Mathematical Proof Of God

[Guest nat]

I missed some posts above directed at me. You guys are mixing intervening with punishing. Moving the goal posts again. Intervene means he stops it from happening. Punishing it means it already happened. Let's not confuse the two. I said God most often does not intervene. Punishment is a different story. The punishment of evil is sometimes direct and right away. Often it is not. Of course you can't relate to withheld punishment because you don't believe in an afterlife. This is not the right place to debate and discuss this. We come from completely different world views and I will do nothing to bridge that gap 

 

I understand the Torah as explained by the Talmud. You don't have to. In the Talmud, that whole story of Jephthah is not looked upon well. You want to understand that position more, go read up on it. If you don't want to don't. I did not come here to discuss or debate it.

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

[Dhampir]

I missed some posts above directed at me. You guys are mixing intervening with punishing. Moving the goal posts again. Intervene means he stops it from happening. Punishing it means it already happened. Let's not confuse the two. I said God most often does not intervene. Punishment is a different story. The punishment of evil is sometimes direct and right away. Often it is not. Of course you can't relate to withheld punishment because you don't believe in an afterlife. This is not the right place to debate and discuss this. We come from completely different world views and I will do nothing to bridge that gap 

 

I understand the Torah as explained by the Talmud. You don't have to. In the Talmud, that whole story of Jephthah is not looked upon well. You want to understand that position more, go read up on it. If you don't want to don't. I did not come here to discuss or debate it.

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

Sometimes punishment is intervention.  Note some of the examples I provided.  In any case, God neither intervened nor punished Jephtah for his actions.  Tacit approval.

[ContraBardus]

 

I am not asserting any of this. I have no interest to discuss or debate it. you are wrong though. The afterlife is very clearly discussed in the Talmud. Orthodox jews have very definite opinions about it. And for the most part, it is not the christian eternal hell. In any case, I have no interest in discussing or debating it. this is not the right place.

 

You're not the only Jew I've ever met, and you're full of shit on this one. I don't really care that you don't want to discuss it, but the Talmud is most certainly not 'clear' on the subject and it is a point of great debate within the Jewish faith. There are many ideas about the afterlife within the faith, and no consensus about it.

 

I don't really care if you defend your position. I know for a fact what you're saying is completely not true, whether you believe it or not, and that a lot of Jews would call you a fundamentalist moron who reads far to deeply into the Talmud for your own good for saying that, and a few of them are even Orthodox Jews. I live in Florida, it is the second largest concentration of Jews in the US, with only New York having more. What's more, I'm not shy about my disbelief, and most Theist want to talk to someone like me about their faith for some odd reason. I guess they think Atheism is my hobby or something. I'm sometimes willing to do so for at least a short time, and a while if it ends up interesting. [it depends on my mood for the most part.]

 

This isn't the first time I've spoken of the afterlife with Jews, and none of them had the arrogance to assert what you're suggesting as fact is fact. Most of them said something like 'there's a lot of different opinions even amongst those of my faith, but -I personally believe-...'

 

I don't trust your interpretation of the Talmud, the Torah, and Kabbalah, and I know a lot of Jews who wouldn't trust your opinions about it either. You are not the expert you seem to think yourself to be, and I've had better conversations about your faith with better and more educated Jews than you.

 

Really, there's no need to respond here. I know from personal experience and conversations with other people of your own faith that what you said above is not true at all. There is no way that you are going to change my mind, because I have seen and heard irrefutable evidence and first hand accounts that what you said is not true. I'm not going to trust some guy on an internet message board more than my own eyes, ears, and Jews, including several Rabbis, who I know personally and have spoken to in person about it.

 

Whether you know it or not, you're full of it on this one.

[buffettphan]

The most significant difference in the Abraham and Jepthah fairytales is the potential victim. Of course god intervened in Abraham's actions. Abraham was going to kill his son.   Jepthah's victim was just some chattel -- his daughter, a lowly female and not worthy of god's (or society's) intervention.

[mymistake]

 

I missed some posts above directed at me. You guys are mixing intervening with punishing. Moving the goal posts again. Intervene means he stops it from happening. Punishing it means it already happened. Let's not confuse the two. I said God most often does not intervene. Punishment is a different story. The punishment of evil is sometimes direct and right away. Often it is not. Of course you can't relate to withheld punishment because you don't believe in an afterlife. This is not the right place to debate and discuss this. We come from completely different world views and I will do nothing to bridge that gap 

 

I understand the Torah as explained by the Talmud. You don't have to. In the Talmud, that whole story of Jephthah is not looked upon well. You want to understand that position more, go read up on it. If you don't want to don't. I did not come here to discuss or debate it.

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

Sometimes punishment is intervention.  Note some of the examples I provided.  In any case, God neither intervened nor punished Jephtah for his actions.  Tacit approval.

 

 

 

Exactly.  In the flood myth god punished all the innocent animals the same as the wicked.  But killing somebody before their time prevents all the actions they would have taken anyway so for the wicked it is intervention as well as punishment.  If there had been a concept of an afterlife back when the flood story was written then all god would have needed to do (in order to punish but not intervene) is send everybody to hell after they die.  That would punish without intervention.  Today humans are smart enough to figure out that there are no more global floods and disasters strike "good" people and "bad" people randomly.  That is why an afterlife is needed in theology to explain why God does nothing in this life.  

 

"Just wait until the next life!  God will settle the score then!!  The punishments and rewards will be over the top - you will see!!!"  But of course such over the top results do not make sense either.  God is going to sit back and watch a baby get raped and do nothing so that when this life is over God can punish the rapist for a million years and then another million years and another without end?  It would be better to stop the rape and then use your magic powers to make the perp empathize with others so rape never happens.  That is the level of intervention that biblegod never does.  

 

Never the less biblegod does harden Pharaoh's heart when Pharaoh is about to release the slaves too soon.  That is intervention.  It's intervention that causes more harm.  If Pharoh's free will choice is to let the slaves go the first time then god wouldn't get to kill all the first born in egypt, wouldn't get to smite the crops to make everybody hungry, wouldn't get to smite the land, wouldn't get to bring boils to everybody's skin.  God wouldn't get to torture innocent people so god did intervene so that he could punish some more.

 

(By the way it looks like nat is not comfortable with where this conversation is going.  He has nobody to blame but himself.  The conversation got here because he claimed that his religion and the Torah had a moral victory over science.  If you are going to say stuff like that to free thinkers who have studied the Old Testament then you are going to have a bad day)

[JamesG]

The most significant difference in the Abraham and Jepthah fairytales is the potential victim. Of course god intervened in Abraham's actions. Abraham was going to kill his son.   Jepthah's victim was just some chattel -- his daughter, a lowly female and not worthy of god's (or society's) intervention.

I was thinking the same thing after all women are counted as half in the bible /looks to numbers so its only natural that god stops child sacrifices of women only 50% of the time I guess this was not one of those times where he would .   I think Nat wants to avoid this subject because he knows we are right his only defense is ugh ugh ugh we all accept that it was wrong of him to do that God is not to blame. Well I am glad you agree with us on the first part Nat but god wanted that sacrifice. When jephthah told YwH that he would sacrifice the first thing that came out of that door God got all wet and excited he was so quick into action to get that battle won so he could get himself some fresh virgin sacrifice up in here. He was licking his chops like a hungry dog looking at a flank steak hot on the table. The only thing Jephtah did wrong in the eyes of the lord was give her the 2 months God doesn't want his meals slow cooked to perfection he likes it steak tartar!!!!!!!

[Astreja]

Nat, I think this thread should continue as is. Your "mathematical proof of God" thread had already mutated by the time you attracted My attention and wrath by slandering the Canaanites.

 

And if you honestly do believe that the Torah has moral superiority over science, you have infinitely worse problems on your hands than a bunch of people calling out your god on an Internet forum.

[florduh]

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

 

 

 

 

Thus ends our lesson in Jewish Apologetics. Looks identical to Christian Apologetics; "No, that doesn't mean what it plainly says as that would be awful. You have to understand context and God's purpose, blah, blah, blah."

[JamesG]

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

 

 

 

 

Thus ends our lesson in Jewish Apologetics. Looks identical to Christian Apologetics; "No, that doesn't mean what it plainly says as that would be awful. You have to understand context and God's purpose, blah, blah, blah."

 

I laughed at this so very true.  Back them into a corner and its  "Surely we cant understand god's true nature I am sure he had a perfectly good reason to have his chosen people rape the virgins"

 

What really gets me about the Jewish religions is that they are his "Chosen people"  Well that doesn't sound all loving to me it sounds like a god that creates people to hate and creates people to love he creates a world of haves and have nots by playing favoritism amongst his creations.

[Guest nat]

 

 

I am not asserting any of this. I have no interest to discuss or debate it. you are wrong though. The afterlife is very clearly discussed in the Talmud. Orthodox jews have very definite opinions about it. And for the most part, it is not the christian eternal hell. In any case, I have no interest in discussing or debating it. this is not the right place.

 

You're not the only Jew I've ever met, and you're full of shit on this one. I don't really care that you don't want to discuss it, but the Talmud is most certainly not 'clear' on the subject and it is a point of great debate within the Jewish faith. There are many ideas about the afterlife within the faith, and no consensus about it.

 

I don't really care if you defend your position. I know for a fact what you're saying is completely not true, whether you believe it or not, and that a lot of Jews would call you a fundamentalist moron who reads far to deeply into the Talmud for your own good for saying that, and a few of them are even Orthodox Jews. I live in Florida, it is the second largest concentration of Jews in the US, with only New York having more. What's more, I'm not shy about my disbelief, and most Theist want to talk to someone like me about their faith for some odd reason. I guess they think Atheism is my hobby or something. I'm sometimes willing to do so for at least a short time, and a while if it ends up interesting. [it depends on my mood for the most part.]

 

This isn't the first time I've spoken of the afterlife with Jews, and none of them had the arrogance to assert what you're suggesting as fact is fact. Most of them said something like 'there's a lot of different opinions even amongst those of my faith, but -I personally believe-...'

 

I don't trust your interpretation of the Talmud, the Torah, and Kabbalah, and I know a lot of Jews who wouldn't trust your opinions about it either. You are not the expert you seem to think yourself to be, and I've had better conversations about your faith with better and more educated Jews than you.

 

Really, there's no need to respond here. I know from personal experience and conversations with other people of your own faith that what you said above is not true at all. There is no way that you are going to change my mind, because I have seen and heard irrefutable evidence and first hand accounts that what you said is not true. I'm not going to trust some guy on an internet message board more than my own eyes, ears, and Jews, including several Rabbis, who I know personally and have spoken to in person about it.

 

Whether you know it or not, you're full of it on this one.

 

The point I was making is that the Talmud has a complete chapter on the afterlife in one tractate and discusses it in many other places. I am not saying that all the details are clear. I am saying that the Talmud clearly believes in the afterlife and does give many details about it, but still many details not.The Talmud commentators give further details and still it is not all perfectly clear. Chabad likes to quote maimonadies that says that a good number of the details are unclear, but the general gist of the afterlife is a very significant part of the Talmud and Orthodox Judaism that is not open for question. That is all I meant. OK?

[Guest nat]

 

 

I missed some posts above directed at me. You guys are mixing intervening with punishing. Moving the goal posts again. Intervene means he stops it from happening. Punishing it means it already happened. Let's not confuse the two. I said God most often does not intervene. Punishment is a different story. The punishment of evil is sometimes direct and right away. Often it is not. Of course you can't relate to withheld punishment because you don't believe in an afterlife. This is not the right place to debate and discuss this. We come from completely different world views and I will do nothing to bridge that gap 

 

I understand the Torah as explained by the Talmud. You don't have to. In the Talmud, that whole story of Jephthah is not looked upon well. You want to understand that position more, go read up on it. If you don't want to don't. I did not come here to discuss or debate it.

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

Sometimes punishment is intervention.  Note some of the examples I provided.  In any case, God neither intervened nor punished Jephtah for his actions.  Tacit approval.

 

 

 

Exactly.  In the flood myth god punished all the innocent animals the same as the wicked.  But killing somebody before their time prevents all the actions they would have taken anyway so for the wicked it is intervention as well as punishment.  If there had been a concept of an afterlife back when the flood story was written then all god would have needed to do (in order to punish but not intervene) is send everybody to hell after they die.  That would punish without intervention.  Today humans are smart enough to figure out that there are no more global floods and disasters strike "good" people and "bad" people randomly.  That is why an afterlife is needed in theology to explain why God does nothing in this life.  

 

"Just wait until the next life!  God will settle the score then!!  The punishments and rewards will be over the top - you will see!!!"  But of course such over the top results do not make sense either.  God is going to sit back and watch a baby get raped and do nothing so that when this life is over God can punish the rapist for a million years and then another million years and another without end?  It would be better to stop the rape and then use your magic powers to make the perp empathize with others so rape never happens.  That is the level of intervention that biblegod never does.  

 

Never the less biblegod does harden Pharaoh's heart when Pharaoh is about to release the slaves too soon.  That is intervention.  It's intervention that causes more harm.  If Pharoh's free will choice is to let the slaves go the first time then god wouldn't get to kill all the first born in egypt, wouldn't get to smite the crops to make everybody hungry, wouldn't get to smite the land, wouldn't get to bring boils to everybody's skin.  God wouldn't get to torture innocent people so god did intervene so that he could punish some more.

 

(By the way it looks like nat is not comfortable with where this conversation is going.  He has nobody to blame but himself.  The conversation got here because he claimed that his religion and the Torah had a moral victory over science.  If you are going to say stuff like that to free thinkers who have studied the Old Testament then you are going to have a bad day)

 

Idiot. It was not I that wanted to go there. You specifically put me up to the Sam Harris challenge. That is why this went in that direction. YOU caused it, not me.

[Guest nat]

No one is backing me into a corner. 

 

First you all can't wait till this ends. Now when you are in your comfort bible bashing zone, you all don't want it to end. For shame on the hypocrisy.

 

I will be here debating forever if I have to defend every so called evil of the bible. Even one defense takes forever here.

 

Listen, I don't bash your claims, they are good questions.

 

The question is not why God did not intervene or punish Yiftach, the question is why the book of judges made no moral judgement on it. 

 

There is a specific God process of when God punishes right away and when not. It is based to a large degree on a systematic process, with specific reasons on why God reacts the way he does.

 

The question is why did not the book of judges make a moral call on it, even though it makes other moral calls, like about Abimelech. That is a great question. The Talmud does show an indication that Yiftach was punished in his burial, because it indicates that he was buried in many cities. In any case, the moral call is slight.

 

To a large degree you have to understand the time period. It was pre standard prophecy (which started with Samuel). 

 

The judges included evil ones, like Abimelech, morally deficient ones like Samson, and not very bright ones, like Yiftach. (The Talmud says that Yiftach was the least of the judges in judgement, he was not too bright.).

 

God was not making the moral calls like he did through his prophets. 

 

The book of judges does still make moral calls, but it is nowhere on the level of the prophecy period.

 

Yiftach was an ill-treated child and he still grew to be a judge. Unfortunately, he wasn't too bright. 

 

He did something out of the stupidity that he thought he had to keep his vow, even though he did not. The Talmud says that he was also too proud to ask the Rabbinic leader Pinchas.

 

And guess what. Read the story. His daughter was in full agreement with him,

 

They were unfortunate and ignorant. The time period was not of the unique moral call of God through his prophets. Judges gives Yiftach a good deal of a pass.

 

I won't be surpirised if most of you don't agree, but I can defend my position.

 

I just don't want to endlessly debate every point. It keeps me up at night.

 

We had our fun. Let's part in peace.

 

 

(By the way, the position that holds that Yifatach secluded her is because it says that she cried over her virginity, not her life. Orthodox Judaism accepts both possibilities as valid options)

[Guest nat]

Nat, I think this thread should continue as is. Your "mathematical proof of God" thread had already mutated by the time you attracted My attention and wrath by slandering the Canaanites.

 

And if you honestly do believe that the Torah has moral superiority over science, you have infinitely worse problems on your hands than a bunch of people calling out your god on an Internet forum.

The bible says the bad things about the caananites. It is not me. I am working within that framework especially since that is where we generally learn about them.

[florduh]

 

 

Please don't involve me in this discussion anymore.

 

 

 

Yeah, more OC than Thumby.

[sdelsolray]

Listen guys.

 

This has come to an end. The point of the thread has completely finished. I am done. If you have to continue go ahead, but please don't involve me.

Nat is a funny guy.  Over-promise and under-deliver.

[Deva]

This thing has gone for 52 pages.  I am getting ready to lock it.  Objections?

[boftx]

I don't know, if nat does in fact stop posting it might be fun to see how long everyone keeps all the different branch topics on it running. Talk about thread hi-jacking!

[florduh]

This is becoming a Thumbelina Never Ending Thread. Still, he's more like OC than Thumby. I don't know, Deva. Some folks are fed up but some are still having fun - with or without him. Your call.

[ContraBardus]

 

 

I am not asserting any of this. I have no interest to discuss or debate it. you are wrong though. The afterlife is very clearly discussed in the Talmud. Orthodox jews have very definite opinions about it. And for the most part, it is not the christian eternal hell. In any case, I have no interest in discussing or debating it. this is not the right place.

The point I was making is that the Talmud has a complete chapter on the afterlife in one tractate and discusses it in many other places. I am not saying that all the details are clear. I am saying that the Talmud clearly believes in the afterlife and does give many details about it, but still many details not.The Talmud commentators give further details and still it is not all perfectly clear. Chabad likes to quote maimonadies that says that a good number of the details are unclear, but the general gist of the afterlife is a very significant part of the Talmud and Orthodox Judaism that is not open for question. That is all I meant. OK?

 

 

You do realize that these two posts, both by you, are complete contradictions, right?

 

I'm not splitting hairs here, you're trying to change your argument and alter the definition of words and the meaning of what you said on the fly to make it look like I am.

 

You did not succeed at that by the way, your assertion just failed, and your 'new revised' assertion is not really any better.

 

You have an annoying tendency of acting like you meant something other than what you said originally when you're confronted with direct evidence or argument you can't really refute. Most of the time what you 'revise' your statement to mean is just as wrong as the original statement though. This time you managed to get a post that is at least partially true, but still wrong overall.

 

You either are in horrible need of a writing and comprehension classes, or you're just a terrible liar and an even worse debater. Of the two, I'd say the latter is the most likely.

 

[Also, FYI, this actually is 'the right place' for that sort of debate. Though not focused on Judaism, we are a religiously themed forum and this thread has naturally evolved into addressing Jewish beliefs.]

[Deva]

I'm on the fence about this one Florduh- sure is a long waste of space- get back to it in a couple days and we will see.

[Astreja]

The bible says the bad things about the caananites. It is not me. I am working within that framework especially since that is where we generally learn about them.

 

The Bible also mentions a Talking Snake™ in Genesis 3, then goes on to describe a worldwide flood that never happened, and an exodus for which there's no archeological evidence and no Egyptian records either.  Why should we believe what it says about the Canaanites?  I'm more inclined to believe the Wikipedia entry about Canaan.

 

(Oh, and no objections here to a thread lock.)

[JamesG]

I support thread lock if we want to continue the discussions like The afterlife according to the Torah or human sacrifice in the bible I suggest we start new threads under these subjects as clearly the math part of this thread is dead. And nat can feel free to get abused in those threads accordingly

[pratt]

nothing is nothing,

something comes from something,

when you divide by zero, you get infinity, which is not a real number

infinity is liken to be nat's god

you cannot prove god by maths

 

off topic lessons,

when christians die, they go to judaism hell,

when jews die, they go to christian's hell,

when exC dies, they get visitor's pass to both hell and become they were before, non-existence or otherwise

[Guest nat]

I have been calling for closing this thread. I doubt it will go on much after you all start agreeing to each other.

 

This forum was a mistake. It could have been an interesting place to discover different ideas than your own, but by and large that did not happen. It is more about catching someone on a nitpick and an aversion rather than an openness for further clarification. So this is a done deal. I did not under-deliver. Some people want this to go on. I don't. I just don't back down and bend over easy to be kicked.

 

By the way, you won't catch me here any longer on any other thread. 

 

Would be nice to close in peace, but I doubt that will happen.

 

Too bad, because there are a handful of kind people on this thread.

[JamesG]

I just don't get what you were thinking when you came here and I don't think we were nit picking.  Hopefully you left with a better understanding of mathematical concepts including infinity. Also you are talking to a bunch of people who are either agnostic or atheist but a vast majority of us can understand that just because you can dream up of a concept and apply a definition to it does not make it true. The issue you are running into is we are bringing up ideas that do not settle well with you. You are not trying to convert us to Judaism so this was bound to fail we are open to ideas but a lot of us have been through the ins and outs of belief so your not really going to convince us to believe in your concept that god is infinity and the universe is god this is not a new idea and all of us have encountered it before so again we run into what were you trying to accomplish by coming here ?