Watching the furor generated over Erich's post about Bart Erhman's book has been awesome. I mean that in the strict meaning of the word. It is awe-illiciting. After watching the average responses to our posts rise and fall around five to ten each, with a few fetching somewhere in the…
In a post entitled “A Seriously Warped Moral Compass,” Ebonmuse at Daylight Atheism relates a discussion he had with an evangelical fellow. The topic? Hosea, chapter 13, a Bible passage in which God promises that for the crime of disbelief, the city of Samaria’s “infants shall be dashed in pieces,…
Hey, I know the headline isn't grammatical! It was to get your attention regarding this post by Bob Cesca on Huffpo. Cesca makes the point that "Bring em on!" cost who-knows-how-many deaths, while Kerry's recent gaffe was but a gaffe. It must be surreal to be criticized by a speaker…
Recently on Huffpo,George Lakoff has written an important piece on the ongoing political battle to define words.
I’m keenly aware of this battle. Here’s one way it affects me. I do not believe in a sentient Creator. Some would label me an atheist, but that would be horrible unfair. Why? Because that term has been successfully loaded with far more than lack of a belief in a traditional God. The conservative movement has successfully defined “atheists” as strident, immoral, untrustworthy and threatening to America’s families.
This ugly baggage is why I have embraced the term Bright. I am a “bright.” I have a naturalistic worldview free of supernatural and mystical elements. Does that make me threatening? I don’t think so. Does it make me prone to mob violence like members of many religious groups? I would think the opposite—I have to cut my own philosophic path thorough life. I doubtless have different politics and beliefs than many other Brights. Narrowly construed, I’m an organization of one. But there are certain people are perturbed with me, I’m sure, because I refuse to claim allegiance to the insecure God of the Bible and we just can’t have that.
The word battles, however, are taking place on many other fronts.
As Lakoff writes, such word battles comprise “the struggle to define our democratic principles and values. The right wing has worked for decades to alter the meanings of concepts that define our way of life.” For instance, consider the word “liberal.” …
My earlier post regarding Bart Ehrman was not meant to provoke in an outrageous way, although I suspected that it might distress some people. That post drew much more traffic than we are used to at the site, approximately 25,000 unique visitors in three days. It also pulled in more than 200 comments. I was intrigued by the nature of the comments, especially those comments written by people who ostensibly disapproved of Ehrman’s work or his conclusions. In fact, I did a small informal analysis based upon the comments posted by last night (I believe there were about 150 comments posted at that time).
I need to state at the outset that there were more than a few Believers among the commenters who appreciated and even applauded Ehrman’s work. Some of these Believers specifically stated that even if Ehrman was correct, they could still believe in God and Jesus, they could still be good Christians and they found that Ehrman’s work had enriched their understanding of the Bible. My criticism of the distressed commenters is not directed toward these people.
Approximately 35 of the comments were written by people who appeared to be distressed or dismayed by Ehrman’s work. Notably, only three of those commenters acknowledged the basic points made by Ehrman.
What were Ehrman’s basic points? That earlier manuscripts did not contain some information that was contained in some of the later manuscripts that were ultimately adopted part of “the Bible.” Therefore, the new material found in later writings …