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But you have no proofs, or if you do you are declining to present them in this forum. You have opinions and have been immensely generous in sharing those, but nothing remotely resembling a proof has emerged.
Each time someone has asked how you "know" the things you claim to know, you have ducked the question, employing feeble excuses such as the above "not playing your game" as though answering a relevant question is part of some game.
My conclusion, and I suspect the conclusion of the others here who have been pressing you for this answer, is that there actually isn't any "how" and you in fact don't "know" these things at all. It makes you feel groovy to claim that you do, perhaps you have tricked yourself into believing that you do, perhaps it is necessary to your particular psychological well being to pretend like you know...
....but quite clearly you do not.
It's the same old tired sequence that theists follow. Looks like we've reached the final cop out.
Really? I'll just go and find five or six links to sites that treat Moses as a real person. Just like whoppers found a few that say he didn't exist.
Let's see if these actually represent mainstream biblical scholarship, and not extremely conservative views. Who wants to place your bets on what "quick internet searches" mr5150 has chosen to look up? Place your bets now!
David Telushkin - Conservative Rabbi, author, lecturer and NOT a Biblical scholar - references Y. Kauffman, a conservative scholar whose ideas have long fallen out of favor.
Oh, it's Tracey Rich, who - in his own words - "I do not claim to be a rabbi or an expert on Judaism; I'm just a traditional, observant Jew"... (Judaism 101: About the Author). Yet again, not a biblical scholar, not even a rabbi.
Oh, it's from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911, and not even in it's original form - it's been transcribed by someone. 1911. That's hardly an indication of recent biblical scholarship.
Another anonymous author from an extremely conservative website, not authored by biblical scholars.
All bets in! The results are in, and very clear! So out of all those articles - that's a pretty bad reprsentation of Biblical Scholarship. Nice try - but at least we now know you do no know how to properly research anything written by actual, real bibcal scholars. Everything you've quoted here is from extremely conservative sources - none of them representing anything even remotely approaching biblical scholarship.
For those who won their bets, please collect your winnings by sending a message to Mr5150 who will, no doubt, do the right thing and compensate you for your time.
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Originally Posted by Mr5150
Umm... it wasn't a failure to answer as much as it was a refusal to address my two rebuttals
He makes a very good point. You don't bring very much to the conversation except unproven statements presented as facts, accusations against others of "bad information" - while you engage in the most egregious example of the latter.
Let's see if these actually represent mainstream biblical scholarship, and not extremely conservative views. Who wants to place your bets on what "quick internet searches" mr5150 has chosen to look up? Place your bets now!
David Telushkin - Conservative Rabbi, author, lecturer and NOT a Biblical scholar - references Y. Kauffman, a conservative scholar whose ideas have long fallen out of favor.
Oh, it's Tracey Rich, who - in his own words - "I do not claim to be a rabbi or an expert on Judaism; I'm just a traditional, observant Jew"... (Judaism 101: About the Author). Yet again, not a biblical scholar, not even a rabbi.
Oh, it's from the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1911, and not even in it's original form - it's been transcribed by someone. 1911. That's hardly an indication of recent biblical scholarship.
It's too bad the author of this "biography" doesn't give his name, but the 4 sources he lists are from popular, non scholarly works.
Once again, an anonymous author who cites no sources. Surprise, surprise.
Another anonymous author from an extremely conservative website, not authored by biblical scholars.
All bets in! The results are in, and very clear! So out of all those articles - that's a pretty bad reprsentation of Biblical Scholarship. Nice try - but at least we now know you do no know how to properly research anything written by actual, real bibcal scholars. Everything you've quoted here is from extremely conservative sources - none of them representing anything even remotely approaching biblical scholarship.
Superb work bro! I'd say you're BUSTED 5150! LMAO!
Quote:
For those who won their bets, please collect your winnings by sending a message to Mr5150 who will, no doubt, do the right thing and compensate you for your time.
I have determined that the proofs I have seen of a loving God are sufficient for me to believe.
Apparently over 2 billion other Christians have reached the same conclusions.
We understand and accept that you don't see the proof that we see, and that's okay.
You have proof?
I don't. I have my beliefs. I have faith. But, as a Christian, do I have proof God exists? Have I seen proof? No. Not if we're talking scientific proof. (Every time someone says they have proof God exists I want to check and make sure my wallet is still there.)
i was just thinking about the ten commandments. There appears to be fairly regular discussion about them in american popular media. My questions about them are these:
1.) given that the homo sapien species has existed for ~200,000 years, why did god wait until the last 3,000 (or 1.5%) of those years to tell people how to behave?
2.) for the 197,000 years that god stayed silent, did it not occur to human beings that they should abstain from killing one another, that they should avoid stealing from one another, that they should refrain from sleeping with one anothers' wives, etc.?
3.) given that all seven continents have been occupied by humans for thousands of years, why did god tell people how to behave and then keep his instructions confined to the near east? For instance, why did god make it so that news of his commandments, and the very existence of the christian religion, failed to reach the western hemisphere until 1492?
4.) why don't the ten commandments say anything about resource conservation and distribution? Human beings torture and kill 2 billion sentient, living beings every week. We wipe out 10,000 entire species every year. We are facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history. We possess several times the wealth and technology that we need to feed each other, yet millions of human beings die each year of starvation. We have built our entire existence in the modern world off of destroying the very planet we live on. If god can see the future, wouldn't he have known that the majority of human beings to ever live on earth would live around the time of the industrial revolution? And if he knew that, why didn't he say anything about our handling of natural and man-made resources?
5.) why didn't the ten commandments say anything about child abuse? The old testament bible brims with instructions, sometimes given directly by god to his followers, to kill children. Joshua was instructed by god to kill all amalekite children. The prophet isaiah was told, by god, to instruct god's followers to kill children, not for the anything that they had done, but for "sins" that their parents had committed. (this practice is forbidden in modern times by the geneva convention; any military leader who kills innocent humans for actions taken by other humans can be tried in a world court for crimes against humanity). An old testament psalm describes god as "he who takes pleasure in dashing the infants' heads against the rocks." there are literally dozens of places in the old testament bible where instructions are given to kill children. Was it ever moral to kill children? If so, why is it no longer moral? If it was once moral and is no longer, does god change his mind about what is and isn't moral? If he does, why bother worshiping him? He could soon decide that killing you or me is moral.
6.) why didn't the ten commandments say anything about slavery? Exodus 21:20-21 says, "anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." leviticus 25:44-46 says, "however, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way." was it ever moral to own human beings? If so, why is it no longer moral? Was it ever moral to beat human beings with a rod? Why was it considered moral by the author of exodus 21 to beat a slave with a rod, so long as the slave recovered? Was it ever moral to purchase children? Was it moral to seperate them from their families? Was it ever moral to treat them as property? If these things were moral, why does the author of leviticus 25 insist that his followers (the israelites) never be treated this way?
7.) why didn't the ten commandments say anything about rape? According to the old testament bible, when a rape is committed, if the woman does not already have a husband, the worst punishment the rapist faces is being forced to marry his victim. (the woman is apparently not given a choice in the matter). In many circumstances, when a rape is committed, the woman faces punishment. The situation for pedophilia is even worse: While chapters such as leviticus 20 give long lists of sex-related crimes prohibiting incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, having sex with a menstruating woman, and so on, nowhere - not once - does the bible ever explicitly say that sexually molesting children not related to you is wrong. Does this not seem a rather serious omission on jehovah's part?
8.) since the very first commendment instructs that people worship the judeo-christian god, jehovah, how is placing images of the ten commandments in public places congruent with the constitution of the united states, which is secular, neither opposing or supporting any religion? Imagine the fit of apoplexy christian fundamentalists would have if hindus demanded the u.s. Government post, in public places, sections from the bhagavad gita, declaring, "thou shalt have no other gods before brahma." in my view, this sort of intolerant exclusivity is the antithesis of the principles of civilized society and stands opposed to every enlightened government's policy of neutrality toward religion.
9.) the second commandment prohibits forming graven images: "thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: For i the lord thy god am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments (exodus 20:4-6)." this being the case, why are so many graven images of jesus and crucifixes created and celebrated by christians? If forming graven images is serious enough an offense to bare mention in the ten commandments, when actions like rape and slavery remain unaddressed, shouldn't christians and jews be positively confounded by crucifix jewelery, etc.?
10.) the 6th commandment instructs that human beings "not kill," but what does this mean, exactly? Does this mean we're not allowed to kill animals and plants for food? Does this mean we're not allowed to kill in self-defense? What about justifiable wars, abortion, euthanasia, or capital punishment? Why is the death penalty exempt from this commandment? If the law is to be understood literally, as a blanket order forbidding all killing, then the bible clearly breaks its own rule numerous times. The old testament prescribes death as the penalty for even the most trivial offenses: Blasphemy, disobedience in children, picking up sticks on the sabbath, mocking a prophet for his baldness, losing one's virginity before her wedding night. (suspiciously, only women could be killed for this; not men). Most notably, yahweh himself orders the israelites to wage war on their enemies on many occasions, often explicitly instructing them to wipe out entire foreign tribes to the last man, woman and child; a crime which, today, we would call genocide. If such actions do not fall within the boundaries of the sixth commandment, then what actions can it be understood to forbid? Why did god give such an ambiguous commandment?
10.) why does the 8th commandment say, "thou shall not steal," when, in several verses (exodus 3:22, exodus 12:35-36, ezekiel 39:10), god instructs his chosen people to steal from and plunder their enemies, and move on?
11.) why are there so few judeo-christian followers left who believe in a literal moses? Virtually all scholarly jews and christians have accepted that the exodus narrative is, at least, a serious embellishment on historical events, and at most, a complete literary fiction; many scholarly christians and jews have accepted that moses cannot have existed in history. (the writings attributed to moses are amalgamations of stories written hundreds of years apart and then combined at some point in the mid-first millenium bce. They cannot have been written by one man; very few reputable christian or jewish scholars deny this). And if moses never actually existed, the story of the ten commandments can only be rationally salvaged by interpreting them as an allegory. But why does god so commonly speak in allegories, versus describing his will and wishes in precise, direct language?
All in all, i find the ten commandments, and the judeo-christian-islamic ethos in general, to be supremely suspicious. In all areas of religious belief, western monotheism appears to me to hold the prejudices, biases, superstitions, fears, hopes, ambitions, hatreds, loves and scientific beliefs of the bronze age tribespeople who wrote them down. I'm not sure i can endorse the ten commandments as even a rough outlline for the fair governing of a free society, let alone a specific governing code. I suspect that true adherence to the ten commandments is more a lofty religious ideal than the true heart's wish of intelligent christians, inasmuch as they smack of intolerance, indifference and moral clumsiness. In short, i see them as little more than a psychological icon of religious fundamentalism.
And for the sake of humanity, and our descendants yet to come, we must all fight the cancer of religious fundamentalism, to ensure that the human race will never sink back down into the darkness of mental and physical slavery it only so recently began to escape. We must all work together in the spirit of jefferson and madison, (both deists who denied the syncretic superstitions of their day), towards the day when we, as a species, can leave theocracy and superstition behind us, stepping in to the light of democracy and reason together, for all time.
x2, though I would be careful blaming ALL theists. I can think of quite a few religions that are born out of freedom that actually are good, peaceful, and free religions. To say ALL theists, and ALL religions are evil is bigoted. Just because the Abrahamic religions are all messed up, does not mean ALL religions are.
Maybe there is such a thing as "spiritual truth," and maybe that truth isn't subject to, or described by, the same laws that physical truth is; I'm open to that possibility. Importantly, I'm also open to the possibility there is NO such thing as spiritual truth. Either way, it's peculiar to me that so many theists employ the methods of science and reason to portray truths that, if they are real, are inherently un-scientific and non-reason oriented. Equally, it's peculiar to me that so many athiests employ the methods of science and reason to rule out spiritual truth, which, if it does exist, seems to operate in ways counterintuitive to science and reason.
More on-topic, it's my opinion that the story of the Ten Commandments should be viewed from the paradigm of Occam's Razor; in other words, readers of the TC's should ask themselves what the simplest explanation for the apparent moral shortcomings of the Hebrew god's laws is. If we do this, I think many of us will be able to admit that the simplest explanation for the moral shortcomings of the TC's is that they were written by human beings and are not the product of an intelligent/benevolent god; they're just too clumsy.
And I don't think using a method as scientific as Occam's Razor on the TC's is negating spiritual truth, if it does exist, inasmuch as spiritual truth seems to be necessarily moral, while the morality of the TC's is distinctly contrary to mankind's highest possible morality.
Yep! Off s/he goes with the killer retort of "You are funny". Such an intellectual giant!!?
Well, wait....Mountains is right about that one thing. I am hilarious. I really crack me up. All that was misidentified was the chronology, I wasn't trying to be funny when I was pointing out that no proof had been provided and all requests for it had been dodged.
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