Atheism/Existence of God Debates (Please Read OP)

ABC101

Rik,

Moses was a real person.

Deuteronomy was fully written 500 years after Mose's death. So there had to be a author or author's other than Moses to write Deuteronomy.

Your approach to understanding the Bible is causing you lots of problems. You are taking a literal translation of truth. For example, fasting for forty days and forty nights is just a saying for fasting for a long time, not literally fasting for forty days.

You seem to have an Aspergers approach. If I commented that I had forty winks of sleep, would you take me up on it? I think you would.

Deuteronomy was written when the Assyrian empire had conquered the Kingdom of Israel, there were refugees flooding into the southern Kingdom of Judeah. These refugees were diluting the faith of the southern kingdom as the northern kingdom had become more liberal than the south. This is why prophets of other Gods is mentioned here.

Your comment about the first commandment.. You require to understand the difference between doing something because you are obliged to do it (conforming to social norms) or doing something because you desire to do it (act of love).

As I mentioned before a believer requires to maintain focus on believing and Loving God, not getting caught up in the nitty gritty of various sayings and phrases of 3000 years ago. There are still mysteries in the Bible which are not understood. You have a propensity to get caught up in the nitty gritty, whilst ignoring the bigger picture. You are never going to understand the Bible with that approach.

It is akin to a person who desires to be a scientist, but is caught up in what is unexplained rather than what is explained.

Your last comment about rejecting God. God does not send a person to Hell. Hell is firstly a absence of God. If you choose to reject God in your personal life, then that is your choice, God accepts that.

However when you die, you will become aware of the infinite beauty and love of God and The area where God resides, Heaven.

By being excluded from Heaven, the soul suffers greatly. The tortures in Hell are tortures created by the Devil, who vehemently hates God's creation which is humanity.

If you reject God whilst on Earth, why should you love God after Death?

If you want evidence, what evidence are you looking for, do you want me to give you a time machine so that you can travel back 3000 years and see Moses for yourself?

If you look up Deuteronomy on wikipedia you will get an idea, or if you really want to study Deuteronmy then you require a more historical approach, perhaps a visit to a liberary of Biblical studies is required.

nozzferrahhtoo

ABC101 wrote: »

If you want evidence, what evidence are you looking for, do you want me to give you a time machine so that you can travel back 3000 years and see Moses for yourself?

Some decorum please. If YOU want to claim moses was a real person it is not up to someone else to tell you what the evidence for this claim is or should be. It is up to YOU to present the evidence you think you have for the claim.

It is quite the claim. Can you substantiate it in any way?

RikuoAmero

Moses was a real person.

Deuteronomy was fully written 500 years after Mose's death. So there had to be a author or author's other than Moses to write Deuteronomy.

Evidence please? Your claim of Moses being a real person has just been weakened by saying that this book, which has long been claimed to have been written by Moses, was in fact written 500 years after he died.
Last I checked, most bible scholars have taken the position of Moses being an amalgam of several people. Where's your evidence that the Hebrews as a race were ever in Egypt?
The evidence supporting that claim is not in Egypt. No Egyptian artifacts or writings from any of the time periods claimed to have been when Exodus occurred depict a Hebrew slave population or a resulting revolt.
No artifacts or writings in surrounding nations tell a story of terrified Egyptian merchants buying foreign food so as to feed Egypt due to the plagues supposedly wiping out all their food sources. There is no flood of Egyptian gold or other valuables in the archaeological record being traded for food. No surrounding nations record such a famine.
Apart from the holy book of the Jews and the christians, is there any evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the Hebrews, as a race, were enslaved in Egypt?
Here's another question - supposing Moses and his stories to be true, how come, when at the time of his birth, when the pharaoh supposedly orders all the male born babies of the Hebrews to be killed, there is no mention of the Hebrews revolting? Didn't the Hebrews love their families? If I hear the army is going in to kill all the babies in the area I live in, you'd bet I'd pick up a weapon and fight back. How come the bible doesn't record such a revolt?

For example, fasting for forty days and forty nights is just a saying for fasting for a long time, not literally fasting for forty days.

Why would forty days and forty nights not make sense to you? Is it because you understand that in the real world, those who fast for that long die of starvation long before 40 days? Thing is, this is in the realm of god and magic. Surely a god who can will himself back to life after being dead for 3 days can prevent starvation. So why do you draw a line here, say "No, that's not possible, it must be exaggeration, or symbolic"?

If I commented that I had forty winks of sleep, would you take me up on it? I think you would.

No-one's saying that to me as part of a religious claim, saying that the fate of my immortal soul is predicated on my believing such a claim. I'm hearing from christians "Jesus really did die on the cross and then rose from the dead 3 days later and rose bodily into heaven". Is that symbolic or metaphorical or exaggerated? No, I'm told, it's not! I'm told that that is true, as it is written.
So now the logical fallacy of special pleading comes into play. Verses and passages X Y and Z are exaggerated, or metaphorical...but passages A, B and C? No, they're true, definitely true...even though X, Y and Z look and read exactly the same as a A, B and C.

It is akin to a person who desires to be a scientist, but is caught up in what is unexplained

That's what a scientist is supposed to do. They see something they currently don't understand, something unexplained, and then they say "I haven't got a clue about this, but let's go find out. Let's try our hardest to try and figure this thing out".

There are still mysteries in the Bible which are not understood.

We've had the OT for what...3, 3 and a half thousand years? The NT for just under 2,000 years? And we still haven't figured it out, according to you? Do you really think so little of humanity's potential as to say that even after thousands of years, we still find mysteries in one book, despite it being literally the most studied document of all time?
Do you not realize what that line of thinking logically leads to? It logically leads one to the conclusion that humanity cannot understand anything even if it spends thousands of years studying it.

Your last comment about rejecting God. God does not send a person to Hell.

Matthew 13:41-42

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Now I know what you might say. That's a parable, not literally true. Why say it then? Why say that entity or entities A, God or those who obey god, will actively do this verb, to throw, those who disbelieve (remember, disbelief is a sin as mentioned in several parts of the bible) into torment.
Or if you're going to reply back with something along the lines of "You send yourself to hell", then I make the choice, here and now, not to go to hell after my death. I don't believe there is anything after death (because I don't have evidence for any of the myriad claims that been made throughout history), but if there is a hell, then I choose not to go.
Ball's in your god's court now. The choice is up to him. If I die and find myself in front of your god, I will sit down and plonk my arse down on the ground and say "I'm not moving from here". If I then find myself in hell, then that logically can only mean it is because of your god.
I remember saying that to Festus around page 559 or so in this thread. Weren't you reading the comments back then, or taking part?

If you choose to reject God in your personal life, then that is your choice, God accepts that.

Haven't I just spent the past couple of days refuting that? Let's go back to Moses. You say he was a real person. So according to the story, when Moses came down the mountain and saw the people dancing before the golden bull, what was his reaction?
To kill thousands for them daring to reject his god and to favour another. I read that story in the bible, and nowhere do I see god saying "Stop Moses! What the **** are you doing? Didn't I just give you tablets with Thou Shalt Not Kill written on them?? Jesus H Christ, what was I on when I picked you to be the righteous holy leader of my chosen people? I give you my commandments and not five minutes later you're already breaking them..."
The acceptance by your god of these actions is very strongly implied in that story by the absence of any sort of decrying of them.

However when you die, you will become aware of the infinite beauty and love of God and The area where God resides, Heaven.

By being excluded from Heaven, the soul suffers greatly. The tortures in Hell are tortures created by the Devil, who vehemently hates God's creation which is humanity.

I find this absolutely hilarious. You are telling me things you can't possibly know of, saying that these things are true.
Have you been dead? Do you retain memories of being dead and what happens (if the term to happen can even be applied to such a state) during that state? The only way I could possibly even entertain the claims of yours I have quoted just above, is if you also claim to me that you have in fact died and come back from death (and I don't mean where your heart stops for a few minutes or some short 'death' like that). Only then. I have no reason to entertain such claims from a being who hasn't experienced them for himself, or knows personally of anyone who has.
No, I don't believe for one second you were. Obviously you didn't exist prior to you being conceived and born, but no-one has memories of their state prior to that. You believe because you have been told that a man 2,000 years ago died and then came back. You don't have any evidence to present to me. No evidence was presented to you, other than a book, or claims from other people who say they had visions or something as vacuous as that.

If you want evidence, what evidence are you looking for, do you want me to give you a time machine so that you can travel back 3000 years and see Moses for yourself?

That would help very much indeed, yes. What? You're raising an eyebrow at the absurdity of travelling through time? Shouldn't your god be able to do that? I mean, he did raise a guy from the dead, stop the sun travelling across the sky and all sorts of other things. Surely, going backwards in time should be no sweat to him.

I've read the wikipedia page several times and by suggesting to me that I go elsewhere for bible studies, is this a tacit admission that you don't understand your bible, that you're not to be treated as an authority of any sort on it? If so, why do you reply back saying I or people like me have got our understanding of the bible wrong? Why should I entertain your point of view if at the same time you say it you say "Go ask other people"?
I've also just been to the Wikipedia page for Moses himself and found this little gem

While the general narrative of the Exodus and the conquest of the Promised Land may be remotely rooted in historical events, the figure of Moses as a leader of the Israelites in these events cannot be substantiated

If you're going to point me in the direction of Wikipedia as an authority, are you also going to accept it's authority when it said that?

ABC101

RikuoAmero wrote: »

Evidence please? Your claim of Moses being a real person has just been weakened by saying that this book, which has long been claimed to have been written by Moses, was in fact written 500 years after he died.
Last I checked, most bible scholars have taken the position of Moses being an amalgam of several people. Where's your evidence that the Hebrews as a race were ever in Egypt?
The evidence supporting that claim is not in Egypt. No Egyptian artifacts or writings from any of the time periods claimed to have been when Exodus occurred depict a Hebrew slave population or a resulting revolt.
No artifacts or writings in surrounding nations tell a story of terrified Egyptian merchants buying foreign food so as to feed Egypt due to the plagues supposedly wiping out all their food sources. There is no flood of Egyptian gold or other valuables in the archaeological record being traded for food. No surrounding nations record such a famine.
Apart from the holy book of the Jews and the christians, is there any evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the Hebrews, as a race, were enslaved in Egypt?
Here's another question - supposing Moses and his stories to be true, how come, when at the time of his birth, when the pharaoh supposedly orders all the male born babies of the Hebrews to be killed, there is no mention of the Hebrews revolting? Didn't the Hebrews love their families? If I hear the army is going in to kill all the babies in the area I live in, you'd bet I'd pick up a weapon and fight back. How come the bible doesn't record such a revolt?


Why would forty days and forty nights not make sense to you? Is it because you understand that in the real world, those who fast for that long die of starvation long before 40 days? Thing is, this is in the realm of god and magic. Surely a god who can will himself back to life after being dead for 3 days can prevent starvation. So why do you draw a line here, say "No, that's not possible, it must be exaggeration, or symbolic"?


No-one's saying that to me as part of a religious claim, saying that the fate of my immortal soul is predicated on my believing such a claim. I'm hearing from christians "Jesus really did die on the cross and then rose from the dead 3 days later and rose bodily into heaven". Is that symbolic or metaphorical or exaggerated? No, I'm told, it's not! I'm told that that is true, as it is written.
So now the logical fallacy of special pleading comes into play. Verses and passages X Y and Z are exaggerated, or metaphorical...but passages A, B and C? No, they're true, definitely true...even though X, Y and Z look and read exactly the same as a A, B and C.


That's what a scientist is supposed to do. They see something they currently don't understand, something unexplained, and then they say "I haven't got a clue about this, but let's go find out. Let's try our hardest to try and figure this thing out".


We've had the OT for what...3, 3 and a half thousand years? The NT for just under 2,000 years? And we still haven't figured it out, according to you? Do you really think so little of humanity's potential as to say that even after thousands of years, we still find mysteries in one book, despite it being literally the most studied document of all time?
Do you not realize what that line of thinking logically leads to? It logically leads one to the conclusion that humanity cannot understand anything even if it spends thousands of years studying it.



Matthew 13:41-42

Now I know what you might say. That's a parable, not literally true. Why say it then? Why say that entity or entities A, God or those who obey god, will actively do this verb, to throw, those who disbelieve (remember, disbelief is a sin as mentioned in several parts of the bible) into torment.
Or if you're going to reply back with something along the lines of "You send yourself to hell", then I make the choice, here and now, not to go to hell after my death. I don't believe there is anything after death (because I don't have evidence for any of the myriad claims that been made throughout history), but if there is a hell, then I choose not to go.
Ball's in your god's court now. The choice is up to him. If I die and find myself in front of your god, I will sit down and plonk my arse down on the ground and say "I'm not moving from here". If I then find myself in hell, then that logically can only mean it is because of your god.
I remember saying that to Festus around page 559 or so in this thread. Weren't you reading the comments back then, or taking part?


Haven't I just spent the past couple of days refuting that? Let's go back to Moses. You say he was a real person. So according to the story, when Moses came down the mountain and saw the people dancing before the golden bull, what was his reaction?
To kill thousands for them daring to reject his god and to favour another. I read that story in the bible, and nowhere do I see god saying "Stop Moses! What the **** are you doing? Didn't I just give you tablets with Thou Shalt Not Kill written on them?? Jesus H Christ, what was I on when I picked you to be the righteous holy leader of my chosen people? I give you my commandments and not five minutes later you're already breaking them..."
The acceptance by your god of these actions is very strongly implied in that story by the absence of any sort of decrying of them.



I find this absolutely hilarious. You are telling me things you can't possibly know of, saying that these things are true.
Have you been dead? Do you retain memories of being dead and what happens (if the term to happen can even be applied to such a state) during that state? The only way I could possibly even entertain the claims of yours I have quoted just above, is if you also claim to me that you have in fact died and come back from death (and I don't mean where your heart stops for a few minutes or some short 'death' like that). Only then. I have no reason to entertain such claims from a being who hasn't experienced them for himself, or knows personally of anyone who has.
No, I don't believe for one second you were. Obviously you didn't exist prior to you being conceived and born, but no-one has memories of their state prior to that. You believe because you have been told that a man 2,000 years ago died and then came back. You don't have any evidence to present to me. No evidence was presented to you, other than a book, or claims from other people who say they had visions or something as vacuous as that.


That would help very much indeed, yes. What? You're raising an eyebrow at the absurdity of travelling through time? Shouldn't your god be able to do that? I mean, he did raise a guy from the dead, stop the sun travelling across the sky and all sorts of other things. Surely, going backwards in time should be no sweat to him.

I've read the wikipedia page several times and by suggesting to me that I go elsewhere for bible studies, is this a tacit admission that you don't understand your bible, that you're not to be treated as an authority of any sort on it? If so, why do you reply back saying I or people like me have got our understanding of the bible wrong? Why should I entertain your point of view if at the same time you say it you say "Go ask other people"?
I've also just been to the Wikipedia page for Moses himself and found this little gem

If you're going to point me in the direction of Wikipedia as an authority, are you also going to accept it's authority when it said that?

I've offered you a comprehensive explanation of Deuteronmy, and here you are getting caught up in the nitty gritty of Moses.

And if it isn't Moses, it's exodus, or something else. Where is the next nitty gritty going to come from next?

My comment about science, it was about a persons ignorance about science which prevents them from understanding much about science.

Unfortunately you completely misunderstood the point.

There is a lot I do not understand about science, but I don't get angry about it, I don't demean those who failed to explain it satisfactorily to me, and in fact I don't rubbish science because of it.

You on the other hand have a flawed approach to any belief system, and of course you project your blame and anger onto it, rather than examining your own approach.

With that sort of approach Rik, you are going to spend your entire life going around in the same never ending circles going over the same arguments.

If that is what makes you happy, so be it.

All I offered was an explanation of Deuteronmy, but the more I assist you the more argumentative you become.

RikuoAmero

here you are getting caught up in the nitty gritty of Moses.

If I don't examine the nitty gritty details of various claims that are presented to me as truth by people such as yourself, then it is extremely likely that I will fall prey to con-artists (or people who have themselves been conned by others).
So, when I examine the Mormon religion, should I not get 'caught up in the nitty gritty' of Joseph Smith's life, of his history of con jobs, of the various claims he made that are obviously not supported by any archaeological evidence (such as the claims that Hebrews were in the Americas centuries before)?
Why is it you don't want me examining the minute details of your truth claims? I'll say it again as I've said it to others - the con-artist at the carnival doesn't want me examining the cans that I'm shooting at, because then he's afraid of me finding out that the cans are nailed to the stand. I'm getting the same vibe off of you: you don't want me examining the minute details because there is this fear I might (or in this case, have) come to the conclusion that what you're telling me is false, or unsubstantiated.

Why do you believe Moses to have been a real person, while simultaneously saying to me that this book, attributed to Moses, was in fact written 500 years after his death? Can you not see the logical contradiction there?
Let me make it as simple as possible. You are saying to me you believe Moses to have been a real person, who lived in Year X. The only records we have of his existence are mainly in the first few books of the Torah. However, at least one of those books was found to have been written X+500 years. What about the other books? Where they written directly by Moses, or published X+decades/centuries after? If we find out that all of those books were written X+decades/centuries after, what do you have left supporting your claim of "Moses was real"?
Nothing, as far as I can see.

I must also call into question a logical contradiction you said earlier on. You said two diametrically opposed statements.

the proof that he has chosen Israel is found in the supernatural interventions of God in their favour,

vs

we do not believe because we have seen signs and wonders but because God has spoken

ABC101

RikuoAmero wrote: »

If I don't examine the nitty gritty details of various claims that are presented to me as truth by people such as yourself, then it is extremely likely that I will fall prey to con-artists (or people who have themselves been conned by others).
So, when I examine the Mormon religion, should I not get 'caught up in the nitty gritty' of Joseph Smith's life, of his history of con jobs, of the various claims he made that are obviously not supported by any archaeological evidence (such as the claims that Hebrews were in the Americas centuries before)?
Why is it you don't want me examining the minute details of your truth claims? I'll say it again as I've said it to others - the con-artist at the carnival doesn't want me examining the cans that I'm shooting at, because then he's afraid of me finding out that the cans are nailed to the stand. I'm getting the same vibe off of you: you don't want me examining the minute details because there is this fear I might (or in this case, have) come to the conclusion that what you're telling me is false, or unsubstantiated.

Why do you believe Moses to have been a real person, while simultaneously saying to me that this book, attributed to Moses, was in fact written 500 years after his death? Can you not see the logical contradiction there?
Let me make it as simple as possible. You are saying to me you believe Moses to have been a real person, who lived in Year X. The only records we have of his existence are mainly in the first few books of the Torah. However, at least one of those books was found to have been written X+500 years. What about the other books? Where they written directly by Moses, or published X+decades/centuries after? If we find out that all of those books were written X+decades/centuries after, what do you have left supporting your claim of "Moses was real"?
Nothing, as far as I can see.

I must also call into question a logical contradiction you said earlier on. You said two diametrically opposed statements.


vs

Well good for you about trying to discern certain truths. However you require to remember what is important, and that is in Christianity is about, loving God, entering into a relationship with God.

With regard to various branches of Christianity, the R.C. has a direct line of descendants from the present Pope back to St Peter. There have been various schisms over the centuries, but you can spend your own time working on those.

However you require a more focused approach to your questions, one question at a time, shooting off 20 questions in a post is not going to get you anywhere. Jumping from Deuteronomy to Mose's to Exodus to Egypt to something else turns other posters off, and gives the impression you are not interested in the 1st answer as you are asking question number 4 already.

I've already explained why Deuteronomy is not written by Moses but by the Priests and leaders at the time. You require to go back and read it again. I have the impression you read things too quickly, without allowing time to contemplate it is what you reading. Slow down will you?

Remember all humans make mistakes, not all the time, but sometimes. Even Albert Einstein had a few wrong theories, yet he still got a lot right.

It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong. I suspect you have a tendency to look too deeply into things, bordering on the verge of paranoia constantly questioning to the 29th degree.

Most Christians would not know much about Deuteronomy yet still are very happy in the practise of their faith.

I'm not sure if you will get to the stage, but who knows? Anything is possible!

Benny_Cake

Mod: Folks, as we're rapidly approaching the 10,000 post limit on this thread, I'm closing it, but the debate can continue here.