Creation vs. Evolution

[nereas]

I don't think that's so. It is becoming quite clear that Abraham invented his single god, to replace the multiplicity of gods otherwise recognised, as a political move to enhance his own position. As an absolute ruler he had the power to impose it on people. Whether or not this god actually existed is irrelevant to Abraham's actions. Any "laws" associated with the new god came from Abraham or from others under his direction and with his sanction - this was the whole point of inventing the god in the first place. The idea of a "messiah" came much later, once the idea of a single god had become so engrained as to be unchallengeable, and was in itself a reaction against the idea of the god having "laws" that we had to obey.

Who was it said "religion is the opium of the people"? When you study Abraham you can see this in action.

Ah, Lucifer, how art thine voices legion.

Diaboliklos in Greek and Helaal in Hebrew.

 

[sheck33]

I don't think that's so. It is becoming quite clear that Abraham invented his single god, to replace the multiplicity of gods otherwise recognised, as a political move to enhance his own position. As an absolute ruler he had the power to impose it on people. Whether or not this god actually existed is irrelevant to Abraham's actions. Any "laws" associated with the new god came from Abraham or from others under his direction and with his sanction - this was the whole point of inventing the god in the first place. The idea of a "messiah" came much later, once the idea of a single god had become so engrained as to be unchallengeable, and was in itself a reaction against the idea of the god having "laws" that we had to obey.

Who was it said "religion is the opium of the people"? When you study Abraham you can see this in action.

Well put.

 

[peterbj7]

nereas - can you amplify your comment? Most religions, certainly all the monotheistic ones, build a "self protection" clause into their dogma, to protect themselves against attack. By anticipating what others are likely to say and rebutting it before it is said, you are seen to strengthen your case. I might call this "offensive rebuttal". Logically bogus and absurd, but widely employed, especially in Court. In formal debating it's called "points scoring".

Islam carries it to extremes by condemning critics to death, but Christianity generally dropped that extreme sanction a few centuries ago. Judaism has always, so far as I can tell, been far more tolerant of critics and non-believers - I don't recall ever reading of Jews when they've been in positions of power being brutal to people who weren't members of their "club". Modern Israel goes a bit in that direction, but it's more political than personal.

So were you warning others to beware of what I was saying because it fell into a category that your religion has already anticipated? Not much point really - it won't affect people who are already of the same persuasion as you seem to be, and people who have a broader outlook will see it for the attempted trick that it is and will ignore it.

In my mind I have a question that I think I'll pose - what is "belief"? I believe that the earth is unlikely to stop spinning on its axis, so tomorrow will certainly happen. That's based partly on what others have said, which would constitute "acceptance", but also on my own inevitable conviction (from observation) that it is so. I'm not likely to shift my belief in the pattern of days, and I don't see myself ever questioning it. I don't fear being regarded as "disloyal" if I were to admit, even if only to myself, that really my conviction that tomorrow was going to happen was artificial, that I had told myself that this was what I had to believe.

In my experience, even for the most ardent advocates of religions this conviction is a lot weaker. We read all the time of people "losing their faith" or maybe "discovering God". This suggests that there is an element of mental will at work. I don't believe I have any effort of will involved in expecting tomorrow.

So what does someone mean when they say "I believe"? That they've made a conscious decision that they will accept and not question a certain dogma? In Christianity Jesus is supposed to have said something like "you believe because you have seen; blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe". Why on earth would he say that if he wasn't wanting to guard against people thinking for themselves and coming to conclusions he didn't like? Goes back to my original point about "offensive rebuttal".

 

[nereas]

nereas - can you amplify your comment? Most religions, certainly all the monotheistic ones, build a "self protection" clause into their dogma, to protect themselves against attack. By anticipating what others are likely to say and rebutting it before it is said, you are seen to strengthen your case. I might call this "offensive rebuttal". Logically bogus and absurd, but widely employed, especially in Court. In formal debating it's called "points scoring".

Islam carries it to extremes by condemning critics to death, but Christianity generally dropped that extreme sanction a few centuries ago. Judaism has always, so far as I can tell, been far more tolerant of critics and non-believers - I don't recall ever reading of Jews when they've been in positions of power being brutal to people who weren't members of their "club". Modern Israel goes a bit in that direction, but it's more political than personal.

So were you warning others to beware of what I was saying because it fell into a category that your religion has already anticipated? Not much point really - it won't affect people who are already of the same persuasion as you seem to be, and people who have a broader outlook will see it for the attempted trick that it is and will ignore it.

In my mind I have a question that I think I'll pose - what is "belief"? I believe that the earth is unlikely to stop spinning on its axis, so tomorrow will certainly happen. That's based partly on what others have said, which would constitute "acceptance", but also on my own inevitable conviction (from observation) that it is so. I'm not likely to shift my belief in the pattern of days, and I don't see myself ever questioning it. I don't fear being regarded as "disloyal" if I were to admit, even if only to myself, that really my conviction that tomorrow was going to happen was artificial, that I had told myself that this was what I had to believe.

In my experience, even for the most ardent advocates of religions this conviction is a lot weaker. We read all the time of people "losing their faith" or maybe "discovering God". This suggests that there is an element of mental will at work. I don't believe I have any effort of will involved in expecting tomorrow.

So what does someone mean when they say "I believe"? That they've made a conscious decision that they will accept and not question a certain dogma? In Christianity Jesus is supposed to have said something like "you believe because you have seen; blessed are those who have not seen yet still believe". Why on earth would he say that if he wasn't wanting to guard against people thinking for themselves and coming to conclusions he didn't like? Goes back to my original point about "offensive rebuttal".

Ah, Lucifer, your voices are legion, indeed. Intellectually powerful, ever mutating, and resounding as cymbals of brass.

I doubt that Jesus (Latin spelling) is too worried about anything.

Now Lucifer, on the other hand, has reason to worry a lot. He does the worrying, I would bet.

And to your point about weak Christians, well, they must surely be Lucifer's favorites, n'est pas?

Regarding your question about belief, the Greek New Testament speaks of this topic in depth throughout the writings of St. Paul. Do you want me to re-type all of these writings here?

Trickery is the domain of Lucifer, not me. I read the ancient scriptures (scrolls) in Hebrew and in Greek to understand what the ancient prophets (nabi in Hebrew, profetas in Greek) have to say about their first-hand visions of Diety. The current English translations are all quite badly done.

Remember, Moses (Greek spelling; MOSHE in Hebrew) was an old white haired man, who had visions, and wrote them down, and told us about Abraham. The first real person in the Hebrew Old Testament (Torah, Writings, Prophets) is Moses himself, circa 1400 B.C.E. This period of the Bronze Age was really quite an historic time, not only in Egypt, but everywhere.

Moses is then followed by a whole bunch of other similar prophets, who also write. The Hebrew scribes were nice enough to transcribe these writing for us. And Saint Luke the physician and Efaggelos (missionary) transcribed the writings of the Apostles into Greek for us as well. That is were we get them.

The issue of witnesses is different from your (specifically, your) attempt at intellectualization of religion.

Intellectualization is the realm of philosophy, not of religion.

Face it, that you yourself know nothing about religion, and your excuse is simply "your experience."

Get thee hence, Lucifer. Serve your many minions, over whom you are lord and god.

And now, on a separate matter, I need to get my twin-130s ready for this coming weekend so that I can scuba.

 

[deco_martini]

Why on earth would he say that if he wasn't wanting to guard against people thinking for themselves and coming to conclusions he didn't like? Goes back to my original point about "offensive rebuttal".

Knew you would say that, therefore I win!!!!!

 

[peterbj7]

Face it, that you yourself know nothing about religion

What is your basis for saying that? Simply that I don't agree with you so therefore must be wrong? This is part of the self-protectionism I was referring to. I may know a lot more than you are asserting.

What you have said is merely regurgitating dogma - there doesn't appear to be any original thought there. Why would God imbue us with brains that are capable of logical thought if he didn't intend us to use them? WHY should it be necessary to "believe" in the total absence of any cause, with that belief being regarded as the more praiseworthy precisely because there is not one jot of evidence to support it?

You speak of the Scriptures as if they are cohesive and sacrosanct. Have you never studied them and seen how many contradictions and errors they contain? I have. Small wonder, as so many people contributed to them, but significant nonetheless. And of course it is quite clear that some of the texts which purport to be personal observations of Jesus (I'll stick to that spelling as it's what I'm used to and it's unambiguous) were actually written centuries afterwards by people who could not possibly have known him, or even people who had themselves known him.

Do you really expect people to abandon all reason and logical thought, and specific evidence, to "believe" your dogma? If you do you're actually doing a very poor job of trying to convert. I know intelligent people, and here I'm thinking of certain scientists back home at Oxford University, who hold deep religious convictions alongside their scientific observations and reasoning. They don't have a problem reconciling human intellect with Christian belief. Now, I don't agree with them, but that's not the point. They're not afraid to use their God-given brains to sift the evidence and come to a conclusion. They do recognise and accept the anomalies in the dogma, and they do regard the texts written after the event as unreliable. And they can hold their own in an intellectual discussion without resorting to condemning their opponents as "charlatans" and the like.

A couple of final points - are you aware of the elements of Christian dogma that were generated many centuries after Jesus lived by learned committees, mostly for practical (not theological) reasons? And are you aware that many texts have with the benefit of modern scholarship and techniques been retranslated from the original Hebrew or Aramaic, and have been found to have been significantly mistranslated before? Yet western Christianity is built so solidly on these man-created mistranslations that theologians are unwilling to accept them, as being too disruptive? That they are afraid that to accept that some things they have been saying are inalienable and fundamental to "The Faith" are in fact just human errors? Puts them in a bit of a pickle, as we say in England.

 

[nereas]

What is your basis for saying that? Simply that I don't agree with you so therefore must be wrong? This is part of the self-protectionism I was referring to. I may know a lot more than you are asserting.

What you have said is merely regurgitating dogma - there doesn't appear to be any original thought there. Why would God imbue us with brains that are capable of logical thought if he didn't intend us to use them? WHY should it be necessary to "believe" in the total absence of any cause, with that belief being regarded as the more praiseworthy precisely because there is not one jot of evidence to support it?

You speak of the Scriptures as if they are cohesive and sacrosanct. Have you never studied them and seen how many contradictions and errors they contain? I have. Small wonder, as so many people contributed to them, but significant nonetheless. And of course it is quite clear that some of the texts which purport to be personal observations of Jesus (I'll stick to that spelling as it's what I'm used to and it's unambiguous) were actually written centuries afterwards by people who could not possibly have known him, or even people who had themselves known him.

Do you really expect people to abandon all reason and logical thought, and specific evidence, to "believe" your dogma? If you do you're actually doing a very poor job of trying to convert. I know intelligent people, and here I'm thinking of certain scientists back home at Oxford University, who hold deep religious convictions alongside their scientific observations and reasoning. They don't have a problem reconciling human intellect with Christian belief. Now, I don't agree with them, but that's not the point. They're not afraid to use their God-given brains to sift the evidence and come to a conclusion. They do recognise and accept the anomalies in the dogma, and they do regard the texts written after the event as unreliable. And they can hold their own in an intellectual discussion without resorting to condemning their opponents as "charlatans" and the like.

A couple of final points - are you aware of the elements of Christian dogma that were generated many centuries after Jesus lived by learned committees, mostly for practical (not theological) reasons? And are you aware that many texts have with the benefit of modern scholarship and techniques been retranslated from the original Hebrew or Aramaic, and have been found to have been significantly mistranslated before? Yet western Christianity is built so solidly on these man-created mistranslations that theologians are unwilling to accept them, as being too disruptive? That they are afraid that to accept that some things they have been saying are inalienable and fundamental to "The Faith" are in fact just human errors? Puts them in a bit of a pickle, as we say in England.

Look, I don't blame you if the Church of England soured you. It's main purpose after all was simply to grant Henry VIII-th his divorce.

Your other accusations are actually funny, though!

 

[peterbj7]

Remember, Moses (Greek spelling; MOSHE in Hebrew) was an old white haired man

Not all the time he wasn't. He started life as, well, as young, and grew old. Like most of us, in fact.

What are you trying to say?

 

[peterbj7]

Look, I don't blame you if the Church of England soured you

Sorry, you're making a lot of assumptions. Why do you assume that my knowledge of Christianity comes from the Church of England? There are many Christians in England who have nothing to do with that body.

It's main purpose after all was simply to grant Henry VIII-th his divorce

That is only superficially correct. If you study the history of England you will see that the country had largely separated itself from Rome under the Saxon kings, and that William the Conqueror only re-established close ties because Rome had helped give him (bogus) moral authority for his invasion. These new ties were widely resented, both in absolute terms and because they were seen as a sign of Norman dominance. Explicit Norman dominance took several centuries to wane, and it then took a strong-willed man to make the final break. Henry was nothing if not strong-willed. Like most successful leaders, he was actually following the public will, and merely as a bonus exploiting it to his personal ends. Without him it would have happened anyway, at some point.

Your other accusations are actually funny, though!

I wasn't aware I had made any "accusations". Just observations. Do you believe I am wrong in all of them?

 

[nereas]

It's clear that your mind has created the mythology that great books like the Koran, and the Torah, and the Gospels, can write themselves. Like a magical quill can flutter up by itself and do the writing.

You seem to fail to realize that a great Arab prince, and a great Egyptian prince, and a great Greek physician and scholar, where the dignitaries who undertook these endeavors.

Yet your mind is dead to the reasons why. Truly fascinating.