Illuminati...your thoughts?

[Rogue]

Trader:
If you find a watch on the ground, do you not ask yourself: 'Who was the watchmaker who CREATED this?'You would NEVER in your right mind say: 'Oh this watch was always here eternally, there is no creator of this watch.'

But what if you found an irreducibly complex ignorant idiot laying on the ground? Seriously, read the book The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, read the essay, article, lecture, and debate which I cited. Go read a science textbook. Go watch the TED Talk with Brian Cox. Invest your mind in good ideas rather than spewing vomit.

 

[Guoy Darko]

You haven't answered my question. Kingsam was basically saying: 'Who said humans were CREATED? Humans could have simply evolved from amino acids, and he went on to say how *easy* it is for amino acids to form, all you need is water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen.

Well humans did not evolved directly from amino acids. Amino acids formed the beginnings of life. And between that and humans there are many many steps.

But that does not solve anything. It just begs the question: 'Well where did the water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen come from?'

And then I told you to read the book: 'How to build a habitable planet', or take a chemistry lesson. If it was so easy to type it out I would've done that. But I have better things to do than to type out everything for you. Do a Google search, go to a library or download it on your ipad.

Did not a Creator create that?

But then you have to figure out who created the creator.

And you might try to say: 'Well, it was always there.'

What? The molecules? No, I would never say that.

But do you really expect that answer to fly? If you find a watch on the ground, do you not ask yourself: 'Who was the watchmaker who CREATED this?'

Dude, not this crap again. Read The Blind Watchmaker or The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

You would NEVER in your right mind say: 'Oh this watch was always here eternally

No, I would never say that.

 

[Trader]

But what if you found an irreducibly incomplex ignorant idiot laying on the ground? Seriously, read the book The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, read the essay, article, lecture, and debate which I cited. Go read a science textbook. Go watch the TED Talk with Brian Cox. Invest your mind in good ideas rather than spewing vomit.

I know Richard Dawkins and his book the 'God Delusion.' I know much more than you will ever forget. His arguments are really quite comical to me. To buy into his arguments actually requires a bigger leap of faith than Christianity.

 

[Guoy Darko]

I know Richard Dawkins and his book the 'God Delusion.' I know much more than you will ever forget. His arguments are really quite comical to me. To buy into his arguments actually requires a bigger leap of faith than Christianity.

What argument in particular did you found comical?

 

[Rogue]

I know Richard Dawkins and his book the 'God Delusion.' I know much more than you will ever forget. His arguments are really quite comical to me. To buy into his arguments actually requires a bigger leap of faith than Christianity.

No. And yet you provide no evidence of comprehending his arguments. If you were smart, you would have elucidated with explicit detail and exquisite precision what are his arguments and explained with equal or more detail why his arguments are principally incorrect. If you were smart, you wouldn't say "His arguments are comical because I said so." You have provided no evidence of your comprehension of Dawkins and no comprehension of the issues at hand. You have disqualified yourself from a critical engagement in a dialogue. Also, be mindful, god isn't in the gaps of knowledge.

As Guoy Darko points out, it's not that we can't explain in thorough detail the scientific explanations for how life most likely came about, but it's beyond the scope of brevity. We have better things to do. Go educate yourself. We're not going to hold your little hand in the kindergarten playground.

 

[kingsam]

trader why are you even on this forum??

 

[Trader]

No. And yet you provide no evidence of comprehending his arguments. If you were smart, you would have elucidated with explicit detail and exquisite precision what are his arguments and explained with equal or more detail why his arguments are principally incorrect. If you were smart, you wouldn't say "His arguments are comical because I said so." You have provided no evidence of your comprehension of Dawkins and no comprehension of the issues at hand. You have disqualified yourself from a critical engagement in a dialogue. Also, be mindful, god isn't in the gaps of knowledge.

As Guoy Darko points out, it's not that we can't explain in thorough detail the scientific explanations for how life most likely came about, but it's beyond the scope of brevity. We have better things to do. Go educate yourself. We're not going to hold your little hand in the kindergarten playground.

Who is the burden of proof on? Surprise surprise, it is actually on you who say there is no God.

To categorically deny something exists is a much more stringent statement than to say something exists.

By the way, tell me what institution of higher learning did you go to?

 

[Rogue]

Trader:
Who is the burden of proof on? Surprise surprise, it is actually on you who say there is no God. To categorically deny something exists is a much more stringent statement than to say something exists.

Listen to my words carefully: the burden of an extraordinary claim is on the proponent of the claim. I have said believers have presented no scientific evidence in favor of their argumentative position. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—where is the evidence? Remember, argumentum ad populam is a logical fallacy.

Listen to the sagely words of the late Carl Sagan, in his book The Demon Haunted World:

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage."
Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
"Show me," you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle—but no dragon.
"Where's the dragon?" you ask.
"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely. "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
"Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation why it won't work.

Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.

We atheists would love to be proven wrong, but we're not worrying about a burning scorching trip down to the center of an inferno on the remote philosophical hypothetical possibility. Tell Lucifer I say hello.

By the way, tell me what institution of higher learning did you go to?

I never answer disingenuous questions.

 

[teagan]

Who is the burden of proof on? Surprise surprise, it is actually on you who say there is no God.

Actually, to believe in God is to hypothesize that God exists. If you are hypothesizing somethings existence, it means it cannot be readily observed or has not been proven to exist.

But, even without God I can still explain nature and the cosmos. Therefore, I do not need to hypothesize God in order to explain the way the universe was formed or works.

So, to add an extra integer to the equation (God) requires proof to show that the new integer should fit in the already existing equation. So, the burden of proof lies on those that believe in God to prove he exists. And to prove anything extra must be added to a fully functioning, correct equation is tough work.

 

[jonwon]

Just want to add about evil, or evil act’s.

We all have ideas of what is deemed evil, for example killing a person is considered evil correct?

But what people sometimes miss is the fact that evil is subject to change – for example the crusades to kill people was a just act, the bible even tells people to stone to death people who do not follow rules set down (subject again to change).

Many religious texts are full of conquer and war, death and murder.

In actual fact I’ve yet to read anything remotely as evil in the shape of things (if we want to accept Evil as the act of doing something bad) than reading some of the religious stuff – People slaughtered due to their belief systems or lack there-of – Through-out history more people have died in the name of a god than any other act anyone can think of – History is awash with incidents of slaughter in the name of god.

Yes you have so called good things happen, in the name of god, but let’s not ignore the other side of the coin.


Now back to Evil – Evil is subjective, it's open to change.

What was evil years ago is no longer so, what is evil now wasn’t so in the past.

Evil is just a man made word to describe things that are bad to the human condition – it is hardly ever applied out of the human sphere, for example it isn’t evil to subject another animal to torture, not in the same sense it is for humans.

Social animal species, stick together and we humans are no different – for example is it evil for a lion to kill for food? To protect its territory? To kill the young of other lions? Nope it isn’t, the lion is acting in its nature. To other lions it is considered bad – do humans care? No we don’t, same has a lion doesn’t give a toss if we drop bombs on each other – i.e the act of evil is a human condition.

Before we had a social structure man pretty much acted the same I would imagine –

Conquerors of lands, would rape and own women like chattel – warlords would have a harem of women serving his every need.

I’m not saying it’s acceptable behaviour, just highlighting examples how evil, changes as society does.

Evil is simply an extension of our social structure –

We can see acts of so called evil daily by looking at 3rd world countries, oppression, abuse of the innocent masses, slaughter for power.

Evil Hitler, was he evil? To the Germans at the time he wasn’t evil – you may think he is, but that is from your point of view structured around your belief system, i.e your version of evil isn’t concurrent with the belief of others.

Spread this out to for example a paedophile ring – evil? Remember the story in the papers just over a month ago of the priest who raped young boys? Incidentally such cases like that have plagued the catholic church through-out history – hence the term ‘choir boy’.

What am I saying? Evil is a ever changing variable – what we think of evil now, was not so in the past, what we consider evil may not be so in the future – of course we have acts against our fellow man that have stood the test of time that could be considered evil, like murder – but even murder is a just act when it is beneficial for the social structure and still is in some American states – i.e the death sentence – Call it what you will, some consider that to be evil, whilst some consider it to be just.

The Aztecs for example used to sacrifice people to gods, evil? Make a time machine and go back and tell them that.

Hence we can expand this to the ‘devil’, the devil is considered evil – well it seems to me the devil isn’t a being who makes the rules or laws, if you actually think about it, the guy is either trendy and keeps with the times or he is a fickle so called master – who on the face of it, has zero authority and his evil acts shift and change depending on the social structure. Hence again man made.

If you think about evil, i.e the illuminati are evil, or the music industry is evil or the Masons worship the devil, when you actually look at evil, you will see, evil is just a word to describe something that persons feels is bad, and that is all. There is no diety with a pitch-fork making the rules and we follow like ants, evil changes as we do.

Also catholics and any other religions believes fully they are the greater good, even when that knowledge in the past motivated them to kill others who didn't agree. In past times you could have been tortured because of your lack of so called faith - it is fitting how new age christians paint over the cracks of the past and choose to ignore the bloody history of that religion and all others like it. Wasn't evil then was it?

I.e your not going to hell, no matter what you do! If you were the place would be pritty dam full. Remember the so called gods even applaud murder and slaughter as long has it's just - apart from the Jesus story the bible is full of murder, destruction and slaughter - even the so called innocent flood story - if anyone considers that an act of good, needs a reality check - a god slaughtering everything with water, because he felt they were bad! Seriously - Let's skip over that shall we - It was a just act! Much like the rest of the book talking about slaughter of others and taking over countries in the name of god! - A bloody book with a bloody history. Even the eden story is nothing but a story about a master spanking his slaves who didn't do as he commanded -

 

[Trader]

Just want to add about evil, or evil act’s.

We all have ideas of what is deemed evil, for example killing a person is considered evil correct?

But what people sometimes miss is the fact that evil is subject to change – for example the crusades to kill people was a just act, the bible even tells people to stone to death people who do not follow rules set down (subject again to change).

Many religious texts are full of conquer and war, death and murder.

In actual fact I’ve yet to read anything remotely as evil in the shape of things (if we want to accept Evil as the act of doing something bad) than reading some of the religious stuff – People slaughtered due to their belief systems or lack there-of – Through-out history more people have died in the name of a god than any other act anyone can think of – History is awash with incidents of slaughter in the name of god.

Yes you have so called good things happen, in the name of god, but let’s not ignore the other side of the coin.


Now back to Evil – Evil is subjective, it's open to change.

What was evil years ago is no longer so, what is evil now wasn’t so in the past.

Evil is just a man made word to describe things that are bad to the human condition – it is hardly ever applied out of the human sphere, for example it isn’t evil to subject another animal to torture, not in the same sense it is for humans.

Social animal species, stick together and we humans are no different – for example is it evil for a lion to kill for food? To protect its territory? To kill the young of other lions? Nope it isn’t, the lion is acting in its nature. To other lions it is considered bad – do humans care? No we don’t, same has a lion doesn’t give a toss if we drop bombs on each other – i.e the act of evil is a human condition.

Before we had a social structure man pretty much acted the same I would imagine –

Conquerors of lands, would rape and own women like chattel – warlords would have a harem of women serving his every need.

I’m not saying it’s acceptable behaviour, just highlighting examples how evil, changes as society does.

Evil is simply an extension of our social structure –

We can see acts of so called evil daily by looking at 3rd world countries, oppression, abuse of the innocent masses, slaughter for power.

Evil Hitler, was he evil? To the Germans at the time he wasn’t evil – you may think he is, but that is from your point of view structured around your belief system, i.e your version of evil isn’t concurrent with the belief of others.

Spread this out to for example a paedophile ring – evil? Remember the story in the papers just over a month ago of the priest who raped young boys? Incidentally such cases like that have plagued the catholic church through-out history – hence the term ‘choir boy’.

What am I saying? Evil is a ever changing variable – what we think of evil now, was not so in the past, what we consider evil may not be so in the future – of course we have acts against our fellow man that have stood the test of time that could be considered evil, like murder – but even murder is a just act when it is beneficial for the social structure and still is in some American states – i.e the death sentence – Call it what you will, some consider that to be evil, whilst some consider it to be just.

The Aztecs for example used to sacrifice people to gods, evil? Make a time machine and go back and tell them that.

Hence we can expand this to the ‘devil’, the devil is considered evil – well it seems to me the devil isn’t a being who makes the rules or laws, if you actually think about it, the guy is either trendy and keeps with the times or he is a fickle so called master – who on the face of it, has zero authority and his evil acts shift and change depending on the social structure. Hence again man made.

If you think about evil, i.e the illuminati are evil, or the music industry is evil or the Masons worship the devil, when you actually look at evil, you will see, evil is just a word to describe something that persons feels is bad, and that is all. There is no diety with a pitch-fork making the rules and we follow like ants, evil changes as we do.

Also catholics and any other religions believes fully they are the greater good, even when that knowledge in the past motivated them to kill others who didn't agree. In past times you could have been tortured because of your lack of so called faith - it is fitting how new age christians paint over the cracks of the past and choose to ignore the bloody history of that religion and all others like it. Wasn't evil then was it?

I.e your not going to hell, no matter what you do! If you were the place would be pritty dam full. Remember the so called gods even applaud murder and slaughter as long has it's just - apart from the Jesus story the bible is full of murder, destruction and slaughter - even the so called innocent flood story - if anyone considers that an act of good, needs a reality check - a god slaughtering everything with water, because he felt they were bad! Seriously - Let's skip over that shall we - It was a just act! Much like the rest of the book talking about slaughter of others and taking over countries in the name of god! - A bloody book with a bloody history. Even the eden story is nothing but a story about a master spanking his slaves who didn't do as he commanded -

Basically what you are saying is that: 'Morality is relative.'

You were not the first to think of this, many philosophers before you have already tried to go down that route.

Relative morality creates a host of problems, too bad you have not even bothered to consider them.

 

[jonwon]

Basically what you are saying is that: 'Morality is relative.'

You were not the first to think of this, many philosophers before you have already tried to go down that route.

Relative morality creates a host of problems, too bad you have not even bothered to consider them.

A host of problems? Interesting, in the past even writing what I just wrote could have had me on a rack and tortured.

That to me was a problem, addressed and thankfully changed - Does your book not say "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone". Whch I recal is refering to the act of stoning a person to death, for such things like adultery.

A host of problems, the alternative to me, was no better - try not to skip over the bloody history of your book. Your book isn't 'just;, it isn't morally correct, it is a contradiction. Let's not just cherry pick the good bits and act all morally superior.

 

[Trader]

Basically what you are saying is that: 'Morality is relative.'

You were not the first to think of this, many philosophers before you have already tried to go down that route.

Relative morality creates a host of problems, too bad you have not even bothered to consider them.

A host of problems? Interesting, in the past even writing what I just wrote could have had me on a rack and tortured.

That to me was a problem, addressed and thankfully changed - Does your book not say "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone". Whch I recal is refering to the act of stoning a person to death, for such things like adultery.

You are correct, the Bible never said: 'Kill someone just because they don't believe in your faith.' The fact that people have manipulated the Bible for their own selfish purposes, is only a strike against the individual person, not the Bible itself.

A host of problems, the alternative to me, was no better - try not to skip over the bloody history of your book. Your book isn't 'just;, it isn't morally correct, it is a contradiction. Let's not just cherry pick the good bits and act all morally superior.

I presume you are talking about the bloody history in the Bible. There is no moral contradiction. Take the famous destruction of Sodom and Gommorah. That story actually shows God's patience. He gave that city *hundreds of years* to turn away from their evil deeds, but they never did. Their hearts became heartened, God realized they were never going to turn away from those detestable things, so he had to kill them. Where is the contradition in that?

If you come across a chain murderer who continues to murder, and cannot be reformed, then in the end, you must eliminate him.

I am waiting for you to find moral contradictions in the *bloody history* of the Bible.

 

[Guoy Darko]

I presume you are talking about the bloody history in the Bible. There is no moral contradiction. Take the famous destruction of Sodom and Gommorah. That story actually shows God's patience. He gave that city *hundreds of years* to turn away from their evil deeds, but they never did. Their hearts became heartened, God realized they were never going to turn away from those detestable things, so he had to kill them. Where is the contradition in that?

Look, God is omnipotent. He knew exactly that those people were going to turn out that way. Besides that: He created those people, they didn't create themselves. And if you are going to say "yadayada, they have free will, etcetera", then don't complain about what they're going to do with that free will! If Sodom likes to sodomise itself: so be it! Let it be! Why the **** would someone throw burning sulphur on a bunch of gay guys? It's just sickening.

I am waiting for you to find moral contradictions in the *bloody history* of the Bible.

Euhrm... does the story of Job mean anything to you? Where God was having bets with the Devil, just to prove that Job wouldn't lose his faith? If God = love, that story makes no *u**ing sense.

 

[Rogue]

What on earth makes [anyone] think that 'theology' has anything useful to say on the subject? Science is responsible for the following knowledge about our origins. We know approximately when the universe began and why it is largely hydrogen. We know why stars form, and what happens in their interiors to convert hydrogen to other elements and hence give birth to chemistry in a world of physics. We know the fundamental principles of how a world of chemistry can become biology through the arising of self-replicating molecules. We know how the principle of self-replication gives rise, through Darwinian selection, to all life including humans.

It is science, and science alone, that has given us this knowledge and given it, moreover, in fascinating, overwhelming, mutually confirming detail. On every one of these questions theology has held a view that has been conclusively wrong. Science has eradicated smallpox, can immunise against most previous deadly viruses, can kill most previously deadly bacteria. Theology has done nothing but talk of pestilence as the wages of sin. Science can predict when a comet will reappear and, to the second, when the next eclipse will occur. Science has put men on the moon and hurtled reconnassaince rockets around Saturn and Jupiter. Science can tell you the age of a particular fossil and that the Turin Shroud is a medieval fake. Science knows the precise DNA instructions of several viruses and will, in the lifetime of many present readers of The Independent, do the same for the human genome.

What has 'theology' ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels, work! The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that “theology” is a subject at all?

-- Richard Dawkins

 

[jonwon]

You are correct, the Bible never said: 'Kill someone just because they don't believe in your faith.' The fact that people have manipulated the Bible for their own selfish purposes, is only a strike against the individual person, not the Bible itself.



I presume you are talking about the bloody history in the Bible. There is no moral contradiction. Take the famous destruction of Sodom and Gommorah. That story actually shows God's patience. He gave that city *hundreds of years* to turn away from their evil deeds, but they never did. Their hearts became heartened, God realized they were never going to turn away from those detestable things, so he had to kill them. Where is the contradition in that?

Not sure how you can think that is acceptable and an act of a god who loves you, it's almost on par with the fact that if you dont worship him there is a high chance he will have you burned for all eternity.

Anyway:

But there is one part of the story of Noah's Ark that deserves special recognition. It shows us something about God that is quite unsettling to any intelligent person who takes the time to consider his actions. That special section is this:

God senselessly murdered millions of humans and billions of animals in the flood
How do we know it was senseless? Because "God" is supposed to be "all-knowing" and "all-powerful." If God were to exist, God would know what was coming when he created Adam and Eve. Therefore, God knew he would be murdering millions of people.
This realization leads to an obvious question: Why didn't God simply speed up Jesus' arrival to avoid the atrocity that is the flood? Or why didn't God program Adam and Eve when he created them to completely circumvent the need for such a horrendous atrocity?

You may have never considered this question, but it is exquisitely important. Because the flood is an atrocity of the highest order. It is mass murder on a global scale.

The idea that Christians would accept a mass-murderer as their object of worship shows us something about Christians, does it not? Think about it - By (supposedly) murdering nearly every human on the planet, the Christian God is far more heinous than Hitler. No "loving" and "perfect" being can also be a mass-murderer bent of global genocide. Yet Christians willfully worship him. Why?

If you are a Christian, I would ask you to simply look inside yourself today. Why would you accept a mass murderer into your life?

And Noah's flood is not the only place where God displays these horrific tendencies toward mindless slaughter. Here are several other examples.

In the book of Exodus chapter 12 verse 28, God writes about one of his early massacres:

So the people of Israel did just as the LORD had commanded through Moses and Aaron. And at midnight the LORD killed all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn son of the captive in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed. Pharaoh and his officials and all the people of Egypt woke up during the night, and loud wailing was heard throughout the land of Egypt. There was not a single house where someone had not died.
Here the death of the children is directly at the hand of God.

http://godisimaginary.com/i45.htm

Sorry Trader nothing personal, but belief in this diety is like believing in Santa Clause, a Santa who would have probably killed you if you didn't like what he was selling.

"What you dont like that toy train? BAM"

Edit -

Here is a list of dieties.

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-deities


Now it's pritty much pot luck which one, if any are actually a real one - In a belivers world - now if hell exists, it seems through-out time, there are a hell of alot of people basking in it now, simply for choosing one of the so called deities that are catogorized by 'region'. You'd have more chance picking a lottery number - i.e the odd's are not in your favour, i.e your fuc8ed, may as well enjoy yourself, eh?

 

[Outsider]

Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan used text from the Old Testament to argue that Moses did not write any of the Pentateuch except the laws in Dueteronomy specifically attributed to him. Furthermore Spinoza found abudant evidence pointing to an author who lived long after the time of Moses.

The most often cited evidence against Mosaic authorship was a statement in Genesis 12:6, "The Canaanites were in the country at the time." According to the biblical account, the Promised Land was indeed occupied by Canaanites as Abraham entered it to make his new home, and at the time when Moses would have been writing this passage (before the Conquest), the land was still occupied by Canaanites. "At the time" implies that the Canaanites are no longer present.

Similarly, "to this day" or "still today" passages (for example, in Genesis 26:33 and 25:20 and Deuteronomy 3:13 and 10:8) indicate a much later perspective than that of Moses.

French physician Jean Astruc reasoned that, as Moses could not have had personal knowledge of all the events he recorded in Genesis and Exodus, he must have depended on written sources handed down to him from the actual eyewitnesses. Astruc thought that two such "original accounts" could be identified and reconstructed by finding the passages in which the Hebrew deity was called "Yahweh" and those in which he is called "Elohim," assuming that the two names were not used indiscriminately or by chance but, instead, reflected the characteristic vocabularies of two different authors.

Continued reading in Hebrew would reveal that a similar variation in terminology exists in the rest of Genesis and that the contexts in which the two terms appear have other, characteristics, of style and content, peculiar to each. Perhaps, then, the difference in terminology is no accident: It may point to two different sources for the text.

This hypothesis explains certain obvious repetitions and contradictions. To cite just a few examples, keeping to Genesis, Noah is directed in 6:19 to take two of every kind of living creature into the Ark with him, but in 7:2 he is told to take seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of those that are not clean. The purpose of the seven pairs of clean animals becomes evident after the Flood when Noah in gratitude sacrifices to God; the other account of the post-Flood activities makes no mention of a sacrifice.

There are two parallel and separate accounts of God's offering the Covenant to Abraham, in 12:1-9 and 17:1-14.

In the story of Joseph there is a flat contradiction as to whether the Ishamelites or the Midianites sell him to the Egyptians. The two sources of the story compete with one another in pushing either Judah or Reuben to the forefront of the brothers who remain at home. And when the brothers with their aged father finally make the trip down to Egypt, in one version it is because Joseph invited them to come down, in the other because the pharaoh did.

The first voice seems preoccupied with order and regulation and now and then produces a genealogical list that makes dull reading for us but must have seemed quite important to the writer. The deity of the first account is remote and abstract---powerful, but not distinct to the human imagination. At appropriate intervals he issues sweeping laws: for observing the sabbath, against eating blood, for circumcision of all males.

The second voice, however, continues with its anthropomorphic presentation of the deity, and this writer's flair for the dramatic is revealed in a string of fascinating stories: Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, Noah drunk and naked in his tent, Abraham bargaining with God of Sodom and Gomorrah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob wrestling with a divine antagonist and the ford of Jabook.

Biblical scholars attribute these stories to a source they call the "Yahwist," following Astruc's insight. The Yahwist source is designated by the letter J. The other source came to be called the "Priestly" or P, because of its overriding interest in ritual legislation (this is much more apparent in the later books of the Pentateuch than in Genesis). A third source that can be traced in Genesis is now called the "Elohist" or E, even though the Priestly source also uses "Elohim" as the name of God. Finally, there is a fourth source, the "Deuteronomic" or D, which in the Pentateuch is found only in the book of Deuteronomy.

 

[Outsider]

Part II

While the four sources were being identified by nineteenth-century biblical scholars, the question naturally arose as to their order in time. Unless we know this or have a good hypothesis about it, we are at a dead end, for the Pentateuch remains just as mysteriously cut off from the stream of human history as it was when Moses was believed to be its author. The key to solving this problem was the realization that P, the first document encountered and the source of Genesis I, was actually the last one to have been composed.

It is interesting that the Priestly writers did not, apparently, attempt to avoid inconsistencies and duplications in their revision and completion of the history of Israel. They created some for themselves by their determination to retell theologically important episodes in their own way (such as the story of creation, the covenant with Noah, and the revelation of Yahweh's name at Sinai) and then to retain both versions of their text. We have difficulty understanding the psychology of this procedure because a modern writer would, above all, want to produce a harmonious and internally consistent text. But we must be careful not to impose our won literary values on texts composed over two thousand years ago.

Of the two sources that the Priestly writers worked with, J is thought to be the older. In fact, many scholars believed that the Yahwist writing was the basic document and that it once stood independently. When we say "document" we mean written record.

Many of the Yahwist stories, like the epics of Homer, are older than their written forms. In all cultures in the earliest legends and histories circulated in oral form for generations before being written down. Hence, there may once have been an epic poem that recounted the patriarchal history of the Israelites (beginning with the creation of the world) that is now lost as such and survives only in prose fragments in the J document. There is evidence that J originated in the souther part of Palestine, in the area that later became the kingdom of Judah. Separate parts of it undoubtedly continued to circulate by word of mouth (perhaps in storytelling sessions by professional entertainers) for some time after scribes committed it to writing. We must remember that the ancient Israelites had no Bible.

Although the influence of the oral tradition is not absent from the other sources, it seems to be particularly prominent in J. The Yahwist author makes artful use of humor, irony, suspense, hyperbole and concrete detail: all devices for appealing to an immediate audience.

The Elohist material is not quite so easy to identify or to characterize. The usual theory is that the Elohist material originated in the north, in what became the kingdom of Israel, also called "Ephraim" after the split with Judah. The E material is thought to be slightly more recent than the J material. It enters the Pentateuch late, its first substantial contribution being Genesis 20, and it is responsible for the story of testing Abraham with the sacrifice of Isaac, portions of the story of Jacob and Esau, and about half of the story of Joseph.

It is marked by a certain tact or reserve in the portrayal of the deity, who does not appear to humans in person but communicates through reams and angels, and by interest in prophet and seers.

The D document is the one we can speak about with most confidence as a document, for almost all scholars agree that the "Book of the Law" discovered in the Temple and brought to King Josiah in 622 B.C.E. forms its basis. In contrast to J and E, the Deuteronomic document stimulated a school of like-mined writers to begin producing further material with the same tone and religious outlook, and thus to extend its influence widely over the early books of the Hebrew Bible.

Deuteronomy is notable for its style, and on that ground alone it could easily be separated from the other documents. It does this, of course, in what are supposedly the words of Moses. Who would pay attention to any laws that did not appear to come from Moses? There was simply no other authority.

What the Deuteronomist did was to reinterpret Israel's covenant relationship with Yahweh according to his own vision of it--- which he sincerely believed to be carrying out the authentic Mosaic tradition---and then leave his document to be added to the existing ones.

The oral material that is though to be the basis of J, is the oldest document, probably originated in the period of the Judges and a product of the growing sense of national identity among the Israelite tribes. In the tenth century B.C.E., during the early years of the Monarchy, some unknown individual wrote these stories down in coherent narrative form to make the document.

About a hundred years after this time, in the ninth to eighth centuries B.C.E. somewhere in the north, a writer collected stories then circulating in his area about these same heroes of the past and created the E document. It may well have been less extensive and less complete than the J one.

After the Assyrians conquered the north, refugees from Israel brought the E document down to Judah, where the redactor, himself a southerner, wove the two documents together into something that we call "JE." The J document was the basic one in the blend, E being used mainly to flesh out the story at certain points. This took place in the early seventh century.

During or after the period of reform instituted by King Josiah in 622, the recently discovered Deuteronomic book was added to JE by another redactor to make what is called "JED."

The final document, the Priestly one (P), was written during or very shortly after the Babylonian Exile and clearly reflects the dire need of the people to salvage what they could of their national past from this disaster. Substantial additions were therefore made to JED, including the whole book of Leviticus: and the result is called "JEDP."

Bits and pieces of old material, such as the strange story of the proxy circumcision of Moses in Exodus 4:24-26, seem to have been inserted into the narratives by writers or redactors who knew them from an existing source and wished to preserve them even if they did not quite understand what to make of them.

-Taken from The Bible as Literature

 

[Alle_Gory]

You know... the more I think about this religious nonsense, the more I agree with it.

Yes, the bible is a story. Yes, probably all the messiahs and prophets never existed. But if you look at the history of the bible, it was used as a tool to teach the unwashed idiots. What better way than to put a little bit of fear into their minds that some invisible man is going to strike them down when they do wrong.

Now as far as the concepts in the bible, most of them are sound. Don't kill, steal, bang your neighbors wife.... etc. Most of these should be common sense, but they're not. The bible is, and should be used as a tool to teach morality... like a nice bedtime story but with more gore and drama for adults.

The nicest people I have met have usually been moderately religious, so clearly something good comes out of it.

 

[Rogue]

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -- Stephen Weinerg

You know... the more I think about this religious nonsense, the more I agree with it.

Yes, the bible is a story. Yes, probably all the messiahs and prophets never existed. But if you look at the history of the bible, it was used as a tool to teach the unwashed idiots. What better way than to put a little bit of fear into their minds that some invisible man is going to strike them down when they do wrong.

Now as far as the concepts in the bible, most of them are sound. Don't kill, steal, bang your neighbors wife.... etc. Most of these should be common sense, but they're not. The bible is, and should be used as a tool to teach morality... like a nice bedtime story but with more gore and drama for adults.

The nicest people I have met have usually been moderately religious, so clearly something good comes out of it.

It's tempting to draw the conclusion until you consider such factors as geography, crime indexes, and prison populations. The countries with the highest atheism populations are Sweden (46–85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (43–80%), Norway (31–72%), Japan (64–65%), Czech Republic (54–61%), Finland (28–60%), and France (43–54%). The United States is 3-9% and notoriously has the largest prison population rate in the world. Colombia has a lower rate, 1.9%, and has the worst murder rate in the world. In terms of prison populations in the United States, atheists disproportionately comprise less than one percent of inmate populations. Religiosity may be a response to violence and crime but the evidence is unconvincing it works or is necessary.

The scientific enlightenment does not make religious belief impossible, but it surely makes atheism a viable alternative. We do good for goodness sake. Author Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are trying to innovate scientific morality, wherein one can objectively say something is inherently wrong regardless of cultural relatitivity, although I'm unsure how fruitful it will be since I just heard about it.