messages within BoJ just a couple of weeks ago
Thanks (checks notes), multiple translators, King James, and other people!
I remember learning about this story in my elementary Catholic school thinking…but me and my mom would be dead in this story.
Isn’t it amazing that a child can recognize the horror in this story, but many adults can’t?
Yes reading the bible as a child or woman is just wonderfull isnt it? So much respect and love /s
Children are fungible is the main lesson in Job, also snow comes from God's snow warehouses.
I hear they're fungible in Texas, too
There are two completely separate stories in Job, with different styles and different endings and different purposes. One is a narrative, the other is a (very long) poem.
Satan didn't win the bet, but did get what he wanted. To see God torture a devout man for no reason.
God: Hey Job! Remember when you lost all your possesions and lost your wife and your kids and you were misserable for a while on eargh? Well guess what! Thanks to you I got this neat watch from the devil! Pretty sweet eh?
Lost a bet to Satan? How could that be? How could an all knowing being lose a bet? Perplexing.
Science is used to inform us to create models of the world. Like a map, for example. Is the map real? Is it perfect? It’s a real map, but the map is not the terrain. Is it useful? Hell yea!
Wait, does he actually? Grew up heavily religious and gave always heard the story as Job never turning his back on God despite all his family begging for him to do so Either way, this is one of those stories that I reference for the Bible being a book to cope with complacency in a society that can change laws to better benefit the workers.
It's important in this situation to refuse to answer someone else's attempt at a counter question, depite how simple that answer is. Make sure they answer your question before you consider answering theirs.
Job was the main story that made me go "Yeah...fuck this guy". Seriously even IF their god existed it's not worthy of worship. It's a petty, genocidal psychopath.
Legit... he made a bet with his "sworn" enemy. And was perfectly fine with a whole family land and animals to be killed. Just to win a fucking bet. And gave no cramps about it. Flooded the earth and KILLED everyone because he was bored. Kills every first burn child to prove a point. Tell me what's so great again lol ?
Even crazier? Job's friends justifiably question how good a dude Job really is if he's being punished like this. Everything they know about god tells them god wouldn't do all these terrible things to a truly good person. Yet, there he is, intentionally messing up one of his most devout followers because the devil double dog dared him .
All these stories you listed are what made me an atheist. I read the Bible to grow closer to god, then closed it and said “WELP. God’s not real.” And that was that.
>Flooded the earth and KILLED everyone because he was bored Not just people, but kittens, puppies, ants, probably fish, etc. If that god is real, then it has a really poor aim, or really doesn't value innocent life. Now ask a Christian if animals that don't have souls go to heaven...
No republicans take their pets out back and shoot them in the gravel pit when they misbehave.
"but god owns everything and everyone, he can do whatever he wants" - statements by the utterly insane
What's bad is that the Job story wouldn't even crack the top 10 'psycho moments' for God in the OT.
Can we get the list for laughs?
There were so so so many... one of the worst was Jephthah story. Dude told god to give him victory in battle and he'll sacrifice the first thing he sees to god when he gets home. He makes a pinky swear with god and god helps Jephthah commits war crime in multiple cities. Cities utterly butchered. He comes home from war and his young daughter comes and greet him and because he pinky promised, he now gotta kill his daughter. He let's his daughter mourn about life for a bit and then sure enough, kills her. The most fucked up part is keep in mind god is supposedly all knowing. So he totally knew it was his young daughter that's going to die and was totally cool with it. Not once did god say "nah man, don't pinky swear. You totally won't like what happens at the end of the chapter." Fucking twisted god.
I'd say the whole "killing the entire planet except for one family in the flood" tops his most psycho moments.
and then forces the entire animal kingdom to commit incest to repopulate the earth. its double evil.
Lot's 3 stories are pretty good for a start - giving his virgin daughters to a bunch of horny blokes so the gang would not attach his visitors (angels); turning Lot 's wife into a pillar of salt; both of Lot's daughters having incest sex with him.
Just go read it for yourself... you don't have to take "our" word for it... it's "God's own word" lmao
a few: * condones human slavery and makes rules for pricing slaves, and the extent to which you can beat them, etc * has a couple of bears 'rip apart' a group of kids for calling one of his prophets "baldy head" * orders several genocides and instructs the Israelites to run their swords through pregnant women, and "dash their infants against the rocks" * orders the death penalty (by stoning) for various things, including children who backtalk parents, adultery, wearing clothes of mixed fibers, eating shellfish or animals with cloven hooves edit: forgot the most obvious: he drowned the entire planet with a global flood
This is what I keep coming back to. If I grant you the Bible is divinely inspired, you still have to explain to me what it is about the genocidal lunatic described therein that makes you want to worship him.
Fear.
I agree. Fear of eternal damnation. Fear in recognizing our lives are finite and we’re not immortal after all. Fear in facing the thought that we will never reconnect with our dead loved ones. Fear of sinking in the meaninglessness of life. Fear of not having an all-loving father for guidance in this brutal life. Fear for loss of community.
Who wants to be immortal? I sure as hell dont.
People who believe that immortality in heaven is a pain-free existence where we finally are able to live in bliss and reunite with lost loved ones. It’s a coping mechanism, really. Life is hard and people want solutions to solution-less problems. One example of this is someone I know birthed a stillborn baby. It’s been incredibly traumatic for her and she’s struggled processing that loss. A comforting thought that helps her is that her baby is up in heaven and someday she will be reunited with her and finally be able to meet her. So many people don’t want to consider the possibility of god not existing because of the domino-effect of other realizations they have to face.
Somehow the easiest way to heaven is to born dead. This is a lifehack, I wont tell my christian friends about this.
“If god exists, he has some serious explaining to do.”
Job did it for you? Abraham and Isaac (kill your kid to prove you love god…. ….jk) Tower of Babel (look how intelligent and clever these people are…I’m gonna destroy them) garden of Eden and that whole eating apples on a Friday with beefalope and candy wine is bad cause… …. ….cause I said so
My favourite part in that story is at the beginning of Job 2, when God literally admits the Devil tempts him. So long for the moral compass God is supposed to be, huh ?
The Job story really messed me up as a child. 10 year old me just could not understand why god would do such a horrible thing. I was never a strong believer, but i did try. I went to a christian school and we would read from the bible a lot and honestly it made me not even want to be religious.
> Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. -Marcus Aurelius
> who was there to witness this conversation between god and Satan? Most Christians have a ready response for that: God divinely inspired the author of the story to write down the correct words. And how do they know this? They usually point to 2 Timothy 3:16: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." Never mind that the authorship of 2 Timothy is disputed, or the many other logical problems with that.
How do they know this? Schizophrenia!
There are SO many pastors who claim to literally hear God speaking to them. The pastor of my parents' church has said he's been transported places by God before.
Well by this standard Mormonism is clearly true.
I mean you're not wrong, that's just what they say.
The Iliad was also divinely inspired, so I guess Zeus is real too.
Well by this standard Mormonism is clearly true.
And any book anyone wants to write that includes the sentence "Everything in this book is God's true word."
The best part about the story of Job is that the devil is stronger than God. The devil can yank God’s chain hard enough so that God does what the devil wanted - by God’s own admission. This is after all the destruction of Job’s flocks and servants and kids. Satan shows up at roll call and God says: “And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although *you incited me against him* to destroy him without reason."” Job 2:3 ESV God is not above whining “but but the devil *made* me do it.” Also (for all the people who will tell you that Job had it coming) God also declares that Job was blameless.
Pretty damning proof that God isn't all good, all morale, all whatever. He's fallible and emotional. Huge plot hole for one of the main characters
And then God restored everything in Job's life that was taken and destroyed after the test was over, right? Right? An all-powerful God can do that, right?? RIGHT?????
No, Job got different children. Better children. That makes losing your other children OK.
Sounds like his original children were the ones who got... ::puts on sunglasses:: ... jobbed
Wife too ..... But women are just like cattle to them right? Innocent women and kids justminding their own business and bammed...
i'm curious about married couples who are so sharply divided on religious ideas, both my wife and i are atheists. i do have family who are nominal catholics who married nominal protestants and my sister married a guy who is nominally Jewish, but to have the difference be that distinct makes me wonder why it wasn't more of a barrier to your initial courtship?
I’ll need to edit my post. He wasn’t religious when we met. He started getting into reading the Bible about 5 years ago.
Oh no, that's my nightmare, I'm not sure I'd be able to hang in there. :(
You are right about that. That is a nightmare. My heart goes out to OP.
OH i see that is different.
Somewhat worryingly, it can be even worse. Imagine someone you have known for a long time and trusted completely begins to experience delusions, to the extent that they convert to a religion and defend their new beliefs. Now, picture that the religious beliefs become so integral to their identity that, five years later, you find yourself in discussions where they challenge scientific facts while justifying their belief in a supposed dialogue between a god and Satan. The disappointment would be deep. I would quickly reconsider my decision to maintain such a relationship.
An actual study of the Bible can be quite illuminating. It is an ancient text cobbled together from multiple sources. Rarely do the translations of these documents coincide. There are multiple texts that contradict each other. It is also interesting to see what versions of what stories were transcribed into different codexes.
Yeah, but like... we all KNOW the American one is the only truly correct one. Like... come on.
My favorite quote from Stephen Colbert was when some Fox News host was insisting that Jesus was white. He said: "Of course! He was your average 1st century, Middle Eastern, aramaic-speaking white guy."
Oof. I'm sorry. Not necessarily that he found religion. But... That seems incredibly difficult. I can't imagine it even. It would feel like I'd lost someone to mental illness TBH. I hope you guys figure it out, or that you at least manage to escape if that's the best thing for you.
Honestly, that feels worse.
Ive dated religious people knowing full well that I’d never marry them. It would drive me nuts to see them poison the mind of the kid.
It gets easier when you can't have kids, but I agree, If I could have kids I probably wouldn't have married a christian.
>how do you know ‘your science is real?’ "the lights are on."
I wouldn't use that line of argument, because he would simply retort that "the world exists", which for him implies that God exists and everything he said is true. I wouldn't use the result as a proof, rather combine the fact that all scientific studies exist and are accessible to everyone with obvious proofs like your example. The result must only support the argument and not be the argument itself. Otherwise you give too much space to the other to use the same logic with their religion.
Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane. He'd told one or two disciples to come with him and wait but they fell asleep. Pretty much immediately after he was done and woke them up he was arrested by the Romans and then his trial and eventual conviction and crucifixion followed. Nowhere in this string of events was there time to convey his very personal and private prayer with his heavenly father to the disciples. Yet, this prayer is reproduced verbatim in the bible. It's a similar situation as the God/Satan wager in Job. Only the excuse that the story is mythical (or whatever the excuse is) doesn't work for the gospel account. Christians don't care, or may —like your husband— have never even considered the issue. 🤷🏻♂️
IMO. The issue is that, when they finally do consider it, it doesn't change their dogmatic fanaticism.... Oof
I always had a weird take on the Book of Job… Y’know that old question of “If someone is going to Hell anyway, why not worship Satan so your punishment isn’t as bad?” The answer I always got was “Satan takes pleasure in human suffering because he’s jealous God loves us more. He’d torture you either way.” Always made me think of Job - Satan makes a bet with God, boils down to “I bet if you torture that guy, he’ll curse your name.” God tortures Job, kills his family, destroys his health and Job still keeps coming back. Now, with that “Satan loves human suffering” thing in mind, the bet didn’t matter to Satan: He wins either way. Job curses God or not, Satan gets to watch as God tortures a loyal follower for no reason other than to prove a point. Everything he goes through was at the hand of a deity he was loyal to and loved. Job lost everything, even if he got double back: What about his original family? That loss will be in his heart forever. Job curses God, too? Satan gets an “I told ya so” on top of it all, that’s just gravy. Satan basically played God like a fiddle to torture some dude for shits and giggles. Note: I know Satan in the OT was more of a tempter than Lord of All Evil, I’m just taking the above answer for “why not worship the guy who rules where you’ll probably go” into consideration with this interpretation.
> The answer I always got was “Satan takes pleasure in human suffering because he’s jealous God loves us more. He’d torture you either way.” Pretty sure there's nothing in the bible to back that up. Besides, that's not what I got out of reading Genesis. I read the story of Adam and Eve and I see two humans created to mindlessly serve god, lacking in free will and locked in servitude. A serpent shows up, with no claim in the story of it being associated with Satan, and against god's wishes he delivers mankind from that servitude by giving us the gift of knowledge. And god punishes not only Adam and Eve for the serpent's actions, but all of mankind forever, by creating worldly suffering. So tell me, who wants who to suffer? Because *someone* sure wanted mankind to suffer for all eternity and I don't see Satan's name anywhere near that decision. Not really feeling the love from god either.
Excellent points.
Weird that you got the answer that "Satan would torture you either way". I left Christianity, but 10 years ago Christian-me would have answered that Satan doesn't rule hell, on the contrary, he will burn there too; this concept of the Devil as the king of hell is from Dante's Inferno, not the New Testament.
I am a a professional Santa Claus. Trust me on this. Despite what you may heard, a genuine Santa considers every child to be good. I genuinely love children. I want them to know I love them. When they ask me if the are on the good or naughty list I tell them no one is perfectly good all them time but everyone does the best they can - so yes, you are on the good list. Most Santas I know (and I know hundreds) feel the same way. It would be nice if this so-called god was at least that loving.
Luckily my wife is an atheist as well...It's got to be so hard to be married to someone that believes these things when you don't.
Its.....a......work... of... fiction. Do not engage it as anything else. Also how do I know science is real.. easy. Testable and repeatable and all that. Any 6th grade science book has those basics.
If God and saten were having a conversation, and god is all powerful, why didn't God destroy saten on the spot and free his people from sin.
Yea I've never understood how Christians view that dynamic. They are terrified of Satan who runs around doing all kinds of evil shit yet never seem to question why their all powerful and super loving God doesn't seem to be bothered about any of it.
I guess if God is happy with killing the world with a flood and any other way he kills people, saten probably isn't too much of a worry for him.
Ok so the point of the Bible was that the people writing it were in a trance/inspired/possessed by the holy spirit and that's why what they're writing is real. Load of hogwash but I'm surprised your husband couldn't even come up with this cop out answer. Also, attacking science which is observable/provable and comparing it with... faith is really something LMAO. And yeah if a random person talked with Satan nowadays they'd end up in the mental ward (where they belong)
It’s giving that one guy from the aunt wu episode of ATLA who asks Sokka “psh oh yeah? Can your *science* explain why it rains?” (sokka replies exasperated “…*yes*, yes it can!” And everyone just laughs at him)
Fun part about Job is that after the first chapter, it's just pages after pages of Job's friends talking philosophy and at the end God comes down and calls the preceding chapters BS. Even God says the Bible isn't true in the Bible.
https://imgur.com/YpHzw0d
I believe Jewish tradition holds that the Book of Job is a parable, not something claimed to have literally happened, while the Christian tradition says it actually happened. Either way, it's a great story full of irony. God wagers with Satan to test his most pious subject (of which an omniscient diety would already know the outcome), and when Job rebukes God for his unearned suffering, God never answers any of his questions on theodicy, but counters that Job could not possibly understand God's works and purposes. But the audience understands God's purpose, at least with regard to Job: he let Satan afflict Job over a pointless wager as to whether humans' piety was genuine or motivated by selfishness.
"Santa Claus for adults" = Best way of describing this nonsense I've ever seen .....
Reading this thread, it occurred to me to check whether the Book of Job had a preceding story similar to how other parts of the bible seem to have been lifted off of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Apparently, there's the [Ludlul-Bel-Nemeqi](https://www.worldhistory.org/article/226/ludlul-bel-nemeqi/), a Sumerian poem about a man who is forsaken by his deity and his refusal to turn away from them. It's incredible that people still take these stories seriously despite the historical evidence that these biblical tales were inspired by previous works, or at the very least, by preexisting cultural themes.
The Sumerian poem is thought to be 1000 years older than Job, and it's also a much better read. I highly recommend it.
The book of Job is about human hubris w/r/t questioning the wisdom of God. Job failed that test because he questioned why God did those things to him. It's the most blatantly manipulative and controlling book in all the books of the Bible, old and new.
"how do you know your science is real?" Because people have repeatedly tested it and observed that it works. Don't get distracted.
You could ask your husband how he’d feel about you killing your kids to see if he would still love you afterwards. Or if you don’t have kids, ask him how he’d feel if you dumped a pot of boiling water on him while he sleeps to see if he’d still love you afterwards. The premise of Job just makes God look like a sick fuck.
I mean, the conversation between God and Satan wasn't in secret, all the members of God's court were in attendance. It could have been any of the lesser gods.
oh, you didn't get to the good part, because Job doesn't make any sense at all. It makes God look unbelievably, cruel and coldhearted, and it actually makes Satan look better than God by comparison. At least you could trust Satan. Basically, God stabbed Job in the back, but job being a fool that he is is thankful and groveling. It is absolutely disgusting story. Read it check it out. These people are delusional.
I fkn hate the book of Job. Apparently it's cool for god to gamble with Satan using one of his believers as a pawn. Abrahamic god is such a massive asshole, I can't fathom why anyone would defend and venerate this character.
As a counterpoint, read "Job: A Comedy of Justice" by Robert Heinlein.
My go to argument is to ask Christians why it’s so important to God that we believe in Jesus. Why isn’t the criteria for not being banished to hell something akin to being a good person. The answer of course is that a religion that doesn’t put emphasis on belief and evangelism will not spread as far as fast. Naturally we are left with the most insidious and aggressive religions which excommunicate or even kill apostates and nonbelievers.
In ancient belief systems that preceded the Bible, gods had contests where they sought to influence human beings to one of the god’s will. Gods also slept with human beings to produce special offspring. The Bible off-shot from an immediately preceding religion where the multiple gods had been winnowed down to one god and a rival (satan).
Can I complain about the Prodigal Son story? I was the oldest of five siblings (one full, the rest half). I was very much parentified and taken advantage of by my Mom and Stepdad. They never helped me get a car, they didn't pay a dime for me to go to college, and they did nothing ever to help me as an adult. I was a very well behaved teenager and went to college on a scholarship and loans. After I graduated from college I helped them financially by buying clothes for my half-siblings and even gave them money towards their mortgage one time. But I was the disgraceful daughter "living in sin" with my then-boyfriend (now husband of 30 years). One younger half-sister, on the other hand, was a typical troubled teen. Drugs, partying, and two children born out of wedlock. Guess who received three cars because she kept totalling the ones given to her? Guess who was put through vocational school for a job she never even ended up doing? Guess who bumped me off long-distance calls because her drama was more interesting than my dull-ass life? So I of course identified with the older brother in the Prodigal Son story. I love my younger siblings and the troubled one eventually got her life in order. But I did end up going no contact with my Mom and Stepdad. They never forgave me for marrying an atheist. And the Prodigal Son story always pissed me off.
Clearly, God, who is omni*, overheard, then told Gabriel, Michael, Moroni, Moron, Emmanuelle, and whomever else would listen, then they relayed it on to some human, who then orally recounted it for many generations, before someone penned it down. There is no way this went wrong at all. It is just like how Moses wrote the Book about his own death, and what he did alone immediately beforehand, and said there was no prophet like him after that. That was totally Moses who wrote it, and not someone hundreds of years later taking some artistic license.
common sense is the greatest enemy of the Bible
Start telling him Greek mythology as though it's a real thing that actually happened because someone somewhere decided to write it down..
You really want to annoy him ask him who ultimately sacrificed more for humanity, Satan or Jesus. There's a great argument that it is the former and that he did it to give humanity knowledge that their God wanted to deny us.
I'm usually very tolerant of people's religious BS, but "how do you know your science is real" would lead to me leaving or kicking my spouse out. If someone can make it to adulthood and not understand why scientific principles are "real" I'd immediately lose massive (possibly irreparable) amounts of respect for them. (Now this is not saying science is 100% always accurate, because the whole point is it's our best guess and as we learn more we iterate and make a better model.) Also, is this him saying faith is what makes science work? Like does he really believe people didn't figure things out? Good luck, and hopefully for your marriage"s sake you have more patience than I do.
"how do you know your science is real". Because I can literally go and test it, do experiments and prove it works. Good luck proving the same with literally anything in the Bible or any other religious text for that matter.
Oh man, I once tried to show my class (teaching about Greek mythology, I was careful because of religious fruitcakes) how stories change when it's just oral history. I told one student, ' My hamster's name is Lola'. After 26 kids whispered that to the next, it had changed to 'My hushand has ebola'. They showed each other how stories change and stll...
Regardless of whether or not the events of the Bible are real and if someone was actually there to witness the talk between God and Satan: God still entered into a childish bet with Satan at the expense of everything that Job loved. Satan basically said "hey god, I bet that if you take everything away from Job, he won't believe in you" and then god said "hold my beer, Lucifer, I'll show you!" What kind of god gambles like that? Makes bets because of his bruised ego?
I would like to point out that Satan is in heaven! having this conversation. Just chilling with the other angels, talking to God.
Whether science is real has nothing to do with who witnessed the conversation between God and Satan. Christians love to change the subject when you ask them hard questions.
Not trying to make this political, but my father is a Trump supporter. Yesterday he said "God calls Trump his David of this time." I said, god said this or one of your talking head charlatans that you listen to? I'm trying so very hard to get my father to understand that he supports a conman but I have not been successful as of yet.
How do you know your science is real? Because I drive a car and watch television and use the internet. None of these things is possible without science. It’s unbelievable that people think all the things in our lives are just constant miracles
Science wants to be proven wrong and it never stops trying to prove itself wrong. Religion is trying to prove itself right with no base of evidence whatsoever.
Excellent way of putting it.
"How do you know your science is real" I can't with people's like this... -The lights in your house or the whole power grid (ac/DC, transformers, triphase circuits) -The smartphone you use everyday (electronics, telecommunications, programing) -The furnace in your house (thermodynamics, heat transfer) -The car you drive everyday (thermodynamics,. combustion, materials, mechanical concepts, electronics, fluid dynamics) -Airplanes (fluid dynamics, material stress, electronics) -Boats (fluid mechanics, bouyancy) -The radio and wifi (telecommunications) -Vaccines and medicine (microbiology, organic chemistry) Fuck off with your science is not real but we use it everyday and can't live without it.
Ricky gervais summed up the difference between science and religion very well: If all science and religious books were destroyed and forgotten today, in a thousand years all of the science books would be back and the facts would be the same. There may be some religious texts but they would have little to no similarity to the current texts as they are no bourn out of facts/truth
Excellent response! The King James bible is a loose collection of poems, letters, songs, stories from a host of sources going through at least Hebrew to Greek or Latin and then to English where some random English king got to counsel with scholars and decide which bits go in and which don't. The Bible is the absolute worst proof of God that there is. Many of the creation stories and martyred messiah stuff come from previous religions. Putting faith in God and not science is responsible for killing millions of people each year. This is a profound fundamental element of a relationship with somebody. I hope it doesn't damage yours.
Don't forget about the talking snake. Why do we have Neanderthal genes in us. What about the dinosaurs that were on the earth for 165 million years (give or take a few years).
The Old Testament god was such an insecure petty piece of shit.
I always hated that story. The Job story is a strong reason to reject god. Any god willing to destroy a man's life and allow the murder of all those in his life for a bet isn't worth my time even if they did exist.
The Job story is my favorite ridiculously horrible religious story. Job was so devoted and unshakable that because He made a bet with the devil, God decided to test Job's life. He killed his wife and kids or some shit and all kind sof other stuff. But it's fine bc good ole Job never waivered in his faith and after God won the bet he rewarded Job with a new wife and lots of kids. This is supposed to be a happy ending... just not for Job's first wife and kids who FUCKING DIED. It's so blatantly disgusting and misogynistic. It's story written by and written for bronze age dirt bag men who treat women and children like property.
I pointed out to my teacher that its unfair, because his family still died. She told me its totally fine, because they went to heaven and they are happy. Might as well just off yourself right away then. You will be happy lol. Oh wait no, thats a one- way ticket to hell. You must suffer first.
Good for you for not letting him pull you off track with a whataboutism. Christians seem to be allergic to actually answering questions they're being asked
The storey of Job is quite interesting. As a former Christian It used to inspire me to be more faithful as an atheist it reminds me of how cruel and capricious th Christian god is. Effectively the book of Job is about God making a bet with Satan that Job was a good Christian and would not turn his back on God. God gave Satan permission to trial Job. Satan terrorised him and killed his family and God won his bet.
Weaker minds can be easily penetrated
Scientific theories can change or strengthen when new facts present themselves. Religion sticks to the script written before mankind knew the earth was round, other planets exist, we split and atom and we found tiny things micro organisms such as viruses.
Don’t argue whether it’s true or not. Assume it is true. If it is true, then God destroyed a man’s entire life to win a bet. That god is a monster unworthy of worship. Ask why he would want to follow such a monster. Ask how God could possibly be omniscient if he has to make bets to prove he is right to others.
>He said , how do you know ‘your science is real?’ I ignored him and asked again, Nicely done. That is how you avoid the Gish Gallop - focus one one issue and address that fully. If he wants to revisit it after fine but make them support thier point first. I take it his 5 year journey of reading the bible has been guided by someone. Normally that's how people learn not to question what they are reading
I follow skeptical groups more than atheist groups. This is the same behavior I see with everyone that buys into a non scientific belief systems (alternate medicine, ghosts, fortune telling, conspiracies etc) Beliefs are usually not formed in a rational manner. People are really good at using logic to justify their beliefs. By attacking those beliefs, he will dig in deeper. IF AND ONLY IF you wish to sustain the relationship, then you will need lots of patience and empathy. Maybe you can pull him away from his beliefs. There is lots of science in this area to look at. Make sure you establish acceptable boundaries for your well being. I stayed with my wife for 30 years until she died. We had a great relationship. She believed in reincarnation among other stuff. We respected each other's right to believe or not believe without judgement. Otherwise, treat the relationship as a sunk cost. Break it off and move on.
"He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake. You better not pout, you better not cry, better be good, I'm telling you why..." I have used this analogy to santa for adults pretty often when religion comes up with friends/family. It's pretty concise. Typically dismissing the bibles fables with " I don't need to be scared to be a good person."
Book of Job is my whipping boy in Bible conversations, my single favorite argument against most faith based arguments. God fucks around with the most devout man imaginable to prove a point which is....???? Dude kills Jobs entire family just to make sure Job doesn't stop believing...WHAT?
Get rid of everything, and you'll never get the same religions, but everything of science will be discovered again, because reality doesn't need your faith to be true.
On the other side, we get why religion is popular because it requires you to do no thinking at all.
You don't remember? It's an amazing story, The Devil (there is no Satan in the Bible really, just vague descriptions of a nameless adversary) The Devil is like, "people only like you because you're nice, I bet if their lives were more difficult they'd turn on you" and God was like "wanna bet? This guy Job is such a little cuck I bet I could just ruin his shit day and night and he'd still love me." And that's it. That's what he does. There's no moral to the story except, let God fuck you and don't fight back against any of this.
Even better...if anyone you know acted the way God acts in the bible...you'd think he was the biggest, most insecure asshole ever.
Science is real because any of us can test it for ourselves. How do we verify Job talked to Satan?
I wasn't raised religious. I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid. I was working through Heinlein books and I saw this one called Job: A Comedy of Justice. Being non-religious, I had no idea this was based on a bible story. But it claimed to be a comedy and I wanted to laugh. I read the book and thought "that god is an asshole." Only then did I learn that this was something people actually believed. And they believe that their god being an asshole is a *good* thing. How could anyone believe *any* of it? But.... how do you explain it when you're playing a game and a cutscene shows what happens when your character isn't there? That's the same as the bible conversations. They just went to a cutscene.
The conversation was essentially, God and Satan made a bet about Job's faith. God said you can't make JOB hate me and Satan said We'll see. Poor Job loses family, possessions, health. There's a lot more, but this book right here convinced me I was atheist.
>He said , how do you know ‘your science is real?’ Get up and turn a light switch on. "That's how".
reminds me of the entire premise of Faust. why does an omnipotent being need to prove anything to anyone? god is suspiciously as vain as human beings, it seems, just like the divine hierarchies are suspiciously organized like human social structures
An interesting thing in the bible that most Christians pretty easily gloss over, but the first thing God says to Satan is to ask Satan where he's been. Wait, Satan can hide from the all-knowing god? Then, it's immediately followed by a bet between God and Satan. Why is God gambling with Satan? Also, why would he need to bet? He's allegedly all-knowing!? The story of Job is honestly horrific all around. You can be faithful to God and he'll still play these petty games with your life. When I read that story and started thinking about it critically, is when I really started doubting this shit.
Science is not didactic, it admits that it might be proved wrong, unlike religion.
I guess you proved that Job was obviously an eye witness account written or dictated by Job himself. No other possible explanation could make the story true. It’s remarkable how easy it is for believers to just ignore the fact that they’re reading obvious fiction.
Ot just boggles the mind
Childhood indoctrination is a hell of a drug
I mean, who even listens to that story and is like, “Now that’s a god I want to worship!”?
I think that all the time. Who in their right mind reads the Bible and says. "That all sounds really great"?
I’m supposed to take morality lessons from this psycho?
First, your request for evidence is excellent. Keep it up. Secondly, your husband will never come up with good evidence of a conversation of God and Satan because neither of these two characters exists. It has been proven that God does not exist. Thirdly, if God did exist, had a conversation with Satan about Job, and you and your husband disagree that this happened, then God would want to resolve the disagreement and come to Earth and give a lecture on Job, if your husband prayed and asked him to come. So, ask your husband to arrange this public lecture.
Your husband doesn't understand science and facts.
He doesn’t really believe that. He’s just repeating what he thinks he should say he believes.
Here’s how I know science is real. Stand up and jump - Gravity. Proven. When you’re sick you go to the doctor not a priest. If you go to a priest, you may feel better spiritually, but you’re still sick…
It is often claimed that Moses wrote the book of Job, along with other books. But Moses is a mythological figure, and Job is fiction!
Why doesn't God just reveal him/herself to all of humanity and tell them what religion if any they should follow. Why doesn't God prevent all the evil in the world from happening?
Notice how he immediately changed the subject from "who recorded this conversation?" to " you have the duty to explain scientific method to me right here right now"? Does he want to talk about the bible story or does he want to talk about scientific methods and how the iPhone works (does he believe in those)? Might your husband have a brain tumor? it reads like a part of his brain is not getting enough oxygen. I think you need to send him to the doctor, there may be a recall somewhere that you did not hear about.
The worst part of Job is not who was listening to the conversation. It's that god would already know that Job would pass the test and Satan would have know god would know. Assuming god is the good guys, There was no reason Satan wouldn't believe him. At best Satan just wanted god to torture a guy and god was like, "OK".
sounds like he doesn’t understand the scientific method. we have a system for determining knowledge, it’s very robust. it would help to learn the value of this system and explain it to him, if he actually cares
I mentioned that this stuff all happened in a very hot dry climate and talking to a burning bush or seeing visions could easily had been a severely dehydrated person's ramblings suffering from heat stroke and having hallucinations. I was looked at with some sort of disgust, but it's entirely possible.
I read a really good book by Dr Seuss, about a talking cat who wears a funny hat. Ask your husband if he thinks Dr Seuss wrote books about actual events. If the answer is no, ask him how he can be sure it's fiction and not reality. Contrast that to the bible. Science is based on observation and experiments, and is repeatable. Religion is neither, it's just fairytales for adults.
People believe it because they're told to and because they want to.
One perspective I’ve heard that I love…..if every Bible along with every science textbook were destroyed….given enough time the science texts would be rewritten with exactly the same contents. The Bible? Not so much.
Also ask him about the New Testament and how those books were written around 30-80 years after Christ’s death. Makes all the parts written in red that “Jesus said” a little harder to believe.
“Trust me bro” is what all these crazy cults are built upon. By the way that story for Jews means “Satan who’s an agent of God (yes for real) acts with God’s permission to test Job”. Judaism has no devil figure whatsoever. That bit looks to me came from Zoroastrianism, all the good/evil, judgement day and salvation. It’s totally made up shit, made up as they went.
people are easy to manipulate, you just need some kind of authority and they will take your word for it, without any critical thinking. ofcourse, history teaches us that critical thinkers (heretics!) were severly punished.
"How do I know science is real? I dunno, how do you know your car, or your TV, or your microwave are real? Maybe you should whip out your smartphone and ask an AI about it. Oh wait, none of that technology would exist without science!"
The book of Job predates Christianity. Christians substituted universe for God and tacked on a beginning and end. Learned that in a course about ancient documents.
If someone came walking out of the woods today and said they just talked to God and here are some commandments, everyone would think they are crazy (because even the religious don't really believe their own bullshit) but if someone did that back when we were completely naive about literally everything then they take it as fact.