Poll: The best argument against God, capital G.

[shunyadragon]

Your comments? Seems like it to me.



Yup.

The you agree humans with the inclination to sin will do so, as through the tens of thousands of years of human history,

Sure I responded. People have restraint, people have brains. That means an inclination in the heart does not equate to people always sinning.

I never said always sinning. That is not what you originally proposed.

I don't propose a when. I don't need to. It's just too simple. I may have an inclination to smoke cigarettes forever and never smoke again. ( I don't BTW, I've heard it's one of the worst addictions ).

Not so simple. You have not responded to your original assertion

You are making a false implication. All it needs is a single counter-example and there are hundreds, thousands, millions of counter-examples.

The facts of human history,

 

[dybmh]

The you agree humans with the inclination to sin will do so, as through the tens of thousands of years of human history,

No.... I'm not sure what in my quote lead to you think that's what I said.

What I'm saying is,

inclinations in the heart do =/= always sinning

And, btw, until a law is given, I'm not sure it qualifies as a sin. So tens of thousands of years doesn't actually matter.

I never said always sinning. That is not what you originally proposed.

I know, I didn't mean constantly.

Anyway, inclination doesn't imply acting on it.

Not so simple. You have not responded to your original assertion

I sure have.

Inclination in the heart, does not mean people will always sin. People have brains, people have restraint.

There is no debate on this. It's very simple. Inclination =/= action.
People who are mentally unable to restrain themselves are probaby ill. Illness =/= sin.
It doesn't matter if it's unrealistic. Unrealisitc =/= false comprehension

There you have it.

The facts of human history,

So what? The counter-examples exist and you cannot refute them.

If there are examples where the inclination exists, but the sin doesn't, that's enough to refute the claim:

"Evil inclination in the heart = People wil always sin" is false.

 

[shunyadragon]

No.... I'm not sure what in my quote lead to you think that's what I said.

What I'm saying is,

inclinations in the heart do =/= always sinning

And, btw, until a law is given, I'm not sure it qualifies as a sin. So tens of thousands of years doesn't actually matter.



I know, I didn't mean constantly.

Anyway, inclination doesn't imply acting on it.

Your first statement si not have 'always nor constantly. You added that later and I acknowledged that people do not aways nor constantly sin.

 

[Copernicus]

The reason for bringing Pi as an example was to demonstrate the difference between understanding a concept and knowing its content. Concept vs. content. I used the word content several times. No matter how many digits one knows in Pi, what is known is always and forever nullified when compared to what is unknown about its content. I think I've mentioned this nullification several times as well, but that has not been quoted or commented on. It's a very important idea when considering an infinite god.

The problem here is that your distinction is meaningless to me. I know what meaning and reference is, but your word "content" has significance only in your mind. The decimal expansion of pi is known as a derivative of the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference. You really don't need to spend the rest of eternity trying to discover the last digit, if you want to know what pi is. Your obsession with pi's last digit doesn't clarify or advance the discussion. The concepts of repetition and limit are sufficient to fully define infinity. You don't need to enumerate the content of a set if you have a formula that generates all of its possible members.

I completely disagree. It's not a trainwreck. As I said. I can play the multi-verse card. It resolves the free-will problem. Or even more simply, did you ever read "choose-your-own-adventure" books?

AFAICT, it doesn't. From a theological perspective, it is about our supposed freedom to disobey an omnipotent, omniscient God, which, frankly, is logically impossible. However, that allows believers to define sin and feel righteously indignant when people sin against his direct orders. Your multiverse card doesn't save you from that dilemma. God is still the author of every adventure you could choose, and, as you point out, your character can never go down any path that god hasn't pre-ordained and known. So God has not succeeded in creating a character that has real free choice. He is the ultimate carpenter who hits his thumb with a hammer and curses the hammer, thinking the hammer could have chosen to miss the thumb.

I don't see the relevance. I have asserted that the baggage needs to be dropped, no fleshy-father-son-king-priest-dying-rising-hybrid-god. You seem to be claiming that this baggage cannot be dropped. I asked why not? Why not temporarily drop it? This feels like a similar reluctance to expanding on the version of infinity described by Pi. Why the reluctance?

Why would you think this is about Jesus? You're Jewish, aren't you? I wasn't referring to that baggage. I was referring to the paradoxes, contradictions, and conundrums associated with an omnimax God. I think I've had my fill of π.

Again, concept vs. content. You are talking about understanding a concept. I am talking about knowing the content.

A distinction you have yet to explain. I have a strong background in semantic theory, so I'll be happy to hear you idea of what you think the "content" of a word or expression is such that it is not the same thing as the concept.

We are actually nearing the end of the "incoherent/contradicting god concept" debate. What conflicts are there? Too many differing versions of god? Nope. Omniscience vs. free-will? Nope. Infinite vs. Omniscient? Nope. Omnipotence vs. Lacking omnipotence ( can't make a rock that can't be lifted )? Nope. If we ever get to the Problem of Evil, that's a nope too.

If you think you've reached a good place where we can end, I'm fine with that. Nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree.

Bringing up scripture is a different topic all together. I'm not going to call it shifting the goal post, but it's similar. There is no contradiction with what I'm saying in the Hebrew bible. Some details are missing. We can talk about that later if you want. But, all we're talking about is a god concept. This needs to happen first. Especially considering that's where this entire exchange began.

I have no problem with religious scripture, but I don't see the Hebrew Bible as any better than the other origin/history stories that empires concocted to justify their existence in those times. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah had their day, and they produced a legacy that outlasted even the Gilgamesh epic that it incorporated some of its material from.

Well, there's no cognitive dissonance for me. I think the dissonance can be resolved by dropping the assumptions, dropping the baggage. But only if you want to understand this concept. Only if you want to.

And I haven't failed at all. The ideas adhere, they are logical, and do not contradict. This god-concept is valid. It's ok that you were labeling these ideas incorrectly but at this point your criticisms no longer have merit.

I'm glad that you could reach that resolution and clarity in your mind. If I tried to believe in an omnimax god, I would still have to find a way live with the cognitive dissonance. I find the universe a lot more interesting without having to explain the dissonance away.

 

[dybmh]

Your first statement si not have 'always nor constantly. You added that later and I acknowledged that people do not aways nor constantly sin.

OK, great! I didn't mean it as constantly. That doesn't change that

1) evil inclination in the heart doesn't mean that people will always sin

2) there was a solution bought by God post-flood in the story to the evil that had taken over everything that moved on the earth. That solution was.... Noah, The perfect Tzadik.

​

אלה תולדת נח נח איש צדיק תמים היה בדרתיו את־האלהים התהלך־נח׃​

​

These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a איש צדיק תמים ( A perfect Tzadik ) in his generations, and Noah walked with God.​

​

כעבור סופה ואין רשע וצדיק יסוד עולם׃​

​

As the stormy wind which passes, so is the wicked no more; but צדיק ( [the] Tzadik ) is an everlasting foundation.​

 

[shunyadragon]

Our posts kind of wandered away for our original proposed topic.

Yes there is no possible proof, or objective evidence for either God, big G, or god(s) little g. The problem is compounded when one argues for the 'hands on,' miracle working anthropomorphic God of the Bible. There is little or no coherent argument for the Biblical God today other than 'I believe,

I believe in a Universal 'Source' some call good(s). The argument for this God is not easy, but it does not carry the baggage if ancient tribal views of Gods)

More to follow . . .

 

[Fool]

If you had to choose one, and only one, argument against the God of Abraham as described in the Bible ( both Hebrew and Christian ), what would it be?

Please vote in the poll. I tried to cover all the major objections, and I'm interested to know if I missed anything.

My vote? God doesn't listen. I think that's the single best argument against God.

• No evidence? It's not really an argument against.
• Harsh / evil actions in the bible? The NT and Christian theology explains most of that stuff.
• The bible is unrealistic / fake? It doesn't bother me.
• Suffering / Starvation / Disease / Pests / Pestilence? It's a really good argument, my 2nd choice.
• No intervention against tyrants and the worst of the worst criminals. This is my 3rd choice.

Thank you in advance for your response.

...God never listens ... to what I say... and you don't get a refund ... if you over-pray...

Spoiler: lyrics

Swinging on the lifeline
Fraying bits of twine
Entangled in the remnants of the
Knot I left behind
And asking you to help me make it
Finally unwind

But God never listens to what I say
God never listens to what I say
And you don't get a refund
If you overpray

And when the line is breaking
And when I'm near the end
When all the time spent leading
I've been following instead
When all my thoughts and memories are
Left hanging by a thread

God never listens...

Stranded on this slender string
The minutes seem to last a lifetime
Dangling here between the light above
And blue below that drags me down

But God never listens to what I say
God never listens to what I say
And you don't get a refund
If you overpray

hatred or depraved indifference. free will is a loaded gun of russian roulete. spin the wheel but don't refuse to look danger in the face. self learns faster under pressure. mettle. alchemy. hold the feet to the fire? imprison the mind in a grave. we have to ask self does self really want to die here?


zechariah 3:9

 

[dybmh]

hatred or depraved indifference. spin the wheel but don't refuse to look danger in the face. self learns faster under pressure. mettle. alchemy. hold the feet to the fire? imprison the mind in a grave. we have to ask self does self really want to die here?

Those are good arguments.

"hold the feet to the fire?" Exodus 17:14 AND Exodus 17:16. They're both true. Simultaneously.

"imprison the mind in a grave." It's both a prison and gathering. Simultaneously. Genesis 40. Even this is for the good. Genesis 50:20-21.

" does self really want to die here?" It's both a death and a gathering. Simultaneously. Genesis 1:9, Deuteronomy 32:10, Eccelsiastes 4:9-12.

zechariah 3:9

Which leads to verse 10, which is reflected in Jeremiah 29:11-14 and Psalms 133. It's a dwelling and a gathering.

But please be careful with verse 29:14. There's a double meaning there. Compare translations. Jeremiah 29:14 - Jeremiah's Letter to the Exiles. It's a very curious phrase "וְשַֽׁבְתִּ֖י אֶת־שְׁבִ֣יתְכֶ֑ן". The verb, is repeated as a noun with the all-inclusive and mysterious "אֶת־" qualifier. And this is leading to two apparently opposing interpretations, but they're both true simultaneously. This verb is the same word used in Psalms 133:1 describing the unity of brothers.

So, here it is again. Multiple things are happening simultaneously. A brilliant and mystrious unity is being described. Captivity = Unity = No division = Freedom.

 

[Fool]

Those are good arguments.

"hold the feet to the fire?" Exodus 17:14 AND Exodus 17:16. They're both true. Simultaneously.

"imprison the mind in a grave." It's both a prison and gathering. Simultaneously. Genesis 40. Even this is for the good. Genesis 50:20-21.

" does self really want to die here?" It's both a death and a gathering. Simultaneously. Genesis 1:9, Deuteronomy 32:10, Eccelsiastes 4:9-12.



Which leads to verse 10, which is reflected in Jeremiah 29:11-14 and Psalms 133. It's a dwelling and a gathering.

But please be careful with verse 29:14. There's a double meaning there. Compare translations. Jeremiah 29:14 - Jeremiah's Letter to the Exiles. It's a very curious phrase "וְשַֽׁבְתִּ֖י אֶת־שְׁבִ֣יתְכֶ֑ן". The verb, is repeated as a noun with the all-inclusive and mysterious "אֶת־" qualifier. And this is leading to two apparently opposing interpretations, but they're both true simultaneously. This verb is the same word used in Psalms 133:1 describing the unity of brothers.

So, here it is again. Multiple things are happening simultaneously. A brilliant and mystrious unity is being described. Captivity = Unity = No division = Freedom.

known as the parable of the sower. so yes, the duress, stress creates/forges a stronger bonding to service for self(conditional love) or service for all as self((reciprocity/golden rule or unconditional love). but only that which is fruitful to one or other will be harvested

Matthew 13:3-9

the power of friendship be your always in love and light

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Noah was the solution then

But he really wasn’t. He goes off on a drunken bender and curses a grandson. How was he better than the others?

 

[dybmh]

But he really wasn’t. He goes off on a drunken bender and curses a grandson. How was he better than the others?

Well, that's little complicated. He was the first of a rare type of person that exists in all generations after the flood. It's the type of person that was the solution. At that point in the story he, Noah, was the solution to the world-wide corruption of everything that moved.

My opinion is that he was affected by gathering everyone into the ark he built. The essential characteristic that defines him didn't change, but, he did absorb some negative qualities as a result of what happened.

And that's why he got drunk, and things transpired in the story they way they did. And this matches the recurring theme through the entire Hebrew bible. The leaders and heroes start out pure-ish, and then they hit some speed bumps. Some of them recover, some of them don't.

 

[syo]

He is Christian.

 

[Copernicus]

He is Christian.

What are your thoughts on Ziusudra, hero of the much earlier Sumerian "Bilgamesh" myth? The god Enki clued him into the flood, motivating Ziusudra to build his ark. It turns out that Ziusudra may have been an actual person who ruled as a king many centuries before the Hebrew myth was authored.

But Sumerians were not Semitic. They were ultimately superceded by the Semitic Akkadians, who adopted their flood story and changed the hero's name to Utnapishtim in their "Gilgamesh" epic. Akkadians were not Jewish or Christian, but their story is the one that the Hebrew mythmakers adapted to their own needs, getting rid of the polytheistic baggage in its retelling.

 

[dybmh]

He is Christian.

He who?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Actually, another "best argument against God, capital G" may be that there is no capital in Hebrew.

 

[dybmh]

What are your thoughts on Ziusudra, hero of the much earlier Sumerian "Bilgamesh" myth? The god Enki clued him into the flood, motivating Ziusudra to build his ark. It turns out that Ziusudra may have been an actual person who ruled as a king many centuries before the Hebrew myth was authored.

But Sumerians were not Semitic. They were ultimately superceded by the Semitic Akkadians, who adopted their flood story and changed the hero's name to Utnapishtim in their "Gilgamesh" epic. Akkadians were not Jewish or Christian, but their story is the one that the Hebrew mythmakers adapted to their own needs, getting rid of the polytheistic baggage in its retelling.

Is this the same as the Atra-Hasis? The wiki link directs to book on the Atra-Hasis as the source for the flood details. Dating these things is such tricky business. They're all relative dates based on lists of kings. And usually the dates given don't include any range at all; no margins for error. And sometimes Kings were named after the father, or after the grandfather further complicating the determination of when something occured.

If I understand, all fixed dates for composition of acient myths of that period come from 1 source. Something called the Venus Tablet. It recorded an eclipse, I think, and then people use that to establish fixed dates on all the other relative dates. But it could be several hundred of years off. At least one person is saying it's 300 years later than expected. This pushes the compostion of the tablets in the link you brought right in line with the Iron Age collapse, a period where cultural mixing of myths would be expected. But, it also means that determining who borrowed from whom is near impossible.

 

[Copernicus]

Is this the same as the Atra-Hasis? The wiki link directs to book on the Atra-Hasis as the source for the flood details. Dating these things is such tricky business. They're all relative dates based on lists of kings. And usually the dates given don't include any range at all; no margins for error. And sometimes Kings were named after the father, or after the grandfather further complicating the determination of when something occured.

If I understand, all fixed dates for composition of acient myths of that period come from 1 source. Something called the Venus Tablet. It recorded an eclipse, I think, and then people use that to establish fixed dates on all the other relative dates. But it could be several hundred of years off. At least one person is saying it's 300 years later than expected. This pushes the compostion of the tablets in the link you brought right in line with the Iron Age collapse, a period where cultural mixing of myths would be expected. But, it also means that determining who borrowed from whom is near impossible.

I'm no archaeologist, so I leave dating things to the experts. The point is that the Akkadian represents the earliest known Semitic language (3rd to 1st millennia BCE), and these Bilgamesh/Gilgamesh records are all transcribed in stone rather than being filtered through generations of oral and scribal copying of records, which causes deviations from the original narrative. The Akkadian flood myth contains more details than the Noah myth, but Hebrew was spoken in the West Semitic (Canaanite) branch of languages. Biblical Hebrew dates back between the12th and 2nd centuries BCE. So the Flood myth was around for centuries before it got modified and incorporated into the Old Testament. Another West Semitic language--Ugaritic (14th-12th century BCE)--left stone records that are still being translated. We already have almost a verbatim rendition of the Book of Psalms in their records, but referring to a pantheon of gods rather than a monotheistic backdrop. The Gilgameš epic is also found at Ugarit.

I find all of this old history fascinating, but it is far from my area of linguistic expertise. Semitic languages are not even among the ones I've studied (except for a smattering of Arabic).

 

[dybmh]

I'm no archaeologist, so I leave dating things to the experts. The point is that the Akkadian represents the earliest known Semitic language (3rd to 1st millennia BCE), and these Bilgamesh/Gilgamesh records are all transcribed in stone rather than being filtered through generations of oral and scribal copying of records, which causes deviations from the original narrative. The Akkadian flood myth contains more details than the Noah myth, but Hebrew was spoken in the West Semitic (Canaanite) branch of languages. Biblical Hebrew dates back between the12th and 2nd centuries BCE. So the Flood myth was around for centuries before it got modified and incorporated into the Old Testament. Another West Semitic language--Ugaritic (14th-12th century BCE)--left stone records that are still being translated. We already have almost a verbatim rendition of the Book of Psalms in their records, but referring to a pantheon of gods rather than a monotheistic backdrop. The Gilgameš epic is also found at Ugarit.

I find all of this old history fascinating, but it is far from my area of linguistic expertise. Semitic languages are not even among the ones I've studied (except for a smattering of Arabic).

I hear you. The dates, again, are all around the Iron Age collapse. Especially the Epic. That's 1100BCE-ish. And the original is missing a flood altogether.

I'm still not clear why it's more likely that the Hebrew version was borrowed. Just because one group wrote it down first? And Ugaritic is being decoded using biblical hebrew as the cipher, so, I'm not too surpised to see similarities in phrasing and motifs coming from them. That could be an artifact of the method used to translate. I would be interested in seeing the Ugaritic Psalms, but, even if they're similar, it doesn't mean they didn't borrow from the ancient Hebrews.

For me, big picture, these other groups, the akkadians especially ( if I recall ), but probably others, had a vested interest in adopting other people's stories into their own during that era. They needed bodies, they needed citizens, they needed soldiers. It was a time when each nation was wanting to seize power. And capturing the other religio-myths, and saying, "Hey... that's our story too. That was *actually* our king/god/whomever in your story. You're one of us. Now, pay us some taxes, and attend our festivals, and dig us some ditches and die in our wars, pretty please?"

And that would explain the huge pantheons coming from that area. There are connections to greece, and epypt, and everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if some African gods made it into the mix. These other nations were collecting gods because it was useful for a monarchy to do that. But not the Jews. We are taught to reject all of those others. The others have motive to do the borrowing of the myths. The Jews reject that on principle. So, if everything is actually equal, and I think it is. And we don't actually know who borrowed from whom, I kind of think it was the others who borrowed because, they have a track record of doing it, motive and opportunity. But the Jews don't. Opportunity? yes. Track record? unknown. People say we did, but I never see any strong evidence for it. Motive? No. definitly not, we are against that sort of thing.

 

[Copernicus]

I'm still not clear why it's more likely that the Hebrew version was borrowed. Just because one group wrote it down first? And Ugaritic is being decoded using biblical hebrew as the cipher, so, I'm not too surpised to see similarities in phrasing and motifs coming from them. That could be an artifact of the method used to translate. I would be interested in seeing the Ugaritic Psalms, but, even if they're similar, it doesn't mean they didn't borrow from the ancient Hebrews.

The earliest written example of Hebrew was around 1000 BCE, but Akkadian dates back to at least 3000 BCE, almost 2,000 years earlier. That was well before Hebrew even existed as a coherent speech community. The reign of Ramses II dates the Moses story, and that was roughly around 1200 BCE. The Bible was likely compiled in its earliest form at a later date, during the height of the Jewish Empire. The Ugaritic texts were written closer, if not earlier, than the time of Ramses II, and Ugarit likely had no contact with the Hebrew tribes. Ugarit itself was destroyed in the 8th year of the reign of Ramses III (i.e. in 1178 BCE) and lost until modern times. It is located about six miles north of the Syrian port of Latakia, but they still spoke a Canaanite language, like the Hebrews.

For me, big picture, these other groups, the akkadians especially ( if I recall ), but probably others, had a vested interest in adopting other people's stories into their own during that era. They needed bodies, they needed citizens, they needed soldiers. It was a time when each nation was wanting to seize power. And capturing the other religio-myths, and saying, "Hey... that's our story too. That was *actually* our king/god/whomever in your story. You're one of us. Now, pay us some taxes, and attend our festivals, and dig us some ditches and die in our wars, pretty please?"

The original myth was Sumerian, and the Akkadians came later. They assimilated much from the Sumerian culture, including their religion, so the evidence suggests that the Flood myth spread further south into the Levant from there. The Akkadian Empire was at its height in 2400 and 2200 BCE. Again, roughly a thousand years before the earliest recorded Canaanite language records. Languages and cultures shift around a lot over time periods like that.

And that would explain the huge pantheons coming from that area. There are connections to greece, and epypt, and everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if some African gods made it into the mix. These other nations were collecting gods because it was useful for a monarchy to do that. But not the Jews. We are taught to reject all of those others. The others have motive to do the borrowing of the myths. The Jews reject that on principle. So, if everything is actually equal, and I think it is. And we don't actually know who borrowed from whom, I kind of think it was the others who borrowed because, they have a track record of doing it, motive and opportunity. But the Jews don't. Opportunity? yes. Track record? unknown. People say we did, but I never see any strong evidence for it. Motive? No. definitly not, we are against that sort of thing.

I don't really believe that we know a lot about what the Jews were like in ancient times, because our modern perspective has been filtered through centuries of changing perspectives. As you say, there really isn't any "track record" to base reasonable speculation on, but it does seem pretty unlikely that the centuries of distance between the Akkadian and Canaanite eras preclude any borrowing from the newer culture to the older one that preceded it according to historical records. The oldest Semitic speaking culture in historical record was the Akkadians, who existed many centuries before the Canaanites appear in the historical record.

 

[syo]

He who?

The God with the capital G they post on the thread.