Being labeled crazy, delusional, psychotic, suffering from various perception disorders is so common, so frequent, it’s simply become a life occurrence, as predictable as the sun rising and setting each day. Bit tongue in cheek here, but those who believe I have a perception disorder…..oh, you have no idea what it is truly like to be in my head. Be afraid, be very afraid….
I was vaccinated very young against such accusations, because often I was surrounded by people genuinely disconnected from reality and as it turned out, I really was the only one perceiving reality correctly. That probably sounds a bit arrogant, but I assure you being sane among the truly dysfunctional is actually a disability. It’s a very lonely place to be. People are very social, we rely heavily on others to help us define our little realities.
Something that strikes me as kind of amusing, people seldom accuse me of just being a jerk. I have no idea why. If you disagree with me, why make excuses for my behavior and opinions? Why assign me several organic brain chemistry problems that if I truly suffered from, I would have no control over?
Also, what’s with all the mental health bashing and fear of psychosis? I hate to inform you, but some of the most horrendous acts the world has ever seen were done by the so called sane, those thought to have both feet on the ground and their head firmly planted in this world. Scary, I know, but the human capacity for evil is a real thing in the world. One need not be delusional to engage in it. In fact, often the truly delusional are very nice people who wouldn’t hurt a fly.
We tend to label bad people “crazy, delusional, psychotic,” because we cannot imagine that human beings with a grasp on reality could ever do bad things. People do not like to acknowledge the existence of evil or face the truth of our own natures. To do so is to admit that not only does evil exist, but that we are all vulnerable to it. Being able to blame it on upbringing, brain chemistry, or cultural conditions, provides us with a rather comforting illusion of cause and effect. If we know what causes it, than we can prevent it. It also distances us from our own vulnerability and our own capacity for evil.
People do not like to confront vulnerability. That’s completely understandable. Being vulnerable is often painful and it also interferes with our desire for control. There’s nothing wrong with desiring some control, but sometimes we cling to some rather false ideas about ourselves and the world around us, out of fear of having to admit we are not as in control as we like to believe.
In matters of faith, some atheists reveal their fear of the so called delusional, psychotic, and crazy, by endlessly mocking the wit, whimsy, and wu. There is a genuine fear there that seems to suggest that if one just keeps their feet firmly planted on the ground and their head out of the clouds, all evil in the world will cease to exist. It’s interesting because this is a very recent, westernized belief. All over the world, for centuries, people actually pursued the wu through assorted means, drugs, herbs, torture, sleep deprivation, chanting, all sorts of bizarre rituals. That’s because for most of human history it was thought that the Divine lived there, in our subconscious, our imagination, our dreams, our altered realities. What people were trying to do was to remove the self, the ego, because when you manage to do that, you are likely to have a close encounter with the Divine.
I am not advocating drug use, torture, or assorted other mood altering experiences, just making an observation here. It is only in recent, modern, westernized society that we began to frown on these things and deny the existence of the Divine entirely. Science, sanity, reason, all have their place, but it’s not particularly logical to dismiss thousands of years of human wisdom and experience.
Anyway, from a Christian perspective, that dying to self is vitally important. It’s a very humbling experience, perhaps even a bit scary. Well, terrifying actually, but not always in a bad way. We become new creatures, each close encounter with God, leaving us transformed. Is it “crazy?” Well yes, I suppose it is, but crazy in a good way. “Weird” simply means not of this world, other worldly. To say contact with the Divine is “weird” is a major understatement.
All in good humor here, but one of the benefits of letting go of self is that you realize it is not all about you, all of the time. Rather than disconnecting you from reality, it produces some genuine clarity of thought. There are benefits that come from removing your “self” from the equation and believe it or not, this does not lead to psychosis. In fact, the precise opposite. Like it or not, God is Holy, Divine, and perfect. The evil we seek to deny and avoid actually resides in our own selves and the world around us, not in God.
Arkenaten said:
Just to be clear ….this is the god of the Old Testament we are talking about, yes?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
apparently you are of the opinion that the “God of the Old Testament” is somehow distinct from that of the New… The New Testament fully and completely stands upon the testimony and demonstration of God’s identity in the “Old”, so somehow the people who were writing the New Testament saw no conflict between the Holy, Divine and Perfect Lord they were following and the One followed by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…
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Arkenaten said:
Now, now, try not to be so condescending. We’re not engaged. In fact this is only our first date, so let’s not rush into things okay? Super.
I am of course fully aware that the meglomaniacal, egotistical genocidal despot of the Old Testament is considered the same god throughout the bible by Christians. I was just checking that everyone is on the same page.
So … you were saying?
Oh. Pee Ess. The Patriarchs weren’t real people. The Pentateuch is made up. You know this right? You’re not one of those biblical innerantists I hope?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
ouch… we’ve actually danced before, but I guess it didn’t make that much of an impression if I’m still regarded as a “first date”… 🙂
but wow, the patriarchs weren’t even people… Good to know! (sheesh… and people call ME a “conspiracy theorist”!)
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Arkenaten said:
Yes you are correct. If I recall you were suffering from foot in mouth disease, and sadly, have not recovered from the affliction.
Oh, dear. You are an innerantist!
Sweet.
And do we still believe in Santa Claus?
How about Adam and Eve and Noah and Dinosaurs on the Ark ( not me) hmm?
Want to try for a Full House … Moses?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
don’t remember where or how exactly you seem to think I stuck my foot in my mouth, but I suppose a confused guy like me is prone to confuse parts of the anatomy anyhow…
At the moment I’m just savoring the irony of your caustic santa claus comments in light of the broader point IB is making in this very post… Sort of astounds me that you seem completely unphased by the implications of your unrestrained sarcasm and allegations of mental illness.
I suppose the saying holds true, if you have no reasoned argument of your own, then there’s always good ol’ fashioned slander… 🙂
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Arkenaten said:
You are a christian – it goes hand in hand with F.I.M
What the post is suggesting is that the OT god, Yahweh is somehow super-cool , holy, perfect and an all round good guy. The same god that enacted genocide.
In light of what this ”god” did in the OT, trusting it is like suggesting it would be a good idea to hire a pedophile to babysit.
So, yes, one can quite easily see why you lot might be considered crazy.
I like the other reasoned argument – the one that says if christians could reason they would be atheists.
Oh, and do you really believe the Pentateuch reflects genuine history?
Most Jewish people don’t
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
If there was no genuine history contained in the Pentateuch, then I suppose you’d have a hard time explaining what exactly a “Jew” is, then wouldn’t you…? 😉 (talk about a self-defeating argument, or “self-annihilating” argument!)
but let’s ignore your oh-so-convincing volleys of derision and examine the one presupposition you have placed on the table:
“genocide”…
If an all-powerful being creates the entire universe, then who is it do you think retains the right to decide what constitutes justice? Morality? Fairness?
Him? or you?
Do I believe that the God of the Bible killed a good many people? Yes. In fact, He is the one who is claimed to have sentenced ALL humans to die. Is He enacting genocide on us all?
I know it’s oh so entertaining for you to poke fun instead of engaging in genuine discussion, but as for me, I’m still scratching my head trying to grasp how a term like “genocide” even has any ultimate meaning at all if the cosmos, and everything in it, is nothing but the accidental, meaningless by-product of eons of swirling gases and dust. In such a framework, how is the “genocide” of one human killing many others demonstrably different than a tree falling in the jungle and killing a swath of microscopic bacteria, or two asteroids colliding in space and smashing each other to bits? All is random, all is mechanics, all is particles crashing into particles crashing into more particles, forever. The universe expands, until eventually in contracts. Your thoughts and feelings and convictions are not “real”, just chemicals and electrons. Randomly assembled, randomly giving way to entropy. Indeed. What in the world does “genocide” even mean in such a “reasonable” universe…?
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Arkenaten said:
Here we go ….
The Pentateuch is not taught as historical fact in schools in Israel and if you believe otherwise or have evidence of let me know, okay?
Perhaps you would consider reading, Dever, Herzog or Finkelstein?
Only fundamentalists consider stories such as Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark etc as having any historical veracity.
The same applies to the Exodus.
I am not going to waste time arguing this point with you if you are going to say The Flood really did happen as described in the bible.
There is evidence for a local flood and there are many accounts.
Only indoctrinated ignoramuses believe the innerancy of the biblical tale. Sadly
If you are . in this camp – then educate yourself and join the real world.
If you are also going to argue Divine Command Theory then you can stick that where the sun doesn’t shine my friend and toddle off and renew your William Lane Craig fan club subscription as you have no true understanding of morality and I fear that any second now you will be really showing you ignorance and throwing Original Sin and Hell into the pot and I am liable to burst out laughing.
Oh, and who the hell is ”Him”?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
I was referring to Abraham… (figured that was rather self-evident, but apparently not) You already opined that the “patriarchs were made up”, so, I suppose you think Abraham is himself a complete piece of fiction, which leaves my question still standing unanswered, WHAT, then pray tell, is a “Jewish person” in your understanding?
I’d be very interested in more specifics regarding the people you are citing, if in fact they would lead to showing me any Jewish rabbis or writers, either contemporary or historical, who in fact did not even believe that Abraham was a real person! I suppose it’s possible (heck, anything’s possible) but as of yet that’s certainly a new one in my book…
All in all though, you seem quite contented to hide behind a bastion of ridicule rather than offer any semblance of an explanation as to WHY you believe certain things are untrue, spinning round and round on your wheel of cyclical reasoning, claiming that my beliefs are stupid because they are untrue, and untrue because they are just oh so hopelessly stupid.
I suppose at some point all these flailing jibes are expected to make me mope off into the corner, sniffling into my keyboard? Yet instead I really just find it boring, and altogether rather unhelpful towards convincing anyone else who is listening to the veracity of your station…
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Arkenaten said:
I’ve given you Herzog, and Finkelstein. You can also look up Wolpe. Wolpe is a Rabbi by the way.
Herzog and Finkelstein are archaeologists.
You can research I’m sure. As they say in the vernacular ”JFGI ” I believe is the slang of the urban youth these days?
And if you knew anything about the history of the camel in the Levant you would know already have a few clues why such stories about Abraham etc are just that … stories.
That should keep you busy. Let me know how you get on, all right?
I don’t expect anything from a fundamentalist such as you. You are too full of hubris to mope anywhere.
And I care not whether you believe the evidence either. Your acceptance or denial will not change the truth one way or another, now will it?
Have fun!
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
“Evidence”..? Citing a bunch of Jewish scholars who are themselves advocates of “Biblical criticism” (denying God’s authorship of the Bible) and essentially religious atheists, themselves, ain’t much in the way of “evidence”, since you’re only listing names of people who would agree with you, instead of putting forth any “evidence” of your own… (arguments stemming from the “lack of archeological evidence for the Israelites wandering the desert for forty years” hardly seem worth defending, since what kind of evidence would you expect a DESERT to preserve from a people who built no permanent structures thousands of years ago!? Gimme a break…)
However, I guess you DID make a vague yet impressively haughty reference to the “history of the camel in the Levant”, so I suppose I should be quite intimidated there… I’m sure there is plenty of archeological evidence to suggest that camels were nowhere near Canaan around Abraham’s time, or whatever bizarre theory you are alluded to. Camels…. Camels? Abraham didn’t exist, because of the “history of camels”? But you know what, you STILL haven’t explained to me what a Jew IS, if there was no such person as Abraham, and nothing recorded in the Pentateuch actually happened…?
Seriously, at what point in history do you believe the Israelites to HAVE come into existence? At what point did they suddenly invent this entire fake history, with made up lineages, and prophets, and writings, and customs? How did they come up with the names of all the tribes of Israel? LIke I said earlier, I’ve heard some whopper conspiracy theories before that stretched even my imagination, but this one takes the cake.
Guess it goes to show how far people can be willing to go in their furious insistence in denying anything that speaks of their being a God who really does have power over their own life….. and regarding Him, you are right, your acceptance or denial will not change the truth one way or another, now will it…
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Arkenaten said:
Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, you don’t think Wolpe is a good enough Rabbi do you?
And you think he is some sort of ”Lone Wolf” of Judaism is that right? And you want me to cite every scholar that agrees with Wolpe just so you can scream ‘atheist’ or some other banal insult.
Why must I work my arse off for an indoctrinated Fundie who thinks Noah was a ”’real live person”
I am not that much of a dumbass.
And Herzog and Finkelstein are not good enough archaeologists?
Really?
You want one who dis with a spade in one hand and a bible in the other, is this right?
Find me an Egyptologist that believes in the Captivity and can produce evidence?
How about Kenyon and her dating of Jericho? Or do you really think some dude called Joshua made the falls fall down with the help of his Sky Daddy god? Well …. do you ?
Or maybe Joshua had a Ghetto Blaster and he played John Cougar Mellencamp’s song at full blast? You know the song, I’m sure?
If you wish to approach this as a presuppositional fundamentalist then there’s nothing I can do.
Why would I put forth evidence of my own? Am I an archaeologist? No. Am I an expert in Old Testament literature, fluent in Hebrew Ugaritic, Sumerian, Egyptian hieroglyphics etc ? No.
Maybe you are?
I know there are others who are.
Highly qualified people who have spent the better part of their working lives – and many still are – and these I respect and consider their evidence-driven findings stand up to scrutiny.
If you wish to approach it and follow the evidence, then you will discover the truth,as did biblical archaeologists such as William Albright.
As did former full-blown Christian archaeologist William Dever.
As for the question; how do I think the Israelites come into existence?
What does it matter what my personal thoughts are? Evidence is what counts.
And the evidence suggests a gradual merging into Canaanite culture ( including adoption of their gods) by various hilltribes. This is what any reasonable person should focus on. Evidence.
The evidence shows there was certainly no Egyptian Captivity nor an Exodus.
There is no dispute over these issues among genuine scholars and relevant scientists.
If you cannot deal with this and wish to hold on to mythology and fiction… again, not my problem.
Ramen.
You have a nice day ….y’all.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
I’m really not sure why you would think it’s at all a question of anyone being a “good enough rabbi”, or a “good enough archeologist”, or anything like that. I’m sure they are all very “highly qualified people who’ve spent the better part of their lives” doing all sorts of intensive study. Unfortunately, all the academic accolades in the world is still not sufficient to inoculate people from being “indoctrinated by fundamentalism”, since fundamentalism actually takes plenty of forms. To think that people are any less “presuppositional fundamentalists” simply because they are adamant in their denial, rather than belief, is foolishness…
And I would propose that it is the very premise itself, (not the credentials of whoever you are pointing to) which is what should be questioned. I find the very suggestion of “there is no archeological evidence of the Exodus” to be almost absurd, as I can’t imagine what sort of “archeological evidence” any of these experts would EXPECT to find in the first place? What would seriously expect to find, three thousand years after a bunch of people went camping in different parts of a desert for forty years, some randomly discarded sandals? Left over fire pits and piles of quail bones…???
And this idea of the Israelites coming into a existence through a gradual merging into Canaanite culture ( including adoption of their gods) by various hilltribes…? Oh, I could sit here all day and have a merry old time dissecting that one… There are so many avenues of historical obfuscation and just all around logical self-contradiction embedded in that one it’s hard to know where to even begin…
But instead, I’m still really drawn to your earlier point about how everyone in Israel denies the very existence of Abraham, Moses, etc… I’m quite fascinated by that one. In fact, I was wondering, (if that is really the case) if we should trot on down to Jerusalem together, where we can walk up to some Orthodox Jews and tell them all about how Abraham and Moses are all made up, and their entire Jewish ancestry is really all hogwash and a total hoax, and how in reality both their physical lineage and cultural heritage are essentially no different from the Palestinians and Arabs, etc… Sound good? K, you have to go first though….. :-)!
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Arkenaten said:
I am quite taken by the way you, as a fundamentalist, not only cherry pick the bible but use this same technique when replying to my comments.
Like this for instance…
My emphasis
Now, you either don’t read very well, are in some way visually impaired, you are a bare- face liar or simply a Dickhead of the first order looking to score kudos with some of your equally biased Christian Fundamentalist friends?
I think I shall opt for the latter, as calling you a liar might be considered slanderous, and hope that you will go back and read what I actually wrote regarding this point.
Then maybe you could exercise some Critical Thinking regarding evidence and , say …. Kadesh barnea as a jump off point? Oh, but I suggest you read the bible first. ALL OF IT As you are Christian, this is so often the one thing that you lot often forget to do. Just a thought.
And as I had to read your entire stupid comment before I got to the point about everyone in Israel I think I won’t bother responding to the rest of the nonsense either.
Remember: Yeshua ben Josef still loves you. Honest!
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
whoo! look at you go… Would it be uncouth to admit I find this incredibly amusing? “Dickhead of the first order”… That’s a keeper for sure. I’m almost considering changing the banner on my blog…
but ok, I’ll play ball. Apparently you find me guilty of an egregious misinterpretation of one of your points, as a erred grossly by saying “everyone in Israel”. I suppose I went way to far in my use of hyperbole there, since I was responding to your statement:
“The Pentateuch is not taught as historical fact in schools in Israel and if you believe otherwise or have evidence of let me know, okay?”
So alright, here is my dry, boring, non-sarcastic response: So what?
I’m one of your loathsome “fundies”, remember? You’re so good at jumping to conclusions about people you’ve never met, why would you assume I’d somehow be swayed by the fact that something is printed in textbooks and regurgitated as fact? Yes, I know it’s all very impressive to see words printed all nice and pretty on those glossy pages. And taught in all schools in Israel you say, by the JEWS themselves you say? Well gosh, there ya go, I guess that settles it… (!?)
No it don’t. Not even close. Which parts of the Bible are alleging I haven’t read now..?
as far as “Kadesh Barnea”…. Finkelstein’s little report here (http://isfn.skytech.co.il/articles/Kadesh%20barnea%20Tel%20Aviv%2037%201.pdf) doesn’t seem to say anything regarding the Exodus one way or another. It rambles on and on about substrata and pottery shards and this iron age and that, speaks about a fortress being oval shaped or not… (super exciting stuff…) But why you think Kadesh Barnea is such a great “jumping off point” in relation the question of archeological evidence for the historical accuracy of the Bible is still beyond me. Where does it say in the Pentateuch that the Israelites built anything substantial enough to have survived to this day, while camping ANYWHERE, or waiting for the spies to return, etc.,etc…?
You throw out terms, you throw out names, you spew out a cacophony of derision in the most impressive fashion, anything, it would seem, in place of actually making the effort to put your own thought processes and internal logical progressions into any sort of format which others could come along and attempt to glean meaningful insight from.
For someone who comes across as being so incensed by those who would dare claim to believe in a reality involving God, heaven, hell, judgment, etc… because you find it so terribly offensive, why do you then go so far out of your to be as offensive as you possibly can be yourself…? My Dad used to call that “the pot calling the kettle black”…
Yeshua ben Josef loves you as well…
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Arkenaten said:
And they don’t appear to be saying anything. Really?
Okay.
Radio Carbon dates go back as far as when? That is at least a clue.
Come on. use a bit of common sense.
Because if you have studied the bible then you would know the significance of Kadesh and the time the Israelites were supposed to have stayed there. And 2,000, 000 million people will make an impression on an area you can bet on it.
Sigh ….
The problem you face is this:
You have likely approached this whole issue arse backwards from the very beginning, as pretty much all fundamentalists have. Faith first, via indoctrination or conversion and then find the best fundamentalist explanation to fit the belief, because acceptance of the bible is paramount, otherwise why be a christian?
So, in essence, you are hamstrung before you even get out the blocks.
And let’s remember that while my motivation/interest in religion is primarily curiosity yours is driven by fear and more importantly guilt.
This is why you confess to being a sinner after all, isn’t it?
And this makes a vast difference. Vast.
But when your doubt kicks in – as it always does, oh yes indeedy, there is a nice Evangelical such as Mike Licona or William Lane Craig or AIG to shore up those emotional cracks.
On the face of it, one would expect that the people with the most to lose would be the ones with the most to gain – the Israelis, yet credit where credit is due (Jew?) sic; as they have been digging for the title deeds for their supposed birthright for how many generations now?
And what have they found.
Nothing.Well, not nothing but nothing that says: ”Oh, look. Wow! The bible is 100% right, It is Yahweh’s word all along”.
Er ..nope.
So, basically nothing.
That has got to hurt. And it takes a helluva lot of guts to admit it.
And yet here we have a bunch of religious fundamentalists who claim , No! The bible is true simply because it is in the bible.
And not
Yeah …. right!
And Ron Wyatt found Chariot Wheels on the bottom of the Red Sea ( I had a Evangelical Pastor tell me this was true and he had done a sermon on it! I tell you no lie!)
I dont know what your particular problem was that made you become Christian, but you really ought to stop and smell the roses.
I am down with some people being deist. No problems there.
Who can prove what’s at the end of the Big Bang Rainbow? Not I.
So I am cool with this.
But religion is anathema.
.
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john zande said:
thetruthisstrangerthanfiction
Ark is perfectly correct in asserting that neither biblical scholars nor the majority of Jewish rabbis believe the Patriarchs were real historical characters. They are literary inventions, poetic fabrications used to tell a metanarrative. Jacob and Issac, for example, stand for the northern and southern Kingdom’s with Abraham (the father figure) firmly in the middle based in Hebron. It’s unity tale. I suggest you read Thomas Römer (one of the worlds leading authorities on the OT) to educate yourself further.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
In all of your comments here today jz, I still don’t see anything which would attempt to answer the question which Ark repeatedly dodged, namely, how does it make any sense to put the ascribe so much weight to so many rabbis and Jewish scholars etc., when the premise itself (that the patriarchs weren’t even real people) effectively destroys the notion of their even being anything unique about their “Jewishness” in the first place…
As your assertion stands, apparently we are all to stand aside in deference to those who are the inheritors of a “mythology”, which affirms what, in the end? I could spend all day long disassembling the humanism which cloaks itself in so-called “valuable mythology”….
We have the same sort of thing in Christianity, you know… Scholars who come along in this last century or so, higher textual criticism in hand, standing high atop their impressive academic credentials, prepared to explain to the rest of us how the Bible wasn’t ever meant to be taken literally (silly geese, we are…) It’s all just a bunch of morality lessons and allegorical literature and “applicable mythology”. There’s really nothing new under the sun, and so really if these kinds of appeals were going to succeed in ripping the carpet out from underneath the faith of the “fundies” here, I suspect it would’ve already happened some time ago….
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john zande said:
thetruthisstrangerthanfiction
Seems you’re not really aware of actual Jewish history. The Pentateuch is a 7th and 6th Century geopolitical work of fiction commissioned to justify a northern land grab by Judah after the fall of Mamlekhet Yisra’el (Kingdom of Israel) in 722 BCE. If you notice, Israel’s correct name is Yisra’el: El, the head of the Ugarit/Canaanite pantheon. Yhwh (one of the 70 children of El) was the adopted god of Judah, the lesser of the two kingdoms, not Israel. As Rabbi Sherwin T Wine said:
I suggest you purchase and read the Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary; the first authorised commentary on the Torah since 1936. Published in 2001 by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (in collaboration with the Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Publication Society). Importantly, the 1,559 page long Etz Hayim concludes with 41 essays written by prominent rabbis and scholars who admit the Pentateuch is little more than a self-serving myth rife with anachronisms and un-ignorable archeological inconsistencies, and rather than triumphant conquest, Israel instead emerged slowly and relatively peacefully out of the general Canaanite population with monotheism only appearing in the post-Exilic period, 5th Century BCE.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
“If you notice, Israel’s correct name is Yisra’el: El, the head of the Ugarit/Canaanite pantheon. Yhwh (one of the 70 children of El) was the adopted god of Judah, the lesser of the two kingdoms, not Israel”
Yeah, and the Canaanite pantheon was adopted from the Sumerian pantheon, and the Sumerian pantheon was actually comprised of extra-terrestrial beings who came down and started the first earthly civilizations….
(I saw that show on History Channel too!)
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madblog said:
The “nothing in the Bible really happened” fans are just taken with the latest fad: “the exodus didn’t happen.” But I have to admit that I had never before heard the claim that there is really no such thing as a Jew.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
(yeah… well, I suppose I HAVE heard that claim, only, not coming from Jewish scholars themselves, pointing to their own privileged insight from being Jews in order to demonstrate why that very thing is itself a fallacy…. !?!?)
It is an odd scenario indeed to hear people argue from the basis of being experts in their knowledge of their own “historical fiction”…
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john zande said:
Hehehe! 🙂 Actually, that particular pantheon started with the Ugarit tent. Sumerians had another fantastic soap opera happening altogether.
But you get the point, right? Judah and Israel (two kingdoms) came about after Canaanites refugees climbed off the Levant and into the hills with the arrival of the Sea People (the Philistines, among them) in 1,150BCE. This is the “settlement period,” and it has been very well documented by numerous Israeli archaeologists, including quite detailed population maps. This data is not contested. This is the beginning of their identity, like not eating pork. In none of the settlements (there were 11 original villages) were found pork bones. Not a single one, yet down on the Levant great middens have been unearthed in successive digs, all dating to after the arrival of the Philistines. It seems, archaeologists believe, that not eating pork was a way of distinguishing “us up here,” from those “bastards down there.” So, the two kingdoms lived side by side for a few hundred years, they shared a language, but they were antagonistic, yet brethren, so to speak. Israel (who worshiped El) was the greater kingdom with better infrastructure, but when it was sacked in 722 the Judeans (who capitulated, and worshiped Yhwh) saw their chance to usurp Israel. Part of that policy was penning the origin tale embodied in the Pentateuch. It’s not a lie, rather historical fiction that was not fully knitted together (as we know it today) until exiled in Babylon. As I said earlier, all the post Babylonian stuff is an excellent historical source that can (and has been) corroborated from many external, independent sources. The same can’t be said for the things before. In fact, the narrative simply contradicts the actual geopolitical reality of the day, which is why nearly all scholars, archaeologists and rabbi’s concede it’s all (geopolitical) fiction. One clear example is the Philistines themselves. Read the narrative and you have Moses terrified of them… but they wouldn’t actually arrive for another 300-400 years. This, and copious other little and large period blunders, including the settlement maps, have all combined to create the consensus position.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
“It’s not a lie, rather historical fiction”…
I like that. Semantic dexterity at it’s best!
But these “scholars, archaeologists and rabbis” you speak of, are they the same ones who “concede” to humanity arising from the primordial ooze…?
Perhaps the “consensus position” is not nearly as independent and unbiased as you imagine….
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john zande said:
You’ve never heard the term, Historical Fiction? Interesting. Tom Clancy’s, The Hunt for Red October is historical fiction. Some places, like Washington and Moscow, are real places, even much of the technology is period-correct… This doesn’t make The Hunt for Red October non-fiction.
Primordial ooze? Yes, bible scholars and archaeologists (even rabbis) are famed for their detailed expertise in evolutionary biology.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
No, I’ve just never seen an entire culture build itself around a Tom Clancy novel, fully believing it to be literal, historical fact, for several thousand years, and then finally have scholars come along and point out to all the foolish “faithful” that they were in fact supposed to understand that it was “historical fiction” all along…. 🙂
Apparently those “post Babylonian” writers of historical fiction weren’t too good at explaining to what would eventually become Israel that it was all just meant to be allegorical from the start…
Or wait…. Maybe that WAS the intention, and that in order for it to succeed in helping accomplishing their political schemes of taking or re-taking Canaan, the gullible non-scholars had to buy into the mythology full-tilt, in order to be compliant to the master plan…?
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john zande said:
Well, you can either believe the well-established, substantiated facts, or believe there’s a global conspiracy involving tens of thousands of scholars, university campuses, and scientific journals… all in effect (by some shadowy group) just to confound American evangelical Christians.
Your call…
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
No, not to “confound American evangelical Christians”, but to reinforce and prop up a basic philosophical avenue that has been willingly chosen…
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john zande said:
Precisely… a Global Conspiracy being orchestrated by a shadowy group in control of tens of thousands of academics and scientific journals, secretly meeting to map out their devious plan to thwart the Abrahamic religions. And you say this isn’t delusional?
Interesting…
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
You have already called belief in the Bible, or God in general, “delusional”, do you not know what the Bible itself says…?
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john zande said:
Re-read the comment if it helps. I said its delusional to believe in the global conspiracy which evangelicals believe exist.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
Re-read it yourself. I’m saying, NO KIDDING you think it’s delusional to believe in such a thing, since you assert that believing in the Bible in the first place is delusional! Where do you think that “evangelical delusion” comes from? It wasn’t invented by any of your straw-man examples, it’s right there in the pages of the scripture….. 🙂
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john zande said:
Do you accept the OT is geopolitical fiction? Do you agree with the overwhelming majority of Jewish rabbi’s, bible scholars and archaeologists?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
How many times, and in how many ways, do I need to continually answer that question! I’ve gone to your blog, and been able to quickly glean a decent summation of your views. Can’t you do the same?
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john zande said:
You haven’t answered anything. Why won’t you answer the question?
Do you accept the OT is geopolitical fiction? Do you agree with the overwhelming majority of Jewish rabbi’s, bible scholars and archaeologists?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
I suppose I greatly overestimated your ability to interpret my responses. Thought I was being so much more interesting and thought-provoking there, but I guess you need it spelled out for you?
NO. I DO NOT ACCEPT THE OLD TESTAMENT AS GEOPOLITICAL FICTION. NO. I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF JEWISH RABBIS, BIBLE SCHOLARS AND ARCHAEOLOGISTS….
But honestly… If you’ve known that I was a Christian all this time, then shouldn’t you have ALREADY understood that to be somewhat of a prerequisite, if being a Christian = believing Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of Israel, the Promised One…? 🙂
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john zande said:
So, what do you base this belief of yours on? What makes you think the overwhelming majority of Jewish rabbi’s, bible scholars and archaeologists are wrong, but you are correct?
No, lest you forget: we’re talking here about Rabbis; learned men and women who have dedicated their lives to studying the Tanakh and more invested in the Jewish origin tale being true than you could ever hope to have in ten thousand lifetimes. You’re saying all these people are wrong….
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
aye aye aye…. You’re really waiting to see the answer to such questions get boiled down for you into a one more little wordpress comment!?!?
The answer to such questions encapsulates the entire life stories of myself, or IB, or “Wally Fry”, or Colorstorm, and anyone else who has come to point of saying “Lord, I will follow You, wherever you go”… IB herself puts the “P in prolific” I’d say, writing so many amazing, honest, heartfelt, and self-revealing posts here, every single one of them in some way or another speaking to the questions which you just listed….
If you haven’t yet taken the time to read and digest any of what she has already written (and is probably writing another installment as we speak!), then how would I even begin to put together a superior answer in a such a short space?
You want an “equation”? You want someone to call down fire from heaven for you, and singe you into being convinced? I’m unable to accommodate either I’m afraid…
I am, however, here, willing to discuss, to share, to truly listen even, if that is what you are wanting as well. My first hope would be to at least establish the rudimentary understanding which would allow you realize that even though, yes, there ARE probably a lot of religious zealots out there who aren’t all that nice, or might even be “radicalized” to the point of being a danger to your person, the vast majority of them are not. They might not believe the same things as you, but many of them, (Many more even than you might expect, based on what we see glancing at organized religion as a whole) would in fact sacrifice a great deal of their own personal comfort, in order to show you the kind of love that they themselves have received from God.
I would hope that I might be counted among those exceptions, were you to give me that chance. I know I can be incredibly snarky myself, in the heat of “wordpress comment battle”, and there are plenty of times where I have to go back and simply admit I was being an ass, and not a good representative of Christ whatsoever. Personally, I am not the least bit “threatened” by atheists or atheism, and a lot of the ones I have known have held some very valid criticisms of religion and Christianity that I myself have even shared. There are a lot of believers in the Bible out there today who don’t even darken the door of a conventional church building, myself included….
K. Hopefully we can talk more soon, and avoid getting sucked into the “gotcha game”. In the end, I simply wish to seek Truth….
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john zande said:
The answer to such questions encapsulates the entire life stories of myself, or IB, or “Wally Fry”, or Colorstorm, and anyone else who has come to point of saying “Lord, I will follow You, wherever you go”.
Errrm, no it doesn’t. An answer, as is being asked for here, simply requires facts which substantiate your claim. Evidently, you have no facts and are retreating to matters of faith. That’s fine, that’s your prerogative to do so, but don’t try and conflate your baseless position with that of evidence-based reality.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
I don’t believe in anything which I do not believe is supported by facts and “evidence-based reality”. However, if the courtroom of your intellect will only admit evidence that can be found in academic journals and “peer-reviewed” content and the like, then you and I are admittedly working off very different platforms of acceptable information… 😉
Truth is Truth, regardless of whether the majority has latched onto it, or not….
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john zande said:
I don’t believe in anything which I do not believe is supported by facts and “evidence-based reality”.
Well, clearly that is a lie.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
(you’re one of those “I have to get the last word in” kinda guys, huh…?) 🙂
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
“it’s a lie” according to you, because it doesn’t fit the accepted definitions of “evidence”, as defined by you. So ok. I won’t be losing any sleep over that though…
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john zande said:
As Rabbi Sherwin T Wine to eloquently put it:
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
And facts are equally irreverent to the assumption that newer belief systems are inherently more true than older ones…
Modernism gets drunk off of it’s own self-validated, self-alleged supremacy.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
(also interesting how you continue to quote ‘rabbis’, and revering THEM, while positing that the very foundation of their own identities as rabbis, and Jews overall, all fairy tales themselves. We are all expected to bow in the presence of such masters of folklore? I thought that was the very thing which you found so abhorrent… Stop quoting “rabbis”, since you, and they, inadvertently render the very term meaningless. It’s like quoting an expert on Greek mythology in order to try and prove that there was no such thing as ancient Greece….)
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john zande said:
Clearly it bothers you immensely that the custodians of the only narrative upon which Christianity and Islam are so inescapably dependent admit it’s all nonsense.
You should be bothered. Their expertise in the subject ruins your religion. I mean, Jesus blundered rather terribly, didn’t he, by saying Moses (and Abraham) were real people. How can you explain your godman not knowing basic regional history?
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ColorStorm said:
Dang John, you are making me use my comment coupon, hopefully it wont be wasted.
Your remark regarding the Lord ‘not knowing history….’ is more than sad.
Please do not think this answer justifies or lends credibility to your concern, as if the Lord was a mere man..
This one observation is just for you. When the Lord was transfigured, there appeared two men with Him, (Moses and Elijah) who spoke of his decease (Greek: decease: exodus) which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
Interesting John, the law, (Moses)and the prophets (Elijah) both testifying to the exodus of Christ; a ‘going out’ as it were. And who were eyewitness of this majesty? Why, Peter , James, and John of course. Read Peters epistle and be humbled at such an accounting.
Read of John who ‘beheld His glory.’ Whose glory do you behold John? Darwin? Hawkins?
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
There dismissal bothers me about as much as their “expertise” impresses me. Their eventual denial of the Father as seen today stems directly from their denial of the Son 2,000 years ago.
If Jesus “blundered” by thinking Abraham and Moses were real, that this blunder was shared by the Pharisees, the predecessors of these same rabbis you keep appealing to.
Their “expertise” back then had much to do with their unwillingness to acknowledge the miraculous power staring them in the face then, and as it stands, not much has changed since then.
That will not be the case forever though….
patience, John Zande, patience….
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john zande said:
Mmmm, did the Pharisees ever claim to be a god? It is awkward, is it not, to know Jesus didn’t know basic regional history… a history he, as a god, allegedly played a major part in.
And ah yes, dismiss the Jews as the nasty heathen they are. You’re a good Christian, I see. No Jew can be good, so they’re all a part of the global conspiracy you believe in. I’m glad you’re onto it. These learned men and woman have clearly dedicated their entire lives to only pretending to study the bible while instead their real mission was messing with the heads of American evangelicals. Dastardly! I don’t know how they did it, but you have to admit it sure was clever how they’ve coerced every archaeology and history department in universities across the planet, corrupting the heads of entire schools, professors, doctors, graduate and undergraduate students alike! Amazing coordination, wouldn’t you say? But again, it’s good to know you’re onto them. When will you break this astonishing story?
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john zande said:
Sorry, I know you hate Jews, and hate me even more talking about them so much, but I find their expertise on matters of their own book and their own history to be quite convincing. It’s a fascinating religion, and they’re a fascinating people. Yes, you hate them, but I don’t. In all the myriad of conversations I’ve had with rabbis in Israel (many of whom were their movements leading figureheads) I have only found them to be stunningly intelligent, and remarkably pragmatic.
I mean, imagine for one second that the following statement was issued by a major Christian denomination: There is no such thing as divine intervention. The Bible was not inspired by God. The classical view of God is rejected. It’s presently unimaginable, yet these are all (word-for-word) confessions made by Jewish Reconstructionists in their 1986 “Platform on Reconstructionism.” Now imagination a major Christian denomination announcing that there was no such thing as a supernatural God who could “suspend the laws of nature,” but was instead the indifferent, non-personal laws of nature itself, as espoused by the Jewish Science movement. Imagine a Christian denomination which rejected a vast sweep of the Bible as simple mythology, welcomed deistic priests, and even conducted some services which made no mention of a god whatsoever, as in the Jewish Reform movement. Imagine a Christian denomination whose leading figureheads told their congregants that the heroic biblical characters they knew and loved – characters supposedly guided by a god called Yahweh – were all fictitious and never drew an earthly breath, as in the Jewish Conservative movement. Imagine a Christian denomination which jettisoned Yahweh altogether, calling it nothing but the poetic invention of primitive human minds, as affirmed by the Jewish Humanistic movement.
Now, you must understand, these are not aberrations or the eccentric thoughts of fringe Jewish groups. Against a backdrop of a worldwide Jewish population that is roughly 45% secular, Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Jewish Science, Renewal and Humanistic movements represent roughly 85% of all practicing Jews today. That said, it’s important to note that while rejecting the historical validity of the Torah (and therefore the concept of historical revelation) the larger and older Reform and Conservative denominations still, in principle, hold onto a monotheistic theological worldview. Tellingly though, the newest denominations, those which have emerged in the last century – the Reconstructionists, Renewal, Jewish Science and the rapidly growing Humanistic movement – have all abandoned traditional theological concepts and are either spiritualists, desists or atheists. Here the personal, mindful, wilful, interfering god of the Tanakh – the god Christians and Muslims still believe in – has been redefined as either an indifferent energy, a pantheistic-type nature force, or simply discarded altogether and reassigned to the shelves of human mythology.
Don’t you find this fascinating? I mean, Yhwh is their god. Their opinion on that god carries an awful lot of weight… especially since Jesus was a Jew, and never once renounced that fact. What the Jews say, stands.
So, put aside your hatred for Jews and open your mind. Consider again this one simple fact: Jewish rabbis have more invested in their origin narrative being true than you could ever hope to have in a thousand lifetimes. So ask yourself: would they dismiss their origin narrative as myth if it were not for overwhelming evidence? These are very bright men and women, and with that in mind, please meditate on the thoughts of Rabbi Adam Chalom PhD (he is talking about the Pentateuch):
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madblog said:
It seems you haven’t spent much time looking into the current culture of religion, except for your new toy here. Just two points. First: It’s probably pointless to say it to you, but we Christians don’t hate the Jews; we don’t think they are participating in some world conspiracy. We really have no idea what you’re on about.
Second: There are lots of major denominations today whose tacit statements of faith can be described as you suggest: “There is no such thing as divine intervention. The Bible was not inspired by God.” Where have you been? This is taught in foundation courses at “Christian” universities every day.
The point to take is this: In every “religion” there are nominal representatives, there are agitators pushing their own agendas, and there are true faithful believers. The last group are usually the smallest, and the least self-interested. There are apostates WITHIN the religion; lobbying to bring it down, or change agents trying to re-make it to suit their purposes.
Without having looked into them myself, but by your account here, I think this may be an apt description of the “scholars” you’ve been referring to.
You have been rather naïve to take on anyone’s views without consideration of their own motives or agendas, without applying discernment or critical thinking to their claims, because it suits your agenda, which I honestly still can’t figure out.We had all best question WHY someone pushes their ideas so hard before we take them for our own.
In faithful Christian culture, we learn to “prove all things”; to discern and examine carefully before we swallow anyone’s claims. Above all, we compare ideas to an objective and immovable Source of Truth before we adopt them.
Forgive me but I don’t feel particularly articulate today.
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john zande said:
Well, without getting into any detail, let me just remind you how this conversation unfurled, just to put this comment of yours into its ridiculous context. You, Madblog, jumped into a conversation you were not privy to and accused me of being arrogant and my scholarship wanting.
Your arrogance is truly impressive, but your scholarship isn’t.
Nice way to say, Hello. Now, I found this however amusing as I’m entirely confident in what I know, and challenged you to back up your claim. This, of course, you failed to do. You failed because you cannot back it up. I, however, have truth and facts on my side. I have investigated all sides, interviewed scores upon scores Orthodox and Liberal rabbi’s alike (in Israel and abroad), interviewed archaeological minimalists and maximalists alike (in Israel and abroad), I educated myself fully and completely and came to accept the consensus position held by the overwhelming majority of rabbis, bible scholars and biblical archaeologists based on the sheer mountain of evidence.
Evidence-based reality.
Now, I demonstrated just a tiny fraction of what I have at my disposal. You, however, didn’t even ask for the evidences, and that is because of this one simple, simple truth: You’re not interested in hearing the evidences that have been accumulated over nearly a century of exhaustive archaeological work… Evidences that have led the overwhelming majority of rabbis, bible scholars and biblical archaeologists to concede the Pentateuch is little more than a geopolitical work of 7th and 6th century fiction.
You’re simply not interested. Education is a curse to you. Knowledge threatens you.
But, after exposing you for just how little you knew, after showing you (and others) the majority position held by learned people who have more invested in their origin tale being true than you could ever hope to have, you chose to now go barrelling off onto some nonsense track of secret “agenda’s” being orchestrated by university campuses across the planet and Jewish rabbis. I remind you, you know nothing about present-day Judaism, or archaeology, and that is patently clear. Your claim was spurious nonsense to begin with, and now you’re embarrassed for it being shown as such… and so you have to create an academic/Jewish conspiracy. Yes, everyone who disagrees with you has an “agenda.” Clearly! And you simply can’t help yourself but put the word scholars in inverted commas, like it’s somehow dirty. You do not ask for why people actually believe something, rather you ask why people want to “push” their ideas.
And then you have the utter gal to mention “critical thinking.” Hilarious. Do you own a mirror, Madblog? Try staring at it.
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madblog said:
You surely win the prize for putting words in people’s mouths. There is virtually no resemblance between what I wrote and how you characterized it…Among other things,I do not believe there is any secret conspiracy. Simply that there are people on all sides of any given premise with their own reasons for pursuing, or preferring, their conclusions. No secrecy involved here, only differences of perspective. Some conclusions are better supported by the truth, or at least the available evidence, than others. I an permitted to disagree with a proposition without being called stupid or conspiratorial, am I not?
I did not realize that, on a public forum such as this blog post, I was intruding by making comments…nor did I expect that my tame little pokes would be seen as so offensive by a commenter whose demeanor could best be described as sneering and intentionally insulting.
With that, I will be carrying on with business here on this lovely Saturday. Peace.
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john zande said:
Says the person who opened not with a Hello, but a brazenly un-thought-through stab in the face:
Your arrogance is truly impressive, but your scholarship isn’t.
Please, don’t go crying victim. It’s not becoming, although it is the general modus operandi of apologists when they’re get caught out for knowing nothing and have been embarrassed by facts.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Oh good grief, Zande! Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be you, so trapped in projection and ideology it’s as if you’re stuck in a hall of mirrors at a fun house carnival.
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john zande said:
I’m sure that made some sort of sense to you as you wrote it 😉
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insanitybytes22 said:
It really does make sense, Zande. I like atheists much better when they have those rare moments where they act like a human being rather than a bundle of ideology looking for converts.
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john zande said:
I can’t convert you. I’d be foolish to think so. You’ve already all made your minds up and have turned your backs on evidence-based reality. I can’t cure that. What i can do is demonstrate where you’re all wrong… which I have done here with simple facts. Just because you don’t like those facts doesn’t make them any less real.
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insanitybytes22 said:
So, if you believe we’re beyond conversion, then all these so called facts you feel compelled to throw at us are simply your own attempts to justify your own non belief.
You want our validation John, you’re absolutely desperate for somebody to tell you that you got your facts right. It’s not about Christians at all, it’s about you.
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john zande said:
You know what I do find fascinating here? Fascinating, and amusing? The hypocrisy. Let me explain. As you are aware, there doesn’t exist a single shred of evidence for a man named Jesus ever living. Not a scrap. Nothing by any contemporary history, no court records, not even a piece of graffiti. Nothing… and yet you believe a man name Jesus actually lived, right? Why do you believe? Because many scholars (still the majority) say so. You accept their findings. And yet when it comes to the findings of the overwhelming majority of scholars and archaeologists concerning the historical invalidity of the Pentateuch you all suddenly disagree with the same professionals.
The hypocrisy is funny, and quite telling, isn’t it?
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insanitybytes22 said:
I don’t believe in Christ because “many scholars say so,” I believe in Christ because He says so.
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john zande said:
And yet you do not have a single scrap of evidence for that man ever living. Not a single shred. Nothing. Not even graffiti. Nothing at all except the studied opinions of the same professionals you say are lying when it comes to the Pentateuch.
Step outside your shoes and look at yourself here in this position. You believe these people when they say one thing, but vehemently don’t believe these same people when they say another. Wouldn’t you, Insanity, call this behaviour just a little “insane”?
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insanitybytes22 said:
Wouldn’t you, Insanity, call this behaviour just a little “insane”?
Absolutely John. What you don’t seem to understand however, is that I’d rather be completely insane with the Holy Spirit than sane without Him.
Trust me. Sanity is nothing but vanity and highly over rated. Life is a lot more fun when you learn to let go.
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john zande said:
That’s a great answer. Thanks for being so honest. And in your defence, you haven’t been trying to establish the ludicrous (laughable) case for historical validity of the Pentateuch… which is what this conversation was wholly centred on.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Self absorbed much, John?? This entire conversation was not about the “historical validity of the Pentateuch” at all. In fact the “historical validity of the Pentateuch” didn’t occur to me at all when I wrote this post.
It’s all you John, having a debate with your own self.
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john zande said:
Trace back my involvement in this thread. You’ll see i never commented on the post. i was responding to another poster regarding the historical validity of the Pentateuch.
So no, I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“You’ll see i never commented on the post.”
Yes, I know. Like I said, self absorbed much?
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john zande said:
Mirror, meet Insanitybytes22, Insanitybytes22, this is mirror….
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insanitybytes22 said:
You’re trying to project again, John. If you cannot even see the nature of your own self, what makes you think you have the wherewithal to judge God?
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john zande said:
Which god are you talking about here?
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john zande said:
Insanity, which god are you talking about? It wouldn’t happen to be the one which made its 6/7th Century literary debut in the Pentateuch, would it? The same Pentateuch that is factually known myth…. 🙂
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john zande said:
Insanity, hello? Hello? Which god are you talking about? I mean, it couldn’t be the god of the Pentateuch, could it? Haven’t we just been through all this? The Pentateuch is factually known myth. It’s fiction. None of it happened. None of the characters were actually real people… well, as much as Spiderman isn’t a real person. They have literary value, sure, but no historical value. They never lived. The events never happened. There was no revelation. That god doesn’t exist.
Surely, you must though be talking about another god, right…. I mean, you can’t possibly be talking about the god of the Pentateuch, can you?
Perhaps you’re talking about Ahura-Mazda? I mean, the god in the Pentateuch is actually modelled on that much older Indo-Iranian god, so that kinda’ makes sense. Do you worship Ahura-Mazda? Are you a Zoroastrian?
Hello?
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john zande said:
Oh, and I’m not compelled to justify my atheism, it’s the only rational position to hold given the evidence. I am, however, strongly compelled to defend truth and facts, especially in those areas where I am well-versed. Again, just because you don’t like those facts doesn’t make them any less real.
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john zande said:
*which I have done here regarding bible archaeology, with simple facts
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john zande said:
And for the record: when a rational adult is confronted with overwhelming evidence which contradicts their current understanding of the world, they adjust their beliefs to better reflect reality. You (and others here) have however demonstrated yourself incapable of this simple task. Instead, you have chosen to erect walls built of contrived “agenda’s” and scholars in inverted commas to keep reality out.
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madblog said:
Let’s go back to square one: are you contending that there actually IS no scholarship, research, or evidence which reached conclusions which are different than the ones you have mentioned? That other conclusions do not exist? That there is only one view or opinion on the issues you introduced? (issues which are far afieild of the actual blog post by IB)?
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john zande said:
Oh, there are some people who keep trying to make the story fit, and they’re all either evangelical Christians from American bible schools, or archaeologists who are being paid by evangelical Christian groups based out of American bible schools. Here Eilat Mazar comes immediately to mind. Evidently you aren’t aware of the actual state of archaeology in Israel and her environs, but just to let you know, the only area where there is still a live debate regarding biblical archaeology is whether or not Judah had an urban society in the 9th Century BCE, which relates to the narrative concerning the United Kingdom. That’s it. That’s all there is. The Patriarchs, Egypt, Moses, Exodus and Conquest are dead subjects in the field of serious archaeology. They were dismissed as myth nearly two generations ago, and nothing has changed in that time to alter this consensus. Let me repeat: As Israel’s oldest daily Newspaper, Hareetz, announced recently:
I don’t know why I bother, I’m guessing you don’t even know what the Settlement Period even is, but did you know in 1998, the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), the central American professional body for archaeologists working in the Middle East, changed the name of its magazine from Biblical Archaeologist to Near Eastern Archaeology simply because the bible had been determined to be (beyond all doubt) an entirely unreliable historical source to direct research into the early Jews, pre-Babylonian captivity.
I suppose, though, you think this is all part of the Grand Global Conspiracy, right? These are, after all, those dastardly “scholars”… inverted commas.
And before you even think I’m interested in hearing you out, let me say, I’m not. I know exactly the drivel you will present. I know the nonsense trotted out by amateur and professional apologists alike. I’ve heard it all, and it’s all gibberish centered on trying to shift the date of the Exodus… which, of course, only opens up another slew of chronological problems which no apologist ever deals with. You see, unlike you, I’ve actually researched both sides. I know both arguments intimately. Unlike you, I’m not intimidated or frightened by new information. I remind you, I spent over six months interviewing rabbis (most in Israel) and some of the world’s leading biblical archaeologists based at both The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv University. Have you? Of course you haven’t, and neither do you know that both campuses are quite antagonistic to the other. In fact, I’m still in regular contact with the brilliant young archaeologist, Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef, who’s paper “A New Chronological Framework for Iron Age Copper Production at Timna (Israel)” was recently heralded as the most influential paper published in BASOR (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research). Ben-Yosef also co-authored a startling paper last year, titled, “The Introduction of Domestic Camels to the Southern Levant: Evidence from the Aravah Valley,” which further dismisses the Pentateuch as a “historical” document. And for your information, Ben-Yosef is a practicing Jew, a theist, but honest enough in himself, and his work, to admit the Jewish origin narrative is nothing but inventive geopolitical myth… None of it happened. It is a work of fiction fashioned together in the 6th and 7th Century BCE to satisfy the territorial ambitions of Judah after the sacking of Mamlekhet Yisra’el (Kingdom of Israel) in 722 BCE. The Patriarchs, Egypt, Moses, Exodus, Conquest is all fiction. Abraham and Moses are fictional characters invented to tell a metanarrative which favoured Judah and its priests. Even the Encyclopaedia Judaica (a famed publication which examines all scholastic, theological and scientific work) openly concludes that the entire Exodus narrative was “dramatically woven out of various strands of tradition… he [Moses] wasn’t a historical character.”
As I suggested earlier to the other commenter, I strongly suggest you purchase and read the Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary; the first authorised commentary on the Torah since 1936. Published in 2001 by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (in collaboration with the Rabbinical Assembly and the Jewish Publication Society), the 1,559 page long Etz Hayim concludes with 41 essays written by prominent rabbis and scholars who admit the Pentateuch is little more than a self-serving myth rife with anachronisms and un-ignorable archeological inconsistencies, and rather than triumphant conquest, Israel instead emerged slowly and relatively peacefully out of the general Canaanite population with monotheism only appearing in the post-Exilic period, 5th and mostly 4th Century BCE.
You cannot get a more authorative source than this.
But of course, you will not buy and read Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, because all these Jews are part of the Grand Global Conspiracy, right? They’re in league with those dirty “scholars” and all their doctorates and decades of archaeological work and peer-reviewed papers in real journals… And they all have an “agenda,” don’t they? Of course they do…
Now, the fascinating thing here is that none of this is new information, nor is it a secret. The entire bible narrative began breaking down with the work of the American archaeologist and bible advocate, William Albright, a Christian, in the first half of the 20th century. By 1967 the thesis had completely collapsed. This has been common knowledge, therefore, for nearly two generations. Just because the information hasn’t penetrated popular culture yet doesn’t make the facts of the matter any less real. As Professor Magen Broshi, Chief Archaeologist at the Israel Museum explained: “Archaeologists simply do not take the trouble of bringing their discoveries to public attention.” Or as one of America’s leading archaeologists, Professor William Dever (now retired) explained: “Scholars have known these things for a long time, but we’ve broken the news very gently.”
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john zande said:
Here’s how I put it in a post on this very matter:
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john zande said:
and you still haven’t answered my other question. Why all the evasion?
Are you a Young Earth Creationist?
Yes, or no….
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
(and yeah, we’ve already been treated to many a dissertation on how idiotic it is not to accept the obvious truths of evolutionary biology… like I said, not so independent. Which paradigm precludes the other, do you think?)
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john zande said:
You’re a Young Earth Creationists, are you?
Oh dear…
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
The original post written by IB, which all these comments have spawned from, was really quite wonderful, and in many ways I don’t think I could improve on many of the points she already made:
“In matters of faith, some atheists reveal their fear of the so called delusional, psychotic, and crazy, by endlessly mocking the wit, whimsy, and wu. There is a genuine fear there that seems to suggest that if one just keeps their feet firmly planted on the ground and their head out of the clouds, all evil in the world will cease to exist….”
Why IS the “delusional” such a grand threat, to you, or anyone else, if our delusion is what prevents us from realizing that in actuality, the earth is not “young”, nor under the care of any Creator, but instead the purely accidental result of molecules in space that wound up globbing themselves together over billions of years into a “planet”, after more elemental and mineral globbing occurred, and then eventually biological globbing, for millions of years, up until right now, where a glob that calls itself “john zande” appears to be “talking” to a glob that thinks of itself as “me”…!?
According to the “census of the experts”, everything is going to eventually unglob itself, right back to where it started, is it not? I suppose at that point there won’t be any globs of anything left to be frustrated with the other globs for their delusional beliefs in beings that were never globbed…. 🙂
Or if not… If in fact you DO believe that everything is going to just keeping right on globbing, getting better and better in fact, human globs now perfecting their own globbing process into order to become uber-globs, transmogrified globs, our own, self-made “pantheon of globs”… Do you really not see that as being every bit as much a religious belief?
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john zande said:
Are you a Young Earth Creationist?
Yes, or No…
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
The Bible has no value whatsoever as a collection of allegorical myths. It’s either completely true, or completely false.
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john zande said:
“There is no archaeological evidence for any of it. This is something unexampled in history. They [Judah] wanted to seize control of the territories of the kingdom of Israel and annex them, because, they said, `These territories are actually ours and if you have a minute, we´ll tell you how that´s so.’ The goal was to create a myth saying that Judah is the center of the world, of the Israelite way of life, against the background of the reality of the later kingdom.” (Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology, Tel Aviv University)
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john zande said:
thetruthisstrangerthanfiction
Just reading your comments in a little more detail, and it seems you don’t know much about Judaism. The Orthodox movement only constitutes 12% of all practicing Jews. The largest movements are Conservative and Reform, and neither hold that the Patriarchs, Moses, Exodus or Conquest are actually historical people/events. That’s a simple fact. As Rabbi Nardy Grün told me personally from Israel:
Now, while you’re essentially correct in suggesting most orthodox rabbis do indeed believe in the Patriarchs and the notion of Torah Mi Sinai (the claim that the Five Books of Moses were dictated by the god Yahweh to Moses on Sinai), this internal support is in fact crumbling under the strength of modern archaeology. For example, in 2012 Orthodox Rabbi Norman Solomon published his book, Torah from Heaven: The Reconstruction of Faith, in which he calls for the orthodox movement to finally embrace what has been known to archaeologists (and accepted within all other Jewish movements) for over two generations: that the Patriarch narrative, Moses, Exodus, and Conquest is not rooted in reality but is rather a “foundation myth;” an origin dream, not a descriptive historical fact. This internal challenge from within the Orthodox movement is not, however, new. Decades ago Chief Rabbi of Britain, Rabi Louis Jacobs, contested the validity of Torah Mi Sinai by delicately suggesting that it was a “complex idea with textual, historical, and philosophical problems that needed to be addressed.” But, the simple truth is this, the vast majority of Jewish rabbi’s do not hold the OT narratives to have any historical value (not until about half way through Kings, at which time it becomes quite a good historical source). As stated by Conservative Rabbi Steven Leder
Indeed, concerning the Exodus alone, the second edition Encyclopaedia Judaica concludes that the entire Exodus narrative was “dramatically woven out of various strands of tradition… he [Moses] wasn’t a historical character.”
Now, this is not news to anyone who has actually looked into this matter. It seems, though, its news to you. I can appreciate your ignorance here, I’m guessing you’ve never read anything even mildly challenging, but I’d suggest you research the subject intensely or risk looking like a fool in the future.
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madblog said:
Your arrogance is truly impressive, but your scholarship isn’t. Your cherry-picking of the least objective most agenda-driven sources in all the vast world of Biblical scholarship is again, disingenuous, or perhaps ignorant. There is a huge universe of objective Biblical scholarship, from Jewish, Christian and secular scholars who would disagree with your certain conclusions.
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john zande said:
If you’re going to make a claim I’m hoping you can back it with with some meat?
Just some fair warning: i spent six months researching this subject, talking to over 60 leading rabbis from every movement, in Israel and abroad, and a dozen or so leading Israeli archaeologists based in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. I know what i’m talking about. Do you?
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madblog said:
SIX whole months! Wow. Yes I do know what I’m talking about, and so do a lot of other people. They are to be easily found, when you really want truth. There’s the original source too, which suffices when one is truly seeking. And the Original Source is ever available.
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john zande said:
Mmmm, I don’t see you backing up your claim anywhere?
Care to try again?
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insanitybytes22 said:
I am so grateful to discover that human pride and arrogance is no longer a real thing in the world….
So John Zande, I have spent close to half a century walking with Christ and talking to God. I think that trumps, “six months of research.” Heck, that might even trump 60 rabbis and a dozen archaeologists. 😉
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john zande said:
Still don’t see any meat to back up the claim…. 😉
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madblog said:
Not doing research for people who will close their eyes and put fingers in their ears. The knowledge is freely available.
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john zande said:
Thank you, I’ll take that as you admitting you have nothing. Of course, I already knew this. The absolute best “authorities” you could present is Kitchen, the evangelical Christian from Liverpool University (who’s not even an archaeologist), Hoffmeier, from the Evangelical Divinity College, and Bryant Wood, the Young Earth Creationist from the inerrantist Associates for Biblical Research. Great sources!
So here’s a parting fact, taken recently from Israel’s oldest daily Newspaper, Hareetz:
Again: “Nor any archaeological evidence to make them think otherwise.”
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madblog said:
I answered your question. I will not do the research for you, but should you want to look at it objectively, the sources are freely attainable. So you put words in my mouth. I have no interest in dueling name-dropping.
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ColorStorm said:
Hi Madblog-
Great observation about trading ‘information.’
Got a post coming out soon which addresses this point distinctly. 😉
all the best in the name of the Lord
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john zande said:
You answered nothing…. But of course, I already knew you wouldn’t, because you can’t, not without citing the laughable Kitchen’s, the Wood’s, and the Hoffmeier’s. Simply put, you cannot produce a single reputable archaeologist from a real university, and neither can you produce a single non-Orthodox Jewish Rabbi who will state, in writing: “The Patriarchs were real historical characters, the Israelites were in Egypt, Moses was an actual character, there was an exodus of some two-million people, followed by a triumphant conquest of Canaan.”
But of course, you believe in a global conspiracy, don’t you? All these nasty professors (American, European and Israeli) who’ve actually led digs across Israel (and have published dozens of peer-reviewed papers in real journals on those digs) all have an “agenda,” just like all the reputable bible scholars, and let’s not forget the 90% of all Jewish Rabbi’s. They’re all wrong, they all have an “agenda”…. but you don’t, and you’re right, aren’t you?
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madblog said:
Have we met? Or spoken before? You seem to know an awful lot about my thoughts and beliefs! I actually have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Really. You are not at all describing my beliefs.
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madblog said:
AND you have both sides of the argument all sewed up, you KNOW what I’m going to say! I don’t know why you’re wasting time here.
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john zande said:
It’s worth repeating. From Israel’s oldest daily Newspaper, Hareetz:
So, it looks like even the conservative Israeli media is also in on this global conspiracy….
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ColorStorm said:
John just a question for ya
You quote ‘the leading newspaper of ISRAEL,’
But deny the scriptural account of WHAT makes Israel distinctly Israel……………You either believe it all, or none of it. In other words, without the scriptural account, Israel does not exist. Kinda hard to ignore this fact.
Btw, you can have your newspaper. I’m going with He who made the tree which makes the paper, who has promised to keep ‘the apple of his eye,’ as written, proved, and preserved, in the good book.
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ColorStorm said:
Hey john how are ya?
Busy I see.
Just so you know, if 2 million ‘scholars’ said they were able to ‘prove’ Nazareth did not exist, I would show you 2 million liars, and God’s word correct.
The eternal anvil of the scriptures has silenced every assault of yours, and the unbelieving fools who dare attack the God of heaven and His Christ through his word. God is not on trial, you are. His word is good, Man’s word, eh, not so good..
My answer to you? ‘It is written.’ The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is the God and Father of OUR Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, now we are getting somewhere. This is about Christ, the Jewish Messiah. No, no agenda of denial here. No, none..
Your efforts to cast aspersion on God’s word? You spent 6 months gathering your facts? Wow, was just wondering if any of your new ‘friends’ were present when God laid the curtains of the heavens? just sayin.
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john zande said:
Doing good, Colorstorm, hope you’re well, too.
Unfortunately, I still don’t see any meat backing up the claim….
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insanitybytes22 said:
Meat? I think we may still be in the milk phase 😉
One of my favorite bits of scripture is, “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?”
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ColorStorm said:
Yes ib
powerful, poetic, reverential, and above all: true
‘And speaking further of Christ: ‘…………….And he is before all things, and by him all things consist………………….’
So yea, I guess that if the holding together of the orbital paths in ‘Orion ‘ is no big deal, then I suppose we do have nothing.
If the spirit of a man cannot be found in an animal, then yea, I suppose we have nothing.
If there were no incontrovertible geneologies to Abraham and Adam, then yea, I suppose we have nothing.
Time and ink would fail to document the ‘nothings.’
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Human Interest said:
Reblogged this on Human Interest.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for the reblog, much appreciated 😉
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Human Interest said:
You’re very welcome! 🙂
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Paul said:
Absolutely IB. Evil has its roots in moving away from God – and only we humans have that capacity. And yet to have true choice in order to create ourselves, we must have the option to go in that direction.
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AC said:
This reminds me of something I posted a few weeks ago, http://wp.me/p4CA9e-cA,
where I point out that low self-esteem may be caused by letting go of the self. But when our letting go of the self helps us to realize just how connected we are with the entire universe, we build high self-esteem. Our lives our influenced by all other lives. Therefore our selves consist of all other selves. Letting go of the self can be scary, as you point out, but doing so can open the door to all the other selves that make us who we are. And that is true self-realization, in my opinion.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I liked your post, thanks for the link 😉
There’s a paradox woven in there, so both things can appear to be true at the same time. Sometimes I think of my faith as being a very selfish thing, as in I am there to fill my cup with abundance and over flow. It really is all about me and my relationship. Sometimes I think that is forgotten within Christianity, so we have all these platitudes about how it is better to give than to receive and how you must sacrifice yourself for others. Those things are true, but that state of being comes from being filled up, over flowing, abundant. It is from our excess that we can give. Self is simply too small to contain all that.
It kind of reminds me of that thing on airplanes where they instruct mothers to put their oxygen masks on first, before assisting their children. To a mom that sounds somewhat selfish, but actually it’s rather selfish not to, because of course deprived of oxygen, you will pass out before you can ever hope to assist your children.
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AC said:
I like the idea of being filled up and overflowing. That seems to make mutual give and take possible.
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Lorra B. said:
Yes! Great analogy. It takes maturity in our faith to realize what it means to be filled and what it means to ‘die to self’. Dying to self is really simply focusing on others and their needs, the rest falls into place after that. Now, it is clearly easier said than done, especially when your husband is standing on your last nerve and you wish to slap him in his whole face! OH MY! Did I just say that?!? LOL! Yes, Christians are human too and have human emotions…it’s what we do with them that sets us apart. The flesh is a heavy burden at times and these life-lessons are in a continual state of improvement and transformation. Each day is a new, fresh start. I, for one, am grateful for His continual forgiveness as He works to transform a sinner like myself. Well, now that I just went off on my own little journey here….. LOL! Anyhooooo, great post and had fun reading the ‘drama’ unfold on your comments here. 🙂
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for your comment and for stopping by. LOL, yes Christians are human, indeed.
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adamjasonp said:
“[S]ome of the most horrendous acts the world has ever seen were done by the so called sane …”
So, so true.
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thetruthisstrangerthanfiction said:
“We tend to label bad people “crazy, delusional, psychotic,” because we cannot imagine that human beings with a grasp on reality could ever do bad things. People do not like to acknowledge the existence of evil or face the truth of our own natures. To do so is to admit that not only does evil exist, but that we are all vulnerable to it.”
Never heard it encapsulated quite so perfectly before. The avoidance of personal moral culpability is really the endgame, and underlying motivator, of so much, isn’t it…
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lovelifeandgod said:
The problem with strict “rationale” is that people can rationalize away anything. I recently learned that the reason the Nazis were able to be so cruel and brutal is because they honestly thought that wiping out all “inferior” races would better humanity and help our species progress…if that’s starting to sound like Darwinian thinking to you, it should. I thought it was horrific, but it made sense how they could do such awful things when they relied so heavily on their own human perceptions. Anyone can reason anything, no matter how evil.
Rational will not take you to morality. You can moralize anything using the rational – “the ends justify the means.” The problem is, as humans we have no way of knowing if the “end” really is what we think it will be after sacrificing so much in the “means.”
You know what’s better than trying to rationalize murder? Simply relying on the commandment “Thou shalt not murder.” If you rely only on your own understanding, you’ll probably end up with “Thou shalt not murder…unless you’re doing it to save yourself…thou shalt not murder…unless it’s for the ‘greater good’ (whatever that means)…thou shalt not murder…unless the human is inferior and a drain on society…” It’s better when there’s no ifs, ands, or buts.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Words of wisdom, Ada. That fine print we always try to add to those commandments kind of makes me laugh, because it’s a bit like insurance paperwork, so full of legalese and elaborate attempts to evade responsibility and avoid liability. I may mindlessly sign all those disclaimers because I haven’t got much choice, but I suspect God does not go, “Oh, oh, well since you had a disclaimer and a limited liability clause and statements from three witnesses, that’s totally different!” 😉
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lovelifeandgod said:
Ha, like, “Okay God, so I yelled at someone angrily, but I mean, they were being really stupid and mean, so you see, I HAD to do it. You feel me?” Yeah, God ‘feels you,’ but He isn’t very impressed by your excuses. 😉
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insanitybytes22 said:
LOL, I really wish people would laugh at ourselves more often, because we really are quite funny. Just the whole idea of believing we can out reason God is kind of amusing. As if He hasn’t heard it all already 😉
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bluebird of bitterness said:
Calling evil people “crazy” or “sick” is one way we make ourselves feel better; classifying them as something other than human is another. After I watched the movie “Downfall,” which I thought was very well done, I was curious to see what other people thought of it — especially people more knowledgable about history than I am, who might have valuable insights as to its historical accuracy. When I searched online, I ran across some negative reviews that criticized the movie for “humanizing” Adolph Hitler. (By this I suppose they meant the fact that he was shown being kind to some of his friends and associates, and the fact that he actually smiled occasionally.) At first this puzzled me — were these people not aware that Hitler was a human being? I guess it’s just easier to deal with the knowledge that there are people like Hitler if you can classify them as something other than human. We, after all, are human, and we’d like to believe that it’s just not possible for a creature that’s the same species as us to be so evil and twisted.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thanks for your comment.That’s a really good point. We always have to dehumanize people who do evil things, quite likely because we feel the need to distance ourselves from them.
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janebasilblog said:
I read your post, and scrolled down here to say something about it, but the insulting comments from a God hater made me forget my point. I think it’s very sad that so many people are so intolerant of the beliefs of others in a world where so many other prejudices are considered unnaccptable. This may sound naive to some, but surely we should be focusing on finding the common ground between us. Only with love and compassion can we begin to cure the world’s ills. Unfortunately atheists tend to have a real fear of faith, so they attack it, whereas christians (for example) spread the word because they think it is Good News. I commend those who brave insults and derision for their beliefs. I refer to myself as an agnostic, believing as i do that love is the most important thing, but I come from a family of fire-breathing anarchists, and it shames me to hear them condemning those of faith. I think it is arrogant to declare that there is no God, as if we have access to all information containned in the Universe. The atheist quotes Science as if Science knows all, apparently unaware that it is limited to what it has learnt so far, and the more it finds out the more it realises there is so much more to learn. I read a great analogy recently about cats not being able to concieve of the workings of a computer, therefore, from the cats point of view, there is no computer (Russell Brand, in his book ‘Revolution.)
I really like your post. I assume that you are not denying the existance of psychosis, but only pointing out that evil and madness are not the same thing. I have a daughter who is addicted to a legal high drug known locally as Crystal (similar in effect to crystal meth, but possibly even more damaging,and probaly more lethal). She sees worms crawling under her skin, and ‘knows’ they’re real. She sees messages on receipts dropped in the street, and ‘knows’ they contain messages. The skin clings to her bones, and her arms jerk around constantly. so many terrifying things happen in her head. That is psychosis.
Thank you for this post, and for liking mine.
Love x
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you for coming by and for taking the time to read. Sorry to hear about your daughter. We have quite a bit of that in my neck of the woods too, and it’s really heartbreaking to watch. Lots of my family and friends have struggled with it. I’ll keep your daughter in my prayers.
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Arkenaten said:
Which atheist ”quotes Science as if Science knows all”. ?
Maybe I am misreading your comment but I have never read an atheist who believes this. You obviously have read such atheists and I would be interested in reading what these people have to say.
You would not consider extreme religious belief psychosis? Really?
Talking to an invisible being and believing in the efficacy of praying to a one or a variety of gods.
Maybe at this level this may be considered delusion, but those believers who have murdered because of hearing ”God” tell them to do so would surely be consider stark raving bonkers!
Of course no one in their right mind would ever believe that someone was being instructed to kill their kid as a test of faith/trust in a god.
Oh …er, wait a moment.
Certain neurological studies have shown that some religious beliefs are psychosis, and people do have psychotic episodes.
I can post a few links if you are genuinely interested and point you to at least one person who has studied this aspect for years
after her husband committed suicide because of the problems of religion.
Though I realise many people are hesitant to label it as psychosis, for obvious reasons.
Imagine calling George Bush a bit psychotic after he claimed he was guided by his ”god” prior to going to war?
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janebasilblog said:
Let me wipe the froth from your mouth,you poor thing.
Do you think that I, of all people, am denying the existance of psychosis? Or was your comment intended for someone else? I think you have intirely missed the point of what I was saying.
I don’t care what your religion is or isn’t, and I don’t understand why you have this need to be so combatative. I’m more interested in people finding common ground, or at least celebrating the differences, so don’t try to bait me.
And I won’t be drawn into an explanation of my Science/God remark by an angry, insensitive person who goes off at tangents.
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Arkenaten said:
No tangent., and certainly no froth – other than my cappuccino. Yum!
You made the derogatory ( and fallacious) comment regarding atheists and science on a religious blog that puts a narrative construct above all else and condemns anyone who does not believe in this deity.
What common ground is there in the above scenario?
What common ground is there with the gunmen who murdered 17 people in Paris?
You tell me?
I am not angry. I get upset with the abuse children suffer because of the diatribe foisted on them by the religious.
You sound extremely angry , for some reason.
Why is that?
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janebasilblog said:
No, not angry, just terribly sad.
I don’t know why you choose to rant at me, but I am so battered and scarred that you really can’t do me much harm. However, I wonder what your purpose is. Is it that you can’t bear to think of someone who may not even be a Christian appreciating a Christian site? Or did you not notice that I am not a Christian, because I follow true Christian values?.
Several followers of this blog’, rather than comdemning me like my comment even though I don’t share their faith.
Oh, and I believe that the evil that men do in the name of God has little to do with God’s word.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ark, stop being such a self absorbed jerk. Go listen to some music or something. It’s not all about you, all the time.
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Arkenaten said:
Oh, god, here we go….
The ad hominum lady strikes again.
Self-absorbed?
I came across a blog by someone who claims she was possessed by demons and Jesus saved her.
Ah … normality is such a wondrous thing, is it not?
Not off her rocker at all.
The gods help her kids.
I am listening to music.as it happens. Gidon Kremer: Hommage to ( Astor) Piazolla.
Absolutely stunning. Highly recommend it.
Of course it’s not about me, you silly thing. It’s about your blog.
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Arkenaten said:
By the way, isn’t it rude to ”eavesdrop” on another’s conversation? 😉
You can always join in of course – instead of ”ranting” at me.
Got any thoughts?
‘Tis your blog, after all, IB
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assortmentbox said:
Its nice to be wired a little differently , its good to see people accept themselves in all their essence and still love themselves rather than live under false skin . I loved the post. The good and evil resides within .:) 🙂
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Andrew said:
Hey everyone enjoying polemics and sneering sarcasm on this thread –
I’m really excited to go see this documentary next Monday. Anyone else going?
I’m sure our Egyptian friend can find grist for his mill and fodder for his cannon in this one so it’s “win-win”:
http://www.patternsofevidence.com/en/
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Arkenaten said:
Smile. 🙂
Now the first problem that arises should it be ”proved” that the Exodus really did happen … honest is how much of the biblical tale is also true?
Do we assume it is a literal account?
diabolical warfare etc etc?
Do we say , oh, well , there weren’t really 2,000,000 folks because dickhead archaeologists and biblical scholars have no damn clue how to read the bible; there were in fact only 20,000. Well 20,011 if we include the Ginsbergs.
And as we know the GInsbergs’ made it to Canaan it proves that Jesus in his Yahweh disguise must have parted the waters because everyone knows the Ginsburgs’ on uncle Abe’s side can’t swim and have always had a pathological fear of water.
And then there’s the question of food and drink: Mildred Ginsberg being highly allergic to quail; it bring her out in hives and a rash on her legs something rotten. Maybe Jesus in his Yahweh disguise dropped a few sandwiches?
Tough call.
I will be almost wetting myself in anticipation.
It’s totally amazing that not a single archaeologist in the entire history of making Sand Castles in the SInai ever thought to consider that maybe they were just a bit out on the time line?
Oops. There goes Finkelstein’s and Dever’s career for a loop.
Middle East Peace here we come!
Or should that be A Piece of the Middle East here we come?
Let’s ask the Ginsbergs’, shall we?
Enjoy the movie/doccie, Andrew.
Please come back and write a review.
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Andrew said:
Ark, you are a living antidote to the superficial three-sentence response so sadly characteristic of the Twittering epoch we live in. I haven’t read it all yet but it appears, at first glance, a brilliant fusion of witty anti-Jewish mockery and Anti-Christ sarcasm. At least you are interesting and multifaceted like a rare atheist jewel…
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Arkenaten said:
Hey Andrew,if this new Exodus Doccie pans out, perhaps dear old Ron Wyatt will get a reprieve?
Maybe a resurrection?
I’ve got first dibs on one of those Egyptian chariot wheels from Pharaoh’s army he found on the bottom of the Red Sea when they go up for auction, you hear?
Or we could go halfies?
Oh, and I get to write Dever & Finkelstein’s obit too.
😉
You gotta love these Crispyuns’, right?
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Andrew said:
Wow – I am impressed. Not even many Christians have heard of Ron Wyatt. I used to read his newsletters in the 90’s but yes, some of his hypotheses about the Ark of the Covenant ( and other things) seem a bit off. Still, I have never been where he has nor looked at the actual sites.
The coral-encrusted chariot fragments theory is fascinating to me. I may be able to get you a half axle ( I have connections near Aqaba).
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Arkenaten said:
If you find Pharoah;s hat, it;s mine.
Especially if it has Yule Bryner size 7 1/4 sewn on the inside.
Ah…dear departed Ron has discovered pretty much most of the Major Themes in the OT. at one time or another and managed to diddle a lot of money out of credulous Crispyans …and not so Crispy alike.
He also discovered the Ark. ( Noah’s boat, not me; I never met the bloke) somewhere in Turkey or Iran(?) I think.
I am surprised George W didn’t commission him to have it brought to the US of Eh?
It could have been moored right next to the Queen Mary.
What a treat.
He could have married Ken Ham and all the YECs and Happy Clappers would have forgiven this sin and hailed him as a goddamn true blue hero.
I am forever hopeful that the Garden of Eden turns up.
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madblog said:
Excellent. The self-justification is transparent when we rush to ascribe mental illness to the most evil. It reassures us that WE could never do such things, when usually we just aren’t as ambitious. So well said.
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madblog said:
@john zande: Your assertion is at the very best, disingenuous. As if there is no other scholarship or research, or historiography, or objective literary examination, that says quite otherwise. You betray your own agenda.
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trutherator said:
Mr. Blogger, Arkenaten is just a troll.
He’s just ranting and accusing others of ranting.
He’s condescending and sneers that you’re condescending. He ridicules, and just makes a caricature of himself.
His whole rant is ad hominen, and he thinks it makes him smart to accuse somebody else of ad hominen.
He uses an Egyptian-sounding moniker, thinking this makes him some kind of spiritually superior, except it only labels himself as a snob.
His ravings turn his accusations of lunacy upon himself and corroborate this blog.
The most loudmouth anti-creationist scientists go into panic mode when they contemplate debating a real live Creationist scientist. Even with an audience full of people who have been indoctrinated in the materialist (null) explanation of Origins through twelve and even sixteen years, while subjected to the same indoctrination in “news” reports, movies, anti-Christian lawsuits, they still go into panic mode and warn their colleagues against trying it. I saw the memo in the book “Science and Creationism”, in which the editor and compiler of these anti-creationist essays admits having been resoundingly humiliated in such a debate. In order to bolster his darwinian fantasies, he asked a bunch of people for their essays.
In those essays, a biochemist in the book fantasized how a few linkups among a few amino acid molecules “proved” abiogenesis. Harvard recently got a million-dollar grant to study how abiogenesis could have happened.
Meantime, anti-creationists run with panic from the issue, saying it’s not part of evolution. Read on ahead when you can stop laughing.
Asimov made his points against a creationist argument that creationists would never use with an unbeliever, and avoided the science.
Stephen Jay Gould came right out and said explicitly that science has to believe some things that are not provable using the scientific method.
One guy from UC Berkeley couldn’t refrain from proudly using the label “pagan”. A haughty spirit goeth before a fall.
Just shows: The mouth of a fool poureth out foolishness.
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john zande said:
What, exactly, is an “anti-creationist scientist“?
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trutherator said:
There is none blinder than those who will not see…
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lnoelonline said:
“Also, what’s with all the mental health bashing and fear of psychosis? I hate to inform you, but some of the most horrendous acts the world has ever seen were done by the so called sane, those thought to have both feet on the ground and their head firmly planted in this world.”
I so agree.
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robertmgoldstein said:
well written post….
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you, you are most kind.
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