Slavery. The Bible and Quran.

[Baruch]

And, I meant to add, the concept of "biblical scholar" is a whopping joke to the real archeologists...  Biblical scholars are just annoying little pests seeking to prove what they already believe hoping for anything that will support their religious texts.

Biblical archeology is just apologetics with pot-sherds.  Correct on that.  However archeologists can't tell you much about those people.  Their writings however partial and sectarian, is all we have.  Pot sherds won't get you close to the real people.  It is just ancient trash.

[Baruch]

Even one day wasted thinking about a mythical being is too much a waste of time.  I would rather spend the "7th day" doing useful stuff in the house and garden as I do most other days.  Not to say I don't rest sometimes, but it is random and not decreed by some sky power.

Literalism + impersonalism.  The flip side of literalism + personalism.  For the impersonalist, they are ultimately ... without personhood, just a bunch of atoms, nothing more.  And literalism ... of course that is ham fisted.

[Baruch]

Must get awkward when the various faithful disagree to the point of murder when you believe in all their deities.

Not possible for a literalist.  In fact, a literalist ends up being a monotheist.  But for the poetic, even shit is useful manure.

[Baruch]

(shrugs shoulders)

If it is to the point of murder then the truth will be made apparent through such an action.

We are not taught to murder in any core sacred text I have ever read.

Mercy is the common denominator as is the motive for such, at very least.

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Theft, assault and murder make perfect sense to the man living in nature.  The idea that cavemen living one day at a time, had any natural ethics, is laughable.  Ethics was a much later development.  The first ethic was ... don't do that in the hunting group (pride).  The second ethic was don't do that in the clan (extended family).  The third ethic was don't do that in the tribe (theoretically related clans).  And there it stopped for thousands of years.  We are still into tribal warfare, but we define tribes differently now.  It is OK to steal, assault and murder members of other tribes.  The US has done this every year I have been alive.

Mercy is a very advanced concept, just like international law.  Vengeful people still reject mercy.  Nations still deny international law.

[Baruch]

All religious texts tell us what we humans already figured out.  Do not murder, steal, or overly covet.  The religious books just represent what people learned as they settled into larger groups.  The rest of the rules about sabbath days etc are from the shamans seeking to hold power.

No, they didn't figure this out.  New Guinea people before modern times engaged in endemic warfare, head hunting and cannibalism.  You are much to generous to our prehistoric ancestors.

[Baruch]

The Jewish beliefs came from Persia (they were never slaves in Egypt), the Persians got it from older Summaria, the Summarians got it from India.  Everything is copied from one stupid idiot who got the whole religious idea in pre-historic times.  Maybe after surviving some lion attack, LOL!  Or too much opium seeds...

Yes and no.  The language origins of Biblical Hebrew (etymology) shows otherwise, in the sense that it is more complicated than religion or anti-Semites claim.

And yes, people have used drugs since pre-historic times.  Are you anti-drug?  A minority view to people posting here.

The majority of old words in Biblical Hebrew are proto-Semitic ... they date back to about 3500 BCE ... same as Arabic, Canaanite, Babylonian etc.  The input of Egyptian was minor (only a minority of pre-Jews came from Egypt).  The early parts of the Bible are court literature from King Saul, King David, King Solomon etc.  The majority were already in Canaan long before King Saul, it was multiethnic from the beginning.  There were few distinctly Canaanite words adopted.  The adoption of Babylonian, Sumerian loan words into Babylonian, and Persian words are few ... and only come in with the Babylonian Exile and the Persian conquest.  From the Persian time forward a few Aramaic words (the state language under Assyria, Babylonia and Persia) were adopted ... mostly in Ezra and Daniel.

Proto-Semitic and Egyptian both go back to Proto-Afro-Asiatic about 8000 BCE (when people first settled down into agriculture).  But that is just a common ancestry, not a cause/effect.  Proto-Afro-Asiatic is older than proto-Indo-European (which only can be reconstructed back to 4000 BCE.  But there are very few words verifiably proto-Afro-Asiatic, as opposed to words coined by later societies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST_tAduIhWc

[Baruch]

Never slaves in Egypt?
If you look at the dating by Kathleen Kenyon of Exodus in 1 200 BC (walls of Jericho), there was never an exodus.
However, The dates prescribed in the Bible is clearly, 1 459 Bc, then there is ample evidence.
follow Jericho back to 1 402 Bc, and the smallest detail about Jericho proves an invasion by Israel.

Look at the Bilaam inscriptions, the Hebrew mines inscriptions etc.
Modern archaeology attempts to deny any Biblical archaeology, however, never was there a single archaeological discovery that contradicted the Bible.
On the contrary, we can thank the Bible for historical discoveries in the middle east, and over the past 200 years, only the Biblical historical descriptions stood the test of time.

There were Semites in Egypt before Moses, and after Moses.  They were constantly migrating in and out all the way until the Arab invasions.  Eventually the Semites managed to completely suppress the native Egyptians.  The Bible is named for Byblos, a very ancient town in Lebanon.  That is where recycled papyrus was made into "blank books" for business journals.  And that is how the first manuscripts of the NT were collected.  Torah scrolls were usually made on new papyrus rolls (papyrus = paper).  Once the supply of papyrus dwindled, vellum parchment was substituted, but it was very expensive.  Lamb skins.

[Baruch]

I'm still wondering why you are focusing on this?

Must one continually read in order to comprehend?

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Yes.  And please quote the Gita in the original Sanskrit.  Otherwise ..

[Baruch]

Yet Christ came with the truth.



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But Jesus (literary character) cleverly asks the disciples "Who do you say I am".  Simple minds can't get that.  We each in our encounter with Judeo-Christian culture, get to answer that question.

[Baruch]

1.  Prove Christ existed.

We can discuss what he said if you can do the above.

Jesus existed (as many men, even in Mexico).  Christ is a title ... prove the Presidency exists (but not using any specific President).

[popsthebuilder]

I am me.  Self-aware.  Self thoughtful.  Everything within me is "my own source".  If you want to get into reading the sports in the newspaper, though, that is entirely different.

So you are responsible for your own existence? Wouldnt that have been your parents and the ones before them and so forth and so on? Yet none of your parents or relatives created the very laws that construct/ed the universe did they?



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[popsthebuilder]

Mercy? What Christians call mercy, I call something else entirely.

God: "I made you imperfect, but I'm putting the blame on you for that. I'm going to punish you for the imperfections I gave you. But don't worry, there's a way out."

Human: "By doing my best to leave the world better than when I came into it?"

God: "Pffft! Fuck no. I just want you to kiss my ass for all of eternity. Then I'll forgive you and won't torture you forever and ever in a pit of fire."

Yeah, that's not mercy. What's the word for that? Bribery? Blackmail? I don't know, but it definitely isn't mercy.

Agreed

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[popsthebuilder]

Well, there MIGHT be truth somewhere, but it sure isn't in ancient superstitions about some unknown sky being. 

Let's say I was being REAL kind and allowing for the idea of a deity somewhere (don't get all upset, this is a thought experiment).  Suppose that being created us even.  Does any part of any theism represent what such a being would really be like?  Representing the worst of our nature?  Of course not.  It would be helpful, kind, and tolerant of our failures.  The best of our imaginings and more.  A combination of the best Boy/Girl Scout, your kindly grandmother, and a wise old neighbor who tosses the ball back over his fence even if you broke a window.  And even THAT is limited to our human understanding.

Never mind that such a being doesn't exist by any logic and is not necessary to the existence of the Universe...

One argument against all theisms is that their deities are so pathetically LIMITED.  The mere fact that all the theisms imagine a punishment being is enough to make them all idiotic.

All "theisms" don't assume such.

One may be punished for knowingly going against what is good in favor of personal want or greed or attainment.

But to think that GOD sent GOD to be a blood sacrifice to GOD so that we can be safe from eternal destruction due us because of the potential we were knowingly given by GOD seems very inaccurate and illogical to me.

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[Cavebear]

So you are responsible for your own existence? Wouldnt that have been your parents and the ones before them and so forth and so on? Yet none of your parents or relatives created the very laws that construct/ed the universe did they?
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I do not claim to have actually created myself.  But, as an adult, I am mostly responsible for my thoughts and actions.  As the eldest child, my resistence to parental influence after age 10 or so was quite a shock.  Well, at least I eased the way for my younger siblings, LOL!

My ancestors did not create the laws of the Universe.  We merely (perforce) obeyed those laws.  Your point is...?

[popsthebuilder]

Theft, assault and murder make perfect sense to the man living in nature.  The idea that cavemen living one day at a time, had any natural ethics, is laughable.  Ethics was a much later development.  The first ethic was ... don't do that in the hunting group (pride).  The second ethic was don't do that in the clan (extended family).  The third ethic was don't do that in the tribe (theoretically related clans).  And there it stopped for thousands of years.  We are still into tribal warfare, but we define tribes differently now.  It is OK to steal, assault and murder members of other tribes.  The US has done this every year I have been alive.

Mercy is a very advanced concept, just like international law.  Vengeful people still reject mercy.  Nations still deny international law.

I do not condone the wars of the country I reside in.

It has nothing to do with society or politics to me personally. If looking at the whole world as a tribe then infighting seems a little off.

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