Does God exist? (8 Viewers)
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pman
Banned
But as you say, thy are wisdom texts, there is a high probability that they aren't intended to be literal (or at least, originally weren't) but over time, the texts have changed. In all probability, they were not originally written down so errors would be introduced and of course they then seem literal despite original intentions. (correct me if i'm wrong and they were written down when composed)
He had to give them something, He biblical interpretation is correct, its just missing all the detail, if you take a day to be several million years, the order of creation is basically correct as well, does it seem logical to put the existence of light before that of the sun or stars? No, it doesn't, yet we know that light existed millions of years before the first star, as posed in the bible.
Yes, I'm aware that they slowly took over the land rather than the much publicized military takeover, once again it has been exaggerated in the bible to make god look better. The Israelites still did take over the "promised land" and in effect, kick all those that refused to convert to Judaism out as instructed to in the bible.
You are entirely wrong, but I've already corrected you. Like I explained, they are self-consciously intended as historical narratives. They were never viewed as imparting allegorical wisdom. They have been, since they were written in the 7th century BC, viewed as historically true; people believed that the Exodus happened, that David, Solomon, Moses and Joshuah were all historical figures; we know now that they are not.
The very idea that they might be allegorical, despite having its own logical absurdities contained within it, only gained ground coincidentally when many of the scientific, factual and historical assertions of the Bible had been demonstrated to be false; it was not the 'original intention' but simply a reaction to the fact that their particular mythology has been shown to have as much factual value as every other ancient religion that they scoff at and deride.
Um, apart from the fact that the whole world was not populated by two people in Mesopotamia, that the flood never happened, that man was not created in its current form, that the creatures that man are naming and domesticating had been around for a hell of a long time before modern humans (let alone human society) emerged.
To say that the Biblical interpretation of the formation of the world, let alone all the other nonsense it passes off as knowledge, is "correct" in any sense would require you to basically ignore the entire interpretation and focus on one thing that they happened to get right.
No, you don't understand; there was no 'take over'. They emerged from a culture that has been there for as long as we can trace the history of the area, beginning to develop, over some time, their own form of culture.
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pman
Banned
how do you know what form they were in before they were written down, when they were passed on by word of mouth?
[quoteUm, apart from the fact that the whole world was not populated by two people in Mesopotamia, that the flood never happened, that man was not created in its current form, that the creatures that man are naming and domesticating had been around for a hell of a long time before modern humans (let alone human society) emerged.[/quote]
the bible actually implies that there were other people, why else would cain say " anyone who finds me will kill me", the only other people alive would be his immediate family.
And if the flood never happened, how come so many culures have flood stories in there religions? I remember reading a new scientist (or was it helix) article about how the flood probably happened.
I assume by this you mean the order of creation, that doesn't seem like a fluke....yes, much is wrong but it still follows the correct order which is all i said before
Their culture slowlt took over the region, hence "take over"
Because they are not passed on by word of mouth. Epic tales that are passed down by word of mouth have their own distinct linguistic marks, such as in Homer, that demonstrate such origins; the Bible has none of these, and all of those that mark it down as a composed text.
That is not to say, necessarily, that these myths were made up by their writers. What it does is tap into a more generic Near-Eastern mythic consciousness, to which fables such as the patriarchs probably belong, weaving many socially and geographically disparate myths into a coherent story relative to the socio-political needs of the time.
It takes, for example, etiological myths (myths explain origins) and re-weaves them such that the origins of Israel, the southern kingdom within which it was written, appears righteous, and those semitic tribes with whom the later, 7th century Israelite society of the south, centered around Jerusalem, was competing are given very immoral and despicable origins. See the links starting to make sense?
I've included, for convenience, at the end of this post, an extract from an article that I wrote on the subject with particular reference to the Biblical relationship between the Northern and Southern kingdoms with regards to what actually happened, with a view to examine the differences and see what meaning we can draw. It may clear up some confusion, if you'd like to read it; if you don't, well then that's cool too.
That's one quote. The Bible contradicts itself consistently, and to isolate that part and say "see how factual the Bible is, knowing that there are other people apart from a distinct group of 4 people in the Near-East", while ignoring all the other parts that assert such an absurd thing really doesn't prove all that much.
Well there is actually some evidence to suggest that the Black Sea may have been some deal smaller than it is now, in terms of the water line, at some point in the past; however the original theory places it around 5,300BC, with the effects being widespread and catastrophic.
Recent research, and the translation of much of the original survey material and archaeology into Russian, has suggested that it be pushed back to a date of 7,400BC and that the effects were actually quite mild.
At best, this reflects an entirely natural happening that early humans, frightened by, attributed to supernatural forces. This then enters a sort of mythic consciousness in the Near East, is transferred between cultures as trade, society and other ideas develop and bang, you have something attributed to God that is vaguely based on reality and vaguely connected to other Near Eastern myths (which attribute it to their gods, or even other forces).
And we go around in circles, many things are very wrong, one aspect of one story at the beginning happens to be right and you claim it as important because "it doesn't seem like a fluke".
No, there was no takeover. They were, for all Late Bronze Age purposes, native to the area. Their culture was endemic to the area.
Here's that article I mentioned, I can't find any way to make this wall of text smaller.
The majority of the history of Israel given in the Old Testament is a 7th/8th century edition of many pastoral myths and legends cobbled together for the purposes of political propaganda in the later Kingdom of Judah.
Let me break it down for you, and keep in mind when I talk to you that the parts of the Old Testament I am discussing were written and compiled in 7th century Judah (the southern part of ancient 'Israel', where the cities of Jerusalem and Hebron are located), where the historical king Josiah had come to power over the Kingdom of Judah that had only just begun to spring up as a political power, looking to move to the norther, far wealthier parts of Israel and bring them under his reign under a pretense of 'unification'.
Surely you are familiar with the story of David and Solomon, David's conquests and the great wealth and building programs of Solomon in Jerusalem. Let us just examine this in more detail, relative to the archaeological evidence. We can say with certainty that the period that the Bible's history loosely corresponds to here is Israel in the 9th century. We have Assyrian inscriptions regarding the 'House of David' and other archaeological markers that tell us such.
The north of Israel, at this time, was far wealthier than the south. It had access to the more fertile valleys and plains to the north of highlands that form the boundary of Israel, as far as ancient purposes are concerned. Geographically, the western boundary between the Mediterranean plain and the highlands is far less daunting and difficult to descend in the north as it is in the south (where there are many steep hills, ravines and cliff faces). This combination meant that wealth, trade and political influence developed in the north of Israel some 150-200 years before the equivalents in the south developed.
The south was, however, little more than a collection of villages. Out of the probably 55,000 inhabitants of Israel at the time, little more than 5,000 were concentrated in the south. Jerusalem, which the Bible describes as the heart of the unified kingdom of David, was little more than an insignificant hill fort in this time. There is evidence to suggest that there was a great level of statehood, military organisation, social stratification and all of the markers of organised society in the north beginning in the 9th century BC, yet these markers do not appear at all in the south until the 7th century BC; when the Bible was written.
Yet the Bible presents us with a picture of a unified Israel, with Jerusalem as its base of wealth and power. The archaeological discoveries in the north in the following periods show that it directly correlates with as historical a view as one can draw from the Biblical house of the Omrides which secedes from the united monarchy of the House of David, yet the south is nothing more than a collection of villages and small pastoral communities, with relative isolation from each other and the greater Near-East, in stark contrast to the highly socially-organised north.
However the Kingdom of Judah, in the south, needed such a unification for its political goals, even if it never took place. As the northern kingdom crumbled under Assyrian pressure, the southern kingdom was beginning to show markers of statehood, organisation and wealth, and it is this Jerusalem that we see becoming the relative center of power in the south.
Players such as Josiah needed the north and south kingdoms to be viewed as united in the consciousness of both peoples, for mythic legitimacy was one of the key avenues through which a political leader in this Near-Eastern context would derive a sense of political legitimacy, especially in conquered provinces. This is reflected clearly in the national epic, in the stories of the Old Testament, that arose out of a culture clearly concerned with this tension and anxiety. The Omrides, who were simply political successors to the separate northern kingdom, are disparaged by the Bible because of the fact that they severed Israel from its God-given state of unity. Yet the archaeological record tells us that not only was there no separation, for there was no unity in the first place, but that their culture was not particularly different from that of the preceding northern political entity, that their military strength and political influence was felt as far away as Anatolia and Egypt, that they were extremely wealthy, and that there were vast building programs and great access to natural resources for their people.
At this point, the wealth and prosperity of the north in comparison to the scarcity and relative impoverishment of the south stands in direct contrast to the Biblical tradition. This is because the Bible's accounts are heavily pressured by the socio-political realities of their day; they are heavily propagandistic. As I said previously, the culture within which the Bible was originally written and compiled greatly needed for the two kingdoms to be united in the self-consciousness of the Israelite culture of their time, because otherwise their political ambitions had no sense of legitimacy. Without such a unification, and one that portrays such a status quo as the divine will of God, they had no mythic or religious basis from which they could legitimize their plans to 'reunify' Israel, as it would be but a simply invasion with no moral high-ground or mythic legitimacy to speak of.
Yet it is absolutely clear that these areas were never politically unified, and that many of the great centers of the south that play an important role in the Biblical account were nothing but villages and small hill forts at the time, but these facts give way to mythic imagination as a function of socio-political and religious agendas on the part of those compiling, editing and writing the Bible in the 7th century BC, in and around Jerusalem and the southern Kingdom of Judah, coming to prominence and needing to legitimize both its mythic origins and its socio-religious ambitions for the conquest of the formerly richer and more prosperous north; thus is born the tale that is woven of David, Solomon and other quasi-history, mythically-exaggerated figures that portrays the south as the traditional heart of Israel, the center of power and learning and the north as the perpetrators of some kind of schism. The reality is that there never was any form of schism, for there was no unity to speak of in the first place, and the centers and hearts of Israel in these tales that are found in the south were nothing but villages and small hill forts at the time.
The story of the Israelites, and the 'adversity' that they overcame is, for the greater part, a 7th century myth, born out of relative socio-political needs. It has its roots in pastoral myths, related legends and older, pan-Semitic fables, but there are very few correlations between the socio-political reality and the tradition of the Bible.
Let me break it down for you, and keep in mind when I talk to you that the parts of the Old Testament I am discussing were written and compiled in 7th century Judah (the southern part of ancient 'Israel', where the cities of Jerusalem and Hebron are located), where the historical king Josiah had come to power over the Kingdom of Judah that had only just begun to spring up as a political power, looking to move to the norther, far wealthier parts of Israel and bring them under his reign under a pretense of 'unification'.
Surely you are familiar with the story of David and Solomon, David's conquests and the great wealth and building programs of Solomon in Jerusalem. Let us just examine this in more detail, relative to the archaeological evidence. We can say with certainty that the period that the Bible's history loosely corresponds to here is Israel in the 9th century. We have Assyrian inscriptions regarding the 'House of David' and other archaeological markers that tell us such.
The north of Israel, at this time, was far wealthier than the south. It had access to the more fertile valleys and plains to the north of highlands that form the boundary of Israel, as far as ancient purposes are concerned. Geographically, the western boundary between the Mediterranean plain and the highlands is far less daunting and difficult to descend in the north as it is in the south (where there are many steep hills, ravines and cliff faces). This combination meant that wealth, trade and political influence developed in the north of Israel some 150-200 years before the equivalents in the south developed.
The south was, however, little more than a collection of villages. Out of the probably 55,000 inhabitants of Israel at the time, little more than 5,000 were concentrated in the south. Jerusalem, which the Bible describes as the heart of the unified kingdom of David, was little more than an insignificant hill fort in this time. There is evidence to suggest that there was a great level of statehood, military organisation, social stratification and all of the markers of organised society in the north beginning in the 9th century BC, yet these markers do not appear at all in the south until the 7th century BC; when the Bible was written.
Yet the Bible presents us with a picture of a unified Israel, with Jerusalem as its base of wealth and power. The archaeological discoveries in the north in the following periods show that it directly correlates with as historical a view as one can draw from the Biblical house of the Omrides which secedes from the united monarchy of the House of David, yet the south is nothing more than a collection of villages and small pastoral communities, with relative isolation from each other and the greater Near-East, in stark contrast to the highly socially-organised north.
However the Kingdom of Judah, in the south, needed such a unification for its political goals, even if it never took place. As the northern kingdom crumbled under Assyrian pressure, the southern kingdom was beginning to show markers of statehood, organisation and wealth, and it is this Jerusalem that we see becoming the relative center of power in the south.
Players such as Josiah needed the north and south kingdoms to be viewed as united in the consciousness of both peoples, for mythic legitimacy was one of the key avenues through which a political leader in this Near-Eastern context would derive a sense of political legitimacy, especially in conquered provinces. This is reflected clearly in the national epic, in the stories of the Old Testament, that arose out of a culture clearly concerned with this tension and anxiety. The Omrides, who were simply political successors to the separate northern kingdom, are disparaged by the Bible because of the fact that they severed Israel from its God-given state of unity. Yet the archaeological record tells us that not only was there no separation, for there was no unity in the first place, but that their culture was not particularly different from that of the preceding northern political entity, that their military strength and political influence was felt as far away as Anatolia and Egypt, that they were extremely wealthy, and that there were vast building programs and great access to natural resources for their people.
At this point, the wealth and prosperity of the north in comparison to the scarcity and relative impoverishment of the south stands in direct contrast to the Biblical tradition. This is because the Bible's accounts are heavily pressured by the socio-political realities of their day; they are heavily propagandistic. As I said previously, the culture within which the Bible was originally written and compiled greatly needed for the two kingdoms to be united in the self-consciousness of the Israelite culture of their time, because otherwise their political ambitions had no sense of legitimacy. Without such a unification, and one that portrays such a status quo as the divine will of God, they had no mythic or religious basis from which they could legitimize their plans to 'reunify' Israel, as it would be but a simply invasion with no moral high-ground or mythic legitimacy to speak of.
Yet it is absolutely clear that these areas were never politically unified, and that many of the great centers of the south that play an important role in the Biblical account were nothing but villages and small hill forts at the time, but these facts give way to mythic imagination as a function of socio-political and religious agendas on the part of those compiling, editing and writing the Bible in the 7th century BC, in and around Jerusalem and the southern Kingdom of Judah, coming to prominence and needing to legitimize both its mythic origins and its socio-religious ambitions for the conquest of the formerly richer and more prosperous north; thus is born the tale that is woven of David, Solomon and other quasi-history, mythically-exaggerated figures that portrays the south as the traditional heart of Israel, the center of power and learning and the north as the perpetrators of some kind of schism. The reality is that there never was any form of schism, for there was no unity to speak of in the first place, and the centers and hearts of Israel in these tales that are found in the south were nothing but villages and small hill forts at the time.
The story of the Israelites, and the 'adversity' that they overcame is, for the greater part, a 7th century myth, born out of relative socio-political needs. It has its roots in pastoral myths, related legends and older, pan-Semitic fables, but there are very few correlations between the socio-political reality and the tradition of the Bible.
pman
Banned
scorch...can I have a link to the full article please...I'll address your points later cos I'm a bit hectic atm..having an exam and 2 assignments dues in the next week
That's cool.
The article wasn't online, as far as I remember, but that's basically it minus some personal remarks towards the person whose claim it was refuting, which was that the Bible was basically historical and that it was only deemed to be unhistorical because of what we hadn't found, and not what we had found, which I then go on to show is untrue.
Fish Tank
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But but but but but but but there is a flying spaghetti monster!
And cookie monster lives on the street.. the Sesame Street.
travelinchick07
New Member
I wasn't saying that god is male, I was using the most widely accepted personal pronoun to use when talking about god.
spacecadet
New Member
Without going into debate about religion or faith or anything else (personally I somewhat envy those with faith as this, from my experience, largely translates into naivety - oh to be sheltered from the evils of the world... well, not all of them...)
I don't know whether god exists or not, though I highly doubt it. Even if god did exist (which I don't believe s/he does), s/he would have a lot to answer for, and clearly wouldnt be as mighty and wonderful as they're made out to be. Take a look around - the evils occurring even within the church are enough to show that if there is a god, they're really not all they're cracked up to be. How could someone with that much power and wisdom let thousands of people starve/be tortured/live a horrific life and still be 'all mighty'?!
The excuse that "god has a plan" really isn't enough. What's the plan for the starving African children?? To eventually die an excruciating, drawn-out death?? Frankly even iIF there is a god I'd rather not have anything to do with them, or their 'heaven'.
I don't know whether god exists or not, though I highly doubt it. Even if god did exist (which I don't believe s/he does), s/he would have a lot to answer for, and clearly wouldnt be as mighty and wonderful as they're made out to be. Take a look around - the evils occurring even within the church are enough to show that if there is a god, they're really not all they're cracked up to be. How could someone with that much power and wisdom let thousands of people starve/be tortured/live a horrific life and still be 'all mighty'?!
The excuse that "god has a plan" really isn't enough. What's the plan for the starving African children?? To eventually die an excruciating, drawn-out death?? Frankly even iIF there is a god I'd rather not have anything to do with them, or their 'heaven'.
There are two problems I have with the concept of God which I have never heard a satisfactory explanation for. If anyone would be willing to clear them up I would greatly appreciate it.
1) God is considered omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent. Omniscience implies that in his creation of the Universe, he knew exactly what would become of everything and everyone in his creation. His omnipotence dictates that he deliberately made everything and everyone to be and do so. It follows from this, that he deliberately created, for example, certain people to believe in him and others not to. One might argue that this is a choice, but this is illusory. Choice is impossible when the behaviour of every sub-atomic particle at every point in time and space was pre-determined by God before time and space even existed.
Now we consider that God punishes severely any action which upsets him. One of the more extreme examples is lack of belief, for which he sends individuals to Hell for eternal punishment. It follows from this, that though he is directly responsible for peoples' actions and beliefs, he punishes them for these very things. Not only is free will impossible, but God sees it fit to send to Hell, for eternal suffering, any person who he determined in the very beginning by God himself to be unfavourable. Fair? No. Benevolent? Certainly not.
2) This is an argument Christopher Hitchens uses frequently and I have never heard a satisfactory argument against it. If the theist accepts, as anyone who accepts evolution does, that the human race has existed for at the very least 100 000 years (the figure varies up to 250 000 years), then that theist must also accept that for the first (at the VERY least) 97 000 - 98 000 years of human existence, God stood by and watched as homo sapiens struggled against the environment and against every living thing in contact with it to survive. Life expectancy extremely low. Infant mortality rate shockingly high. Viruses and other diseases decimating human populations, all of them hungry and fearful of their environment.
The theist must accept that after well over 90 000 years of contently watching this, God decides to step in and intervene. And even then, only to give a few desert tribes in the Middle East a half-assed, mostly incorrect explanation of the origin of the universe, a set of mostly confounded and some innately conceivable moral guidelines, and ritual animal sacrifice.
Do these problems seem perfectly unproblematic to theists or am I missing something?
1) God is considered omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent. Omniscience implies that in his creation of the Universe, he knew exactly what would become of everything and everyone in his creation. His omnipotence dictates that he deliberately made everything and everyone to be and do so. It follows from this, that he deliberately created, for example, certain people to believe in him and others not to. One might argue that this is a choice, but this is illusory. Choice is impossible when the behaviour of every sub-atomic particle at every point in time and space was pre-determined by God before time and space even existed.
Now we consider that God punishes severely any action which upsets him. One of the more extreme examples is lack of belief, for which he sends individuals to Hell for eternal punishment. It follows from this, that though he is directly responsible for peoples' actions and beliefs, he punishes them for these very things. Not only is free will impossible, but God sees it fit to send to Hell, for eternal suffering, any person who he determined in the very beginning by God himself to be unfavourable. Fair? No. Benevolent? Certainly not.
2) This is an argument Christopher Hitchens uses frequently and I have never heard a satisfactory argument against it. If the theist accepts, as anyone who accepts evolution does, that the human race has existed for at the very least 100 000 years (the figure varies up to 250 000 years), then that theist must also accept that for the first (at the VERY least) 97 000 - 98 000 years of human existence, God stood by and watched as homo sapiens struggled against the environment and against every living thing in contact with it to survive. Life expectancy extremely low. Infant mortality rate shockingly high. Viruses and other diseases decimating human populations, all of them hungry and fearful of their environment.
The theist must accept that after well over 90 000 years of contently watching this, God decides to step in and intervene. And even then, only to give a few desert tribes in the Middle East a half-assed, mostly incorrect explanation of the origin of the universe, a set of mostly confounded and some innately conceivable moral guidelines, and ritual animal sacrifice.
Do these problems seem perfectly unproblematic to theists or am I missing something?
pman
Banned
This is correct, god knows exactly what is going to happen to everyone and has known since he created the universe, the main reason for non-believers is unknown to us and and probably unknowable.
can we blame god for a little injustice when we, the human race do far worse?
once again, who can understand the mind of god?
Could they have been edited to remove these traits?
Did the Israelites not have to come from somewhere....Histories do get muddled over time. As i have already stated, we have no proof that these are primary sources.
I'll deal with this after the article in question.I've included, for convenience, at the end of this post, an extract from an article that I wrote on the subject with particular reference to the Biblical relationship between the Northern and Southern kingdoms with regards to what actually happened, with a view to examine the differences and see what meaning we can draw. It may clear up some confusion, if you'd like to read it; if you don't, well then that's cool too.
I'm just copying you and taking parts of the bible out of context. Yes, it contradicts itself but so are you when you say that atheism isn't a religion, yes, it has no fixed beliefs but you still search fro meaning somewhere in your hollow lives. Many find this meaning in money or sex (just look at the general population of BoS). Religion is about how meaning is not found in these things but gives a reason for being here. In other words, religion seems the natural response when one asks the age old question of "why are we here?"
yet even some aboriginal Australian cultures have flood myths when it was localised to Europe? yes, it has been exaggerated but it was still probably a fierce flood, the worst they'd ever seen.
It does not seem logical or even reasonable to put the existence of light before the existence of the stars yet the ancient Israelites do, obviously something influenced them to do so. What this was is open to speculation.
did you not say that the culture arose from southern Israel, therefore there was a cultural takeover from the south.
An agreeably interesting article, I can neither refute nor confirm these claims, I'm not an historian and never will be. I shall have to leave this to someone else. I have however already agreed with the statement the
No.
You misunderstand, I think. The knowledge we have of the origins of the Israelites does not come from 'history' but from archaeology and cultural analysis. But no, they didn't have to come from somewhere, in the short term. In the longer term, everyone came from somewhere, yes, but that's going back hundreds of thousands of years. For our purposes, the Israelites were just a cultural diversion in a certain area that developed into a different culture.
Not at all. I do not take parts of the Bible out of context. When I quote to people the violent verses of slaughter I am fully aware of the context in which it was written, both inside the Bible and the greater socio-political context, and that's more than I can say for 19/20 Christians I meet.
As does science, and the answers of science are derived from knowledge, evidence, and observations we can quantify and is legitimized by scrutiny and peer review; the Bible is a fairytale.
... because floods ... y'know ... happen. It's not particularly difficult to understand. But yes, the flood in the Near-Eastern cultures was probably the worst they had seen, and the fact that it is attributed to God and supernatural forces when it is clearly a natural event simply shows that they were unable to understand it and assumed it was the work of God, when it was clearly an entirely natural phenomenon, making up stories, myths and fables as they went along. I'm not sure what your point is.
You're doing it again. Let's ignore the fact that it takes an extremely strained interpretation to get to that point. If you're claiming that God influenced this particularly small point that they got right, then you have to accept that God influenced the hundreds of historical, political, scientific and cosmological points that are woefully wrong, and would not stand up to the scientific knowledge of a modern-day high school student.
No I didn't say that. The culture itself spread over both the North and the South.
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pman
Banned
why not?
You admit that the culture changed, depending on your definition, there has been a form of take-over.
You do not see them out of context but the way you post, you place them out of context allowing the casual observer to easily misinterpret what you are saying and what the bible means.
Yes, science also delves into the meaning of life, what one must understand is that science and religion are not mutually exclusive, the big bang theory for instance was first posed by a Jesuit priest. To say that religion discounts a search fro greater understanding as the Dawkins quote in your signature does and you do by this comment is completely false, most of the big names in science were religious, Newton, Galileo, and others, whilst being against the control the catholic church had over popular belief, where still religious. Clearly these people sought to understand the world, as do many Christians I know. My Church has physicists, biologists, chemists and mathematicians among the regular congregation. These people a logical minded and search for a greater understanding, therefore, Dawkins and you are both wrong in saying that religion and science are mutually exclusive.
Of course floods happen but one myth that is constant all over the world, surely it did happen.
As I have already said, you must remember when you look at these texts, that they were written with an intended audience of people that could neither understand nor fathom the truth, it was so alien to their understanding. A has to be relevant to the target audience and long discussions on big bangs, gravity causing orbits and antimatter annihilations would have just confused the issue.
you implied that the culture of following the god of Abraham came from the south, and of course neighboring areas will have similar cultures.
Fighting4LastPl
Member
wow that's some close figures
This line of discussion is pointless; what are you trying to show here? There was no cultural takeover in any of the terms you envisage it.
No, the problem is that you assume the Bible to have an overall message of peace and love based on the tradition that you accept and, in doing so, take it out of its 7th century context; in showing you that the Bible is a resonant product of a violent religious movement that uses mythic imagery to disparage its political rivals with little to no factual basis, I am replacing the context that Christians strip it of.
Just because the Bible is violent does not mean that, for some reason, instances of violence are arbitrary and out of context; this is nothing more than an excuse that Christians rely upon. The Bible orders that homosexuals be killed, that a woman raped inside of a town be stoned for not having cried for help loud enough, and tells stories of God demanding the genocide, religious cleansing and slaughter of other tribes. Just because it doesn't fit with your picture of the Bible being lovely and sweet doesn't mean it's out of context.
Arguments that scientists are religious are useless. Religion is an unscientific belief in a ridiculous claim made without any evidence, overwhelmingly by books that are thousands of years old and can be shown to be wrong in both scientific and historical senses. Belief in God is unscientific, belief in religion even more so, and the fact that there exist scientists that, for some reason or another, decide to ignore this fact in one part of their lives does not lend it any credence, I'm afraid.
It's not constant in any way that you'd like it to be; but no it did not happen. Wishful thinking does not an event prove.
I'm not expecting the Bible to be a treatise on particle physics, I'm expecting the divine creator of the universe that apparently knows everything that ever happened, ever will and engineered the entire shebang to be able to inspire what could be considered a basically correct or factually coherent version of events, as opposed to the mess that we do get, with myths, absurdities, hyperbole and hundreds of scientific, historical and factual mistakes.
Okay, no. The culture was more or less contained to the highlands of Palestine. Politically, there was a divide between the north and south, in that the north was unified into a political entity and the south was not, but they had the same cultural and ethnic origins.
Really shows that there is a lot of irrational people in the world!
God is a living joke!
If god created everything, who the f**k created god?
People who believed in god are seriously brainwashed by their parents, their private religious school or whatever made them believed in it.
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ReNG
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Well, God has created a plan for us. Just like every other plan, whether its a business plan or whatever it is, its our choice to follow it or not. In other words, its our choice to follow the plan God has provided us. That's also where the devil comes in, he disrupts God's plans and causes us to go astray.