Who is stalking whom? :shootme [just so that we're perfectly clear on the extent of your delusion]
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Who is stalking whom? :shootme [just so that we're perfectly clear on the extent of your delusion]
Ridiculing is not stalking. I don't show up JUST to ridicule youQuote:
Originally Posted by Phenomanul
Perhaps not here. But they are in other parts of the world. The anecdote I shared previously in this thread being proof of that fact. I wouldn't even consider the sneering and smearing from the 'atheist clan' on this board as persecution either (just run-o-the-mill disrespect / spitting-on-their-grave mockery).Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
But your claim that people "respect my right to believe" can be discretely refuted with multiple instances over any thread I decide to participate in. The level of contempt, disdain, derision over anything I state is CLEARLY evident - unless of course you consciously or sub-consciously ignore it because your views very much align with the opposed viewpoint/world perspective I am arguing against...
Not at large, no... but definitely one being conducted by athiests in isolated pockets all over the world. Let them for all I care.Quote:
Originally Posted by Th'Pusher
Ultimately, I believe that people are free to believe whatever they want to. And frankly if they want to hurl hate in my direction, I don't care. My frustrations with posters on this website aren't based on subject matter disagreement THEY are however based on the clashing of argumenting-styles (and the drive by attack dynamic of other posters).
But you feel compelled to say something any time I do?? As I said, your claim that somehow, "I'm a butthurt victim" because YOU retort to my posts is logically inane - much like the rest of your trite nonsense.Quote:
Originally Posted by boutons_deux
Fuck man, it's an open message board. Are you really that insecure in your posts that you feel stalked?Quote:
Originally Posted by Phenomanul
I'm not being flip with question. Seriously: Do you believe God can create a round square?Quote:
Originally Posted by Phenomanul
If the square becomes round, it's no longer a square, right?
If God decides not to know everything he is no longer omniscient. You can't have it both ways.
Coming in all out of context... cue Blake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
I never claimed bouton's was stalking me... I simply stated that his claim that somehow I was stalking him was garbage.
He's omniscient except when he isn't. This sounds like a personal compact. I would never come into such a 'gentleman's agreement' on such nebulous terms with anyone much less an extra dimensional being whose nature is unknown. He 'could but doesn't' is also impossible to prove.
It's just so much meaningless blather. Scripture as normative cause is bankrupt in reality outside of human constructs. At that point it's just circular reasoning and reinforced wishful thinking. I've had spiritual events throughout my life and I don't deny the possibility of extra sensory beings or something 'greater than I.' I don't just surrender to it because of some book and bow to its authority because other people press their spiritualism on me. I push back with the truth.
I like Thoreau's approach to the transcendental and reason. I certainly do not feel the need to play sophist and try to force Constantine's construct as the truth. I find it quite easy to reject almost all dogmatic scripture and can still find peace. I really like the Jesus story and can understand how his story of freedom from religious repression was so popular so close to the lands of the Ptolemaists. Anthony, Cesar and Cleopatra had just happened 50 years before. Guys like John the Baptist could finally practice freely without persecution. It was new shit for that part of the world.
The Roman tradition of religious tolerance stems from the plebeian rebellion against patrician in Romes' first year. They removed all the sacrificial bullshit the patricians were demanding and had the senate drawn from all citizens. Roman culture was literally founded against the principles of the Levites, Pharisees, and the slave culture of pharaohs. All that shit Paul talks about what corporal conditioning is acceptable, the place of slaves, women, and submission to the god king, is the same slave tradition.
I just don't understand how a rational mind doesn't accept the reality of Constantine and his councils for what it is. It's like the Uyyabbid Damascenes who took over after Abu and Ali gibbed each other because Fatimah couldn't inherit herself. They pumped out the first Hadith. Some tried to use is for good purposes such as presumption of innocence and some other laws but its on obviously false authority.
And I'm not. When it comes to our choices GOD has curtailed HIS powers. I think you have me confused with someone else. I've affirmed that position repeatedly - which is why we are at logical odds on the concept of 'free-will'.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
That being said, GOD has all the power to take it all away and be fully omniscient if HE wanted to be. In that regard HE would still be considered omniscient. An alternative explanation is that GOD is able to see ALL of our choices, at every decision tree in our lives - every single possible permutation. I would consider that omniscience too - EVEN if ultimately we only make one choice at every one of those decision trees. HE knows the outcome from every choice we can plausibly make - but ultimately we are still the ones that choose to what we want to do.
Linearity and time don't mean the same thing to us (while in our mortal bodies) as they do to an Eternal being such as GOD who can transcend beyond any such temporal limitation...
OkQuote:
Originally Posted by Phenomanul
You're trying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Phenomanul
The logic is ridiculous either way. If you don't want humans to disobey you, don't put a tree of knowledge right next to their hut.
And don't allow Satan to hang out in Eden either.
Look at my post 70 in response to RG.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
The message that I have always gotten from it was that God wasn't merely asking Abraham's to kill Isaac to prove how much he loved God. I'm not aware of any translation of the OT that implies he was set to follow God's order to kill Isaac under the pretense of love. I've NEVER read/heard that. It was out of FEAR of breaking, and COMMITMENT/LOYALTY to, the Covenent between God, the Jews, and the rest of humanity. God didn't want to test whether Abraham loved Him enough to kill Isaac. He wanted to test Abraham's loyalty & commitment to upholding the Covenent & that above all--even his own son--it came first. That in essence his LOVE had to stretch beyond blood & encompass all of humanity, in order to be the God's chosen leader in upholding the Covenent.
He couldn't think of a better, less murderous test?Quote:
Originally Posted by mingus
Or a test that wasn't exactly like the type of thing that Pharaoh's priests used to do. Each Pharaoh had his history buried with him. Those priests used to do the same shit to family heads routinely. You can see the tradition being carried from Ancient Memphis to the escaped slaves, all the way to today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
The ark of the covenant is where the fragments of the legendary 10 commandments were kept. That covenant says 'thou shalt not kill.'
If you mean the covenant of absolute obedience as such to a pharaoh god-king then mingus interpretation both makes sense and is easy to discard. What to take of a man's willingness to sacrifice his own son is to demonstrate absolute obedience. These are dynastic people obsessed with fertility, determining who could marry who and the like. It helps to be specific which covenant you are talking about. When you insist on books 6000 years old its the type of nonsense you end up with though.
Anthromorphizing a diety seems dicey, at best.
Of course He could've.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake
Let me preface by saying that I don't believe any of this is true, nor do I believe in the God from the Bible. I believe in a God, but that's a story for another day.
The Bible I believe is ultimately literature. The point of this particular story, or part of the greater story, is to show that in order for Abraham to be worthy of being the (first) leader carrying out the Covenent, he has to be willing to give up what he holds most dear--his son, in this case. Theoretically, it could've been Sarai, or it could've been Ishmael, or all of them. And it could've been a different, more humane test. But the sacrificing part was just a storytelling device used to show/validate/symbolize that Abraham was worthy of fullfilling his end of the Covenent. In light of that, I wouldn't take its characterization of God or his choice of how to test Abraham with much more than a grain of salt seeing how it isn't important to the theme of the story, which is mainly whether Abraham is worthy or not.
What do you mean "insist on books"?Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
That doesn't make any sense.
The book can/should be read as literature, with significant historical, political, social elements. It's got everything in it that literature does. Of course, the Bible purports to be more. That, I do not believe one bit. But it that's neither here nor there. Just because I defend a certain interpretation of this story, doesn't mean I have a spiritual stake in it or that I'm beholden to support what it says.
The Covenent I'm talking about is the one between God, the Jews/Israelites, and their descendants (all of humanity): the Abrahamic Covenent (as opposed to the Moseic or Noahic Covenents, respectively).
Abraham has been chosen by God to in essence unify the Israelites, which were at that point (when the book the story probably was actually written) a scattered & disorganized people, ethnically known as Canaanites. The story is about Abraham's commitment to unify these people by, yes, being obedient to God, but more important given the historical context a commitment to his people--to unify them and allow them and their descendants, whether by adoption or hereditary inheritance, to prosper under the direction of one, monotheistic God (the Semitic people of Canaan at the time prayed to, and continued even after the Covenent, to pray to a variety of "gods", which contributed to their disformity). It's all about unifying a disorganized people under the pretense of this (Abrahamic) Covenent. And, because the Israelites at large also determine, by how they live their lives, whether the Covenent is upheld, the moral of the Abrahamic Covenent extends to them: the "sacrificing" of one's child may be necessary to upholding the Covenent (i.e. sending your son or daughter, as a sacrifice, to fight tribes of the area, or the Egyptions, or Persians [further down the line, but probably going on around when the story was actually told & written])
There's more to it than God = Cruel, Evil SOB. In fact it's a story our country & and the West in general has related to in the past and continues to relate to today. Except our Covenent (or social contract) is with different authority: absolute authority (govt.), & us. Do we take part in this social contract because merely because we're obedient to Govt.? No, we do because it's what unifies us, and has the best chance of giving us and our descendants a better future. We too have to be ready to sacrifice ourselves and our children to uphold this contract. It's bigger than any one person, blood-relate or not. Otherwise we live in Locke's "State of Nature" (which is basically the state that the Covenent-less Canaanites were living in at the time).
I really don't get the one-sided derision of the book: when you insist on "book 6000 years old" & nonsense.
It is a history, in part, of how my ancestors came together. And kept what kept them together. There's a lot to be gained from reading BOTH it and the NT. Not everything in it should be taken literally, and certainly there's things that when taken out of historical context seem stupid. But, many of its important, timeless values have been completely tossed aside by people who only care about criticizing & deriding it. I wish the people who (deservedly) criticize & deride it so much for what they believe (I assume) are moral reasons, felt the same moral responsiblity to say "while it's full of shit here, over here it talks about ______, where it's actually right." So as to not give the impression that the whole thing should be ignored. I think the more that happens the worse of we are. It should not so much be erased as adapted to our contemporary culture/way of life. I think the former is happening, and I think as a culture we're worse of because of it in a lot of ways. There's lots of insights to be had from it, philosophically, morally & ethically, historically. I'm not a believer, but I've taken many of the these insights and applied them to my life, and I'm all the better for it. At the same time, I've the good sense not to apply some of it too. But it's not this or that.
Whatever. That's my .02.
I'm aware that new prophets would come along and make a new set of rules. That was the entire point I was making regarding the last prophet according to you christians. You do believe in what jesus preached and tried to do right?Quote:
Originally Posted by mingus
If that is the case outside of the resurrection story and get into heaven free card that you guys like to fixate on the most significant thing he did was overturn the dovecotes and moneychangers table. That is what gave the pharisees probable cause with the romans to go after Jesus. He took off to Galilee and the country side. He preaches a lot is betrayed and captured. It's Roman property law over wrecking the temple that sees him crucified.
That is the story that took over the mediterranean. That and him telling everyone to give up judgment and find absolution through him. He goes on about having to go through a rebirth.
Don't try that context line with me. I actually know the context far better than most. I was raised in a literalist Biblical tradition. I've studied the history, anthropology, sociology and history of the region. I can talk about the political, technological, and scoiological mindset of the times. I've read some of the Giza scrolls. I've read histories of antiquity like herodotus and cicero. I've sifted through archaeological and historical information from Babylon and Persia. All I do is talk about context.
You know about Egyptian history? Pharaoh stayed in Memphis, the north, until about 3000 BC. The ritual sacrifice was a big part of the move. They for example would sacrifice all of pharaohs retainers on his death prior to the move the Thebes. Once in Theebs they would instead build statues terracotta army style. The stuff in the early old testament reads very similar to the stories and laws that they took out of Giza. If the Exodus story has any basis in reality then this is the time period in question. That's why I say 6000 years because that is where these stories originate from.
Also pulled out of Giza were declarations, astrologies, census and laws that read like genesis leviticus deuteronomy and numbers complete with slaving and doomsaying. Now I get as you move on with Daniel and some others that magic and what not is forbidden. I look at it as social progress in that region from about 6000 BC til the time Jesus would have been around. The Egyptian builder/priest class was very methodical though. They kept track of families and who was sacrificed and what body parts.
When I read the story of abraham I cannot help but think of priests declaring that someone had to die for some body part out on the pyramids. What I take from Abrahams story is that god will never ask anything of me like that because he's not an asshole. This is very similar to the ethic I take from Jesus story of not having to pay animal sacrifice or coin for absolution because God is not an asshole. When I read Jesus say to keep the lessons of Abraham and the various covenants as you term it, I hear him saying keep the freedoms we already won before.
I'm not going to get into miracles and whether or not Jesus 'revealed himself' to the two Mary's then his disciples and brother but by the time 'Paul' is on the road seeing him, I'm not buying it. Reading through his shit and the subjugation, proscriptions for beatings, and all manner of malfeasance I reject those books categorically as trash.
You have studied the early church and the nestorians, aesthetics, and the various factions that emerged? I always respected the guys like Saint Matthew and Augustine who actually tried to live the pure ethic that Jesus preached with his ritual bathing. Not so much the thought police of the Paulines that set themselves up as Bishops in Rome and Alexandria. Notice how there is no book in the Bible to the Alexandrians? That was because you didn't disagree with Cyril, Philip or any of the lectors because they would burn you out.
By the time that Constantine is in the picture, there are churches set up in every mediterranean. They have two councils. The first is to define the nature of Jesus. They deify him completely and then sick Peter the lector and those monks after the guys who disagreed. This began the whole excommunication thing. Then they had the second council where they took the torah, the gospels. a bunch of sales guides from early church leaders whose opinions the Romans liked which are no more valid then what you and I are talking about today then the prophecy that predicted Jesus appearance to corroborate the stuff in John and called it the word of God. You know the lengths they went to in terms of what types of thoughts were allowed back then right? Heresy laws and such?
Much of the New Testament is so contrived as to be upsetting. The genealogy it starts off with irritates me from the go. For the Jesus story to make any sense, he has to be a bastard outside the social order of Nazareth. If he's not then he is the son of a builder and goes to work with his father. His disdain for the pharisees actually makes sense if that geneology is not true. Nevermind that God was the one it says knocked up Mary to gloss over any uncertainty.
At least the Gospels have words and acts attributed to Jesus. I like some of the stories of the OT. I even practice many of the ethics contained therein. I just don't believe any of it is divinely inspired. It's been the tool of despots.
I agree & disagree with some of what you said. For example, I disagree that the Egyption practice of sacrificing Pharos is really all that important here, given the fact that human sacrifice was already a practice of the Canaanites. In fact, and I tend to agree with this, the story can be interpreted as saying that actual (as opposed and in addition to the symbolic gesture of it, which I've mentioned already) sacrifice is actually abhorrent.Quote:
Originally Posted by FuzzyLumpkins
But I'm not going to go into this anymore because--and I stated this way earlier in this thread--my intent was never to change anyone's mind. I'm I simply wanted to rid this thread of the simple idea that the story of Abraham can unequivocally be read in one way. We've only touched the surface. There are a dozen ways, many of which are very compelling.
Another thing, label me as you wish (I guess it makes me look less capable of analyzing the subject with competency, seeing how you said before that all Christians are stupid), but I'm not a Christian. By any objective criteria, I'm not a Christian. Also, by any objective criteria, not all Christians are stupid. Your subscription to such stupid ideas is pretty much a roadblock for debating this any further, or really anything at all.
My intent is to uncover the truth. That is why I look to actual written records and the like. Prior to the founding of Jerusalem, the pharaohs could raid and capture slaves with impunity in Canaan as you term it. Jerusalem's founding around 6000 BC would have given cover for escaping slaves. Babylon and Ur are getting conquered every other generation it seems from their records during this time period. Alcohol had spread from the East a couple thousand years before.Quote:
Originally Posted by mingus
You talk of context and how others don't understand. You don't argue any of what I say, I actually fact check myself on this. I'm giving you the real context. Truth. Reality.
Pharaoh is central in the Exodus story. What pharaoh did in reality in 4000 BC is important and back then he was still killing all of his retainers. They built large burial complexes to house them pretty famously. In this context the raised slave to serve the pharaoh has a completely different dynamic.
When I read the account of the passover where Moses marks in blood the houses that will be spared from plague and imagine how the priest class would have chosen out the families that would have to sacrifice a member and how they would have used writing technology for social control. I read their scrolls where they keep track of the family lines and where they live. Which would be more meaningful: marking the houses of those that will be making the sacrifice or those that will be spared. From a social control position marking out the special class for passover just fits perfectly. Isn't god merciful?
The priests were deliberate. They thought different body parts did different things and kept track of it and where it came from. They built a system of dams to hold the nile from memphis then they built wonders that remain to this day. These are the same men that built the pyramids with said slave labor. When the building stopped and they went to do their auguries and such it must have been terrifying to be a slave. Are you going to be the one yanked out and gibbed in front of everyone on the hill over there where pharaoh set up shop? You've heard accounts of slave masters in the 19th century and before in US history. That's your context. Escape meant being chased down by chariots and gibbed. Moses left seeking freedom but he held to slave traditions nonetheless.
As I've pointed out the slavers morality which is Leviticus Deuteronomy and Numbers are of those traditions. Tracking the families for tribute/sacrifice in numbers. Lists of laws that require blood sacrifice and sets conditions for acceptable slavery. Proscriptions about food, sex, and lifestyle. It's all a common factor in those books from the Bible and the pharaohs scrolls pulled out of Giza. It is what it is.
No, I said most christians seem stupid because they refuse to address facts and issues about their beliefs head on. They pick and choose when to use reason and logic. Like I said I like Thoreau's ethic that the two don't have to be in conflict. You start defining God from those books and I have what I consider reasonable issues with that. You're trying to justify the story of Abraham and the various Biblical prophets now and accusing people of not understanding context.Quote:
Originally Posted by mingus
When I give you context you won't disagree with it on any point of fact. It is what it is.
All Christians aren't completely stupid but it's pretty stupid or ignorant to subscribe to Christianity tbhQuote:
Originally Posted by mingus
It depends. Subscribing to Christianity can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The core tenet of believing Jesus as Messiah & and in Bible God & the Holy Spirit are just a few aspect of it. It's religious & philosophical, one can subscribe to either or both, and be called a Christian, depending on who you ask.Quote:
Originally Posted by Blake