Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[john]

I'm sure John has some lyrics for this!

He usually does.

All right folks you asked for it ...........

The short version:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... t=lf&hl=en


The medium news article version:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... delia.html


And the insanely long pedantic version:

http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/iicd.pdf


........and I almost got through this without mentioning

the bicameral mind........

But, naaah.


Hematite, boats



john


ps

By the way don't even open up the last one

Unless you are prepared for some heavy lifting.

I've been chewing on it for the last year

And am not even halfway there

vis a vis what I agree or disagree with.


j

[seeker]

Unfortunately Christians are stuck with the bible and the claims it makes. Jews were smart enough long ago to say its all allegory, only Christians insist its literal (and not all of them).

I have to admit though, it is comical to hear the explanations of how locusts used to have four legs and how certain kinds of hare chew their cuds.

[pattylt]

They bring it on themselves, Patty, by putting their bible tales into the fray. Scientists, such as Dawkins, would not give a rats ass about the bible if these fundy fools weren't out there championing it as "the answer" instead of what it is....which is, as Ish points out, at best some sort of allegorical tale.

Which is why I am enjoying this discussion so much. Giving me more ammunition down the road to force them to keep their bible out of our school system. At some point we have to force the rest of Christianity to stand up to these idiots. Fundies are not going to listen to us, we're possessed by Satan. They need to be educated from within, made to behave from within. The more these kinds of discussions take place, the more some Christians will listen and understand. If nothing else, some may begin to understand just how much the Early Literalists hijacked a developing faith and changed it forever. And then burned the evidence. What would it have been if this hadn't happened?

Question? What the heck is sacred geometry? Is it just geometry in general that allowed them to figure out volumes and distances, astronomy and orbits? Back then that would have been powerful knowledge but I am wondering if there was more to it than that? I hated geometry but fell in love with Trig and Calc. I just don't understand anything particularly sacred about it.

[pattylt]

John,
Thank you for the trip down memory lane... and I do mean trip!
Jefferson Airplane was always a favorite until I saw them in concert. Most disappointing concert I ever saw. Grace Slick was boring and sang like a statue. It broke my heart. I still listen to their music on occasion but I turned the video off. The second link was great. As one who had a wild side in her youth, I completely understood why they needed to think hallucinogenically. That was "far out"

The 3rd link may be read at another time, not tonight. I had a long day and don't have very many brain cells still firing.

[Minimalist]

Yeah, I was no fan of geometry either. I never called it sacred.

Usually, it was more like..." Oh, man. I have to take fuckin' geometry over in summer school......"

[john]

Unfortunately Christians are stuck with the bible and the claims it makes. Jews were smart enough long ago to say its all allegory, only Christians insist its literal (and not all of them).

I have to admit though, it is comical to hear the explanations of how locusts used to have four legs and how certain kinds of hare chew their cuds.

Seeker -

Speaking of which, additionally, as how daimon turned into demon.

j

[Minimalist]

Unfortunately Christians are stuck with the bible and the claims it makes. Jews were smart enough long ago to say its all allegory, only Christians insist its literal (and not all of them).

I have to admit though, it is comical to hear the explanations of how locusts used to have four legs and how certain kinds of hare chew their cuds.

From the Geological Society of London

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/views/pol ... e3635.html

This Society upholds the right of freedom of belief for all. The freedom scientists enjoy to investigate the nature and history of the Earth is the same freedom that allows individuals to believe - or not - in a deity.

Science's business is to investigate the constitution of the universe, and cannot pronounce on any concept that lies "beyond" nature. This is the meaning of “agnostic”, the word coined by former GSL President Thomas Henry Huxley, to describe a scientist’s position of being “unable to know”. This Society has therefore long operated according to the view that religion and science only become incompatible with each other when one attempts to trespass upon the domain of the other.

The idea that the Earth was divinely created in the geologically recent past ("Young Earth Creationism"); attempts by Young Earth Creationists to gain acceptance for what they misrepresent in public as corroborative empirical evidence for this view ("Creation science"); and the allied belief that features of the universe and of living things are better explained as the direct result of action by an intelligent cause than by natural processes ("Intelligent Design"), represent such a trespass upon the domain of science.

The Geological Society of London is the oldest national learned society for the Earth sciences in the world, and embodies the collective knowledge of nearly 10,000 Earth scientists worldwide. On their behalf it wishes, during the United Nations International Year of Planet Earth, to place on record the following facts as being long established beyond doubt.

Planet Earth, along with the other planets in the Solar System, was formed approximately 4560 million years ago.
Life has existed on Earth for thousands of millions of years. It has evolved into its current form by a combination of genetic variation and natural selection - and is likely to go on doing so for as long as it continues to exist.
Close study of the structure and organisation of living animals and plants clearly indicates their common ancestry, and the succession of forms through the fossil record, as well as the genetic record contained in every living organism, provides powerful evidence of the reality of evolution.

[pattylt]

Now, lets see someone in the USA say the same. Heck, even the ASPCA wouldn't go on record saying that here.

What I want to hear is a fundy stand up and say, "I don't believe in evolution but since it is my faith, I will keep my beliefs in my home and church and not try to force my faith on others."
Instead, we have long winded explanations of how bats really are a type of bird and insects do have 4 legs and 2 non functional appendages. This is what the legacy of Literalism has done to us.

To get back to the OP a bit, what are some of the purposes of the gospel stories. Are any of them supposed to be interpreted much differently than we currently interpret them? It is fine to say that Jesus was allegory but does that mean anything different in what he was supposed to be teaching?

[Minimalist]

That's not entirely fair, though. The National Academy of Sciences does push the scientific point of view which is not easy when you have someone like the Texas Twit in the White House.

[john]

[quote="pattylt"]Now, lets see someone in the USA say the same. Heck, even the ASPCA wouldn't go on record saying that here.

What I want to hear is a fundy stand up and say, "I don't believe in evolution but since it is my faith, I will keep my beliefs in my home and church and not try to force my faith on others."
Instead, we have long winded explanations of how bats really are a type of bird and insects do have 4 legs and 2 non functional appendages. This is what the legacy of Literalism has done to us.

To get back to the OP a bit, what are some of the purposes of the gospel stories. Are any of them supposed to be interpreted much differently than we currently interpret them? It is fine to say that Jesus was allegory but does that mean anything different in what he was supposed to be teaching?[/quote


Hoo boy -

Let me quote Twain.......


http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/twainwp.htm


This is only a starter.



hoka hey

john

[Ishtar]

The point is that I see the claims for the existence of god in the same light. They are fantastic claims for which there is no evidence.

What do mean by evidence? Evidence is a word used to describe what we perceive either naturally or through a microscope or through some other means. A thousand or so years ago, there was no evidence for oxygen. So does that mean that it didn't exist?

All the things that are attributed to God like creation, morality etc have natural explanations that fit the evidence.

'That fit the evidence'. Evidence is a moving feast .. as shown above.

That there are natural explanations for things do not discount a God. Wouldn't he be in charge of nature? Wouldn't he have put it in there in the first place?

Simply put there is no reason to think that a God exists

You cannot find a reason, which is fair enough, and you're entitled to your views. But they are just that - views.

[Ishtar]

This has become a discussion about Judaeo-Christianity - but Judaeo-Christianity did not invent God. The astrologer Rabbinic Jews just copied the Zoroastrian astrologic allegorical idea for the Earth being created in 6,000 days, and turned it into six days for their writing of Genesis. They probably never expected anyone to take it literally, or even that it would be mass-distributed to untrained minds, as it has been.

I'm not saying that there is a God. I don't know. But what I'm saying is that there is absolutely no scientific basis for the non-existence of God.

Let's get some perpective on this:

Age of the universe = 14 billion years
Age of the Earth = 4 billion years
Age of modern man = 20,000 years
Age of the book of Genesis = 7,000 years

For about 13,000 years before the writing of the Book of Genesis, man communed with some sort of God figure or gods or spirits. And possibly even before that ... certainly HSN was capable of that sort of abstract thought as we can tell from the cave paintings in Lascaux and Chauvet.

So the Jews just took their ideas from older religions that themselves had their roots in even more ancient practises going back thousands upon thousands of years.

So just because the Jews misunderstood these ancient ideas (or more likely, those that literalised the Rabbinic Jews works caused this misunderstanding) it does not prove in any way (let alone scientifically) that God does not exist.

It doesn't even come close.

The fossil record debunks the literal ideas of Genesis. It doesn't debunk God. And it probably doesn't even debunk Genesis, if it was understood as it was originally intended.

[Ishtar]

From the Geological Society of London

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/views/pol ... e3635.html

This Society upholds the right of freedom of belief for all. The freedom scientists enjoy to investigate the nature and history of the Earth is the same freedom that allows individuals to believe - or not - in a deity.

Science's business is to investigate the constitution of the universe, and cannot pronounce on any concept that lies "beyond" nature. This is the meaning of “agnostic”, the word coined by former GSL President Thomas Henry Huxley, to describe a scientist’s position of being “unable to know”. This Society has therefore long operated according to the view that religion and science only become incompatible with each other when one attempts to trespass upon the domain of the other....

This is very good.

The above statement by the Geological Society is declaring that science and religion are incompatible because they occupy different arenas. And that therefore one should not try to force their beliefs upon the other ... which is obviously a very good idea.

But it is very different to what Dawkins is saying - that he is an atheist because science in the form of the fossil record has disproved the existence of God.

Dawkins is going against the sentiments of this declaration by trying to use science to claim that there isn't a God.

[Ishtar]

All right folks you asked for it ...........

The short version:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... t=lf&hl=en

John, what a bizarrre coincidence. I only downloaded White Rabbit into my Last FM library yesterday, and I hadn't heard it for about 30 years. Now, twice in 24 hours. "Go ask Alice when she's ten feet tall." Wonderful to hear Grace Slick's voice again!

And the insanely long pedantic version:

http://www.eyewithwings.net/nechvatal/iicd.pdf

By the way don't even open up the last one

Unless you are prepared for some heavy lifting.

I've been chewing on it for the last year

And am not even halfway there

vis a vis what I agree or disagree with.

Oh boy ... that's all this thread has been lacking ... the meaning of life by a digital techie. Aaaargghh!

........and I almost got through this without mentioning

the bicameral mind........

These spiritual window-shoppers,
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking.
They handle a hundred items and put them down,
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping.
But these walk into a shop,
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment,
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere."
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want,
buy something, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project,
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference
what people think of you.

Rumi, 13th century Persian poet and philosopher

[Ishtar]

whenever you're losing an argument

I am?

I thought I was beating your brains in?

Talk about The God Delusion!

You're arguing about Judaeo-Christianity. I'm talking about God. Big difference!

But that's another thing you do when you're losing the argument.

You change it to one you can win.

And then you bring in the schoolchildren... and the straining violins ...and the poor ickle orphans ....on crutches ..... Where's my hankie?