Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 http://www.simpletoremember.com/media/a/rational-judaism/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leith Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Way too long. Could you summarize it for us? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 God's only method to speak to us is through some nomads 3,000 years ago and make them write a bunch of mystical literature, instead proving his own existence right now, right here, and day-by-day... yeah... that's a rational God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 I did not like it. I only made it through about five minutes, at which point the usual superficial and inaccurate representation of Buddhism is made. This is one thing I have discovered in my life - if you have a "holy" book of "divine" origin, then you have a problem. I don't care if its the Torah or the New Testament and Old Testament. There are no divine books, there are no divine origins for books. They all originate from the human mind. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 I did not like it. I only made it through about five minutes, at which point the usual superficial and inaccurate representation of Buddhism is made. This is one thing I have discovered in my life - if you have a "holy" book of "divine" origin, then you have a problem. I don't care if its the Torah or the New Testament and Old Testament. There are no divine books, there are no divine origins for books. They all originate from the human mind. Or... we can say the human mind is divine, so every book ever made has a divine source. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Well, yes Hans, if you want to put it that way, I wouldn't object. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Way too long. Could you summarize it for us? Here is the written intro. If you have the time I would love to hear your thoughts as I fail to see the holes in the logic of his argument for Judaism's divine orign. " The beginnings of all ancient and modern religions have a common thread: one or two people have a revelation and persuade others to follow . Thus, for example, Buddhist writings tell us that Prince Siddhartha Gautama launched Buddhism after his solitary ascendance through the eight stages of Transic insight; Islamic texts tell us that Muhammad founded Islam following the first of many personal, prophetic experiences; Christian writings reveal that Paul first met Jesus, converted to Christianity, and spread the faith more than three decades after Jesus’ death; Joseph Smith, Jr., and his partner, Oliver Cowdery, launched the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints (the Mormon church) after the two men were visited by angels and long-dead disciples of Jesus; and Sun Myung Moon launched the Unification Church after privately receiving direct orders to do so from Jesus himself. The beginnings of Children of God, Christian Science, Eckankar, Elan Vital, I AM, and Theosophy — in fact, the beginnings of all world religions — are equally unverifiable. Never does a large, clearly identifiable group of people experience prophecy and live to tell others about it. Moreover, in a handful of cases wherein large groups of people supposedly witnessed miracles, rarely are these witnesses named or identified in any way that would allow for verification; and in the very exceptional cases involving clearly identified groups of witnesses, never more than one or two of the religion’s current adherents claim to have met or descended directly from the named witnesses. In all these cases, the religion’s credibility rests on the credibility of its one or two founders. While it is certainly possible that the beginnings claimed by any of the thousands of sects and cults included in the world’s more than three hundred major religious traditions could be true, it is easy to imagine how charismatic charlatans could have launched any of these movements. The one known exception to this rule is Judaism. The Torah claims that every Jewish man, woman, and child alive in 1312 B.C.E. — about three million people, according to the Torah — heard God speak at Mount Sinai and survived to teach their descendants about the event. Here we have an easily identifiable group — all of Jewry — who could have verified or denied the story any time during the first two or three generations after the alleged mass prophecy transpired. While it is easy to imagine how most religious mythologies could have been fabricated and spread, understanding how Judaism could be a lie requires more extensive analysis." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 God's only method to speak to us is through some nomads 3,000 years ago and make them write a bunch of mystical literature, instead proving his own existence right now, right here, and day-by-day... yeah... that's a rational God. Okay so what are the holes in the argument? Just saying that you don't like the idea doesn't really explain why it is not true. Can you elaborate on why it is not plausible and even probable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 I did not like it. I only made it through about five minutes, at which point the usual superficial and inaccurate representation of Buddhism is made. This is one thing I have discovered in my life - if you have a "holy" book of "divine" origin, then you have a problem. I don't care if its the Torah or the New Testament and Old Testament. There are no divine books, there are no divine origins for books. They all originate from the human mind. I am not really sure how you can have an objectionable opinion after watching only 5 minutes of a presentation. I would love for you to watch the video and actually tell me what exactly is misrepresented about Buddhism and maybe point out the error rationally and logically in the video to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leith Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 The one known exception to this rule is Judaism. The Torah claims that every Jewish man, woman, and child alive in 1312 B.C.E. — about three million people, according to the Torah — heard God speak at Mount Sinai and survived to teach their descendants about the event. Here we have an easily identifiable group — all of Jewry — who could have verified or denied the story any time during the first two or three generations after the alleged mass prophecy transpired. While it is easy to imagine how most religious mythologies could have been fabricated and spread, understanding how Judaism could be a lie requires more extensive analysis." You might have a point there if only you could prove that it was written down directly after those events, and not centuries later 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 God's only method to speak to us is through some nomads 3,000 years ago and make them write a bunch of mystical literature, instead proving his own existence right now, right here, and day-by-day... yeah... that's a rational God. Okay so what are the holes in the argument? Just saying that you don't like the idea doesn't really explain why it is not true. Can you elaborate on why it is not plausible and even probable? I found it improbable that a God, a Creator of all things, can't do better or use better ways of communicating his will and existence to each and everyone on this planet. Every pagan god communicated and communicates through "holy scriptures" written by "holy men" instead of just simply talking directly to every person. If there is a God, he/she/it would talk to me, not through you, Peter, or Paul. Prophetic transference of information is crappy... at best. Direct communication is a tad better. So let God speak instead of old words written by old men. The argument in the video is using special pleading anyway, so the video doesn't provide any argument that the Jewish scriptures are any more true than any other "holy" scripture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 The one known exception to this rule is Judaism. The Torah claims that every Jewish man, woman, and child alive in 1312 B.C.E. — about three million people, according to the Torah — heard God speak at Mount Sinai and survived to teach their descendants about the event. Here we have an easily identifiable group — all of Jewry — who could have verified or denied the story any time during the first two or three generations after the alleged mass prophecy transpired. While it is easy to imagine how most religious mythologies could have been fabricated and spread, understanding how Judaism could be a lie requires more extensive analysis." You might have a point there if only you could prove that it was written down directly after those events, and not centuries later I actually don't think the writing down of the text makes it any more authentic. The whole point in the video that I found compelling was the idea that the story had retained itself through the generations of Jews even though they had been scattered about. In Judaism there is also an oral tradition that has the very same argument. So oral transmission doesn't seem unplausable to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 God's only method to speak to us is through some nomads 3,000 years ago and make them write a bunch of mystical literature, instead proving his own existence right now, right here, and day-by-day... yeah... that's a rational God. Okay so what are the holes in the argument? Just saying that you don't like the idea doesn't really explain why it is not true. Can you elaborate on why it is not plausible and even probable? I found it improbable that a God, a Creator of all things, can't do better or use better ways of communicating his will and existence to each and everyone on this planet. Every pagan god communicated and communicates through "holy scriptures" written by "holy men" instead of just simply talking directly to every person. If there is a God, he/she/it would talk to me, not through you, Peter, or Paul. Prophetic transference of information is crappy... at best. Direct communication is a tad better. So let God speak instead of old words written by old men. The argument in the video is using special pleading anyway, so the video doesn't provide any argument that the Jewish scriptures are any more true than any other "holy" scripture. Can you explain "special pleading"? The argument shows the difference in the origin of the Torah as unique from other "holy" books. I guess what it boils down to for me is does it matter how I think God should communicate if the way he did was a plausible way with evidence through history of it coming through to today unaltered? Also the point of the video is that the Torah was spoken to an entire group of people, not an individual prophet. There were 3 million Jews there to witness god actually speaking to them and then the story was passed through the generations of each of those people unaltered even though they were scattered about, that is a pretty impossible feat if you ask me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100. Source: Fagan, Brian M., and Charlotte Beck, The Oxford Companion to Archeology, entry on the "Dead sea scrolls", Oxford University Press, 1996. Oh, bummer... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Can you explain "special pleading"? The argument shows the difference in the origin of the Torah as unique from other "holy" books. The sources and beginnings of all other religions are unverifiable while the Judaic is not. Unfortunately, they're just as much unverifiable as any other religious inception. I guess what it boils down to for me is does it matter how I think God should communicate if the way he did was a plausible way with evidence through history of it coming through to today unaltered? God is stupid to use 2,500 year old books to communicate his will. Your God is stupid. He doesn't even know we all have ears and eyes. Where is he now? Oh, he was on the mountain, but not here? Also the point of the video is that the Torah was spoken to an entire group of people, not an individual prophet. There were 3 million Jews there to witness god actually speaking to them and then the story was passed through the generations of each of those people unaltered even though they were scattered about, that is a pretty impossible feat if you ask me. No. 3 million Jews did not write the Torah (that has was altered in the time between, check the Dead Sea Scrolls). Ema, the key here is that every religion has their rationalizations and explanations to why it's true and other religions are false. The only evidence that really could persuade a person like me is actual personal experience from your God and no one else. As long as your God is quiet, it won't help his/her/its case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsRoper Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Maybe you could clarify the argument you are making for us. Are you saying that we should accept the validity of Torah because it was passed down as an oral tradition? If what is actually written down doesn't pass the smell test, isn't it possible that what was orally passed down was corrupt too? I myself, having played telephone, am very uncomfortable with oral tradition as a tool for passing down facts. Considering that much of the Torah is flat out mythology, how are we to know what is myth and what is fact? I am not even confident that the character of Moses actually existed in human history and personally consider him more of a legend. I have no confidence that a supernatural being spoke to 3 million people from a mountaintop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Maybe you could clarify the argument you are making for us. Are you saying that we should accept the validity of Torah because it was passed down as an oral tradition? If what is actually written down doesn't pass the smell test, isn't it possible that what was orally passed down was corrupt too? I myself, having played telephone, am very uncomfortable with oral tradition as a tool for passing down facts. Considering that much of the Torah is flat out mythology, how are we to know what is myth and what is fact? I am not even confident that the character of Moses actually existed in human history and personally consider him more of a legend. I have no confidence that a supernatural being spoke to 3 million people from a mountaintop. Also considering that there is no archeological evidence for 3 million people on that mountaintop at that time, but there is archeological evidence for the written Torah to have been altered... it means that it was altered and there were not 3 million people there. It's amazing how hard religious people try to make their belief "scientific" without really looking at the real evidence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 I'm not watching an hour long video about anything unless there's female nudity involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Here's a link to some criticism of Kellemen's arguments (from previous books making the same claims as the video): http://www.talkreason.org/articles/kellemen.cfm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 I did not like it. I only made it through about five minutes, at which point the usual superficial and inaccurate representation of Buddhism is made. This is one thing I have discovered in my life - if you have a "holy" book of "divine" origin, then you have a problem. I don't care if its the Torah or the New Testament and Old Testament. There are no divine books, there are no divine origins for books. They all originate from the human mind. I am not really sure how you can have an objectionable opinion after watching only 5 minutes of a presentation. I would love for you to watch the video and actually tell me what exactly is misrepresented about Buddhism and maybe point out the error rationally and logically in the video to me. No thanks. I will let you research Buddhism. Also, "rationally and logically" don't necessarily hold too much weight with me, as my fellow ex-c'rs will attest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 If there is such a thing as "God" he/she/it is within us all. God cannot possibly be confined to a book or one people on the earth. It is absurd and repulsive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Fair enough. I do think you guys are missing the actual argument. When you go to a Jew, any Jew, they will tell you what has been passed down to them personally from their parents. Every Jew traces back to the Orthodox at some point. The Orthodox have provable lineage dating back all the way to Moses. As far back as you can go you have the same story. God spoke to our ancestors at Sinai. For this to have began as a true story there has to be an origin. It is easy to see an experience by one person, for example Muhammad, being fabricated or a hallucination because it is him and the supposed revelation, no others were present to verify his story. It is not so easy, at least for me, to see how a story could be passed from generation to generation of millions of Jews that experienced actual contact from God. Someone would have busted that story at some point. I get the idea of telephone, however I think that it is not quite as simple as that considering a culture that passed all information orally would have a much better retention ability. They did not have the myriad of distractions and attention spans that we have today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Maybe you could clarify the argument you are making for us. Are you saying that we should accept the validity of Torah because it was passed down as an oral tradition? If what is actually written down doesn't pass the smell test, isn't it possible that what was orally passed down was corrupt too? I myself, having played telephone, am very uncomfortable with oral tradition as a tool for passing down facts. Considering that much of the Torah is flat out mythology, how are we to know what is myth and what is fact? I am not even confident that the character of Moses actually existed in human history and personally consider him more of a legend. I have no confidence that a supernatural being spoke to 3 million people from a mountaintop. Also considering that there is no archeological evidence for 3 million people on that mountaintop at that time, but there is archeological evidence for the written Torah to have been altered... it means that it was altered and there were not 3 million people there. It's amazing how hard religious people try to make their belief "scientific" without really looking at the real evidence. Now, now. Let's not only post what we want out of the Wikipedia article. Here is the rest of the context surrounding what you posted. According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology: The biblical manuscripts from Qumran, which include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther, provide a far older cross section of scriptural tradition than that available to scholars before. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.[33] Other research of slight variants (none of which significantly affects the Old Testament translations or meaning) finds no mention of Exodus and Samuel. Conclusively, if variants do exist, they are not significant. Although an official cannon was made later in history (after the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls), the Dead Sea Scrolls show how accurately the books of the Bible were transmitted through history. The Dead Sea Scrolls contains Biblical literature parts which predates the New Testament period altogether. The four quotes below shows this: Some of the manuscripts were of Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings (e.g., 1 Enoch, Tobit, and Jubilees); others often are grouped together as “ascetic” writings (miscellaneous books of rules, poetry, commentary, etc.). The most notable and pertinent group of documents found in the caves of Qumran near the Dead Sea is the collection of Old Testament books. Every book from the Hebrew Bible was accounted for among the scrolls except the book of Esther.[34] To attest to the accuracy of the Biblical works of the current day in comparison to the Dead Sea Scrolls: Critical scholars questioned the accuracy of the MT, which formed the basis of our English versions of the Old Testament, since there was such a large chronological gap between it and the autographs. Because of this uncertainty, scholars often “corrected” the text with considerable freedom. Qumran, however, has provided remains of an early Masoretic edition predating the Christian era on which the traditional MT [Masoretic] is based. A comparison of the MT to this earlier text revealed the remarkable accuracy with which scribes copied the sacred texts. Accordingly, the integrity of the Hebrew Bible was confirmed, which generally has heightened its respect among scholars and drastically reduced textual alteration.[35] Furthermore: As a result of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars now have access to ancient Hebrew manuscripts that are 1,000 years older than the Masoretic Text manuscripts, which has enabled scholars to confirm the incredible accuracy of the Hebrew Text. In fact, a comparison of the standard Hebrew texts with that of the Dead Sea scrolls has revealed that the two are virtually identical. The variations (about 5%) occurred only in minor spelling differences and minute copyists’ mistakes.[36] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wrote_the_Dead_Sea_Scrolls%3F_The_Search_for_the_Secret_of_Qumran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ema Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Here's a link to some criticism of Kellemen's arguments (from previous books making the same claims as the video): http://www.talkreaso...es/kellemen.cfm Thanks I will check it out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Maybe you could clarify the argument you are making for us. Are you saying that we should accept the validity of Torah because it was passed down as an oral tradition? If what is actually written down doesn't pass the smell test, isn't it possible that what was orally passed down was corrupt too? I myself, having played telephone, am very uncomfortable with oral tradition as a tool for passing down facts. Considering that much of the Torah is flat out mythology, how are we to know what is myth and what is fact? I am not even confident that the character of Moses actually existed in human history and personally consider him more of a legend. I have no confidence that a supernatural being spoke to 3 million people from a mountaintop. Also considering that there is no archeological evidence for 3 million people on that mountaintop at that time, but there is archeological evidence for the written Torah to have been altered... it means that it was altered and there were not 3 million people there. It's amazing how hard religious people try to make their belief "scientific" without really looking at the real evidence. Now, now. Let's not only post what we want out of the Wikipedia article. Here is the rest of the context surrounding what you posted. According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology: The biblical manuscripts from Qumran, which include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther, provide a far older cross section of scriptural tradition than that available to scholars before. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.[33] Other research of slight variants (none of which significantly affects the Old Testament translations or meaning) finds no mention of Exodus and Samuel. Conclusively, if variants do exist, they are not significant. Although an official cannon was made later in history (after the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls), the Dead Sea Scrolls show how accurately the books of the Bible were transmitted through history. The Dead Sea Scrolls contains Biblical literature parts which predates the New Testament period altogether. The four quotes below shows this: Some of the manuscripts were of Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings (e.g., 1 Enoch, Tobit, and Jubilees); others often are grouped together as “ascetic” writings (miscellaneous books of rules, poetry, commentary, etc.). The most notable and pertinent group of documents found in the caves of Qumran near the Dead Sea is the collection of Old Testament books. Every book from the Hebrew Bible was accounted for among the scrolls except the book of Esther.[34] To attest to the accuracy of the Biblical works of the current day in comparison to the Dead Sea Scrolls: Critical scholars questioned the accuracy of the MT, which formed the basis of our English versions of the Old Testament, since there was such a large chronological gap between it and the autographs. Because of this uncertainty, scholars often “corrected” the text with considerable freedom. Qumran, however, has provided remains of an early Masoretic edition predating the Christian era on which the traditional MT [Masoretic] is based. A comparison of the MT to this earlier text revealed the remarkable accuracy with which scribes copied the sacred texts. Accordingly, the integrity of the Hebrew Bible was confirmed, which generally has heightened its respect among scholars and drastically reduced textual alteration.[35] Furthermore: As a result of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars now have access to ancient Hebrew manuscripts that are 1,000 years older than the Masoretic Text manuscripts, which has enabled scholars to confirm the incredible accuracy of the Hebrew Text. In fact, a comparison of the standard Hebrew texts with that of the Dead Sea scrolls has revealed that the two are virtually identical. The variations (about 5%) occurred only in minor spelling differences and minute copyists’ mistakes.[36] http://en.wikipedia....ecret_of_Qumran The Masoretic Text manuscripts are much younger than the Dead Sea scrolls. The accuracy you're talking about here is between Dead Sea scrolls and later texts, not the texts before the Dead Sea scrolls. But what the scrolls do show is that the text was altered and very fluid before 250 BCE. This argument that you're presenting is something the Christian apologists use to "confirm" the authenticity and historicity of Jesus as God's son and his death and resurrection. Muslims make the same claim. The Quran hasn't changed, and the first quotes from Mohammad was transferred through oral tradition. So by the same method of claims, Islam must have a divine source. But it's obvious that people fail to realize that conformity can be created by destruction of heretic texts. Just burn the books that disagree, and you'll have only one line of heterodoxy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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