Proofs for the Existence of God (Updated)
- Thread starter Diogenes' Dog
- Start date
Then it makes sense to only worship the most viscious God(s). But you always run the risk of pissing off the one God that might exist. Plus you wasted your life.
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No they don't. A myth doesn't have any truth in it. Where are all the griffins and unicorns? Tell me lies and then claim the lies are truth is just bullshit.
They very well might. The times just after the invention of agriculture must have seemed like paradise.
Paradise is planet earth. To say paradise exists someother place according to the claims made by religion is nonsense.
Not so, there was specifically a very verdant area around Babylon, which is probably the origin of the Garden of Eden myth.
We differ in opinion. Where life exists I recognzie as paradise. No life then no paradise, we don't find life any other place other than earth.
But myths are very often based on a kernal of truth. I was just using the Garden of Eden as an example. Noah's arc is obviously not literally true, but there were historically some great floods which could qualify as the origins of this myth.
True, facts can't be beaten using myth saying it contains truth.
The creation story in the book of Genesis is a fabricated lie. Therefore, nobody was expelled from paradise, sin doesn’t exist and nobody is going to hell. The creation myth is evil psychology applied in such a way as to manipulate people’s conscience, giving power to the advocators of the existence of sin, namely peddlers of religion.
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I believe Genesis represents a real stage in human culture, the invention of agriculture which gave rise to civilization. This was a kind of emergence from the relative paradise of the hunter/gatherer lifestyle, which many scientists say required fewer hours of work per day. The timing is about right.
Possibly, didn't agriculture begin at the end of the last ice age or shortly there after? Say about 9,000 years ago.
edit: I found this,
There is limited evidence of grain-grinding and perhaps crop-sowing before 10,000 BC in Abu Hureyra (modern Syria), as well as in about 10,000 BC on parts of the Nile flood plain, North Africa. Slightly later (9500 BC) evidence is that some selection of seeds for sowing occurred in the Levant Region of the 'Fertile Crescent' which is a strip of land curving from the modern countries of Jordan through Turkey and into Iraq and Iran (see www.mrdowling.com
However, systemic and widespread cultivation of crops appears not to have occurred until about 8500 BC, when it suddenly became widespread in the Fertile Crescent. This may have been due to both climate and societal changes. The main crops were relatives of modern wheat (emmer, einkorn), barley, flax, pea, lentil, bitter vetch (a lentil-type crop) and chickpea. Systematic organised agriculture, including mono-cropping, irrigation and an allocated workforce does not appear to have happened in the region until about 5500 BC. Farming did not reach north-western Europe until about 4800 BC.
Spontaneous cultivation of new agricultural crops seems to have happened again and again in human history. Teosinte (the simplest maize plant) was first cultivated in the meso-Americas in about 3500BC, potatoes in South America about 5000BC, rice by 5000 BC in China.
The creation story is more recent and doesn't have a beginning with agriculture. Agriculture was around much longer than the creation story.
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I suggest it represents either an ancestral memory or it reflects earlier creation myths from this time period.
The creation myth has been traced back to the Mesopotamians and then adopted by the Jews while in captivity in Babylon.
The urban history of Mesopotamia begins with the emergence of urban societies in northern Iraq in the early 6th millennium BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia
The 6th millennium BCE is much newer than the beginning of agriculture at 10,000 bc.
The urban history of Mesopotamia begins with the emergence of urban societies in northern Iraq in the early 6th millennium BCE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia
The 6th millennium BCE is much newer than the beginning of agriculture at 10,000 bc.
So there is a kernal of truth to it?
Genesis 3:19
By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
This verse tells me agriculture was first and yes there is a kernal of truth to the myth. However the bulk of the creation story is myth and just enough truth to cause people to believe it. That kernal of truth doesn't make the myth truth. We like a good monster is going to get you story.
By the sweat of your face You will eat bread,
This verse tells me agriculture was first and yes there is a kernal of truth to the myth. However the bulk of the creation story is myth and just enough truth to cause people to believe it. That kernal of truth doesn't make the myth truth. We like a good monster is going to get you story.
It might have been something like nutrient depletion in the soil, or climate change that influenced that civilization to take up monotheism. Maybe they blamed themselves for the paradise going away.
It’s hard to say exactly why people decided to settle on one God when there was so many different Gods from which to choose. Monotheism is how we end up but even then there is more than one God around town.
This is another creation story coming from the Babylonians. Obviously the Jews while in captivity in Babylon adopted and modified this story to invent their own God.
In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountans, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.
It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu's geat-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his forebears.
Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.
The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.
Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.
After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.
Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebeled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals.
Whether it was Apsu or Ea who created man from clay depends on the different websites' interpretations of the story.
In the beginning, neither heaven nor earth had names. Apsu, the god of fresh waters, and Tiamat, the goddess of the salt oceans, and Mummu, the god of the mist that rises from both of them, were still mingled as one. There were no mountans, there was no pasture land, and not even a reed-marsh could be found to break the surface of the waters.
It was then that Apsu and Tiamat parented two gods, and then two more who outgrew the first pair. These further parented gods, until Ea, who was the god of rivers and was Tiamat and Apsu's geat-grandson, was born. Ea was the cleverest of the gods, and with his magic Ea became the most powerful of the gods, ruling even his forebears.
Apsu and Tiamat's descendents became an unruly crowd. Eventually Apsu, in his frustration and inability to sleep with the clamor, went to Tiamat, and he proposed to her that he slay their noisy offspring. Tiamat was furious at his suggestion to kill their clan, but after leaving her Apsu resolved to proceed with his murderous plan. When the young gods heard of his plot against them, they were silent and fearful, but soon Ea was hatching a scheme. He cast a spell on Apsu, pulled Apsu's crown from his head, and slew him. Ea then built his palace on Apsu's waters, and it was there that, with the goddess Damkina, he fathered Marduk, the four-eared, four-eyed giant who was god of the rains and storms.
The other gods, however, went to Tiamat and complained of how Ea had slain her husband. Aroused, she collected an army of dragons and monsters, and at its head she placed the god Kingu, whom she gave magical powers as well. Even Ea was at a loss how to combat such a host, until he finally called on his son Marduk. Marduk gladly agreed to take on his father's battle, on the condition that he, Marduk, would rule the gods after achieving this victory. The other gods agreed, and at a banquet they gave him his royal robes and scepter.
Marduk armed himself with a bow and arrows, a club, and lightning, and he went in search of Tiamat's monstrous army. Rolling his thunder and storms in front him, he attacked, and Kingu's battle plan soon disintegrated. Tiamat was left alone to fight Marduk, and she howled as they closed for battle. They struggled as Marduk caught her in his nets. When she opened her mouth to devour him, he filled it with the evil wind that served him. She could not close her mouth with his gale blasting in it, and he shot an arrow down her throat. It split her heart, and she was slain.
After subduing the rest of her host, he took his club and split Tiamat's water-laden body in half like a clam shell. Half he put in the sky and made the heavens, and he posted guards there to make sure that Tiamat's salt waters could not escape. Across the heavens he made stations in the stars for the gods, and he made the moon and set it forth on its schedule across the heavens. From the other half of Tiamat's body he made the land, which he placed over Apsu's fresh waters, which now arise in wells and springs. From her eyes he made flow the Tigirs and Euphrates. Across this land he made the grains and herbs, the pastures and fields, the rains and the seeds, the cows and ewes, and the forests and the orchards.
Marduk set the vanquished gods who had supported Tiamat to a variety of tasks, including work in the fields and canals. Soon they complained of their work, however, and they rebeled by burning their spades and baskets. Marduk saw a solution to their labors, though, and proposed it to Ea. He had Kingu, Timat's general, brought forward from the ranks of the defeated gods, and Kingu was slain. With Kingu's blood, with clay from the earth, and with spittle from the other gods, Ea and the birth-goddess Nintu created humans. On them Ea imposed the labor previously assigned to the gods. Thus the humans were set to maintain the canals and boundary ditches, to hoe and to carry, to irrigate the land and to raise crops, to raise animals and fill the granaries, and to worship the gods at their regular festivals.
Whether it was Apsu or Ea who created man from clay depends on the different websites' interpretations of the story.
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