CG Didymus
Veteran Member
I've heard that said about Daniel. I don't know about Islam, but Christianity and the Baha'i Faith love Daniel's prophecies.
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Can we change our mind about what we believe?
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joelr
Well-Known Member
Yes Daniel does that. Richard Carrier has a blog article about Daniel being a forgery and covers everything. Also a 2 part written debate with Johnathan Sheffield, who is an apologist but very high level and has deep historical knowledge.
The best scholarship on this is Ehrman - Forgery and Counterforgery, the first comprehensive study of early Christian pseudepigrapha ever produced in English.
How We Know Daniel Is a Forgery • Richard Carrier Blogs
Even the historicity of Daniel the man is dubious. Unlike other prophets, he has no patronymic, profession, or place of origin, and he first appears in historical records when “Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians” lists him with the legendary...
www.richardcarrier.info
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
You don't address my point, you just repeat your innuendos.
You accuse believers of being biased, but fail to see that your viewpoint is even more biased than theirs!
You keep harping on about evidence, while failing to see that your "evidence" is based on
people's ignorantly worshiping gods.
How do YOU know what "the original idea" was? All you can fathom from your "historical evidence"
is that people's idea of gods evolved overtime.
Congratulations!
Well, you might be really "smart", but I learned a LOT of things I didn't know before,
when I became a Muslim!
Ha! The world never changes .. I see plenty of evil going on in the modern world.
Religion is not the main cause .. it is love of wealth & power.
joelr
Well-Known Member
You were talking about the concept of god rather than just the name, you said this was the issue???.
So I responded to the concept? Where is your response?
My view is based on evidence and maybe some philosophy. Believers are based on a story, folk tales, myth. Funny you didn't explain why I'm more bias? Explain.
Yes that is ONE line of evidence. People worshipped that they claim are REVELATIONS from your god.
Yet, the god, the stories and everything else is the same old mythology?
Yes the OT are worshipping old gods. So is the Quran? So why don't you respond to what I said in the last post?
None of this is relevant to what I said?
And, YOU DO NOT KNOW THE OT VERSION OF YAHWEH IS "IGNORANT"...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You are making that up, an assumption. The Torah is not "corrupted" as far as Yahweh is concerned. Show me proof. You cannot just say "oh, the OT god doesn't match my Quran god so they were corrupt and ignorant!"
Not an argument. The OT is considered sacred and accurate descriptions of Yahweh, the god of Israel and in the NT the supreme god of everything. Until you can show evidence it's corrupt, and the people were ignorant you do not have any point.
Guess what, the Jewish people can simply say, your book is ignorant. Who cares even if it was an original source? It's still writen by a person who made stuff up which is just as corrupt as the OT.
The Quran can be just as corrupt as the OT if it IS the intended words and actions of Yahweh and corrupt if it isn't what was intended. It doesn't matter. If you can call Judaism corrupt and ignorant, they can call you the same. They can say Muhammad was not speaking to their God (they DO say this anyway) and it's made up using Persian, Arab and Biblical source material.
Jewish people, orthadox, say the words are orally transmitted from the first generation and all that.
The best you can do is put down another religion in order to boost up yours. Not a good sign.
Because it was written down and told orally. It's still told orally by tradition today in orthadox Jewish groups in Israel.
And the Dead Sea Scrolls show the OT was pretty accurate.
On top of all that, you have NO evidence the religion was any different and that what is in the Bible isn't the exact words intended by Moses and the leaders. But even if it's not and it matched the Quran, so what? That gets you nowhere because the Quran thinks Moses and Noah were real, Yahweh was real and we see that the Quran was a work in progress and matches the beliefs of Arab religions of th etime mixed with Persian ideas.
They did? So what exactly are you trying to say here?All you can fathom from your "historical evidence"
is that people's idea of gods evolved overtime.
Congratulations!
It isn't a coincidence the original OT stories are Mesopotamian, then we see Persian myths then Greek, right when each nation invaded and spread their ideas around for a century of two? Then after Aquinas we get new ideas (Platos ideas).
Yes, because god is made up and theologians borrowed more and more over time to come to the best description of God.
AND, no revelations, including the Quran, contains one single piece of information people didn't already know about ethics, morals, the universe, science, math, nothing.
Made up.
Ok. All religions pull together wisdom and ethics and if you haven't encountered them before you can learn them from the Quran. Or from Hinduism or any religion. If you join Scientology you will learn a lot about psychology. This doesn't make the supernatural stuff real.
And nothing in the religions is anything new.
That has nothing to do with religion being real. Although, there is plenty of evil, people still love wealth and power and 2/3 of all people are religious?
The Russian Orthadox church has blessed Putin and the troops as now fighting a Holy War!!!!!
I responded to the concept of god rather than just the name because you had some issue with the name? Yet I see no mention. Why did you complain I was focused on the name and so I went into the concept and you say nothing?
WHAT HAVE YOU READ FROM THE GREATEST ISLAMIC THEOLOGIAN PHILOSOPHER Al-Ghazâlî?
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muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
..but coming from a disbeliever, that is meaningless.
..but you have already told us that people were worshiping many gods, and that meanings have
changed/evolved over time.
..so how is it, that you can tell us that they are "accurate descriptions" .. what do you mean by that?
I never said that Judaism was corrupt or ignorant .. I said that the people of old were ignorant..
..they were illiterate.
No .. because these "stories" are very old, and did NOT originate with Moses.
One cannot say with certainty, in what region they came from.
As the Qur'an states, those that are Christians and Jews will recognise this scripture as they
recognise their own sons!
I was raised as a Christian, and found out about Islam in my 20's.
I had a good educational background, including in Christian theology.
I discovered hadith, of which there are 10's of thousands .. unlike Christianity which has very little
in that department.
I suppose you know all these hadiths.
You missed my point .. you keep going on about Yahweh evolving from being one thing to another etc.
I just pointed out that "names" are not the issue.
People could worship "Yahweh" in times of old, but meaning something completely different.
The idea that this name is sacred, and always has been, is only in your mind.
It's just a word .. and words evolve to mean different things.
I don't have a great interest in fiqh .. jurisprudence.
..but that doesn't mean I don't respect the well-known Imams.
joelr
Well-Known Member
It isn't. The Torah is not corrupted regarding the mythology it wanted to tell. Yahweh is the God people wrote him as. Theu were modeling him after older gods because the stuff about revelations is not true. Every of the 10,000 religions said they had the real god and they were getting the real revelations. They were all telling embellishments to convince their followers. Looks like all religions do this...but coming from a disbeliever, that is meaningless.
It means in that time people were used to other religions having more than one god. People were used to gods being part of a pantheon.
So when Yahweh was claimed to be the god of Israel, the religious leaders wrote stories about him from a reference point they understood.
A warrior god who lived in the Temple while on earth, who looked like a human, fought sea monsters, walked with humans.
This was common for gods and the thing about revelations is made up. So they had no actual god to tell them what was not true.
This is clear evidence. Their Satan was an agent of Yahweh.
Later when they lived with the Persians, all of a sudden we see the Persian ideas - Satan/God in a endless struggle, a final war where god defeats satan, all followers get a bodily resurrection and live on earth in paradise.
Then, suddenly after the GReeks occupy, we now have souls that are from heaven and go back to heaven, personal salvation, and all the Greek theology.
No god told them this, they saw it in Greek religions and Hebrew leaders slowly started saying "we too are getting a savior", God and Satan will fight before the return of the messiah, and so on. Old stories now made new for a different nation.
Each phase were accurate descriptions for the time, it's fiction, there is no "accurate description". Not even the modern Platonic stuff that Aquinas, Al-Hazeli and others added to.
People just came up with ways to make god fit in with new ideas and philosophy.
In the OT and NT they believed in the 7 heavens. Yahweh lived in heaven, alone. Once astronomy began and astronomers could see space, see no 7 heavens, (3rd heaven is where the celestial copies of earth and the temple are) they quickly had to start figuring out a new cosmology for god.
"Outside space and time" Plato said "The One" was. Aquinas picked up on this and now God lived beyond space and time.
George Berkely championed Idealism, showed materialism is false in Three Dialogues, as does Ghazeli.
Said the universe was deterministic and life can not come from non-life (sticks and stones).
They did not know quantum mechanics would also show materialism is an illusion, determinism is false, indeterminism is true, but the illusion is from being a macroscopic being with the quantum world below us.
Yes it's an illusion, built from probabilities and particles that do not follow Newtonian laws. Very -wu-wu. But not wu-wu in a "conscious being started it all". The forces of nature are unconscious. Consciousness evolved slowly over billions of years.
Metal cannot do math either. But a metal calculator can. Computers are slowly learning, advancing and may achieve consciousness as well.
It's fiction we make up as we go.
They were not all illiterate. The Bible version of Judaism is a version some elites wanted it to be. The general population was not doing that version, as we see from many temple finds. The Bible version didn't exist until 6 BC.
There were no revelations, the Bible stories were edited to reflect new ideas, like Persian monotheism.
They wrote stories that their version was the norm from the beginning. Archaeology does not show that.
Neither is correct. It's fiction either way.
Early variats also show us this istrue, like the early Deuteronomy where El gives Yahweh his inheritance.
That was changed so El later meant Yahweh. Religions do this type of apologetics.
MOYERS:
But haven't some of the greatest saints borrowed from anywhere they could? They
have taken from this and from that, and constructed a new software.
Joseph CAMPBELL:
That is what is called the development of a religion. You can see it in the Bible. In
the beginning, God was simply the most powerful god among many. He is just a local tribal god. And
then in the sixth century, when the Jews were in Babylon, the notion of a world savior came in, and the
biblical divinity moved into a new dimension
You can keep an old tradition going only by renewing it in terms of current circumstances. In the
period of the Old Testament, the world was a little three-layer cake, consisting of a few hundred miles
around the Near Eastern centers. No one had ever heard of the Aztecs, or even of the Chinese. When the
world changes, then the religion has to be transformed.
We have the Akkadian version, Babylonian versions and others as well. They probably got them from older Sumarian religions.
An African religion is similar:
CAMPBELL: Now, this is from a legend of the Bassari people of West Africa: "Unumbotte made a human being. Its name was Man. Unumbotte next made an antelope, named Antelope. Unumbotte made a snake, named Snake. . . And Unumbotte said to them, 'The earth has not yet been pounded. You must pound the ground smooth where you are sitting.' Unumbotte gave them seeds of all kinds, and said: 'Go plant these.' "
MOYERS: Genesis 2: "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work which he had done. . .”
CAMPBELL: And now again from the Pima Indians: "I make the world and lo, the world is finished. Thus I make the world, and lo! The world is finished."
MOYERS: And Genesis 1: "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
”
CAMPBELL: And from the Upanishads: "Then he realized, I indeed, I am this creation, for I have poured it forth from myself. In that way he became this creation. Verily, he who knows this becomes in this creation a creator."
That is the clincher there. When you know this, then you have identified with the creative principle, which is the God power in the world, which means in you. It is beautiful.
MOYERS: But Genesis continues: " 'Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?' The man said, 'The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.' Then the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this that you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.' "
You talk about buck passing, it starts very early.
CAMPBELL: Yes, it has been tough on serpents. The Bassari legend continues in the same way. "One day Snake said, 'We too should eat these fruits. Why must we go hungry?' Antelope said, 'But we don't know anything about this fruit.' Then Man and his wife took some of the fruit and ate it. Unumbotte came down from the sky and asked, 'Who ate the fruit?' They answered, 'We did.' Unumbotte asked, 'Who told you that you could eat that fruit?' They replied,
'Snake did.' " It is very much the same story.
MOYERS: What do you make of it -- that in these two stories the principal actors point to someone else as the initiator of the Fall?”
CAMPBELL: Yes, but it turns out to be the snake. In both of these stories the snake is the symbol of life throwing off the past and continuing to live.
Who cares?
I don't buy into that line of thinking and as you say, text gets corrupt. The theology in the Quran is enough.I suppose you know all these hadiths.
Some Muslims believe that Islamic guidance should be based on the Quran only, thus rejecting the authority of hadith; some further claim that most hadiths are fabrications (pseudepigrapha)[18] created in the 8th and 9th centuries AD, and which are falsely attributed to Muhammad.[18][19][20] Historically, some sects of the Kharijites also rejected the hadiths, while Mu'tazilites rejected the hadiths as the basis for Islamic law, while at the same time accepting the Sunnah and Ijma.[21][22] Muslims who criticise the hadith emphasise that the problems in the Islamic world
There is nothing new in a Hadith? Go ahead, show me a Hadith that solves a math equation impossible at the time, or explains cosmology, physics, anything at all that humans didn't know. Fusion, atoms are waves and particles, the universe is 13 billion years old.
So you didn't answer and you are now back to explaining the thing I already knew?
I don't care about names? Your concept of God is not the same as people in the Iron age.
Because theologians learn theology from other nations and upgrade the ideas. Also modern philosophers played a big role.
What God meant then is different now. So what? It just shows revelations are not happening, people are making it all up as they go.
Ghazali is one of the top Islamic theologians, philosophers, he talks about many concepts like fitra, the natural innate religion in all religions, and is similar to Hume with everything being an emergent property except god, and simple/complex ideas having to do with the mind and direct experience being the best form of what we know to be true.
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
What? That does not describe any accuracy about the OT.
Ditto!
Deviation .. you were referring to the accuracy of the OT.
The vast majority were..
If I want to know about science, and observations of the physical universe, I would
read a science book.
That is your claim..
.. your reams of evidence shows what you want it to show.
I have shown you why I don't think it shows anything about the nature of G-d.
You just "fit your model" into this evidence, and see that it "fits" .. and then ignore anything else.
OK.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Yes it does.
"As one of the many deities in the Late Bronze and early Iron Age Levant, Yahweh was originally a god rooted within a polytheistic world - and remained comfortably so for much of his early career. This was a world in which the gods were imagined as a sprawling heavenly household, broadly reflecting the family bonds and social structures of their human worshippers. In most Levantine societies this pantheon was headed by the aged progenitor of the cosmos, the god El - a name functioning both as a proper noun and the generic Semitic term for "deity".
Beheath him ranked a younger generation of gods, each charged with a particular portfolio in the management of the universe - from storms, seas, sunlight and starlight, fertility, birth, warfare and death. As frontline deities these were the most prominent gods of ancient Levantine societies, and those most ties to the political and territorial identities of their worshippers.
Thanks to a wealth of literature from the 13/14th centuries BCE, recovered from Ugarit, on the Syrian coast, El was known to be the father of the gods, accompanied by his consort, the goddess mother Athirat, they had 70 sons.
The gods met together as a divine council, chaired by El, in his role as highest god to decide matters on divine and mortal. Ugarit's pantheon was typical of Levantine religions in the late second and early first millennium BCE, when early forms of Yahweh worship emerged.
The pantheon was shaped by the human idea that to be a god isolated from any other was to be bereft of the collaboration, status and kinship. In short, it was to be socially impotent - and frankly useless, therefore to mortals.
Against this cultural backdrop, certain theological claims asserting that Yahweh had only ever been a solitaty deity look more than a little implausible. And the Bible itself reveals this god was far from alone.
A fragment of ancient poetry in the book of Deuteronomy not only locates Yahweh in a pantheon, but also reveals exactly who his father was. It describes the separation of humans into distinct groups (peoples or nations), and explains why each group was allocated a particular deity to act as it's special patron. But the deity suprivising the division of labor is not Yahweh, but Eylon - a title of El reflecting his role as "most high" god of the pantheon.
"When Elyon (most high) apportioned the nations
when he divided humankind
.......
For Yahwehs portion was his people,
Jacob )Israel) his allotted share
Other ancient pieces of poetry in the Hebrew Bible tell us something of Yahweh's early career. They too employ mythic motifs that run against the theological preferences of later Biblical writers and editors, suggesting that they reflect older traditions about the earliest history of Yahweh. Far from portraying Yahweh as the supreme king and creator of the cosmos, they present him instead as a minor but ferocious storm deity, at the margins of the inhabited world, in an ancient place variously known as Seir, Paran and Temen."
Francesca Stavrakopoulou Hebrew Bible Professor,
Evidence also shows El may have been the first god worshipped in Israel. El is also in the name Israel and most names of people and places.
Yes they wrote stories about Yahweh from a reference point they understood, older stories and modeled him after older gods. Because he never actually spoke to them, the stories didn't happen, there were no revelations and they had nothing to write down except a new myth, same as the old.
Same with the NT, same with the Quran.
Yes, the books of the OT were somewhat confirmed to be correct when we found the Dead Sea Scrolls and there is also oral tradition.
You also have NO EVIDENCE the stories about Satan were corrupt of somehow wrong and a true correct version exists. No Jewish people know this, but somehow you do?
Sounds like a conspiracy theory. Let me guess, your source is an OT angel came down and told a guy some stuff many centuries later.
Yeah, no.
What is your point with this illiterate thing? The writers were not. Most Arabs were illiterate, the writers were not.
What is the point? The people who created the mythology were educated.w
Yes who cares? It's your point. You tell me why - "I discovered hadith, of which there are 10's of thousands .. unlike Christianity which has very little in that department."
why that matters?
That is a cop out. I go through this with some Bahai and they say the same.
If a GOD is going to speak to a human is he going to give out the exact same ethics, wisdom, science, knowledge, we ALREADY KNOW????
No. A made up god would have to do that because any author would not have access to extra information. A God, who would be the creator of the scientific universe, cosmology, the physical universe and just maybe would want to give some information that distinguishes his work from every made up version, of which there are thousands.
AND, Islamic apologetics AGREES with me. There are many videos, books, Muslim apologists who promote this stuff and say "the science in the Quran PROVES it is divine", or as Muhammad Hajeeb said to Jordan Peterson "what if I can prove to you god wrote this book?!"
Of course Peterson declined because he already knows the silly apologetics that would follow. It's Greek science, not miraculous. But the apologetics media tries to trick people.
But there is no advanced science. A God could easily settle the matter. Atoms in a cherry are like a cherry compared to earth. They behave live waves and particles. Boom, done.
Also , there is science in the Quran. There are observations about the universe, quite a few, they are not correct except for what the eye can see. which is usually wrong.
Cosmology of the Quran
What like I change history? No. I look at what the evidence is. There is no religion, scripture, historian writing about the religion, from the 1000BCE days that looks upon a god as the way it is seen now.
The Bible is an accurate record of how early people thought.
The 2nd Temple Period has accurate books. We found a 2nd copy of Isaiah with the Dead sea scrolls, it was basically the same.
We see the influence of the PErsian beliefs on god.
Then they became common and after the GReek occupation we see this new version of god everywhere.
But no Aquinas yet, at all.
Then after Aquinas and his Platonism this spreads and is added on by others. This is basic historical knowledge.
If you say it's different, show some evidence, FROM THE TIME YOU ARE TAKING ABOUT. Not a re-working centuries later.
History clearly doesn't match what you want to be true and so you have to play these apologetic games.
Even then you still don't even look for evidence. Again, you do not care about what is actually true. Just what you have been led to believe and keeping that as your truth.
I don't even know why you bother to discuss it, you don't do research, look for evidence, look at evidence, you just seem to want people to tell you actual knowledge so you can just go "no, not true". From your armchair.
You have not "shown" me anything. You make claims that are not supported by evidence. You are claiming entire fields of research are plain wrong, still without counter evidence.
Even the modern version of god can be shown to be a compilation of mostly Greek and Persian theology, with a few religious philosophers thrown in and you don't even understand that because you have no interest in evidence.
If you care about "showing" something you need to at least back up your argument with something besides wishful thinking.
What you have shown me is you reject actual facts and reasonable evidence in favor of unclear conspiracy ideas, that don't even have a working theory behind them, never mind evidence?
Except, I don't have a model. I just take the evidence and see what it presents. If it turned out Moses came up with all of this and it never existed before in any way, I would say exactly that. But that isn't what we see.
Please show me where you demonstrated "anything else" to even ignore? You don't have evidence, a theory, knowledge, nothing?
All you do is say stuff often completely made up, like the above where I "ignore" anything else? Please present someone in the fields of historicity, archaeology, anything, that is "anything else"? You have not.
And I have multiple scholars saying basically the same thing about early Israel (any video probably wasn't watched), about the mid period, NT, Quran, to silence. No comeback of substance, no different point beyond some vague made up position where evidence doesn't exist.
Yet, still accuse me of being bias.
Yeah never mind, no need to mention Ghazali.
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
You just keep on asserting that "Yahweh was" .. as if that is meaningful.
Its not .. not in the context of the OT.
In the OT, the name "Yahweh" is used to denote a certain concept of G-d.
You merely ASSUME that it is not correct, and that it is the same 'god' that people of old worshipped.
The only thing that is the same, is that they used the same word!
Well, they are of a similar age .. so why wouldn't they?
Genesis is from 1000's of years before THAT!
It's not .. the Bible and Qur'an are not about technology or science .. they are for our spiritual
welfare .. guidance as how to achieve success in this world and the next.
Technology is not a lasting thing .. it changes from one generation to the next.
Civilisation needs more than material benefit.
I'm not claiming they are wrong .. I'm claiming that many CONCLUSIONS based on them,
could be wrong .. such as G-d being a false myth, due to studying how the word Yahweh
changed in meaning over the years, and assuming that people always used the word "Yahweh"
in the same context.
You do .. one of gods that people have worshipped over time.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Yes, the ancient Near Eastern, Mesopotamian model. Which demonstrates there were no revelations, they just made stories, using older stories about a fictional god of Israel.
And modern people do the same with added concepts, none coming from revelation, all coming from Persia, Greek and philosophy.
NEVER coming from a revelation.
As I stated, and gave some words from a professor of Hebrew Bible, EVERYTHING is the same. The actions, sayings, powers, stories, exact words, EVERYTHING. Yahweh also met with a divine council as all gods did. Examples are in the same book.
What about this do you not get?
The Jewish orthadox say Genesis is correct. They transmitted it through oral tradition.
There was no other understanding of god back then. Because gods are not real, they are fiction created by people. And we see this in the evolution of Yahweh.
Wwhat you suggest, that Yahweh was somehow WAY different, has not a shred of evidence. Josephus would have written about this new god, Pliny, there would be evidence in the temples in every ancient city in Israel. Yet, we find the same ideas everywhere from that period. A storm deity with a wife, Ashera. A god who walked into the temple when on earth, as the giant footprints show in one of the temples.
The artifacts also represent this. Yet, you can't seem to fathom it for some bizarre reason?
It's like finding out about Zeus who lived on a mountain and someone says "no that isn't how they thought of Zeus, on the mountain with thunderbolts". And you asked "how do you know", and the answer was "well I worship this new god and I think Zeus was also this god and this god didn't throw thunderbolts and live on a mountain.....so...."
That is the historical, archaeological, scriptural, oral tradition confirmed Yahweh. When you have evidence of something different let me and the history world know.
Sorry, we don't need supernatural nonsense that denies freedom of religion, threatens hell, subjugates women, says horrible doom too much, when we already had Greek philosophy, without Gods that explained non-judgment, compassion, the golden rule, democracy, how to use reason to form ethics and everything else the church took credit for and added supernatural wu wu and herecy.
Contrary to the widely held belief that Christianity is the sole beacon of morality in our historical narrative, evidence from the meticulous scholarship of Dr. Richard Carrier vividly illustrates a different picture. Long before the advent of Christianity, paganism was not a moral wilderness; rather, it was rich with ethical principles and a profound sense of community and humanity. These ancient civilizations, often painted as morally bereft in contrast to Christian teachings, actually demonstrated advanced moral concepts in their laws, philosophies, and daily practices. From the Stoics of ancient Greece, who espoused virtues of self-control and equality, to the elaborate legal systems of the Roman Empire that emphasized justice and responsibility, these societies were guided by a deep-seated understanding of ethics and morality. This historical journey challenges the narrative that Christianity was the singular source of moral values, revealing a more complex and intertwined evolution of ethics that transcends religious boundaries.
Dr Carrier gives many examples of lectures and speeches and works by Greek philosophers that account for a democratic, ethical society.
The Greeks had democracy, morality, ethics, through reason, not revelation.
The historical data shows Yahweh was made up and his attributes were slowly added onto, as they encountered societies with more advanced ideas about god.
That isn't the sole reason Yahweh is a myth? The stories are also reworked yet claim to be real and given by god. That is not true.
There is also no evidence for any theism. All gods and secular people have the exact same rate of healing/disease/suffering. There is no evidence of any of the supernatural stories in any religion are real. No current evidence of any supernatural being or realm. Nothing.
The scripture supposedly given by gods are mundane, stuff we already knew, zero on new information, no deities show up, ever. Yahweh is as mythical as Zeus. There is no reason to hold belief in fictional beings.
The historical data just ALSO supports the idea that it's all made up by people.
They didn't. He was a storm deity, a warrior at first. The Persians had the supreme, uncreated god. That is when Yahweh went from god of Israel to supreme. Then he transformed into Hellenistic models, he lives in heaven with the souls of followers (that was new), then Aquinas added Platonic stuff, it changed over time. Some Islamic theologians also added Greek ideas.
Even today everyone has a different idea of what god is.
No, I follow evidence. The god of Israel was just the god of Israel for a time. Like it or not.
Over many centuries he became the supreme and then when Platonic ideals were added, tri-omni, the ultimate truth, non-divisible, the ground of being, foundation of morality.
That was taken from Plato, who had a concept called the One. It was not a being.
Aquinas used it and added it to the Christian god.
It's a concept that may or may not be true and adding a personhood to it. NOt something supported by any evidence.
Theism looks like stories that never happened. You know the stories of Inanna, Krishna, and other gods didn't happen. All the stories are in the same boat.
Even if there is something like that in reality, it doesn't give messages to people, send angels (don't exist) or worry about which religion people choose or who and when we have sex with.
All of the morals religion has taken credit for were already in Greek thought. Carrier goes into detail about that and who. I know you don't do evidence but it's there.
So that leaves nothing but a way to control people. That is exactly what Plato said you have to do to control a society in the Republic, create a god myth and anyone who doesn't believe you call them heretic and exile them.
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Rubbish!
You have already stated that Yahweh used to have a wife .. is that part of the OT?
That's impossible .. you might think that the evidence SUGGESTS that..
..but I've already explained why that is a product of biased minds.
People who are spiritually blind cannot see, quite clearly..
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
..but you cannot see what happens to us all after death .. you can only assume..
Exactly .. people were not worshipping the same god .. only the name was the same.
..or people started to worship a completely different concept of G-d .. only the name is the same.
I'm happy be "controlled" .. it's all about self-discipline really .. we can take it seriously..
..or not so much.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Again, there are many many comparisons to the first 5 books and older gods. The descriptions of their bodies, sayings, being pleased by the aroma of sacrifice and foreskin, fighting a sea monster, walking with the followers, descriptions of the enemy as its "footstool" and many many more.
Yahweh is a typical Near Eastern warrior deity.
As gods did, they all had a consort. The Bible was written and revised by elites around 600 BCE. The writers erased any mentions of Ashera (except for the Ashera pole) because this was after encountering Persian beliefs and seeing they worshipped one god. All the invasions had caused the Hebrew people to wonder why Yahweh was sleeping (this is in scripture) and the high Rabbis came up with the fact that they were not focused enough on just Yahweh. They said Yahweh only focus would revive him.
It didn't because the Persians remained, then Greeks, then Romans and later Islam.
The Ashera beliefs were the folk religion shared by all of the people. I would give references but that is a waste of time.
How you are getting it, denial will be normal.
The evidence is clear. The modern concepts didn't even exist, no one anywhere wrote about that.
Yahweh gave advice of how to hang foreskin* and wrestles with Jacob, fights monsters and is a Near Eastern deity.
Persia was first with monotheism, freewill to choose to sin, God vs devil, and Greeks were the origin of souls go to heaven. All were added to Yahweh by Jewish thinkers.
Aquinas added Platonic concepts. You may not like these facts but they are standard history.
If you want to deny history like flat earthers and 911 conspiracy people go ahead. I'm not interested. Show me evidence, not your personal incredulity.
Ancient Israelite & Judean Religion
As early as the 10th century BCE, Israelite and Judean religion began to emerge within the broader West Semitic culture, otherwise known as Canaanite culture. Between the 10th century and 7th centuries...
As early as the 10th century BCE, Israelite and Judean religion began to emerge within the broader West Semitic culture, otherwise known as Canaanite culture. Between the 10th century and 7th centuries BCE, ancient Israelite and Judean religion was polytheistic. The polytheism, though, was counterbalanced by devotion to one or two primary deities, a practice known as henotheism (van der Toorn, 2047). Henotheism is recognition and worship of many deities; however, the primary worship revolves around a single deity. Within Judean and Israelite communities, primary devotion was oftentimes towards Yahweh. As both Judah and Israel were emerging states, Yahweh was the national deity, an idea which finds its origins in religious practices from the Bronze Age.
Between the 10th and 7th centuries BCE, ancient Israelite and Judean religion took place in cultic and temple contexts. Although the many Jewish and Christians traditions suggest that Yahweh was the main and only deity through all Israelite and Judean religious history, archaeology, inscriptions, and the Hebrew Bible itself indicate otherwise. Even so, the deity being worshiped, usually Yahweh, was understood to be physically present in the temple, have a body, and be a personal god with emotions and willpower.
And as the previous inscriptions demonstrate, worship of deities other than Yahweh seems to have been a regular part of life for people. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, it suggests that Yahweh has always been the deity that people should worship. Based on these inscriptions, Psalms, Kings, Deuteronomy, and other unmentioned evidence, though, we know this is not the case; rather, henotheism was likely the norm for ancient Israelites and Judeans.
One scholar suggests that "whatever the biblical authors may have tried to convey, may not have been… the primary form of belief or religious exercise" (Gilmour, 100). In other words, the Hebrew Bible does not accurately represent how people actually practiced religion in the ancient world. He claims this because the Hebrew Bible itself was likely edited and compiled between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE. So, although the Hebrew Bible preserves traditions going back as far as the 11th century BCE, the theological and cultural positions between the 7th and 3rd centuries BCE were likely read into the past and, among these, was monotheism.
Yahweh
Yahweh is the name of the state god of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and, later, the Kingdom of Judah. His name is composed of four Hebrew consonants (YHWH, known as the Tetragrammaton) which the prophet...
Although the biblical narratives depict Yahweh as the sole creator god, lord of the universe, and god of the Israelites especially, initially he seems to have been Canaanite in origin and subordinate to the supreme god El. Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy stipulates that “the Most High, El, gave to the nations their inheritance” and that “Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob and his allotted heritage” (32:8-9). A passage like this reflects the early beliefs of the Canaanites and Israelites in polytheism or, more accurately, henotheism (the belief in many gods with a focus on a single supreme deity). The claim that Israel always only acknowledged one god is a later belief cast back on the early days of Israel's development in Canaan.
If you bother to study you will see, early GOD was a national deity. Then added Persian and Greek characters, more supreme.
then -
-over time thinkers added definitions of god
-Botheius and Agustine followed Neo-Platonists to argue god was transcendent
-Anslem of canterberry argued god is "that which nothing greater can be conceived"
-Aquinas, god is unmoved mover, ultimate cause
-Descartes, god is supreme perfection
-Spinoza, god is singular substance, synonymous with nature"
God was developed over time, regardless of how uncomfortable it makes you feel.
Really because billions of Christians can "see clearly" that you are a heretic. Millions of Mormons and JW see the same.
Billions of Hindu see you are brainwashed and misled.
Spiritualists who dabble in Eastern thought also would say the same.
When everyone can use the same evidence it's worthless and likely everyone is being fooled by bad evidence.
Now, please define "spirituality" because religious people generally mean "people who believe the scripture I believe is true".
That isn't spiritual.
You look at the universe and say "it's proof of my version of god". Every other religion does the same. Which means it's a fallacy.
By what method do you rule out any other beliefs and show your are the real version.
Scholars looked at it and found :
"lslam has it’s own mythology that looks to be a product of it’s time in Arabia, has a lot of the same poetic patterns, scholars have unpacked that. In the Christian West we are allowed to do critical-history on Christianity but Islam is hard to study because it’s still taboo. In the Islamic world that type of study is modulated quite a bit.
As you would expect it has congruence with what was prior. Zoroastrianism was a big influence and a predecessor. We see the trajectory of Persian and Arabic religion coming into that time period and producing the Quran."
Just calling people who don't buy into your group "spiritually blind" isn't saying anything of merit. Every group can claim that, it's meaningless.
* When Abraham circumcised those born in his house, he set up a hillock of foreskins; the sun shone upon them and they putrefied, and their odour ascended to the Lord like sweet incense. God then said "When my children lapse into sinful ways, I will remember that odour in their favor and be filled with compassion for them."
Genesis Rabbah 47.7
God ; An Anatomy, Professor Stavrakopoulou
Would you assume you are going to any Greek, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, African or other underworld? No. Your story is equally as likely to be a myth. So there is no need to assume we are going to heaven, Mt Doom, or any other fictional realm.
Nope, that is still the god of Israel. Who spoke to Moses, Abraham, your book believes in them and that god. That is what they thought he was. Clear evidence this stuff is made up according to the mythology of the day because angels and gods are not real.
Yes, they added ideas from Persia, Greek and theologians who used more Greek thought as well as some philosophers.
There was never a "version" of god, it's a made up construct. And why there are hundreds of religions under one god alone.
It's not a real thing.
Don't need myths about gods for self control. I take it very serious and I take truth very serious. I bother to study the work of people who study the material at an expert level, historians, archaeologists, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, mysticism, philosophy
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muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
..and this is your BELIEF .. you are certain that you have the truth .. no different from me
The thing is, you can read as many history books as you like .. you won't find a picture of G-d in them!
Those pictures of an old man with a beard are mere idols.
Forget Yahweh .. forget Allah .. forget all these names of various origin and language.
It is THE CONCEPT .. One Creator .. what ever you wish to call G-d by.
..but you love to go on about what mankind got up to in the past, as if it can prove that
there is none responsible for our existence. IT CAN'T!
That's right..
Naturally .. and plenty of people today also turn away..
You will continue to ramble, whatever I say.
Is there One responsible for our existence?
Right .. you don't know .. but it's not "Yahweh", according to you.
Some people have never even heard of Him .. They have only heard of God.
You say that, because it suits you .. it conforms to your model of gods.
Nor do I .. I don't believe in gods either.
The ultimate "expert" is the One responsible for our existence.
joelr
Well-Known Member
No, WAY different than you. I never assume I have the truth. I first need good evidence to even consider it...and this is your BELIEF .. you are certain that you have the truth .. no different from me
We have direct evidence of radical change to Judaism right when they met the Persians and the changes were exactly what the Persians already believed. The Persians were also well liked and the theology was very popular.
There are no angels, no men claiming revelations, no supernatural beliefs despite no supernatural anything ever being shown to be true.
Religious scripture has been shown to be made up, many times, the Quran shows signs of being the product of it's time, being worked on for a long period of time, showing no information humans didn't already have. Every shred of evidence points to what I say as the most likely truth.
The Quran being true is as likely as Krishna's or Inanna's scripture being divine.
You can read as much scripture as you like, its words created by man, following wisdom, poetic patterns similar to the time, local religions and will find no information beyond the average wisdom and science of that time.
The first people who claimed to speak often to the same God knew NOTHING about any such God, yet Plato has some similar ideas about a non-conscious source, later added to Yahweh. So the concept did not exist until Aquinas and other theologians made it up by combining ideas.
If God spoke to people it would have been known right away.
Evolution is responsible for our existence, not myths. The laws of nature are responsible. Theism is the biggest fail in human history.
No scripture can prove the base of reality is a conscious being, the concept is absurd. One being? Alone? If it's perfect it would not need to change, create, expand. It certainly wouldn't yell at life on one planet about "horrible doom" like it's a mad king in a throne in the sky.
Yup and they thought god meant a warrior deity, who only ruled Israel and was under EL and married to Ashera. Not because of revelations but because it was a myth using what we thought god meant at the time.
Just like now you use the Greek/Aquinas model. That also might change as new theology happens.
People trurn away from Mormonism, Christianity, Scientology as well. Because it's a myth.
It was Yahweh. The Israelites believed Yahweh was responsible. He was also under El, he was also a warrior deity. Even when it changed and Yahweh was one god alone around 6 BCE. So what? Then with Aquinas he became tri-omni and beyond spacetime. Plato's idea.You will continue to ramble, whatever I say.
Is there One responsible for our existence?
Right .. you don't know .. but it's not "Yahweh", according to you.
Some people have never even heard of Him .. They have only heard of God.
Still fiction. The fiction is what changed.
Why did the early people think he was under EL, married to Ashera, wrestled with Jacob? Because it's a myth. Just because Aquinas combined Greek philosophy and upgraded Yahweh and that version is where you found out does not chajge the fact that it is fiction, theism is not real and its a patchwork of ideas. The ideas do not even work.
The cosmological arguments fail. All of them.
Calling it "God" doesn't make it real. That is an argument for a general deism, not theism.
No, I say it because we can see exactly what the Hebrew people thought their god was. It's in the Pentateuch, oral tradition, all apocraphia, historians like Josephus, and every other old religion.
We see when the concepts changed. It isn't "my model" its the evidence.
What you don't do is look at evidence and say "oops, that cannot be true because it doesn't fit what I want to be real". That is when you are using confirmation bias to force reality to support your beliefs.
You can do that, I do not care. I am interested in what is actually true.
You believe in a God, which doesn't come from Judaism. That was picked up and it's henotheism. If you have angels, divine beings, you have henotheism.
Doesn't matter, monotheism fails, the cosmological arguments fail, the idea that reality just stops at a fully functioning being, who just happens to be "perfect" but still creates things, has rules that are suspiciously like a middle ages King rather than a cosmic being, knows nothing about the actual universe around us......
The idea that all scripture is written by people as a collaboration of human minds makes 100% sense, the Quran even TRIES to be scientific and somehow only uses Greek discoveries, exactly to the point they left off, including the mistakes????????
There is no evidence a deity created us?The ultimate "expert" is the One responsible for our existence.
There is evidence natural laws created us. The basic building blocks of life are found fully formed in space on rocks. Fatty acids, carbohydrates, amino acids, nucleotides.
The God of reality gets angry if a hominid species on a of trillions of planets don't worship his religion, which looks weirdly like all the made-up religions, including lies of miracles (the moon did not split), bad science, no science, and thinks the OT is a true book? It's a book of mythology.
Moses and Noah are made up characters. This is standard beliefs in historical studies for a reason. Many reasons.
These are ancient humans attempt at creating what they thought a deity would be like. Doesn't make them correct.
The vast majority of religious people are in their religion because of their location. You don't think a God would have cleared that up decisively and said a few true things like, energy and mass are the same, it takes light 8 min to get to the sun which the earth rotates around. Particles are waves when you don't measure them. Germs make you sick and are really small. An atom is like a blueberry compared to earth.
In the Bible pi is 313 (or whatever), here are 1 million digits. And so on.
The universe is 13 billion years old. Started with a big bang, beyond that is..........
Astrology is bunk.
But no, they are all equally vague and only have knowledge up to the time written. Islam thinks they are super sophisticated with theology, Christianity thinks they are the masters of theology, Jewish orthadox says they are the only true words from God and have a million reasons why they are correct.
Yeah, that isn't just a bunch of man-made myths taken to the extreme.
Give me one good reason why theism makes any sense?
And heaven, souls, not in the OT? Why does Hellenism come first with this? Then the NT follows.
Then Islam says "Christianity is corrupted by pagans", meaning Greek thought. Yes it was copying Greek religions. But souls that belong in heaven, return immediately to the souls "home" in heaven, is also pagan, not OT,.
Pick and choose.
Now we get another religion claiming the "messenger" model, Bahai, and 8 million people have bought into it. Since you don't believe that religion, see how easy it is to get people to buy into supernatural beliefs. It's like evidence doesn't matter because people want it to be true.
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Urr ..no. You assume that I just believe without evidence, because you do not understand the
evidence .. either that, or you reject it.
..whereas I understand the evidence you refer to, but see that it is flawed. You cannot assume that G-d does not exist due to historical accounts of the behavior by the people of old.
You just like to think you can.
..and where do they come from?
G-d is not a person .. He is of infinite nature, and all creatures would not exist without
G-d. No souls .. no personality .. nothing!
No .. it's your model.
My conclusions for the same evidence, are different from yours.
You see it as people worshipping some fictional deity from beginning to end,
whereas I see it as the majority being ignorant.
You see it as people worshipping the same fictional deity, and just changing their beliefs as they go along due to external factors.
I see these external factors in a different light. I see that some were based on a very similar concept
as we believe today, where as others were more polytheistic.
..so you assume..
No .. the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Then you would listen to others, as well as preaching your "historical mumbo-jumbo".
I am not saying that all the historical events are false .. but conclusions about the existence
of G-d most CERTAINLY are!
Hey presto, and the laws came from nowhere .. no ryhme, no reason
That might be true .. but it's up to us individually to change that .. ignorance is no defense
in the eyes of the law .. nor in the eyes of "the Lord"
No I don't .. because that stuff is trifling compared to spiritual knowledge.
..but you don't think so, because you assume that this life is all there is.
joelr
Well-Known Member
First one needs good evidence. "A book says so" is not good evidence. If you reject the same claim from all others of revelations, with witnesses, yet think your case is special you have to demonstrate why it's special and show evidence.
I listened to another Islamic scholar whos life work is study of the Quran and it's historical context. Yet again, I see nothing different than any other religion?
:15:10
We think that religions and cultures influence each other and Islam is just like these other traditions that it carries baggage, influence from these other Christian and Jewish traditions
15:19
Historians look at these things differently, Muhammad was a merchant, he was in touch with Christians in the north and south, he was in touch with the Christians in Ethiopia, the Jews in Medina, ….Islam was born in context of late antiquity, as an early civilization it’s almost a sponge that absorbed different traditions from Christianity, Judaism, Persia, Manikeans, you name it. It’s not a culture that was born out of nothing. Of course what was happening in other churches and on commercial trade routes were important to its development, its not a vacuum.
The Quran | Origins and Canonization With Dr. Shady Nasser
Strawman. I never said god does not exist because people worshipped a classical god, did I?
I said the god from the Bible and Quran, who is supposed to be the real actual God, when we look at what he told the Israelites we see only copied stories from myths. We see similar descriptions, actions, sayings, behaviors, motivations, all taken from typical Near Eastern deities.
The Jewish people who study this the most claim the OT is definitely an accurate transmission of Jewish beliefs. Their religion was not "flawed"?
A Bahai can EASILY just say Muhammad was really saying the same thing as Bahai, but the transmissions were "flawed". Any new religion can make that claim about Islam and say actually Muhammad matches their new religion, the true version.
If you listen to that scholar he will tell you that there are multiple versions of beliefs about what was transmitted correctly. Some Islamic fundamentalists say it was not all accurate.
That scholar is saying they picked up traditions about god from many cultures, rather than revelation.
so you have no basis to say early Judaism was "flawed". That version was what people thought was correct. Just like you think your version is correct. A bunch of ideas taken from several cultures woven together, especially Persian and Greek and you think you have the "correct" version? That is so wrong it's funny. It's just a version.
So I'm saying we see the ideas about god develop as new ideas from new cultures come into contact with Judaism, this show us there are not revelations giving information but it's cultural diffusion.
And the Islamic scholar says the same about the Quran.
I never said it shows god doesn't exist. I said it gives evidence that this loine of religions are making it up as they go. They just happen to use Persian ideas right as they come into contact with Persian beliefs. Just happen to use Greek ideas right after they are also invaded by Greeks.
Very little chance this is anything but religious syncretism. It's evidence you ignore because you are not interested in what is actually true. Just one supernatural version.
The laws of nature are probabilistic, meaning things are not pre-programmed to happen. It means things that are possible, given enough time will tend to happen. Things less probable will take more time and more chances, some things will be impossible based on the age and possible locations of the universe.
This could account for why we have this specific set of laws. They came about because they had a certain probability.
But we don't know what happened before the early big bang. It could be natural forces doing what they do. It could be some super mind. But that is philosophy. It has nothing to do with theism. Christians, Mormons, Hindu, all religions make this argument "oh look our god created the universe, then came down and gave us the religion"....
No, no evidence of that, you cannot get to a universal mind to theism. Especially a theism that sounds like all others, a product of the time.
The philosophy that there is no reality, it's just a mind, alone, atheist (no gods it knows of), infinite?....how does an infinite mind track itself? How would an infinite mind be so close-minded about who people have sex with and freedom of religion? No chance, that is people.
So we don't know where they come from. We also didn't know where illness, lightning, storms, droughts, and many other things came from, and they were all attributed to god. Even Newton couldn't figure out all the planetary motions so said "God must fix that issue".
All wrong. Arguments for deism don't help theism.
Sure sounds like a person in the Quran. An angry person.
An infinite mind who can't get past gays, freedom of religion and likes to say "Horrible Doom" over and over. Doubt it.
First, prove it.
Souls are not from Judaism, they are Greek.
We already understand the basic building blocks of life and self replicating compounds. Then apply natural selection and a slowly advancing nervous system and we completely understand life. No god needed.
Just because you bought into this narrative doesn't make it true.
No it's the evidence.
the stories are mythology and teh gods in them are not real. All of the historical scholars agree. So, not my model.
You haven't given different conclusions and backed them up with evidence. You just said of the early Hebrew beliefs they were "flawed" but provided no evidence for support.
You haven't said anything on the myths taken from the Persians, Greeks, the Graeco-Roman philosophy used by Aquinas and others to create the model of the modern ideas of God.
You have said nothing about that.
There is also a field of scholarship, critical-history which is generally in agreement. They are the experts who understand all the arguments, apologetics, all sides and you somehow think a fantasy belief you hold, without evidence, without research, purely on wish-power is completely correct and all of them are wrong.
So you do not care about what is true, at all. You care about a belief you formed and now have to tap-dance and make up nonsense to get around. Actually looking into it and trying to see if your ideas are correct is out of the question. You believe in a complete fantasy world.
No, I'm showing evidence that the god worshipped is clearly influenced by older religions. As are the stories and everything else. Including the Quran.
This is evidence that revelations are not part of this picture.
Also revelations has no evidence ever. And nothing is ever revealed in revelations that humans didn't already know.
So there is no evidence in favor of deities interacting with people in any way.
We have been talking about early Hebrew beliefs. You have not shown they were ignorant? You have not shown that correct models were around but people ignored them. All text from the time reveals the same information. The Hebrew say they passed down orally the religion, so it isn't corrupt.
Then you still have the obvious taking of Persian and Greek myth. Written in the Bible, also in the Quran.
There is also no mention of "messengers" until the Quran. Showing Islam made up a new concept that Moses and Jesus should have easily known. The easy fix? It's all made up like all religions.
But we have many palimpsets and codexes that shows the Quran was a work in progress.
joelr
Well-Known Member
No that is what history demonstrates, over and over.
The polytheism was early Israel. Once Persian belief was popular in Israel they followed that and became monotheistic. The Quran also follows Persian beliefs closely.
There are thousands of religions. None match up like the Bible, Persian, Greek theology. Those are clearly connected. The NT is entirely Hellenistic.
The Quran approaches those as if they are true with some changes. They are myths.
I don't care what "you see", provide evidence. ANYONE can say "oh I don't believe that" anyone can say "no Zeus was real, I don't believe the historical evidence is correct that the Oddessy and Homer were stories, I think they were history, because my religion says so...."
Yeah, don't care. You think that way because confirmation bias and the same reason every Mormon and fundamentalist feels the same need to disagree with historians. It doesn't agree with some text. Do not care.
Yes I assume that because all you do is say "I don't agree", or tell all scholars how they are wrong and then you cannot give evidence. Yet somehow don't think you have been led to false beliefs?
Being cryptic doesn't make your beliefs true either.
Yes, thank you. That is the best confirmation of confirmation bias with religion ever.
Super common thing in religion. "I know Mormonism is true because when I live by the vales and follow scripture and Christ I feel him working in my life"......."I know Krishna is real because I feel him in my heart and my life changed when I became devoted to him..."
"when you follow the true tenants of my Baptists church you will see it's true, you will live the truth..."
Wow, you mean when you make life changes it effects your life? Especially strong beliefs in a deity and an afterlife? Less depression, more focus, use confirmation bias to attribute all good things to your deity and all bad things are a "lesson god needed you to have". You cannot be wrong. You pray for someone, they heal, you thank god. They did, you say it was their time to go to god.
Yeah, that isn't proof of anything except you have a belief.
Did I not tell you, over and over, I listen to christian apologetics?
Did I not tell you, at least twice, about Al-Ghazali who is probably the greatest Islamic theologian and philosopher? Who I read?
Did you even consider checking him out? I bet the answer is NO.
Or debates between Christian fundamentalists and scholars or the aggressive Muhammad Hajeeb debate Islam?
There is more, philosophy, materialism vs idealism, Firas Zahabi podcaster
So I do. Who do you listen to? Not me apparently. You are debating some made up character in your mind. Fitting actually.
Then we get "historical mumbo-jumbo", proof that you prefer being uninformed and are likely scared of knowledge. You cannot even say it without disrespect. So shallow. Why would one take that position, especially one with so little knowledge?
So there you go, again, I am interested in what is actually true. Clearly you are not.
There are no conclusions about the existence of god.
This is just the study of this god and he is clearly made up as the religion went.
This is actually funny. So all the words about Yahweh in the first 5 books are actually wrong?
Then the rest which includes Persian theology, wrong? The NT and Greek theology, wrong?
And from someone who knows ZERO about the historicity of the religion, doesn't read Hebrew. Truly a joke.
Hey presto, and the laws came from nowhere .. no ryhme, no reason
No the 4 fundamental forces were believed to be symmetrical and unified into one super-force. We have already been able to identify where the weak force and electromagnetism blend, back in a hotter dense time. Electro-weak theory.
Now where this law comes from is beyond current physics. But just like before we understood germs it was a curse from God, the superforce is not currently understood. Maybe theoretical physics will come up with models of what happened?
It doesn't prove Mormonism and it doesn't prove Lord Krishna gave revelations. And yes, Krishna is a divinity under a supreme being who is pure mind/consciousness, Brahman. Just because we don't understand the reasons, doesn't mean Brahman is real. So spare me this pointless point.
That might be true .. but it's up to us individually to change that .. ignorance is no defense
in the eyes of the law .. nor in the eyes of "the Lord"
Ignorance of the "right "religion is hilarious. The Dark ages called, they want their beliefs back.
You haven't given any evidence for any Lord.
Preaching your beliefs at this point is admitting you have nothing.
Also you don't know you are in the "right" religion because you have no evidence of any aspect of the religion. You are just guessing.
When historical evidence disagrees with you you have to say "no they are all wrong". Sure, whatever.
1) then why is so much time wasted on trivial matters?
2) can god not talk about spirituality AND give a page of science to blow peoples mind and give evidence?
3) so god doesn't care that billions of people remain unconvinced, he knew theism and still doesn't provide evidence
4) in fact the evidence is so bad, scholars are certain it's more of the same pulling together of older myth, even leaving palimpsets and codexes
5) you haven't defined "spiritual knowledge"? Is calling the Jews "liars" spiritual? Is knowing if you don't follow a religion you will get a "horrible doom" spiritual?
6) would a few extra pages of proof mattered, would it have taken away from "spiritual matters"
7) obviously, the writers of the Quran simply didn't know any of those scientific of mathematical facts and could not put them there.
8) if they needed room for "spiritual matters" why did they include so much Greek science and bad cosmology? Why not take that out and put good science in?
9)could there possibly be more things wrong with your apologetic answer? Welcome to apologetics.
No I don't assume that. I look at evidence and see if the belief is warranted.
Religions are clearly myths with only known information of the time and combined theology, already known.
All indications show the brain is responsible for consciousness.
No evidence confirms a realm after death.
The Quran and Bible don't even have an original take, they use Greek ideas about a soul and heaven.
I also "assume" that Valhalla, Hel and other underworlds and afterlifes are not real.
Again, provide some evidence.
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Your provided evidence is about people's beliefs in times gone by ..and making conclusions
about why they believed and WHAT they believed.
I see the same evidence as you, but draw different conclusions.
That is because we both start off from different viewpoints
eg. "gods" v G-d, with G-d being a concept whereas you put all in one basket
All I've said, is that cultures had their roots in varying sources .. including of many prophets.
..and all you can say is "prove it"
Rambling..
I'm not that smart .. I did not form it.
That is your pet subject, I know..
OK .. so they weren't then? They did not follow superstition and worship idols?
muhammad_isa
Well-Known Member
Well, I don't know what we are discussing then..
You keep telling me everything I believe is fiction etc. etc.
joelr
Well-Known Member
No, I provided evidence, and there is quite a bit more, about the beliefs of the early Israelites. Much of it is in the Bible.
We also can see where the ideas come from because the gods and stories before this are generally the same. Places that the Israelites were exposed to.
We don't have to make conclusions. We can trace the myths to older myths and older gods who were ver similar and places that were in contact with Israelite people.
What weird semantic thing you are doing here I have no idea.
This is what scripture shows, other religions, temple archaeology. dig sites, what else do you think one needs to understand the beliefs of a people?
You don't "see the same evidence"??? WTF are you talking about?
First listen to William Devers lecture on Ashera and temple archaeology. Then read the Composition of the Pentateuch by Joel Baden, God An Anatomy by Fransesca S, watch the Yale Divinity lectures by Dr Baden, Meyers, John Collins,
read Josh Bowdens work, Professor Kipp Davis, archaeologist Carol Meyers, The Bible Unearthed by Finklestein, and that is just a start off the top of my head.
There are no "different conclusions", especially from someone completely unfamiliar with the field.
What are you talking about?
AND, as I said, present an alternate idea, about anything, and source it with experts who agree.
Yes Christians also draw "different conclusions" about Jesus and his life, but I do not care. I care what people who actually know the facts have to say
You are just saying the word "prophet". That means nothing. When trained scholars look at the Quran they see it was influenced by Persian myth, not just in stories and theology bit literary and other ways.All I've said, is that cultures had their roots in varying sources .. including of many prophets.
..and all you can say is "prove it"
There is no evidence of prophets, just people who wrote myths based on older mythology. That's it. Some may have called themself prophets. Like Joseph Smith. But everything looks made up by people.
I say "prove it" because I care about what is true. Evidence is important. Fantasy magic wishful thinking is no use to finding truth.
It sounds like rambling to you because you either don't care about what is true or have no methodology to understand what is true.
Maybe you were never taught that magic thinking is not a reliable path to what is true?
You bought into it. Without proper evidence. Now, it's so ingrained you are trying to change entire fields of study to conform to your beliefs.
No we can talk about the late period, the Persian occupation, the Greek occupation. But NT stuff is not important to this because Islam understands the NT stories are just Greek myths. Although you did keep the souls/heaven thing. Which is also part of that Greek/pagan theology.
There may be local religious ideas as well, I'm not as familiar with the historical information about the Quran, as Dr Richard Miller said, that is a tough field to do because in Islamic countries it's not allowed.
They followed the superstition and idols of the time. Just like Christians followed their idols and Islam follows their superstition.
An angel coming down to give messages from God, considering a book god-words is also superstition and idol worship. It just changes as different cultures are absorbed. Islam subscribes to the Aquinas model, Al-Hazeli is very similar and seems to be on a similar track. The mysticism is the same. Same Idealsim used to justify a spirit realm and deity. You worship prophets and a concept of god.
It's different but it's also the same.
Actual idols just represented the deity. Following any scripture as if it's a revelation from a theistic deity is superstition and idol worship.
When you see a Mormon studying the Mormon Bible as if it's gods words and praying to the god or see Catholics praying to saints, and so on, do you not consider this some from of superstition and idol worship?
I see all revelations as works from people. Treating them as if it's an instruction book from god is idol worship to me. The evidence does not in any way support it.