davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
For some yes, they can't entertain an idea like God simply because they don't believe it.
Sign of an educated mind is to entertain ideas without necessarily accepting them. Which is philosophy 101.
Were Adam & Eve The First Ever Humans?
- Thread starter Jan Ardena
- Start date
For some yes, they can't entertain an idea like God simply because they don't believe it.
Sign of an educated mind is to entertain ideas without necessarily accepting them. Which is philosophy 101.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Not necessarily.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
It's 2 creation stories, the second giving a more detailed explanation about the creation of the first human couple on earth, as far as I can see.
Xactly. 2 creation stories by 2 different authors. Different styles. Different words for "God." It's no wonder they don't match up.
(It is worth noting that the first story - written by the Elohim author - actually carries on until the third sentence of Genesis 2. From then on it's the Yahweh author, and was written later, around 500 BC.)
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Interesting. Have you got some source material for this?
Here's a decent overview of the various sources:
https://www.smp.org/dynamicmedia/fi...35a6ff/TX001002_1-content-The_JEPD_Theory.pdf
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
That 4 source theory is still being "hotly" debated the article mention(at the bottom). I wonder what these debates are like.
Just to say I thought Moses was the writer of genesis, but that is tradition not entirely reliable. Scholars suggest it was written around 500-600 BC.
I go with either.
Yes, it is. (Although note that the big point of debate now are is whether there are multiple authors, but whether there are more than 4.)
Why do think the second creation is a detailed version of the first? The sixth day creation refers to mankind. If you heard a phrase, the evolution of man, would you honestly think it means the evolution of one man?
If you still think it means one man, then one woman, how do you account for Cains wife?
Jan.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Yeah. Well just by reading Genesis 1/2 it does suggest that Genesis 2 was a more detailed narration of the creation of man. To think God just randomly created millions of human's(then killed them all in a flood) but made a special case for Adam & Eve, is the root of racism.
davewhite04
Valued Senior Member
Woman was created by a mans rib, incest?
Has that actually happened?
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
Jacob's Latter.
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
Yeah, don't have the citation handy, I don't bookmark things that happened before I had a computer. I do recall that one religious group waited until the children of a different group were lined up to get their school books and dropped a few dozen mortar shells on them. That was in the former Yugoslavia.
If the phrase said "the evolution of Man" it would be Mankind.
If the phrase said "Evolution created man; he was created by that process. Evolution then created woman; they were both created by the same process" then it would be saying that evolution produced one man then later a woman.
Most Biblical scholars agree that Cain married his sister, Awan. But given how long people lived back then according to the Bible (Adam lived 930 years) it could have been his niece - or even his great-great-grand-niece.
That involve a misunderstanding of the term - evolution does not produce one individual of anything.
Creation does, of course - and in the story, did.
Why would you think Moses wrote anything, or even existed as a historical individual?
Jan Ardena:
There may be no God, as you say. One doesn't have to believe there is no God in order to be an atheist, however. As has been explained to you many times.
As to the second part: you have the causation backwards, as usual. This point, also, has been explained to you many times.
You're right that it is not hard for me to contemplate that God does not exist, just as it isn't hard for me to contemplate that God does exist. My ability to contemplate those things is independent of the belief I currently hold about the matter. I could contemplate both positions when I was a theist, and I can equally contemplate then now that I'm an atheist. Nothing has changed in that regard.
I think what you're really telling me here is that it is hard for you to contemplate that God does not exist, because your belief gets in the way. You can't be objective about it. I get that. I understand the block you're encountering. I also understand that the reason you can't grasp atheism in any real sense is tied up with your current inability to contemplate the viewpoint as it actually is. Failing that, the best you can do is to erect a straw man version of atheism and attack that, instead grappling with the real thing.
I suppose you'll tell me those people were never True Atheists, in the same way that you tell me I was never a TrueScotsman Theist.
That is incorrect. Please re-read my previous post, to which you were responding, for clarification.
There's not sufficient evidence that there is a God, such as one would be in a position to decide whether to accept or reject it. Like I said previously.
Why do you continue to play the fool, when this point has been carefully explained to you over and over?
There may be no God, as you say. One doesn't have to believe there is no God in order to be an atheist, however. As has been explained to you many times.
As to the first part: obviously. True by definition.
As to the second part: you have the causation backwards, as usual. This point, also, has been explained to you many times.
Whatever problem you have with your computer/browser than chops off the ends of your sentences, you really ought to try to fix it. Otherwise you end up with sentences like this that just run into nothing, making it impossible to extract meaning without guessing. This problem must be at your end, since nobody else's posts here suffer from the same problem.
Just goes to show how deficient your theistic "common sense" is when it comes to this subject. You'd do better to listen to what atheists have to tell you about atheism rather than trying to apply your "common sense", which obviously isn't doing you any favours.
Nice try. However, the "accept" part of that is what is in dispute here. You fiat alone doesn't make your case. You need to address the points I put to you in the post you are responding to, rather than trying to gloss over it.
You ought to be able to contemplate that God does not exist. That you are incapable of that, apparently, probably goes a long way to explaining why you cling to the belief. Or, rather, your clinging to the belief makes it hard for you to contemplate any other position in a serious way.
You're right that it is not hard for me to contemplate that God does not exist, just as it isn't hard for me to contemplate that God does exist. My ability to contemplate those things is independent of the belief I currently hold about the matter. I could contemplate both positions when I was a theist, and I can equally contemplate then now that I'm an atheist. Nothing has changed in that regard.
I think what you're really telling me here is that it is hard for you to contemplate that God does not exist, because your belief gets in the way. You can't be objective about it. I get that. I understand the block you're encountering. I also understand that the reason you can't grasp atheism in any real sense is tied up with your current inability to contemplate the viewpoint as it actually is. Failing that, the best you can do is to erect a straw man version of atheism and attack that, instead grappling with the real thing.
It's a valid position for contemplation regardless of what one's personal beliefs are.
That's part of the problem, as I see it. One doesn't become a theist by being argued into it. Therefore, it is difficult to argue anybody out of it.
But they would say that, wouldn't they? They are telling you that they weren't argued into theism. They just gave themselves up to it, just like you did.
I understand that you see it as an excuse, because for you it is enough to believe for reasons that have nothing to do with evidence. As it turns out, you even believe certain things that are contrary to evidence, in order to prop up the belief structure you've bought into.
One wonders how those ex-atheists ever came to know God, seeing as it was impossible for them and all. How did they go from A to B, when you're telling us that is an impossibility for the atheist?
I suppose you'll tell me those people were never True Atheists, in the same way that you tell me I was never a True
Click to mosh: Since we're already in a pit.
You did go and put yourself on the record, you know. People can certainly read your "hypothetical case"↗ conditions and the comparative argument↗ it refers to, in the cases of the perfect rape and the similar rarification for child pornography↗. Or did you mean something else?
Seriously, part of the problem about this thread is that those who would elevate the intellectually weak in order to assail them according to some stupid pretense of saving the world ought to at least be less of a detriment to humanity than the two-bit ministry they rely on.
And, yeah, I know, the saving the world bit is at least a little melodramatic, but, lacking some righteous pretense this is just a bunch of religious zealots having a religious hissy-fit all over each other. One important difference 'twixt the hapless at best villain, to the one, and the brutish wannabe, to the other, is that without the wannabes, the hapless villain has no victims.
Anecdotally: I had a run-in, once, with this guy who couldn't manage any better than bawling, "What about the theists?" over and over. He's the kind of oversensitized one would generally be inclined to discount, who gets hung up on common deviations like ill-placed apostrophes. And it's true, you're an example of why his persistent wail, "What about the theists?" is all whimpering bark.
Vapid, self-obsessed theistic nonsense with an audience of naught but stone-throwers and tomato-chuckers only does what harm its hecklers allow. Say what one will about God, it remains uncertain what part of Just Because is any better. And if the blithering religious evangelist simply is, so what; his only power is granted by his audience. The harm advocate, however, is taking part in a long effort in humanity that makes no pretense of goodness or rightness while seeking to aid and abet harm.
And, yes, it cracks me up when a two-bit evangelist can get atheistic zealots pushing for pseudoliteralism, as some do, yet you can't bother with the difference between the serpent sentenced to crawl along the ground on its belly compared to what the hell ever was going on, before. The winged things on the caduceus, for instance, are serpents, not snakes. Most English-language translations don't seem to make much distinction, because it's kind of obvious in any given verse; one simplified translation makes the distinction 'twixt serpents and snakes, the Missouri Synod goes with snake in Genesis, and there is one, called ISV, which really likes to tout its sources despite identifying as "literal-idiomatic", that goes so far as to come right out and identify the Serpent in Gen. 3.14 with language reflecting Christianist understanding of Lucifer.
In any case, humiliating yourself in order to stick it to some religious person doesn't help anyone, but, much like your exercise in advocacy for sex offense, says something about priorities.
• • •
It makes its point.
And, frankly, your judgment is dubious.
Especially in this subject; remember, this is not unrelated to the issues leading to the comparative inquiry that so set you off as to reject evidence and pitch a paranoid screed based on make-believe, leading to the discussion you eventually pulled into the Religion subforum under a strange pretense.
That shift to the Religion subforum actually becomes relevant here, anyway, because inasmuch as you might have had anything to say about theists, and I can think of a few others on that point, too, the thing that doesn't make sense is the pretense of atheism intending to muck things up even worse. For instance, remember, you are the one who requires the trolls you and other people complain about. Whatever else you might think of my or any other expectation of rationality from the people ostensibly complaining on behalf of rational discourse, you are the one who requires the presence of those you and others complain about. So, now we have the address of, what, an irrational evangelist. As I said, before: We know about the theists, but what is anybody else's excuse?
Clearly, the primary result—regardless of whatever intentions people might claim—is lazy dissing without any real regard for rational discourse. In and of itself, this is what it is. But it also undermines any pretense of complaint about theists.
†
When it comes to the legitimate challenges, for instance, involving Christianity in the United States—a subject I believe we included in our consideration of what people know about what they criticize—the boots on the ground reality is that a bunch of solipsistic evangelical atheists like this wouldn't actually be helpful, most likely encouraging deeper entrenchment among the most problematic of religionists. This ought to be obvious in consideration of who people seem to think they're dealing with. The tenor of discussion presumes religious people are ¿just how stupid?, yet two-bit fallacies for the sake of satisfaction are expected to compel what reaction? The one thing the evangelical atheist accomplishes by screwing up in favor of satisfaction is to reaffirm these superstitious, allegedly not too bright people's distrust of atheism, infidels, and other transgressions against their religious faith.
Compared to concerns some might describe about theists and the harm religion causes, the inability of atheists to hold their own while flipping shit at what should be a fairly easy target is grotesque. The whole bit with serpents and snakes is ridiculous, but I give style points for the lizard people joke in re Hebrew Scripture. That was subtle; or maybe it only seems that way because people missed it. To the other, it was probably an accident.
†
Still, though, say what you will about theists. To the one, Jan actually has a couple points were we to take the question seriously, but, to the other, he doesn't take reality seriously enough to know what to do with them; to the beeblebrox, I don't feel like writing the creationist tale on this occasion. By the fourth we might stay home and lick ourselves, noting none of this is really the point of the thread, by now, anyway.
The short form is that, to the one, we can play enough word games to argue that Gen. 1.11-25 (plants, day and night, sea animals, birds, landed animals) can be subsumed in Gen. 2.8, in order to satisfy pseudoliteral—i.e., atheistic literal-idiomatic—inquiry, but that's not really the point of the thread, at this point. To the other, we might answer the back and forth about the obviously mythological by attending the myth. It's not so much a point of laughing off what seems a silly and even digressive inquiry. If the smarter people really are that smart, they already know that answering the question constrains them to particular rhetorical limits by establishing an actual argumentative position. Such as it is, talking snakes is part of a weird straw man, an imposed pseudoliteralism tracking back to post number two.
Remember, that one is wrong does not automatically make the other right; even you agree with that basic notion. At the point there is so much failure to be correct going on in the thread it is just a bunch of religious zealots having at one another, and in that moment, the nonsense religionist is neither the most dangerous nor insincere person at the table.
†
Generally speaking, his ministry ought to be harmless save for whatever the flock invests in him. In a super hero analogy, the problem isn't that the city gets damaged and people hurt in the course of staving off greater disaster; it's the part about indiscriminately fighting fire with fire, which is sometimes necessary with wildfires, generally has nothing to do with house fires, and seems a ridiculous stretch to warrant setting the block ablaze because someone smells cigarette smoke. More to our microtragedy, though, is the promotion of lazy, ignorant disrespect as some manner of solution or, at least, useful response to the problems caused by extraordinary superstition.
To the other, site administration promotes that lazy, ignorant disrespect, despite pretending the rules, including rational discourse, are somehow still in effect. In practice, people have no real reason to behave any better toward the serially irrational people they complain about but site administration insists must be allowed to continue to behave poorly.
Sometimes a ministry itself is less dangerous than its congregation, but this version of it is, truly, one of the most ridiculous things I've ever witnessed. Antisociality is not a virtue. Really, it's not so much watching allegedly smart people behave like tragedies of noncompetency, but the idea that it is somehow virtuous to do so. And without that pretense of virtue, who really cares what nonsensical evangelists say? Only those who need to invest themselves in it, as such.
Think of a weird honor among thieves thing: I generally know what to expect of cheap, self-centered evangelism; I also generally know what to expect of antisociality willing to range into harm advocacy; the religious evangelist, on this occasion, is the lesser of dangers in the world.
Besides, he only has what power his flock gives him.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
IMO, they were enticed into it. The promise of eternal reward is a powerful motive. Science can only offer "understanding how things work", but it appears that the greater the understanding of universal values and functions, the less promising the concept of eternal reward seems to become. It's a sober look at current reality instead of ecstatic anticipation of a future eternal life.
Religion is a "Movement in the direction of greatest satisfaction", gone a little awry.
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