Here are two pretty great articles.

[edwardmurphy]

Prepare to be offended, and perhaps enlightened as well.

Why Intellectuals Don't Take Religious Believers Seriously
Why Religious Believers Don't Take Intellectuals Seriously

[1over137]

Hi Edward,

Before I proceed to read those two articles, can you give us some points you like about the articles?
You know, some little bit info directly from you.

Thanks.

[edwardmurphy]

Hi Edward,

Before I proceed to read those two articles, can you give us some points you like about the articles?
You know, some little bit info directly from you.

Thanks.

Sure. The articles were written by a science professor at UWGB. Here's the premise:

So, in the spirit of Rhett Butler, who joined the Confederate Army after the fall of Atlanta, saying he could only get attached to a cause after it was really good and lost, this page and its companion are an attempt to tell intellectuals and religious believers what each side thinks of the other.

In each article he uses examples from science, examples from theology, and quotations from Christian scripture to hammer both conservative Christians and skeptical intellectuals for blatant stereotyping, ignoring basic facts, intellectual dishonesty, and specious reasoning. Every criticism he makes is backed by some piece of specific evidence, and nobody gets a free pass.

For example:

Why can't evolution simply be God's way of creating new life forms?

Most religious believers don't have a problem with this, but asking it in connection with debates on evolution reveals an utter ignorance of what creationists think. To them, the issue is preserving a literal interpretation of Genesis. Anything not consistent with supernatural creation a few thousand years ago is "evolution." In creationist parlance, the idea that God used evolution to create life is called "theistic evolution." Asking this question is on an exact par with attempting to publish a research paper without looking up a single reference.

Double Standards

Deut. 25: 13-16 13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag-one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house-one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. 16 For the LORD your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

The lesson on double standards could not be clearer. If you want to cite mass murderer Ted Bundy as evidence for the social dangers of pornography, you'd better be ready to explain why sexually explicit material is readily available in Europe, but Europe has a lower violent crime rate than the U. S. If you want to cite some favorable event as evidence for the power of prayer, you'd better be ready to accept unfavorable events as evidence against the efficacy of prayer. If you want to denounce the slaughter of babies through abortion, you'd better be ready to deal with Deuteronomy 13:14-16, Joshua 6:15-18, Joshua 10:27-38, Judges 21:9-11, 1 Samuel 22:18-20, and other passages that command the massacre of entire towns, including children.

In a nutshell, I liked them both because I found them to be fair, balanced, and instructive. While reading them I was validated, chastised, and educated, and I think we could all benefit from that kind of experience.

[1over137]

Thanks.

I started to read that. Will not finish the reading today, nor tomorrow...

Anyway, I liked this

Myth: Religion is wish fulfillment
Reality: Who exactly wished for restrictions on personal conduct? And can't the absence of any final accountability serve every bit as much as a wish fulfillment?
Myth: Religion serves the interests of the power elite
Reality: How come Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism arose and grew in the face of persecution? Nazism, which really did propose a religion based on the worship of power, dismissed Christianity as a vehicle by which the weak hobbled the strong.
Myth: Religious believers once taught the earth is flat and the universe was tiny.
Reality: Ptolemy's Almagest, the definitive model before Copernicus, states explicitly that compared to the sphere of the fixed stars, the earth is merely a point. When Ptolemy's Geographia resurfaced around 1400, its description of a spherical earth and map projections aroused not a flicker of opposition. The myth of the flat earth seems to be largely the result of a 19th century slander campaign (in part a reaction to anti-intellectualism among Christians, but that's a topic for the other page).

[1over137]

For now I picked this from the article

Double standards are rampant when it comes to dealing with Biblical interpretation.
...
Then there's the issue of how Judas died.
Matthew 27:4-6 4 "I have sinned," he said, "for I have betrayed innocent blood." "What is that to us?" they replied. "That's your responsibility." 5 So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. 6 The chief priests picked up the coins and said, "It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money." 7So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. 8 That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day.
Acts 1:18-19 18(With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestine spilled out. 19 Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

Confronted with the discrepancy, most literal believers I've met shrug and say "they both happened." But the two quotes above differ in four important respects:

In Matthew, Judas throws the money into the temple. In Acts, he keeps the money and buys a field.
In Matthew, the priests buy the field, in Acts, Judas does.
In Matthew, the field is called Blood Field because it was bought with blood money; in Acts, it's called Blood Field because Judas' belly burst open there.
In Matthew, Judas hangs himself; in Acts, his intestines spill out.

Here http://www.tektonics.org/gk/judasdeath.php author provides possible solutions:
1. Judas hanged himself, and then his body fell and broke open.
OR Matthew does not even describe Judas' death at all.

2. ... priests transacted business for the obtaining of the field, but they did not thereby have possession of the field. The money they used was Judas' and the field was bought in his name; the field was technically and legally his. ... they transacted the business of the field for the temple, to avoid association with ritual uncleanness, the priests would have to have bought it in the name of Judas Iscariot, the one whose blood money it was.

3.
Judas' gut-burst would hardly warrant a "field of blood" designation for the whole property. There would not be blood everywhere. The "Field of Blood" name was derived -- even as Matthew says -- from the act of purchase with the reward of Judas' iniquity -- what iniquity? The betrayal of innocent blood, which Luke recorded in his own Gospel.
Read Acts 1:18-19 ESV
18 (Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. 19 And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

It may be interesting to further discuss Judas' death, Greek language and all.
I only picked one link now and hitting others could be interesting. The best would be to be educated in Greek language.

Anyway, what I am missing in science professor's articles is references to Greek language.