Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[Ishtar]

You and I see this very differently. Science is based on logic. Scientific Method is the application of pure logical principal to the evaluation of evidence.

Yes, science is based on logic. But logic isn't always based on science, and that's where your argument falters.

Here's an idea for you: Logic is only as good as the prepositions it is built on. If I start with a preposition that God must exist then I can get different conclusions than otherwise. The problem is that not all prepositions are created equal.

That's exactly the point I just made to you! Twice now!

Are you familiar with the scientific (and logical) principle of falsification? One of the guiding principle's of science is that a valid answer must be testable, ie there has to be a way to either prove it to be true or false, thus the term falsifiable. What makes God illogical as a solution is that he cannot be proved false.

I know. How do you think I'm able to be so categoric about Darwin not being able to prove the non-existance of God without having to read the stupid book? However, despite the illogic of his situation, he is claiming to be partly basing his atheistic beliefs upon it.

So we agree then ...Oh no.. there's more.... right, I'm going to ring Aristotle ....

Whaaaa!!! Oh yeah, Seeker ... I guess . . you know, I'm just a woman, so how could I understand logic!

Jeez!

I knew I was in trouble with that one.

The fact is though that common usage of words like 'theory', logical statement', 'proof' etc is quite different from mathematical usages of the same words and that often leads to miscommunication both ways. I tend to assume you understand things a certain way but I don't know your background.

By the way, I never sad i was a very good mathematician. the fact that I am an artist now should tell you something

Right... I've got that, and Aristotle agrees. So I suggest you stop being such a tight-assed swot and use the term logic as it's used in popular circles, so that more than one person (other than you) can make any sense out of what you're saying.

(You are SO dead Seeker, over that remark )

[seeker]

But this is what I mean by you slipping and sliding, or trying to reframe or redirect the discussion.

You have already agreed that science has not proven the non-existence of God. We have already seen that Dawkins is partly basing his atheism on it. So what else is there?

Probability and logic. That is why i made the point that when we start comparing probabilities for existence that the probabilities are no higher for God than they are for Zeus Santa etc. I was doing that because it is a solid logical point, if you are going to believe in one you might as well believe in all of them.

If there is something else, based on science and not just logic why are you not able to tell us?

I have told you consistently. first you dismissed the point as opinion the you tried to say logic isn't science. i think I'm actually making progress.

I would never say, and have never said in this forum ever ... - "Oh, I can't explain it. You need to read the book."

I think if someone holds a view, they should be able to back it up themselves, and especially someone as articulate as yourself.

I try never to speak for other people. i have no problem explaining my views but I prefer to let Dawkins explain his own views.

So how can I respect someone else's views who can’t do that ... let alone understand them.

So you just used me and then discarded me like some piece of meat

No you couldn’t ... because I am not claiming that God exists. I’m not claiming even to be able to prove it... or even that anyone can prove it. That’s my whole point, but you don’t seem to get it because it detracts from your desired superiority.

You are really hung up on this notion of my superiority. Does it help you to demonize me? I've never claimed any such thing.

The point here is that you are trying to set the limits of how Dawkins can discuss his points in an unfair way.

I don’t believe you’ve watched it, Seeker. I’m sorry, I cannot believe it .. because you accused me of misquoting Dawkins, and if you’d have watched it, you would know that I’ve quoted him word for word.

And now, anyone else watching this thread who watches will also see that you’ve misrepresented me by saying that .. so that was a very foolish claim of yours.

I'm comfortable with people viewing the discussion for themselves and making up their own minds Ish. I haven't dealt with you dishonestly, I do think its interesting though that you have made that accusation in light of the evidence.

Anyone who takes the time to watch this video will know that I haven’t done that. He uses this sentence to make the point that this is the purpose of him making the video. It is also not the only time he says it ... have you watched the bit with the schoolchildren yet?

No...I forgot. You haven’t watched it at all yet.

Is that the best you can do, instead of refuting the point just start calling me a liar? I'll take it as a compliment that you have been reduced to this

I’m not trying to demonise you. You’re making a pretty good job of that yourself.

Its the horns isn't it?

Seriously Ish, this whole line of yours is beneath you.

Basing a belief on logic is not the same as basing it on a scientific law ... and I explained why that is so in my last post. So again, you’re moving the goalposts.

Actually you've been back and forth on this, i was the one who pointed out to you that science is based on logic

If I’d wanted a discussion about logic, I’d have called in Aristotle. He keep phoning me up for a date... I'm sick of him pestering me, to be frank ... but logic just doesn't do it for me somehow... probably because I'm a woman ....

Seeker, you are SO dead after making that remark! That was worse than when you told me to relax. Tell me, Seeker, just between us .. you don't have a woman do you? It was a dead give away when you used the R word the other day.

Does anybody really 'have' a woman. There is a lady who sleeps in my bed, eats my food and critiques the clothes I wear but she quite often denies being with me if that is any consolation.

[seeker]

Yes, science is based on logic. But logic isn't always based on science, and that's where your argument falters.

While logic isn't always based on science the rigorous application of logic is science.

That's exactly the point I just made to you! Twice now!

I know. How do you think I'm able to be so categoric about Darwin not being able to prove the non-existance of God without having to read the stupid book? However, despite the illogic of his situation, he is claiming to be partly basing his atheistic beliefs upon it.

So we agree then ...Oh no.. there's more.... right, I'm going to ring Aristotle ....

The problem is that you are trying to claim that belief and non-belief are logically equivalent when they aren't.

You got the part about Dawkins 'partly basing' his atheism on the facts of evolution, I feel I should reward that somehow. now all I have to do is get you to realize the logical bit

Right... I've got that, and Aristotle agrees. So I suggest you stop being such a tight-assed swot and use the term logic as it's used in popular circles, so that more than one person (other than you) can make any sense out of what you're saying.

(You are SO dead Seeker, over that remark )

Gee thanks for telling me my ass is tight, I just don't get compliments like that much at my age. I'm not sure what a swot is so I'll assume that is British slang for a guy with a great ass.

You should see the messes I make when I start using art terminology.

[Ishtar]

Seeker,

Tell me, do you not have a life? Or have you just got so addicted to talking to me that you can’t stop?

I have to be on a computer. I’m a writer. But you’re supposed to be at your easel etching out that voluptuous nude spread-eagled out on that chaise longue in front of you, and somehow ... somehow.... the ennui descends and it's just not doing it for you anymore is it? And so even though you have completely lost the argument, you have to keep leaping down and rushing to your computer to see if Ishtar has posted.

I’d say you’ve got it bad, man...

Probability and logic. That is why i made the point that when we start comparing probabilities for existence that the probabilities are no higher for God than they are for Zeus Santa etc. I was doing that because it is a solid logical point, if you are going to believe in one you might as well believe in all of them.

No, that doesn’t follow, and here’s why.

It is what I meant by logic not necessarily always being scientific.

Different people can reach different entirely logical conclusions because they are starting from different premises. If would be ridiculous to think that you could look at the Fibonacci Spiral of a fern and see an angry, red-faced, bearded man, shaking his fist at you in that leaf (Jehovah). But that's what a Literalist would think what is meant by seeing God in a fern.

But if you have a different understanding of what God or gods or devas are, then it’s a different story and what you see in that fern is entirely different.

Both of these are logical approaches according to the beliefs of the time. In other words, logical conclusions are subject to Time (and other things) ... and thus not eternal truths and thus not scientific.

That’s why logic is not necessarily based on scientific laws, although scientific laws are based on logic.

I have told you consistently. First you dismissed the point as opinion then you tried to say logic isn't science. i think I'm actually making progress.

I’m sorry you’re having trouble understanding this. I have tried to explain it again above. It makes perfect sense to me ... but then, I am only a woman. (Dead ).

I try never to speak for other people. i have no problem explaining my views but I prefer to let Dawkins explain his own views.

Boys need heroes, Seeker. That’s the truth of it. And you are clinging on for a white-knuckle ride with this one.

Women don’t need heroes. Once they’ve experienced the agonies of the childbirth room, and realised that no-one in the whole universe can help them now, and that it’s all down to them to produce this life into the world themselves — no matter the pain and no matter that something the size of a grapefruit is going to have to pass through something the size of a ping pong ball — they grow up pretty fast.

Giving birth is a passing into adulthood rite of passage for females – overnight they turn from girls to women. But there are few manhood initiations for men, these days, so they have to cling on to their heroes. One of yours in Dawkins, which is why you dare not even try to express his ideas.

So how can I respect someone else's views who can’t do that ... let alone understand them.

So you just used me and then discarded me like some piece of meat

Honey, I’m not using you! You seem to want to keep talking to me even though you lost the argument pages ago!

You are really hung up on this notion of my superiority. Does it help you to demonize me? I've never claimed any such thing.

Have you never heard of the word ‘sub-text’ or 'agenda', Seeker? Yours is poking through like a badly draped statue of Min, the Egyptian god.

The point here is that you are trying to set the limits of how Dawkins can discuss his points in an unfair way.

Seeker, so far you’ve given me nothing of Dawkins apart from what we already know ... and I’m asking you to provide it. That is hardly 'setting limits'.

I'm comfortable with people viewing the discussion for themselves and making up their own minds Ish. I haven't dealt with you dishonestly, I do think its interesting though that you have made that accusation in light of the evidence.

There is not an apostrophe out of place in the quote that you say I misquoted. That’s how I know you haven’t watched it.

Don’t you think, as a former journalist and thus a complete mistress of the arts of misquotation, that I would know if I misquoted.

Is that the best you can do, instead of refuting the point just start calling me a liar? I'll take it as a compliment that you have been reduced to this ...

I don’t think you’re a liar, Seeker. I think you love the tournament and the theatre, and I think you are game player. Well, I have news for you. So do I .... so you’ve met your match.

Sweetheart, I knew you’d say that I misquoted Dawkins. So I played the video back at least three times, and carefully took it down word for word, as will be evident when you finally get round to watching it. You will also see that it’s completely in context because that introductory remark is the theme that runs through the whole series.

I’m not trying to demonise you. You’re making a pretty good job of that yourself.

It’s the horns isn't it?

Hmmmm.... that and the lascivious grin.

Seriously Ish, this whole line of yours is beneath you.

I make my own decisions about what or who goes beneath me, Seeker.

Basing a belief on logic is not the same as basing it on a scientific law ... and I explained why that is so in my last post. So again, you’re moving the goalposts.

Actually you've been back and forth on this, i was the one who pointed out to you that science is based on logic.

Oh yeah... like I really needed you tell me that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known would I?

It was me that pointed out to you that logic isn’t always based on science ... thus invalidating your whole argument.

I don't know why even I'm talking to a man who a) believes his thinking is superior b) keeps pronouncing on stuff I already know like he's just brought it back from Mount Olympus and c) thinks I can't understand logic. This is like being on a really bad date.

Seeker, you are SO dead after making that remark! That was worse than when you told me to relax. Tell me, Seeker, just between us .. you don't have a woman do you? It was a dead give away when you used the R word the other day.

Does anybody really 'have' a woman. There is a lady who sleeps in my bed, eats my food and critiques the clothes I wear but she quite often denies being with me if that is any consolation.

Yeah... just I thought. She hasn’t got you very well trained.

[seeker]

Seeker,

Tell me, do you not have a life? Or have you just got so addicted to talking to me that you can’t stop?

I have to be on a computer. I’m a writer. But you’re supposed to be at your easel etching out that voluptuous nude spread-eagled out on that chaise longue in front of you, and somehow ... somehow.... the ennui descends and it's just not doing it for you anymore is it? And so even though you have completely lost the argument, you have to keep leaping down and rushing to your computer to see if Ishtar has posted.

I’d say you’ve got it bad, man...

Actually I do a lot on my conceptualizing on the computer. I'm an abstract painter so I don't do nudes, frankly they have been done by so many artists over so many hundreds of years that I find them to be a bit boring. As it is I'm between shows anyway so i am more or less just sitting around at the present.

As to your comment about my waiting on your every post it seems to me that one works both ways. You have responded to my posts as often. I get a kickout of the notion that you think this line would bother me though. It takes two to tango.

As to having lost the argument I've been being kind here, you lost this argument when you misrepresented the documentary. i could have made thisa lot worse and i think you know that.

No, that doesn’t follow, and here’s why.

It is what I meant by logic not necessarily always being scientific.

Different people can reach different entirely logical conclusions because they are starting from different premises. If would be ridiculous to think that you could look at the Fibonacci Spiral of a fern and see an angry, red-faced, bearded man, shaking his fist at you in that leaf (Jehovah). But that's what a Literalist would think what is meant by seeing God in a fern.

But if you have a different understanding of what God or gods or devas are, then it’s a different story and what you see in that fern is entirely different.

Both of these are logical approaches according to the beliefs of the time. In other words, logical conclusions are subject to Time (and other things) ... and thus not eternal truths and thus not scientific.

That’s why logic is not necessarily based on scientific laws, although scientific laws are based on logic.

That's true only if you allow any premise but science doesn't allow just any premise. in order to make a scientific statement the premise has to fit criteria, such as falsifiability. That is why i can use logic in a scientific sense and say that God is an illogical solution.

I’m sorry you’re having trouble understanding this. I have tried to explain it again above. It makes perfect sense to me ... but then, I am only a woman. (Dead ).

That's okay Ish, you'll get it eventually...maybe

Boys need heroes, Seeker. That’s the truth of it. And you are clinging on for a white-knuckle ride with this one.

I see you think Dawkins is a hero now? I hope you aren't putting too much of your faith in that notion. i would think you would know by now that when you paint with a briad brush you always end up having to go back over fine details.

Women don’t need heroes. Once they’ve experienced the agonies of the childbirth room, and realised that no-one in the whole universe can help them now, and that it’s all down to them to produce this life into the world themselves — no matter the pain and no matter that something the size of a grapefruit is going to have to pass through something the size of a ping pong ball — they grow up pretty fast.

Giving birth is a passing into adulthood rite of passage for females – overnight they turn from girls to women. But there are few manhood initiations for men, these days, so they have to cling on to their heroes. One of yours in Dawkins, which is why you dare not even try to express his ideas.

Whew, you actually believe some of this stuff don't you. Don't worry Ish, I don't discount your experience the way you seem to discount mine.

Honey, I’m not using you! You seem to want to keep talking to me even though you lost the argument pages ago!

Except that you have yet to actually answer one of my points.

Have you never heard of the word ‘sub-text’ or 'agenda', Seeker? Yours is poking through like a badly draped statue of Min, the Egyptian god.

Min is an Egyptian God?

I think you are just upset that you have been caught out and don't have a real response

Seeker, so far you’ve given me nothing of Dawkins apart from what we already know ... and I’m asking you to provide it. That is hardly 'setting limits'.

There is not an apostrophe out of place in the quote that you say I misquoted. That’s how I know you haven’t watched it.

Don’t you think, as a former journalist and thus a complete mistress of the arts of misquotation, that I would know if I misquoted.

Okay former mistress, let's call you on that, since you have insisted.

You have persistently claimed that Dawkins, in this documentary makes it the central point that his atheism is based on evolution. First of all the documentary is about evolution, not atheism. The quote occurs some three or four minutes in and is the only actual statement Dawkins makes about his atheism for quite a while into it. Your pretense that the documentary was about dawkin's atheist views is completely misleading.

Then you claim that dawkins just walks into the classroom and declares that kids with scientific training would give up religion. What you fail to mention is that, once again that paraphrase comes in the much larger context of a classroom discussion over several days and one includes field trips and an examination of the evidence. Once again you have absolutely mislead people with your posts on the matter.

I'm not trying to be unkind here but if you really want me to analyze this documentary and shred your arguments I can do so far more brutally than i have so far.

I don’t think you’re a liar, Seeker. I think you love the tournament and the theatre, and I think you are game player. Well, I have news for you. So do I .... so you’ve met your match.

Good, i like that. play on then

Sweetheart, I knew you’d say that I misquoted Dawkins. So I played the video back at least three times, and carefully took it down word for word, as will be evident when you finally get round to watching it. You will also see that it’s completely in context because that introductory remark is the theme that runs through the whole series.

Except that the documentary isn't even promarily concerned with atheism but evolution and scientific method

Hmmmm.... that and the lascivious grin.

Trips me up every time.

I make my own decisions about what or who goes beneath me, Seeker.

...and then you complain about my lascivious grin.

Oh yeah... like I really needed you tell me that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known would I?

It was me that pointed out to you that logic isn’t always based on science ... thus invalidating your whole argument.

I don't know why even I'm talking to a man who a) believes his thinking is superior b) keeps pronouncing on stuff I already know like he's just brought it back from Mount Olympus and c) thinks I can't understand logic. This is like being on a really bad date.

Unfortunately you keep saying things that make me think you don't understand logic or science. For example you use the term 'scientific law' but there really is no such term. Things you think of as Laws are really theories that are devised by the application of logic to evidence. Science is based on logic and logic, when used carefully can be good science. a good example is the Theory of Relativity which is, for the most part a Theory based purely on mathematical logic.

Yeah... just I thought. She hasn’t got you very well trained.

That's why she likes me, I'm wild and untrainable.

[Ishtar]

Seeker, I'm stuck on this computer having to write a very boring government paper which is overdue, and so anything is more interesting than that ... even listening to your pedantic nonsense about there being no such thing as a scientific law, and outright falsifications of what the video contains vis-a-vis what I say it contains.

I didn't have to put the video up here .. and so I'd hardly be inclined to do so if it disproved my point which isn't - as you have just tried to mispresent - that it is about Dawkins' views on atheism. As I have said, Dawkins himself announces that in the course of these programmes, he hopes to persuade us that evolution offers a much richer and more spectacular view of life than religion and that it's one reason he doesn't believe in God. This must be at least the sixth time I've said this now.

Let others watch the video and come to their own views, and this is going to be my final word on the subject.

[seeker]

Seeker, I'm stuck on this computer having to write a very boring government paper which is overdue, and so anything is more interesting than that ... even listening to your pedantic nonsense about there being no such thing as a scientific law, and outright falsifications of what the video contains vis-a-vis what I say it contains.

I didn't have to put the video up here .. and so I'd hardly be inclined to do so if it disproved my point which isn't - as you have just tried to mispresent - that it is about Dawkins' views on atheism. As I have said, Dawkins himself announces that in the course of these programmes, he hopes to persuade us that evolution offers a much richer and more spectacular view of life than religion and that it's one reason he doesn't believe in God. This must be at least the sixth time I've said this now.

Let others watch the video and come to their own views, and this is going to be my final word on the subject.

No problem, have fun with your paper

[john]

All -

Right, and this is irresistible within the context.........

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Who/+videos/+1-yFZHWGUz-t8

And, for consideration

http://www.gailgastfield.com/mhh/mhh.html


This is not in reference to

The conversation between Ishtar and Seeker,

But to the original

Thrust of the thread.


hoka hey


john

[Minimalist]

Right. To drag this back towards the realm of history a tad....

Earl Doherty notes on pg 7 of The Jesus Puzzle:

But there is another way of viewing this picture, and of understanding how the artificial figure of Jesus emerged in the first place. It is a natural human tendency to explain the development of progressive ideas, new technologies, better social and political systems, as the product of exceptional individuals, idealized forerunners, sometimes even as proceeding from divinities. The reality is typically otherwise. Society as a whole or a group within it produces the innovation or the swing in a new direction. There may be a trend 'in the air,' a set of subtle processes taking place over time. Eventually, these developments become attached in the popular or sectarian mind to a famous figure in their past, or embodied in an entirely fictitious personality. History is full of invented founders for religious, social and national movements, such as Taoism's Lao-Tse, Lucurgus of Sparta, or William Tell at the time of the founding of the Swiss Confederation. It is now generally recognized that these people, and others like them, never lived. A famous figure whose existence has been questioned is the Chinese philosopher, Confucius.

Thoughts?

[Ishtar]

All -

Right, and this is irresistible within the context.........

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Who/+videos/+1-yFZHWGUz-t8

And, for consideration

http://www.gailgastfield.com/mhh/mhh.html

John - I became influenced by William Blake and The Who at an early age, and I can't decide which one did me the most damage!

[Ishtar]

Min

I think this question is actually about how people thought before Literalist Christianity and Literalist Judaism.

At the Mystery rites, for example, those attending didn't expect their sacred heroes to be real, flesh and blood historical people, because they understood them as mythological characters in a play or story. And the play or story was so cleverly put together, it could be appreciated on many levels, according to the understanding of the member of the audience.

So some would enjoy it as pure entertainment, while others would see (and be gradually taught to see) progressively deeper meanings in it.

The point is, the hero or the story itself did not need to be historical for the deeper spiritual truth to exist and to be of value.

Compare that to Literalist Christianity in which the whole religion is totally dependent on a belief in a historical godman who actually lived and died on a cross for our sins. Take that away from Christianity, and you are left with nothing - because Christian popes and bishops don't know about the deeper spiritual truths hidden within the dying and resurrecting godman story that are, in part, triggered by a second initiation which they haven't experienced and thus don't know about, let alone how to carry out for others.

Literalism, with its insistence on belief in flesh and blood, historical characters including a patriarchal old man in the sky who has a whole long list of requirements from us as humans, and its failure to teach at the metaphorical level of the second initation, has left us handicapped in many ways. Not least, while leaving us with an inability to appreciate metaphorical heroes, it has also created in us a need for real, flesh-and-blood ones - hence the cult of celebrity.

[Minimalist]

I tend to agree with a lot of that although there are many ways to look at the reason for the literalist group. They could have really believed it...people can convince themselves of lots of whacky stuff, or, just a marketing ploy to separate themselves from the Mystery Cults.

Doherty seems to think that it was a midrash that got out of hand because gentiles didn't know what a midrash was!

[seeker]

I'm pretty sure that's what the stories in the Dead Sea Scrolls were, Midrashes. Unfortunately people outside of Judaism never thought of playing 'what if?' with their holy books.

[Ishtar]

Seeker and Min

Normally, at this point, I would look up to find out about what midrashes are and why they're important. But maybe not everyone will do that .. so in order to take this story on, would one of you kindly explain what a midrash is and how it fits into this context?

[pattylt]

Quick answer is the Midrash is the "Jewish companion bible". It is the oral law and traditions that interpret the deeper meaning of the torah.
It is everything from HOW the Jews were to keep the sabbath and HOW the Jews are to keep Kosher to the deeper (can you say Mystery interpretations) of what the biblical stories really mean.