Legitimate reasons not to believe in God

[Subduction Zone]

You assume that a myth is without truth.

You are being excessively vague here. When arguing with creationists who claim that evolution refutes the Bible I will tell them that the myths still work as morality tales and do not violate Timothy 3 16.

I, a believer, have no need to defend God. That would be ridiculous.

If you want to claim to have moral and rational beliefs you do. A weak dodge like this looks as if you may be acknowledging that God may be evil.

Adam thought he knew better than God. He was free to choose his way, rather than God’s.

Now it appears that you do believe the Garden of Eden myth. I would like to see how you change it to make God not at fault.

Maybe because a world full of robots would be hellish.
(The devil probably does have freewill).

Then you are saying that God set man up to fail.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Word of mouth is just as easily changed in the 7th century as back in Mesopotamia..

That is counter intuitive .. the further one goes back in time, the more hazy and uncertain we can be.

There are tablet writings, temples. coins and many sources to verify history.

That's right, and the 'norm' was polytheism .. we know.

..it doesn't matter which source or period you date the OT. The myths are still taken from Mesopotamian myth and a few Egyptian..

Your conclusions are based on incomplete evidence.
Don't try and tell me you know about all events that took place 1000's of years ago .. it doesn't wash.

"In the Muslim world, scholarly criticism of the Quran can be considered an apostasy..

It depends on the scholar, and what is being criticised.

Professor Lumbard notes that the discovery of a Qur'anic text that may be confirmed by radiocarbon dating as having been written in the first decades of the Islamic era, and includes variations in the “under text.” recorded in the Islamic historiographical tradition "

..and why does not Professor Lombard tell us how the meanings have changed due to varying scripts?

"Quran maintains that Jesus was not actually crucified and did not die on the cross. The general Islamic view supporting the denial of crucifixion was probably influenced by Manichaenism (Docetism), which holds that someone else was crucified instead of Jesus, while concluding that Jesus will return during the end-times"

The Qur'an does not specifically say that "someone else was crucified instead", and is just a guess.

HA really? You are now going with the biggest fallacy ever? Appeal to popularity?

I never said it makes them true .. you don't seem to understand the basics when it comes to fallacies.
I said it is considered major revelation due to its popularity .. an entirely different thing.

1/3 of Christians, 1/3 of Hindu, in your view WRONG, which shows the popular opinion in Islamic views is wrong.

Your idea of logic is beyond belief.
If everybody believes the FSM is the truth, that does not affect my opinion in the slightest .. except that I probably wouldn't of even heard of the Qur'an .. but I have.

You are merely playing the "divide and rule" game, which says that everybody is "wrong" except for me, or "my lot".
It's total nonsense .. it is merely your projection to cover the truth.
Muslims and Christians believe in God .. have you got it yet??

They are revelations. No different than Paul, Mormon, Cargo Cults or Bahai revelations.

That is only your saying with your mouth.
Every claim is far from identical.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..ULTIMATE REALITY, cause of all that exists?

I know that, but all the other garbage that surrounds it is made-up gods .. "graven images" as the OT puts it.

I don't care about this guy..

..then neither do I .. time waster.

Because Brahman creates other divinities?

No he doesn't .. it's made-up.
Where did these images of gods originate?

In the Quran there are all sorts of angels, cheribim, angels who drive the clouds, 19 angels of hell, not much different..

Completely different. There are no color pics in the Qur'an.

Also the Quran continued to believe Jewish cosmology with actual levels of heaven, each with it's own beings. In outer space.
Muhammad had a journey through the 7 heavens. This is as fictive as anything in Hinduism.

Is it?
There are seven seas, I believe. The heavens are unseen, and what exactly is "a heaven" in any case?

Hell is such a childish concept..

Pardon me?
I see that things are in pairs .. hot and cold .. yin and yang .. pleasure and pain.

Historical information allows us to see where the Israelites got their mythology from..

You put your faith in wealthy humans .. I put my faith in God.

You insist on a perfect renditiuon of history for your religious book but then when history doesn't back up your mythology you want to make claims that have no evidence and dismiss scholarship based on zero evidence..

That simply isn't true.
I do not claim to know the details of every battle fought in Islamic history .. I don't trust history to be representative of truth.

I wouldn't expect "history" to be able to back-up my beliefs.
For example, the Romans burnt many texts that didn't agree with what they enforced on their subjects etc.

Well first, no. Religious people dismiss facts by saying "Satan influenced the information or the scholars". they also use plain denial.
But yes, there is no doubt Genesis was written using older myth. There are many lines verbatim and the plot is the same?

Noah's flood

Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.[67] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives.[68] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling."[69] Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.

Myths

Biblical myths are found mainly in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. They are concerned with the creation of the world and the first man and woman, the origin of the current human condition, the primeval Deluge, the distribution of peoples, and the variation of languages.

The basic stories are derived from the popular lore of the ancient Middle East; parallels can be found in the extant literature of the peoples of the area. The Mesopotamians, for instance, also knew of an earthly paradise such as Eden, and the figure of the cherubim—properly griffins rather than angels—was known to the Canaanites. In the Bible, however, this mythical garden of the gods becomes the scene of man’s fall and the background of a story designed to account for the natural limitations of human life. Similarly, the Babylonians told of the formation of humankind from clay. But, whereas in the pagan tale the first man’s function is to serve as an earthly menial of the gods, in the scriptural version his role is to rule over all other creatures. The story of the Deluge, including the elements of the ark and the dispatch of the raven and dove, appears already in the Babylonian myths of Gilgamesh and Atrahasis. There, however, the hero is eventually made immortal, whereas in the Bible this detail is omitted because, to the Israelite mind, no child of woman could achieve that status. Lastly, while the story of the Tower of Babel was told originally to account for the stepped temples (ziggurats) of Babylonia, to the Hebrew writer its purpose is simply to inculcate the moral lesson that humans should not aspire beyond their assigned station.


Scattered through the Prophets and Holy Writings (the two latter portions of the Hebrew Bible) are allusions to other ancient myths—e.g., to that of a primordial combat between YHWH and a monster variously named Leviathan (Wriggly), Rahab (Braggart), or simply Sir Sea or Dragon. The Babylonians told likewise of a fight between their god Marduk and the monster Tiamat; the Hittites told of a battle between the weather god and the dragon Illuyankas; while a Canaanite poem from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) in northern Syria relates the discomfiture of Sir Sea by the deity Baal and the rout of an opponent named Leviathan. Originally, this myth probably referred to the annual subjugation of the floods.

A wall of text proves nothing.
It is impossible to prove that Biblical figures did not exist.
..details of a flood or something is another matter.

 

[muhammad_isa]

When someone has a low vitamin D and are symptomatic and supplement D and the disease ends and it's common among people with lower levels then it's clear that there are levels that are healthy.

Of course..
..but this level is not agreed upon by medical experts.

What is the point? Data came in that suggested 30ng/dl was better? So? This data is old. Recent 2011 data has evaluated studies and come to a conclusion..

Sure .. until the next study that appears to recommend some other level.

The conclusions are based on sound, real data..

It doesn't make them correct.
Clearly, a believer would not conclude that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are based on polytheism from Mespotamia !

..so you follow a group of disbelieving academics .. good for you.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It's known that Greek science was brought into the Islamic workd, studied, incorporated into the religion and you call it "my beliefs"??

I say that it is your belief that Greek science was brought into the Islamic workd through the Qur'an .

Right so Greek art, science, astronomy, biology and more are being brought into the Arab culture and you are claiming that God also told Muhammad the same information. Wow.

No. It is you that referred to science in the Qur'an.
I make no claims about it other than I believe it to be the words of God revealed to Muhammad, peace be with him.

The Quran was written using science they brought into the culture..

Exactly, that is your belief.
Billions of Muslims believe otherwise.

..Prove God and prove revelations.

..sorry, you will just have to carry on believing that Muhammad was deluded or fraudulent.
I have no power .. I am "a nobody" on the internet.

Billions of people die in other religions.

That is right, and I have no idea of their fate.
My mother was a Christian, and I pray that she is "resting in peace" .. Amen.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. In the real world that's called random events..

There is nothing random about what is in the depths of someone's soul.

HA, yes and if they are religious and ask and don't get it then - "God has other plans".....which continues until something finally happens then they say .."this is what God had in mind"............isn't confirmation bias great!

..except a believer is more concerned about their life to come, than the here and now.

Sorry I don't buy that. You were not even aware about the apologetics that "prove" the Quran is divinely inspired because all the science that couldn't possibly be known..

I've been a Muslim for 45 years.
I am not a person who needs to prove anything to others .. that is more about the ego, than anything else imo.

It's very clear. Believe me or painful doom. Christians - lie, Jews. -lie. This is human writing.

How simplistic can one be?

"painful doom" only comes to those who bring it upon themselves, whatever religious persuasion they may claim to be.

What is the purpose of that hope, because you think God will help you or to focus your mind?

It doesn't have to be either/or..

Why would negative thought be a human weakness? We evolve to be a way and then we are supposed to apologize for it?

It's simply not good for us to be negative..
Neither is it good for us to be alone for long periods of time.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Again you have no idea of the complexity or the scope of the evidence..

..so you assume, because you think that a few academics opinions is somehow authoritative on the subject of God.

It is conclusive. If you want to see how Moses is a literary construct start with Thomas Thompson Historical Narrative of the Patriarchs..

..or "the god delusion" by Richard Dawkins, or "the satanic verses" by Salman Rushdie etc. etc.

Yeah, there's plenty of academic material out there to "prove" God is a hoax.

Of course ancient history of the Quran you are completely convinced it's conclusive..

The Qur'an is not a science book .. neither is it a history book.

You trust the Quran because you believe a claim and don't trust older history because it doesn't agree with revised history in a myth.

Not quite..
I have found the Qur'an to be coherent, and having lived as a Muslim for 45 years, I have experienced "the pudding", and it has strengthened my previous faith [Christian] .. not replaced it.

I believe that the Qur'an confirms the Bible. The main thing is that I no longer have the mystery of the trinity, and have to follow a stricter code of law, and more frequent worship.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Because God created the option of evil, as the Bible admits..

Err no.. a bad interpretation.
Almighty God has created evil, in as much as He has created creatures that have independent thought .. free-will.

That believers can't explain why God created evil or the Devil is an example of an important element of their belief goes unchecked and unquestioned..

No. We can't be expected to know everything that God knows.
There are plenty of things atheists don't know too.

One has to focus on what we do know.
..that evil can come from many directions .. through other creatures, and ourselves.

..I see a huge correlation between religious belief and support for very bad candidates. These are emotional decisions, not reasoned conclusions.

You are making the big mistake of confusing religion with politics.
What people actually do, and what they profess to believe are often contradictory.

I say again, that presumably, the good that comes from the creation of independent creatures like humans, must outweigh the evil that is clearly undesirable.

 

[F1fan]

Err no.. a bad interpretation.

How is it a bad interpretation? If God didn't create evil (which is a broad set of human actions with immoral motivs) then humans wouldn't have this as an option. Humans would be as we are, just more like Star Trek's Vulcans, more logical and less emotional.

Almighty God has created evil, in as much as He has created creatures that have independent thought .. free-will.

Sure, so the question is why do some people use their free will honorably and morally (which includes many atheists) while there are many who use their thoughts to justify immoral acts against others, including your fellow Muslims. Theists can't use their ideals and mythic stories to explain any of this in a way that makes their beliefs look credible.

As I have noted if we saw any religious group act with a higher level of morality than anyone else that would mean something. We don't.

No. We can't be expected to know everything that God knows.

Based on holy books it seems God doesn't even know as much as experts in the sciences. So the rational mind defers to science and not religious books (because let's be honest, there are no Gods known to exist) for truth or knowledge.

There are plenty of things atheists don't know too.

Right. I'm an atheist and I can't manage to make a decent loaf of bread. My girlfriend has magic abilities and never screws up baking.

But where it comes to religious claims we atheists do have a higher standard for reasoning and reliance on facts than our fellow believers, who often make erros like unwarranted assumptions and logical errors.

One has to focus on what we do know.
..that evil can come from many directions .. through other creatures, and ourselves.

And this is why we humans need to check our assumptions and beliefs, and not act as if we are correct be default, like Muslim terrorists do. If Muslims were to admit they aren't sure a God exists, but believe one exists, and understand that as believers they could be mistaken, they would hoefully understand they much be careful on how they act through their religious beliefs, that with humility.

You are making the big mistake of confusing religion with politics.
What people actually do, and what they profess to believe are often contradictory.

Not in the USA, religion is very much tied to politics these days. And politics in theocracies, mostly Muslim nations, are all about their religious authority.

I say again, that presumably, the good that comes from the creation of independent creatures like humans, must outweigh the evil that is clearly undesirable.

This is vague, give examples if you are correct about this. Are Muslim terrorists not independent creatures?

I suggest religious people are not independent in their thinking, as they mimic what other believers from their tribe repeat. Atheists would be independent because we are not adoting dogmas and assumptions that are not fact-based.

..so you assume, because you think that a few academics opinions is somehow authoritative on the subject of God.

Who would be authortative, believers? I suggest believer are only authoritative in what they BELIEVE, not the full depth on how religions formed, the biology of human belief, the psychology of religion, the history and evolution of holy books and religious people, etc. So academics would understand why people believe in any of the many gods that exist in human lore, and in imaginations all over the world.

 

[muhammad_isa]

..so the question is why do some people use their free will honorably and morally (which includes many atheists) while there are many who use their thoughts to justify immoral acts against others..

Nobody is exempt from evil thoughts and actions..
..and yes, why does God allow evil to exist?
..and why are we mortal and have to die?
..and why weren't we created as angels, incapable of disobedience?

..so because it is a hard question to answer, we should reject belief? Is that in our own best interests?
Is God's guidance a load of nonsense?
..that is what satan would like us to think.
..as then the evil will destroy us.
We often are our own worst enemies.

I trust that God knows why He has created us as we are.
We are here to learn something .. it seems from birth, to teething, and puberty and adulthood is all distressing, but
our development continues until we leave this world and enter into the unknown.

As I have noted if we saw any religious group act with a higher level of morality than anyone else that would mean something..

What would it mean?
That believers are somehow not human and perfect?

Based on holy books it seems God doesn't even know as much as experts in the sciences..

Religion deals with psychology and the unseen .. not physical observation.

But where it comes to religious claims we atheists do have a higher standard for reasoning and reliance on facts than our fellow believers..

Arrogance serves to lead one further away from truth.

I suggest religious people are not independent in their thinking, as they mimic what other believers from their tribe repeat.

..sweeping generalisations cannot explain belief. We are all individuals.

..academics would understand why people believe in any of the many gods that exist in human lore, and in imaginations all over the world.

They are merely fellow-humans with limited experience like ourselves.
It is all relative ..
"If all the trees were pens, and all the oceans were ink, with seven more besides, the words of your Lord would not be exhausted"

What an individual might have of knowledge is but a drop in the ocean compared to the whole.

 

[Brickjectivity]

No that is a particular type of philosophy - theology. Assume God is real. But there is no evidence and it's logically flawed. So the concept is fiction.

Fiction is something you don't believe but read for enjoyment, so calling it fiction is wrong. Theology is something people believe in.

The Israelite God is Yahweh.

Their god is theirs. It says in their prayers that it is theirs, not everyone's. Even in modern times they recognize that not everyone has to believe the same as them and have no requirement for their own to believe in God. They can be Israelites without mystical beliefs. In addition its a a different concept from God who has no particular interest in individuals or groups. The gods are partial to groups and individuals. The God beyond proof and disproof probably is not partial to particular groups of people or individuals.

If you take the religion away there isn't anything left except a vague deism which atheists don't argue against.

'Deism' is also not pure theology to me since it presumes that God creates the universe. It would have a provable god take the place of the invisible one. Also, I have seen atheists argue against deism, so yes they do. I'm not saying its an entertaining conversation, but they do.

It isn't a Litwa model. Every historian of the period touches on this. I posted some Carrier talking about the savior dying/rising deities and how Jesus fits exactly.
Even early apologists admitted Jesus was a Greek deity. Justin Martyr just said Satan got the Greek deities to look like that to fool new Christians into not joining. I guess that worked back then?

Dialogue 69.

That alone is enough to make me dislike and avoid interest in Justin Martyr, but thank you for showing it to me. What a slimy argument he is making. Yuck.

Jesus fulfills a prophecy Israel has about a messiah they picked up from Persia during the 2nd Temple Period. Yes Israel was wanting a savior of their own. But the gospel writers (who wrote in Greek) were clearly trained at the only Greek school and fictional biographies were popular as was Hellenistic theology. Jesus fits exactly.

I recognize this, and yet. Israel already has a conception of resurrection for the nation baked into its canon. It also sees itself as a renewing plant which dies and then grows again from seed. Its too obvious for anyone of the time period to be unaware of it. They would have seen all of these elements about Israel put together in the form of a Greek story about Jesus but also seen it for what it was, particularly considering that the temple had been destroyed. It was a time for resurrection of the nation and its hopes which were very altruistic and idealist. It was a time of introspection about how such a failure could have happened, and the gospels discussed this. They talked about why Jesus was condemned in spite of being sinless parallel to what Jews would have been asking about their nation in the shadow of Titus destruction. A mere Greek deity? I don't accept that the writers of the gospels could be so 1 dimensional or that nobody would notice it like I am doing.

An important theological development during the dark ages of 'the faith concerned the growth of beliefs about the Saoshyant or coming Saviour. ...This glorious moment was longed for by the faithful, and the hope of it was to be their strength and comfort in times of adversity....

...so, naturally, the person of the prophet himself came to be magnified as the centuries passed....
-
Myth and legend in the Persian period

In 539 BCE the Jews came under Persian domination and consequently absorbed a good deal of Iranian folklore about spirits and demons, the eventual dissolution of the world in a fiery ordeal, and its subsequent renewal. ... inferentially from their survival in later times—notably in products of the ensuing Hellenistic Age, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

All right they had different groups who believed different things, and many were superstitious. They were oppressed and at times politically humiliated and compelled, attacked for being different; and many did comply and melt into the culture. They had their canon, though; and we know that it was an established canon as early as 200BCE or at least 100 years before 0CE. Anyone reading the gospels (written later) should have had access to it. The Christians were not excluded from synagogues for at least a century, so they could easily have looked these things up. Surely they would see the difference between a Greek deity and an embodiment of all of the stories about Israel?

The Dead Sea Scrolls have stories about a righteous leader that reminds many of John the Baptist, but they have nothing like Jesus who is called "The only begotten Son" a reference to Israel son of Abraham, attributed to be the both the father of the nation and the founder of its ideals of diversity, peace and financial equity. What person attending a synagogue in that day and age could read "Our Father in heaven" and not think of Abraham? I think we must at least give them that.

 

[F1fan]

Nobody is exempt from evil thoughts and actions..

What do you mean by this? That everyone is capable of evil (which I do not agree with since I see evil as meaning some sort of mental illness or disorder)? Or that anyone minding their own business, like Jews in 1930's Europe, can be victim of evil outside of their control by others?

..and yes, why does God allow evil to exist?

That is for your holy books to explain. Do they? I am aware of nothing. I know the Bible says that God created evil, so there is that.

..and why are we mortal and have to die?

Because we are evolved animals in a universe that does not value we humans any more than worms.
Of course religions and their books know that is not a crowd pleaser so exploit the emotions of believers and promise an afterlife.

..and why weren't we created as angels, incapable of disobedience?

Many ordinary humans are capable of disciline and obedience, it doesn;t require them being angels (whaich aren't known to exist).

..so because it is a hard question to answer, we should reject belief?

Absolutely. The logical default of any uncertain idea (which is almost all religious ideas) is that we treast them as false until they can be shown to be true, or at the very least, likley true. Theists make claims about the gods and relligions that they cannot demonstate are true or even likley true, and that is due to a lack of valid evidence.

Is that in our own best interests?

Yes, intellectual ingrity is important and would aid morality in the world. Look at all the violence of your fellow Muslims because they believe they are doing god's will. Are they, in your view? They might say you aren't a real Muslim and just don't get it.

Is God's guidance a load of nonsense?

Do you agree with the guidance God gave the 9-11 hijackers? Many of your fellow Muslims agree with them, so how about you?

If you say no, then you understand why atheists disregard the claims by all theists that a God guides them. The "guidance" we see in the actions of many believers is criminal, and inconsistent. The God of Abraham guides Muslims into a marketplace so he can detonate his bomb, wile other Muslims are guided to do charity work. Expalin what is going on with your god.

I expect you to avoid this question because it exposes the dilemma your belief and claims create for you in these discussions. Your claims can't stand up to scrutiny, and you ignore these hard questions. If you truly had a god on your side I would expect you to be able to provide answers.

..that is what satan would like us to think.
..as then the evil will destroy us.
We often are our own worst enemies.

Which is why religious belief offers no advantage to anyone. Religion gives no mortal any advantages that a nonbeliever has. But non-believers are not bound by religious dogma.

I trust that God knows why He has created us as we are.

And what a mess it is, as even you condemn much of how humans behave. Guess what, you are critical of what your God created. That you don;t know why means you should kee your mouth shut and not make God mad. If you really trusted your God, you would accept all humans as they are because they are exactly as God created, and knows knows what he is doing, according to you.

We are here to learn something .. it seems from birth, to teething, and puberty and adulthood is all distressing, but
our development continues until we leave this world and enter into the unknown.

From what I can see atheists have learned vastly more that theists who struggle to hold onto obsolete traditional beliefs. Theists create a lot of problems for themselves by being believers. And the more fervent they are, the more problems come about. The correlation of poor judgment and being a theists is incredible, as we can observe in the average Trump supporter. I don't remember ever seeing one that isn't also a "God fearing Christian".

What would it mean?
That believers are somehow not human and perfect?

It would mean that believers are somehow tapped into a higher power that guides them morally. However we don't observe this happeneing as many theists lack virtues and are even criminal.

Religion deals with psychology and the unseen .. not physical observation.

False. My degree is in psychology and it has a branch that studies religion as a behavior. There is nothing in religion that uses psychology. And let's note the irony of you brining up the "unseen" and psychology. Many delusional people "see" things that no one else does, and that could be a behavior that is disagnosed as a disorder. Do you really want to tie in "unseen" and psychology in how you refer to religion?

Arrogance serves to lead one further away from truth.

That would explain why so many believers are arrogant, and make assertions they can't defend with evidence nor a coherent explantion. Truth means statements that are demonstrably true. Claiming implausible ideas is not truth.

Now there is an ironic definition of truth that means: any arbitrary doctrine that is believed true via faith, but can't be demonstrated as true.

..sweeping generalisations cannot explain belief. We are all individuals.

I'm not.

But studies in the social sciences DO explain belief. It does quite well, in fact. I provide explanations on occassion in these debates. The book Emotional Intelligence has a chapter that explains the biology and psychology of irrational belief, which includes religious belief.

 

[muhammad_isa]

What do you mean by this? That everyone is capable of evil..

Yes.

Absolutely. The logical default of any uncertain idea (which is almost all religious ideas) is that we treast them as false until they can be shown to be true, or at the very least, likley true..

Mmm .. but not all can see the value of religious knowledge .. they do not consider it to be knowledge .. they demean and criticise, claiming that they could have done a better job of creation etc. etc.

..a lack of valid evidence.

Yeah, yeah .. I can't "see" your God, where is it?

Look at all the violence of your fellow Muslims because they believe they are doing god's will..

Don't give me that rubbish .. are Russians Muslims?
Are Ukrainians Muslims?

We are all capable of violence.
We are all capable of evil.
Anybody who claims they are whiter than white are either deluded or devious.

Do you agree with the guidance God gave the 9-11 hijackers? Many of your fellow Muslims agree with them, so how about you?
...
I expect you to avoid this question because it exposes the dilemma your belief and claims create for you in these discussions..

Oh, please..
I couldn't give a hoot what anybody else thinks.
I am convinced that it is wrong .. it is evil .. the targeting of innocent civilians in war can never be justified.

Religion gives no mortal any advantages that a nonbeliever has..

If that is what you perceive..

From what I can see atheists have learned vastly more that theists..

..whatever..

False. My degree is in psychology and it has a branch that studies religion as a behavior..

Well then .. you should know that it is all about the study of the psyche .. the soul.

Many delusional people "see" things that no one else does, and that could be a behavior that is disagnosed as a disorder..

True, but not all believers are mad.

That would explain why so many believers are arrogant, and make assertions they can't defend with evidence nor a coherent explantion.

Anybody can be arrogant..

I'm not.

not what? an individual?

But studies in the social sciences DO explain belief..

They can explain many things about why humans believe things, but people like yourself arrogantly claim that they explaln everything .. they do not.

 

[joelr]

That is counter intuitive .. the further one goes back in time, the more hazy and uncertain we can be.

Judaism was strict word of mouth so it's as reliable as the Qran is that is word of mouth.

That's right, and the 'norm' was polytheism .. we know.

Mesopotamia was, Egypt has a one true God Atum and the Persians has a monotheism.

"
presenting Zoroastrianism to Muslim Iran he was naturally happy to stress the theory of Zoroaster's rigid monotheism, without any taint even of theological dualism. 'The contest is only between the spirits of goodness and evil within us in the world .... Good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, stand as the fundamental principles of the religion of Zarathustra. And this is a perennial source of glory and pride to Iran and the Iranians, that once in that land one of its sons gave this grand message to humanity, to keep themselves aloof even from bad thoughts' (pp. 48, 50-1). The Zoroastrians warmly welcomed Pur-Davud's efforts to win recognition for the nobility of their faith among those who had so long despised it as polytheism and fire-worship."

Mary Boyce

Your conclusions are based on incomplete evidence.
Don't try and tell me you know about all events that took place 1000's of years ago .. it doesn't wash.

We don't need "all evidence" to see the flood and creation story are taken from the Gilamesh myth. The plot is the same and many lines are used verbatim

Noah's flood[edit]

Andrew George submits that the Genesis flood narrative matches that in Gilgamesh so closely that "few doubt" that it derives from a Mesopotamian account.[67] What is particularly noticeable is the way the Genesis flood story follows the Gilgamesh flood tale "point by point and in the same order", even when the story permits other alternatives.[68] In a 2001 Torah commentary released on behalf of the Conservative Movement of Judaism, rabbinic scholar Robert Wexler stated: "The most likely assumption we can make is that both Genesis and Gilgamesh drew their material from a common tradition about the flood that existed in Mesopotamia. These stories then diverged in the retelling."[69] Ziusudra, Utnapishtim and Noah are the respective heroes of the Sumerian, Akkadian and biblical flood legends of the ancient Near East.

It depends on the scholar, and what is being criticised.

No, critical historical method traces where the ideas may have come from and analysis the writing and so on. Not allowed in Islam.

wasn't done on the Bible until the 1940s
Raymond Edward Brown SS (May 22, 1928 – August 8, 1998) was an American Sulpician priest and prominent biblical scholar. He was regarded as a specialist concerning the hypothetical "Johannine community", which he speculated contributed to the authorship of the Gospel of John, and he also wrote influential studies on the birth and death of Jesus. Brown was professor emeritus at Union Theological Seminary (UTS) in New York where he taught for 29 years. He was the first Catholic professor to gain tenure there, where he earned a reputation as a superior lecturer.[1]


Brown was one of the first Catholic scholars in the United States to use the historical-critical method to study the Bible.[5]

..and why does not Professor Lombard tell us how the meanings have changed due to varying scripts?

Ask him

The Qur'an does not specifically say that "someone else was crucified instead", and is just a guess.

It says Yahweh raised him up. Which is also a guess.

I never said it makes them true .. you don't seem to understand the basics when it comes to fallacies.
I said it is considered major revelation due to its popularity .. an entirely different thing.

backpeddling. Why bring it up then? Who cares?

Your idea of logic is beyond belief.
If everybody believes the FSM is the truth, that does not affect my opinion in the slightest .. except that I probably wouldn't of even heard of the Qur'an .. but I have.

You are confused. I am demonstrating popular opinion is not a good measure of truth.

You are merely playing the "divide and rule" game, which says that everybody is "wrong" except for me, or "my lot".
It's total nonsense .. it is merely your projection to cover the truth.
Muslims and Christians believe in God .. have you got it yet??

The actual total nonsense is this statement. Total nonsense.
1) I never said everyone is wrong
2)I never said only I am right
3)I never said "my lot" are correct
4) Muslims and Christians are fundamentally different. Islam says Christians and Jews are wrong, lie and are getting a "painful doom" You are not in the same camp.
what I said is , please provide evidence for the things you believe true. You haven't
I also said the evidence points to these religions being a syncretic blend of other religions, all of which are not true.

I continue to ask you to justify your beliefs in magical things and you never do. The evidence says you are wrong.

Have you got it yet?


T

hat is only your saying with your mouth.
Every claim is far from identical.

They are different revelations. In terms of probability they are all equal. They are all made up by people. They all fail to show any knowledge a person could not possibly have had in that time. They all show the same ideas about law, morality that was popular in the time. The OT is a myth. Angels from the OT are not real so Muhammad disn't get revelations.

Islam is just another in a long line of religions that claim revelations. Even the Persian religion was the same:

"
The creed Zoroaster created a community which was united by clearly defined doctrines, shared moral endeavour, and common observances. This unity, and the conviction of his followers that all who would not accept his revelation were likely to be damned, must have been a provocation to the unconverted; and according to the tradi tion Zoroaster himself met a violent end in old age from the dagger of a pagan priest.



"

 

[joelr]

I know that, but all the other garbage that surrounds it is made-up gods .. "graven images" as the OT puts it.

yes, also angels, revelations, a God that communicates laws and is worried about homosexuals and wants a painful doom inflicted on everyone who disbelieves or disobeys. Those are also man made garbage.
But the God you are left with is still nonsense because consciousness is a complex phenomenom, not the base of reality. So you need evidence at the least. When God shows up and speaks to all humans in an ongoing conversation instead of hiding in mythologies you will have something.

I
No he doesn't .. it's made-up.
Where did these images of gods originate?

Well Allah is made up as well. But Brahman and Allah create divinities in the stories is my point.

I
Completely different. There are no color pics in the Qur'an.

Like I said, both Hinduism and Islam have a main God who creates divinities. In the Quran there are many angels, some who guard hell some who do other things.
Brahman also creates lower divinities.

I
Is it?
There are seven seas, I believe. The heavens are unseen, and what exactly is "a heaven" in any case?

The Israelites believed in the Mesopotamian 7 heaven model. So does the Quran. Talk about fiction, wow!

1. He it is Who created for you all that is in the earth, and He directed Himself to the heaven, so He made them complete seven heavens, and He knows all things. (Surah 2, The Cow)
2. The seven heavens declare His glory and the earth (too), and those who are in them; and there is not a single thing but glorifies Him with His praise, but you do not understand their glorification; surely He is Forbearing, Forgiving. (Surah 17, The Children of Israel)
3. So He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and revealed in every heaven its affair; and We adorned the lower heaven with brilliant stars and (made it) to guard; that is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing. (Sura 41, Ha Mim)

It's your religion, you figure it out what it's supposed to be. I know it's a story that is not real.

I
Pardon me?
I see that things are in pairs .. hot and cold .. yin and yang .. pleasure and pain.v

An eternal punishment is a childish concept and started even back in Persian thought.

"
Zoroaster's teachings contained much to anger and trouble his people. In offering the hope of heaven to everyone who would follow him and seek righteousness, he was breaking, it seems, with an aristocratic and priestly tradition which consigned all lesser mortals .. to a subterranean life after death. Moreover, he not only extended the hope of salvation on high to the humble, but threatened the mighty with hell and ultimate extinction if they acted unjustly. His doctrines concerning the hereafter were thus doubly calculated to outrage the privileged; and to rich and poor alike his rejection of the Daevas must have seemed rash and dangerous, being calculated to draw down the wrath of those divine beings on the whole community. Further, the grand concepts of the one Creator, dualism and the great cosmic struggle, with the demand for continual moral endeavours, may well have been difficult to grasp, and, once grasped, too challenging for the ordinary easy-going polytheist.

"

I
You put your faith in wealthy humans .. I put my faith in God.

Historians are not wealthy. ?Faith is not a reliable path to truth. Hindu put their faith in Krishna, Christians in Jesus, race supremecy advocates believe in their race.
I'll stick to evidence.

Even the Persians were saying all this apologetic junk.
Freewill, choice

thee basic Zoroastrian doctrine of the existence of free-will, and the power of each individual to shape his own destiny through the exercise of choice.

Where does God say to give up critical thinking and disregard evidence?

I
That simply isn't true.
I do not claim to know the details of every battle fought in Islamic history .. I don't trust history to be representative of truth.

No, you claim the scripture in the OT may be corrupted because it doesn't match the quran but claim the Quran cannot be corrupted in the same way.
It can. And the psuedo-history it claims is simply wrong. The oral Torah was a very important part of every member of the community.

I
I wouldn't expect "history" to be able to back-up my beliefs.
For example, the Romans burnt many texts that didn't agree with what they enforced on their subjects etc.

[/QUOTE]

That's funny because I thought religions were probably syncretic but I wasn't sure and history backs that up 100%.

I
A wall of text proves nothing.
It is impossible to prove that Biblical figures did not exist.
..details of a flood or something is another matter.

But it is possible to show a story was probably copied from an earlier story.
Noah - Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned


Gilamesh - When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew away, but finding no resting- place she returned.


Noah - And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.


Gilamesh - When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled;


Noah - And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake;


Gimamesh - , I made a sacrifice and poured out a libation on the mountain top. Seven and again seven cauldrons I set up on their stands, I heaped up wood and cane and cedar and myrtle. When the gods smelled the sweet savour, they gathered like flies over the sacrifice.


Noah - The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.

And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.


Gimamesh - “Wisest of gods, hero Enlil, how could you so senselessly bring down the flood? Lay upon the sinner his sin, Lay upon the transgressor his transgression, Punish him a little when he breaks loose, Do not drive him too hard or he perishes; Would that a lion had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that a wolf had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that famine had wasted the world Rather than the flood, Would that pestilence had wasted mankind Rather than the flood


Gilamesh - ‘For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled;


Noah - And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.


Noah - And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.




Gilamesh - Gilgamesh, the son of Ninsun, lies in the tomb.

 

[joelr]

It doesn't make them correct.
Clearly, a believer would not conclude that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are based on polytheism from Mespotamia !

..so you follow a group of disbelieving academics .. good for you.

1) some still believe in some capacity
2) most don't but because they studies the evidence and realized the stories are not true
3)when believers do take time to study the historical field they often convert to secular
4) I don't follow disbelieving academics. I don't care what they believe, I care what the evidence is.
5) I follow evidence, logic, critical thinking and and not easily brainwashed
6) what a believer would say about Mesopotamia has no bearing on what is true. The evidence is clear.
7) not all influence on Judaism was polytheism HOWEVER, Judaism WAS POLYTHEISM until the 2nd Temple Period.


IT SAYS SO IN THE BIBLE??????? After the return from Exile they decided to focus solely on Yahweh worship instead of Yahweh and his consort Ashera.
It's IN SCRIPTURE??????????????????????????

The Persian monotheism also influenced them, Cyrus was the Persian emissary to the Jewish people and was very kind, see for yourself - Mary Boyce PhD:

1st Persian influence on Judaism

Cyrus' actions were, moreover, those of a loyal Mazda-worshipper, in that he sought to govern his vast new empire justly and well, in accordance with asha. He made no attempt, however, to impose the Iranian religion on his alien subjects - indeed it would have been wholly impractical to attempt it, in view of their numbers, and the antiquity of their own faiths - but rather encouraged them to live orderly and devout lives according to their own tenets. Among the many anarya who experienced his statesmanlike kindness were the Jews, whom he permitted to return from exile in Babylon and to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This was only one of many liberal acts recorded of Cyrus, but it was of particular moment for the religious history of mankind; for the Jews entertained warm feelings thereafter for the Persians, and
this made them the more receptive to Zoroastrian influences. Cyrus • himself is hailed by 'Second Isaiah' (a nameless prophet of the Exilic period) as a messiah, that is, one who acted in Yahweh's name and with his authority. 'Behold my servant whom I uphold' (Yahweh himself is represented as saying). '(Cyrus) will bring forth justice to the nations. . . . He will not fail . . . till he has established justice in the earth' (Isaiah 42. I, 4). The same prophet celebrates Yahweh for the first time in Jewish literature as Creator, as Ahura Mazda had been celebrated by Zoroaster: 'I, Yahweh, who created all things ... I made the earth, and created man on it .... Let the skies rain down justice ... I, Yahweh, have created it' (Isaiah 44.24, 45. 8, 12). The parallels with Zoroastrian doctrine and scripture are so striking that these verses have been taken to represent the first imprint of that influence which Zoroastrianism was to exert so powerfully on postExilic Judaism.


Doctrines of Persian Zoroastrianism



fundamental doctrines became disseminated throughout the region, from Egypt to the Black Sea: namely that there is a supreme God who is the Creator; that an evil power exists which is opposed to him, and not under his control; that he has emanated many lesser divinities to help combat this power; that he has created this world for a purpose, and that in its present state it will have an end; that this end will be heralded by the coming of a cosmic Saviour, who will help to bring it about; that meantime heaven and hell exist, with an individual judgment to decide the fate of each soul at death; that at the end of time there will be a resurrection of the dead and a Last Judgment, with annihilation of the wicked; and that thereafter the kingdom of God will come upon earth, and the righteous will enter into it as into a garden (a Persian word for which is 'paradise'), and be happy there in the presence of God for ever, immortal themselves in body as well as soul. These doctrines all came to be adopted by various Jewish schools in the post-Exilic period, for the Jews were one of the peoples, it seems, most open to Zoroastrian influences - a tiny minority, holding staunchly to their own beliefs, but evidently admiring their Persian benefactors, and finding congenial elements in their faith. Worship of the one supreme God, and belief in the coming of a Messiah or Saviour, together with adherence to a way of life which combined moral and spiritual aspirations with a strict code of behaviour (including purity laws) were all matters in which Judaism and Zoroastrianism were in harmony; and it was this harmony, it seems, reinforced by the respect of a subject people for a great protective power, which allowed Zoroastrian doctrines to exert their influence. The extent of this influence is best attested, however, by Jewish writings of the Parthian period, when Christianity and the Gnostic faiths, as well as northern Buddhism, all likewise bore witness to the profound effect: which Zoroaster's teachings had had throughout the lands of the Achaernenian empire.


Wow, sounds familiar??????????????

 

[joelr]

I say that it is your belief that Greek science was brought into the Islamic workd through the Qur'an .

No it's just a coincidence and God just happened to give the Arabs the exact science that they just got from Greek text. Has religion taken your ability to reason?

No. It is you that referred to science in the Qur'an.
I make no claims about it other than I believe it to be the words of God revealed to Muhammad, peace be with him.

Right, God gave the prophet just th eexact science they took from Greek manuscripts. This debate is not going well for you.

Exactly, that is your belief.
Billions of Muslims believe otherwise.

Because religions use apologetics and lie to people. Then they lie further and say "it's proof God wrote it because they had no other way to access the science". Meanwhile it's known the ecact Arab scholars who took the science into the Arab world. Giving them access to the science.

..sorry, you will just have to carry on believing that Muhammad was deluded or fraudulent.
I have no power .. I am "a nobody" on the internet.

If you are here debating and that's all you got why are you still debating?

There is nothing random about what is in the depths of someone's soul.

Another pointless answer. Provide evidence of a soul. It's just psychology. The evidence for a deity interacting is exactly equal to random events. God is not real.

..except a believer is more concerned about their life to come, than the here and now.

Anyone is free to waste their given life thinking about a fictional afterlife.

I've been a Muslim for 45 years.
I am not a person who needs to prove anything to others .. that is more about the ego, than anything else imo.

Total lie. You have been needing to prove many things here, trying over and over and going nowhere. You haven't presented a coherant argument yet.

How simplistic can one be?

"painful doom" only comes to those who bring it upon themselves, whatever religious persuasion they may claim to be.[/QUOTE]

Yes I agree, writing people are constantly getting a "painful doom" is so simplistic. You would think by the middle ages a more compassionate religion could have emerged?
Anyway this nonsense about "God gives you frewill, make the right choice" is Persian fiction.

"
. Of the two Spirits, the one who follows falsehood chose doing the worst things, the Holiest Spirit, who is clad in the hardest stone [i.e. the sky] chose righteousness, and (so shall they all) who will satisfy Ahura Mazda continually '----1\n with just actions' (Y 30.3-5). essential element in this revelation is that the two primal Beings each made a deliberate choice (although each, it seems, according to his own proper nature) between good and evil, an act which prefigures the identical choice which every man must make for himself in this life . The exercise of choice changed the inherent antagonism between the two Spirits into an active one, which expressed itself, at a decision taken by Ahura Mazda, in creation and counter-creation, or, as the prophet put it, in the making of 'life' and 'not-life' (that is, death); for Ahura Mazda knew in his wisdom that if he became Creator and fashioned this world, then the Hostile Spirit would attack it, because it was good, and it would become a battleground for their two forces, and in the end he, God, would win the great struggle there and be able to destroy evil, and so achieve a universe which would be wholly good forever. "

It doesn't have to be either/or..

You haven't responded to Muhammad embracing the angel. You said he cannot embrace angels for some reason?




v

It's simply not good for us to be negative..
Neither is it good for us to be alone for long periods of time.

Nothing to do with fictive stories about Gods. You think humans don't know this?

 

[joelr]

..so you assume, because you think that a few academics opinions is somehow authoritative on the subject of God.

I never said that. I have a good opinion of the consensus opinions in historical scholarship. All historians consider the gospels as fictional narratives based on Greek and Persian myth. The OT is a mix of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Babylonian myth. No one denies this in historicity?

Dr Carrier, historian
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.

No. We aren’t interested in that.

When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death. Consequently, I will here disregard fundamentalists and apologists as having no honest part in this debate, any more than they do on evolution or cosmology or anything else they cannot be honest about even to themselves.

..or "the god delusion" by Richard Dawkins, or "the satanic verses" by Salman Rushdie etc. etc.

Uh, no I didn't say read a evolutionary biologist or a novelist to understand the evidence for Moses being a literary creation? Why would you say that?
I said read the field? What is so hard about that? Thomson is a specialist in Moses mythology? Why would a novelist be of importance? What the heck????

The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham
Completely dismantles the historic patriarchal narratives. His impeccable scholarship, his astounding mastery of the sources, and rigorous detailed examination of the archaeological claims makes this book one I will immediately take with me in case of a flood. And it still hasn't been refuted. I am well aware of the excellent work of William G. Dever, and his critique of the "minimalists" and his harping against Thompson, but it is his other books Dever has the most beef against. This one stands stellar and strong.

Having stated, on page 1 of the Introduction of his book, the existing paradigm as it was in the early 1970s viz ""Nearly all [authors] accept the general claim that the historicity of the biblical traditions about the patriarchs has been substantiated by the archaeological and historical research of the last half-century" - Thompson then proceeds chapter by chapter to methodically and in great detail and with intricate scholarship to demolish that paradigm.
By the end of the book nothing remains of the assertion that the patriarchs actually existed as historical figures.
They are, as Thompson shows [and many other scholars since] part of a literary tradition written as expressions of religious faith, neither history nor ever intended to be so.
Thompson so conclusively demonstrated in this classic paradigm changing book that not only did archaeological research not substantiate the patriarchal stories, as described by apologists who allowed their faith to distort their research and conclusions, but that archaeology had actually refuted such claims.
So convincing and credible was his refuting of the old ideas that his PhD adviser, one Cardinal Ratzinger later pope Benedict, refused to ratify his PhD, from which this book is adapted, and Thompson was cast into an academic wilderness for many years until scholarship quite literally caught up.

This is a very important book, it swept away the accumulated dust of centuries and opened up a new, realistic, understanding of the past it described, an understanding that has thoroughly replaced the anachronism of the 'general claim' referred to in the opening line of the review


Y

eah, there's plenty of academic material out there to "prove" God is a hoax.

There is material to prove it's syncretic mythmaking. There is no evidence for a theistic God at all.
I didn't say hoax. Hindus believe Lord Krishna is real and such. Just as you believe Yahweh is real
It's more cognitive bias.

The Qur'an is not a science book .. neither is it a history book.

No it's religious fiction.

Not quite..
I have found the Qur'an to be coherent, and having lived as a Muslim for 45 years, I have experienced "the pudding", and it has strengthened my previous faith [Christian] .. not replaced it.

Yes and Mormons say that about the Bible and Hindu say that about various Hindu scripture and scientologists say that about their dogma and program.
None of it is real. Providing structure doesn't make gods in the story real. some wisdom may be helpful. Angels and a theistic God are still not real.

I believe that the Qur'an confirms the Bible. The main thing is that I no longer have the mystery of the trinity, and have to follow a stricter code of law, and more frequent worship.

The Bible is also a myth. Jesus is a Greek demigod and the OT is Mesopotamian. Even one of Proverbs is Egyptian and Mesopotamian.

The Book of Proverbs
The third unit, 22:17–24:22, is headed "bend your ear and hear the words of the wise". A large part of this section is a recasting of a second-millennium BCE Egyptian work, the Instruction of Amenemope, and may have reached the Hebrew author(s) through an Aramaic translation.

The "wisdom" genre was widespread throughout the ancient Near East, and reading Proverbs alongside the examples recovered from Egypt and Mesopotamia reveals the common ground shared by international wisdom.

 

[joelr]

Fiction is something you don't believe but read for enjoyment, so calling it fiction is wrong. Theology is something people believe in.

Stanton Friedmans books on the Roswell alien crash are also fiction. Many believe them to be true. They are fiction. Call it what you like, still isn't real.

Their god is theirs. It says in their prayers that it is theirs, not everyone's. Even in modern times they recognize that not everyone has to believe the same as them and have no requirement for their own to believe in God. They can be Israelites without mystical beliefs. In addition its a a different concept from God who has no particular interest in individuals or groups. The gods are partial to groups and individuals. The God beyond proof and disproof probably is not partial to particular groups of people or individuals.

You are just making up a version of God. It holds no more truth value by taking religions away. You are just saying, "oh the religions are wrong but the monotheism thing and the one God, that is true". It's just a claim. But it's based on Greek and Persian additions to Christianity.

Persian doctrines picked up by Judaism:
fundamental doctrines became disseminated throughout the region, from Egypt to the Black Sea: namely that there is a supreme God who is the Creator; that an evil power exists which is opposed to him, and not under his control; that he has emanated many lesser divinities to help combat this power; that he has created this world for a purpose, and that in its present state it will have an end; that this end will be heralded by the coming of a cosmic Saviour, who will help to bring it about; that meantime heaven and hell exist, with an individual judgment to decide the fate of each soul at death; that at the end of time there will be a resurrection of the dead and a Last Judgment, with annihilation of the wicked; and that thereafter the kingdom of God will come upon earth, and the righteous will enter into it as into a garden (a Persian word for which is 'paradise'), and be happy there in the presence of God for ever, immortal themselves in body as well as soul. These doctrines all came to be adopted by various Jewish schools in the post-Exilic period, for the Jews were one of the peoples, it seems, most open to Zoroastrian influences - a tiny minority, holding staunchly to their own beliefs, but evidently admiring their Persian benefactors, and finding congenial elements in their faith. Worship of the one supreme God, and belief in the coming of a Messiah or Saviour, together with adherence to a way of life which combined moral and spiritual aspirations with a strict code of behaviour (including purity laws) were all matters in which Judaism and Zoroastrianism were in harmony; and it was this harmony, it seems, reinforced by the respect of a subject people for a great protective power, which allowed Zoroastrian doctrines to exert their influence. The extent of this influence is best attested, however, by Jewish writings of the Parthian period, when Christianity and the Gnostic faiths, as well as northern Buddhism, all likewise bore witness to the profound effect: which Zoroaster's teachings had had throughout the lands of the Achaernenian empire.
Maru Boyce

'Deism' is also not pure theology to me since it presumes that God creates the universe. It would have a provable god take the place of the invisible one. Also, I have seen atheists argue against deism, so yes they do. I'm not saying its an entertaining conversation, but they do.
That alone is enough to make me dislike and avoid interest in Justin Martyr, but thank you for showing it to me. What a slimy argument he is making. Yuck.

I cannot argue against deism. Justin is doing apologetics in a very similar way that they are still done.

I recognize this, and yet. Israel already has a conception of resurrection for the nation baked into its canon. It also sees itself as a renewing plant which dies and then grows again from seed. Its too obvious for anyone of the time period to be unaware of it. They would have seen all of these elements about Israel put together in the form of a Greek story about Jesus but also seen it for what it was, particularly considering that the temple had been destroyed. It was a time for resurrection of the nation and its hopes which were very altruistic and idealist. It was a time of introspection about how such a failure could have happened, and the gospels discussed this. They talked about why Jesus was condemned in spite of being sinless parallel to what Jews would have been asking about their nation in the shadow of Titus destruction. A mere Greek deity? I don't accept that the writers of the gospels could be so 1 dimensional or that nobody would notice it like I am doing.

Yes, in 5 BCE they got resurrection from the Persians.

" that at the end of time there will be a resurrection of the dead and a Last Judgment, with annihilation of the wicked; and that thereafter the kingdom of God will come upon earth, and the righteous will enter into it as into a garden (a Persian word for which is 'paradise'), and be happy there in the presence of God for ever, immortal themselves in body as well as soul. These doctrines all came to be adopted by various Jewish schools in the post-Exilic period, for the Jews were one of the peoples, it seems, most open to Zoroastrian influences" Boyce

All right they had different groups who believed different things, and many were superstitious. They were oppressed and at times politically humiliated and compelled, attacked for being different; and many did comply and melt into the culture. They had their canon, though; and we know that it was an established canon as early as 200BCE or at least 100 years before 0CE. Anyone reading the gospels (written later) should have had access to it. The Christians were not excluded from synagogues for at least a century, so they could easily have looked these things up. Surely they would see the difference between a Greek deity and an embodiment of all of the stories about Israel?

Well the canon was a savior deity and all the Greek theology. Paul wrote the Epistles in 50 CE and the gospel narratives had not yet been established. He knew of no earthly Jesus, a ministry, his family, miracles or any of that. He only has visions of an already resurrected Jesus. Mark for example too the story of th elast supper which was Jesus telling Paul a story about future Christians....."you tell them, I am the body and blood....." and Mark makes it into a supper with people and actual bread.
This is a Jewish version of a Greek deity.
Let me bring in a Harvard Ph.D.

“Christianity is not a Jewish religion, it’s a Hellenistic religion.”


“Jesus is of Jewish ethnicity but is telling the story of a Hellenistic deity”

1:57

Carl A. P. Ruck (born December 8, 1935, Bridgeport, Connecticut), is a professor in the Classical Studies department at Boston University. He received his B.A. at Yale University, his M.A. at the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. at Harvard University.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have stories about a righteous leader that reminds many of John the Baptist, but they have nothing like Jesus who is called "The only begotten Son" a reference to Israel son of Abraham, attributed to be the both the father of the nation and the founder of its ideals of diversity, peace and financial equity. What person attending a synagogue in that day and age could read "Our Father in heaven" and not think of Abraham? I think we must at least give them that.

what scroll? Most of those are written much later.

 

[joelr]

That's right, and the 'norm' was polytheism .. we know.


.

Not polytheism, they convinced the Jewish people to change to monotheism
The Iranian Impact on Judaism

excerpted from N. F. Gier, Theology Bluebook, Chapter 12



It was not so much monotheism that the exilic Jews learned from the Persians as it was universalism, the belief that one God rules universally and will save not only the Jews but all those who turn to God. This universalism does not appear explicitly until Second Isaiah, which by all scholarly accounts except some fundamentalists, was written during and after the Babylonian exile. The Babylonian captivity was a great blow to many Jews, because they were taken out of Yahweh's divine jurisdiction. Early Hebrews believed that their prayers could not be answered in a foreign land. The sophisticated angelology of late books like Daniel has its source in Zoroastrianism.3 The angels of the early Hebrew books were disguises of Yahweh or one of his subordinate deities. The idea of separate angels appears only after contact with Zoroastrianism.



The central ideas of heaven and a fiery hell appear to come directly from the Israelite contact with Iranian religion. Pre-exilic books are explicit in their notions the afterlife: there is none to speak of. The early Hebrew concept is that all of us are made from the dust and all of us return to the dust. There is a shadowy existence in Sheol, but the beings there are so insignificant that Yahweh does not know them. The evangelical writer John Pelt reminds us that “the inhabitants of Sheol are never called souls (nephesh).”4

Saosyant, a savior born from Zoroaster's seed, will come and the dead shall be resurrected, body and soul. As the final accounting is made, husband is set against wife and brother against brother as the righteous and the damned are pointed out by the divine judge Saosyant. Personal and individual immortality is offered to the righteous; and, as a final fire melts away the world and the damned, a kingdom of God is established for a thousand years.7 The word paradis is Persian in origin and the concept spread to all Near Eastern religions in that form. “Eden” not “Paradise” is mentioned in Genesis, and paradise as an abode of light does not appear in Jewish literature until late books such as Enoch and the Psalm of Solomon.



Satan as the adversary or Evil One does not appear in the pre-exilic Hebrew books. In Job, one of the very oldest books, Satan is one of the subordinate deities in God's pantheon. Here Satan is God's agent, and God gives him permission to persecute Job. The Zoroastrian Angra Mainyu, the Evil One, the eternal enemy of God, is the prototype for late Jewish and Christian ideas of Satan. One scholar claims that the Jews acquired their aversion to homosexuality, not present in pre-exilic times, to the Iranian definition of the devil as a Sodomite.8



In 1 Chron. 21:1 (a book with heavy Persian influences), the Hebrew word satan appears for the first time as a proper name without an article. Before the exile, Satan was not a separate entity per se, but a divine function performed by the Yahweh's subordinate deities (sons of God) or by Yahweh himself. For example, in Num. 22:22 Yahweh, in the guise of mal'ak Yahweh, is “a satan” for Balaam and his ***. The editorial switch from God inciting David to take a census in 2 Sam 24:1, and a separate evil entity with the name “Satan” doing the same deed in 1 Chron. 21:1 is the strongest evidence that there was a radical transformation in Jewish theology. Something must have caused this change, and religious syncretism with Persia is the probable cause. G. Von Rad calls it a “correction due to religious scruples” and further states that “this correction would hardly have been carried out in this way if the concept of Satan had not undergone a rather decisive transformation.”9



The theory of religious influence from Persia is based not only on the generation spent in exile but the 400 years following in which the resurrected nation of Israel lived under strong Persian dominion and influence. The chronicler made his crucial correction to 2 Sam. 24:1 about 400 B.C.E. Persian influence increases in the later Hebrew works like Daniel and especially the intertestamental books. Therefore Satan as a separate evil force in direct opposition to God most likely came from the explicit Zoroastrian belief in such an entity. This concept is not consistent with pre-exilic beliefs.



There is no question that the concept of a separate evil principle was fully developed in the Zoroastrian Gathas (ca. 1,000 B.C.E.). The principal demon, called Druj (the Lie), is mentioned 66 times in the Gathas. But the priestly Jews would also have been exposed to the full Avestan scripture in which Angra Mainyu is mentioned repeatedly. His most prominent symbol is the serpent, so along with the idea of the “Lie,” we have the prototype for the serpent/tempter, in the priestly writers' garden of Genesis.10 There is no evidence that the Jews in exile brought with them any idea of Satan as a separate evil principle.



In Zoroastrianism the supreme God, Ahura Mazda, gives all humans free-will so that they may choose between good and evil. As we have seen, the religion of Zoroaster may have been the first to discover ethical individualism. The first Hebrew prophet to speak unequivocally in terms of individual moral responsibility was Ezekiel, a prophet of the Babylonian exile. Up until that time Hebrew ethics had been guided by the idea of the corporate personality – that, e.g., the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons (Ex. 20:1-2).



In 1 Cor. 15:42-49 Paul definitely assumes a dual-creation theory which seems to follow the outlines of Philo and the Iranians. There is only one man (Christ) who is created in the image of God, i.e., according to the “intellectual” creation of Gen. 1:26 (à la Philo). All the rest of us are created in the image of the “dust man,” following the material creation of Adam from the dust in Gen. 2:7.



Nick Gier. Emeritus Professor of Philosophy University of Idaho Senior Fellow Martin Institute of

1st Persian influence on Judaism

Cyrus' actions were, moreover, those of a loyal Mazda-worshipper, in that he sought to govern his vast new empire justly and well, in accordance with asha. He made no attempt, however, to impose the Iranian religion on his alien subjects - indeed it would have been wholly impractical to attempt it, in view of their numbers, and the antiquity of their own faiths - but rather encouraged them to live orderly and devout lives according to their own tenets. Among the many anarya who experienced his statesmanlike kindness were the Jews, whom he permitted to return from exile in Babylon and to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. This was only one of many liberal acts recorded of Cyrus, but it was of particular moment for the religious history of mankind; for the Jews entertained warm feelings thereafter for the Persians, and

this made them the more receptive to Zoroastrian influences. Cyrus • himself is hailed by 'Second Isaiah' (a nameless prophet of the Exilic period) as a messiah, that is, one who acted in Yahweh's name and with his authority. 'Behold my servant whom I uphold' (Yahweh himself is represented as saying). '(Cyrus) will bring forth justice to the nations. . . . He will not fail . . . till he has established justice in the earth' (Isaiah 42. I, 4). The same prophet celebrates Yahweh for the first time in Jewish literature as Creator, as Ahura Mazda had been celebrated by Zoroaster: 'I, Yahweh, who created all things ... I made the earth, and created man on it .... Let the skies rain down justice ... I, Yahweh, have created it' (Isaiah 44.24, 45. 8, 12). The parallels with Zoroastrian doctrine and scripture are so striking that these verses have been taken to represent the first imprint of that influence which Zoroastrianism was to exert so powerfully on postExilic Judaism.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Judaism was strict word of mouth so it's as reliable as the Qran is that is word of mouth..

Is that so?
..so according to you then, a text that is 1,000,000 years old is as reliable as a text that is 10,000 years old, which is as reliable as a text 1500 years old.
So much for your skills in reasoning.

Mesopotamia was, Egypt has a one true God Atum and the Persians has a monotheism.
...
The Zoroastrians warmly welcomed Pur-Davud's efforts to win recognition for the nobility of their faith among those who had so long despised it as polytheism and fire-worship."

Mary Boyce

Mary, Mary quite contrary.

I didn't say that no monotheism existed. You know I don't believe that.

We don't need "all evidence" to see the flood and creation story are taken from the Gilamesh myth. The plot is the same and many lines are used verbatim..

You cannot prove where it originally came from, and whether the myth is true or false.
People make "informed conclusions" which rely on incomplete data, as far as I'm concerned.

No, critical historical method traces where the ideas may have come from and analysis the writing and so on. Not allowed in Islam..

"may have come from" ?
Of course that is frowned upon! .. one can say it's from the devil and so on.
Interpretation and study of text is OK.

wasn't done on the Bible until the 1940s..

The Bible is not the Qur'an. The Bible consists of many anonymous texts, chosen by humans to form a canon.

Ask him..

If you had any evidence that the meaning was altered, you would have already "jumped on it" ..

It says Yahweh raised him up. Which is also a guess..

Err .. no!
You showed that the Quran got the idea of Jesus not dying on the cross from gnosticism .. and I stated that the Qur'an doesn't say anything about Jesus being replaced with another man.

Why bring it up then? Who cares?

..because you keep throwing red-herrings into the conversation about minor revelations that are only accepted by a minority.

You are confused. I am demonstrating popular opinion is not a good measure of truth..

Never said it was..

...
4) Muslims and Christians are fundamentally different. Islam says Christians and Jews are wrong, lie and are getting a "painful doom" You are not in the same camp..

..cherry picking..
Almighty God says in the Qur'an "..those who have attained to faith [in this divine writ], as well as those who follow the Jewish faith, and the Sabians, and the Christians -all who believe in God and the Last Day and do righteous deeds - no fear need they have, and neither shall they grieve."

They are different revelations. In terms of probability they are all equal..

To you, yes .. to billions of others, no.

Islam is just another in a long line of religions that claim revelations. Even the Persian religion was the same:

"
The creed Zoroaster created a community which was united by clearly defined doctrines, shared moral endeavour, and common observances. This unity, and the conviction of his followers that all who would not accept his revelation were likely to be damned, must have been a provocation to the unconverted; and according to the tradi tion Zoroaster himself met a violent end in old age from the dagger of a pagan priest.

..and you will claim they are all copy-cats, and deny that they are based on truth, and Divinely inspired through God's messengers.