Life, The Universe, And Everything

[webmdave]

Your task is harder than mine. You're stuck with winnowing the wheat. Is it all chaff?

 

Buddy

 

In a word, yes. Delusions exist only in the mind of the deluded.

 

What you can't seem to accept, Buddy, is that your mind and perceptions are prone to error. I too have had a few unexplainable episodes in my life. These were experiences I thought of for many years as real but now humbly accept as only occurring in my mind. You admit you've been a Christian for 40 years, and that your angelic visions, or whatever it really was, ratified your presuppositions.

 

Most NDE's also ratify and support the person's presuppositions about life.

 

I don't have a "harder" job, Buddy. I don't have to "disprove" someone's silly stories about UFOs, do I? Imagine the ramifications, Buddy! UFOs are real! People have been abducted all over the world! The government is covering it up! Can ALL THE STORIES OF UFOS BE CHAFF????

 

Yes, Buddy, without evidence, all stories about UFOs are chaff.

 

Your mind played tricks on you, at least twice. And now, reality must be molded into a shape that fits your "experience." You have made your "experience" the standard by which you judge, analyze and view reality.

 

I have a father-in-law to whom God occasionally speaks in an audible voice. He is absolutely convinced beyond all reason that God, in an audible voice, has spoken with him. I've heard him excitedly tell the story dozens of times. Here's the story:

 

"I was working on the sink and I just couldn't stop the leak. No matter what I tried, the leak just got worse. I cried out, 'Jesus! Help me!' and I heard an audible voice: "I AM A PLUMBER." Immediately an idea came into my head and I had that old sink fixed in 2 minutes flat."

 

Wheat or chaff, Buddy?

 

Metaphorically speaking, you are not the only one claiming to have seen UFOs, Buddy. Do you think "some" of the UFO stories are wheat? Or are they all chaff?

[BuddyFerris]

... BTW the strawman simile of marriage is just plain bad, and trying to obfuscate the issue (I still await 'Why the egg comment was a 'joke'')

Good morning Grandpa.

Let's skip marriage then and do some other institution.

- Representative government, perhaps: Unethical politicians use their position and influence to ensconce themselves and further their private fortunes; they do so under the cloak of democratic process. Therefore, democracy and elected representatives are an inherently wicked proposition, and all politicians should cease their representation of others and should be categorically held accountable for every such misbehavior.

- Charity as a national initiative: In a great society, those less fortunate should be supported and helped by the more affluent. Unfortunately, welfare breeds dependency, disenfranchisement, poverty, family destruction, and national debt beyond any measurable benefit. Therefore, charity is an unethical behavior whose supporters and participants should cease charitable activity and be categorically held accountable for all such failures.

- Diplomacy as a cultural and national imperative: as an alternative to killing each other, nations engage in dialog, hoping for mutual understanding and agreement without bloodshed. Unfortunately, some disingenuous participants in the process look for exclusive advantage rather than mutual benefit. Therefore, the concepts and ideals of diplomacy are flawed, and diplomats should cease all diplomatic activity and be categorically held accountable for all such abuses.

 

Concepts and principles may be (and perhaps should be) evaluated both on content and use. Content is not invalidated by misuse. Misuse often illustrates the validity of the concept and the failure of the user to measure up; a 'weighed in the balance and found wanting' sort of thing.

 

That said, it is difficult to point at history's horrors and not blame them on a source ideology. It seems essential for us to identify the root of something evil so that we can ensure it isn't repeated; in some cases, blaming the church and Christianity is easier than grappling with the individuals and politics of the time. The holocausts of the 20th century may be traced both to ideological roots and to specific leaders. Though popular figures in their day, we now call them criminals, and correctly so. Milosevic, Suharto, Lenin, Pol Pot, and Mao ZeDong join Hitler and Stalin in body count crimes. Collectively, they probably murdered upwards of 70 million people. Shall we examine their ideologies? Will we find that they were unwittingly made to be criminals by exposure to ideology, or will we find that they were deliberate in applying whatever practice suited them in their quest for power, wealth, and prestige? I'm persuaded to the latter.

 

I forget why the egg was funny to me at the time. Something in the preceding mutation argument suggested a post hoc argument to me. I'll gladly retract it if that will help smooth the flow of conversation. I've no particular skill at humor.

 

Since this is much longer than intended, let me back up to this: Concepts and principles may be evaluated both on content and use. Content is not invalidated by misuse, but misuse may well illustrate the validity of the concept and the failure of the user to measure up.

 

Buddy

[BuddyFerris]

"I was working on the sink and I just couldn't stop the leak. No matter what I tried, the leak just got worse. I cried out, 'Jesus! Help me!' and I heard an audible voice: "I AM A PLUMBER." Immediately an idea came into my head and I had that old sink fixed in 2 minutes flat."

 

Wheat or chaff, Buddy?

Good question, and I haven't a clue. Seems a little too little, ya know? Why would God care about the plumbing? On the other hand, young Christians have a reputation for having their prayers answered; stupid things like praying for a parking spot near the mall entrance or some equally banal request. Either God thinks they need the encouragement early on, or they're just silly, or who knows. They all seem to outgrow that stuff after awhile, just like our kids outgrow their own egocentric immaturity. So perhaps your father-in-law needed a little encouragement, or perhaps he's just being silly. I'd file that one in the TBD bucket; not information I'm going to use as I make my life decisions.

Buddy

[BuddyFerris]

I want to thank you though for being the one fuzzy headed pseudo Christian who was responsible for me finding people like Grandpa, and the rest here on the forum, because their brilliance and "right on" perception has inspired me to read.

 

Please Commit a little further, and get into why you believe some of the basic concepts of the Bible, not because I want to hear that boring illogical, irrational, crap, but because I love how these truly beautiful minds work when confronted with it.

You're welcome, I think.

Buddy

[BuddyFerris]

There again, there's a lot of apologist crap and retconned history out there...

Some but not all scholars might agree with you. One man's apologist crap is another's life work. At least he didn't devote his life to breeding the perfect spotted mouse.

Buddy

[Grandpa Harley]

The environmental stress as an instigator of major evolutionary change is not a post-hoc idea. nor is it ad-hoc, but a clearly seen mechanism in rapid generational animals (the major morphological change in rats to become Warferen resistant being a good example of mammalian adaptation to an environmental stressor, DDT resistance in insects being a good invertebrate one, and malarial adaptation to quinine based agents in single celled organisms) Just because it doesn't grow a third eye does not make the change non-trivial.

 

The reason environmental stressors affect morphology is due to body chemisty of the 'parent'... to stick with a mammalian example (but this generally applies to anything with a back bone) environmental stress affects the endocrine balance of the animal... predation, discomfort, lack of potable food... all stress the animal, producing a witch's brew of adrenaline, anadrenaline and decomposition by products, reduced serotonin and other 'mood enhancing' neuro-peptides, and increased blood pressure and heart rate. All of which affects the way the foetus develops and manages it's cellular replication and construction. You get a lot of sickly babies, but you also get a lot who survive and do better in the conditions... only marginal to begin with, but enough for them to breed in the same stressor filled environment. In a rapid generational organism, this means you have a Mathusian expansion of chemically affected offspring handing on their traits to offspring who are also conceived and gestated in a mutant body filled with stress related chemicals... the changes that allow gen 1 to survive will be present in gen 2 and mutated again... some will work others won't... but the combinatorial weight of changes will continue until the organism is comfortable in it's environment... then things stop since the chemicals have gone. Thus the presence of 'archaic' species today... they're comfortable in their place in the environment... crocodiles don't have much to fear for instance... they're probably a bit more tolerant of pollution than they were 100 years ago (an arbitrary figure for framing only) but something that lives on rotting meat is going to be pretty robust to toxins of all ilks...

 

 

one thing about the environmental stress model is that it is a low energy solution. The mutations may work or not, but to stand still is ti ensure extinction. Thus, what appears to be a superificially noisy and waste method of change is actually pretty efficient... and I don't see the need for a creator in that mechanism...

 

So... Eggs...

[Grandpa Harley]

There again, there's a lot of apologist crap and retconned history out there...

Some but not all scholars might agree with you. One man's apologist crap is another's life work. At least he didn't devote his life to breeding the perfect spotted mouse.

Buddy

 

 

Yes... I know Augustine... it seems you have nothing to speak to the meat of the post, and always select the adiaphora... One can only assume you had nothing to say to the meat...

 

and mice?

 

You may well be best advised to avoid jocularity... it comes across as squirming...

[Ouroboros]

HanS,

Yes, yes, a thousand times. Obviously I'm not communicating well, dammit; I make no demands intentionally, I have no illusions of superior intellect or exclusive access to wisdom. I'm incautious enough to be offensive, apparently, and have stepped out of line several times. I intend both serious conversation and perhaps some clever exchange of witticisms, but no serious affront.

Fair enough.

 

As an alternative to bailing out on me, please stick around long enough to let me be properly insulted in return. I can revert to moron, as was popular in earlier posts, or you may select a more fitting description from the approved list.

Easy there, no need to be a martyr.

 

I am genuinely interested in your thoughts and opinions. You have every right to cry foul when I claim this or that to be adequately true, and I'm interested in your reasons; interested not for the sake of argument, but for the sake of understanding. I have no difficulty forming and holding some opinion in a circle of like minded people, but the opinion has no strength or root. Among those who think and act differently than I, an idea will die quickly or live on genuine merit. I prefer the challenge of a friendly opponent to the easy approval of familiar minds; perhaps we all do.

That's good.

 

Do understand, we deal with many kinds of Christians on this website. As you probably understand, we're a bunch of people that used to be Christian, and we do get Christian visitors from time-to-time here, and many of them are quite ignorant and arrogant. And to me I'm more concerned with how honest someone is to themselves and to what they claim to believe, more than if they got all things right. The reason is that the Bible do say the fruits of the spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness (Gal 5:22 NIV), and you know the tree by its fruit (Luke 6:44), so if I meet arrogant, ignorant, selfish, haughty, self-righteous Christians, I can only feel one thing towards them: "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks." (Matt 12:34) To me people like that are white washed tombs, full of bones and death, and pretend to be holy on the surface (Matt 23:27). Jesus hated them, and even if I don't believe in Jesus, I hate that kind of attitude and hypocrisy too... so I think I'm probably more Jesus-like than them.

[Ouroboros]

The Christian Church has a long history of book burning and outlawing anything that doesn't fit their faith. It's a well know and often repeated MO.

HanS,

The church has a long history of misdeeds. So does, say, marriage. Marriage is the source of some of the most horrifying abuse and destructive relationship imaginable. I would guess that most of humanity's greatest villainies can be traced back and attributed to the perpetrator living under this flawed institution. Is that an accurate representation? Or may we not somehow identify in each case those things which, although committed within the framework of a marriage, were distinct crimes? If marriage is to blame, then all children born to a married couple should be wicked. It works out in our society that we don't arrest husbands in general, but we do arrest and jail the ones that beat their wives or abuse their children. It isn't being a husband that makes him bad, it's being an ass.

Now you're making a false comparison, a straw man.

 

Church is not equated with a relationship.

 

A relationship to a church can however be compared to a relationship or a marriage.

 

For a woman to marry an absuing husband is not good for the woman, even if marriage in general is a thing that works.

 

To blame the church for misdeeds is like blaming the abusing husband in a bad marriage.

 

That's nothing wrong with that. Your comparison is complete wrong.

 

 

Is it so difficult to attribute misbehavior to the person who did it? Or shall I pass judgment on the nation because a supposed citizen offended me?

The history of the church is full of inexcusable behavior; behavior by individuals whose Christianity was no more than a name and a cloak to legitimize their agenda.

The church is the people, the people is the church. The Church doesn't exist independent by itself. It is not an noncorporal being you communicate with and lead you. I thought you believe in Jesus as a mystical supernatural being, not the Church as one too? Is the Church the fourth person of the trinity???

 

The Church (the believers, individuals to form the group) do misbehave and create book burnings, laws and do evil things. That's a fact.

 

Book burning, witch burning, burning at the stake, burning in the ovens of Dachau; how much is attributable to the wickedness of some perpetrated against others? Or shall we simplify the equation, as has been suggested is common in theists, by saying God did it. Or Christians did it. Or The Church did it. It's simpler to blame an ideological grouping categorically than to deal with individual behavior. It worked for Hitler against the Jews. Let's blame 'the church' for of our problems. Or is there a clearer perspective available to us? This is a genuine question, honestly posed.

Buddy

Lets see... most Chrisitans believe that morality in society will collapse without the Church, and that no one can be moral without the Bible and being a Christian... so doesn't that mean that Christians put the bar higher on themselves and should prove to us that they would behave better morally and ethically, since they claim that everyone else doesn't have it? Obviously, by pure facts and experience, the Christians and the Church keep on doing this:

 

- The world is immoral, but we have the answer for everyone to become moral

- There's a lot of violence the in world, and if eveyone were to convert, violence would end

 

The country changes and here's the result:

 

- More violence

- More hate

- Less morality

 

So the conclusion is, Christianity is NOT the answer.

 

The Church does have a history of violence, hate and immorality. And when it comes to the Religion the Church believe in, yes I agree, it's just a story book without any real value, and people are the evil beings that use religion to manipulate and control other people to gain trust and the use them. Religion is nothing but a tool by the oppressor to control the people. It's a power tool.

 

And just to make sure you don't think that this venom from me is because of any personal experience, I can tell you, no, I'm not bitter and I'm not hateful and I don't have any bad experince myself, but I do see the patterns now. I do see how groups and religions behave and their tricks work now. I was immersed in it before and didn't see it, but now I do, and you are fooled by it too. You need to step out of it, and look at your religion the same way as you look at other religions. And you should laugh at Jesus the same way you laugh at Mohammed or Zeus or Santa Claus.

 

And one more thing, you're basically saying that Nazism is a good thing. You say that you can't blame the Nazi ideology for being so antisemitic. To me you seem to blame the victims who where brainwashed (the soldiers were victims too, to an intensive propaganda full of lies ... just like Christianity), you blame them instead of the brain washing method (ideology). And Christianity is a brain wash method to, but of course, it wouldn't survive if people only could stopped using it (believing it, and supporting it). And you shouldn't either.

[Ouroboros]

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

 

It's not venality that makes people do evil, it's the fact they know they're doing what the Lord would do, if he knew the facts of the matter... (hat tip to the esteemed Mr Dooley, of Boston, and Finley Peter Dunne)

 

As an addendum, even a desultory study of the histories of the faith shows that the Christians main hobby, other than land grabbing temporal power, has been wiping out rival sects in the name of heresy... Athanasius, Clement and the like were just thugs. Eusebius was little better, since he was a political animal, but a level of abstraction and deniability doesn't make him innocent.

 

BTW the strawman simile of marriage is just plain bad, and trying to obfuscate the issue (I still await 'Why the egg comment was a 'joke'')

You're right, the ideology of Christianity gives people the feeling of having the right and moral support to act evil, and it gives them the words, phrases and tools to perform these evil acts. It gives them the excuse and the weapons. They only need to pick the place and time.

[freeman]

Do understand, we deal with many kinds of Christians on this website. As you probably understand, we're a bunch of people that used to be Christian, and we do get Christian visitors from time-to-time here, and many of them are quite ignorant and arrogant.

 

Buddy,

Hans is right. And then there is you. A liberal chrisitan! Kind of an oxymoron if you ask me. According to the majority of christians out there you are definitely not a TRUE christian. If you believe that one can obtain heaven without jesus, then you are not a true christian. My question was very serious and your reply was very new age, but definitely not in-line with christianity. You really should just make the jump over to the humanist side and abandon your christian roots. Your on the edge, just jump! Maybe that is why your "god" brought you to this website, so that you may be de-converted! It really is easy to be a born again atheist!

[Ouroboros]

...

That said, it is difficult to point at history's horrors and not blame them on a source ideology.

...

(sarc) Unless it's atheism. (/sarc)

 

Do you know how many times we get "atheists are immoral" here? I lost the count for this year, but it's plenty. We get our share too.

 

And from your argument, nazism is a good thing, as well as communism, and the good hearted and well meaning ideology of tyrrany. I mean, ideas aren't evil in themselves of couse, but they can encourage evil in humans. The ideas can have a form of "life" on their own, and sometimes those ideas can be very dangerous. So I don't agree with you completely. I do agree that humans are the agents, but sometimes the ideas are the memes (like computer software or computer virus) that will control and drive people to evil acts.

 

Basically you are saying that it is not the computer virus fault that your computer is acting bad, but we should blame the hardware, CPU, monitor and the keyboard.

 

Humans tend to follow directions. Humans tend to be lazy and wanting to be told what is right and wrong. Humans tend to be ignorant and prefer being fed the "truth". Therefore, what you feed humans has to be good food, and not some rotten junk from 2000 years ago that doesn't make us or the Earth fit for survival. I honestly think that Christianity and Islam are the two biggest threats to our survival, and this planets future. And it's because they both make people into destructive robots.

 

It seems essential for us to identify the root of something evil so that we can ensure it isn't repeated; in some cases, blaming the church and Christianity is easier than grappling with the individuals and politics of the time.

Lets find the root of the problem in Christianity: "Matt 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway *, even unto the end of the world. Amen. "

 

In other words: take over the world. World power is the commandment and the ultimate goal for Christianity, not love, sympathy or tolerance.

 

So what is the root of the problem? That people believe this shit and obey it, and the only way out of it is to make people think and stop being so ignorant.

 

But the problem with that is the Bible commands people to be stupid!

 

"Matthew 5:3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." i.e. Ignorance is bliss.

 

 

The holocausts of the 20th century may be traced both to ideological roots and to specific leaders. Though popular figures in their day, we now call them criminals, and correctly so. Milosevic, Suharto, Lenin, Pol Pot, and Mao ZeDong join Hitler and Stalin in body count crimes. Collectively, they probably murdered upwards of 70 million people. Shall we examine their ideologies? Will we find that they were unwittingly made to be criminals by exposure to ideology, or will we find that they were deliberate in applying whatever practice suited them in their quest for power, wealth, and prestige? I'm persuaded to the latter.

May I ask you, could anyone of these evil people have done anything alone, or did they need a group of supporters and people who believed in them? Of couse they need their followers. And that's the problem. Through ideology, the evil leaders can control the masses and make believers out of them. Do you know anything about why the Nazi soldiers did all those horrific things? Do you claim that all Germans were evil during WWII and that's why they did what they did? You basically replaced the blame on ideology to blame the race and culture!!! The same thing you say we can't do!!!

 

So what is it? The Germans are inherently evil, or Nazi ideology brain washed them to do evil things?

[Evolution_beyond]

And the Pharisees are an anachronism in the Gospels... they weren't a recognised group until AD 50-60

 

wow! I didn't know that.

 

I'd like to know where you got that information from. I'd be interested in learning more about what Palestine was really like in the 1st Century CE and how that squares with the gospels etc

 

If Pharisees really weren't a recognised group until 50-60 CE then that really adds credence to the theory that the gospels were created after that time and have no basis in fact, being expansions of Paul's thought with added mystery religion elements (which is what I think they are).

[Taphophilia]

Christ is the head and the Church is the body. This is a basic tennent of Christianity until we start discussing atrocities the Church has committed. If someone slaps you, for whatever agenda, it's like saying blame the hand, the head had nothing to do with it.

[Evolution_beyond]

I've heard experiences like that can result from eating certain mushrooms. Not that I've ever tried it or anything....

 

I've never seen anything that isn't there when I took mushrooms or LSD. All you see on those types of chemicals are weird special effects laid over things that are actually there - like trails, colours, movement, distortions of shape and proportion.

 

I believe DMT makes people see fairies and the like, but I've never tried it so I don't know.

[Evolution_beyond]

There was also that Filipino judge who discussed cases with elves...

 

I wish elves existed

[Evolution_beyond]

[i've never seen anything that isn't there when I took mushrooms or LSD. All you see on those types of chemicals are weird special effects laid over things that are actually there - like trails, colours, movement, distortions of shape and proportion.

 

Actually, I correct myself.

 

There was one time I saw cobwebs everywhere because I had been gardening during the day and the plants were all covered in cobwebs. But it was when I was settling down to sleep and the lights were out. That's when you tend to see things on hallucinogenics. Actually that's when people tend to 'see' things normally - just before going to sleep. Hallucinogenics just make it more vivid.

 

Seeing cobwebs didn't bother me - I like spiders

[dano]

Buddy wrote:

"I forget why the egg was funny to me at the time. Something in the preceding mutation argument suggested a post hoc argument to me. I'll gladly retract it if that will help smooth the flow of conversation. I've no particular skill at humor."

 

Buddy

You should try reading George Carlen or Mark Twain. They have a way of showing the ethnocentric propensities of Homo Sapiens, for religion, as the absurd shit that it is, and they are funny when they do it.

 

"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?

 

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.

 

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell -- you see, I have friends in both places.

 

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

 

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them."

Mark Twain

 

Dan, Agnostic

[Kuroikaze]

Blood sacrifice; yeah, that's a problem. You might appreciate The Peace Child. It's a sermon link, I think, so my apologies, but the account is useful in understanding the extraordinary difficulties in bringing a new ethical concept into a culture that lacks all the foundational concepts. I struggled with the OT accounts of multiple wives and slavery, etc., until someone pointed out that the culture Abraham (or whoever) came from was polygamous, polytheistic, and brutal; without benefit of benign leadership, they made up the rules as they went along. It still bothers me, but it's understandable.

 

Right, I understand it as well, again my problem comes not from people 2 thousand years ago who thought the bible was a good source for morals, but from people who still think it is today.

 

Slavery outgrows its' name in the OT. The evolving standard for treatment of slaves in the Jewish tribes moves from blanket ownership to indentured servitude and resolves at about one step below being a family member. NT slave owners are slammed for being harsh or unjust. Western ethics on slavery are somewhat improved on that issue. Today, we talk about slavery in terms of indebtedness, employment contract, business owner and employee relations, child labor laws and work environment conditions. Albeit a more palatable and consensual form, it's still slavery when you're the one who can't eat unless you have a job under someone else's business and wealth structures.

 

Yes, but that person can still quit and find another job, they can't be beaten or mistreated, they have a government system to appeal to if they feel they are being treated unfairly in a job....I doubt anyone got any of those things 2 thousand years ago....or hell, even 2 hundred years ago.

 

You can say that the whole salvation concept is based on the OT sacrifice, but you can also say that the OT concept of sacrifice is based on something older still. You correctly point out that the sacrifice was a common practice, widely dispersed. The Canaanites, if I remember correctly, even sacrificed children, as did the Incas a couple of thousand years later. While the practice is horrifying to our civilized sensibilities, it was accepted as reasonable and necessary in pre-Abrahamic societies. If it were me having to coach them out of that mind-set, I'd be surprised if I could successfully just tell them not to do that. You'd sort of expect to have to replace it with something better, a better sacrifice that actually accomplished what they were so sincerely trying to do, and that put an end to the bloodshed. When God told the Israelites to wipe out the Canaanites, I wonder if it wasn't because they'd just gone too far down that road. Perhaps they'd had plenty of opportunity to outgrow the wicked practice, and had declined to do so.

 

I should note that human sacrifice was practiced by Abrahamic society as well. I can find the passage if you wish, but in the OT a man offerered up his daughter as a burnt offering to god, unlike in the Issac story god doesn't show up and say "thats ok, you don't have to do that"

 

Your statements about the Canaanites displays a bit of irrationality on your part, the OT says that the Canaanites were evil and deserved to be destroyed...well Mien Kamph says the same thing about the Jewsl, it is nothing more than a religious justification for Genocide. Is a whole people group ever so evil that they deserve to be wiped out in total? I have to disagree, and it scares me a little bit when people try to justify this sort of thing in any context.

 

Lastly, if gods purpose was to end the bloodshed, he clearly failed miserably. In any case, trying teach people that sacrifices are unnecessary by providing a "better" sacrifice is like trying to teach your kid its wrong to hit people by beating him with a large stick.

 

I'll generally disagree on the OT's dearth of commentary on the afterlife. While the NT fills out a lot of details, the OT lays a pretty thorough foundation. Not that the Jews of the first century agreed with me, of course; the Pharisees and the Sadducees were scrapping over that very issue according to Paul.

Here's a scholarly overview by Dr. James Tabor on the subject. I'd read the first page or two at most. Tabor is a professor type with enough credentials to entitle him to an opinion.

 

Most historians believe that the concept of the after life was introduced to Jewish culture during the Babylonian exile, the only books in the OT that talk about the afterlife were written after the exile, Like Daniel for instance. The main reason the Sadducees didn't accept the idea of the afterlife was because the only accepted the first five books of the bible as inspired, which contains no mention of an afterlife.

 

 

For conversation's sake, what do you see as the contribution of our modern ethical system that improves on the NT wrap-up on ethics and behavior?

 

This is a good question, I would see the primary difference as one of focus. In the bible, the focus is on god. Morality seems to be a function of doing what god wants, making him happy, so on and so forth.

 

There are several problems with this. One, is that no one really knows what this god fellow is really thinking, people argue of course, but no one knows. A lot of suffering has been caused through out history because people thought they knew the will of god. Of course my explanation as to why no one knows what god is thinking is because he simply doesn't exist, but even if he does, what then? we still don't know what he wants, we can't use the bible because its full of so much antiquated crap.

 

Humanistic ethics is different in one important way, it doesn't care what god wants, it only cares about making people happy, about trying to create successful societies, and finding a way to make as many people as possible in those societies happy. Its not perfect, but it has one major advantage. I can logically and rationally look at things and see what makes things better and what makes things worse.

 

Ethics can move forward because ethics is now rational, it is not held dogmatically in place by ancient books, or based upon the whims and desires of an invisible being we have never met.

[Kuroikaze]

That said, it is difficult to point at history's horrors and not blame them on a source ideology.

 

 

I have to say this Buddy, Ideology informs action. Of course many of histories horrors have source ideology, a person might just randomly kill someone for no reason, but genocide? that takes an ideology. You mention people like Stalin or Hitler, do you not think the bad philosophical ideas in communism or Nazism have any part in creating the blood baths that were wrought? Even if Stalin and Hitler themselves didn't actually believe in the Ideology they espoused, could the have done what they did without a country of followers blindly following them? Some, if not most of the people in those counties believed in the Ideology.

 

The same, the person who started the Spanish inquisition may have merely been after political power, but I guarantee you that many of the priests who tortured people were truly faithful believers who thought they were doing gods work. Could this have happened without the specter of religion? Would the person who started the inquisition had the power to do so if he were just some lone nut? If people had been reasonable and told him and his crazy religion to take a hike?

Would Muslims be committing suicide boomings if they didn't believe they would be in heaven with 72 virgins?

 

Your attempt to divorce ideology from action is interesting, but flawed.

 

Edit: (changed it to 72 virgins)

[Grandpa Harley]

The bit with the Caananites reminded me of a discussion I had with a Lutheran over the death of the first born...

 

As to human sacrifice... what did the temple do with the captured virgins and girl children who was the Lord's share? Somehow I don't see them keeping them alive...

 

But lets have some more...

 

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)"

 

and God can be picky about his chosen people too

 

"For the LORD had said to Moses, 'Exempt the tribe of Levi from the census; do not include them when you count the rest of the Israelites. You must put the Levites in charge of the Tabernacle of the Covenant, along with its furnishings and equipment. They must carry the Tabernacle and its equipment as you travel, and they must care for it and camp around it. Whenever the Tabernacle is moved, the Levites will take it down and set it up again. Anyone else who goes too near the Tabernacle will be executed.' (Numbers 1:48-51 NLT)"

 

and then in the NT we have Peter killing folks (but we knew anyone called 'Rocky' will be a thug)

 

"There was also a man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property. He brought part of the money to the apostles, but he claimed it was the full amount. His wife had agreed to this deception. Then Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren't lying to us but to God." As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified. Then some young men wrapped him in a sheet and took him out and buried him. About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, "Was this the price you and your husband received for your land?" "Yes," she replied, "that was the price." And Peter said, "How could the two of you even think of doing a thing like this – conspiring together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Just outside that door are the young men who buried your husband, and they will carry you out, too." Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear gripped the entire church and all others who heard what had happened. (Acts 5:1-11 NLT)"

 

The guy with the daughter...

 

""At that time the Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah, and he went throughout the land of Gilead and Manasseh, including Mizpah in Gilead, and led an army against the Ammonites. And Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. He said, "If you give me victory over the Ammonites, I will give to the LORD the first thing coming out of my house to greet me when I return in triumph. I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering."

 

 

 

"So Jephthah led his army against the Ammonites, and the LORD gave him victory. He thoroughly defeated the Ammonites from Aroer to an area near Minnith – twenty towns – and as far away as Abel-keramim. Thus Israel subdued the Ammonites. When Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, his daughter – his only child – ran out to meet him, playing on a tambourine and dancing for joy. When he saw her, he tore his clothes in anguish. "My daughter!" he cried out. "My heart is breaking! What a tragedy that you came out to greet me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and cannot take it back." And she said, "Father, you have made a promise to the LORD. You must do to me what you have promised, for the LORD has given you a great victory over your enemies, the Ammonites. But first let me go up and roam in the hills and weep with my friends for two months, because I will die a virgin." "You may go," Jephthah said. And he let her go away for two months. She and her friends went into the hills and wept because she would never have children. When she returned home, her father kept his vow, and she died a virgin. So it has become a custom in Israel for young Israelite women to go away for four days each year to lament the fate of Jephthah's daughter." (Judges 11:29-40 NLT)"

[Grandpa Harley]

"Would Muslims be committing suicide boomings [sic] if they didn't believe they would be in heaven with 40 virgins?"

 

I think you'll find it's 72 virgins...

 

n his Koranic commentary (Tafsir) of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: "The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'."

 

There's a lot a dancing around to link that to various bits of the Hadith, but that seems to be it...

 

Article from which I took the Quote

 

One of the things I like about Islam is that it is really the bastard child the Byzantine Church... if they'd not fucked up so badly, Mohammed would be a foot note in history...

 

Otherwise... a fine post...

[Kuroikaze]

"Would Muslims be committing suicide boomings [sic] if they didn't believe they would be in heaven with 40 virgins?"

 

I think you'll find it's 72 virgins...

 

n his Koranic commentary (Tafsir) of Surah Al-Rahman (55), verse 72: "The Prophet Muhammad was heard saying: 'The smallest reward for the people of paradise is an abode where there are 80,000 servants and 72 wives, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine, and ruby, as wide as the distance from Al-Jabiyyah [a Damascus suburb] to Sana'a [Yemen]'."

 

There's a lot a dancing around to link that to various bits of the Hadith, but that seems to be it...

 

Article from which I took the Quote

 

One of the things I like about Islam is that it is really the bastard child the Byzantine Church... if they'd not fucked up so badly, Mohammed would be a foot note in history...

 

Otherwise... a fine post...

 

yeah, your right, thats what I get for writing to fast.

[Grandpa Harley]

I know... I'm a picky bastard... sorry...

[dano]

"First off, the whole salvation system is based upon OT sacrificial laws. Specifically the notion of a blood sacrifice. Blood was a common symbol in a lot of ancient religions, It seems people believed that a person's (or animal) blood contained their soul and the spilling of said blood on an alter sort of had the effect of a magic spell, forcing (or perhaps allowing) god to forgive things done against his law.

 

This whole system is the basis for Christs death supposedly atoning for our "sins." The whole thing seems antiquated at best, and down right barbaric at worst. Like I said earlier, a ritual involving human sacrifice is not exactly an auspicious beginning for a better moral system.

 

Most moderate/liberal Christians interpret salvation different of course, but there is no doubt that this is how the proto-orthodox church viewed it.

Also once the redemptive aspect of Christ's death is removed Modern Christianity becomes little more than Humanism with an ancient teacher (and one who IMO wasn't as wise as Lao Tzu, Buddha or Confucius...three of my favorites, by the way)"

 

 

Dan observes:

Exactly,

What the "borned agains" don't get, no matter how many times the see it in black and white is that the idea of a perfect God needing a sacrifice to himself is totally absurd!

 

It is still barbaric and ignorant to think that God made people with flaws, and his solution is to sacrifice someone to himself, to atone for stuff that they do, when he is supposedly, been in charge of everything in the universe, since the beginning.

 

An omnipotent God would just blink his eye, and fix the problem, but a perfect God wouldn't have fucked up in the first place.

 

Does it take a superior intellect to see this? I don't get it

 

Willful ignorance????????????????????

 

Dan, Agnostic