Atheists vs. Theists -- Why Debate is Impossible

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, but Jesus is evidence of his religious beliefs.

No more then Luke Skywalker is evidence of Star Wars.

 

[Valjean]

Evidence, I would suggest, that for as long as there has been human society, there has been a powerful urge to connect with the infinite and the eternal. Imagine how much effort was required to place those stones there, and construct the earthworks, using only Neolithic technology. It’s almost as if every society in human history placed a high value on spiritual as well as material concerns. You can call it an argumentum ad populam if you that helps you dismiss an inconvenient reality, but is it unreasonable to wonder if perhaps all religious people have not been completely misguided in their impulse to connect with the infinite?

The church tower in one of the photos, St James at Avebury, is sited amidst the Neolithic monuments. It’s foundations date from the 12th century.

But all this is not evidence for a god, or anything supernatural. It's evidence of a psychological quirk in humans, coupled with politics and a skill at engineering.

 

[Valjean]

It's true that if the gospel writing is evidence, so is records in every scripture ever.
It is not too hard to whittle them down however to the possible real scriptures that are a revelation from God.

How would one whittle them down, without critical analysis of evidence? If actual evidence is critically analysed, how can anyone conclude that the scriptures are anything but folklore?
Haven't those scholars who have done this concluded that the book is mostly mythology?

 

[Valjean]

...what compels man to believe in something that, according to the atheist, doesn't exist?

The inborn apophenia that got us through the stone age, coupled with a fear of nature, a craving for control and a strong-father figure to look out for us.

 

[Valjean]

I think a flaw in atheist logic is understanding exactly what prophecy and miracles are.
As I can sort any so called prophet by their ability to do signs. To accept or reject.

And I know there are theists waiting for prophecies that they will never see happen in their lifetime. Thats also because they also dont know what prophecies/miracles are. They think miracles are done by magic and explain by saying God can do anything.

Its just a misunderstanding. Prophecies were fulfilled the moment they were spoken. And that can be scientifically investigated.

Prophecies and miracles is what makes the words of the bible believable to me in a logical way.

I believe their sign language. Their words are true in what they say.

Their language is symbolic. Their words are symbols, and each symbol has its place along with other certain symbols to form groups of symbols.

The groups of symbols form a pattern that Ive seen before. They form Zodiac wheel. A map of the heavens.

You see images in the clouds, and mistake them for reality.

 

[Valjean]

how long is this going to take? Like I flippin' said, the landslide majority of people that ever lived, from all over the world, from every century and millennia, believed in something that transcended the material world - last flippin' time: how is that possible if all that we came from was stardust and protoplasm???

And again, this is not evidence that any of these contradictory theologies correspond with any reality.

When conditions improved, and life became more secure and less hazardous, religiosity diminished significantly. Did you not see the graphs in Evangelicalhumanist's post #158?

 

[Valjean]

how long is this going to take? Like I flippin' said, the landslide majority of people that ever lived, from all over the world, from every century and millennia, believed in something that transcended the material world - last flippin' time: how is that possible if all that we came from was stardust and protoplasm???

And none seemed to be in agreement.
This is evidence of human religiosity, not support for theism. Your personal incredulity is evidence of nothing.

 

[joelr]

It's true that if the gospel writing is evidence, so is records in every scripture ever.
It is not too hard to whittle them down however to the possible real scriptures that are a revelation from God.
Those scriptures are even evidence of syncretism at times.

I think it would be hard because pretty much everything is syncretic. What do you consider real revelations?

Yes I guess it is possible to see what is written in the bible in the writings of other cultures and sometimes we see that.
You seem to make inconsistent claims. You want Mark to have made up a story from potential prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures and also to have gotten the gospel accounts from other cultures which you say have themes in their writings which are similar. Which one is it, or is it both?

No it's not inconsistent. He uses several sources. There are dozens of examples of using Paul and creating earthly events from the Epistles. There is a transfiguration of the Romulus narrative from military savior to peaceful savior. Chaisms, ring structure, triadic intervals, doublets.....
The lack of sources, information, lack of eyewitness testimonies named, nothing that actual researched histories of the time contained. This was historical fiction from the Greek school.


Marks use of Paul and the papers the work is taken from is here:
Mark's Use of Paul's Epistles • Richard Carrier

Some OT references:
Only a few verses later, we read about the rest of the crucifixion narrative and find a link (a literary source) with the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament (OT):

Mark 15.24: “They part his garments among them, casting lots upon them.”

Psalm 22:18: “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon them.”

Mark 15.29-31: “And those who passed by blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘…Save yourself…’ and mocked him, saying ‘He who saved others cannot save himself!’ ”

Psalm 22.7-8: “All those who see me mock me and give me lip, shaking their head, saying ‘He expected the lord to protect him, so let the lord save him if he likes.’ ”

Mark 15.34: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Psalm 22.1: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

On top of these links, Mark also appears to have used Psalm 69, Amos 8.9, and some elements of Isaiah 53, Zechariah 9-14, and Wisdom 2 as sources for his narratives. So we can see yet a few more elements of myth in the latter part of this Gospel, with Mark using other scriptural sources as needed for his story, whether to “fulfill” what he believed to be prophecy or for some other reason.

Earlier in Mark (chapter 5), we hear about another obviously fictional story about Jesus resurrecting a girl (the daughter of a man named Jairus) from the dead, this miracle serving as another obvious marker of myth, but adding to that implausibility is the fact that the tale is actually a rewrite of another mythical story, told of Elisha in 2 Kings 4.17-37 as found in the OT, and also the fact that there are a number of very improbable coincidences found within the story itself. In the story with Elisha, we hear of a woman from Shunem who seeks out the miracle-working Elisha, finds him, falls to his feet and begs him to help her son who had recently fallen gravely ill. Someone checks on her son and confirms that he is now dead, but Elisha doesn’t fret about this, and he goes into her house, works his miraculous magic, and raises him from the dead. In Mark’s version of the story (Mark 5.22-43), the same things occur. We hear about Jairus coming to look for Jesus, finds him, falls to his feet and begs him to help him with his daughter. Someone then comes to confirm that she is now dead, but Jesus (as Elisha) doesn’t fret, and he goes into his house, works his miraculous magic, and raises her from the dead.





Another instance of using Jesus Ben Ananias:

The final parallel that I wanted to mention was that found between the Passover Narrative and the story of a different Jesus, named Jesus ben Ananias. This was a man who was known as an insane prophet that was active in the 60s CE who was then killed in the siege of Jerusalem (around 70 CE). His story was told in Josephus’ Jewish War, and thus Mark was likely to have known about it, and the number of parallels between what Josephus wrote and that of Mark’s Passover Narrative are far too numerous to be a mere coincidence. Clearly Mark either wrote his narrative based off of what Josephus wrote, or based on the same tale known to Josephus. Here are the parallels between Mark’s Jesus and that of Jesus ben Ananias as found in Josephus’ writings:

1 – Both are named Jesus. (Mark 14.2 = JW 6.301)

2 – Both come to Jerusalem during a major religious festival. (Mark 11.15-17 = JW 6.301)

3 -Both entered the temple area to rant against the temple. (Mark 14.2 = JW 6.301)

4 – During which both quote the same chapter of Jeremiah. (Jer. 7.11 in Mk, Jer. 7.34 in JW)

5 – Both then preach daily in the temple. (Mark 14.49 = JW 6.306)

6 – Both declared “woe” unto Judea or the Jews. (Mark 13.17 = JW 6.304, 306, 309)

7 – Both predict the temple will be destroyed. (Mark 13.2 = JW 6.300, 309)

8 – Both are for this reason arrested by the Jews. (Mark 14.43 = JW 6.302)

9 – Both are accused of speaking against the temple. (Mark 14.58 = JW 6.302)

10 – Neither makes any defense of himself against the charges. (Mark 14.60 = JW 6.302)

11 – Both are beaten by the Jews. (Mark 14.65 = JW 6.302)

12 – Then both are taken to the Roman governor. (Pilate in Mark 15.1 = Albinus in JW 6.302)

13 – Both are interrogated by the Roman governor. (Mark 15.2-4 = JW 6.305)

14 – During which both are asked to identify themselves. (Mark 15.2 = JW 6.305)

15 – And yet again neither says anything in his defense. (Mark 15.3-5 = JW 6.305)

16 – Both are then beaten by the Romans. (Mark 15.15 = JW 6.304)

17 – In both cases the Roman governor decides he should release him. (Mark 14.2 = JW 6.301)

18 – But doesn’t (Mark)…but does (JW) — (Mark 15.6-15 = JW 6.305)

19 – Both are finally killed by the Romans: in Mark, by execution; in the JW, by artillery. (Mark 15.34 = JW 6.308-9)

20 – Both utter a lament for themselves immediately before they die. (Mark 15.34 = JW 6.309)

21 – Both die with a loud cry. (Mark 15.37 = JW 6.309)

The odds of these coincidences arising by chance is quite small to say the least, so it appears Mark used this Jesus as a model for his own to serve some particular literary or theological purpose. In any case, we can see that Mark is writing fiction here, through and through.


But the gospels are not reliable at all. According to Bible scholarship.

the Oxford Annotated Bible (a compilation of multiple scholars summarizing dominant scholarly trends for the last 150 years) states (p. 1744):


"Neither the evangelists nor their first readers engaged in historical analysis. Their aim was to confirm Christian faith (Lk. 1.4; Jn. 20.31). Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. They thus do not present eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings.



Scholar M Ferguson comments and lists all the vast internal and external evidence for this conclusion. (not included)

"Unfortunately, much of the general public is not familiar with scholarly resources like the one quoted above; instead, Christian apologists often put out a lot of material, such as The Case For Christ, targeted toward lay audiences, who are not familiar with scholarly methods, in order to argue that the Gospels are the eyewitness testimonies of either Jesus’ disciples or their attendants. The mainstream scholarly view is that the Gospels are anonymous works, written in a different language than that of Jesus, in distant lands, after a substantial gap of time, by unknown persons, compiling, redacting, and inventing various traditions, in order to provide a narrative of Christianity’s central figure—Jesus Christ—to confirm the faith of their communities.

As scholarly sources like the Oxford Annotated Bible note, the Gospels are not historical works (even if they contain some historical kernels). I have discussed elsewhere some of the reasons why scholars recognize that the Gospels are not historical in their genre, purpose, or character in my article “Ancient Historical Writing Compared to the Gospels of the New Testament.” However, I will now also lay out a resource here explaining why many scholars likewise doubt the traditional authorial attributions of the Gospels.

 

[RestlessSoul]

But all this is not evidence for a god, or anything supernatural. It's evidence of a psychological quirk in humans, coupled with politics and a skill at engineering.

No, not direct evidence for God. But evidence that humans feel incomplete without a direct connection to the universal, the infinite, or the divine. We have a longing in us which appears to be innate, and which cannot be satisfied by fulfilling our material desires.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

evidence that humans feel incomplete without a direct connection to the universal, the infinite, or the divine. We have a longing in us which appears to be innate, and which cannot be satisfied by fulfilling our material desires.

The spiritual experience can be interpreted many ways and is. I once understood it as a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. As fate would have it, evidence arose that I had misunderstood that apprehension. I now assign it no extra meaning beyond it being a very pleasant, blissful mental state that includes a sense of connection and belonging, and that at times adds an element of awe, mystery, and gratitude. Anybody that has had this experience can recognize it from that description. I used to have it in my first church (but no other church after that), but since recognize it in a number of situations, such as when stargazing or experiencing beauty. I resist the thinking and language that wants to call this god. Regarding transcendence, we are only transcending our mundane thought patterns when we are in this state, not reality. Yes, we can add words like infinite and divine to the sense of awe and mystery, but we don't know what we're talking about when we do.

Prophecies and miracles is what makes the words of the bible believable to me in a logical way.

Biblical prophecies and claims of miracles are among the things that make me believe that no transcendent intelligence authored scripture. I only mentioned revelation and miracles as examples of actions that define an interventionalist god. I've discovered that my objection to religion is always with those that have interventionalist gods that issue commandments, make moral judgments, and offer rewards and punishments for obedience. Religions with nature gods - and I hope nobody finds this characterization offensive - by which I mean largely the polytheistic religions such as the Dharmic religions and the various forms of paganism, appear to not be a problem for their adherents or their adherents' neighbors.

how in the world do you people invariably, keep missing the point???

This is the third time I've seen this in two days on RF, the other two from members of a different Abrahamic faith on another thread. The critical thinkers aren't missing these points. They're rejecting them.

You seem to be arguing that an abundance of religions and religious structures in an abundance of cultures over much of human history is evidence for more than that humanity has a proclivity for faith-based thinking to account for and control reality through ritual and magical thinking. It's not.

remember when I said that '...theists perceive what atheists don't...'? Did you understand what I meant at all?

Perceive is ambiguous here, since the word is used in two different ways, but whichever you meant, it's an easy concept to understand.

Psychologists refer to the act of simple apprehension of sensory input before any other interpretation of it other than it being a new apprehension as perception ("the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses"), and the subsequent evaluation of it in terms of memory and understanding as apperception ("the mental process by which a person makes sense of an idea by assimilating it to the body of ideas he or she already possesses."). The first step is evidence becoming evident, the second the understanding of its significance. Using that conceptual framework, no, theists don't perceive anything atheists don't. The just understand (apperceive) it differently. But I suspect that by perceive you mean both processes, that is, both apprehend and understand. By that reckoning, what you conclude about your apprehensions is also easy to understand, but rejected.

how does something created in the material world, transcend into the spiritual realms

Nothing transcends reality. If it's real, it exists in the natural world. There may be aspects of nature as yet unknown to us, but they are still nature. If a deity exists, if it is real, then it is also part of nature.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If there is no afterlife then yes ultimately my present life is meaningless. We all can make our lives tasty and meaningful for us in the short term, until we die possibly, but all the meaning we have put into those lives is ultimately nothing if all that happens is that we die and everyone else dies and the universe dies.

No argument. It's one of many realities that the humanist becomes comfortable with maturing intellectually and morally outside of an interventionalist god religion. He comes to understand and accept that he may be mortal, not watched over from above, never going to see his expired loved ones again, that his existence is due to blind natural forces and has no inherent meaning or purpose other than what he assigns it himself.

Does your proposition mean that if God ends up being real and you get judged worthy of eternal life ("eternal" pertaining to not just the length but also the quality of life) that you would say no or make the condition that you can choose death in the future if you want?

Yes. If given an irreversible choice between eternal consciousness and eternal unconsciousness, I'd choose the latter, especially if that god were the Abrahamic god. I know that you believe that that is a god of love, but not as I define love. But even if it were another god or gods that I knew nothing about, I would choose sleep over eternal, forced wakefulness.

things that science is stuck in and can only speculate on even if atheist might say (or maybe even hope since you don't seem to want eternal life anyway) that science has done so well that we will eventually know.

Empiricists do not expect science to answer every question man can ask, but they expect that faith-based systems like religions can answer none if by answer we mean a correct answer. Questions science cannot address are of metaphysical concerns. Claims about the metaphysical cannot be correct or incorrect, because they are indemonstrable and unfalsifiable, and thus are undecidable ("not even wrong").That's where religious answers fit - in the category of unfalsifiable claims that cannot be called correct and thus don't deserve to be called answers.

If empirical is all that you accept then you deny the evidence that the spirit sees.

I don't deny any evidence. I interpret it differently.

Critical thinking does not review and analyse the evidence and logically come up with the answer that a God is not needed. That is just a speculation, not a logical conclusion.

What do you think science needs a god for? What does not needed mean if not that no scientific laws and theories contain gods, that they work without them, like an unlocked door, which needs no key.

What I have noticed is what seems to be a refusal on the part of many people to see the truth about the ultimate meaninglessness of this life however without an afterlife.

I see the opposite. People are agreeing with you. I'm agreeing with you. If there are no gods or afterlives, if nature is godless and life and mind are the inevitable result of the laws of physics, then yes, you are correct. I believe you are and am fine that you might be.

You seem to be disagreeing that the word "scientism" is a legitimate word.

I don't know what an illegitimate word is.

Scientism can be defined neutrally, but also in a way that is negatively judgmental, the latter being much more common in discussions like these. The assumption is that a realm exists beyond the purview of experience (science, empiricism, evidence), that there is some way of knowing about it anyway even though none of this knowing can ever be shown to correct or useful, and that those who reject the claims of others regarding this other world knowable only to those who relax their standards for belief are being myopic. They assume and grant their magisterium legitimacy and denigrate those who don't using words like scientism and materialistic. That's what I don't consider legitimate - that position - not the word scientism.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Even though you say that the question of God is undecidable you also seem to be saying that because the question does not come under the purview of science that the answer has been decided by science or empiricism already.

No. Science has decided nothing about gods except that it hasn't found one yet and so far has no need of that hypothesis at this time. What the empiricist say is that if a question about how reality is and works can't be answered empirically, it can't be answered at all.

Occam's principle of parsimony looks pretty subjective to me.

It's not. It states that the fewer ideas and elements needed to explain an observation, the better the explanation. That seems self-evidently correct to me, not subjective. The optimal explanation is the one that had it had fewer elements would not account for all relevant observations, and had it had more, would not account for any more of them. Isn't that the optimal description of anything - fewer words mean less useful or necessary information for understanding, and any more adding unnecessary verbiage.

Genesis does not have to taken as an historical account to the Bible God cannot be ruled out because of Genesis.

The Bible god is ruled out not just by the creation story, but by the creation story in the presence of the evidence for biological evolution having occurred over geological time, as well as other scripture that defines the character of that god. The evidence for evolution falsifies the claim that life on earth is the result of an honest god. Does Jehovah lie? If not, he's not the creator of life on earth even if the theory is ever overturned and an intelligent designer is needed to account for that deceptively arranged evidence.

And to say that the naturalistic methodology of science, which has deceived humans into deciding on a particular answer for what happened in the past, is a deception by God, is to deceive yourself.

That's not what I say. If man was deceived, it was not by science, but by a deceptive intelligent designer. I have also said that that need not be a god, and that it cannot be the god of the Christian Bible.

To see the Bible tell us that God regretted something and to react to the then current events just shows that God is doing things according to the present circumstances and not looking into the future to decide what to do now.

The Bible calls God perfect, and it also describes errors God made and regretted. No such entity exists because no such logically impossible entity with mutually exclusive qualities can exist - like married bachelors. Feel free to rebut that if you know it's incorrect. I think you'll need to change what either perfect or error means to begin to do that, the way some apologists change the meaning of day.

Here's how we do that. Suppose I claim that there is a blue whale in my closet, and somebody points out that that is impossible. I just have to change either the meaning of blue whale or closet. How about, I mean a spiritual blue whale is in my closet, or a photo of one. Now it's not impossible. Or perhaps my closet is symbolic for the world or the ocean. Now it's not impossible, either.

Your turn: "There is an imperfect perfect god ruling the cosmos." How can we make that true?

That looks like you are making up stuff about reality so you can eliminate the supernatural.

It's the other way around. The qualities attributed to the supernatural are mutually exclusive ("made up") rendering the concept incoherent as I explained. A good starting place to understanding our world is to recognize that existence, reality, and nature are coextensive terms, that is, they all describe the same thing. Anything that exists is real and is a part of nature, meaning that it can be detected by the senses (not necessarily unaided) from the proper temporal and spacial perspective. Saying that something exists outside of space or time is incoherent. To refer to realms that cannot be detected even in principle, but which can still impact our reality, is incoherent. It takes some thought to recognize that one is claiming that something can alter reality but not be detected from within it is meaningless.

Variation from that perspective generates nothing useful, just confusion and sterile speculation. And claims of scientism about those who don't follow down that path.

 

[F1fan]

...remember when I said that '...theists perceive what atheists don't...'? Did you understand what I meant at all?

Yes. Theists like yourself believe you have some sort of extrasensory perception that enables you to sense things that others can't. The problem with your claim is that you can't actualy show us you have any such ability.

It's most likely that you hold non-factual and non-rational religious beliefs, you didn't arrive at these beliefs through reason, your assumption is that you must have some special ability, and since others don't share your religiouys beliefs they must be deficient in some way that you are not.

I have asked dozens of believers, mostly Christians, over the years if they have extrasensory ability that enables then to detect a God, and only a few have claimed they do. The vast majority admit they don't.

From discussions it seems the motive for believers to claim extrasensory ability is to bypass the burden of proof for their religious claims. It also is a way to imply non-believers are somehow deficient in their non-belief. Of course this is all without evidence, and is yet another fantastic claim to add to the list of fantastic claims that go without any sort of evidence.

So you might think you can bypass the burden of proof for your religious claims, but now you have to offer evidence that you have a real special ability, and not just bluffing.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

how does something created in the material world, transcend into the spiritual realms - what other creature on earth, other than man, is religious?

Depends what you mean by "religious" (and "spiritual," for that matter).

Off the top of my head, elephants and crows both have rituals that they do when one of the group dies, for instance.

A bias toward type 1 errors (false positives) is common among many animal species.

And complex communication among non-human animals is notoriously hard to decipher. I mean, Caribbean reef squid communicate with flashes and movements in ways that seem just as complex and nuanced as human speech, but they haven't yet classified it as "language" because it's so poorly understood by us that we can't tell if it has syntax. So what are they talking about? Does any of it qualify as "religion"? We have no idea.

 

[PearlSeeker]

There is real history in the Bible if we listen to the right historians. There are the historians who attack the history in the Bible however and claim to be right.
It is not as if there is only one pov amongst historians.

For example: what historian would accept the flood story as historically proven?

 

[Valjean]

For example: what historian would accept the flood story as historically proven?

For that matter, who would not be laughed out of the room if they reported any of the Biblical-style miracles today?

If today's newspaper reported water-to-wine, raising the dead, hailstorms wiping out armies (but only one side ), pillars of salt, walking on water or casting demons into pigs; readers would be skeptical, and demand corroboration.

Even sworn, first person testimony, in court, of such events would be disbelieved. Yet stories retold a hundred thousand times, invented witnesses, over millennia, by unknown raconteurs, often with religious agendas, are accepted without question.

Clear historical or scientific inaccuracies, editing, borrowing from other traditions, contradictory accounts, and invented authorship are simply ignored or swept under the rug.

It seems like some people are using two, radically different and incompatible data sets and systems of information processing, with no apparent cognitive dissonance.
How they achieve such schizophrenic, alternative processing, without noticing any discrepancy, is beyond me.

 

[rational experiences]

If science were correct it wouldn't own any threat or used threat by humans in human behaviour. Especially hidden threats by word terms sentences in word use.

Which isn't topic. Which proves the types of words used in their sentences have an underlying conscious threat purpose. Like poison or under pants.

Not relative to a real conversation.

As the actuality of it would be precise. No threat would even exist as they'd be just correct only.

Hence no machine would or could be involved to argue humans reason. As no machine is part of the billions of diverse natural bodies.

It would be man as a theist only. His claim I know it all I'm human. And we'd all supposedly have to believe. Just about his behaviour. Nothing like father's.

So you'd ask them. You tell a story by thinking. Just a human and all once a human baby. Why do you say you own the exact answer for any one of Multi billions of diverse bodies being present existing?

As not any of them in science are the same.

Then he starts his con for reasons of his self a man. With men involving his human lifestyle only.

Is the men group who destroy all life on earth as human liars.

So as he said his idol is himself a man. He said his self sacrificing man brother is his idea of his correctness.

Yet the term my brother is any man to any man in human life. Consciousness.

Overlooked by man the self idolator.

Therefore if I owned and used what evil you're in control of. And directed it at your life. You'd learn you are wrong. Science machine man.

Yet you don't learn as you claim self human sacrificed owned all of anything about God in human science.

Lifestyle only. Liars.

 

[WonderingWorrier]

Biblical prophecies and claims of miracles are among the things that make me believe that no transcendent intelligence authored scripture. I only mentioned revelation and miracles as examples of actions that define an interventionalist god.

I also have a way of ruling out some prophets/Gods. How can you rule out some Gods?

We can rule out some gods, but not all. Neither the deist god nor any other non-interventionalist god can be ruled out, intervention being coming to earth, performing miracles, answering prayer, or leaving revelation - doing something empirically discernible.

But what if people don't know what signs/miracles/prophecies are?

I have an alternative understanding of the words and I can show many examples of how they work.

Like have you heard about the prophecy about someday the animals will be at peace with each other. The wolf will be with the lamb, and the lion will eat straw with the ox, serpent eats the dust, etc

Some consider it is a prophecy about a miracle. They think it is magic.




So here is an example of my point of view. I will show you the wolf has always been with the lamb:

"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them". Isaiah.

"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord". Isaiah.


All of these words are true. According to their twelve positions.

The wolf is with the lamb because they are both Easterly gates in the city of 12 gates.




Joseph is sheep:

"Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth". Psalm.


Benjamin is wolf:

"Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil". Genesis.



Benjamin and Joseph are together in the East:

"And at the east side four thousand and five hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan". Ezekiel.


Hence it is true what was said. The wolf is with the lamb, as Benjamin is with Joseph.
I could also show the positioning of the other animals in the prophecy to their certain gates.

The speech is symbolic and each symbol (word) has a certain position.

Is that difficult to understand?

 

[RestlessSoul]

How would one whittle them down, without critical analysis of evidence? If actual evidence is critically analysed, how can anyone conclude that the scriptures are anything but folklore?
Haven't those scholars who have done this concluded that the book is mostly mythology?

So the questions we should be asking are, what do we mean by folklore, what is the essence of myth, and since all cultures without exception hold to them, what universal truths might be illuminated therein?

 

[loverofhumanity]

You know, I recall Stephen Jay Gould's argument that religion and science are "non-overlapping magisteria (NOMA)," and therefore there is no profitable way to to argue one against the other. And I think this is true: science works from observation, hypothesis, experiment, test, review and revise. Nothing in science can be considered "dogmatically true," because any evidence that may possibly come along can refute it -- and this is expected.

Religion, on the other hand, depends upon observation and hypothesis -- but the similarity ends there. Stories are invented to explain the observations. The wind blows, I can't see a fan, therefore, there must be a god that causes the wind to blow. It is written, therefore it is true and infallible. That kind of thing.

I think something similar can happen in debates between theists and atheists, but it is a bit different -- but immensely important.

Please note: I am not talking about ordinary folks, religious or not, who don't care to debate, don't fuss about their peculiar dogma. Nothing I say here will change how they get on with their lives, and that's good. Instead, I'm talking about those theologians and philosophers, skeptics and purists who really focus on these issues -- as if they were somehow important.

And to those (among whom I include myself), I say this:

The theist basically tells the atheist, "you are giving up the most important part of your life -- the eternity of joy that comes after it ends," while the atheist tells the theist, "you have wasted the only life you will ever have fussing about a myth."

In which way are theists ‘wasting their life’? The theists I know are highly educated, have good jobs and stable family lives with good homes and are law abiding citizens. They go on holidays, have picnics, watch movies and have all sorts of hobbies like gardening and cooking. That they work for peace and help others enriches their lives adding meaning, purpose and fulfilment. And they are happy and contented. Am I missing something here?

Or perhaps it’s that we don’t binge drink or go to casinos and night clubs that we are wasting our lives? I don’t see anything wrong with mindfulness or meditation or reflection as it sharpens my mind and living a virtuous, honest and truthful life means others trust me and helps form deeper friendships. As to prayer it helps inspire me to be a better person and that enriches my daily life.

If you are referring to asceticism or fanaticism then I agree that it is harmful as we Baha’is are told to enjoy life to the fullest ‘to walk the spiritual path with practical feet’ and ‘moderation in all things’.