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Nessus posted:You could have signs that humans, life, or Earth were created by an external force - for instance, if we found that humans had indicators of genetic engineering which we discovered by doing genetic engineering on other organisms, but that chimps and orangutans did not. Or if Earth's surface showed a great deal of regularity and uniformity in structure when compared with Mars or Venus. However, this would not necessarily be proof of a particular religious theory - it would not suggest that the Christian concept of God, or Allah, or Brahma, had been the one to actually do it. What my ex-mother-in-law believed: The Earth is old. The universe is old. Then God chose Earth. Out of every planet out there He chose Earth. And created Adam, after He terraformed Earth to be perfect for His new creation. He placed Adam on Earth, 6000 years ago, and THAT is the start of True History, as told by the Bible, which is literal truth! Anyone male who is directly descendant from Adam are PERFECT in the eyes of God. REAL Jews (direct line, male descendants of Adam, not converts or broken lines) are incapable of sin. Because they are God's chosen people, so anything they do is sanctified by God himself! The rest of us are product of evolution, and mixed breeding with True descendants of Adam. We are NOT chosen by God, but we are allowed into Heaven through Jesus, if we submit ourselves unconditionally to the masters God has given us on Earth!
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Mar 6, 2021 12:44
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Well, she gets credit for originality.
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Mar 6, 2021 16:11
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Sadly, Christians having some convoluted antisemitic angle to their beliefs is not all that original 
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Mar 6, 2021 18:39
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Nessus posted:You could have signs that humans, life, or Earth were created by an external force - for instance, if we found that humans had indicators of genetic engineering which we discovered by doing genetic engineering on other organisms, but that chimps and orangutans did not. Or if Earth's surface showed a great deal of regularity and uniformity in structure when compared with Mars or Venus. However, this would not necessarily be proof of a particular religious theory - it would not suggest that the Christian concept of God, or Allah, or Brahma, had been the one to actually do it. But if the planet, and also the universe, is demonstrably the same age that a particular religion says it is, why would that not prove their account is correct? If it's just a coincidence, or a god taking credit for the creation of the universe, couldn't that also apply to part of the Bible being found in DNA? What are gods capable of in Buddhist cosmology? Could one not conceivably alter humanity's DNA to create proof that the religion it inspired/created is true? Or have noticed a particular preexisting pattern and shaped the development of language to one day lead to humanity discovering it? Lutha Mahtin posted:so we're getting our theology from youtube comments now? is that how the teens are doing it these days? I just thought it was a novel concept because I'd never seen anyone argue against creationism from a theological perspective. What I've seen has always come down to whether one believes in what science tells us (whether or not one believes in God) vs biblical literalism. And unfortunately as a Youtube comment it wasn't fleshed out much beyond raising the issue, but it's an idea that's stuck with me even though I'm not really convinced of it on account of how short the argument (if it evens rises to that level) is.
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Mar 6, 2021 19:13
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White Coke posted:I read a Youtube comment where someone was arguing that Young Earth Creationism would be a violation of Free Will, since making it too obvious that the planet was hand crafted would mean there's no reasonable way to not believe the Bible. Nonsense. The Bible is full of points where G-d's intervention into the world unambiguously proves that his worshippers are right and everyone else is wrong. In fact, He frequently acts in ways to ensure that "there's no reasonable way to not believe the Bible." See 1 Kings 18, where Elijah has a whole contest with competing prophets to show that their god is bullshit and his G-d is legitimate beyond all doubt. This youtube guy's idea of "Free Will," which apparently means the right to not have anything proven to you, is totally at odds with basic Abrahamic beliefs. quote:At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 6, 2021 20:06
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White Coke posted:But if the planet, and also the universe, is demonstrably the same age that a particular religion says it is, why would that not prove their account is correct? I mentioned this a while back, but this has been an live philosophical and theological issue. The question was not the specific age, but whether it had a finite age or was eternal? To a lot of secular Hoyle-era astronomers, the big bang was alarmingly Abrahamic and the theory took a lot of flak for just that reason.
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Mar 6, 2021 20:57
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Nonsense. The Bible is full of points where G-d's intervention into the world unambiguously proves that his worshippers are right and everyone else is wrong. In fact, He frequently acts in ways to ensure that "there's no reasonable way to not believe the Bible." I think that the person probably approaches the Bible, especially the Old Testament, from a not (strictly) literal interpretation so they'd have some sort of reasoning for why your example doesn't count since it's actually an allegory or whatever. Or maybe they'd concede that you're right.  But I think that more broadly what one would consider overwhelming proof is subjective which renders the argument too vague to be useful. As Captain von Trapp said: Captain von Trapp posted:I mentioned this a while back, but this has been an live philosophical and theological issue. The question was not the specific age, but whether it had a finite age or was eternal? To a lot of secular Hoyle-era astronomers, the big bang was alarmingly Abrahamic and the theory took a lot of flak for just that reason. The fact that there appears to be a definitive beginning is enough for some to believe in God. For others just the existence of anything at all is itself overwhelming proof, or the fact that the universe is rationally comprehensible so that it can be empirically studied and laws describing its reliable functions made proves that it was created by God. And if the world and universe were 6000 or so years old doesn't mean that God isn't just taking credit for something they're not responsible for.
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Mar 6, 2021 21:43
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Lutha Mahtin posted:Sadly, Christians having some convoluted antisemitic angle to their beliefs is not all that original She wasn't actually antisemitic. After all, a son of the son of a son of a son back to Adam was literally incapable of sinning. As in even if this True Jew was a serial killer, he was still innocent, since God, for reasons only known to God, approved of his actions. Of course, her ideas abut who counted as a REAL Jew was extremely limited. Only those with direct, unbroken, MALE line back to Adam counts. Any time a REAL Jewish man dies without a MALE heir, a line is broken, and can never be replaced. Her cult was batshit insane, no doubt about that, but not truly antisemitic? Her hierarchy was thus: Male Jews (by her standards of who counts as a real Jew), Males who follow Jesus, women who unconditionally submit themselves completely to the Masters God has set for them AND (very important!!!) gives birth to at least one son, men who are yet to follow Jesus, women who are believers but fail at being submissive enough but at least they gave birth to a son, women who are submissive but haven birthed a son yet, and "Failed women" who are eternally doomed.
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Mar 6, 2021 22:01
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BattyKiara posted:Of course, her ideas abut who counted as a REAL Jew was extremely limited. This is a common form of antisemitism.
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Mar 6, 2021 22:07
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Yeah I think 'my idea of a Real Jewish Person is someone who is essentially a different species from the rest of humanity' is anti-semitic whether you think those people are better than you or worse. Especially since that's untold millions of Jewish people whom that cult would consider fake.
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Mar 6, 2021 22:24
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BattyKiara posted:She wasn't actually antisemitic. After all, a son of the son of a son of a son back to Adam was literally incapable of sinning. As in even if this True Jew was a serial killer, he was still innocent, since God, for reasons only known to God, approved of his actions. Of course, her ideas abut who counted as a REAL Jew was extremely limited. Only those with direct, unbroken, MALE line back to Adam counts. Any time a REAL Jewish man dies without a MALE heir, a line is broken, and can never be replaced. I'm still confused, by her reasoning literally every man is by definition a "true jew" E: ok hilariously the one exception I can think of would be direct biological descendants of Jesus Christ Where are they finding all these fallen women who seem to be engaging in parthenogenesis?? shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 6, 2021 22:54
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shame on an IGA posted:I'm still confused, by her reasoning literally every man is by definition a "true jew" You're misunderstanding BattyKiara's post. Most literal-minded Christians believe that all living humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and you assume this woman believed that as well. But she didn't; she believed that most of humanity evolved naturally, and then 6000 years ago Adam and Eve were placed on the Earth to join the rest of humankind. But Adam and Eve were REAL JEWS and their patrilineal descendants are REAL JEWS while everyone else is just an ordinary dumb human. BattyKiara posted:What my ex-mother-in-law believed: The Earth is old. The universe is old. Then God chose Earth. Out of every planet out there He chose Earth. And created Adam, after He terraformed Earth to be perfect for His new creation. He placed Adam on Earth, 6000 years ago, and THAT is the start of True History, as told by the Bible, which is literal truth! Anyone male who is directly descendant from Adam are PERFECT in the eyes of God. REAL Jews (direct line, male descendants of Adam, not converts or broken lines) are incapable of sin. Because they are God's chosen people, so anything they do is sanctified by God himself! The rest of us are product of evolution, and mixed breeding with True descendants of Adam. We are NOT chosen by God, but we are allowed into Heaven through Jesus, if we submit ourselves unconditionally to the masters God has given us on Earth! Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Mar 6, 2021 |
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Mar 6, 2021 23:04
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Civilized Fishbot posted:You're misunderstanding BattyKiara's post. Most literal-minded Christians believe that all living humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and you assume this woman believed that as well. But she didn't; she believed that most of humanity evolved naturally, and then 6000 years ago Adam and Eve were placed on the Earth to join the rest of humankind. But Adam and Eve were REAL JEWS and their patrilineal descendants are REAL JEWS while everyone else is just an ordinary dumb human. That's exactly what she believed! You summed it up better than I did. this is how she explained that the Bible is literal truth!! and science claiming the Earth is billions of years old are both equally true. Her cult has a lot of seriously bad theological takes, this being the second worst, in my opinion anyway. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Judaism but a lot a emphasis on being born of a Jewish woman?
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Mar 7, 2021 00:42
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BattyKiara posted:That's exactly what she believed! You summed it up better than I did. this is how she explained that the Bible is literal truth!! and science claiming the Earth is billions of years old are both equally true. Her cult has a lot of seriously bad theological takes, this being the second worst, in my opinion anyway. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Judaism but a lot a emphasis on being born of a Jewish woman? Yeah, according to halakha (Jewish law), you're a Jew if your mom is a Jew; otherwise, you have to convert. I've heard that this was implemented to help women who were raped by gentiles, and whose children resulting from the rape weren't being welcomed as Jews. I think that points toward the broader idea, probably true in ancient times, that men had more control over whom they impregnated than women had control over who impregnated them. So matrilineal descent discourages men from trying to impregnate gentiles, and gives some relief to women who were made to bear a gentile's kids. You won't find this anywhere in the Hebrew Bible, which is why certain communities like the Karaites and the Kaifeng still use patrilineal descent, because they split from the Jewish masses before matrilineality was established. And modern liberal Judaism (Reform, Renewal, Reconstructing) is gender-neutral, so their policy is that you're Jewish if one of your parents is Jewish and you're raised as Jewish. There's a lot of heated controversies here because, obviously, it's very important that we agree on who is and is not a Jew. But in practice, Conservative & Orthodox Jews don't get upset about patrilineal Jews calling themselves Jewish. The guy who just got elected Senator in Georgia was born to a gentile mother, so Orthodox Jews would not consider him Jewish, but they stayed quiet about it, and he'd be allowed to move to Israel if he wanted. My personal belief is that Jews born to gentile mothers should already be educated enough to "convert" by the time of their Bar/Bat/Bnei Mitzvah, so their congregations should heavily encourage them to do that. Converting to Judaism is said to be a big, intense engagement but that's only if you're starting from a place of ignorance; if the Rabbinical court is ready to accept you as Jewish, it's as easy as taking a ritual bath and, if you're a dude, getting circumcised or having a drop of blood taken from your dick if you're already circumcised. So there's no real reason that a patrilineal Jew shouldn't be willing to formally convert, it should really be a fun opportunity. Here's something really important to establish: your ex-mother-in-law's belief that converts were somehow inferior to Jews, or less Jewish, is totally contrary to Jewish law and tradition. Converts are not sought out, but they are welcomed and celebrated during the conversion process, and it's an enormous taboo to bring up that someone's a convert as if it makes them any less Jewish than Moses himself. TL;DR Yes, traditional Judaism places a lot of emphasis on being born of a Jewish woman, but not as much as your ex-MIL. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 01:30
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White Coke posted:But if the planet, and also the universe, is demonstrably the same age that a particular religion says it is, why would that not prove their account is correct? If it's just a coincidence, or a god taking credit for the creation of the universe, couldn't that also apply to part of the Bible being found in DNA? What are gods capable of in Buddhist cosmology? Could one not conceivably alter humanity's DNA to create proof that the religion it inspired/created is true? Or have noticed a particular preexisting pattern and shaped the development of language to one day lead to humanity discovering it? There is an affirmative statement that there is no god who is a Creator of All That Is; I do not think this would preclude a god who was a lower-case-c creator of, for instance, the human species, or even the planet Earth. It would definitely not rule out a god who protected and cared for humans (some or all).
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Mar 7, 2021 01:45
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HopperUK posted:Yeah I think 'my idea of a Real Jewish Person is someone who is essentially a different species from the rest of humanity' is anti-semitic whether you think those people are better than you or worse. Especially since that's untold millions of Jewish people whom that cult would consider fake. Yeah this is what I was talking about. Having an elaborate science fiction system of beliefs about "this is a real Jew vs this is a fake Jew" is an extremely old form of antisemitism.
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Mar 7, 2021 02:29
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If we find evidence of any sacred text literally written into the human genome on any level, then I will convert to that religion. But seriously, though, that would basically invalidate everything to do with faith. What was the whole point of Abraham and Isaac if not to illustrate the need to have faith despite evidence to the contrary? Edit: I wanna tell you folks again how much I've enjoyed this thread. This thread inspired me to finally pull the trigger on getting an avatar and I purchased an account for a friend, to boot. He kept asking for summaries of replies in this thread via text.
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Mar 7, 2021 03:01
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Civilized Fishbot posted:You're misunderstanding BattyKiara's post. Most literal-minded Christians believe that all living humans are descended from Adam and Eve, and you assume this woman believed that as well. But she didn't; she believed that most of humanity evolved naturally, and then 6000 years ago Adam and Eve were placed on the Earth to join the rest of humankind. But Adam and Eve were REAL JEWS and their patrilineal descendants are REAL JEWS while everyone else is just an ordinary dumb human. Even so, there's a mathematical phenomenon in ancestry where if you take any person in the remote enough past, it turns out that if they have any living descendants in the present day, all people in the present day are descended from them. Restricting it to patrilineal descent complicates things, but in this "Adam gets airdropped into the ancient near east 6000 years ago" scenario, it's plausible that he would already be a direct patrilinear ancestor of many, many men. 6000 years is not long enough for it to be everybody, but it would be a gigantic number of people, and certainly not identifiable with a specific ethnic group. In the real world, all men prior to about a quarter million years ago are either direct patrilinear ancestors of everyone on the planet, or have no living descendants.
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Mar 7, 2021 05:09
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To make it even weirder, she claimed that "spiritually, all those who follow Jesus are the ADOPTED sons of Adam and daughters of Eve!". Meaning you got none of the inability to sin superpowers, and if you are female? Well....I have some bad news for you! I get your point about this being another kind of antisemitism. I would have called it a form of outsider zionism, but I agree that her point of view was super racist and terrible. BattyKiara fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 12:06
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Captain von Trapp posted:Even so, there's a mathematical phenomenon in ancestry where if you take any person in the remote enough past, it turns out that if they have any living descendants in the present day, all people in the present day are descended from them. This is not true. You are vastly underestimating how much "restricting it to patrilineal descent complicates things." And it's not really that it complicates things, but that it so much limits the chain of descent that one's descendants can't grow exponentially. Here's an animation showing how patrilineal descent moves down the family tree. As you can see, it's pretty restricted, because the line "dies out" with every daughter. So if everyone has only one son and one daughter, then a man's set of living patrilineal descendants will never get bigger than 10; obviously some people get a lot of sons, and then your patrilineal chain gets permanently bigger, but it's not nearly the exponential phenomenon that you're describing. "Women can't pass down the ancestry" is the limiting factor that prevents the inheritance from exploding. Captain von Trapp posted:In the real world, all men prior to about a quarter million years ago are either direct patrilinear ancestors of everyone on the planet, or have no living descendants. Also not true; among each generation, each row of the family tree, an individual has exactly one patrilineal ancestor and no more. So an individual only has as many patrilineal human ancestors as there are generations since their first non-human ancestor, and all those patrilineal human ancestors are themselves patrilineal ancestors or descendants of each other. It's likely that, as you describe, all men prior to about a quarter million years ago are direct ancestors of everony in the planet or have no living descendants. But patrilineality ruins it. BattyKiara posted:I get your point about this being another kind of antisemitism. I would have called it a form of outsider zionism, but I agree that her point of view was super racist and terrible. That's really interesting; why would you consider this woman's beliefs to constitute a form of zionism? CarpenterWalrus posted:But seriously, though, that would basically invalidate everything to do with faith. What was the whole point of Abraham and Isaac if not to illustrate the need to have faith despite evidence to the contrary? The point is that you need to do whatever G-d tells you even if it's the last thing you'd ever want to do. What's in question is not Abraham's belief in G-d's existence - he has literally spoken to G-d numerous times at this point, and witnessed G-d carry out incredible supernatural deeds. What's in question is, will Abraham do what G-d says even when it's contrary to every animal and moral instinct? (Fun fact: in the E-source version of the narrative, Abraham probably does, in fact, kill Isaac. Sometimes you hear this story, "oh Abraham knew G-d wouldn't really let the sacrifice happen, Abraham had faith in G-d's redeeming power" - this midrash comforts the reader by castrating the story's dangerous sugggestion that G-d might ask you to do something you don't want to do) The Bible is full of moments where G-d totally annihilates any doubt that He is real, that worshipping Him is correct, that other gods are fake but G-d is not fake. The Bible is unconcerned with "the need to have faith despite evidence to the contrary," at least when it comes to the existence of G-d. Because it does not accept there is any evidence to the contrary, and presents what is supposed to be a mountain of totally incontrovertible evidence that the G-d of the Jews is real. In addition to the famous example of Elijah asking G-d to start a fire with no purpose but to prove that G-d is real, and G-d doing it, there are the ten plagues, which basically function as a long polemic narrative in which G-d is affirmed as real and powerful and the Egyptian gods are revealed as fake and stupid. I don't know, maybe it all changes with the Christian books, but "faith" as we think of it today, as we've been discussing it in this thread (sincere belief in the existence of G-d when it has not been proven rationally), is radically contrary to the core propositions of the Hebrew Bible. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 15:48
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I think I follow what you're saying, here, but my question then becomes what's the difference between fact and faith, if any? The word "faith" kind of loses meaning, because then it's simply "knowledge."
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Mar 7, 2021 16:46
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CarpenterWalrus posted:I think I follow what you're saying, here, but my question then becomes what's the difference between fact and faith, if any? The word "faith" kind of loses meaning, because then it's simply "knowledge." An object of "faith" is a claim which you hold as true although it hasn't been rationally proven. Faith is the act of holding that claim as true. A "fact" is a claim which you hold as true because it has been rationally proven. In the Hebrew Bible, and normative Judaism, and in Islam and Christianity as I understand them, G-d's existence is not a matter of faith but a matter of fact. G-d has no interest in concealing His existence from you, and in fact He's made His existence enormously clear over and over-again so even the most stiff-necked and obstinant jackasses (the Jews) would have no choice but to acknowledge His reality. Islam is definitely the same way; the Quran repeatedly maintains that it itself is an unambiguous proof that G-d is real. I believe Christianity is the same way as well, based on its descent from Judaism, but I'm less sure. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 16:49
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Nah that’s a harmful framing of faith, actively harmful to faith. Edit: You edited your post in a way that it’s not so bad now. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 16:53
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Bar Ran Dun posted:Nah that’s a harmful framing of faith, actively harmful to faith. Can you elaborate? I'm open to new ideas, but I think that when someone proposes an explanation for the Jewish/Christian/Muslim worldview which directly contradicts basic Jewish/Christian/Muslim doctrine, we need to acknowledge that contradiction. What I'm saying is: The Bible is very clear that G-d loves proving that G-d is real, it's basically His favorite thing to do, so it's silly to say "G-d would never create the Earth in such a way to prove that G-d is real" or "G-d encourages the proliferation of evidence that G-d is not real."
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Mar 7, 2021 16:59
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I believe Christianity is the same way as well, based on its descent from Judaism, but I'm less sure. An open question: What is the revelation of God, by God in Christianity? Or rephrased: How does God show us that he is in Christianity?
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Mar 7, 2021 17:02
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I guess I've always thought of antisemite = Jews are BAD!!! while outsider Zionism = Jews are BETTER than everyone!!! type lovely racist opinions? Both are lovely, both are racist, but racist in a different way? Anyway, I posted her ridiculous ideas an example of how some types of bad theology try to reconcile Bible says the Earth is 6000 years old! with Science can prove the Earth is billions of years old! And end up with "Physically the Earth is billions of years old, but anything that happened before the start of the Bible doesn't count. Real history started with God creating Adam and placing him on an already terraformed planet!"
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Mar 7, 2021 17:11
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Civilized Fishbot posted:An object of "faith" is a claim which you hold as true although it hasn't been rationally proven. Faith is the act of holding that claim as true. A "fact" is a claim which you hold as true because it has been rationally proven. I see what you're saying here. If this is the case, then there's no such thing as Abrahamic faith, only the indisputable fact that the religion of Abraham is the correct one. I wonder how, then, the idea of faith even got introduced to Abrahamic religion, if it runs counter to the doctrine.
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Mar 7, 2021 17:19
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Civilized Fishbot posted:What I'm saying is: The Bible is very clear that G-d loves proving that G-d is real, it's basically His favorite thing to do, so it's silly to say "G-d would never create the Earth in such a way to prove that G-d is real" or "G-d encourages the proliferation of evidence that G-d is not real." Well first there is a foundational difference between you and I here. I don’t think God the Father is a being. I think God the father is Being-itself. Next how do I know what it is to be and what Being-itself is? From Jesus. And then from the Spirit in all (and I do believe all in the broadest all here) my brother’s and sister’s. The new testament to me is people writing about the experience of their communities or their personal understanding of the event of Jesus. Having conversations like these talking about what it is to be for each of us. Doubting what I think it means to be. These are ways I learn about God and they aren’t contradictory to faith. Reason isn’t contradictory to faith. The logos isn’t a threat to the Logos.
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Mar 7, 2021 17:22
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BattyKiara posted:I guess I've always thought of antisemite = Jews are BAD!!! while outsider Zionism = Jews are BETTER than everyone!!! I think you have a misguided idea of what Zionism is. Zionism is the political idea that Jews should have their own country, and that the country should be located in the region of Palestine where Jewish civilization originated and which remains central to Jewish religion. Sometimes this is grounded in ideas of Jewish supremacy ("we're the best, we should have the land G-d promised us dammit"), sometimes it's grounded in ideas of Jewish inferiority ("we're pathetic, it's because we don't have a country, we have to fix that") sometimes it's grounded in ideas of Jewish normalcy ("we're just like everyone else, and they all get countries, so why don't we?"). And of course there are quite a few ultra-Orthodox or Chassidic Jews who are total Jewish supremacists and totally opposed to Zionism ("Jews are greater than everyone, any Jew's soul is worth more than every gentile soul put together, but so-called 'state of Israel' is an abomination and defiance of the will of G-d") Jewish supremacy - real and bad. Zionism - real and bad. But they're very different ideas, sometimes they go together and sometimes they couldn't be further apart. CarpenterWalrus posted:I see what you're saying here. If this is the case, then there's no such thing as Abrahamic faith, only the indisputable fact that the religion of Abraham is the correct one. I wonder how, then, the idea of faith even got introduced to Abrahamic religion, if it runs counter to the doctrine. Because many people do not consider themselves rationally convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that G-d is real, necessitating faith where facts fall short. At least in the case of Judaism and Islam, a point where the individual believer's experience does not align with religious doctrine - but of course it's hardly the only point. If you accept the Torah or Quran as real, G-d will accept your faith but really wants you to understand His existence as a fact. If you say "G-d respects our free will, and therefore would not want to prove His existence beyond a reasonable doubt," you're not talking about the Abrahamic G-d as Abrahamic sacred texts present him. Which is fine, but apologists should be clear about what they're apologizing for. Bar Ran Dun posted:Well first there is a foundational difference between you and I here. I don’t think God the Father is a being. I think God the father is Being-itself. Next how do I know what it is to be and what Being-itself is? Sure, if you don't take the Bible as a reliable historical record of G-d's intervention into the world and the purposes thereof, then you can accept that G-d would rather us have faith in His existence than know that existence for a fact. I think you have a good attitude. I also don't think G-d is a discrete being, but I acknowledge that that's an idea foreign to the Bible. Yesterday in Synagogue, we were talking about the Golden Calf incident because that's what happens in last week's Torah portion. My Rabbi asked, what's so bad about idolatry anyway? I said, the idolators could never produce Spinoza. The progression from idolatry to non-idolatrous monotheism to monotheism was real, actual progress because it helped us move toward a panentheistic understanding G-d as, as you say, "Being-itself." And of course, there's a class component; the earliest forms of idolatry and polytheism arose at the same time as the earliest forms of class society, because they enabled certain classes to claim monopoly over access to G-d and because they encouraged a static, corporatist vision of harmonious equilibrium between discrete forces. So monotheism, and then panentheism and process theology and all that, are real forces of progress in how we understand authority and social structure. Did this justify killing 3000 people because they built a cow statue and started cookouts and orgies around it? Eh, it was a different time. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 17:23
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It's important to note that philosemitism is, counterintuitively, also seen as a kind of antisemitism - whether through persecution or pedestalisation, both serve to make Jews into this Other thing. And philosemitism only lasts so long as the person in question is not criticised by Jews, at which point it often turns quite ugly - from what you've said about your ex-MIL, BK, I doubt she'd take kindly to a rabbi politely enquiring as to the scriptural or Talmudic basis of her beliefs. I absolutely don't mean to offend anyone with the following, but it feels like Christianity has never properly come to terms with the fact that Jesus' own people rejected the Message - and then survived, being their own people. If the Jews had converted en masse, that would have been a good narrative, Christianity as a continuation of Judaism, no complications. If Judaism had faded out, or been wiped out, that would have been a narrative of "there were some who didn't join, of course, but they faded into insignificance as the grace of God transferred to the Christian Church as a whole". But Judaism continued, the Jewish people continued, and what do you do with that? Are Jews an evil force? Do Jewish traditions hold the mystic secrets of Christianity? Do the Jews need to finally be brought into the Church to complete the good works? If we wipe them out and eat their hearts do we gain their power?? There isn't an immediately obvious narrative that lines up with "treat them like normal people, what the gently caress", and so you get poo poo like this, or like Bush and Mike Pompeo trying to fulfil Biblical prophecy and immanentize the eschaton by supporting Israel.* *This isn't D&D so I'm not going to get further into Israel/Palestine but it is pretty clear and horrifying that a good chunk of modern American policy in the situation has been informed by a desire to bring about the literal Apocalypse of St John. This is also not a healthy way to engage with the Jewish people.
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Mar 7, 2021 18:23
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Freudian posted:I absolutely don't mean to offend anyone with the following, but it feels like Christianity has never properly come to terms with the fact that Jesus' own people rejected the Message - and then survived, being their own people. In your mind what would the proper way to come to terms have been?
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Mar 7, 2021 18:35
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Freudian posted:I absolutely don't mean to offend anyone with the following, but it feels like Christianity has never properly come to terms with the fact that Jesus' own people rejected the Message - and then survived, being their own people. Well the Romans. I mean think a lot of that was the Jewish wars and then Christianity becoming Greek and Roman, which certainly is a can of worms.
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Mar 7, 2021 19:56
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Civilized Fishbot posted:This is not true. You are vastly underestimating how much "restricting it to patrilineal descent complicates things." And it's not really that it complicates things, but that it so much limits the chain of descent that one's descendants can't grow exponentially. Thanks for the correction, yes, I was mistaken. I was working off what I knew about most recent common ancestors and hadn't properly thought through the changes that result from restricting to the patrilineal (or matrilinear) line. In that case, as I now understand it, any given male's direct male line can last a long time but will inevitably go extinct as various sub-lines are extinguished when a male descendant has only daughters. My father's father's father's... father line, traced far enough, will eventually hit Y-chromosomal Adam (name coincidental and unrelated to present discussion). So will the line of every other living male, and beyond that point all our ancestral paternal lines will be identical. Other men alive at that time may have plenty of modern descendants, (in fact, all living humans), but none with a direct male line leading back to them. Is that about right?
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Mar 7, 2021 21:28
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White Coke posted:In your mind what would the proper way to come to terms have been? If I knew that I would absolutely already be on my book tour.
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Mar 7, 2021 21:28
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Captain von Trapp posted:Thanks for the correction, yes, I was mistaken. I was working off what I knew about most recent common ancestors and hadn't properly thought through the changes that result from restricting to the patrilineal (or matrilinear) line. Yeah, that sounds about right. As the patrilineal line goes on for long enough, eventually you should hit a bad roll of the dice and you only get daughters and then it's game over. Except for Y-chromosomal Adam, and all his patrilineal ancestors, whose patrilineal line will go on as long as there are human men at all, for the reasons you describe. Freudian posted:If I knew that I would absolutely already be on my book tour. To me I see three real options: 1. Dual-Covenant Theology. Jews don't have to embrace Jesus because G!d made a separate deal with us. This idea is excellent for Jew-Christian relations, but the problem for Christians is that this has been considered heresy for about 2000 years. This is basically the option Catholicism has taken: The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable posted:That the Jews are participants in God’s salvation is theologically unquestionable, but how that can be possible without confessing Christ explicitly, is and remains an unfathomable divine mystery. Extra-tolerant Christians extend this idea to the conclusion that basically every religion is a decent way to reach G!d as long as it teaches you to be a good person. 2. Hard Supersessionism: G!d's covenant with the Jews was either fulfilled or abrogated by Jesus' work, and now the Jews are just like everyone else, they need to embrace Jesus or accept the consequences for ignoring the gospel. This idea has motivated a lot of ugly mistreatment of the Jewish people, but it's the traditional Christian approach with a strong basis in the Christian Bible. 3. Soft Supersessionism: Like Hard Supersessionism, but Christians shouldn't really bother converting Jews, because the Jews will all convert at the time of the Second Coming. This approach allows Christians to retain their belief that there's no path to the Father except through the Son, while giving them an excuse to let the Jews stay Jewish for the foreseeable future. I take the terms Hard Supersessionism and Soft Superessionism from this article in First Things. quote:Soft supersession is also supported by a theocentric view of the end time. Only God has the right to bring a person into the covenant. In the case of the Jews, that probably will have to wait for the final redemption, which for Christians will be Christ’s Second Coming. (One could say that Karl Barth was this kind of soft supersessionist.) On this view, ultimately though not immediately, Judaism will be overcome by Christianity, because all Jews will finally become Christians. I call this the “eschatological horizon” of soft supersessionism. It enables Christians who advocate it to speak with Jews in good faith in the present, yet-to-be-redeemed interim or waiting-time. Yet that dialogue is still not an encounter of equals. Judaism is still taken to be proto-Christianity. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 22:43
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I've been reading about food taboos. And now I'm wondering. Is there anything at all no (major) religion would object to eating?
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Mar 8, 2021 01:32
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BattyKiara posted:I've been reading about food taboos. And now I'm wondering. Is there anything at all no (major) religion would object to eating? An apple that's fallen on the ground that harbors no insects?
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Mar 8, 2021 01:35
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TOOT BOOT posted:An apple that's fallen on the ground that harbors no insects? As long as a snake didn't offer it to you.
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Mar 8, 2021 01:45
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BattyKiara posted:I've been reading about food taboos. And now I'm wondering. Is there anything at all no (major) religion would object to eating?
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Mar 8, 2021 16:10
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Nessus posted:Wheat, rice? Not always allowed in Judaism; Ashkenazi Jews can't eat rice, and no Jew can eat wheat, during Passover.
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Mar 8, 2021 16:51
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