And Now For Something Completely Different

Eva wrote

welcome to our humble forum, daystar.

Thanks, Eva.

[Sternwallow]

Daystar wrote

...

Apostacy really began to take effect about the time of Alexander the Great, though, of course, the faithlessness of the Israelites was well documented before that in the Bible itself.

That was a major compendium, as comprehensive as I have ever seen. It is only informative, of course, if there is evidence, archaeological and otherwise to substantiate it.

For instance Biblical scholarship has found that there was no Moses (and no Exodus, but that is another topic) and that the books ascribed to Moses were written by at least four anonymous people.

Could you please supply the facts you possess that contradict current best knowledge that, for instance, Paul's letters predate the Gospels and that, of them, Mark's (not written by Mark) was the first.

Can you cite evidence for the principle characters and alleged authors, excluding the few kings and emperors, some of whom have been authenticated.

As a gauge of the rest of your work, please tell us, do you believe in the "night of the living un-dead" in which the graves in Jerusalem were opened and their occupants came out and wandered through the town?

A supplementary question if you do believe that, didn't it make resurrection trite and common rather than unique and special?

[Sternwallow]

Eva wrote

i think that the ultimate question to be made re: god-belief is if the supernatural exists.

if the answer is "not likely" then who cares what the "holy books" say?

I would care if the Holy Books told people who believed in them and would obey, to go out and execute other people for failure to believe. And so they do.

Writing can be wicked and vicious enough to need a strong countervailing force.

Even if the supernatural did exist, it still does not indicate the existence or actions of any of the supposed supernatural entities, Allack, WHVHNH or Jet-hover or any of the myriad obsolete gods.

Good people can be made to do evil things under supernatural mandate even if the supernatural does not exist. All it takes is a strong and heartfelt faith.

[nkb]

Daystar wrote

Notice the Subject Heading for this thread, which I myself introduced. It may not be as amusing as nkb originally thought.

If you were serious about your views being completely (or comletely) different than what we've seen before, then I am still as amused as I was when I first posted the comment.

You do understand that you are not the first to study Hebrew, and mentally masturbate over what the original words of the Bible may have meant, so that they can fit into whatever preconception of Christianity you might have, right?

[Kate]

No, nkb, he obviously doesn't. He comes with the same shtick: he implies, but heaven forfend will not actually say, that we as nonbelievers are lazy and/or ignorant. My gawd, Irre! Have you no dictionary??

He doesn't understand that while he is enjoying a chubby with his belief that he has the most fascinating navel in the universe, I have the same WTF?! reaction to his pulling up his shirt and showing off his hairy gut as I do when he shows his ass. It's the same thing, but he is not capable of making that distinction, let alone tell me all the joys that are pink.

Kate wrote

Can you define the word "pink"?

I don't know, but I can the word spirit.

[Kate]

A simple "no" would have been honest.

[Kate]

Daystar wrote

I don't know, but I can the word spirit.

See, nkb?

[Captain Relativity]

calpurnpiso wrote

By not been able to tell the difference between anachronistic DELUDED Religious TALES of ancient times & tangible REALITIES of the present makes you DELUDED & retarded...sorry, your brain is MALFUNCTIONING.

Made me laugh.

[Irreligious]

Daystar wrote

Growing up I would have considered the term atheist as nonsensical as religious. Atheists were people socially or politically frustrated by theists and they both were nuts. I wouldn't have accepted atheism any more than any other prescribed paradigm. I used the term atheist out of necessity and prefer apatheist because we didn't care about any of it.

Without the existence of theism, atheism would be nonsensical, just as there could be no such thing as being irreligious without the existence of the religious. Did you consider yourself to be nuts when you were without a religion? Is it just as as nuts to lack a belief in tiny winged fairies as it is to believe in their existence without evidence?

May I inquire if you believe in the existence of the Lochness Monster? Apparently, quite a few people in the world do. If you don't, how do you justify subscribing to that prescribed paradigm?

I get the feeling you really haven't a clue what an atheist is.

Again, atheists do not all share the same politics. Neither do theists, for that matter. So let's leave politics out of this discussion for the time being. It only muddies the waters.

What do you personally "know" about God? I'm not talking about what you've read in the Bible, which is an unreliable source for such knowledge. I want to know what you think you know and can attempt to prove about the imponderables: Who or what created existence? Does it have specific expectations for humankind apart from our own desires? Does it have an ultimate plan. As a skeptic, I have unwavering doubts that you could know anything more than I do about such imponderable questions, so I'm really interested in having some solid verification, not merely what you believe. Unfounded beliefs are a dime a dozen.

Daystar wrote

To me the term religious, in its simplist form of adhering to strict beliefs, applies to everyone. The fact is that before I studied the Bible I had no knowledge at all about that which I rejected, and only did so from observing Xians.

Well, you had to have had at least some knowledge of what you were rejecting or you couldn't reject it. Otherwise, you would have just been oblivious, which is not the same thing. So what, specifically, were you rejecting at that time and why?

Daystar wrote

Well, I wouldn't presume to dictate what someone else should or shouldn't deem as acceptable to embrace, even if they were insane for having done so. I certainly don't see how you could compare any of that to what I described.

I would, if they were bothering other people with it. I suspect you wouldn't like it much if the same Muslims who are running Afghanistan were in a position to impose what they embrace on you.

Anyway, my point was simple: For whatever reason, however it happened, you were already predisposed to believe that there are readily accessible and indisputable answers to imponderable questions. It doesn't matter whether you were a Christian, Jew or Muslim. You already believed that God, as an invisible central authority figure, existed. From that standpoint, you were nothing like an atheist.

Daystar wrote

Well, a Baptist wouldn't. Nor Catholic, or Protestant etc.

So, only you-- and, of course, those who subscribe to your particular theology-- have evidence for the existence of the spirit god you claim? Surely, you know that a claim like that only makes you one among billions.

Daystar wrote

I don't recall having said that at all. In fact, that is at the least, the second time you suggested I had said something which I didn't say. Notice the Subject Heading for this thread, which I myself introduced. It may not be as amusing as nkb originally thought.

You most certainly did say that most atheists had not actively considered matters of God and the supernatural:

Daystar wrote

Most atheists are not actively considering the matter. Only a handful of them are militant or active, outspoken. The latter tend to lean towards a dogmatic or political and social agenda. The reason why there are so many atheist compared to most other minorities but with very little political or social organizational influence is because most of them don't care about abortion, gay rights, or evolution in schools any more than they do about someone elses mythology.

You make the assumption that the religiously apathetic are the same as atheists. I do not subscribe to that view, because I know it ain't true. When Christians babble on about there being no atheists in foxholes, it is the apathetically religious of whom they are speaking, not an individual who has seriously contemplated the claims made by the various mystics out there. Rejecting unfounded beliefs about imponderable questions that are adhered to by the bulk of society is not something that one does in a cavalier fashion.

Daystar wrote

That is very true, even though to the Jews the nation of Israel, and to the early Christian were separate from the world.

Far as I know, the early Jews, as well as the early Christians and all the other members of every religious sect, past and present, lived right here on planet Earth. So, I really don't get where you are coming from with this claim. Did these folks try to have a closed society? Perhaps, but they were still living in the world and very much affected by much of what goes on here.

Daystar wrote

Really? Are you implying that I am? And you can't even define the word spirit? Can you define the word hell? Soul? God? Heaven? Earth?

Yes, I was implying that you are shackled to someone else's mythology. That is, unless you are claiming to have any first-hand knowledge about the existence of an alleged God and the 2,000- to 4,000-year-old assertions made in the Bible.

And no, I cannot define what a spirit or a soul or God or Heaven or Hell are, because I contend that there is no evidence that these things are real. From what I have been able to surmise over the years, different people define them to suit their own needs, but they never seem to come anywhere close to defining them in a way that makes sense to the incredulous.

[Captain Relativity]

Irreligious wrote

As a skeptic, I have unwavering doubts that you could know anything more than I do about such imponderable questions, so I'm really interested in having some solid verification, not merely what you believe. Unfounded beliefs are a dime a dozen.

Not in today's market! They used to be a dime a dozen.
Now they're called "toxic assets."

calpurnpiso wrote

Welcome to the forum.

Thank you.

calpurnpiso wrote

I present this truth to you. Neurology proves in this 21st Century that we are evolved mutated primates that created god with our brains. In ancient times this fact was unknown.

Neurology proves things? I didn't know it was as clever as that. Fact?

calpurnpiso wrote

The Egyptians who created religious beliefs, life after death soul(they had three) over 5000 years ago, had NO IDEA we had a brain to created thoughts with. They removed the brain during mummification but left the HEART, where they believe a soul resided & thinking was created, inside the body for resurrection.

At times Egyptian history meets with that of Israel. 1728 B.C.E. Israel entered into Egypt and 215 years later the Exodus. 1513. Pharaoh Shishak's attack on Jerusalem took place during Rhoboam's fifth year in 993 B.C.E. King So of Egypt reigned about the same time as Hoshea, c. 758 - 740 B.C.E. and Pharaoh Necho's battle that resulted in Josiah's death was likely in 629 B.C.E. (1 Kings 14:25 / 2 Kings 17:4 / 2 Chronicles 35:20-24) Modern historians would differ from this as much as a century but narrow down to about 20 years by Necho's time.

The reason is that modern historians rely upon documents such as the Egyptian king lists and annals. The fragmentary Palermo Stone with the first five "dynasties," the Turin Papyrus which only gives fragmentary lists of kings and their reigns from the "Old Kingdom" into the "New Kingdom," and other fragmentary inscriptions. These and other independent inscriptions were coordinated in chronological order by Manetho, an Egyptian priest of the third century B.C.E. He devides the Egyptian monarchs into 30 dynasties which modern Egyptologists still use today. With astronomical calculations based upon Egyptian texts of lunar phases and the rising of the Sothis (Dog Star) a chronological table can be produced.

Manetho's work, of course, is preserved only through the writings of later historians such as Josephus, Sextus Julius Africanus, Eusebius and Syncellus. Third, fourth and late eighth to early ninth centuries C.E. They are fragmentary and often distorted. His work is distorted not only through scribal errors and revisers but untenable from the start. Legend and myth.

Part of the problem was that he listed princely lines from which later rulers over all Egypt sprang. Several Egyptian kings ruled at one time and the same time, so it was not necessarily a succession of kings on the throne one after the other but several reigning at the same time in different regions. The result is a great total number of years.

So when the Bible indicates 2370 B.C.E. as the date of the deluge, Egyptian history must have begun after that date even though Egyptian chronology goes all the way back to the year 3000 B.C.E. it actually doesn't.

So . . . historically speaking how did you come up with the number 5,000? Not that I think any of that was especially impressive.

calpurnpiso wrote

From the Egyptian religion emerges the so called Abrahamic religions. The proof tis is true can be seen by reading the Book of the Dead or Pyramid texts. All of it is there.

Since the Book of the Dead and Pyramid texts differ so much from the Herbrew tests how is it that it is 'prrof' of anything of the sort?

calpurnpiso wrote

To the Egyptians the ATMOSPHERE was the Spirit world & the soul ( Ka Bah Ank) was the AIR in our lungs. The Soul was represented by WINGS even phallus ( the god Atun) were given wings. That's where the seraphin, angels and rest of mythologies originated from.

I suspect you used these "facts," which so far you have used irresponsibly, based upon deduction and data provided by Greek writers such as Herodotus and Plutarch?

calpurnpiso wrote

The Septuagint was supposedly a creation of King/GOD Ptolomy II in Alexandria to give Merchant/Traders( the area they settled later was Judea a province of Rome, hence the name Jews) an identity. There is NO EVIDENCE Ptolomy II ever did this, so it seems the Septuagint tale was made up by the Jews in Rome, using the Sybilline Books revered in the ROman Empire & consulted in times of hardship. The Sybiline books and oracles were kept by the Vestals & consulted by the Quindecemviri (15 prominent priests in Rome). Many of the religious tales & poems in these books seem to have been taken ( and created by the ROman Priests themselves) from the Worship of the Aten, created by Akhenaten ( ca 1530bce)

With the result of the Babylonian exile of the sixth and seventh centuries B.C.E. being that many Jews were scattered outside the ancient lands of Israel and Judah, Hebrew became a second language to many. So, the Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt - which was a major cultural center of the Grecian Empire - thought that it was a good idea to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek.

At first the translation was only of the Pentateuch in the third century B.C.E. by the second century all of the Hebrew scriptures had been translated into Greek. Most books were translated as literal, some to the extreme, while others were more free in translation.

The translation process itself is steeped in legend. The Letter of Aristeas states that the Egyptian ruler Ptolemy II (285 - 246 B.C.E.) commissioned 72 Jewish scholars from Egypt and Israel to complete the translation in 72 days for his royal library. The Letter of Aristeas is generally thought to be an apocryphal writing, though. Later embellishments of the legend has it that each of the translators were kept in separate rooms but their translations were identical, letter for letter. Nevertheless the name comes from the Latin word meaning 70.

Most modern day scholars also believe that the initiative came, not from Ptolemy II, but rather from the Alexandrian Jewish community. Philo, Josephus and the general Jewish Alexandrians all believed the Septuagint to be inspired.

The Septuagint had a tremendous effect on assisting the spread of Christianity, preparing the way for Paul and the disciples of Christ to the Gentiles. Jesus read from it, as did the Ethiopian eunuch, as well as being used to quote from the Hebrew scriptures in the Greek scriptures. Most of the 320 direct quotations and the combined total of perhaps 890 quotations and references to the Hebrew Scriptures are based on the Septuagint.(Luke 4:16 - 21 / Acts 8:27 - 39)

By the second century C.E. the Jewish community had changed its opinion of the Septuagint from being inspired to being a mistranslation. They authorized a new translation into Greek by a Jewish proselyte named Aquila who was a disciple of the rabbi Akiba. The emerging Catholic Church used it as a standard "Old Testament" until Jerome's Latin Vulgate took its place.

But what interest me is that you seemed to have put the origins of the name "Jews" during the time of Ptolomy II (I assume you mean Ptolemy) in Alexandria when the term was used first in 2 Kings 16:6; 18:26, 28; 25:25 which was completed about 460 B.C.E. when Ptolemy II died 220 years later.

calpurnpiso wrote

The so called Abrahamic religions originated in Rome from the many variations of the Cult of Divus iulius ( Caesar) the honorary Son of David who protected the Jews. They were the first to mourn at the funeral pyre (march 17 or 18th, 44bce) That's where the Jews got their "passover" from, celebrated on the 15th day of Nissan. Another day of blood.

Which is it? Egypt or Rome? And its the 14th or Nisan, not the 15th.

calpurnpiso wrote

Over 30,000 merchants from the province of Judea ( Jews) had settled in ROME, the New York of ancient times.

You kind of messed this up like three times already so what is the point in going on?

calpurnpiso wrote

Sorry, we created god & other delusions with our brains, we are after all in the 21st Century not the 4th.

You have created some delusions, that I will give you.

[Eva]

ok, daystar, that was too easy....

now, as for kate's questin about "pink".....

calpurnpiso wrote

Daystar wrote to Irreligious:

"Really? Are you implying that I am? And you can't even define the word spirit? Can you define the word hell? Soul? God? Heaven? Earth?"

Just for fun I think I will do that now. Hell is the common grave of mankind. The soul is the blood or the life of a person or animal. God is anything or anyone that is considered mighty or is venerated. The earth can be the planet, a community, the soil, or royal house, and heaven is above. The sky, the atmosphere, space, or the abode of God. That is real basic though.

calpurnpiso wrote

Again, I must point out that BELIEF in GOD and other delusions are created by the BRain. I suggest you ingest psychothropic substances like Peyotl & you'll SEE & talk to the imaginary friend ( aka god) of your choice.

The acceptance of imaginary friends like Jesus, Demons, spirits, hell, Soul, God, Heaven, regardless in what language they are defined as TRUE is symptomatic of a neurological disorder mimicking schizophrenia. So, if you believe in those retarded anachronistic delusions as if they were REAL, your brain is malfunctioning just as in any other person diagnosed with schizotypal disorder. God is CREATED in the brain. This is a FACT proven by neurology. This BELIEF can be eliminated with a lobotomy ergo proving the origin of the god-belief. The BRain. Malfunctioning brains will only produced distorted perception of reality. A malfunctioning eye will produce distorted images, malfunctioning heart will produced shortening of breath & chest pains, etc etc. Brain is an organ that makes matter becoming aware of its own self.

Wait a minute. You are saying that since I believe in something that you don't that I am mentally ill and you reccommend drugs and a lobotomy. And, in doing this you are giving me a lesson in Neurology?

calpurnpiso wrote

I suggest you look into the Jerusalem syndrome YouTube videos. You'll understand my point.

Ahh - the wisdom of YouTube. That explains it.

Eva wrote

i hope we haven't scared him away....he seemed like such a nice guy...

I don't scare easy.