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@Tradesecret
It can't be known what really happened 2000 years ago in Palestine, but i think it is very possible jesus was arrested and crucified. It could well be because he had upset the jewish religious establishment, not only for his blasphemy but his anti-clerical criticism of the priests corruption and veniality.
If so, it is only surprising that Christianity did not disappear along with its charismatic figurehead and actually gained in strength. The early christians turned a disaster into a positive by portraying Jesus' death as a supreme martyrdom.
If i had a time machine I would make a bee-line to that time and place! It's tempting to speculate but there's not much point when the truth is unknowable. The faithful can claim to 'know', but their faith means nothing to sceptics!
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@rosends
Ah, the witch of Endor! As i may have said, the writers of the text were not obsessed with consistency.
There is active debate and dispute even today, so it is reasonable to suppose that there was no single narrow doctrine followed perfectly by every Hebrew scribe and story teller. However I maintain that early Judaism did not have the same conception of death and afterlife that it did later on.
Moses' contemporaries did not believe souls were judged and sent to heaven or hell accordingly. If they believed in any sort of postumous existence it was only a shadowy, hollow sort of existence. if it was imagined at all, it was imagined more like being in a limbo than heaven or hell.
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@rosends
I'm not always strict when I post because threads aren't formal debates. But I can be very pedantic when I want to be!
But if you look at the code of hammurabbi or other ancient codes there is next to nothing relating to religion. Also other ancient writings don't seem intent on appearing realistic. I don't think Babylonians were expected to accept, for example, the Epic of Gilgamesh as actual history. I do think the writers of the pentateuch want it to be believed.
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@ludofl3x
I used ants because the difference between you and an ant is probably less than the difference between an infinite god and a person. An intelligent robot may be too close to our own level.
I don't think one can prove command theory 'wrong'. If it is true then some of our intutions about what is and what is not moral are incorrect. My view is that there is no such thing as morality, which is what moral nihilism really means - morality does not exist.
That is to say it is not a matter of whether morality is subjective or objective, absolute or relative. Morality can't be any of those because morality does not exist at all.
Consider a rape. The violence objectively exists, the suffering objectively exists, it's forced nature objectively exists. But that it is immoral is a subjective judgement. That is to say it is a matter of objective fact that violence is involved - it is a matter of subjective judgement that it is immoral.
Put clearly, morality does not exist - only moral judgements exist. So what makes my judgement that rape is bad correct and a rapists opinion wrong? Aren't I commited to moral indifference?
I don't think so. I think rape is bad and I want it to be my view that prevails. I am (and those like me are)in a battle of wills with those who see rape differently and I will do whatever I can to see they lose. But it's not because my opinion is 'has morality' and the rapist opinion 'has immorality' - it is because I want my will to triumph.
'
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Edit: He responded while I was typing this.
yeah, but did he say yes or no !? I have no idea.
I get the ultimate reality thing, I think. What people think of as 'reality' has to come from somewhere; ie it has to have an underlying cause (nothing comes out of nothing). That underlying cause is what mopac calls 'ultimate reality'.
I think his error is to insist that 'whatever it is that underpins ordinary reality' (which I will accept must exist) is the Christian God. I think the 'ultmate reality' - ie that which underpins ordinary reaity - exists but is nothing like the Christian God (whatever Mopac's dictionary says!).
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@ludofl3x
If you had an ant farm you could do whatever you wanted to it.
If you wanted to kill 3/4 of the ants just to see what happens, are you morally obliged not to? Your desire to kill 3/4 of the ants is all the justification needed to do it.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
you'll have to remind us which question that refers to!Yes/no?
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@rosends
I wonder if this relates to the issue of why scriptures are produced. People will naturally imagine different versions of heaven and god and afterlife so writing a definitive scripture gives an opportunity to tidy things up and create some consistency, reducing the scope for internal divisions and creating unity.
If so, it is rarely wholly successful!
I don't believe in divine inspiration - scriptures are written by people with some objective in mind, not necessarily the same objective! for example it is odd that gen 1 and gen 2 overlap and contradict each other. That must have been obvious to the writers but it was left unresolved. i like to imagine a committee of costumed priests horse trading over what went into the final version! They probably reasoned that it wasn't going to be subject to hostile analysis by the intended audience of ordinary Hebrews so it didn't have to be perfect!
. Would a contemporary of Moses's say that there is such a thing as resurrection? According to some, yes.
There isn't much sign the Hebrews believed in an afterlife that depended on how one had lived. If there was any posthumous existence at all, it was as a ghostly shade something like our idea of a ghost, but even less 'lifeish'. But I'd say a hebrew at the time of Moses expected only oblivion after death. Only exceptional individulals like Elijah were granted anything more. But in the absence of definitive scriptural dogma long ago there may have been room for alternative opinions. Job is given this speech: "after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God".
But what matters is when Job was written, not when it is set. The oldest parts of the ot maybe the psalms, and they seem to have no truck with posthumous activity.
"It is not the dead who praise the LORD, those who go down to the place of silence"; (ps 115)
"For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for your faithfulness."(ps 38)
etc.
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@rosends
1 Thou shalt have no other gods before me
2 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
3 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
4 Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
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@disgusted
It's hard to balance debating assuming god exists and assuming god doesn't exist!
I am not sure that every theist believes atheists think there is no god. Some of them must think we are 'dystheists' because they can't get their head around someone believing god does exist at all. you (especially) are constanly being accused of hating god. I don't know what the solution is.
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@rosends
I think the effect of scripture is to define and fix doctrine and dogma; a religion without a scripture can change by adopting ideas from outside, diluting its identity. The ot is the first instance of an actual scripture,that is a text intended to be definitive. There are writings from other cultures, but they appear to be legends and poems that are not definitive or binding.
A significant spect is that the first 4 commandments are concerned with blasphemy. Previous law codes - such as the Assyrian or Babylonian do not legislate about blasphemy at all. Nor do we find in other ancient writings the same attempt to construct a coherent saga.
I honestly believe the ot was created to define a jewish identity so it would not disappear. As it was written by yhwist priests, the identity it promoted was a yhwhistic one, which may or may not accurately represent the reality of hebrew culture. There is plenty in the bible that implies the hebrews were not monolithically yhwhist as might first appear! Time and time again we read how the Hebrews apostase, and how many of their kings were very bad yhwhists, or not yhwhist at all! The exile gave the priests of yhwh the opportunity to shape the jews as they wanted. To be a good jew in exile was to accept the yhwhists version of jewishness. There is clear indication that not accepting it was dangerous for the exiled jew - they could be accused of blasphemy (effectively treason). Of course that could only work if there was an 'offiicial', definitive statement of orthodoxy that the new scripture provided.
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@ludofl3x
Surely outplyz ain't going nowhere?It's not really ANOTHER paradox, but I'm not really sure what 'someone like (you)' means. I know you've largely made up your own version of faith and supernatural and realms and levels, right? Then the answer is you go to hell where you'll be eternally tortured for your blasphemy and potential apostasy. It seems pretty straightforward to me in your case. You aren't a Christian, you go to hell. I'm not a Christian, I go to hell. The problem isn't with us. It's a problem for Christians.
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@disgusted
It is human nature to think one's own country or people is the best! The writers of the Hebrew bible certainly thought so - they were extreme chauvinists who had nothing good to say about any non-hebrew people or their gods. Accordingly, the Hebrew were never beaten by a superior people; they were only ever beaten as a punishment for displeasing their god.
The Hebrews - or their their yhwhist priests who wrote the bible - had no interest in anyone except themselves, considering them lesser beings not deserving of the same rights as Hebrews; hence the distinction between Hebrew and non-hebrew slaves etc.
Hebrew priests conflated religious identity with racial identity, and that remains so even today - consider whether 'Jew' an ethnic classification or a religious one!
It is theoretically possible for a non-ethnic jew to be a convert to judaism, but in practice there are many obstacles to it and it is very rare indeed. Anti-semistism is an indelible stain on humanity, but the Jews cared about racial purity. We read how Ezra felt about it:
The people of Israel, including the priests and the Levites, have not kept themselves separate from the neighboring peoples with their detestable practices, like those of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians and Amorites. They have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, and have mingled the holy race with the peoples around them. And the leaders and officials have led the way in this unfaithfulness.” When I heard this, I tore my tunic and cloak, pulled hair from my head and beard and sat down appalled....Then Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have been unfaithful; you have married foreign women, adding to Israel’s guilt. Now honour the Lord, the God of your ancestors, and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples around you and from your foreign wives.”The whole assembly responded with a loud voice: “You are right! We must do as you say.
(Ezra 9:1-3, 10:10-12)
Sad to say all people are prone to bigotry and hatred. If we don't recognise that fact then racism and religious bigotry won't ever be defeated..
It may be that yhwh was thought to be the god of all, but yhwh's relationship with Hebrews/Jews and with Gentiles in the OT was not the same.
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@Tradesecret
I thought 'no brainer' meant something so obvious even sarah palin would get it.For me some things are no brainers. One, there is a God. Two life must have meaning. Three, justice must eventually occur. Four, if this does not occur during life - which obviously it does not, then it must occur after life. This implies - after life.
but I don't agree they are 'no brainers' - i think they are false!
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@Mopac
"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,Some to everlasting life,Some to shame and everlasting contempt."This is in the book of Daniel.There are other examples, but i read this one today and it is pretty unambiguous.
No doubt that Jewish ideas about the afterlife came to include resurrection - but when did it happen? I put it late (200-300 BC?). A late date for daniel is compatible with that. C6th date still allows plenty of time for an even earlier non-ressurectionist form of Judaism.
I hold that a jewish contempory of Moses would not have believed in resurrection - however Egyptians of that time did.
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@Tradesecret
Consensus is the sources of genesis are older but they were woven into something resembling the 'book of genesis' we have today during the exile.Genesis was written well prior to the Babylonian context.
I think that exiled yhwhist scribes wanted to produce a single, canonical statement of Hebrew/jewish identity in order that the Jews would surive as distinct people. They did not want to follow the 'lost tribes' into oblivion.
Consequently we very much get 'history' as told by yhwhist priests on a mission, not detached observers! My view is there is the bare minimum of real history in Genesis (or the penteuch in general). It's about keeping up Jewish pride and morale, not documenting history.
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@Mopac
I try to imgine why someone would sit down to write a given text.
I imagine the writer of gen 1 was a pious yhwhist and a patriotic jew (there was little difference). he wanted to write something that would inspire his people, who had been badly beaten by the Babylonians and were now trapped in exile.
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@Tradesecret
Do you agree it is all about hebrew/jewish religious and ethnic identity, not 'what happened'?
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The stories of Genesis cannot be read apart from their original cultural context, and when we read them as they were meant to be read, we see that the creation story was a gauntlet thrown down before the prevailing culture of its time.
The creation stories affirmed that the Jewish God, the tribal deity of a small and internationally unimportant people, alone made the whole cosmos. That meant that He was able to protect His People. It meant that, properly speaking, all the pagan nations should abandon their old gods and worship Him.
These stories affirm that the Jewish God is powerful enough to have created everything by a few simple orders.
I agree that is what gen 1 is.
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I'd call that the 'ptolmaic' approach. To preserve their initil assumption (earth centred circular motion) ptolmaic astronomers had to invent cycles within cycles, epicycles, deferents,equants etc etc...
To preserve their assumptions theologians invented 'total depravity', 'original sin', 'unconditional election' etc etc. Atheism is like copernicanism.
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@Tradesecret
I don't care about Jephthah - what was his daughter being punished for?
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@Tradesecret
I think the story has a root in a day-dream that the world began as a pardise and camp-fire stories about what went wrong.
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@Tradesecret
That's the theory of 'total depravity'.Every person who ends up in Hell deserves to be there - and to be tortured forever. You have not refuted this yet. I say even the people in heaven deserve to be in Hell and tortured for ever.
But it ignore the obvious fact that there are good people and bad people.
Theologians trying to solve the problem of evil came up with the concept of total depravity and then to make total depravity work they invented original sin which has the required effect of turning even good people into sinners.
I don't deny what you,Tradesecret, say makes a sort of logical sense in its own terms. But it is logic that applies to a fantasy world where there are omniscient gods and sin can be inherited from ancestors.
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@Tradesecret
Human sacrifice was not practised in accordance with the Hebrew bible. the episode of Abraham and Isaac is a very isolated incident - and one where the child was not even sacrificed. You can use it if you want but I don't find it an incident of child sacrifice.
you don't mention the story of Jephthah who sacrifices his daughter in exchange for victory over the Ammonites.
Judges 11
11 Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior.... And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord: “If you give the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the door ... I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
32 Then Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites, and the Lord gave them into his hands...
34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the Lord that I cannot break.”
39 ... and he did to her as he had vowed.
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@Tradesecret
When did the Hebrew people ever attack a nation without provocation?
When they invaded and conquered Canaan under Joshua because it was 'the promised land'. The Hebrews were invaders and they massacred any town or and city that dared to defended themselves.
Num 13 1-2 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel."
joshua 12 8-24; The Israelites defeated the kings of the following towns west of the Jordan River:
Jericho, Ai near Bethel, Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon, Gezer, Debir, Geder, Hormah, Arad, Libnah, Adullam, Makkedah, Bethel, Tappuah, Hepher, Aphek, Lasharon, Madon, Hazor, Shimron-Meron, Achshaph, Taanach, Megiddo, Kedesh, Jokneam on Mount Carmel, Dor in Naphath-Dor, Goiim in Galilee, and Tirzah.
There were thirty-one of these kings in all. (CEV)
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@disgusted
Nothing at all to do with my argument. My argument can be summed up as god's omniscience makes god evil.
Are you arguing god is evil or god doesn't exist?
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@Goldtop
@Mopac
@disgusted
Plantinga has petty good answer for disgusted.
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@Goldtop
If mopac stops who's left?
I never thought i'd miss Ethang!
Ethang5 wrote: I live in Africa where I run Bibles to countries which outlaw the possession of Bibles. Been doing it for more than 15 years to many countries. I have 3 children.
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@Mopac
i'm not sure you get what gus accusing you of.
The argument is that omniscience and omnibenevolence are logical contradictory. it is not gus's idea - its been argued over for 2000 years! It's got nothing to do with any teaching; it's about the concepts of omniscience and omnibenevolence being incompatible. Think of it as trivial pedantry or a semantic quibble!
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@Mopac
I insist that The Ultimate Reality is God, and this is what Orthodoxy teaches, a religion you would say has The Abrahamic God.How do you explain this?
I genuinely tried to answer 'How do you explain me?'. I realise now that 'me' meant something like 'what i believe'. Sorry - it wasn't on purpose.
OK, we agree about 'reality', that is we agree that things like matter and energy, elephants, televisions, chairs, stars etc etc. all 'exist'; they are 'real'.
As reality exist it must have a 'source', or 'origin'. That is to say there must be an 'ultimate reality' that underpins 'ordinary reality'.
I suggest we are more or less on the same page so far!
But what is this 'ultimate reality' like? It is my impression your belief is 'that which underpins ordinary reality' is the Biblical God.
I believe that ultimate reality - ie the thing that underpins reality - is just piece of mindless physics, the details of which get clarified every day by cosmologists.
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@eventuality001
It seems to me that the Hebrew's law code was very similar to other ancient law codes we know about.
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@eventuality001
According to the bible account the Hebrews under Joshua were invaders and conquerors of Canaan and dealt harshly with any one who got in the way of their desire to displace, destroy and replace those already there.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I am left wondering whether growing up the way you did really is really the reason you believe creationism to be bullshit or whether it was perhaps just a catylist that allowed other reasons to lead you to that conclusion.
i said 'nonsense', not bullshit! BS makes it sound i'm a zealot!
you are correct - there is a y in catalyst but your aim was a bit off!
Is there anything, even outside of a debate setting as you say, that you could learn or experience that would convince you that this belief is innaccurate?
Of course. I have an open mind and I always evaluate fresh information fully and objetively.
Now that was bullshit! I can invent fanciful scenrios where I'd have to change my mind about creationism, but in the real world that ain't gonna happen.
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@disgusted
he creates Fred for the sole purpose of torturing him for eternity
Perhaps God created Fred to give Ralph some company!
I tried my best to get a proper theist (ok, mopac) to engage but I've given up.
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@Mopac
What is disputed is whether 'ultimate reality' = 'abrahamic god'.Well, if it wasn't the case, how do you explain me?
You evolved from matter produced in the big bang.
How do you explain me?
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@Mopac
you, mopac, seem unwilling to grasp no-one here is disputing that. What is disputed is whether 'ultimate reality' = 'abrahamic god'.Without that there is no universe. Everything was brought into being because The Ultimate Reality is there.
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@Mopac
Fortuntely there are orthodox websites that do understand issues you seem blind to.There is no problem of evil. The problem is in people who have a morality based off an arbitrary sense of aesthetics rather than purity of heart.
"God and we ourselves are still engaged in a massive cosmic struggle. The Cross and Resurrection ended Satan’s sovereignty over the world and over our individual destinies. Yet the struggle continues, just as sin continues"
"theodicy is particularly a problem for the Abrahamic monotheisms, all of which maintain that there is only one God and that this God is both
omnibenevolent and omnipotent. If these tenets are held to be so, theodicy becomes a particular difficulty"
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@Discipulus_Didicit
in a debate one normally lays out one's reasons in a neat list of bullet points, together with nice, logical argument. in the real world we acquire our beliefs about the world chaotically. I didn't sit down with reasons for evolution in one column and reasons aginst it in another. As a kid i read a lot of science books and magazines and had the barest minimum of exposure to religion. I don't even remember learning about evolution. if you told me at age 11 there were people who took gen 1 as fact I probably wouldn't have believed you!According to post 12 one of things is creationism. Would you like to give a brief general description of how you came to that conclusion?
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Paris is the capital of France, but do you know the capital of Paris?My assumption here is that you are asking me what the capital building is, something equivilant perhaps to the Russian Kremlin or U.S. Capitol, to which my answer would be no.
P.
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@Mopac
Disgusted is not interested in understanding anything, he is a nihilist. After watching him for so long, you'd have to be blind not to notice.
Gus is always in 'Attack!' mode! But i'd be disappointed if you think that theodicy and the 'problem of evil' aren't valid topics for debate.
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@disgusted
You are assuming god cannot know ahead of time what a person with true free-will will choose. Agreed that is impossible for humans but
"Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt 19:26).
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@Mopac
It is Truth worship.
We atheists seek truth and are suspicious of people who claim to already have it.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
You quickly concluded that you had not, I assume. How did you reach this conclusion?
I think i read the next line which helped!
I don't think i can answer you question because people are only conscious of the results of their brain operatin, not the internal workings of it. i don't know how i remember things, or imagine things or even how i make my fingers type. I just do such things.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
What is the first thing that went through your when reading that?
I thought i'd made an horrendous bloomer!
Paris is the capital of France, but do you know the capital of Paris?
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@Mopac
why not admit (reluctantly) that disgusted has a point and promise to get back to him? it's ok not to have everything at your fingertips.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Because that is what is encoded in my brain. I can't recall how/when it got encoded.So why do you believe Paris is the capital of France?
It isn't just because you can imagine it being true, since you can also imagine it being the capital of Germany (as you just did) so why is it?
my first thoughts are is that recalling something and imagining something are related mental opertions but they are not quite identical. You may have thought about it more than me!
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@Mopac
Disgusted argues that omniscience implies predestination.
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@Mopac
That is certainly not going to be solved through the inevitable secularization that follows from intermarrying among faiths.
You must accept i am not as pessimistic about secularism as you are!
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@disgusted
'Ralph' does not know his fate. He can choose to be Christian at any time, as can you. Possibly God creates some souls that are fated to be damned but you can choose not to be amongst them.
Allegedly.
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