xLady-Missiex
Riviera de la Mancha
xLady-Missiex
wicked_fire
I do understand this and my only answer that I can give to people like that is to read the Bible, all the answers are there.
Funny. The more I read of the Bible the stronger my assertions that it's just a story thus making me a bigger atheist. Maybe you should read the whole thing and see how confused you are.
I have read it many times and it has yet to confuse me in any serious way.
It has always been a source of truth for me. The fact that is confuses you means nothing to me. I happen to be a terrible math student, so if I told you, "This algebra makes no sense. Read the whole thing and you will see how confusing you get!", would that make any sense to you? No, because you could be a great math student, look at it and tell me, "Your really dont get this? Its quite easy for me." My own personal confusion over it has nothing to do with the actual state of the subject I observe, nor does it mandate that you wont get it .
You don't get confused as to why "these rules" need to be taken seriously (Kill gays, non-believers, naughty children) while others are needed to be taken in other ways?(No shellfish, pig, clothing made of two different fibers) Why are some ok while others are not?
Don't you think it's a little silly to gain "morals" from a book? I could read a Disney book and get better morals. In fact I think that not needing a book to gain morals proves that I, along with other atheists, have better morals than someone who doesn't do something only because they believe the sky is watching over them every second of every day to catch them doing something naughty so that it can throw them into a huge flaming pit.
It's your hell you burn in it.
No, not really, because I can tell what is a cultural element versus an actual law such a being would ask for.
Things like killing gays are cultural customs that all the bedowin peoples readily believed in, which is why they have died out over the years; they lost their relevance when compared to reality. I follow that which has remained a constant in my life and in the lives I see others live. When I have been in relationships, I do not look at the meaningless acts that people tell me mean love, like buying me a nice toy or a new shirt, because these ideas when studied carry no meaning in my life worthy of seeing it as love. I look to permanent examples, like someone being there for me, or when I have exposed my failures to someone and they continue to support and love me in return. These are permanents that I hold to, just like my faith. Killing gays is a custom that in life has to relevance, while treating others with the care I show myself has never lost its truth in my life or reality.
I also never claimed I gain morals from a book. Like all things, I choose my morals that I follow. Books are like people to me; they make their cases for a given view, and I decide if this is true to reality. As a result, I think anyone who seems to think they are stand alone agents in morality and dont seek the council of others tend to formulate the worse morals. The most educated atheists I know, including a close professor of mine who majored in it among other things, is that they have a voracious reading and dialogue capacity that they use to formulate their morality.