Why doesn't the "mosaic" God lead by example?
I know of three mainstream religions which may be said to believe in the "mosaic" God - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Now, I'm wondering why their God doesn't lead by example. I mean, if He doesn't want people to kill each other, how about not killing people Himself; if He wants people to be compassionate and forgiving, how about He always acts with compassion and forgiveness; if He wants people to stop judging each other, how about He doesn't judge them. This is because chances are, people are going to follow what He does instead of what He says unless He gives them sufficient reason to do otherwise. The idea that God can do anything because He has the power to do so could also be interpreted to mean that if humans have the power to do something then they are within their rights to perform those actions. Personally, I think this is one of the causes of the moral ambiguity or inadequacy that is prevalent among those who claim to belong to these religions.
I'm just wondering why God (a being of supposedly supreme intelligence, wisdom and love) isn't held to a greater standard than humans. Isn't God supposed to resolve issues with the least violence, the most intelligence and compassion?
Now, I'm wondering why their God doesn't lead by example. I mean, if He doesn't want people to kill each other, how about not killing people Himself; if He wants people to be compassionate and forgiving, how about He always acts with compassion and forgiveness; if He wants people to stop judging each other, how about He doesn't judge them. This is because chances are, people are going to follow what He does instead of what He says unless He gives them sufficient reason to do otherwise. The idea that God can do anything because He has the power to do so could also be interpreted to mean that if humans have the power to do something then they are within their rights to perform those actions. Personally, I think this is one of the causes of the moral ambiguity or inadequacy that is prevalent among those who claim to belong to these religions.
I'm just wondering why God (a being of supposedly supreme intelligence, wisdom and love) isn't held to a greater standard than humans. Isn't God supposed to resolve issues with the least violence, the most intelligence and compassion?
Comments (139)
"Thou shalt not kill" went underwater in the mass killing by the Great Flood."
I have a whole poetic list of such bad examples if you want to see it.
No need, I get it.
This then raises the question, "can't he save souls without the sacrifice?" Coz He (God) is the one performing the sacrifice. Then, He (God) is the one accepting the sacrifice. And, finally, He (God) is still the one who saves the souls. So what would I be missing? I would think it be easier to just skip to the part which concerns us and save us the trauma of whatever psychological complex seems to spur His unapologetic morbid streak.
Also, isn't a supreme being supposed to do the greatest good? Save all mankind including his son?
Sure, those seem like valid criticisms of incredulity. Certainly it doesnt seem like god is making much sense or being very moral but the believer will just pass the buck over to gods mysterious ways. Seems evil to us but we are not god and it all serves some greater good etc etc
Either that, or will get the metaphor/“bibles not literal” dodge.
Seems we skeptics already know and expect that the firmer believers won't give up, as their belief-wires have already solidly wired together from firing too many times together, and so this should silence any remaining bafflement we may have.
"Mysterious ways" is a cover for "insane/bad ways" and the non-literal Bible dodge of a book supposedly written in plain language for the common man is another expected desperation.
In a larger sense, we all have to do what our will has come to be up to the instant, and if learning is no longer possible then there it stays in these areas.
Look to cognitive behavioral science for more.
But not without limits.
Moses is associated with the 10 Commandments, Exodus, and all that. God did tell one of his prophets, Hosea, to marry a whore.
So what happened? Hosea's wife behaved badly, like a whore -- pretty much what was expected. Why did God want Hosea to marry a whore? So Hosea could understand what it was like being the God of Israel.
Apparently the other gods were handing out raisin cakes that year. Good PR move, no doubt. I like chocolate chip cookies better, but a very good raisin cookie is OK too.
That is the sort of thing God does to set an example. Well, there was the bit with Jesus too.
My apologies, my bad. Anyway, the significance of the question remains, I hope.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Again, it's like God is seeking some kind of validation and He isn't clearly setting out the rules. If the whore is acting like a whore,... I think I'm missing where the problem lies. If humans have free will and they can make whichever choice suits them, doesn't it mean they can follow whomever they choose, God or not.
Also, God seems to always want something from us. Being a supreme being, shouldn't He be less wanting and more giving? It always seems like God is the one with the unfulfilled expectations.
You may be confusing peace with pacifism.
Pacifism does not lead to peace. Pacifism only leads to contempt. Peace can only exist in mutual respect, and all respect is ultimately always based on the fear for reprisals.
It often takes a hell of a lot of reprisals to finally bring peace.
... what does the LORD require of you? To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8).
Or "Love your neighbor as yourself."
That's it. Simple enough, and difficult enough.
Not that any of this need be morally simple, but most of us allow that people with extra skills, positions of power, special knowledge get to do stuff that would be 'sinful' if kids or regular citizens or the unskilled did it.
So how long do we still have to wait until the peace is achieved? Also, is God involved in this peace process and why isn't He working faster? (He just happened to create everything in a week but it's going to take forever to bring peace... ?)
That's the point I'm making - that, the 'do as I say' teaching is inadequate when the teachers don't do as they say.
Quoting Coben
None of them claim to be perfect or above censure. Unless we accept that the "abrahamic/mosaic" God is just another being liable to faults just like all the other beings we have encountered.
Quoting Coben
We allow but we still know it is wrong and we still define the limits of such allowances. When we get down to brass tacks, the only reason we give such allowances is when it benefits us more than it harms us. So, again, this has the implication that the "abrahamic/mosaic" God isn't really special but we allow Him for the sake of benefits, right?
And again, why are we holding God to the same standards we have for humans? Isn't God supposed to be above that? What happened to being perfect, all-powerful, faultless, etc, etc?
Right but my point is that we accept that already at the human level.Quoting BrianW
Right. But that doesn't really affect my argument. My argument is that we accept that experts/leaders/adults make decisions and perform acts that non-experts/non-leaders/children are not allowed to make, and so the idea that there is a God who does not act like he tells us to act, cannot be considered immoral or hypocritical per se.Quoting BrianW
I disagree that we 'know it is wrong'. Unless we are complete pacifists we allow people to knowingly kill even innocents in wartime. We allow police powers we do not allow other citizens, powers most do nto consider wrong at least in many types of instances. We allow parents to do things we do not allow kids to do, both in relation to kids and in relation to things, other adults, and more.
If there is a God who has incredibly more knowledge than us, and presumably perception also, the fact that such a God does certain things that seem immoral to us cannot be ruled out as immoral or hypocritical, since we, if this is the case with God, do not know what God knows. And sure, we limit those powers - thougn in wartime those limits are far out there: Hiroshima, Dresden and then a lot of smaller acts where innocent people were killed.
Parents often make decisions that to children with their limited knowledge find reprehensible. And some of these decisions are ones that children would not be allowed to make, even with their pets or belongings.Quoting BrianW
I haven't said anything about holding God to a different standard. If it is true that God knows vastly more than us, God may be doing perfectly.
So there's nothing inconsistent with a supposedly perfect God acting in ways which we know to be less than perfect... ?
Quoting Coben
Like I said, to some extent we do allow but we also set limits, for example, since WW2 the succeeding wars have been greatly monitored to avoid such occurrences. Also, proving that we know that it's wrong. Humans get to do such things because if they're reasonable they become hail marys and if they're not they become life lessons. And because we're faulty, such logic fits in with our progression from ignorance to knowledge. I don't think it should be the same for a supposedly perfect God.
Quoting Coben
So, God may be doing perfectly what is questionable or outright wrong for us to do? Hmm, No. Not buying that. Outside of thoughtless allegiance to such a God, nothing about some of His actions could be designated as perfect. And, from human experience through every narrative ever given, the allegiance to the Abrahamic/Mosaic God is not automatic. I would even dare say it's been bought by whatever razzmatazz was used to influence people the most. But I can't speak of that God's rationale, intelligence, composure, love, etc, etc, at all times. And, to me, that's a pretty big "faith-gap" in the trade between wholehearted trust and someone's life. Infact, we have a word which may be said to fit perfectly with the representation of the Abrahamic/Mosaic God - TYRANT.
Nice. I have learned a lot of different Bible verses and stories, but that one is new to me, thanks. However, that sounds much more like a human analogy than an attempt at divine justice. Unless divinity hides itself behind irony for some reason (does a being of infinite power actually believe us lowly ants understand them from some funny analogy? Isn't it the infinite power that I struggle to relate to, more than whiny Israelites?). To me, this almost feels like a moment where biblical authors are saying, "hint, hint, we made this stuff up."
Hint, hint: they did -- all of it. Presumably. Unless YHWH was actually dictating the text.
That would be fine by me if they made it up (which is what I think happened). The texts weren't "written" the way a novelist turns out a new book. The texts were first an oral tradition, gradually taking shape over time, being used, being refined, becoming 'sacred'. Then, at some point, they were written down. The texts became fixed, and we have a copy. The timeline is complicated.
The closest we can come to most of the whole Hebrew Bible is a Greek translation, the Septuagint. I suppose there are bits and pieces of older Hebrew or Aramaic texts.
Whiny Israelites, whinging Romans, bitching Greeks, sniveling Christians, peculiar pagans -- to hell with the lot of them.
The whole point of my argument is we may not be in a postion to know. Just as a child might not know. Just as a civilian might not know what was necessary. Just as a non-expert might not know.
Quoting BrianW
We haven't had a world war. I doubt we'd be all nicey in a broad conflict, especially since other countries wouldn't be, at least eventually either. And besides our drone kill civilians all the time. The embargo on Iraq killed thousands of children.Quoting BrianW
Many theological defenses of evil, iow answers to the problem of evil, imply or state outright that to achieve the best of all possible worlds, there has to be suffering and death. That this is inherent in perfection. That we can't see this but God can. Yes, he could make a bunch of perfect people who live in a big room with cushions, but actually our seemingly more horrifying world - with the attendant afterlifes - allows for something even better.Quoting BrianW
And neither do kids and teenagers in relation to their parents, even regarding things where the parents are right on the button. Groups without medical science would look on certain medical interventions as tortures carried out by evil demons. Etc.
I am not saying you should buy it. The truth is I don't. But we are running on gut feelings and we certainly can't demonstrate this logically to someone else. For all we know, we are missing some bigger picture we, with our limited knowledge, can't possibly even grasp. You can't mount an argument that eliminates that possbility.
And your argument that it must appear right to us or an authority is wrong, is countered by the way we relate to experts/leaders/parents in all sorts of situations here on earth.
There's a C S Lewis book called God in the Dock. It's a collection of essays, but the meaning of the title is that it implies a "God on Trial", based on an analogy made by Lewis suggesting that modern human beings, rather than seeing themselves as standing before God in judgement, prefer to place God on trial while acting as his judge. Which is exactly what I think the OP does. It my view, it's related to the (false) modern, anthropological conception of deity, which sees God as a kind of super-manager or ultimately responsible agent, in the same way as a CEO or executive is responsible.
My personal experience is different because I used to call out my parents on their nonsense, for example, I asked my dad how he thought he could impart to me the notion that smoking was bad when I knew for certain that he began smoking while in high school. In the end, he fessed up that such lessons were an attempt to have one's kids do better than the parents but were not necessarily definitive lessons on morality.
And, for the record, children do know. It's just that their knowledge processes (conscious and sub/un-conscious minds) have yet a ways to go in terms of integration, but they always suspect or intuit certain hints about their parent's actions.
I'm not saying there isn't or couldn't be another side to this coin but, any reasonable being should hold everything to proper analysis and critique. Not only do we question our parents but we also often act out against them when they try to play two-face. From my evaluation of religions, morality (especially from those of the Abrahamic/Mosaic religions), I find a near perfect analogy with respect to its failings as I observe with human parenting. Coincidence... ? I think not.
If we go back to the original reason I brought in parents and other types of experts it had to do with you presenting it as if
one cannot accept another entity telling us to do one thing but doing other things themselves. If that was the situation, according to you, it must be wrong.
I disagree.
I presented many situations where most of us allow experts, people with more knowledge, to do things we would think was wrong if regular people or people without extpertise or children did them.
This has morphed into....you must not question or analyze. Or God must be good in my opinion. Or I am saying parents are infallible.
No, I am saying we all allow some people to do things we do not allow others to do and still consider that first group potentially moral.
That is the argument I am putting forward.
I am not telling you how to feel about floods and war. I am focused on your argument.
which does not mean I am, either, putting forward the opposite argument that if it happens it must be good because God is good. I think that argument is weak also.
Quoting BrianWI don't think so. I think I was quite convinced my parents were wrong about anything from bedtime to the importance of certain kinds of interpersonal behavior. The truth is as a middle aged person I am still realizing nuances of things where I am just now realizing they were right. There is absolutely no way a kid can understand that eating more sugar, wandering out in the street, putting her hands through the cage at the zoo. playing with fire in certain ways are just plain dangerous. Left to their own devices they will do all sorts of things over and over until statistics catch up with them. Or we could leave them alone. We're not deer, who know a lot of the rules when they pop out of the womb and start walking, near mom.Quoting BrianW
Sure. I do this too. Now you are saying what you do. That you want to analyze and judge. Fine.
That's different from presenting the case as if you have shown that we can be sure there is a problem with God if there is one.
One is saying how you want to live and why. And I happen to live that way also.
The other is saying that we can demonstrate that God is fallible or not good.
I do the former. I do not think we can do the latter. The latter is a claim to infallibility also on an issue where we are pretty limited.
Ok, I think we're digressing from the original point: If God did as humans do, and played the deniability card or masked His actions under probabilities and possibilities, then I wouldn't have a problem with it. But, as presented in the respective scriptures, God's actions are definitive and intentional and God is depicted as absolute in power and knowledge. I'm not referring to cosmic/universal situations, just the human interactions, only activities within the human range of abilities and the fact that God seems to act against the standards He wants to set.
Can anyone impart discipline which they do not adhere to? The answer, from human experience, has been a resounding NO. If only that God possessed that knowledge.
How about this: In the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 New International Version (NIV), it says:-
After reading that I'm thinking, there's no way the biblical God could claim to be love, right... ?
I'm a big believer in circumspect and perspective but I'm having a hard time reconciling God with the definition of love given in that verse.
Ok, so, yeah, God is superior to humans and has reasons and purposes beyond what humans could comprehend. But, still, this is a human 'playground' with human interactions. He should know best of all the consequences of His actions as well as our reactions from His influences. The narratives of the respective scriptures are not just a testament of God's might but more pronouncedly of His failure to reach human hearts and minds. With all that power and knowledge, one would assume, expect, nay believe in automatic success... how terribly mistaken they would be.
haha, indeed. Don't forget those grousing atheist philosophy amateurs with vaguely Chinese sounding user-names.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I respect your reasoning/knowledge/thought process (in general, not just this thread), but I don't quite understand your Christianity. You almost seem to be culturally christian, but less so on the supernatural (but not entirely absent?). Are your beliefs anything like Thomas Jefferson who took all the miracles out of his bible? That does not seem quite right.
If this does not seem overly personal, I am interested...but as I can't say for sure what I will learn and how it will help me going forward...I will understand being ignored :smile:
Of course, they do this. In school I was not allowed to defend myself physically. The teachers, at least many of them would if they were attacked on the street. A fight between kids, both kids got suspended, period. Parents can give orders which children must follow. They on the other hand need not follow the orders of children. Police can decide to put me in the back of a car in handcuffs and cart me off overnight. I cannot decide to do that to them. They can even make and error but not be punished if they followed their rules. I cannot do it to them even in many situations where it would not be an error. There is no situation where I can kill a lot of people including innocent ones. Governments and military leaders can do this. I am mentioning examples where I think most people see this and most people consider this to often be correct, though sometimes it can be wrong.
I won't repeat this again. I don't understand why you cannot see this phenomenon. All over the earth in every culture ever, some people get to do things they can tell others not to do, and people go along with this. Not always. They can hate this dictator, etc. But there is absolutely no rule. We humans, as a rule, as a rule, have many situations where because of age, knowledge, skills, roles, we allow people to do things most people are not allowed to do. And these people are leaders on various scales.
The concept is not considered wrong per se. It is all over the place.
Can anyone impart discipline which they do not adhere to? The answer is a resounding yes. And what I mean here is not only that they can and do, but even that most humans think this is ok in many circumstances.
But I will stop here. I feel like I am pointing at something so obvious and it keeps getting denied in new wordings.
Have I now proved that God must be good? no. Have I now proved that there is no problem of evil? no.
Have I demonstrated that the idea that this is incorrect...
Can anyone impart discipline which they do not adhere to? The answer, from human experience, has been a resounding NO
Oh, yeah.
Your response has been that we are critical in many cases. Well, sure, humans are not gods. Humans will make mistakes in the application of a general principle that we accept. IOW sometimes they will do this in ways that are not good. But then humans are not deities. Have I proven there are deities? no. Have I proven that if there is a deity, he must be a good one? No.
Have I demonstrated that ruling out per se that one cannot impart discipline which they do not adhere to? Oh yeah. I've even gone a step beyond. We not only all accept this, with people with certain skills, roles, experience, etc. we see it as necessary.
My up-bringing was quite conventional and I was raised as a Methodist, which is mainline Protestant. I have an abiding interest in Christianity, but I rejected the beliefs of Christianity as presented in the 3 creeds. This rejection took a long time to work out, because it was so central to my personhood. I may be an atheist now, but I do not hold a grudge against believers.
I sometimes come off as an oddball Christian because I don't believe in the religion I am discussing, even though I have some positive feelings toward it.
I had conflicted views about homosexuality and Christianity for a long time. Those conflicts wee resolved in favor of sexuality. So, if I couldn't be a Christian and a homosexual, then Christianity would have to go. That sort of choice is much less urgent now than it was 40 years ago, because some mainline churches have decided gays are OK.
But the Church accepting homosexuality was not enough.
I suppose I am a 'cultural Christian'. I don't believe in 'literal miracles' -- turning water into wine, raising people from the dead who were decidedly dead and starting to rot (Lazarus), or women getting pregnant with an incorporeal angel (the BVM).
People can be "good without god" as the atheist slogan says. I don't believe in a life after death, heaven or hell, god, resurrection, miracles, and so on.
That said, I don't feel the hostility that many atheists have toward Christianity and the various works of the church over the last 2000 years. There is a lot one could get torqued out over, but... life is short--a lot shorter at this point in my life than it once was.
I don't see any form of discipline in any of those examples. In fact, it's quite the opposite - cases of indiscipline. They are good points on reactions, accountability and responsibility. That is, people's reactions to a given set of rules. Usually, those who know that they can get away with stuff if they're not caught, they do that stuff when they can. Others don't care, they do what they believe is right for them despite the consequences (some kids still fight in school regardless of suspensions and expulsions), and so on. All that would be proof of indiscipline. In terms of religions and morality, it's the inadequacy of which I'm pointing to and which is prevalent among most adherents of these religions despite teachings to the contrary.
Discipline means realising, accepting and walking a particular path, not reacting in fear of repercussions or misbehaving due to lack of appropriate accountability and such. Response due to fear is one of the biggest factors in these Abrahamic/Mosaic religions. Can you imagine how much adherence there would be to religious moral guidelines if the threat of hell was withdrawn?
Consider nowadays, when parents don't use corporal punishment, we see a lot of defiance to orders; same with police, now that accountability and certain responsibilities are expected and demanded of them, they behave with more regard for those they encounter, culprits or not.
You haven't demonstrated discipline, rather the very opposite of that.
All you have given are cases of indiscipline based on lack of accountability and responsibility by those with some degree of power over others. And, this is also one of the points I've been making - that, without reasonable critique, and expectation of responsibility and accountability from God, His actions are no different from humans. And, my primary issue with that is, God, who knows better, should act better.
Thanks for that whole post. That explains my confusion in sometimes thinking you identify as christian, sometimes not.
I am sure I am probably guilty of some amount of religion bashing, but I try to focus on it being "wrong" (or nonsense) not "bad" - it seems very debatable whether religion has harmed or helped humanity overall...there are certainly some positives that we should try to learn from.
From the standpoint of atheism, all religions which posit supernatural beings are wrong, no matter how good they are. Maybe the best versions of atheist Buddhism manage to be both good and right, but I am not sure. Buddhists in Burma have been behaving badly, recently. So there is that.
Most people in the world do, and probably always have, lived sort of parallel lives, believing in this or that religion on the one hand. On the other hand they have followed the otherwise secular rules of society. One either barters at the market for dried fish, or one just pays the asking price. One doesn't throw one's garbage on the neighbors lawn whether one is Hindu, Zoroastrian, or Animist.
Quoting Bitter Crank
That all seems fair to me. I might try to use "harmful" instead of "bad", but that is just me pretending that I avoid emotionally loaded language and then going overboard on semantics :grimace:
Quoting Bitter Crank
Once I saw that some of them interpret "reincarnate" as simply "things die, and new things arise", I could see more how they could be "right". But that seems so different from reincarnation that it seems some study of the original texts would eliminate one of those interpretations. But as you mentioned, even some Buddhists have been acting crazy (which seems like a crazy misunderstanding of Buddhism - wouldn't a fully enlightened monk {in theory} seemingly not give 2 shits about the world as they have released such burdens? - I guess rich and/or violent Christians are equally in opposition to the major teachings of their religion).
Quoting Bitter Crank
So I feel I somewhat understand this last paragraph, but may be missing something. Here's what I took from it:
Secular society can include a variety of disagreeing religions and beliefs that all follow common rules. From the religious viewpoint, this is the "give to god what is god's and give to caesar what is caesar's" stuff...right? Your final two sentences work literally, but I can't help but feel I am missing a metaphor.
As a whole is the paragraph sort of saying, "common decency should be, and typically has been, common"...?
Or, if I think more literally, maybe you are just saying that many religions have functioned pleasantly within society and there is no reason some of them cannot continue to do so...?
Yes.
People get along with each other most of the time because people are social animals, life is difficult and requires cooperation, and social cooperation is rewarded in the form of peaceful, productive societies where life is better. Religion usually helps promote peaceful productive societies by encouraging people to get along together (unless it doesn't). Religion also helps assuage the suffering that leads to dying, and the existential fear of death itself. They might take care of the sick and dying, or offer consoling words about sickness, dying, and death.
Is it the case that ONLY RELIGIONS can do what religions do? Probably. Religious work, like civil engineering, is specialized -- requiring a preference for such work, training, practice, support, supervision, and so forth.
Religions are the organization most ready to answer people's "existential questions" Philosophy might also be able to answer those questions, but philosophy isn't organized to go forth and comfort the world's existential fears. Philosophers committed to an open-ended search the truth might irritate people too much. Mourners at the grave side want to hear something like "I am the resurrection and the live everlasting" and really don't want to hear about the lack of proof for or against a cold afterlife. An overly persistent and obtuse philosopher might end up being at his own burial, as the outraged mourners, armed with handy shovels, close up the ends of the philosopher's insistently open-ended thinking.
I think the Monty Python comedy group would have been the people to dramatize the philosopher's last funeral (were they still in business).
Interesting thought. I think I agree, but I also think it meets a need that not everyone has.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I am starting to see many people and interactions as emotional vs reasoned or, more typically, some combination of the two. Does it seem plausible that those who tend to prefer religious solutions/explanations maybe relate to the world MORE emotionally while those who prefer philosophical explanations interpret the world using reason (more so)? I am NOT trying to call religious people unreasonable, just that they prefer an answer that soothes their emotions vs an answer that soothes their intellect (what happens when people/things die vs. what happens when "I" die).
Quite so. And if religion is a need (I don't think it is) it's an itch that can be scratched in various ways.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Well, cradle atheists and ardent believers alike both like and need their emotions and intellects soothed regularly--by some balm or other. And atheist and believer alike can find it difficult to find just the right content cocktail to keep themselves happy. This is so because LIFE, whether one is an atheist, deist, or theist, is difficult, annoying, full of irritations (other atheists and other believers, for instance) and hard. It is a struggle to find the right "bar" that is serving up the right "content cocktail" at the moment.
As Karl Marx said, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people." Marx wanted to abolish what he identified as the capitalist / industrial exploitation that drove people to desire and need the comforts of religion.
So for Marx, religion is a consequence of oppression and the abolition of oppressive conditions makes it possible for religion to decay and disappear.
I like Marx here. Let's compare the United States and Europe--the former where religion has remained very strong and the latter where religion is very diminished. Europe, despite or because of two world wars has built a pretty strong social security system that considerably softens the effect of capitalism.
The United States has maintained a harsher version of capitalism with fewer shock absorbers (social services). Exploitation has been somewhat more naked here. A connection? Probably. Of course, there are other reasons too -- the American church (broadly speaking) has experienced regular renewal over the last two centuries -- up until the 1960s. Since 1960, religious participation across the board had dropped significantly. But "religiousness" is still more common here than in Europe.
Interestingly, there are now 67 million Christians in China. There are other religions too, like Buddhism and Islam. China's religious population seems to have grown while the country was becoming better off. But then, China isn't like Europe or North America.
Baroque music is one of my favorite comforts, Vivaldi, et al. That and folk. Folk and Baroque. That and good books. My current top read is THE GENIUS OF BIRDS by Jennifer Ackerman. Go Birds!
indeed. I certainly was not trying to suggest that atheists are unemotional, just that "your spirit never dies" fulfills an emotional need, while "you become worm food" fulfills an informational need (I guess any "needs" in this context are emotional, so maybe I need to put some more thought into this).
Quoting Bitter Crank
Do you think in America that maybe patriotism merged with religion around the 1950s (ie the pledge of allegiance), resulting in part of the difference between Europe and America?
Time for the 3rd Great Awakening? If Transcendentalism emerged out of the 2nd Great Awakening (I get that Transcendentalism is typically seen as a response to intellectualism rather than a product of religion, but the timing seems awfully coincidental), maybe a new type of spiritualism could emerge in the US in the near future? Maybe as the left-leaning christians look to distance themselves from the Trump supporters?
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's for sure. China has several factors that make comparisons difficult. Besides the huge disparity between rich city folk and poor country folk, they also have cultural factors...like the way Confucianism can be blended with everything. How similar are the beliefs of Christians in China to those of Christians in the US? (rhetorical question...unless of course you happen to know the answer :smile: )
Quoting Bitter Crank
Is this a reminder that all of this stuff is mostly just personal preference? Can't argue much with that.
If I recall from my one music class in college, Baroque is the one with the tinny noise? Harpsichord I believe? I think I know Vivaldi is the wedding song and maybe graduations...he had those songs named after seasons or something. As you probably can tell, and my "art highlights elitism..." thread confirmed, my art tastes are a bit neanderthal-ish.
I am never sure on Folk; is that like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Hank Williams? I like some of that stuff...but is that Folk or just old country?
Had to look up "Genius of Birds", but it sounds cool. I have watched some TV shows about the crows that can use tools. Anytime I view animals using seemingly higher level intelligence it makes me think about the line or threshold where intelligence changes from "useful for survival" to "what's the point of survival"?
This is a big part of what the story of Job is about. It is by no means a modern conception of deity.
See also Elie Wiesel's discussions and play about putting God on trial while he was in Auschwitz.
People seem to want want a nice, friendly, responsible CEO type God and can't fathom why there is suffering and evil exist. (Like, 'the carpet is mouldy, the taps leak, WHO'S RESPONSIBLE?!?) It's like God has 'executive responsibility' for these facts. But nowhere in the Bible is it said that the world ought to be free of suffering. It is always understood that, as the Buddhists put it, to live is to suffer. The whole point about redemption or salvation is that you once and for all rise above that suffering, or it is no longer all-consuming, or you enter a place or plane of being where all suffering is ended for once and for all (Heaven, in the popular imagination). But it takes commitment - even in faith-based Christianity, it takes at least the commitment to believe. It may be freely bestowed in return for believing, but it is not given without that commitment. It's a reciprocal deal. Whereas nowadays there are a lot of people who seem to have no conception of that sense of commitment, and then wonder why everything seems so broken.
In my view, we don't know enough about nature to categorically declare what is 'super' to it. But if you read history and the literature of religions, there are innumerable accounts of things that happen that can't be rationalised from the perspective of naturalism.
Smith's hymn is quite popular among ex-Anglican and ex-Methodist atheists.
Here's William Blake's Ancient of Days, applying his compass to the earth.
Harpsichords were in use for quite a stretch. Johann Sebastian Bach would probably object strenuously to "tinny noise". But baroque composers didn't have the benefit of later technology -- like the piano, where the strings are struck by the hammers producing nice solid base notes, instead of the strings being plucked in the Harpsichord--producing that finicky plucky sound. The strings on their violins were made out of gut -- literally, dried out guts. Nothing wrong with that -- we still make products out of cow gut. Dissolving sutures in that cut you got stitched up? Gut. Plastic and metal strings produce more sound. Quite a few instruments that we consider essential hadn't been invented yet in the baroque period.
here's a piece that will sound 'tinny': Vivaldi's Mandolin Concerto in C Major. Here's another 'tinny' piece,
one written by Bill Monroe in his later years for mandolin; he died in 1996 at 84. Monroe was one of the 'inventors' of bluegrass music. He isn't playing in a 'tinny' way; it's just the sound of the instrument.
So what about folk: Where Legit Folk leaves off and protest songs or labor ballads and so forth pick up is not of much interest to me. A good song is a good song. Here's a song sung by Country Joe McDonald, who began back in the 1960s doing anti-Vietnam War songs. One of his later albums are WWI songs which he set to music or he reads. My favorite on that album is the Ballad of Jean Deprez. It's a poem by Robert Service about WWI (or could be the Franco-Prussian War of 1870). It's quite stirring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMCBOXTPOVo
Actually, I like most music from the Medieval to the John Adams' opera, "Nixon in China" or Dr. Atomic. Rock and Roll, opera, Big band, brass band, dance band, and organ -- it's all good.
No. Religion and patriotism had gotten into bed together long before the 1950s. The Civil War broke several denominations apart, as churches in a given region aligned themselves with local politics. The United States was not very religious in the colonial period, some reports have it. The Second Great Awakening was a 19th century affair. The latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century was maybe "peak politics and Religion" time.
At the end of the 1950s, religion in America crashed. Millions of people -- Catholic and Protestant -- left their churches and did not return. Since the 1960s hemorrhage, membership has continued to bleed away, just not quite as fast.
I do remember when the Pledge of Allegiance was changed -- I think I was in 3rd grade, so... 1954 or '55. I remember learning the "under god" bit. There was that conflicting drive -- to add god to the pledge of allegiance, and Madeleine Murray O'Hare's drive to get "In God We Trust" off the money, and to ban school prayer. Official prayer got banned. I think the drive to put "under god" in the pledge of allegiance may have been more an anti-communist angle than a "religious" angle. But I'm projecting backwards. I certainly wasn't thinking about that at the time.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Your guess is as good as anybody else's on this question. We, or the Europeans, could certainly experience a great awakening of some kind. But... who the hell knows?
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I really don't know.
Well, this has been very interesting.
Quoting Wayfarer
Why does a god that creates a world with suffering to test our commitment deserve our commitment? What is the point of the test? Did I need redemption/salvation before I was born? Notice buddhists do not believe in a "creator", otherwise they would have to blame 'it' for all of the suffering.
What is the difference between a god and a more advanced being? Power? That would make humans gods relative to animals. Moral perfection + complete power? This seems closer. If humans are incapable of understanding moral perfection (a common christian argument), then we can only respond to power, "Worship or die!" There can be no explanation or justification that we could understand. And we can never know if we are worshiping 'god' or 'a being named steve with access to power'. The whole endeavor becomes a "pascal's wager", but surely we can't pretend to believe (if I don't 'believe' in god can I decide to believe just in case it exists?); so the situations just becomes what one is emotionally predisposed to believe. No evidence. No reasoning. It just "feels right". And for those who get a good feeling - enjoy it! But don't act like it is more significant than my enjoyment of soccer or bbq.
hahaha, I am sure he would.
Quoting Bitter Crank
More interesting info. I hope at least a small percentage of this stuff sticks in my brain :smile:
Quoting Bitter Crank
Arg, no sound on this computer. I will have to listen to those later. I was able to find one poem by Robert Service ('Decorations'). My brain is usually to literal to get much out of poetry, but most of that seemed to make sense. Quoting Bitter Crank I have always been fairly unemotional. I think I am becoming more open to "stirring" works as I get older, but i have to fight my instincts that read something like war poetry and just think, "yep, war sucks".
Quoting Bitter Crank
First, and you lived it, so what you remember is as important as exact order of events, but I think "in god we trust" was added to money a year or two after "under god" was added to pledge of allegiance. It is not hugely important to our discussion...yeah I googled Murray O'Hare and her push was in the 1960s (and while I was at it looked up - "in god we trust" was added 7/30/1956).
As I entirely trust your remaining assessment of religiosity in America, do you think maybe these two changes (adding "under god" and "in god we trust"), were one of those backlashes as religious people felt their cultural dominance slipping?
Quoting Bitter Crank
I had never considered this connection, nor ever read anything like that. It seems obviously correct once you mention it though.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Your posts typically are. I sometimes think my goal is just to keep you interested and sharing for as long as possible, haha.
It’s idle to imagine a world in which there could be no suffering. To be born is to be subject to suffering. It’s the most inconvenient of truths, especially for modern man who wishes to banish all inconvenience.
In classical philosophical theology, God is not ‘a being’, although I don’t expect that will be understood.
Fish will bite if you've got good bait, and that is definitely attractive.
So, on the coinage issue:
The phrase "in god we trust" on money was first proposed by northerners during the Civil War. There was also an attempt at that time to add "god language" to the preamble of the U. S, Constitution. It didn't fly at that time, and in the years that followed.
On the P of A issue:
Ah, news to me. So, that a socialist wrote the pledge explains the original absence of any named country, since socialists (officially) are in favor of doing away with borders.
While I was there (in the 1950s) I was too young to be making cogent observations. But one of the clearly memorable themes of the 1950s -- at least in the small town midwest where I lived -- was a very strong anticommunism. This ran parallel with other strong themes. It was all very conspiratorial: The atheistic communists are infiltrating the nation [like termites, they might have said, gnawing away at the beams, pillars, and floorboards of democracy]. Their goal is to conquer America, and turn it into a part of the international communist world. (Well, that was at least somewhat true). We have since discovered that there really weren't all that many communists in the United States. Their numbers were largest during the Great Depression. And the Communist Party USA was on the right side of the civil rights movement--they contributed manpower and funds to help the movement from early on.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Yeah, there is a difference between religious language about God and political language about god. We expect believers to trust in God. That's sort of their thing. But politicians don't characteristically rely on miraculous beings to win. They rely on a jaded electorates, smoky back rooms, money changing hands, lies, untruths, distortions, etc.
WHAT people believed about communism and communists was pretty heavily flavored by government agencies, business groups, and the police in the person of rabid anti-communist, anti-homosexual (and probably homosexual himself) J. Edgar Hoover, the long-time head of the FBI.
You probably haven't heard of it, but the FBI ran a program called COINTELPRO -- COunter INTELligence PROgram. It ran from 1956 to 1971, but people didn't know about it until the 1970s. It was a major effort to surveil, infiltrate, disrupt, and discredit domestic political groups of which the FBI disapproved. That included civil rights groups, leftists (not communists), Communists, women's liberation groups, anti-Vietnam War groups, campus activist groups, etc. They didn't plant bombs or assassinate people, but they interfered in ways that made political activist work less successful, because the various organizations were dealing with organizational problems that COINTELPRO caused.
COINTELPRO was closed down after the story came out, but rest assured, the government didn't give up on surveillance and infiltration of domestic political activists.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
So much for the digital revolution. I've had problems sharing files with other people and they with me. Quite often the video won't play, or it will play without sound. Too many variables to track down. Sorry you couldn't hear it. You can always go on YouTube (where I got it) and search for the piece. I'm beginning to find that YouTube's collection of music is as complete, if not more so, than iTunes. And, so far, one can listen for free.
That makes sense, and I do tend to latch onto 'official dates' and don't always consider the length of the process leading up to the date.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Huh, interesting stuff. Who would have thought that AMERICA'S pledge of allegiance began as a socialist call for world unity? An almost dictionary definition example of irony.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Being educated in the 80s and 90s, I caught the tail end of that (strong anti-communism). But fortunately, by the time I got a degree in history around 2010, most of the professors spoke jokingly of the blind and rabid anti-communist culture. I am happy to see that when I teach today, students are confused by wars fought over ideology. Vietnam and the cold war seems ridiculous to most of them, just like the crusades. I guess they still have a few years to buy into some ideology and then work themselves up until they are willing to kill over it :roll:
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes. I did read something about the African American author Richard Wright who was influenced by the communist author Berthold Brecht. Wright was interested in communism because it was just about the only racially progressive political organization around at the time (I think it was in the 30s and 40s). (I actually think Wright is fairly famous - 'Native Son' was one of his big hits - unfortunately I do not read much fiction, so I don't know any of his work).
Quoting Bitter Crank
Hmmm, I am not sure I what I like better - thinking our government was just running on blind faith and feelings OR being more intentionally manipulated in a specific direction. Maybe with the latter option I can hope that eventually there will be someone manipulating the government in a direction I approve of? I am not holding my breath though.
Quoting Bitter Crank
And unfortunately, so many bought it, so completely, for so long, that the lies perpetuate themselves. There are still MANY Americans that would think of Stalin as the iconic communist.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I definitely have not heard of that specifically. But I know MLK Jr. was monitored by the FBI and CIA, was that part of this program? I was going to say that people today would rightly lose their minds if stuff like this occurred today, but if people are spoon fed the information in just the right way (don't worry we just monitor everyone's phone calls to find terrorists), they won't probably won't resist much :groan:
Quoting Bitter Crank
I think Snowden showed this stuff may have changed, but never really stopped.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Nope this is entirely on my end. Your files worked fine. I will just have to listen at home
it's idle to imagine a deity?
Quoting Wayfarer
not understood in the least. And it must be very complicated.
So classical theology doesn't actually look at any specific theology?
So are you trying to discuss god without describing or defining it?
So like suffering, we shouldn't think about god? it just is?
Have a look at this OP https://www.huffpost.com/entry/god-does-not-exist_b_1288671
//ps// also https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/he-who
'nihil ultra ego'
borderline nonsense ("God Does Not Exist" / "Let me be clear: I believe God is.") He could not be more unclear. If semantic games are enough for some people then great, but it does nothing for me.
Quoting Wayfarer
A type of strawman: ("Instead, the New Atheists ingeniously deny the existence of a bearded fellow with superpowers who lives in the sky and finds people’s keys for them.") No, they just easily dismiss any god that has been defined (christians defined the bearded fellow who finds keys). Your argument even seems to acknowledge this - hence why you are trying to "undefine" god. I would suggest this idea of an undefined god that 'is' but can't be pointed at (in any way), is a modern theistic response to atheism's clear and simple dismissal of any god that has been defined.
Google translate gives ""there is no form, I will". I could find no other refernce to the phrase, so it seems it is not quoted from literature.
Clear and simple incomprehension more like it.
Yes, of course we all know by now, O would-be Guru, that anyone who disagrees with you, or even has the temerity to ask you to present and justify the reasoning supporting your claims, has failed to understand.
Anyway you obviously don't owe it to anyone to engage or respond, so of course it's up to you.
For me it seems odd that these sorts of things could be worked out by assessing claims on paper or on screen. Of course both theists and atheists seem to think this or it seems implicit since they engage in arguments like this as if it could be resolved with way. And by way, I mean primarily non-experiential verbal interchanges. Rather than say experience based practices and immersion. Of course people do this 'in the East' also, argue things, but in the East, say with many versions of Hinduism, the idea of practice and experience is central to understanding. Is there interest? Well, practice for a while, engage and experience, see if you have continued interest and perhaps the experiences lead to a sense of what people mean and your own beliefs. Or not.
But here in the West it seems like 'if God is the case' then it should be demonstrable online via words. Or if you are rational to believe, this should be demonstrable. I think there are pretty mundance things that don't work like this. That you could learn how to ride a bike, falling in love, synaesthesia on pot, how intimacy can be achieved, how to improve your golf swing...
I mean I get that these examples are not where there is a big ontological controversy. My point is not, see those are the same. My point is about learning, changing minds.
It is as if experience has nothing to do with such things.
Literally "nothing outside of the 'I'", but I'm not familiar with the reference either
Thanks J. And here I thought I was creating the opportunity for him to explain his ideas (even if I matched Wayfarer's slightly rude demeanor). Ah well.
OK I will try.
There is in current culture an implicit dichotomy around religious ideas; it is expected that one is either a believer or one is not. Believers are respected on the liberal grounds of 'individual right of conscience', (as Janus acknowledges) although the secular attitude is tacitly that the content of their belief must be subjective or social; to believe otherwise betrays secularism; there can't be anything real in it, as to believe so is to thrown in your lot with the believers (isn't it?)
But I have always tried to resist this dichotomy, which I think is very much due to the cultural dynamics of Christianity, and Protestantism in particular.
After all in Protestantism, exclusive emphasis is put on salvation by faith alone. Right belief, 'ortho-doxa' is of utmost importance (although ultimately for Calvinists, even that is no guarantee of salvation.) Along with that undercurrent, is the general tendency to conceive of God as being like a celestial director or magistrate.
Against that background the only two options seem to be either acquiescing to belief or rejecting it altogether. After all, to believe is to be required to believe in a very particular way. And obviously the secular thinker has decided for rejection so the whole question is done and dusted.
So the upshot is, there is a hard line when it comes to what is regarded as "supernatural". It is, by definition, a kind of cultural taboo; not only taboo, but something for which even the appropriate metaphors can no longer be found. So this shows up in many of the threads here about religion, by secular people who haven't much actual grounding in it; not sure what is at stake, but certain that it must be ultimately fallacious or superseded or archaic.
So, that leads to exchanges where the "secular" view has a kind of presumptive authority, like, "if you're going to defend the notion of an "invisible being" then you'd better have some kind of evidence!" What this doesn't see is that, first, many are drawn to religions out of necessity, the realisation of the existential plight of everyday life; and if you don't feel that necessity, then it's always going to seem incomprehensible. Second, to really grasp what it has that has been rejected by secular modernity takes considerable imagination and study. In times past, everyone was 'religious', in that the world was simply understood to have emanated from or been created by a divine source. It only became conceivable to challenge that due to particular developments in Western culture of the last several hundred years. So a lot of what us moderns take for granted about the nature of things might be inconcievable to our forbears (and visca versa, to be fair. And this doesn't mean that modernity is all bad or all wrong; I'm starting to conceive of these issues in terms of being "the shadow the Enlightenment" but that's another story.)
The upshot is, the meaning of some of the fundamental attitudes of philosophical theology are so remote from our own experience, that they are dismissed as sophistry or rationalisation - exactly as above. Whereas, the claims of 'scientific atheism' are regarded as well-founded, practically self-evident, based on things that 'everyone knows', or should know. So, then, trying to challenge this received wisdom (or what poses as wisdom) is often futile.
Hence my reticence.
Philosophy, in my book, requires a cognitive shift, akin to a conversion experience; the Greeks called it metanoia. But you can only understand that by undergoing it; it's not communicable in the abstract. Much of what is preserved in religious lore are symbolic and analogical references to this, which are now unmoored from their original meaning. Hence, as mythologist Joseph Campbell put it,
Thou Art That: Transforming Religious Metaphor
Thanks Wayfarer. You will see from my response that I am interested, but as you are already aware, I obviously do not exactly understand, or at least have certain questions. And yes, we are ALL unlikely to entirely change our viewpoint based on this discussion, but maybe I can add a few more doubts or uncertainties (I already have plenty, but happy to add more).
Quoting Wayfarer
What about those pesky agnostics? They seem to think they are neither, haha.
But more seriously, I can admit that my life is full of beliefs. But I only have faith in things that some other human knows (the extraordinarily advanced math that underlays a lot scientific understanding would be a fine example) or that experience has shown me to be true (the sun will rise tomorrow). I don't have any faith in things that are entirely unknown...why would I? No one has ever given me a single reason to believe such things (if Pascal's Wager is actually the BEST argument, then that basically means there is no argument). I get that many atheists seem to act like they have NO beliefs, but if they are pushed, I think you will find their actual view is closer to what I described above, with some semantic misunderstanding. Similar to Theists that KNOW for sure there IS a god. All they have told me for sure, is that they do not know the definition of KNOW.
Uh, oh. This could get real long (it did). That should be enough (way too much?) about where I am coming from. I will try to focus on your points and the aspects of those points that I don't understand.
Quoting Wayfarer
I get that some atheists go to far with this attitude. As far as I am concerned, "there can't be anything real in it" is pure belief. "I don't know of anything real in it" or "I have never been shown anything that leads me to consider that there may be something real in it" are simply true statements that say nothing about whether there is or is not a god. And a semantically careful atheist would be aware of this and use those latter statements.
Quoting Wayfarer
I do not understand this part. I do not know of any Christian non-believers...how could someone call themselves christian and a non-believer? They could go to church. They could tell their wife they are christian. But if they don't believe in the god of abraham or that jesus was his son who died for the sins of mankind, then they don't meet the definition of christian...right? Well I just looked up the definition and apparently if you were baptised, you are christian. So that makes me a Catholic Christian Agnostic Atheist. Seems nonsensical...?
Quoting Wayfarer
This all makes sense and sounds familiar. (I always disliked this idea within Christianity as child - "wait so being good has nothing to do with it, why not?" - add in the idea of predestination and it gets double problematic).
Quoting Wayfarer
I still can't see a third option. I often spend time trying to show agnostics that they lack belief, so can we just admit they are technically agnostic atheists. I think this is where we will struggle to see eye to eye. "Do you believe in 'x'?" I don't see an answer that makes sense besides yes or no. Notice, I could respond, "I don't even know what 'x' is", well if I have never heard of something, surely I don't believe in it. If someone was to explain it, then maybe I can admit, "oh, actually, I do sort of believe that" but we can't believe in things we don't know of. Now 'know of' is different from 'knowing'. I can know of, and therefor believe in, say quantum physics without actually understanding it. I would think most religious beliefs function in this way.
Quoting Wayfarer
?? Hopefully, I have already said enough to show that I do not limit belief in the way described above.
Quoting Wayfarer
Now I get that it comes across this way much of the time. But many atheists (most on this site), have not decided anything. Decide what? Notice many atheists here go so far as to question the question. Why should we even begin to wonder if there is a god? What is this entity called god anyway? 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' somewhat captures this attitude.
It is just that no one (or no thing) has ever shown us anything that would lead us to believe there is a god. (but after decades of having the same arguments, they may get short in their responses)
Quoting Wayfarer
I do catch myself over-using 'supernatural'. However, by definition if something is 'super-natural' then it is above or outside nature and CAN'T be known. Now you may be saying that by labeling 'god' as supernatural then it is sequestered into the realm of knowledge that CAN'T be know, while you are trying to suggest that it can be know...therefor it is not supernatural. I am cool with that. You will still have to show me something to elicit any sort of a belief out of me, but I can try to be more careful with my words along these lines...AM I SORT OF UNDERSTANDING THIS PART CORRECTLY?
Quoting Wayfarer
OK! I think I get the problem a little better because I am definitely guilty of this one. However, what I really mean when I come across this way is, "if you expect ME to believe any of this stuff about an 'invisible being' then you'd better have some kind of evidence". But depending on the words of the person I am debating with, it may get phrased closer to how you said it. However, I am sure you get a bit snippy too, when an atheist says the same thing you have heard 50 times before.
Quoting Wayfarer
Agreed until 'incomprehensible'. I can understand that people have that need, despite not having it myself. What does that have to do with whether or not a religion is right? Saying, "there must be a god because many people think there is and it makes them feel good" seems pretty week. It is a type of evidence, but it is evidence through reasoning...and like I said, I don't find that reasoning particularly sharp.
Quoting Wayfarer
Sounds like a word game to wall-off those who disagree. And all the religious would be atheist if they just used a bit more critical thinking, right?
Quoting Wayfarer
Hmmm, we can agree with most (maybe. that is a lot of history you just covered with 'in the past'), but when the penalty for disbelief is death or being ostracized, it would have been tough to get an actual count. Also, the modern world shows that 90%+ of all humans are just going to believe the same thing as their parents, whether it is religion, politics, or sports teams.
Quoting Wayfarer
The scientific method? Seems like it has been pretty beneficial in every other area of life. No real surprise it got applied to religion.
Quoting Wayfarer
While society has changed, people have not. Anything our ancestors understood, we can too (and some people alive still do) and vice versa (society has accumulated knowledge that no one person could know, but that is different). It may take a while to learn, but what type of knowledge was known in the past that we can't know today? Why should we assume our ancestors had extra knowledge into "the nature of things" that we should value? Any valuable insights were likely passed down, right?
Quoting Wayfarer
Since I obviously do not even get what you are trying to say with this type of stuff, can you give examples? And know that I am likely to go through them and say why I think they are sophistry or not - then you can tell me why my description of that example as sophistry is wrong - then we can look at the definition of sophistry - then either one of us sees that we weren't using the word sophistry right or nobody learned anything and we move on to the next issue KNOWING that each side has everything they need to form their opinion.
Quoting Wayfarer
You spend too much time around philosophy people. Do you live in America? Why don't you just talk to the 80% to 90% of people that agree with you? If you live in Europe, it may be a bit tougher, but you can still probably assume that 30-40% of the population agrees with you (I would actually think it closer to 60-70% if you really push people on their beliefs, but Europeans are more likely to default to the secularism is right thing). Our government constantly belittles scientific atheism...with atheists being just about the least represented group in the country (I do suspect more politicians are atheist but they are smart enough to lie as no atheist gets elected in this country).
Quoting Wayfarer
one thing at a time. You will likely get less of a gut dismissal if you separate those 2 words. Most students that went to school these days will believe science (Thank Apollo), but may still be religious and count that as outside the view of science. Even if they are not religious, they may still admit that the atheism question cannot be entirely answered by science. But if you say 'scientific atheism' they may latch onto the science part and say something along the lines of "well you are happy to embrace science when it gives you a smart phone, but then dismiss it when it is inconvenient".
Quoting Wayfarer
As far as I know, the only proven method for accumulating knowledge is the scientific method? It has been honed over the years to be as complete and useful as possible. Now this is separate from atheism, but if you are challenging received wisdom, you are challenging that evidence has been gathered. What new evidence do you have that will get me to reconsider the already collected evidence? Notice we are open to hearing new arguments/evidence, however, if we are told to reconsider without evidence, our response may sound dogmatic.
Quoting Wayfarer
I can understand that in general. How many negative experiences does one have to have before they change their behavior. And while you may have been wrong to assume my disinterest, it was probably safe to assume that I actually am not THAT open to changing my view. We could have this discussion for 20 pages and I may still have the same view, but I would not have kept it up for 20 pages if I wasn't interested and learning something (even if all I am learning is how someone like you views the world - in this case there is the potential for me to learn a 3rd way of looking at belief - I still don't get it - but I will try).
Holy Zeus, that was a long one.
if the metaphors are JUST metaphors, then lie or not, aren't we done here? There would be no debate as all atheists think the bible is JUST stories (analogy, metaphor, whatever you want to call it). So clearly you and that author mean A LOT more than JUST metaphor. Again, careful word selection is key.
What is the implied 3rd option? The metaphors are half-truths (sounds like someone is still half right)?
Are the 'metaphors' about an actual god? Surely, if there IS an actual god, and said being DID want the bible written, then some of it is NOT metaphor? "I am he who is called I am." What is the metaphor in this line if there actually is a god?
Well I just did some brief research on Joseph Campbell and the book you quoted and I am even more confused. Was Campbell an atheist/agnostic? His books seem to focus on myth, and he seems to treat Christianity the same as the greek religions and everything else. Are you trying to propose like a spiritual 'god is nature' type deal? I don't think the bible offers anything, metaphor or not, that supports that - or at least no more support than say Walden by Thoreau.
Campbell also gets into that Carl Jung archetypal hero nonsense that somehow gets massive respect, despite it not really working unless it is applied to Odysseus and only Odysseus. (sorry angry side tangent from my trauma in English classes)
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Where I came into this subject was through belief in enlightenment, which I didn't equate to 'religion' at all. 60's counter-culture, the Beatles, and LSD. Sgt Peppers, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Timothy Leary, and Paramahansa Yogananda. Two key books were by counter-culture historian (and the author that invented the term 'counter-culture') Theodore Roszak. The key was the pursuit of spiritual insight/experience. At that time, I had nothing but scorn for 'churchianity' - the idea was, you could learn by experience what was the original spiritual dynamic that later got ossified into dogma. (My view changed over the subsequent years, however, as the elusiveness of these experiences became more apparent, and as I began to recognise the wisdom in Christian Platonism, in particular.)
But in any case, the point that remained was scepticism about belief, but openness to 'the spiritual'. (It's sometimes described as 'spiritual but not religious' but there are many porous boundaries.) So I never wanted to be 'a believer' - I viewed belief as a kind of cop-out. But I have also never accepted philosophical or scientific materialism.
So I didn't want to be either 'believer' or 'atheist', but, due to being open to the spiritual, I'm nearer the former than the latter.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
Another facet of the cultural dynamics that I'm referring to, is owed to the role of religious authority in Western culture. It was compulsory to believe very specific dogmas, such as the Nicene Creed. So much about the advent of secularism is explained by the reaction against that.
But again, the alternative and Eastern spiritual movements I discovered had a very different attitude - more experiential, more about 'seeing' and less about 'believing'. ('ehi-passiko' is a Buddhist term, meaning 'come and see'. See also Dharma and Religion).
But what I meant by 'everyone being religious' was not simply that everyone accepted the creed. It was the natural sense that we all were indeed 'children of the Divine' and the sense that the world and everything in it, was related by sonship and kinship; it was a completely different sense of what life means. It wasn't even articulated or conscious, it was simply the accepted background, and it wasn't until the advent of modernity that it became possible to imagine a meaningless, material universe. That awareness was behind a great deal of 20th century art, literature, drama, and philosophy:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I'm referring to 'the scientific world-view' personified by popular atheist intellectuals - Dennett, Dawkins, et al. Science is not the issue, but scientism, or the treatment of science as a replacement for religion, which happens an awful lot in our culture, is definitely an issue. So more than happy to embrace science, especially in the areas of climate change, medicine, new energy sources, and so on. Science is indispensable but scientia is not sapientia, and it takes wisdom to know the difference. In fact too often our culture doesn't even recognise the difference.
Re metaphors - the reason for mythology, is that it conveys truths that are impossible to say literally. 'Well, what "truths"?' you will ask? And the answer is: can't say, but they're important! They are intuitions about the human condition, that are impossible to articulate precisely, but are felt in the depths of being. Of course scientistic types will dismiss all such talk.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
I see that, that's why I am trying to reciprocate. I know mine represents a minority view but will generally attempt to argue for it and defend it.
I think you’re doing fine.
Is this correct? I know that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam believe in the Abrahamic God, just by virtue of Ishmael and Isaac having the same father (Abraham) and Christianity being an offshoot of Judaism, but are you saying that Islam follows the OT (the 5 books of Moses and the Mosaic traditions)?
If the Muslim tradition breaks at Abraham and doesn't follow forward from there to Moses, then it's arguable whether Islam and Jews (and Christians) worship the same god, considering the substantial changes in the concept of the deity over time.
Anyway, I realize I'm harping on a side issue, but you made a claim about Islam that I wasn't aware of, but maybe it was just an error on your part. I don't know.
There is no such thing as a "mosaic" God.
Yeah. I know they follow the ten commandments and also most of the laws stated in those five books by Moses.
In some places, they still try to apply laws such as:- stoning adulterers to death, cutting the arm of a thief, etc.
The conception of God (and His behavior) changed over time, particularly after Moses' departure after Exodus. So, reference to the Mosaic God does reference something distinct.
How is the God of Abraham different from the God of Moses?
And since Jews have traditionally held that Moses wrote Genesis, how do they account for the change?
If you turn to Orthodox Judaism, you are left with the strange belief that the Torah was written entirely by God through Moses. (See Maimonides 8th principle of faith: https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/332555/jewish/Maimonides-13-Principles-of-Faith.htm). That is a statement of faith and it cannot be argued, but is a matter of acceptance.
It's fairly clear the Torah was written by 100s of people over thousands of years and that there are 4 or more books edited together to form what we have today. Stories are duplicated in different texts with variations and events occurring out of order sometimes. It's a matter of Biblical scholarship.
The God of the Torah evolves over time, from being the most powerful of all gods (the concept of monolatry) to being the only god (the concept of monotheism). There are passages that refer to other gods, and it's fairly clear there were two gods described in the Torah, Yahweh of priestly origin described by the Levites and El of Israeli origins. It does seem that the Levites were the only group actually enslaved in Israel (and far less than 1,000,000 of them as described in the bible) and when they arrived in Israel, they melded their respective gods together to form the monotheistic religion we have today.
Obviously the evolution of God isn't something believed in by people of faith, but if you read the book as a book and you interpret it like all other ancient texts, you aren't left with the views espoused by the faithful.
This is an interesting question.
Why is there a question of God's name? There are several different names for gods in the Hebrew Bible. Monotheism is often assumed and following this the names are taken to be different names for the same god, but monotheism was a later development. In other words, the problem Moses faces is which god will the people to heed. The answer avoids names and says instead that the god of your fathers is the same god, the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, and the god of Jacob. Moses unites the various stories and beliefs that developed over time among the Egyptian Jews.
But the Jews of Exodus may be a myth. In other words, it is not a unification that occurred historically in this way but rather through the myths, which include not only this story but the weaving together of various stories that were compiled and edited to form the books of the Hebrew Bible.
Genesis 6:4
"In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times."
To the later monotheistic God:
Deuteronomy 6:4
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord."
The evolution of God moves from direct interaction in human affairs, to just direct communication, to communication only through prophets, to silence.
The primitive Yahweh even had a wife named Asherah. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/42154769/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/did-god-have-wife-scholar-says-he-did/
Such is the mythology upon which our society is built.
It is also worth mentioning the Jacob wrested with god. For some this is a defining characteristic of Judaism - the struggle to know God. Here too the question of names arises - both the changing of Jacob's name to Israel and the refusal of whoever it was that he wrestled with to tell him his name. Replying:
The question of names and what something is is a recurring theme, starting with finding suitable mate for Adam:
There are three possibilities: you actively believe "X", you actively disbelieve "X" or you withhold judgement and neither believe nor disbelieve "X'.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
There is no possible evidence or reason outside of your own experience that could, or should, make you a believer in anything beyond the empirical. What constitutes evidence or reason within your own experience cannot but be a matter just for you, and in this regard you are beholden to no one else unless you choose to be, or you lack the resources to critique and resist social influences.
I agree with what you've said here, and the theory is that the Egyptian Jews were the Levites, the priests, descendants of Moses, and the ones who were in Egypt at the time of enslavement.
"Levi" means attached or joined, arguably meaning they joined the Israelites later and brought their God to them. The names of every Levite in the Bible is of Egyptian origin.
This is a henotheistic god, the one god of the people. The first statement of monotheism occurs in Isaiah:
“This is what the Lord says—
Israel’s King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:
I am the first and I am the last;
apart from me there is no God. (Isaiah 44:6)
The quote from Deuteronomy says "our God".
In the Ten Commandments:
That is not to say that there are no other gods but that you should not put other gods first.
Genesis appears to be the epic of Gilgamesh in mangled form. We don't know how the stories were transmitted to the early Hebrews because we don't really know who the earliest Hebrews were. They were probably a mixture of people who settled the area after the Bronze Age collapse. We know their neighbors, the Philistines, were among the Sea Peoples who helped bring about the collapse.
Before the time frame of the Exodus, the "Promised Land" was dominated by the Egyptians and Hittites. The Hittites had a version of the Gigamesh epic, so it may have come from them.
So with some stray roots in a number of peoples who preceded them, the Hebrews were an early Iron Age culture, with the Exodus being a distant memory of the fall of the Bronze Age (which was kind of like the fall of the Roman Empire in some ways.)
For that reason, there wasn't any time for an evolution in conceptions of divinity between Genesis and Exodus. The God of Abraham and the God of Moses are identical.
It's true that the OT shows signs of the evolution of the concept of an unreal divinity out of a struggle to avoid assimilation. That is pretty cool, but I don't think it has anything to do with Moses.
This is a common claim, but I think incorrect. The Hebrew is clear that it's referring to God as one, not that Yawheh alone is Israel's God. Echad means one in 546 other biblical verses, and can't be read you mean "alone" here.
At any rate, the general point we agree to, which is that monotheism is a later development.
I thought the archeological record showed little evidence of Egyptian presence in Israel after the Exodus, which is why many doubt 1,000,000 Israeli/Egyptian refugees were freed from Egypt.Quoting frank
This is contrary to a lot of scholarship in the field, but regardless, I don't follow your argument that there was insufficient time.Quoting frank
Read The Exodus by Richard Friedman for an exhaustive counter to your statement here.
The area of the Promised Land was dominated by the Egyptians and the Hittites prior to the Bronze Age collapse. That places the story of the Exodus after the collapse.
Quoting Hanover
Where do you think the story of Noah came from?
Quoting Hanover
A read a bunch about it when I was in my Bronze Age phase, but thanks for the reference. BTW, I was just objecting to the failure of the OP to capitalize the M in Mosaic. A mosaic God would be one that's made of a lot of little rocks cemented together on a floor or wall.
We simply do not know the dates of origin of the stories. We also do not know how long it takes for conceptions of divinity to change. It is not as if there was at the time the stories were written that there was a single concept of God.
Quoting frank
Abraham's god spoke to him face to face. We have contradictory stories in Exodus:
Quoting frank
There are two stories of the Flood woven together.
I don't think you grasped the significance of the story of the origin of the Hebrews. They were an early Iron Age culture. Both Genesis and Exodus show signs of drawing from either Bronze Age myths or events around the time of the Bronze Age collapse. That's why it makes no sense to draw out a long timeline between the formation of Genesis and Exodus.
Quoting Fooloso4
What are you talking about?
The 'Shema' says:
It is clear that this is addressed to Israel the people. "our God" is the god of the people of Israel. To say that our God is one is not to say that our God is the only God, but that our God is not a plurality. The various names by which the people refer to God are all names of the same God.
Quoting Hanover
Hen also means one. Alone can mean only, no other.
All of this is, however, a matter of interpretation and by no means settled one way or the other.
Quoting Hanover
I read his "Who Wrote the Bible". I thought it was very good. One strong point is identifying passages that show there are two stories woven together with the differences in specifics allowed to stand. Differences the casual reader will miss. One clear example is the stories of the Flood.
See the section Problems with Dates and Places in the article "Ancient Jewish History: Who Were the Hebrews" from the Jewish Virtual Library https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/who-were-the-hebrews
See also the Wiki article "Hebrews" which makes clear that none of this is clear.
Quoting frank
See the Wiki article "Genesis flood narrative". As mentioned above, it is discussed by Richard Friedman in "Who Wrote the Bible".
The story of Noah is from the epic of Gilgamesh.
This does not explain the two versions woven together in Genesis.
You really need to read 1177: The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric Cline.
Get yourself up to date on the debate about the origin of the Hebrews. It's a quick, easy read.
The story of Noah is Sumerian in origin. Read Cline's book and then think about that.
I cannot comment on a book I have not read but from what I could find on Amazon the book is not about the history of the Hebrew Bible. But perhaps I am wrong. Does it give a chronology of when Genesis and Exodus were written, or more accurately, compiled? What does it say about the origins of the Hebrews? What does it say about the portrayal of God in those two books? What does it say about the different names of God?
On page 89 he says that there is not a lot of evidence of an exodus from Egypt and what is available is inconclusive.
The story may be largely or completely mythological. Whatever its actual historical facts may be, it should not be assumed that it is an historical account in the modern sense.
In any case, the question of whether the god described in Genesis differs from the god of Exodus can only be decided by reading Genesis and Exodus.
Quoting frank
Many of the stories are taken from earlier stories from various cultures. This is widely known and has been for a long time. One does not need to read Cline to know this. If you look at the story as it is told in [correction: Genesis] it should be clear that there are two different versions combined. They may have originated from a single story, but over time and retelling they diverged.
Concerning Moses and the Exodus:
There have been many attempts to prove that the ten plagues and the exodus were actual historical events. But indeed none of these could present conclusive archaeological or textual evidence, it appears to be more of a mix of elements taken from different events and eras.
These points that have been discussed:
around 1550 BCE, start of the 18th Dynastie:
The Egyptian rulers of the Theban nome recaptured Lower Egypt from the Hyksos. The Hyksos were a people from the Levantine area and they were driven out of Egypt by military force after having settled there for some generations, which broadly fits the Exodus story.
Additionally, the Thera Eruption falls into this era, and the unusual weather phenomena following a large-scale volcanic eruption may account for the "plagues".
around 1350 BCE, end of the 18th Dynasty
Akhenaten tried to establish a henotheistic cult in Egypt, but failed, and after his death his "heretic" cult was dismantled.
Some people suggested that Moses was actually a fanatic priest of Aten and he fled from Egypt to continue his religion in Israelian exile. (this again fits the Egyptian names of the Levites, as mentioned above, e.g. Moses=Mesw="child", Mirjam=Meri-Amun="Beloved of Amun")
There are textual sources outside the bible (Hecataeus, Manetho) supporting this story, but they're much younger.
around 1250-1200 BCE, 19th Dynasty
The exodus story specifically states that the Israelites were forced to build the city "Ramses", which matches the Egyptian "Piramesse" built in the time of Ramses II. That's why others assume Ramses II or his son Merenptah as the Pharao of the Exodus.
The Wikipedia Entry "sources and parallels of the exodus" offers a good overview, and I recommend Jan Assmann's book "Moses the Egyptian" if you're interested in an in-depth analysis.
As an example of this, in Exodus, God instructs the Hebrews to celebrate Passover in the future by eating matzoh for 7 days each year. This instruction appears before the Hebrews flee Egypt in such haste that they don't give their dough time to rise. You have God telling them to eat matzoh to commemorate their freedom before they ever knew the significance of the matzoh. Then after we learn about the Hebrews fleeing in such haste that they couldn't allow their bread to rise, God reiterates the directive about eating matzoh 7 days each year. The best explanation for this is that these are 2 accounts pieced together with mixed up chronology.
As an aside, the whole Passover story is bizarre really and I'm not sure it really says what most who practice think it says. The pharaoh refused to relent despite the plagues not because he didn't believe in the power of God, but because God forced him to be stubborn ("hardened his heart"). What's the moral of that lesson? I'm going to brainwash you to be evil and then punish you for being evil?
(In regard to the floods a few chapters on, their level was above "mountains" bearing in mind ziggurats served as metaphorical mountains. There was an element in the people that had lived in mountainous regions where they had previously "known" their gods to abide.)
In what follows I do not presume to comment on Islam as I believe muslims do not generally study the handed-down meanings (which have been laboriously and multifariously discerned) of the Old and New testaments. I think the Koran tends to substitute its own conclusions and that muslims consider that the last word.
Mytochondrial Eve lived circa 120,000 years ago. Scripture covers say the last 5,000 of those; the first page maybe 2,000 years before that.
The mores and mental muddles of mankind had got, meantime, to where they had got. As I see it what we read is a mixture of a "god" "speaking their language" i.e the way gods were expected to speak, and trying to penetrate the fog with fresh values.
I paraphrase Old and New Testaments in their entirety as: "The worship of God is to not stunt the growth of the fellow adopted widows and orphans in Father's firm".
At a metaphysical level a "power" behind an intelligible system such as we are within, must be at a very huge level in the spectrum of spectrums.
The details of a real god operating, are somewhere near our level.
This topic interests me, and I struggle to understand Agnostic arguments. My arguing style is very matter-of-fact which suddenly seems mean or condescending or something that upsets people. I only intend to argue specific points so hopefully I am not too annoying (right off the bat, I am not even sure you are an Agnostic vs just agnostic like me, please pardon any assumptions):
Quoting Janus
I kindly and whole-heartedly disagree? Why do you get to add to the definition? Your third option sounds like someone who does not believe 'x'? Very different from actively disbelieving, I agree. But since when does belief carry the added meaning you have created? And if you think it has always had the connotation you describe, can you point me in the direction of something that would cause me to agree? All I have to go off is the dictionary...
Is this the ENTIRE reason atheists and agnostics can't agree? Agnostics add much more meaning to 'belief' than atheists do? (I guess more accurately, they attach way more meaning to "I do not believe" than most atheists tend to do?).
Why do you feel the need to say "withhold judgement and neither believe nor disbelieve "X'" instead of just "no, currently I do not believe 'x' but there is a lot more information to collect before I am confident"? Your phrasing hints at the idea of "not holding any beliefs" but I thought that whopper had been exposed as nonsense, similar to people who claim to be entirely un-emotional.
Quoting Janus
I think I agree. When I said, Quoting Janus, I was responding to, Quoting Wayfarer.
I am a bit confused as to what exactly I should be learning here. In my mind the "secular view" has authority because it has a fairly proven track record (in many aspect of life...nothing has a proven track record when it comes to moral oughts so religion can still claim some of that domain).
I just saw I missed a fairly long response from you. I will get to it...soon :smile:
You see what you’ve done here, right? You’ve assumed the very ‘presumptive authority’ that I was talking about, without even realising. ‘Nothing has a proven track record’ if and only if you already throw out the moral authority of the world’s religions. So you start by presuming that ‘religions have no moral authority’ whereas at least ‘the secular view’ has.
Explain how religion put satellites in orbit? Ignore philosophy, in all other fields, the 'secular view' has a good track record. That was my point? That is why I said when it comes to 'moral oughts' that religion has equal track record to philosophy.
when I hear 'secular view' I hear scientific method. did you mean something else?
This is playing word games. Phrases like this automatically exclude people like me from the conversation as I am a stickler for definitions. 'open to the spiritual' sounds you think that there might be some spiritual truths despite a lack of direct evidence - that certainly meets the definition of belief. There seem to be a lot of people trying to avoid belief, I don't get it...only an all knowing being could avoid belief. Isn't avoiding belief like avoiding emotion? We do it all the time whether we like it or not (and redefining words doesn't help us avoid it).
Quoting Wayfarer
Amazing. I have never read Wittgenstein, but this must be the stuff he is on about. As you can probably tell, I view 'I have no beliefs' as a type of cop out. I am no longer trying to say you are wrong. If we both understand words so differently, clearly we are not going to make much progress.
I have to run, so I will read the rest a bit later. I will respond if I feel there is something important to both of us understanding each other.
Explain why playing card games has helped with your swimming.
When you say, “I don’t know,” you are avoiding belief. Right?
Perhaps the language I used, specifically the word "disbelieve" is the source of misunderstanding . Let's see. I'll change the wording and see if that works for you.
So, putting it another way let's say that when it comes to believing 'x', the alternative is to believe 'not-x'. There is no third alternative when it comes to believing. But there is an alternative to believing either 'x' or 'not-x' and that is to believe neither 'x' nor 'not-x'. If this sounds like you are still believing something, it is a false impression brought about by the way it is expressed 'I believe neither 'x' nor 'not-x'', but you are not believing anything. It is like saying 'I ate neither cheese nor fruit'; you are not eating anything that is cheese or fruit, nor necessarily anything else either.
The example concerning Trump colluding I gave earlier explains this clearly, I think. I don't have any belief either way as to whether Trump colluded, because I don't have sufficient evidence to hold a belief either way. I hope that clears it up for you.
Quoting ZhouBoTong
@Wayfarer and I have a lot in common but this is the one point (which actually amounts to quite a lot when you unpack it) where I think we disagree, or at least emphasize different points. I don't think in terms of authority, "defending", or right and wrong when it comes to discussing ideas about "invisible beings". This position is shown in this statement:
Quoting Janus
So, I don't see the situation in terms of "presumptive authority", and I think the idea of an invisible being is rationally indefensible. You can talk about it and others who share your intuitions may respond positively to your talk. This is what religion and some poetry and literature are about. It is a matter of felling, not of propositional ideas (when it is purported to be the latter it always amounts to some kind of fundamentalism). It is therefore a matter of rhetoric, and not rigorous arguments, when it comes to communicating ideas of the numinous. This is the essence of what I am calling Wayfarer out on much of the time.
I was born in 1979 (at the border of Gen X and Millennials). My parents were a part of the counter culture. I grew up with their rock and roll. I had long hair as a toddler, and nudity wasn’t something to be ashamed of.
When I got a little older, my dad told me about his and my mom’s experiences with acid and pot (or “grass” as they said in the 60s and 70s). As a 17 year-old, in the early days of the World Wide Web, a friend of mine showed me Timothy Leary’s website and also a website containing the Tibetan Book of the Dead. My dad, although a Protestant for most of his life, introduced me to Buddhism, the Tao Te Ching, and “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
So when I went off to Loyola University Chicago, you could say that I had an open mind and a liberal attitude. I had emotional problems, too, so experimenting with drugs seemed like a good escape. I smoked a lot of weed second semester, and I did acid (what were called “gel tabs,” a specific form of delivery method for LSD) once. I can only describe the experience as “being one with the world” or having no boundaries between me and the outside world. It was a nice trip.
I only did acid that one time. Haven’t done it since. However, I have had experiences since then that were similar when not taking my medication for six months a while back. This with no drugs (although I thought a few times that someone was drugging me).
I do not recommend the use of drugs to anyone.
All I can say is that one can experience things that do not seem natural. Interpretation of these experiences (such as thinking that people were drugging me) do not rise to the requirements of knowledge, but one can feel wonder or awe or Oneness while withholding judgment as to what the cause is.
Thank you for your consideration.
I think you mean lysergide, lysergine is, unless I am mistaken, a different chemical altogether.
Per Wikipedia they were written around the same time. Pfft.
Frank, once again, the stories in these books come from various periods of time. The date of compilation does not resolve the question of the dates of the stories, which means the estimated date of compilation does not resolve the question of whether the concepts of God are the same.
Your assumption is that not enough time elapsed for the concept of God to have undergone much of a change. This assumption is questionable. It assumed any change would have been the result of a gradual linear development. There is no evidence of this. Stories are the product of the imagination. The imagination is not tethered to gradual development. There was at that time various stories and beliefs. Unlike the later development in Christianity of official doctrines and beliefs, there were no such constraints on which of the plurality of stories much be accepted or rejected. As has been stated before, the stories come from different cultures some much older than others.
The prevailing scholarly view is that both Exodus and Genesis were written between the 6th and 5th Centuries, during a time of profound crisis during which the Hebrews were marked for cultural annihilation by one of the cruelest and most ruthless civilizations in human history. The notion that the priests who wrote down the stories knowingly recorded conflicting conceptions of their own divinity is absurd.
I'll stick with the scholarly view. You believe whatever you like.
Hey I’m trying to be discrete. :yikes:
As do I. But the rhetorical point I was making is that this is how ‘God’ is often depicted by atheism.
:razz:
Ah yes, well spotted.
The information I provided is from scholarly sources. Even if the dates are accurate this does not resolve the issue in question. When the stories were compiled does not tell us when, where, and by whom the stories were first told.
Quoting frank
Not at all. You seem to have missed the point. "Their own divinity" was the result of the joining of beliefs and practices of different groups. The twelve tribes of Israel, the families of the 12 sons of Jacob/Israel, did not settle together in one place as one united group. The theme of the reuniting of the tribes is a familiar one in the Hebrew Bible. The uniting of the peoples of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel required the stories of each group be represented. This is why we see the two stories of the Flood with their different details woven together. This is laid out clearly by Richard Friedman (a well regarded Biblical scholar) in "Who Wrote the Bible".
You can, of course, believe whatever you want. I am going to leave it there.
I know. I’m an ass.
Quoting Wayfarer
You seem like you have a lot of wisdom to impart. You must be a cool grandpa! :cool:
We'll never know what the content of oral traditions was, so it's irrelevant to the question of whether Genesis and Exodus depict the same divinity.
Quoting Fooloso4
So you changed from maintaining that Genesis and Exodus depict different divinities to holding that the Israelite tribes had different divinities.
What's this about unification? Don't you know what happened to Israel and Judah in the 6th and 5th Centuries?
I agree no third option, but "I believe 'not-x'" is a little specific (it doesn't seem to include 'a lack of belief in x'...or does it? For me, and this may be a bit of our problem, 'I believe 'not-x' requires knowledge of 'x' where as a lack of belief in 'x' automatically exists in absence of knowledge).
Quoting Janus
I do not think what I wrote above refutes this. However, if I cherry pick a line out of context, it shows the semantic problem I am having:
Quoting Janus
Exactly. So the answer to do you believe 'x' can be simplified to 'no'...??? How could I believe 'x' if I do not believe anything?
I think this just shows we are both understanding the same words in SLIGHTLY different (but meaningful) ways. I count a lack of belief as 'not believing', where as you view 'not believing' as requiring intent...I think?
Quoting Janus
This helps (I think). Does this mean you think the question "Is there a god" is an empirical question with a definite answer? My understanding of history along with some understanding of the definitions of gods in varying religions means that I have to ask several clarifying questions before I can even begin to answer that question. The question itself is nonsense without A LOT of explanation as to what one means when they use the word 'god'.
Your Donald Trump example HAS an answer, so withholding judgement makes sense. Until meanings are clarified, "is there a god" does NOT have an answer...so withholding judgement is meaningless. If I ask, "do you think Avengers is better than Die Hard" then you can reasonably answer, "I am planning to see those movies next week, then I will let you know." However, if you have no intention of seeing the movies then "I don't know" doesn't really work as the question asks about your thoughts or beliefs not knowledge (yes I am being very nitpicky on grammar here). So the semantically accurate (although possibly incomplete) answer has to be "no, I don't think Avengers is better." (notice said person would also be able to answer a related question with "No, I do not think avengers is worse either.")
Quoting Janus
Assuming 'felling' above means "feeling" then I entirely agree. And know that I suck at poetry as much as I do religion. I keep trying to make sense of the words when I guess I am just supposed to feel their meaning, ugh.
And thanks for attempting to clarify your reasoning. It seems our disagreement just boils down to a few very nuanced differences in our FEELINGS (?haha) about certain words. It is actually rather interesting, of course it is also a little frustrating :smile:
Nope. I answer "I don't know" to knowledge questions. I answer "I don't think so" or "I don't believe so" to thought/opinion questions (to be fair, in a normal conversation 'think' and 'know' are interchangeable. But we are talking about belief in a philosophical setting and we get the added buffer of typing our responses so I can be extra careful about EXACTLY what I mean.)
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
This seems fair. But it also takes discussion/debate off the table. All we can do is wait for me to have an experience of wonder or awe that leads me to feel the "Oneness".
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
So polite :grin: I will try to emulate the behavior, but I often get caught up in the argument and forget there is another human involved.
:grin:
Quoting ZhouBoTong
How is that different than what I said?
Sorry. I don’t believe that I was thinking about the right thread. You’re right about being precise about language.
Hi, as someone who has been studying Christianity for over a year or two (was an atheist philosopher who had recently converted). Before I respond, I would like to recommend all the skeptics to examine the biblical narrative through it ANE background and the New Testament's Second Temple Jewish background, as well as some recent findings from the New Perspective of Paul which drastically alter many traditional medieval conceptions, interpretations and hermeneutics of the bible (like those from the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches that interpret scripture in light of either the reformation, the great schism and the byzantinization of the early church). I mean what's the point of criticizing something if you don't have a proper framework through which to interpret such things? As those who are serious in understanding the bible accurately through modern scholarship, I'd recommend essentially almost all of the works by Dr. Michael Heiser, although some Messianic Jewish scholarship have a first century understanding of the scriptures, such as understanding the meanings behind certain practices, idioms, and the general narrative of scripture.
As to why doesn't the biblical God lead by example? It is not at all obvious that God directly causes many of the events that are many times attributed to him as scripture does use anthropomorphic (and ancient jewish interpretation) language when describing God and his actions since he is "other wordly". Although I have my personal interpretations which sometimes seems to attribute direct causation to God when in reality he was indirectly responsible, such as Psalms 7:12-16 describing this quality, and also what soteriological interpretation one takes such as whether one is a calvinist, arminian, open theist, compatibalist, a traditionalist/provisionalism, or molinist, I'll bite the bullet and assume for the sake of argument that God did directly cause the flood and killed many people. For starters, God didn't capriciously flood the world in a random fit of anger, most people seem to ignore the context which was Genesis 6:1-4 (which correlates with the book of enoch and the epic of gilgamish, but through a different perspective with the watchers, the sons of God or the Anunnaki that gave mankind technology, and corrupted them through missing with their genetics, which was the second fall of mankind, the fall from the event of Mount Hermon, which the other two are the one in the Garden of Eden and the one in the Tower of Babel) and Genesis 6:5, as well as the universal moral code that God commands to all people (which aren't the 613 laws he gave to Israel through their covenant), which he judged Cain by and gave to Noah, which Paul also discusses this moral law that all creation will be judged by (in a retributive sense) which was the "light" given to them, and that those not given enough revelation will be judged by what light they have been given by the universal creator, and perish due to their ignorance through a works based salvation system which only brings condemnation (which goes to a different debate, but for the sake of argument, just focusing on this point about the moral law or the natural rights/laws of man [which western law and civilization essentially rests on]).
Because mankind was becoming corrupted and committing sins, God in order to save mankind, as well as being morally consistent with his own nature (which William Lane Craig does a fantastic job on dispelling the old euthyphro "dilemma" HERE) and utilizing a justified ritributivist's means in order to achieve a greater consequentialist end, he had judged righteously those who were destroying mankind, much like a doctor kills a cancerous cell in order to preserve a human life, which in this case is all of humanity being saved by God. And in your post, you equivocate killing with the command of Exodus 20:13 which is not condemning killing, but murder (taking a life justifiably isn't murder, God takes life as long as it is consistent with his nature, as though he was The Good personified dealing with free willed agents). And lastly he does lead by example, when you take the flood or the destruction of the Canaanites, along with his self sacrifice in the cross, the greatest conceivable being who is entitled to be self righteous and destroy anything imperfect, decides to empty himself and be mocked and ridiculed by self righteous indignant and ignorant individuals in order that mankind might be reconciled with him, which you wont find God reconciling and humbling himself with any other beings of creation in the bible, nor do you see this great humility and ultimate sacrifice, or a god paying the ultimate price/an impossible debt in any other religion or conception of God outside of Christ.
First, you're saying the same thing I am only with a different conclusion. That is, we perceive God according to our human perspectives but we interpret according to our expectations of our ideals. It doesn't answer the question of what the right perspective is and why.
Secondly, you haven't shown God to be absolute in power and wisdom, why?
Thirdly, why do people keep saying that God has saved humanity. In what way is the salvation manifest? Because, even after the flood, sin is still a part of humanity.
Lastly, William Lane Craig isn't applying logic to his "Euthyphro Dilemma" because he has premises with no foundation which he gives his own subjective interpretations of. For, example, from that link you've given, he says that, which is analogous to a previous statement,
and
So, my question is this,
My point is, it seems we (humans) value humanity more than God does.
Yes, this point of us out-thinking 'God' surfaces again and again, and all the blah, blah, blah from religious scholars can't overcome it. The contradictions bear the hallmark of a 'God' made up.
As the questioner's concern was mainly whether the god of the Hebrews and Christians had set a good enough example or not, I am trying to highlight what I think is, in God's mind, supposed to be the essence of the issue for present day Christian believers.
Fundamentalism doesn't do any religion favours.
Autonomous responsibility-takers have got to grow personally and use diligence in deducing issues.
If you attempt to join a church and they are anything like the following:
- dumbing down in their own terms
- no genuine channels (only pretend ones)
- don't pray
- don't keep each other company (but hold barbecues, and overload the table with chocolate brownies)
- brownie point hunting in a show of good deeds
- serious subjects of conversation can't be raised
- passivity
- excessive deference to authority - which latter makes great show of acting casual
- lack of individuality
then don't touch them, and incidentally their deceptiveness is the same as characters in the Bible anecdotes about deceptive people.
To abuse credulity and credence, is an offence in thoughtful people's eyes and that is why we should deduce it is an offence in any worthwhile god's eyes.
The Bible stories show up the character of the men and women in the stories.
We have got to critique the quality of the "tradition" (handed-down meaning) that goes attached to the stories - as we all know this is often trashy and that is why we have got to research something better.