IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Honestly, since I was not there, I cannot know exactly how God caused the Big Bang. But in the end, does it really matter?
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What tools or mediums does God use to create the universe?
- Thread starter osgart
- Start date
Is it not possible? Why?
Do you mean Matrix is not virtual reality?
osgart
Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Well if anyone believes in God then there must be a plausible way in which God exists and acts in reality. Since I don't believe in supernatural phenomena where there is no means to a cause, and have no experience of God I'm inclined to dismiss most God concepts.
If anything there must be a dimension where information and meaning are at the heart of reality. Matter, energy, space and time has to come about in meaningful ways, and life would carry some significance as well. I'm not saying they don't, but to invoke the supernatural would be a mistake.
A God centric existence would put life at the heart of existence not the fringe like we are in this universe. So to me it does matter why so many people believe in God.
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joelr
Well-Known Member
Ok, cool, so you are already wrong. Because I;m sourcing a very reliable and respected Hebrew Bible scholar.
It isn't a statement to support my anything. It's evidence that supports Yahweh was similar to all other Gods in that region and at that time.
wow, you don't waste time with incorrectly finding your position correct and inappropriately telling others to admit a mistake. Let me light that gas then we can move on? Huh. So name calling is bad? How about g.........? That language isn't metaphorical language. It's literal. The myths that the OT was reworking were literal, gods were understood to be literal in this period so when we see the same language in the early OT it's extremely likely they were using the same type of literal theology.
When a gods bodyparts are described in detail during a sighting, this is a literal sighting.
The only "boo-boo" is refusing to understand that this might be the case and it was later changed when Origen and Gods without bodies became the norm.
And yet just like the Babylonian deity Marduk or the Greek god Zeus, Yahweh was far from alone in the heavens and like them he was not immaterial, incorporeal like the later abstractions of Jewish and Christian theologies.
So says later apologetics that were uncomfortable that early conceptions of Yahweh were just like the other gods, who also had bodies and walked on Earth with it's followers. That is their problem.
If you don't think that Francesca Stavrakopoulou , Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter doesn't read all the original languages these text are in then you are incorrect.
Turning the tables and attempting to put the absurdity of apologetics onto me and claiming I'm the "zealot" is hilarious. Suggesting one cannot read a passage with filtering it through weak apologetics that have to somehow disrespect and revise the past is truly a fail.
Right, all the religions had literal gods who interacted with followers BUT this Yahweh god, he just sounded the same but was ACTUALLY just a big metaphor for a spirit deity. Yeah that doesn't sound like someone made something up to save face centuries later.
Sure, and Dr Joel Baden is "crazy", uh huh.
Why are you sorry? Do you imagine a deity is incapable of changing forms? Thankyou for proving my point. When Yahweh is incorporeal it's says it very clear.
While in Ezekiel Yahweh takes a wife, he isn't in a formless mist.
"your breasts were formed, your () hair had grown, you were naked and bare...at the age for lovemaking....you became mine...."
He spreads his cloak over her (this is a euphamism) and she later gives birth. He clothes her, feeds her, accuses her of adultery and terrible things happen to her.
In modern translations the graphic sexual imagery is softened or obscured with sanitized vocabulary and clunky euphemisms.
A similar myth about Enki, a Sumerian god exists.
Isaiah enters the inner sanctum of a temple and sees God enthroned. God is accompanied by seraphim - fiery flying serpents - each with 3 pairs of wings. One set covers their facts, another covers their genitals (described as feet), with the other they fly about the throne crying "holy holy is Yahweh of hosts! The whole earth is full of glory.
Isaiah - "My eyes have seen the king, Yahweh of hosts, I saw the lord sitting on a throne, tall and lofty! His lower extremities filled the temple!"
Isaiah 6.1, 5
Apologists say he is speaking of the hem of his robe. He mkes no mention of a robe, the term he employs to refer to the deitie's lower extremities, shul, is more commonly used by biblical prophets not to refer to the edges of garments, but to pointedly allude to the fleshy realities of sexual organs.
Not surprising because Yahweh's father El also has tales of him being well equipped. These stories are culturally important, and literal.
We haven't been through this. The differences were just pointed out by YOU, in posting an example where Yahweh appears as mist. You are the one cherry-picking as if that means all passages mean he is mist. It simply shows when he was mist, it said he was mist. When he was to be thought of as real (or real in the story) he was presented as a physical deity.
I didn't name call, the apologetics are what it suggests
"It was a convoluted. theological abstraction that would influence Christian interpretation of this Biblical text for centuries to come, reflecting an increasingly powerful conceptual shift away from an old-fashioned mythological imagination to a world in which the symbolic and the abstract were granted the highest cultural and theological status."
First, the words are in quotes, they are Fransesca's words.
You completely misses the point so I have to explain because you are wrong in 2 ways.
The later apologetics which sanitize and pretend like Yahweh wasn't a typical Near-East deity reflect the shift.
What is written in the Bible is a God with a body, a storm warrior, elders ascended Mt Sinai and saw his feet, then th edeity himself.
Moses of course had regular meetings with him, takling to him "face to face as one would speak to a friend" Exodus 24.9-10: 33.11
Abraham walked beside him, Jacob had a wrestling match. Isaiah and Ezekiel each see God sitting on his throne, amos sees him standing in a temple. Jesus sees him and sits at his side. Steven in Acts and John in Revelation see God enthroned in heaven.
It was a given that God had a body, during the 2nd Temple Period it was understood to have hidden his body from the world.
It was the emerging theological emphasis on the hiddenness of God that gave rise to the abstract, incorporeal deity of Judaism and Christianity. A reimagining of a god who was far from enigmatic. Yahweh had a body, name, backstory, family and a host of heavenly companions.
Gods in this period did not fnction solitary, Yahweh was no exception.
Yes, an upgraded apologetic that changed with Greek concepts of God.
The OT has endless examples of Yahweh's body, every chapter in F.S. book is dedicated to a bodypart and other similar myths in nearby cultures, giving context.
Again, so what? I didn't say Yahweh is forced to take human form?
In Genesis Yahweh is said to walk regularly in Eden, ", at the time of the evening breeze", conjuring the impression of a deity enjoying a stroll at the end of the day.
Yahweh even gave special instructions to Israelites about defication - "You shall have a designated area outside the camp to which you shall go....when you relieve yourself outside, you shall did a hole and cover up your excrement, because Yahweh your God walks in your camp".
Deuteronomy 23. 12-14
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joelr
Well-Known Member
Oh wow, so if you name call your position is weak? How about weird assumptions and mind reading? That really just kills your entire argument it seems. Wow.
The conceptual shift is the later apologetics that are uncomfortable with what the myths are clearly saying. Cross-cultural examples show this is exactly what they meant.
I am aware of what's in the text because I rely on specialists who are not stuck in a bais.
I don't have "non-belief", I follow evidence, this mythical deity was first conceived to be more literal, as evidence shows.
The rant on hell is so bizarre I'm going to assume it's a joke. LOTR made a much bigger impact on me than Egyptian/Mesopotamian fiction combining with Persian and Hellenism fiction.
Yeah, how about mind reading and following apologetics desperate to make Yahweh more Graeco-Roman and less Mesopotamian. Which is a denial of history.
I'm also following scholars who are not bias and can see the work for what it is. Believers cannot have Yahweh having a body and wrestling so it has to be read with blah blah blah.....not my fault people think an ancient Near-Eastern deity is actually real and have to tap dance and word salad it into shape.
I'm all set with fictive reworkings of what scripture was intended to be to create a unified narrative when one doesn't exist. What happened is human myths changed.
"Arich Anpin" and "Zeir Anpin" both simultaneously.
Arich Anpin - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
You see. These concepts were neglected by those who wanted to assimilate into mainstream German culture shortly before WW2. They didn't want to follow the law, and they chose to ignore the deeper aspects of Judaism. This produced the Reform movement and biblical criticism as it is known today. They don't know what the words mean, they don't know the metaphors attached to them, and they don't want to know them. They want to be "german-intellectuals" for lack of a better term. It's not that the metaphors didn't exist, it's that the metaphors need to be denied inorder to assimilate. And they deeply desire assimilation. This is historically accurate. Look at the kosher meat strike in New York city around... oy... the mid 1900s. It was german intellectuals vs. the common masses whom were being painted as outsiders.
Wiki? And non-related stuff from way later? What?? That has nothing to do with his nose which was long because he had a body and a long nose was a mythic trope that many gods had for anger and smelling the aroma of sacrifice.
And, one can go directly back to the story in the garden to see what happened. Eve is standing directly in front of the Tree of Life but instead choses knowledge. Why?
ותרא האשה כי טוב העץ למאכל וכי תאוה־הוא לעינים ונחמד העץ להשכיל ותקח מפריו ותאכל ותתן גם־לאישה עמה ויאכל׃And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit, and ate, and gave also to her husband with her; and he ate.
She chose the tree that was desired by others.
Yes good story. The God of the Bible was particularly proud of his nose. In his lengthy monologue on Mt Sinai, he reels off a list of his best qualities, not only describing himself as merciful, gracious and abounding in stedfast love and faithfulness, but "long nosed", too.
Although some Jewish mystics would later insist his nose was perfectly proportioned, in the Bible, God's nose is admirably elongated.
In ancient Levantine cultures, the nose was an organ of pleasure and anger.
Yahweh tells Moses he is slow to lose his temper but elsewhere his sensitive nose is easily irritated - particularly by religious malpractice.
When angered there is a "smoke in my nostrils, a fire that burns all day long. Next rapid noisy breathing as he threatens to lash out - "I will cry like a woman in labour, I will gasp and pant", promising that his heated breath will scorch the landscape, drying rivers, shriveling it's trees and plants." Isaiah 42 .14-15
Then finally anger pours out like a molten stream of lava, consuming his enemies. Yahweh's weaponized breath battled the sea monster chaos.
Common myth at the time. Literal battles.
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Possible? Simply it presents no reason to believe that our reality may be computer simulation.
The Matrix is science fiction.
If God exists the Big Bang was still caused by Natural Laws and processes. Science cares about what caused the Big Bang as well as the nature of our physical existence.
wellwisher
Well-Known Member
We, as material beings, live in space-time, where time and space are connected. Einstein first noticed this. The speed of light is calculated by distance/time. In the case of the speed of light, space and time are connected by math division. Theoretically, there should also be independent space and independent time, that are not connected, but which can act, independently.
Independent space and time is actually proven by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. When dealing with small particles, like electrons and photons, one cannot to know both position (space) and momentum(time) at the same time. Momentum needs time to act. The more you know one of these variables, the more other variable becomes even less known. This tells me that space and time are acting like they are not connected. If they were connected, one would imply the other, and not create greater uncertainty. This observation has been misinterpreted to mean randomness. In reality, it is more logical and based on two known variables; space and time, that can each act like they are independent. I would like to rename the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the Heisenberg Certainty Principle, to help end the era of confusion.
If you could move in space, independent of time, you could be everywhere in the universe, at the same time. This is classically called being omnipresent. The electron, in an atomic orbital, is sort of omnipresent, but on a very small scale. It has what I call distance potential; independent distance, but limited to the atomic scale of space. If we add some extra distance potential, it can quantum jump, in zero time, an appear within a larger volume of space; electron resonance.
If you could move in time, apart from space, you could go outside the time line of space-time, to the future and back; space held constant. This would give you the potential to alter your own future. If I could go to the future, and learn what the numbers of the winning lottery ticket will be, and then go back to the past, I could buy the ticket a day ahead of the fate based winner, and become rich; alter fate. The other person will never know the difference, since the future is not certain in space-time. We need to hold space constant to do that.
If space and time were connected, I could not time travel this way, but would be a victim of fate. Space and time being connected would create a ripple affect between past, present and future space-time. But with time not connected to space, one can change the future, by simply seeing the future, while not altering material space, so one can gather extra resources, from the future, for a new fate.
The building of the primordial atom of the BB, needed time potential to gather lots of zero point energy resources; know where to be when independent time and independent space; junction. Then you need distance potential; become omnipresent, to gather it all at once. In the case of the electron, both space and time are acting, but in an independent way, to create a connected affect, but not limited in the same way as space-time.
According to Einstein, mass cannot travel the speed of light. Mass is the platform for space-time. General Relativity shows how mass can alter local space-time based on the amount of mass. Once mass appeared, in the early BB universe, connected space-time appears. Since mass cannot travel the speed of light; reach energy space, space-time, due to mass, could not reverse directly back to speed of light energy. Rather space-time and mass was cut off, and needed to go to the future, to find its way home.
Where space and time are not connected, anything is possible; like omnipresent, which implies infinite complexity and infinite entropy. This infinite entropy within independent space and time, acting onto space-time, is the source of the second law, which causes our space-time universe to increase entropy. The entropy increase, then increases complexity, and allows mass and space-time to evolve and eventually find their way home.
Our universe is space-time, immersed in independent space and time. There is interaction between the two realms with most of this at the quantum level. Life and Consciousness are the interface via their entropy interface and connection. Consciousness will learn the secrets of nature to accelerate the way home.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
@joelr ,
The majority of my objection is, you do not read the text it self. Instead you rely on others to do the work for you when the text shows you are wrong, every time. Since you have actually brought an example, let's look at it together.
"No" YHVH is not literally taking a wife, nor literally impregnating her. The translation below is not sanitized. The metaphor is set-up clearly in the first 3 verses. But because you have never, to my recollection, actually read what is written, you are easily misguided to false conclusions.
The metaphor is clear: The Lord took Jerusalem to be a "wife", then Jerusalem acted as a "harlot" and a "cheat".
From here forward, Jerusalem is described as a harlot who is cheating on her husband. That's it.
No actual copulation, no child birth, and God never takes a literal form.
Here are the verses:
Your version of "similar" has always turned out to be grossly divergent when the story is actually read. In our last conversation, the truth was:
There is a similar word or phrase, a MOTIF, nothing more. They are not similar stories.
The majority of my objection is, you do not read the text it self. Instead you rely on others to do the work for you when the text shows you are wrong, every time. Since you have actually brought an example, let's look at it together.
"No" YHVH is not literally taking a wife, nor literally impregnating her. The translation below is not sanitized. The metaphor is set-up clearly in the first 3 verses. But because you have never, to my recollection, actually read what is written, you are easily misguided to false conclusions.
The metaphor is clear: The Lord took Jerusalem to be a "wife", then Jerusalem acted as a "harlot" and a "cheat".
Verse 2 - The "woman" is "Jerusalem" - verse 2.
Verse 3 - The "birth" is from "Canaan". The "father" is an "Amoritee" and the "mother" is a "Hittite"
Verse 4 - When "Jerusalem" was born, she was not "washed and cleansed and swaddled"
Verse 5 - Immediately after the birth "Jerusalem" was thrown into a "field"
Verse 6 - When the Lord passed by Jerusalem it had pity on them
Verse 7 - ** here's the verse you are referring to with breasts **
Verse 7 - The Lord caused Jerusalem to develop "breasts", and hair, but she was still naked
Verse 8 - ** here's the verse you are referring to where there is an intimate consumation **
Verse 8 - The Lord saw that Jerusalem had developed and was in "the time of love" , in season, fertile, and they were "married", there was a union, husband and wife.
Verse 9 - The Lord washed off the "blood" from verse 4 from Jerusalem with water and annointted with oil
Verse 10 - The Lord clothed Jerusalem
Verse 11 - The Lord gave a pierced jewlery and a crown to Jerusalem
From here forward, Jerusalem is described as a harlot who is cheating on her husband. That's it.
No actual copulation, no child birth, and God never takes a literal form.
Here are the verses:
16:1
Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
16:2
Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations,
16:3
And say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem; Your birth and your origin is in the land of Canaan; your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite.
16:4
And as for your birth, in the day you were born your navel was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you, nor were you rubbed with salt, nor swaddled at all.
16:5
No eye pitied you, to do any of these to you, to have compassion upon you; but you were thrown out in the open field, for you were loathed, on the day that you were born.
16:6
And when I passed by you, and saw you weltering in your own blood, I said to you when you were in your blood, Live! Yes, I said to you when you were in your blood, Live!
16:7
I have caused you to increase like a plant of the field, and you grew up and became tall, and you came to possess great ornaments; your breasts were formed, and your hair grew, yet you were naked and bare.
16:8
And when I passed by you, and looked upon you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness; yes, I swore to you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.
16:9
Then I washed you with water; indeed, I thoroughly washed away your blood from you, and I anointed you with oil.
16:10
I clothed you also with embroidered cloth, and shod you with leather, and I girded you with fine linen, and I covered you with silk.
16:11
I decked you also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon your hands, and a chain on your neck.
16:12
And I put a ring on your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon your head.
16:13
(K) Thus were you decked with gold and silver; and your garment was of fine linen, and silk, and embroidered cloth; you ate fine flour, and honey, and oil; and you were very beautiful, and you were fit for royal estate.
16:14
And your fame went forth among the nations for your beauty; for it was perfect through my splendor, which I had bestowed on you, says the Lord God.
16:15
But you trusted in your own beauty, and played the harlot because of your fame, and lavished your fornications on everyone who passed by; his it was.
Your version of "similar" has always turned out to be grossly divergent when the story is actually read. In our last conversation, the truth was:
There is a similar word or phrase, a MOTIF, nothing more. They are not similar stories.
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dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
OK, let's look.
This section of Isaiah are "visions". They are by defintion not literal. They are like dreams. The book begins:
The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
Now let's look at the verse you brought:"My eyes have seen the king, Yahweh of hosts, I saw the lord sitting on a throne, tall and lofty! His lower extremities filled the temple!"
Please literally describe a form where the someone is sitting on a throne and their lower excremities are literally filling a temple. Literally filling a temple.Please literally describe someone's lower extremities literally filling a temple.
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
Yes, wiki. Which means the metaphor is easily obtained, and scholars, such as yourself, have no excuse for not knowing it. If you read the text in this chapter it clealy states that none shall see the face of the Lord and live. It's a famous verse. Therefore, Moses does not literally see a long nose.
And [The Lord] said, You can not see my face; for no man shall see me and live.
So, again, reading the text proves you wrong. And your own words defeat you. You said: "mystic trope". That means NON-LITERAL.That's enough for today. Hopefully you will realize the error in your conclusions and the errors in the "scholars" of your faith can all be easily reconciled by reading the text.
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IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
The logic of your post seems to indicate you think that because you believe in something, it must therefore exist. That is not good reasoning. For example, for ages humans thought the earth was flat, but it never was.
How's a miracle different from magic? Breathing or speaking something into existence is a claim of magic. You can put lipstick on it and call it a miracle, but it is what it is.
OK.... example?
no, it's because my interlocutor has lost track.
I don't even remember who originally brought the term up, or in what context.
Science may describe or explain laws, but it doesn't make them. The laws are natural. Science makes hypotheses and theories.
How is explaining something or correcting an error rude?
I suspect you're equating my irreverence with rudeness and disrespect. I admit I'm irreverent.
Unlike any other claim, many feel a need to pussyfoot around religious claims; to defer to them, to not question them. Religious claims are in an untouchable, 'sacrosanct' class of their own. Questioning them is just not done. Apparently it would rend the very fabric of society.
Sorry, but I reserve the right to question any and all truth claims.
Is the voice not making a statement? Perhaps it's singing, or chanting.....
This rhetoric is all just poetic fluff. If an incantation can magically create or alter something, show me an example and explain the mechanism, otherwise it's just a claim of magic.
Not a stage magician using distraction, sleight-of-hand, smoke or mirrors. Religion is claiming actual effect sans mechanism. That's actual magic, so the term is apt. Pussyfooting around it with euphemisms and poetry just obfuscates, or dodges the question.
"Belief" is a whole class of awareness. It can be true or false, valid or invalid, evidenced or baseless.
A delusion is a kind of belief. It's a belief held in the face of contrary evidence.
Many religious claims are beliefs held despite contrary evidence. That makes the label apt.
Sorry. Please remind me or cite the reference.
OK, which assessments are unevidenced?
It's an epistemic claim, not the ontological claim in question. I'm questioning the assessment of a claim of fact, which lacks sufficient evidence to logically or reasonably stand.
Theism is a claim of God. It bears a burden of proof. The lack of proof is an observation or assessment. If such is actually observed, the God-claimant's burden has not been met, and the claim is 'formally' dismissed.
This could devolve into an endless regression, the upshot of which would be "nothing is knowable; evidence is speculation, and discussion and debate just meaningless noise."
"I don't have to" because I don't have the burden of proof for the claim in question. The claim is automatically dismissed if the claimant is unable to support it.
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Craftsman tools help?
dybmh
ויהי מבדיל בין מים למים
"How's a miracle different from magic?" The simple fact that you are saying "miracle" is putting lipstick on it shows there is a difference.
I'm growing tired of these circle games you keep playing. "How is it different?" is the beginning of the post, then one sentence later, you have determined a difference all by yourself.
Calling God a magician, calling belief in god delusional.
Wrong. Here is your quote. Yes, your atheism does not mean you are inerrant. What these pictures show is that you lost track of what you said and why. The person you were speaking to intended "natural law", but instead used the words "scientific law". This gave you the opportunity to "flex" andd show off and ridicule someone else. Then, when I objected to this, you say, "What? What? I didn't do that."
And here you are still in full-denial mode.
And here it is. Dude. You don't remember what you said or to whom. And that's why I said:
You said: "I don't even remember who originally brought the term up, or in what context."
I said: "you have lost track of the conversation."
Clearly I was correct. You have lost track. You don't remember what you said or why.
Calling God "just a magician", and calling belief in god "delusional" is rude to the people you aree speaking to.
This is what you said, since you have lost track. And I'll zoom in since you seem to need extra-special asstiance.
Context mismatch. This is not thee jokes-forum. Irreverent humor here is rude.
You didn't question anything.
Nope, not magic. That's different. One can see a magic show. There is a visible magician. They're doing magic "tricks" which are explainable and reproducible if a person knows the trick. Knowing the trick ruins the illusion.
Nope, actual magic is a miracle.
And that is why it is false to claim it as delusion. There is no contrary evidence in this context. Thanks for clearing that up.
I have no doubt that you wuold love to change the context shifting the goal post because it permits: deny, deny, deny....
posted above
your claim of "delusional"
your claim that it lacks evidence itself lacks evidence, it is dismissed.
It is a belief system. When someone claims knowledge then you can go ahead flex those imaginary big-atheist-muscles. First word in the definition: belief.
What proof would is expected for this specific god? None is the correct answer. That is where almost all atheists fail. They are usually coming from an American Christian background where they never advanced beyond a cartoon white-man-god in the clouds waving a wand like a magician.
No, that's the end of the debate. It's the beauty and rationality of agnosticsm which absolutely permits belief. However the atheist has nothing left to argue about. Poor atheist. So sad.
Your claims in this thread which you are denying making are all baseless. But this is typical, The atheist arguing on internet forums thinks they're not making claims, but... they absolutley are.
This is my last post to you on this topic. Say whatever you choose. I don't care.
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joelr
Well-Known Member
Not even a fail. How does one downplay the use of a scholar who specializes in a subject? Well, you could write something ridiculous like right above.
Then you pretend like everyone has to become Phd scholars in a subject to speak on it or they "rely on others to do the work". It's hard to type without laughing. Actually impossible.
Yes they are metaphors, written by men, narratives using misogynistic violence, these value systems are from people, not Gods. Just wanted to point out these are myths using values that were acceptable at the time. But it's an example of cross-cultural mythology that I mentioned as well.
"Jewish and Christian interpreters have tended to soften and sanitize this encounter, either by reductive means, so that the episode is "merely" a metaphor or allegory depicting intense religious intamacy, or by fantasing that romantic notions of a committed, heteronormative love find their archetype in God, so that he is the paradigmatic devoted husband. But this is wishful thinking - and it will not do.
Ezekiel's story is reflective of a patriarchal, masculinist culture, in which girls and women tended to be valued and defined in terms of their bodily configurations with men: as daughters, sisters, wives, mothers, or sex-workers. The biblical God cannot and should not be let off the hook. Here, he is a predatory alpha male, whose sexual entitlement entirely shapes the identity and fate of this displaced and vunerable young girl.
Indeed it is only after sex that God formally rehabilitates his young bride by means of actions reminiscent of the rituals denied her at birth: he bathes her, washing away the dried blood of birth and the wet blood of puberty, and then rubs her not with salt but with sacred oil. Her objectifications continues as he dresses her in rich fabrics and puts soft leather sandals on her feet: he decorates her with earings, a nose ring, bangles, a necklace and crown, so that she looks like a statue of a goddess in a temple. He gives her th eritual foods commonly offered to deities and transforms her from the wilderness to civilization, where she is celebrated for the beauty God has bestowed upoon her. And here she is fixed: an unspeaking, passive ornament of her husband's hegemonic, sexualized masculinity.
She gives birth to his followers but it results in extreme sexual violence.
Later Israel is personified as two sisters Ohlah and Oholibah who represent Samaria and Jerusalem. Their sexual crimes, God claims begin even before they become brides. Sexual depravity follows.
The morals of the story are a warning to women, lest they too dishonour their husbands."
There are plenty examples of literal sightings of Yahweh, his body, including his genitals in Ezekial1.27-28
motnayim more accurately refers to the groin and its genitals.
see: The Earthly Nature of the Bible, Fleshy Readings of Sex, Masculinity, and Carnality,
Roland Boer, p 51
or God's Phallus - and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism, H. Eilberg-Schwartz
p 180-181
Uh, no, they are similar stories. Enki has sex with the world, fertilizing it and creating rivers with his......
This is exactly the same concept. It's Sumerian. A God has metaphorical sex with the nation, call it what you want, it's clearly a motif that was a trend from Sumer to Israel and in-between.
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Yeah, but in the movie the virtual reality in it, is called Matrix. And in a way it shows what this life could be like.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Sure.
The scale of Yahweh's genitalia is to be expected- not only because it belongs to a supersized body, but because Yahweh's cultural father, the aged deity EL, was similarly well equipped. In the mythological stories enshrined on the clay tablets of cosmopolitan Ugarit (c.1350-1200 B C E), El's penis makes several appearances. In one myth the god sets out along the serpentine seashore at the edges of the world, where he encounters two young goddesses.They urge him to get an erection and take him in marriage. The response is unambiguous:
El's penis grew as large as the sea, El's penis grew as long as the ocean. Having installed them as brides in his home, he grasps his penis in his right hand and shoots it skyward, like an arrow, to entice hisnew wives into consuming the marraige. (more stuff happens), they bear him the gods Dawn and Dusk.
Later after some bull imagery by El he fills the Euphrates river and more...... An ocean is bigger than a temple.
This fertile potency was a characteristic shared across millannia with other masculine deities closely associated with the bull (Yahweh does this also with horns), Egyptian god Min who had a permanent erection, Atum, Baal used his "tumescent penis" to mate....
Assyrian storm god Adad was depicted standing atop a great bull, etc....
Like the Sumerian god Eniki, Yahweh's status as a fertile creator god of the highest order is also confirmed in the Bible with a fleeting portrayal of his sexual encounter with the earthly realm.
Yahweh sexually takes the land of Israel as his wife (signalled by the euphemistic use of the verb "to know") and excites the cosmos at a place called Jezreel. (He seeds) a region famed for it's rich aagricultural soils.
I will take you for my wife in faithfulness
and you will "know" Yahweh
On that day I will fructify-says Yahweh
I will fructify the heavens
they will fructify the earth.........
I will seed her for myself in the land
Hosea
In ancient cultures a sizeable penis did not render male deities less godly but appropriately divine. The imposing erect virility of masculine gods was vividly celebrated in these ancient societies and the religious literature they produced. There is nothing to suggest a cultural discomfort with the sexuality of gods and their giant penises.
The later xenophobic polemics of later Greek and Roman writers who preferred their heroes to be modestly equipped, and the snobbish distain of later Western thinkers changed attitudes about this. Again, Yahweh was a typical Near-Eastern deity.
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joelr
Well-Known Member
who said I'm a scholar?
You cannot possibly be serious. You point out one of the billion contradictions in scripture and actually suggest THAT verse is the all-consuming verse that all others stand to? To quote someone, "you have no excuse for not knowing this".
But Moses huh?
"In the Biblical story of Moses, the physiological transformation triggered by a visual encounter with a deity is far more extreme, as we have already seen. Of all the Bible's characters, it is Moses who is repeatedly said to have enjoyed a face-to-face relationship with the deity: "Yahweh would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend" Exodus 33.11
Moses does not simply see Yahweh, but looks at him: he talks to him, he listens to him and engages with him. And having spent fourty days and nights with Yahweh on Sinai, it is the corporeal, visual intensity of this social bond with the deity which is understood to transfigure Moses face in the book of Exodus."
Exodus 34.29-35
Some scholars argue Moses became radiant in his face others say he grew horns. The Semitic root of the Hebrew term associated with the transformation means "horn" but is associated with light.
Whoops, watch out for that rake.....and, too late.
See now that too was a metaphor.
And sorry, no faith, just evidence.
The spitball contest over whether the supernatural events claimed in the Bible are magic or miracles is not really meaningful. Though I agree most of the events would be miracles.
I consider magic involved with deception, slight of the hand, and tricks like those performed by magicians. Actually, the tricks performed by Moses to impress the Pharoh such as turning his staff into a snake were common magic tricks performed at the time.
The dividing of the Red Sea to let the Hebrews escape Egypt and drown the Egyptian army would be a claim of a miracle,