Is the Pope to rule America?
The title of this thread is the title of a 1913 book I own. I hope everyone knows Protestants and Catholics have been at odds with each other, and when possible Protestants prevented Catholics from having political power.
Today it is the White Christian Nationalist who hope to rule America and ministers are encouraging their flocks to vote for Trump.
In the past religion and politics were tangled for short periods, such as when the South used the Bible to defend slavery and the North used the Bible to end slavery. Both sides believed they were following the will of God as they killed each other. Then we jump up to Billy Grayham and Eisenhower and blending religion and politics in a very destructive way to oppose those evil, godless communists. Following 911 was our war with evil in the Middle East. That is an interesting play on justifying attacking Iraq and attempting to fulfill the neocons' goal of having military control of the Middle East when we really could not justify attacking any nation.
Now to the conservative Republicans and Liberal Democrats opposing each other and ministers telling their flocks to vote for Trump in their Christian fight against evil and belief they are doing the will of God as we near the last days.
I am just curious. Does everyone see this thread of religious thinking and the drive to rule America/ rule the world? We could throw antisemitism in here too, because it is as irrational as the other conflicts. This is not what democracy is about. What do you think? Is there a problem with God of Abraham religions that we might resolve with reason?
Today it is the White Christian Nationalist who hope to rule America and ministers are encouraging their flocks to vote for Trump.
In the past religion and politics were tangled for short periods, such as when the South used the Bible to defend slavery and the North used the Bible to end slavery. Both sides believed they were following the will of God as they killed each other. Then we jump up to Billy Grayham and Eisenhower and blending religion and politics in a very destructive way to oppose those evil, godless communists. Following 911 was our war with evil in the Middle East. That is an interesting play on justifying attacking Iraq and attempting to fulfill the neocons' goal of having military control of the Middle East when we really could not justify attacking any nation.
Now to the conservative Republicans and Liberal Democrats opposing each other and ministers telling their flocks to vote for Trump in their Christian fight against evil and belief they are doing the will of God as we near the last days.
I am just curious. Does everyone see this thread of religious thinking and the drive to rule America/ rule the world? We could throw antisemitism in here too, because it is as irrational as the other conflicts. This is not what democracy is about. What do you think? Is there a problem with God of Abraham religions that we might resolve with reason?
Comments (191)
Really, just about anything / everything. It's difficult to argue with people who are receiving these crazy bat signals. A lot of Nazi dogma was irrational too -- complete nonsense -- but it tied into inchoate prejudices of various kinds. White Christian nationalism likewise taps into discontents that arise from various sources (like the stresses of scientific rationalism on traditional beliefs; increased economic insecurity; social disruption; unwanted social change, etc. etc. etc.) Right-wing propagandists fan the flames of discontent.
Your 1913 book is a reminder that this kind of conspiratorial thinking is not a new phenomenon in American culture, and it isn't so small and weak that it amounts to only a curiosity. The KKK of the 19th century is gone, but new versions have sprung up: different leaders, different followers, different centers of activity, the same bat-shit kind of thinking.
No? Isn't everybody trying to "rule America"? Isn't it becoming commonly accepted that so-called "liberal neutrality" was always farcical? There is a real sense in which progressivism quickened the demise of liberalism, but in this it only quickened the inevitable. Historically and in truth a separation between religion and politics is altogether artificial, and where separation is enforced quasi-religious ideologies sprout like weeds.
If I didn't understand you wrongly, you seek a state that is secular -or at least - the most separated of religion. I agree that religious groups used to tangle with political groups, and specifically, to the right or far-right of the political arena.
I guess it is due to the reasons which a Catholic/Protestant or Christian Nationalist shares with the right faction: tradition, Christian values, heterosexual marriage, Western predominate, etc.
It would be weird to see a religious group supporting the left. They didn't do so, and neither will do. They are aware leftists are progressive and this means they are against the traditional values. Then, it is obvious that if Catholics or Protestants have to get into politics, they will go to the right wing.
This is why Christian Nationalists are cheering the people to vote for Trump. Here the same happens. I live in a Catholic country, and it is obvious that the Episcopalian Confederation is Conservative, and they ask to vote for the right.
It is fun when Protestants prevented Catholics from having power because they are more 'liberal' (?)... but at the end of the day, they share the same political ideology and even lobbies! AKA Christian Democrats: sceptical stance towards abortion and same-sex marriage, opposition to capital punishment and assisted suicide, the prohibition of drugs, opposition to secularisation, opposition to state atheism and a rejection of communism.
I doubt it. The Abrahamic religions are essentially exclusive and intolerant. It's not possible to reason with those who believe they already know what there is to know because their God has told them so (a felicitous bit of rhyming, if I don't say so myself).
A lot of people have left the church; I suspect many of them took their politics with them. If they were liberal Catholics, they are now liberal ex-Catholics, and visa versa.
But it isn't the mainstream where the danger of Christian Nationalism lies: It's in the extremely conservative branches of Christian political behavior.
The Church hatches a few liberation-oriented movements every now and then. One thinks of liberation theology in South America. Or the Catholic Worker Movement in the United States (it's tiny). Even mainstream Protestants can lay a progressive egg or two and hatch a little progressive flock.
Still, as a group (and it's a big group) American Christians do not buck the system.
This is a feature that many faithful are loath to claim. Fundamentalists (whatever faith) not only claim it, they get high on it.
Quoting BC
They do not buck the system, because they are the system.
We live in countries where the values, ethics, customs, etc., are based on Christian principles. If we look at the banknotes of the USA, it says: In God We Trust. The currency of a nation rests in a religious sentence. And so more around the Western countries, not just the United States.
On the other hand, I think Christian lobbies or Catholics or Protestants only take part in politics when they feel those values are at risk. A religious practitioner would ask for the vote to the right, because the latter provides traditional ideas like same-sex marriage, the local economy, the presence in school and teachings. Writing this brief paragraph, I wonder if Christian groups only feel they are part of the system when the current government is Conservative, and maybe when a Leftist/Progressive government is running the country they would feel excluded from the system.
But again, this is really odd. The Church is always there. For example, the Orthodox Church is very powerful in Russia, even though it has a past under Communism. I think it is not possible to imagine a religion not tangled with the state. Some nations are more secular (France), and others give so much credit to religion, like Brazil (Evangelists).
But they will be there. It is an important core of values. Maybe you and I do not really care, but millions and millions do.
Your text may be a fairly old one but may signify the role of Rome and Catholicism in ethical and political thinking. I am living in England and wonder to what extent what you are saying comes down to religious fundamentalism in its many forms. The dichotomy of religious beliefs and fundamentalist ideologies may be a strong factor in Amercaj politics and of so many other perspectives. In particular, the dialogue between religious perspectives and thinking may be important, especially where religious, and moral teachings are established.
I don't live in America, so I wonder about the limits of the questioning in relation to both fundamentalism and Catholicism in.America?.Are you interested in American politics alone or the wider scope of politics on a global level?. Also, to what extent may the relationship between politics and religion be considered, and religious thinking in conservative, or traditional thinking of the social order?.
I opened this thread with a lot of fear about being attacked and I am so thankful you got to the heart of why I posted it. Along with the 1913 book about the wonderful Protestants and the terrible Catholics, I am reading a 2023 book, "Preparing For War- The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism- and What Comes Next" by Bradley Onishi.
The first argument in the 1913 book is to deny the authority of the Pope and this is done empirically, demanding the evidence. "Two hundred and fifty-five millions of Protestants fail to find in the New Testament a scintilla of evidence that either Jesus meant Peter to be the Pope, or that Peter regarded himself as Pope, or that primacy was conceded to him by the other apostles. ...
A scientific age like this needs something more than traditions, however venerable, to compel its credence. The colossal assumptions of the Papacy are based upon the statement of Christ to Peter: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church and gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Then he goes on to argue the meaning of words and that not only was Peter not made Pope by God by the line of inheritance from Peter through all the Popes was fraudulent. That is a conclusion from researching the records. Like who cares?
Well, we are talking about how God works and God's authority and that today ministers and their flocks are behaving as though God has chosen Trump to rule over us. How far is this from the false Catholic claims to authority? Is it different from accepting the authority of a Pope? Does God control our earthly affairs and as promised in the Bible does God choose our kings?
Daniel 2:21
21 He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
Romans 13:1
Submission to the Authorities
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Revelation 19:16
16 On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Is believing that, empirical? Is believing our new Bible salesman is God's chosen leader of Amercia a good example to the world of how government of the people, by the people, for the people works? Or are we talking about the authority over the people that Protestants once stood against? Really, is this how we want the whole world to be ruled? Would it work for communists and the Chinese if first they all became born-again Christians? If we think deeply about this matter, how do we feel? Does this feel true or is it questionable or OMG horrifying?
:cry: Thank you for taking me seriously and asking thoughtful questions. I cry because my religion is democracy and what is happening today in the US is not compatible with "government of the people, for the people, by the people". When our past president Lincoln said that, he was quoting Pericles of Athens (born c. 495 BCE, Athensdied 429, Athens). Our democracy began with the Greeks long before Jesus and was improved by the Scotts' common sense. Our democracy is about being humans, not the kingdom of God and if any humans are descendants of Paradies it is the people of Hawaii who have a loving culture. People around the world are not all prone to war and violence against each other.
What is happening is not how I want the world to see us, and I hear how our elitism is causing international tensions to build. Our stories matter and if we believe creation stories or if we believe in science and evolution, it really matters. Fundamentalists seem to be tipping back to religious authority over the people, and I would like Protestants to remember why we held religion and politics separate.
Do you know when the US began stamping In God We Trust on money, the root of all evil? I must say I am disappointed in the book "Preparing For War" because so far it has said nothing about what our love of God has to do with war.
I do not trust the pope nor any man using religion to acquire worldly authority and power. No human being has more of God's authority and power than any other human being and promoting myth and war on money is not admirable.
What are quais-religious ideologies?
I don't think liberal neutrality was farcical. My grandmother never spoke of religion but she regularly attended church. Our relationship with God is a private matter. I love my Grandmother's three rules.
We respect all people because we are respectful. It doesn't matter if the other is a mayor or a bum.
We protect the dignity of others.
We do everything with integrity.
I think something we are missing is Athen's understanding of the difference between what is public and what is private. I remember when we allowed people far more privacy than we grant them today. I write so much because I am horrified by great increase in government control of our lives. It is very dehumanizing.
Sparta did not value privacy. Sparta was so self-destructive it could not maintain a population large enough to defend Sparta. The US was the Athens of the modern world and Germany was the Sparta. Now it is the US that in many ways is the Sparta of the modern world. If anyone steps out of line the person is publically shamed and may lose his/her job. We have created a very mean reality for ourselves.
Yeap, especially when what knows is God's truth. Christians do not agree with each other about God's truth but that doesn't stop them from believing they know it.
But isn't this a question of who's ox is being gored? You dismiss the right's claims of threats coming from the left as irrational, but you declare the threats perceived by the left coming from the right as a clear and present danger.
The right fears godless rule while the left fears godful rule.
This is quite the broad statement, describing the essence of all Abrahamic religions, from Shia Muslims, to Mormons, to Church of Christ, to Reconstructionist Jews and so on.
Do Atheists all not agree as to what is moral and yet still proclaim to know it too?
Where do the Abrahamic religions fall in your genealogy of modern tolerance?
I suppose those sects, if the recognize Abraham as a prophet and believe in the Covenant, would be Abrahamic, but don't know enough about them to say whether they are or not. I suppose it's possible that they don't teach they are "the way, the truth and the life", but understand that traditional Judaism, Christianity and Islam do.
I'm uncertain what you mean by this.
Which seems to make the what right wants good and what the left wants bad doesn't it? What could be bad about godful rule, and good about godless rule?
I love your question because hopefully, it will lead to debate. The most glaring difference is atheists do not believe they know God's truth. An atheist attempts to know truth through a process of reasoning and that process means we debate with each other until we have a consensus on the best reasoning, and even then that is not the final word. New information can change the reasoning. This is what is vitally important to a democracy versus a theocracy.
A moral is a matter of cause and effect and we can argue about the effect of a cause until we agree on what is moral, but importantly, no one imposes their morality on others, except for those few notions of wrong that are so universal, violating it is unforgivable. A father having sex with a daughter is one of them, with one exception. There is a tribe that hunts rhinos and this is so dangerous a man may increase his strength by having sex with a daughter, but for all other known tribes that is a taboo.
This is a philosophy forum so I will add the argument about there being no excuse for violating a law. The Roman concept did not apply to everyday laws such as where to park one's chariot or city rules that are likely to be completely unknown to immigrants and visitors. It is violating the universal taboos for which there is no excuse. Forbidden contaminating rivers is not a universal taboo, but once was a common practice.
Can we hang with the concept of liberty and the notion we should not impose our notions of moral on others? That goes with Roe versus Wade. It is the reason I started this thread. Our privacy and liberty are being shredded and we need to debate the right and wrong of this. Not the pope or anyone else should have unquestioned authority over all.
Well so were the head hunters. :lol:
Religion made it possible for us to include an extreme amount of others as one of us, but we still struggle with our natural limits and evolved reactions to those who are not one of us. One of the things I marvel at is some tribes were glad to deal with others, while others simply defended their territory as lower primates do.
We all have our views on what is right and what is wrong regardless of whether we anchor them in religious reasons. Secular views can be as firmly held as religious ones, as I'm sure there's no persuading you to change your view on certain moral issues.
That is, of course most religions consider themselves correct, but so do you.
What you brought up wasn't about confidence in one's own beliefs but of tolerance of other's beliefs. I tolerate the secular, the Christian, the Muslim, and the shaman's beliefs. You're right I disagree with some of them, but so do you.
You've not described the decision process of either atheists or theists. There is not a univeral forum of atheists where they gather to debate and then to arrive at a published consensus opinion that holds until such time as better evidence is found. What happens is that people form beliefs through all different sorts of processes and countless conclusions are reached, oftentimes greatly constrasting from one another. You present this idea that atheists have arrived at a consensus that keeps getting derailed by the religious, where all harmony of thought is shaken into disarray by religious people.
What actually dictates conclusions about all issues, moral and otherwise, are a countless array of things, ranging from religiosity to personal disposition to intelligence to regional differences. You could probably explain much of my views from the spot on the globe I was born as much as you could from my religion.
You also present a picture of relgious thought as if there is simply a list of things that are good and bad and I can know if X is bad by looking at the list. From your description, it's as if the religious turn off their brains and have someone else tell them what's what.
Here's an article comparing the American common law to Jewish law related to what to do should you find lost property. It explains the reasoning from both systems, and the argument presented by adherents of both positions. That is, whatever you envision takes place in religious debate is far more complex than you state it is.
https://www.jlaw.com/Articles/avedah1.html
The prior posts indicated that reliance upon godful rule was bad. One such argument was that godful rule was intolerant, as opposed to godless rule, which apparently is embracing.
Well, it's not quite the same thing. What religions consider correct are different from what I consider correct. Religions may maintain it's correct, e.g., that God exists, that God has certain characteristics, that God should be worshipped in a particular way, that other Gods don't exist, that God wants us to believe in him, that God wants us to behave in a particular way, that if we don't do so we sin and are subject to punishment.
What I consider correct is somewhat less imposing and absolute. And even subject to change.
Yep. It sits in the foundational story of Abraham, who would sacrifice his son because god wills it, glorifying doing what one is told to do over taking personal responsibility.
Religious debate doesn't lead to absolute rules. Much is debated and remains debated. Rules are also subject to change.
But you know this, so I don't know why you say otherwise.
If that's what you learn from the parable, then it is.
Others suggest it stands for the proposition that human sacrifice is prohibited. Others as a foretelling of the coming of Jesus.
Google "the binding of Isaac" if you're interested.
Faith is believing despite the facts. It is obedience even to committing abominations: Quoting Ciceronianus
And the reward is to "make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore".
Quoting Hanover
In folk apologising for their book? Not so much.
Quoting Banno
The interpretation I offered that interpreted the story as offering opposition to child sacrifice isn't a new fangled liberal interpretation, which you might have to learned had you been interested in understanding what the story means to those who use it. It's a 5th century Talmudic interpretation.
Meaning is use.
So, if you wish to know what people mean when they speak, you'll have to endure their translations. They speak a different language than you.
No language is better than another.
Thank you Rabbi Banno for that comprehensive and contextualized analysis. Thousands of pages and hundreds of years of interpretation crystallized.
Quoting Banno
Banno offers the moral interpretation. Hanover provided a functional interpretation. Combined it might say:
God wants your full obedience and in doing so will show you that hes not too unreasonable.
But he did screw with Abrahams head and majorly gaslighted Job in the pursuit of testing their loyalty. I find that an interesting godly trait.
Reward and punishment for being loyal, and loyalty tests that might require emotional and physical anguish.
By analogy, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" had been taken to mean the state could not regulate abortion in the first trimester.
Where do you see that?
It's how you wish use such documents that comes into debate, and that informs how you'll interpret it, meaning how you use it determines its meaning.
Surely, you cant say that the only takeaway from the story of Isaac is that it means that sacrificing humans is not a requirement. Yes that is a proposed explanation for why Israelites didnt sacrifice like some Canaanites or ancient groups did but thats like a smaller functional retrojection common in Talmudic pilpul. Rather, the main point is being obedient to god, and being rewarded for doing so.
If God is interpreted as Good, then where is the secular/religious distinction you make here?
Im not quite getting your question. If you replace a major concept with another, it loses the value of its point. Can you explain what you mean?
If, though, you apply a more open interpretation throughout all contexts, your demand for obedience isn't to some angry demanding man in the sky, but it's to a conceptual goodness.
God is fully incorporeal, so what exactly do you propose you're being obedience to?
Personally, I want some things to be absolute, for example the dignity/essential goodness of human life and the way that disability is understood.
Quoting Banno
I think you're retrojecting back a 21st century understanding to an individual who supposedly lived in the early 2nd millennium BC when human sacrifice was a normal cultural practice meant to please the gods and bring about good harvests (I don't believe monotheism was a thing at this time). What's there to say that it's wrong? Animals are sacrificed, why not humans?
Why would I apply a more open interpretation when most likely, at the time, it was precisely the literal one in the text which was trying to be conveyed? Sure, later on, the rabbis in Talmudic fashion, will try to gain more meaning from the text, but even if one believed these post-facto, clever retrojected interpretations, the plain one, and probably the original meaning is right there in the text- Abraham was rewarded for his faith and obedience.
It's clear God in these stories, likes tests of faith, sometimes rewarding, sometimes punishing, sometimes basically saying, "Hey I do what I do.. don't question it." (Looking at you, Job).
The Ancient world had all kinds of fables. The Israelite/Jewish ones tended to have an explicitly ethical command attached to it that encumbant on the adherent/tribe-member. But even if there is this ethical difference, it resembled other ones like Near Eastern and Greco-Roman ones in that these stories, though set in some time-frame are still kind of happening in "noumenal space". These "historical events" just so happen to be timeless, literary morality tales. They lack the slice of life that even a good historical fiction provides.
I didn't say it was. I said it suits our more liberal times. In other times it was no doubt understood as showing how a vassal must obey their lord. Nor are the various interpretations mutually exclusive. It can be an admonition both to obedience and against human sacrifice.
But in no reasonable reading could it not be understood as advocating that one ought do as god commands even if what is commanded is abominable. That one's own desires is to be secondary to God's will. Quoting Hanover
An ad hom already. That was quick, even for you.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Which is at the least good evidence that the god described in such books is not worthy of praise for his morality.
Quoting Hanover
Hmm.
Quoting Hanover
Or you could read what he supposedly says and does in your text.
Pretty hard to misinterpret the obscenity here.
This is just incorrect. Fundamental literalism is a reactionary response to perceived threats of the scientific revolution. It's a modern phenomenon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism#:~:text=Biblical%20literalism%20first%20became%20an,mention%20it%20in%20his%20Encyclop%C3%A9die.
Cite?
You're denying what is explicit in the text. No citation will help you. Quoting Banno
Unconscionable.
And child sacrifice unfortunately was practiced by the ancient Israelites from time to time up until the second temple period. So no this story did not stop child sacrifice. And if youll are mad that God messes with Abrahams head well Ive got some news for you
You're just going on and on with a strawman that no one who takes biblical critical theory seriously would take seriously.
In Judaism, for example, the oral tradition, is just as prioritized as the Torah, offering explanations well beyond the limited text you cite.
This would be like you citing a Georgia statute and refusing to consider any other statute, federal authority, prior judicial interpretation, or any constitution, and your insisting your interpretation was correct because the literal text says what it says.
Again, of all people you accept that meaning is use. The community that uses those words doesn't slaughter their children and never would, so obviously it means something quite different to them than to how you read it.
But if you're sure the Bible dictates dashing children's heads against stones, then you're right to avoid it and those who embrace it that way.
I mean literally I wanted to see a complex displaced femur fracture. Unfortunately no orthopedic injuries befell the cast.
I'm not mad, but I'm curious about the news you are alluding to.
He floods the world earlier in the book.
Quite right. The religious need scholarship in order to make their scriptures palatable, even unto themselves.
Real life isnt palatable. Tsunamis and hurricanes kill countless. I get that you may want God to be sparkles and rainbows but if there is a singular God who is above nature and in charge of everything then I dont know how our account of him would be sparkles and rainbows and representative of reality at the same time. Somethings gotta give.
Now from this we might conclude either that he doesn't exist or that he does and we just have to accept that he is inscrutable.
You get to choose.
I am somewhat concerned that a topic about politics and religion, society and religion, democracy and religion, or law and religion always starts as a complaint rather than an analysis.
What I mean by analysis is, let's start with a close look at the primal fear of humans -- because only then do we get to understand that the idea of "father" resides permanently in our psyche. Our fear of being "alone" in the universe is embedded in our biological makeup. It is not by accident that the first humans looked up in the sky when they sensed that a dark matter was about to snuff everybody out of existence.
'tis the truth. Work with religion, not against it.
Exactly right. It doesn't bother me much that modern atheists balk at the binding of Isaac, but modern atheism does seem to be the flip side of Christian fundamentalism. In each case the text is just a prop for some ulterior end.
Quoting Hanover
:smile:
Quoting Hanover
Quoting Banno
How could you construe that as an ad hominem? :chin:
Quoting Ciceronianus
Where does your virtue of tolerance come from? The American Revolution? The French? Romanticism? The Enlightenment? The humanist revival? Christendom? The Roman Empire? Greek philosophy? The Hebrew scriptures?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshat
There is nothing in the text or commentaries contradicting the basic texts meaning which is Abraham was obedient. You might get other things, like god is merciful, and would not allow human sacrifice, but the main character here is Abraham and his fidelity and trust.
"Peshat interpretations also note the importance of context, both historical and literary."
I think the point here is that the literal meaning of a text isn't necessarily what an uneducated atheist takes away after reading a translation a few thousand years later.
Now, I do think the text lauds Abraham's obedience. That is part of the meaning. I'm not convinced that @Hanover was disagreeing with this.
So what is this debate about? That was the question at hand.. Is this about obedience? As here:
Quoting Hanover
He took this completely out of context, and even added ideas of Goodness. You can make a text do whatever you want.
Really the religion question is a misdirection. It is really ideology that is the cause of world problems - if you had to pick one thing (and obviously it is more complex than that), that is what Id pick: ideology.
As a lover of history - really it tells us about ourselves by example - it is clear that whenever ideology is followed instead of practicality, and I consider religion to be an ideology . The world is always the worse for it.
Mao tse dong and the cultural revolution. Millions starve when farmers were supposed to do their own industry, and city workers grow their own crops.
Stalinist Russia and the 5 year plans and mass starvation.
Communist attempts at governance.
Unbridled capitalism.
If religion were to stick to what it does best - provide support for spiritual needs (aka to me that means existential / epistemological support) it is beneficial to humanity. When it tries to assert power and becomes an ideology is when the shit always hits the fan. And it always seems to become an ideology. I mean even the Dhali Lama is getting involved somewhat in politics.
So . I lump religion as another player in the power game. Another player. Let them compete I guess as we get the lowest common denominator anyways no matter what we do. Let 100 flowers blossom.
Banno began the debate and set the tone, making claims such as, "Faith [...] is obedience even to committing abominations" (). His thesis goes far beyond the simple idea that the text lauds Abraham's obedience.
Speaking for myself, the problem with @Banno's interpretation is the claim that the text is referencing what Abraham would view as an unequivocal abomination. Banno is saying something like, "This teaches us that we should obey even to the point of violating our conscience and engaging in things we hold to be pure evil." In light of the historical period this interpretation fails, for in Abraham's age and setting child sacrifice was not uncommon. Child sacrifice does figure in the text and its reception, but the more prominent aspect of this sacrifice is God's promise to Abraham and Isaac's status given Sarah's advanced age. Obedience is a central part of the text, but not in the way Banno claims.
But this is so painfully irrelevant to the question of what the passages mean to those reading it. It is a side conversation ignoring the fact that meaning is use.
That is, even assuming you are correct in what I posted of you above, you now must embark upon how they've interpreted the text to know what they mean when they use the words they do.
That is, let us assume the Abrahamic religionists have foolishly accepted a literally evil text to support their morality but they themselves are folks like all others in search for the truth and the good. And so they did as you say and have turned the text upside down to have it mean something you don't see anywhere in the text, that etymology impacts the meaning in no way.
This history lesson of how their world was formed even if true doesn't matter to what the binding of Isaac means. That you can read "break a leg" to mean break a leg doesn't mean you want an actor to fracture a leg.
The problem is your failure to understand what I said. If you want to maintain a discussion with me, do not begin your sentences with "You'. I am not the subject of this thread.
@Banno
@Leontiskos
But even the Pharisees and their intellectual descendants, the Rabbis of the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods would have more-or-less accepted the plain meaning of this text, even if they "flavored" it with various other interpretations, as is the custom with Judaic hermeneutics of the Second Temple period into the Middle Ages and beyond.
That is to say, there is no way you can read that text and not come away with the impetus of it, which is that faithfulness in God is what is necessary. There are of course many ambiguities in the story, such as that of Abraham's psychological state, God's motivation, Isaac's psychological state, and so on. As happens with stories that lack such nuance, folktales (a sort of early form of fan-fiction) could have formed around the stories to fill it in an teach even more lessons from it. It could have been done deliberately even, to make a greater point, but considered "inspired".
Either way, this text is teaching that Abraham had great faith in God and therefore was rewarded.. as the text says:
There is no way to reinterpret that otherwise. You can add to it, provide more context or whatever, but that is the main impetus of the story.
And again, this works generally how the God of the Israelites in the Tanakh operates- good is rewarded, evil is punished, and sometimes good people are punished for unclear, but heavenly reasons (Job).
This goes along with the uniquely Israelite spin on a god who protects his people if they maintain their faith in him. The Book of Job is unique in that it had a more ambiguous spin on the relationship, trying to convey that it wasn't as transactional as simply "reward and punishment". However, I would say this is more an aside (a more interesting nuanced one, and one more in line with a more complex Pessimism in my opinion), but the gist of most of the other books and stories, is to convey that if Israel and its gentile allies follow God, he will show his favors, sometimes individually, sometimes geopolitically (ancient Israel /Judah being favored or castigated based on the misgivings of the people).
We also must look at the actual archeological and historical records of the period the Tanakh was being written. Scholars generally attribute the oldest texts some time around the 7th century BCE, with various prophets. These were innovators in that they had the notion that El would be the sole god for worship, and identified with him as the patron god of the Israelite tribes and kingdom. They would implore the kings to banish the other traditional Canaanite gods (Baal and Asherah especially), for the sole worship of this god. The unique laws of kashrut and shabbat and such may have been practiced by the intellectual elites only centered around Jerusalem in the First Temple Period (c.1000 BCE-586 BCE), but probably wasn't adopted fully until the time of the Hasmoneans (c.140 BCE). As scholar Yonatan Adler points out in this article:
Quoting What Archaeology Tells Us About the Ancient History of Eating Kosher - Smithsonian Magazine
Whatever the case may be, the people who wrote the Prophetic books were mainly condemnatory towards the kings for not following their unique cult. The "people" barely had much interactions with the elites. Once the neo-Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar conquered the rebellious Jerusalem stronghold c.586 BCE, the "elites" (including the royalty, priests, and scribes), were taken to Babylonia. Here the "El only" faction cobbled together an Israelite mythological-history, retrojecting their viewpoint into the history (that El was always the main god, and the Israelites simply went astray rather than it being an innovation later on). Their goal was tribal historical narrative weaving stories of El throughout, and probably also to give context to rituals they were following to give those rituals greater significance for why they were practiced. They were not, however, doing deep ethical commentary- though ethical commandments and themes are definitely a part of it. Their goal and style was that of certainty and not of debate and contextual relevance. They needed a national, historical narrative to fit the reformed nation, especially when it was reestablishing the Second Temple.
However, again, this reestablishment itself was not fully integrated into the wider Judaic population until the nationalistic campaign against he Greek Seleucid dynasty c.160s-140s CE, when these elite-formulated texts became taken as a sort of constitution for the independent Jewish Hasmonean Dynasty. This is when the Pharisees with their oral story contextual analysis came into play, Sadducees simply adopting the written text as is, which suited their interests as keepers of the sacred rites, and the Essenes, who envisioned a more pure and apocalyptic version, repudiating the other two.
It is my understanding Mao thought if seeds were planted deeper the plants would be better. Farmers knew better but the authority of Mao was unquestioned and strongly enforced. Only farmers far away from Mao's ability to control were able to plant crops properly, and this made matters worse. Farmers wanting to please Mao got plants from the far away farmers who had plants and they faked having a good crop. It makes me think of Trump and his denial of the science needed to limit the impact of a pandemic. Denial of science can cause a very serious problem and this why I write.
I wrote of the Protestant opposition to the authority of the Pope, and I intend to wake Protestants up to the danger of giving authority and power to the wrong person. Democracy and our freedoms depend on science and ancient cultures, not a religion or leaders who deny science and attempt to have the power of Mao to rule over us.
I like your opening statement Quoting Metaphyzik
From there you speak of ideology. There are different ways to understand that word. The changed meaning is alarming.
the science of ideas; the study of their origin and nature. Is the most important definition because that is what separates an opinion from reason. This is a serious cultural matter. This is directly related to the change in education, our culture wars and the popularity of Trump or the power of the Pope. We are basing our notion of false or true on our feelings, not empirical thinking that demands a study of the subject.
Please notice my irritating post when someone is finding fault with me. I may seem pity but it is about how we think and what this has to do with democracy. Putting me on the defensive and side-railing the thread instead of advancing arguments about the subject of disagreement has a cultural impact. (like mass murders) Democracy is rule by reason, not rule by passion. It evolves out of a notion of logus- reason, the controlling force of the universe. The Pope and Trump are not logos but they have a strong emotional impact on people. Democracy needs to be rule by reason to advance the human potential and that is what made America great, but education for that was ended and that brings the US to the cultures we have today. Winning an argument by finding fault in the poster does not advance knowledge.
You put so much work into your post and I want to honor that. My questions are sincere wonderment, trying to figure out a puzzle about how we judge truth.
Those men could not have experienced a god in an empirical way because that god is not made manifest on earth. So in want did they have faith? It seems to me they had a very high opinion of themselves, to think they could know god. What evidence of god were they using?
:chin: Just about everyone had a patron god or goddess and around the world people have done all in their power to please the gods and goddesses. There is nothing unigue about believing the Nile or an irrigation ditch will flood or there will be a good harvest if a god/goddess is pleased and bad things happen when they are displeased. People turned on their leaders when it seemed obvious the gods no longer favored them. I don't understand what you said if you said others didn't have a god's protection.
Yes that is an ominous change in the lexicon.
Ideology enforcement is what I was ranting about. Having an ideology isnt in itself bad. It is good actually. Encourages people to think if all goes well. At worst it is imposed on others or forced in society. Theron lies the problem
Thank you for the nice words. :smile:.
Quoting Athena
When you say, "Those men", you mean the men in the story or the men who wrote it? If it was the men who wrote it, I always find that question to be the most mysterious. What is the mindset of people writing a tribal historical narrative replete with historical-sounding fables, and commandments? I don't know. But if we are to exclude the idea that these things were exactly as they wrote them, or even divinely inspired (the naturalistic approach), we can only accept that cobbling together of stories and reinterpreting them for a nationalistic mythos and ethical system was something they thought important.
Quoting Athena
Correct, and I guess what I wrote can be interpreted one of two ways...
The Tanakh/Bible is ancient Israel's unique spin on a common one in the ancient world of people appeasing a deity OR
The Tanakh/Bible is unique in itself in that it centered-around only one patron god who could only be appeased, or the only one that matters or counts.
But again, even this idea developed slowly in Judaic thought. And if Adler's theory is right, it didn't really become THE view of the main populous until around the Hasmoneans, much later than even other scholars (who usually want to say at least the Babylonian Exile or a bit before).
Good post. I have a few, minor comments.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There are poems and fragments of older texts dating back centuries earlier perhaps as early as the 11th century BC for some of the poems which conceptualize God in highly anthropomorphic, warrior-like ways like song of the sea. Perhaps the texts were completed around the 7th century BC?
I also agreed that Abraham is rewarded for his faith and I think this is made pretty clear in the story. From memory, Abraham's faith "was credited to his merit" and this idea was picked up by St. Paul. I don't really see the issue. God can also be bargained with in other stories.
According to Shaye Cohen scribes appear in the second temple period. By scribes he means laymen knowledgeable of the Tanakh.
Yes the general theme of the Tanakh is obey God, follow his directive, and good will come. And of course the inverse is true too. But this isn't universal as seen in Job and Ecclesiastes.
I am struggling not with religion as much as with how we think. Empirical thinking is not natural. It is a learned system of reasoning. Gods do not manifest themselves on earth so we can not properly study them. I feel very nostalgic about worshipping a pharaoh and being a part of building his pyramid.
I wish life were so simple, but my education made that impossible.
It may not matter what individuals believe until we are no longer speaking of individuals. The authority and power of national leaders today have far greater ramifications than in the past.
There never was a large population educated to think scientifically until the 21 century. This might matter more than knowing when all Jews were aware of Kosher foods, but that search for answers inspired my thinking. It might not matter when the Jews shared a concern about kosher food, but understanding how the idea spread does matter.
Today, our culture war is a clash between different ways of determining the truth. Should we look for truth in the Bible or turn to science? The pandemic and how Trump managed it versus how Biden managed it makes the question of how we know truth a serious question. The decisions have global consequences. Where should the authority rest today, with the people?, with the pope?, with a president? What does education have to do with this?
I think our Declaration of Independence is a declaration of individual responsibility. In a democracy, the people hold the responsibility of their government. Handling that responsibility without training for empirical thinking could be a problem. I don't think we can manipulate a god with our prayers and sacrifices unless that means giving up our dependence on fossil fuels. We will surely die if we do not get things right.
This. I am not saying the myths themselves, and variations of them in previous forms didn't exist, but ones with a cohesive narrative and historical bent, one's conforming with the El only prophets perhaps, centered around Jerusalem, and became the core views/writings that were compiled later in the Babylonian/Persian period in the 400-500s BCE. I am not saying my synthesis here of events is EXACTLY how it went, or the only theory, but I think it is reasonable.
Certainly various priestly prayers, poetic writings, and at least allusions to earlier historical/political goings on and writings in Chronicles, Samuel and Kings (from 800s-900s BCE perhaps?) can be seen,.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I mean it in the broader sense. That is, people who could write. So this would be presumably many of the later Prophets, the people who wrote down what a prophet supposedly said, and the people who revised and compiled the Torah, Prophetic books, and Writings (TaNaKh).
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yes, which is basically what I stated previously as here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Today this forum is really challenging my poor little brain and I have come so close to saying something I would regret. I am by nature a conservative, and I was going to object to the long list of words related to ideology. My conservative self was jumping and screaming too many choices, too many choices. On an emotional level, I can 100% appreciate clear thinking that imposes "the right thought" on all of us.
Your notion that that imposition might not be a good thing, wakes up my intellect. You used very strong stories to make the point of what is wrong with the leadership of tyrants.
I know several people who didn't have a good start in life when they left home. Their home life may have been good or bad. Either way, they entered adulthood on a spectrum of fear to self-confidence. Christianity helped them deal with their fears, and socially, churches can be very supportive. That is a wonderful thing until we get to the downside of believing false things. For a while, Satanism was popular and filled the news with shocking stories. I don't think the belief in evil is a healthy belief. Taking the nation to war to destroy "evil" on the other side of the world, was not a good thing.
Being an independent thinker and accepting the responsibility of citizenship can mean enduring uncomfortable feelings. Can anything be done about this?
Yes, that is the understanding of logos that seems to be universal. The problem is knowing right from wrong. From one point of view cutting down the forest is a wonderful idea and from another point of view, it is a terrible idea. Then the ones who want to cut down the forest may come to an agreement with those who want to protect the forest and both sides get part of what they want. This thinking does not require religion, and denying non-religious people also weigh the good and the bad, is just wrong. I say so because I have dealt with Christians who think they have morals and people without God, do not have morals. While coming from a science point of view, science deniers lack morality and are the problem.
How do we know truth?
I am not a fan of extremism, left or right. Notice I included unbridled capitalism as a form of ideology that is in the same list as the others, and should have added socialism and its modern forms.
Can anything be done about accepting the blowing of the winds? No. However as long as they are free to blow and there is no pressure exerted to control the direction, we will get a normal pendulum swing on political leanings.
And pressure exerted just means a longer and wider pendulum swing but swing eventually it will.
It makes you uncomfortable. It ought.
The Bible is not an ideological monolith. Different works present different takes on the subject. Why would we expect ideological uniformity from over 1000 years of texts? Read it and make your own judgments.
God is inscrutable in his entirety. Yet he does reveal certain things within the pages of the Bible. And certain things are consistent throughout.
It doesn't. But it's not because I so firmly hold to my beliefs I can't be shaken or some such other nonsense. It's because you make no meaningful points, largely because you refuse to actually reference any academic study on the issue or delve into how the Bible has actually been used by those who use it. In short, your criticisms aren't valid.
The Torah isn't just a scroll of stories, but it's a document that was actually used for an entire society to function, but it was not the single source of authority. That is to say, from these many religiuosly based sources, answers to the most minute details were answered.
That this other system differs from the Anglo legal tradition you're accustomed is obvious, but to the extent you can imagine other methods for the formation of rules, you then can engage in a comparative analysis. And that's all this is to me, as I certainly don't turn to the Talmud for my direction. I just recognize the system of mindless obedience didn't exist as suggest. I'm just saying you truly have not presented any interesting criticism.
The Torah can be thought of as a constitutional document, with debates centering upon how it is to be construed, which offers a fairly good explanation for the origins of some foundational elements of the Anglo tradition your accustomed to. That is, the holiness of the Constitution is a thing, defining "holy" as that which is set apart as specially significant.
Instead, you'll just keep telling me how religion is mindless drivel, as if that's provocative.
You've gone to a lot of trouble in response to a uninteresting criticism.
A naive reader might well see the Binding as I have, yet a more sophistic reader, one who is a member of this or that School of Thought, will have arguments aplenty to show the poverty of such naivety. Thus they mark the difference between Us and Them.
One lesson from the Binding is that faith is strongest when the faithful believe despite the facts, and act without question.
I think that approach morally dubious.
I don't. Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I have.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I don't think so. It reads like a patchwork authored by men, not the word of a omniscient being.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yep. And whereof one cannot speak...
Well it was authored by men. Did you at least find wisdom in any of the dialogues?
I see that because the story of the God of the Bible has to emerge from a patchwork, and a patchwork that is as much fact and history as it is fantastical and contradictory, no human author or group of people would have ever thought to put it all together in one story.
The fact that the Bible is one story, to me, seems impossible. But the Bible is nonetheless. And it makes sense to me. So it makes sense to me it has to be divinely inspired.
I know this wouldnt have to mean as much to anyone else, but thats what I see.
I take the rabbinic period to have begun after the fall of the second temple, which I also take to be the beginning of the Talmudic period, which is what I also take to be the beginning of Judasim as we currently know it. Prior to that, I would consider it a religion centered around the Temple and sacrifice, and, if we go back far enough, we have questions about origins generally in terms of when monotheism emerged.
My point being that we're now to decipher what the beliefs of a people were dating back from the Bronze Age and then we get into questions of when the various parts of the Torah were written, compiled, and edited into a single version as we know it today. Laying claims to how these stories were interpreted and what significance they had is entirely speculative. For example, we have today a creation story that could just be a fable to try to explain our origins that the ancients might have taken literally, but very well might not have. In fact, Genesis has two entirely different origin stories. That story has morphed into an account of original sin and the need for God to give his only child to save us from that sin. It is also argued that Jesus is the slaughtered lamb in the Isaac story.
The Talmud was written in the late 1st century AD, which is the best we can say regarding how the Torah has been interpreted since then. Per Jewish tradition, however, it is believed that the Talmud encompasses the oral tradition passed down by the Pharisees, and it is this oral tradition that holds as much weight as the written tradition of the Torah. That is, it is tenant of Orthodox Judaism that the oral tradition was received alongside the written word at Mt. Sinai. The point being that tradition argues that the written law was never interpreted without the oral tradition alongside it.
So where this leaves us is in a highly contextualized spot, where we can't just say the Binding means we should blindly follow God's will without question. It certainly does present an argument that we should listen to and trust God, but it would also suggest that God wouldn't steer us wrong, and it is presented as a story that attempts to end the idea of human sacrifice, which I suspect was an issue among other religions at the time.
But, what does the story mean to those who read it? https://www.sefaria.org/topics/binding-of-isaac?sort=Relevance&tab=sources All sorts of things.
But you can't make an argument that the Torah stands for the proposition generally you shouldn't argue with God and question him. There are plenty of examples of that from Moses, Abraham, and Job (and more) directly questioning God. https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/5298/Arguing-with-God.pdf
It's a hard argument to make that the Torah stands for the notion one should not wrestle with God, considering the strange story of Jacob wrestling with God and having his name changed to "Israel." (Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. Genesis 32:28)
And we've not mentioned Kierkegaard's take on all this, which is to assert that the Binding was a test of faith and that there was no faith as great as Abraham's because he never questioned God (although he did try to persuade God not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah later). My problem with K's analysis is that Abraham didn't show any great act of faith in God because the God Abraham was dealing with was the early God who directly interacted with humans and performed miracles. Faith didn't mean then what it means now. If we're accepting the Bible literally, when Abraham was told by God to sacrifice Abraham, he literally said it to him (although, again, not all traditions accept that God literally talked ever). That is, if there is some guy walking around being all powerful and I hear it and see it daily, it's hardly an act of faith to agree to do what he tells me. It's a fair stretch to then say the Bible must be followed blindly because it's God "telling" me what to do in the same sense Abraham was "told" what to do. Reading a several thousand year document contextualized with all other documents is a very different sort of "telling" than what Abraham meant by "telling." Abraham meant he was told it, not that he read a old document about it.
Anyway, I've gone on long enough, but interested in your thoughts on all this.
Before the Isaac episode, God tells Abram that his offspring will be as numerous as the stars above and that "he trusted in the Lord, and [God] reckoned it to [Abram's] merit" (Gen 15:6). Abram's trust in God - his faith - is viewed as a positive aspect of Abram. But as you have mentioned Abraham does bargain with God elsewhere so questioning is acceptable too sometimes.
In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard is offering Abraham as an image of a human who has melded with God. He has the "power which is impotence", which means his will and God's will are indistinguishable. Apparently this power is available to those who can accept the universe as it is. Very few can do that, but Kierkegaard was dwelling on the topic just as Nietzsche was (amor fati).
You could probably get something equally profound by reading the label on your korn flakes. The profundity is coming from you, not the flakes, right?
What about the rule you shall have no other god before God, or, for that matter, the other rules described, significantly, as "The Ten Commandments"? Are all of those subject to change? There may be varying interpretations of some of them (that "graven images" bit may have made some uncomfortable, and be considered to apply only to certain images, for example). Some may be ignored to suit our purposes, as in the case of the ones that say we shall not kill, or commit adultery. But the rules remain, don't they? It's one of the "rules" of the Abrahamic religions, I think, that the rules they impose may merely be given lip service when they become inconvenient, but they don't change.
Yes certain things are absolute in the Bible, such as man being made in the divine image and that God's creation is good. There is no 'do not kill', but there is 'do not murder.' Moses's speech condition is in no unclear terms framed as being the creation of God. I want certain things to be set -- i.e., beyond argumentation.
Specifically as to a comparison with the Abrahamic religions, I refer to the tolerance of other religious traditions in the ancient Mediterranean before and while Christians began stamping them out. Members of the Mithras cult, or that of Isis or Cybele, for example, weren't prohibited from worshipping other gods or becoming initiates of other mysteries. Rome was generally tolerant of all forms of worship provided they weren't believed to be a danger to its rule. It didn't require that all people within its empire worship Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Jews were considered peculiar, but were allowed to worship their peevish god and avoid the homage demanded by the Roman state as they wished until they revolted against Roman rule and were ruthlessly repressed or exterminated.
The so-called persecutions of Christians have been wildly exaggerated, and were in response to actions, or we might say omissions, of believers deemed to be threats and a rejection of the Roman state, e.g. the refusal of military service or refusal to make an offering generally in form of incense to the well-being of Rome or the reigning Emperor, a problem pagan believers didn't have as they weren't intolerant
Thank you. That's a significant point.
Which is to say pretty much what I said.. The Pharisees fall squarely under the Second Temple period, and the Mishnaic and Talmudic periods fall right after but before the Middle Ages period (technically late Roman Empire/early Middle Ages), so that is to reiterate a pedantic point to make it seem muddled, it looks to me. But I'll just interpret it as in agreement I guess. The Rabbis of the Tannaim (Mishna) and Ammoraim (Gemaras) in Yavneh, Sepphoris, Caesarea, Tiberias, Pubembita, and Sura thought of themselves continuing the Pharisaic lineage, and the tradition is that the bridge was started by Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai c.70 at the destruction of Jerusalem.
Quoting Hanover
Yeah, the written word regarding historical/romanticized/mythologized fables can be interpreted in any number of ways. You are trying to thread the fine needle by buying into the Rabbinic idea that all their notions of interpretation of Torah go back to the original author's intent. The Pharisees, from which the Rabbinic tradition largely derives from only appear around the 2nd-3rd century BCE. It could be that this group held traditions that went back further. Obviously, that will be their claim. It could also be that they were actually innovators rather than preservers. There are some indications that the rituals that were meant purely for priests were, for the Pharisees, incumbent upon all Judeans. That is to say, they democratized some of the ritualistic aspects. Not only this, they added midrashic interpretive techniques to get as much out of the text as they could and to resolve various debates on how each law was to be interpreted.
The claim of succession in Perkeit Avot, is that the Great Assembly codified the Tanakh during the Persian period in the 5th century BCE (around Ezra and Nehemiah), and that from there the "Zugot", or Great Pairs of Sages (like Hillel and Shammai) headed the Sanhedrin and kept the traditions intact.
I'd imagine the truth is somewhere in the middle. There were some elements that perhaps were kept in some traditional form by this group going back to the Persian period, but that much of it was their own particular interpretive approach to the writings. That is to say, they didn't necessarily hold some "pure" originating version, any more than the Sadducees or Essenes, or other lesser known groups, they simply had an approach that became adopted around the 200s BCE.
What is fair game is that we know the facts- Judah was captured by the Babylonians in the 500s BCE and the elites taken to Babylon for many decades. When they came back to the province of Yahud (under the directive of the Persian regime), they reformulated much of the religion to be more in line with the Monotheism more resembling the Judaism we read about in the Jewish writings, Josephus, or even the gospels in the Greco-Roman period. However, if Yonatan Adler is correct, even this picture is too simplisitc, as it was only the priests, scribes, and elites in Jerusalem that practiced this form while the populous still held onto the older heterodox religious beliefs. It wasn't until the Maccabean Revolt that the religion of the elites became THE religion of the masses, according to this theory. And then the history was retrojected as if it was always thus. So you have the establishment of Second Temple Judaism of the elites int he 400s BCE, and by the 160s BCE, you have the spread to the whole population in the guerilla war against the Seleucids.
Quoting Hanover
Yes it is a fact that this is a belief the Pharisees held about their own methods, traditions, and interpretations.
Quoting Hanover
You are whitewashing this in a ridiculous manner. My whole point is even if the Rabbis of the Talmud and Pharisees before them interpreQuoting Hanover
Quoting Hanover
Yes two Jews, three opinions. Arguing with God is part of the Jewish tradition. Abraham bargained on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. Whatever points regarding the ability to argue with God, you don't totally ignore him. In this case, Abraham had faith in God and was rewarded for it. If you take away the main impetus of the story (faith in God), then the whole story becomes a Kabuki show whereby the characters know what's going to happen but they are just performing it for "funsies". But that isn't the case. Abraham was thought to be a real human who was making real decisions in some historical time and place. Certainly as modern critics we can see it as simply literature and find all kinds of meanings. Certainly, the rabbis approached it as a real event and used the sparse text to gain all sorts of justifications and reasonings from it. I doubt it was the other way around.
Quoting Hanover
As other posters pointed out, the Torah and the Tanakh has many themes. Certainly, one of them is "wrestling with God". But you also have stories where God is pretty clear on what he wants, and is generally good to his closest adherents. If anything, the story perhaps shows God's mercy, as he would never try to ask more than what one can handle. However, it could not be ONLY this point. It also had to be Abraham's fidelity, because it was the element of not truly knowing what was going to happen that makes the story so powerful. It was at the end that we see that it was the ram all along that should be sacrificed. In the story, Abraham was not told prior, "Hey I'm just doing this symbolic ritual, and I want you to bring your son so I can tell you". He had Isaac bound and then the big reveal at the end. Quoting Hanover
Well, I don't think it's about the sense of faith as in "does God exist?", but rather, faith whatever God asks is the course of action one needs to take. He didn't waver in his actions.
Where we agree is that neither of us believe the Bible was written by God and we both likely agree it was written over a long period of time by a good number of authors and there was even a final author who edited the whole thing. I think we can also agree that the Bible has been used, for better or worse, as a foundational document, used to support entire civilizations.
It is no coincidence that our own modern system has similarities to that. We have a document (i.e. the Constitution) that we hold out as holy, we appoint special priests to interpret it, and we alter and form its meaning around daily disputes. You don't need to change the text of the Constitution to change the meaning and religions do the same with their documents. I suppose in most secular systems you have a mechanism to change the text of the law and perhaps you have the same in certain religious systems (for example the Mormon President's ability to decree law) or you have workarounds (like Papal infallibility allowing the text to mean whatever he says by definition).
And when you read the religious disputes regarding what some passage means, it doesn't sound a whole lot different than any other sort of rational dispute. They look to past arguments, other text, history, and all sorts of things and they come to some sort of understanding of the meaning and how it is to be applied.
What is dangerous is dictatorial power, where the needs of the people are subjugated by the will of another more powerful authority. That result in not necessitated by all forms of religion. The opposite is not necessitated by all forms of democracy either.
The objection here by me is more to the argument that you have an evil document and from it necessarily springs evil because it applies rigid draconian rules that no one can contest. That could occur, but the fact is there are many instances where it doesn't.
So on the one hand I think there is a bit of begging the question with respect to the "plain meaning of the text." On the other hand, I think you are correct that obedience is central to the text, as I've noted above. I'm not quite sure what you and @Hanover are disagreeing on. Again, I think Hanover was disagreeing with Banno, and I think Banno's posts have created a thread context where Hanover is suspicious of your claims.
Somewhere in the post-WW2, perhaps really the 70s, the Republican party started gaining the favor of Southern and rural Evangelical Christians. So the more economic version of conservatism that represented the Calvin Coolidge/Herbert Hoover economic laisse-faire became intertwined with moral fundamentalism of Christian fundamentalists. Mind you, it wasn't always that way. In the Civil War, there were a good deal of Christian abolitionists that were advocating the end of slavery. In the late 1800s, there was the populist movement supporting the working class, mainly in the Democratic party, led by the super-fundamentalist Christian, William Jennings Bryan. At some point in the 70s, with the televangelists like Billy Graham and the like, you had this alliance of the the Christian fundamentalists with the business laisse-faire conservatives, and you get the pillars the Republicans from 1970s-2016.
However, Donald Trump has added an element of populism and isolationism back into the Republicans, somewhat changing the traditionally, "neoliberal" worldview into classical isolationism of earlier times. Christian fundamentalists tend to put a lot of stock into the immanence of the return of Jesus and that political happenings reflect Biblical prophecy. I suspect many Evangelicals see Donald Trump as an instrument of God- the irony being that he is way more corrupt than presidents conservatives condemned previously for moral reasons (e..g Bill Clinton). All actions are justified then, if he is an instrument from God. A sense of fairness of how corruption is applied goes out the window. Liberals and non-Trumpian conservatives can be condemned for corruption or moral reasons, but everything Trumpians do is or can be justified. It is a stark authoritarian streak of blind allegiance and double standards.
If it makes it clearer I mean that they accepted the very apparent notion that Abraham had fidelity in his faith.
Quoting Leontiskos
In a way, I don't either. He's trying to subtly suggest that all the extra-Biblical interpretations found in Rabbinic/Talmudic/Mishnaic literature is what the text means (because "use" is meaning, and the Rabbis are "using" it a certain way).
But my point was even the Rabbis commentary sees the apparent plain story of the text (Abraham being faithful), whatever other midrashic elements they can excavate from the text. The rest of my ideas rest for themselves in the previous post, if you look back. If you have specific questions on that, I can explain.
Well I'd say you are omitting the fact that the Christians, once separated from Judaism, were no longer allowed to "avoid the homage demanded by the Roman state," and this is one reason the relations between Christianity and paganism became complicated (relations between Christianity and Judaism had already become complicated).
It is strange to note the execution of Christians, and then claim that the Christians were executed because they were intolerant, not being willing to venerate pagan gods. "We had to kill them because they intolerantly refused to worship our god and/or emperor." This argument will always fail for a modern mind. It would be like saying, "We had to burn the heretic at the stake because they intolerantly refused to accept Christian dogma." This is backwards.
I will concede that you make a fair argument for the relative intolerance of the Abrahamic religions and their "jealous God." On the other hand, the central cultural dogmas are always non-negotiable, and historically culture and religion go hand in hand. Later Christian cultures very often permitted a latitude that was comparable to the earlier pagan cultures. To a lesser extent this was also true of Islam. But I will concede that pagan gods are less jealous, and therefore there is a sense in which paganism is more tolerant.
The followers of pagan gods didn't take the position taken by Jews and Christians regarding God or religion. A pagan didn't claim that the god they were worshipping at any particular time was the only god, nor did they believe that all must worship that god and no other. That wouldn't occur to a pagan, nor was it the position of the Empire in pagan times.
Christians wouldn't tolerate any god but their own. That's the intolerance I refer to, and is what led the Christian Roman Empire to forbid all pagan worship, and led Christians to kill Hypatia and others, destroy pagan temples, etc.
I think we agree on many things, but I don't think this analogy works. I know next to nothing about Mormon doctrine, and know enough about Catholic doctrine to understand that papal authority to state or make infallible pronouncements is limited and has been very rarely exercised, but the Constitution itself provides it can be amended and describes how that may be done. It would be as if the Ten Commandments stated that they may be altered provided appropriate steps were followed.
But not many people vote either. So, therein, the charge becomes palpably worth discussing.
AS such, booming voter numbers would make representational democracy more than a line on a page. I think the problem would vanish, in this scenario. Enough people with enough views voting can only be good, unless you're a 'for thee, not for me' type of person around views, and freedoms etc..
The gods could be quite vicious to each other, but there was always a number of them and no one had a monopoly on truth. Polytheism allows the freedom for one to switch between value systems. Even the gods were subordinate to greater, more ancient primordial forces. I think polytheism is inherently more tolerant than monotheism; but personally I don't want plurality when it comes to the big questions of life.
Do you see a lot of historical baggage in this view?
There's surely a historical aspect, but it's also just my honest conclusion. I'll break from my religious roots in some ways, but not in this one. It's more personal than historical.
I would suspect that all traditions have ways in which rules are to be interpreted, amended, and modified. The actual text is not necessarily changed, although dramatic changes to the interpretation can be made so as to consider the prior rule entirely amended.
The Catholics have a hierarchy in place that allows such things, even if rarely used, which I referenced as papal infallibility. The Mormons consider their President (yes, that's what he's called) to be a prophet who can entirely change church doctrine. The Amish have elders that determine their rules (like the phone booth has to be at the edge of the land and not in the home). The Jews consider it a commandment to follow the verdict of the rabbis, which can offer opinions that vary over time (Deut: 17:10).
I do think you might endear yourself to an Orthodox Jew though with your insistence that the laws are immutable and unchanged since the day Moses walked off the mountain, as historically inaccurate as that might be. It's a good myth to add to the legitimacy of the religion though.
To me, it seems that this wish has informed a huge amount of religiosity - good and bad - without a shred of rationality to it. I wondered if you saw that, in your view, there is a gaping epistemological hole in that respect (not that it's 'wrong' but that there may need to be more to that in justifying such a search for a mono-theistic answer to those questions).
It is a personal issue. If I'm looking for an answer to a major life question about my being I don't want to be told e.g. "well it could be A, or maybe think about B, or possibly C, anyway we'll never really know and no one can know because a billion different gods (or philosophers) think a billion different things" -- I need conclusions. We all need to plant our flag somewhere and our own rationality will only get us so far. The world is too much for our own limited rationality to wrap its head around -- I couldn't even wrap my mind around myself nevermind the world.
I do not think you addressed what i'm saying though. You've restated it.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
This speaks the same language as what I was enquiring about. Doesn't it make you uncomfortable that a random desire to not be given multiple responses has you committed to certain cosmological 'truths' despite, perhaps, the evidence?
Quoting AmadeusD
Despite the evidence? I don't see where evidence factors into it. Did God speak to Moses? Are we to consider the evidence for and against such a claim?
What fascinates me about the book is that it reveals certain things that we wouldn't otherwise know or take for granted. It's just my intuition picking things up. I find some of the dialogues to be fascinating. I find some of the parables to be transformative.
It's a fascinating thought exercise if nothing else trying to work through these dialogues.
Yes, we are. But that wasn't quite my point. My point was that the motivational factor seems to stem from merely a discomfort with certain answers, regardless of the supportability of alternate views. This seems so with the majority of historical religiosity - 'I don't like that answer, so I'm looking elsewhere, even if that makes no sense'.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
That's fair. I just don't understand why that would be motivation to reject, or accept, any claims. Or, reject good ones that you don't like. Just trying to see if you can pick up that thread in your mode of thinking..
I would be wary of pushing this too far, and doesn't this just end up in the Originalism debate?
Even if we say that all rules are malleable, it will remain true that some rules and some traditions are much more malleable than others. Further, when the recipe calls for divine revelation the dish will be a great deal less malleable.
@Hanover, do you follow Reform Judaism?
I wasn't aware the Ten Commandments had changed. What do they say now? Or have they added more, to make up for the five which were lost when Moses dropped the third tablet, according to Mel Brooks?
:up:
Because such truths lead to life and self-actualization while others lead to death. The question is beyond rationality, but an approach must be chosen. I think that's the best I can do.
Quoting AmadeusD
How do we consider evidence for and against e.g. God communicating with Moses? I don't even know what it would mean for God to speak to Moses. If we were transported back to Moses's day and heard a booming voice thundering down would that be God? Could be aliens. Or we could be hallucinating.
Around the end of the second century, apparently.
There are other ways these things have changed over time, also. Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Ah, this sort of begs the question. I'm wondering how you get 'truth', given your motivation is not seeking truth, but avoiding uncomfortable utterances.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
This being clearly false, is motivation for my enquiry, largely. One need not chose and answer to any of these existential questions to properly participate in the world.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
There is better evidence for these two, than the Bible story. Delusion and spontaneous mystical experience also. Kind of the point. Your motivation for rejecting these (not this specifically, but as a mode of illustrating the short-fall of reason), more reasonable, conclusions, is that they are uncomfortable to you, or you would rather another answer.
That seems to me, to be unreasonable.
I'm not talking about abstract impersonal questions. I'm talking about questions like, say, how do we understand/frame disability? Such content is revealed to Moses and has deep repercussions.
One place to start is, "Why think there was an actual Moses?"
Yeah maybe his name was actually Noses. Or something else entirely.
Or perhaps humans have only ever mistakenly believed that they themselves, or anyone else, has communicated with God.
How do we differentiate between hallucination or spontaneous mystical experience and God? Could God not speak through those means? He's described as communicating through dreams. It's silly to ask for "evidence" here because no one knows what that means. What would qualify as evidence? Could you give me some examples? Some criterion? Rational inquiry is limited here as it is limited in life.
I think you're missing the specific point i'm making here, which accepts your criticism of what's being asked.
I agree, if God was termed to speak through dreams, they would be, essentially, indistinguishable phenomena. But then, that flies in the face of the nature of God. I think we can appeal to the traditions/texts themselves to write off certain suggestions. But, this is hte not the point i'm making.
The point i'm making, is that:
Quoting AmadeusD
The only reason to move on from these suggestions and either propose 1) a totally different explanation, for which we do not have evidence; or
2) Increase the above hypotheses in the way you have done (adding divine sourcing) is unreasonable. THe theories, and their exploration, do not require, invoke or hint at the divinity you're adding to it. This isn't even a point about probability (though, given my initial response around using the text to deduce probabilities still stands strong, it could be an additional one). It's about the sheer unreasonableness of just saying "I don't like that; i'll seek a different truth".
I respond in the proceeding way to elicit response, not to give my view, necessarily:
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I do not think it has any repercussions, as I do not believe (and do not believe it reasonable to believe) that it ever happened. How we understand disability is as much an empirical discussion as it is a 'moral' one. What to do about it is another discussion. And here, I would posit, you run into your discomfort and so require a truth other than the following:
"What we do about disabilities and disabled people, such as they are, is something on each individual to find within themselves, and on society to merely represent the former in aggregate".
So, if that's uncomfortable, or looks like it might result in something emotionally difficult for you, you need another 'truth'. That might be one 'revealed to Moses'. But it is a story, like any other. I just don't understand foregoing reason to achieve comfort. I have this aversion to discussion around Psychedelics and their purported effects. May we can come to terms by analogizing..
On the contrary, Scripture (Genesis for sure, possibly Exodus?) does very clearly describe God as communicating through dreams. It is characteristic of the Elohist source (E).
Quoting AmadeusD
I don't need to. If God communicates through dreams he can also communicate through what we'd call hallucinations. I'd wager hallucination is more likely than aliens. Ezekiel surely hallucinated and saw visions.
Quoting AmadeusD
Story doesn't mean false. Neither does myth. It may be embellished. I admit this is where my intuition kicks in. The story, imho, is just too sophisticated to have been written by ancient man inventing something.
There are other ancient accounts of disability -- maybe it is a curse by the gods, or maybe it's just a medical issue to be pitied as the Greeks posited -- but the story of the Hebrew Bible on this one is on a different level. I am referring to Exodus 4, by the way. 4:11 IIRC. God's dealing with Moses's concerns over his speech condition. There's many layers to the dialogue but the God character shows unbelievable compassion and (imho) wisdom towards the issue.
It just gets me wondering. It's like the dialogue is too good to be true. It is superior to any modern treatment of the issue in literature or film that I know of.
Quoting AmadeusD
And what would "reason" tell us? To look within ourselves? :roll:
I don't think you're adequately engaged with this exchange.
This does not say anything, whatever, about the claim quoted. That said, I appreciate what you are saying there and would further that point, to say when it runs into empirical problems, there's no good reason to remain with the Scripture.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Yes. And there's good reason to think Ezekiel was schizophrenic.
This goes directly to my point. There is absolutely no reason to even consider the possibility of 'divine intervention' unless one, arbitrarily, isn't comfortable with the Hebrew Patriarchs being mentally ill, but well-meaning.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Generally, historically speaking, it does. The Bolded is basically what I was trying to tease out. This all boils down to your personal discomfort with something.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Given we have more complex, more morally interesting stories from older periods than the Biblical, I cannot see how its reasonable - which was all I was speaking about/around. Regarding current moral writing, I cannot understand how it's possible this story strikes you with more import than does say Reasons and Persons, or Animal Suffering. Warm fuzzie feelies?
I don't understand how God communicating through dreams "flies in the face" of his nature or "runs into empirical problems." The Bible is our primary reference point for God... unless you've had some personal experience you'd like to share. Genesis informs us that it is in his nature to communicate through dreams.
Quoting AmadeusD
I'm massively impressed by the sophistication of an account of a phenomena/how to frame it.
Quoting AmadeusD
Show me a better literary account of disability than the one presented in Exodus. Also, I would like to know which stories you're referring to. I would figure the Bible is the greatest work of literature... at least western literature, that exists. I know of no better ancient account of disability. Or modern, for that matter.
It doesn't, so that's a reasonable response. But you have (imo, wilfully) misread the point. God communicating in any way that cannot be teased out from an hallucination or dream proper would. God is not taken to be hiding and fucking with us, on any account other than Bill Hicks'. But again, not my main point.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Given the preceding exchanges, this feels like a cop-out. ITs clearly my position that Genesis doesn't inform us of much, if anything. So you're pushing hte rock uphill with this claim. That you rely on Genesis to support that which, elsewhere, is not supported, speaks to my point.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Plenty. But they are drug, or mental-illness-induced for the most part. Also, to my point.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Sure. But the reason to think it has some providence other than a human mind? Your discomfort with the potential that a human mind invented it. Standard. But not reasonable.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
"better" begs the question, by ignoring it. why? Because you are religious and therefore disposed to this opinion. I personally think Enki and Ninmah is a better story.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
This explains a lot, but gives me no reason to think your opinions relies on anything but discomfort with the counterfactual: It is not. It is inconsistent, Morally reprehensible, the source of untold suffering across thousands of years, stokes and encourages division, hatred and violence (which it does - Lets not pick and choose. It does. ), it is extremely badly written in terms of chronology, grammatical consistency, ideological consistency and form.
So, I am disposed to ignore the Bible in lieu of better writing, in your specific type of example. :)
There are all sorts of ways to count the decalogue. It's not even clear there are 10 and only 10.
But, in any event, my reference to the commandments isn't limited to the decalogue. There are 613 Commandments. https://www.jmu.edu/dukehallgallery/exhibitions-past-2018-2019/the-613-mitzvot.shtml
If there were only those 10 rules, we'd all wear garments combining linen and wool like barbarians, violating the rule of shatnez.
That's where you'd find me on Friday night.
I quite enjoyed this story! The lesson is that most disabilities can be accommodated by society and that the disabled can serve a role in realistic proportion with their condition. For instance a man without legs can still be a skilled metalworker. A good lesson although the ending where not even Ninmah can help the very disabled is a little sad. I'd give it B tier. Good - especially for deep antiquity!
In Exodus 4 God deliberately assigns a man with a speech disability the task of talking with the Egyptian head of state and leading a nation. You see, in the Enki and Ninmah account the man with the speech problem would have been assigned a silent profession. But no, not here. God gets infuriated with Moses's insinuation that he should not lead on account of his disability but instead of punishing Moses while burning with anger he helps him by assigning him his brother as an aid. The story not only affirms the dignity of the disabled by affirming that they were created with divine intentionality, but also conveys that those who struggle are not intrinsically barred from certain elite professions like leadership. S tier. Divine revelation.
By the way I am not particularly religious (it's been years since I've attended services), just a reader of books. I just call it as I see it.
Quoting AmadeusD
Even if so, God is the cause of the everything, which includes our thoughts and imagination. I'd settle for "divinely inspired."
Thank you for sharing this story with me.
Enki & Ninmah for those interested (4 minute video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxR8YYId4lE
I have to say, I find absolutely nothing praise worthy in this story. It seems like weirdo childish moralising about things that don't make a huge amount of sense - and works, only in the infantalising context of a pre-school. The underlined, particularly require a certain type of suspension of other faculties I value, to make a lot of. But, this is a religious commitment. I wont have that avenue open, as you do (though, i comment again on that immediately below haha).
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
It is realistic. Some people are disabled. Not differently-abled. The blind cannot be surveyors (the the typical sense - don't get hair-splitty).
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Sure. And i appreciate that. I'm actually probably, for a non-religious person, much more toward valuing religious text than most atheists (though, I am necessarily agnostic. Atheism fits perfectly too and reaches wider). But, I would posit that to come to the conclusions you have, there need be a resistance to, at least some of, the objections leveled at the Bible as a piece of literature. As noted before, I see several extremely obvious and pervasive literary problems with the Bible. It isn't a good work of literature unless it's got some Religious reality to it. IN that sense, its chaotic and self-contradictory tense is actually helping me take it more seriously. If there were not these aspects, it would be clearly the writings of a iron age buffoon.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
So, as noted, the entire basis for your reasoning is avoiding hte possiblity that these facts make the potential reality of God less likely. If the scriptures are trash, why would you continue the belief? But its too hard to lose. So, apparently, the scriptures aren't trash. That seems to be the reasoning. I suppose, I could here ask:
Imagine God is not the source of anything prior to human cognition. It is an invention. THe bible is written by hand of Human, sourced by the Mind of human.
Is it still the perfect piece of Lit?
You're very welcome. I quite enjoy these historical oddities.
"Or they're... talking to themselves" - Metatron
Heh. They nearly got it right
Ok -- I'll add some more context. Moses likely stutters. He is "slow of speech" so it's a reasonable inference to make (and one made by religious tradition, although he could have some form of aphasia possibly). Can a stutterer lead a nation? Take on speaking roles at work? It's a grey zone imo. One could easily conclude that the stutterer ought to navigate himself to silent professions or professions that involve minimal speaking. That would be a fairly typical view.. pragmatic. "Know your place." But such pragmatism is ultimately stifling. And it applies to other conditions as well. I love how empowering the dialogue is. Think about you would deal with a son who stutters chronically. Should he shy away from speaking roles? Leadership positions?
Quoting AmadeusD
It's not always clear where the line is though. Is the stutterer disabled or differently abled? Yes, natural limits exist but we should test them. Strive for better. That is how we uplift. "On Earth as it is in heaven."
Quoting AmadeusD
I would recommend reading it with commentary and consider that most public copies are Christian-biased and problematic translations. I don't know which version you've read. You've read the entire thing? You really didn't like any of it?
Quoting AmadeusD
I certainly don't think scripture is trash. Some are better written than others though. You do know that the English translations are just translations.
Quoting AmadeusD
Still an amazing work of lit. And I do believe it was written by humans.
Not a stutter, but he doesn't seem someone created to lead with his voice.
I think that's a little far, But i'm, generally, with you.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
This seems to be a Universal consideration not derived from, or even best embodied in the Bible. It is probably best embodied in Shamanism. "..From each.." and all that. Your point is not missed, but It is absolutely irrationally bandied imo - but this goes to our 'grey area' elsewhere mentioned.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I would recommend, unless it was his deep desire to speak publicly, to avoid it, yes. It would be odd to think someone incapable of clear, anxiolytical speech, should be encouraged to endure that suffering because it would make someone else feel a bit better about their moral position (this speaks to the other point about disabilities being preclusive in some cases). Mendable, or flexible, or progressive disabilities are a bit different because across time we need differing approaches to the same individual. But, realistic ones at all points. Stuttering, being one. If you need six weeks of speech therapy, apply for the job in six weeks.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
That much is true, but the person with the disability should be encouraged to be realistic and not strive for something ultimately unattainable. Stuttering being a really bad example of the concept is one reason the story isn't great. It's soft as heck, in that regard. Try someone who is heavily dyslexic wanting to be a public record scribe. If you are not capable of adequately reading large amounts of complex text, you are disabled as regards a job that requires it. Nothing moral about it. Facts. But this should be borne out by hte individual. I would think allowing disabled people to choose their own work was morally good, but it allows for the disappointment above - particularly mental disabilities. You're talking about eccentricities, so far. And no one in Heaven is disabled.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
In multiple versions, multiple times since the age of 7 when I first attended a few Sunday School sessions with friend's families. I tend to take commentaries more seriously - These are the people who claim to use the book. They are the ones I care about hte actions of. Not the fictitious weirdos in the book.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
Agreed. Do you ream Aramaic, or ancient Greek? Demotic? I've never seen a version, translated by anyone, that wasn't liable to the same criticisms.
Quoting BitconnectCarlos
I see.
Well, like I said, the God of Abraham is more "jealous" than the pagan gods, but you are inferring from this that Abrahamic religions necessarily impose their God/religion on everyone else, which is theologically and historically false, although there were certain circumstances in which forced conversions occurred.
Quoting Ciceronianus
Hypatia's death was largely politically motivated, as almost always holds in these cases. Religion and culture go hand in hand, and therefore political leaders have a vested interest in a unified religious/cultural landscape. The Roman executions of Christians were also politically motivated in this way.
See: Hypatia: Myths and History
Also, the Nazi party never stopped campaigning. It went to the rural areas and questioned people about what made them angry and then their speakers used this gathered information as subjects of speeches. They rented large buildings for these speeches and at times, used entertainment to attract people.
This follows Christianity and the Prussian control of education that kept education focused on technology for industrial and military purposes. I think we underestimate the power of public education and the importance of culture. This brings me to the subject of the Protestant opposition to the Catholics having control of the US. This is a power and authority issue and nothing is more powerful at any time in history than what people believe is the "power and glory" of God. (Bush jr. and the invasion of Iraq to oppose evil.) We adopted everything German that we opposed in world wars. This blend of controlling education and setting its priority on preparing for war, and then the politics, and religion that go with this superpower. We are Nazi Germany (Holy Roman Empire) on steroids and it is awful that the Christians do not see this. Is there any chance of raising their awareness?
You bring up awareness of what technology has to do with the problem. The Evangelical preachers with modern media have a huge advantage compared to the Nazi party doing surveys and then renting a dance hall to rile up support for the Nazi party.
I think you are right. But we can not be sure without a good fight. By that, I mean making a strong effort to raise awareness. This may not change the minds of strong believers but it may build the strength to oppose this threatening tragedy.
Then comes the prediction of a Blood Bath. :chin: Our history is a history of blood baths that we learned about when Protestant-controlled schools taught the young about the Holy Wars and Chruch. We know during the US civil war both sides claimed God was on their side. I think we should take the threat of a blood bath seriously, and throw all our energy into raising awareness of history and why the US broke away from Christian Europe and created a New Social Order.
In the book "Preparing for War" the author mentions how the belief that we are in the last days plays into this coming Holy War. What can we do to raise awareness?
Yes.
Quoting Athena
Despite modern media, religion has been in steady decline in the US for decades now.
Well, thank you.
But the "we" might indicate a certain parochial nature in this thread. I am not a 'mercan.
Dow nunder, we have had a fair run of atheist Prime Ministers, back at least to Whitlam in the early seventies. Only three PM's since then have been overtly Christian, Rudd, Abbott(ed.) and Morrison. Indeed too much of a display of religiosity will count as much against a politician as in their favour. Outright evangelism is a political death sentence.
My suspicion, and it might be interesting to gather information on this, is that Overt Christianity in democratic political figures is a curiously 'mercan trait. In more democratic countries folk are not much interested in the religious virtues of their politicians. Other things far outweigh them.
There is a tone of 'Mercan chauvinism in your posts. But your democracy is broken by far more than a touch of religious thinking.
Christianity is rarely mentioned, even if when it actually is important to the person (Judith Collins over here is a good example. Most mentions of her faith were by the opposed media).
I had you pegged as an Englishman. :gasp:
Quoting Banno
Not Abbott?
A couple of generations back, yes, amongst other things.
Quoting Leontiskos
Ooo I stand corrected. I was looking after my mental health by forgetting the onion eating dropkick ever existed.
Now I'm curious. Did you move to Australia a couple of generations ago, or did your ancestors merely live in England? I'd love to be half-right.
Quoting Banno
:grin:
Ah well. I'm just a lawyer who reads a lot, but I have a blog as well.
Please explain. Do you mean you think that I think the democracy in the US is superior to all other nations? If so why do you think that?
I so envy Europeans who in my opinion have a much better sense of democracy than Americans, and on the internet, I met a Syrian Professor who was amazing in his knowledge of democracy as it came from Greek philosophy and through the history of that region. Maybe we can establish some talking points?
No one saw democracy in the Bible until there was literacy in Greek and Roman classics. That literature is essential to defending democracy and Americans stopped transmitting a culture based on that literature when liberal education in grade schools was replaced with education for technology and moral training was left up to the Church. God has not chosen Trump to be our leader. But evangelicals believe Trump is God's choice. These people have a lot of power.
I am, trying to keep the focus on the subject of the thread. This is a matter of power and authority and the abuse of religion. In America Protestants were thrilled with science that was part of the break from Catholicism. Now they believe telling people to wear masks, wash their hands, and get vaccinated is a conspiracy of the government that did those things to have control over us, not because science says that is the best way to deal with a pandic. What is happening here, happened in Germany only today it is rural Evangelical Christians causing the problem not Nazis. The Evangicals can get the upper hand because of mass ignorance and emotional appeal, just as Nazis were able to win by being emotionally appealing to rural people with a strong belief that God is in control and evil is real like Satan and devils.
This doesn't bother me. It means they're trying to do what's right. That's not my assumption, it's in the historical record. Since the early 20th Century, American presidents have tried to be do-gooders. I'm not really sure about European leaders. I wonder if they have as little moral compass as the Europeans I've seen on line.
I take it that your topic is the apparent turn against democratic values, and to that end you are asking about conservative Christianity. While not solely restricted to the USA, a resurgence of Christianity is not a major feature of the almost ubiquitous turn towards autocracy.
Democracy is underpinned by a liberal system of values. that system was distorted to individualism and greed in the Seventies, and has been exposed to oligarchic alternatives with the opening of trade and travel since then. Libertarian absurdities abound, community institutions are underfunded, the common wealth has been striped to feed private wealth.
That is, there is more going on than is to be seen in the rise of conservative Christianity in the US.
Correlations are the bane of good analysis.
Quoting Ciceronianus
I am not disagreeing. However, doesn't this apply, even if to varying degrees to: Communists, Capitalists, Racial Supremacists, Certain groups of Academics and Scholars, etc. Note also that while historically, the same might not have applied to "Hinduism," but the Hinduism of Modi?
I'm pretty sure I understand your point, but because I especially like this "free miracle," isolated as the common element, what would this free miracle be for institutions other than Abrahamic religions?
Capitalism is based on a 'free miracle' in reasoning, that profit is the (couched in their terms) objective goal of Business practices. From there, Capitalism is almost inarguably 'good'.
Similar for the inverse for Socialists etc... There's nothing that supports the idea that equal treatment is 'correct' or equal ownership or whatever. It's just the miracle they use to support the subsequent, hard-to-defeat arguments.
Morally, the premise that 'happiness' must be attained within a theory for it to be Plausible is a common refrain from moralists. It's one I find to be pretty question-begging.
But below especially, intriguing but I am not fully confident I understand: "within a theory"?
Quoting AmadeusD
I mean to say that, Parfit and others claim that any plausible Moral theory, must have, contained in it, an aim toward the happiness of sentient beings. I think this begs the question. They assume morality relates to the increasing happiness (and then, weirdly, reject S-theory and Hedonism...)
Ok!
Yes, I agree with you.
Look, I know this won't sound sincere, an inherent dysfunction in forum etc, but this information you've provided has been very helpful to me, augmenting. Thank you.
And, yes to the "weirdly" reject Hedonism. S-theory, I will look up.
It would depend, I suppose, on whether they maintain that what they believe or know was revealed to them by something equivalent by to the one, true, all-knowing God who created the universe.
What about the book "Immoderate Greatness> Why Civilizations Fall" Might this book be worth buying?
I am reading and rereading what you said and that brings me to a second thought. Around 1835 Tocqueville wrote "Democracy in America" and he warned because of Christianity, Christian democraies would become despots.
Quoting Wikipedia
"habits of the heart" come through education and the US replaced its liberal education with education for technology and left moral training to the church in 1958. The US added training for technology to education in 1917 for military and industrial reasons but it kept its education for citizenship as a priority until the 1958 National Defense Education Act.
Because of forum communication, this change seems to be universal, even in third-world countries. So the only question would be how might things have been different before leaving moral training to the Church? How has technology birthed a backlash against science? What might the New World Order have to do with destroying family order?
I am out of time but want to say all this is very complex and it is my hope when have a good understanding of the complexity, we will gain power and avoid disaster. A lot is going on here beginning with evolution gave us some thinking power but enough to manage without a strong way to work together.
Your posts show this not to be the case.
There are well known problems with historicism. That civilisations collapse is a Western notion, an expectation that we must reenact the fall of Rome. The collapse of the British Empire was felt keenly in the decline of Great Britain. It did not bring with it social collapse in Australia, Canada, India, and Africa, these nations seeing it instead mostly as an opportunity. The end of the 'mercan hegemony will similarly have the greatest impact inside that nation.
Notice the contradiction in "Soft despotism gives people the illusion that they are in control, when in fact they have very little influence over their government. Soft despotism breeds fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the general populace." Does soft despotism give the illusion of control or induce fear?
Sure, there were mistakes made in education, as there were in health, economics, International relations. None of these are determinative of the course of history.
Perhaps the problem is a turning against 'merca's own expression of liberal values. Or were they ever broadly understood?
Consider the words of H.L. Mencken "The Sage of Baltimore":
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
Mencken was a great critic of American democracy, such as it was in his time, and still is. He was a prescient man, who also wrote:
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
If God speaks to someone at all, that person is presented with two different questions, was it God and what is this God trying to say. If you look only at the question was it God, no one will ever know, because no one can prove the separate existence of any phenomena.
But what if the only evidence there could be that it was God speaking was the content of what was said? Because of what God said, the person sees something new, something new to them. Then they might think, this dream couldnt have come from me because I could not have understood that, yet I understand something new now because of what was said. Like because of what was said, because of what the dream did to you, you would bother to wonder if it was God, and so you had your evidence in the very content of whatever was making you wonder.
Doesnt mean it might not still be a hallucination or just a dream, or a fantasy wish, but if what was said really meant something, and hit home to you, and it was new, you might have to wonder about God.
I suppose it depends on a person's conception of God, but it is unclear to me why God would have difficulty in articulating what he has to say.
Fair question. I maybe shouldnt have said questions. Someone has a dream of God or sees a burning bush and hears a voice - that is one whole thing to talk about. Then the voice says something - those words are another whole thing to talk about. Im saying the words might mean more to someone about these being words from God than the fact that a bush was burning and talking, or the fact that it happened in a dream.
Sis, it is not an emergency. There are always enough competing selfish interests to balance things out.
It's worth checking out for people interested in this topic.
I think our economies are intertwined and the fall of the US would strongly impact other economies and possibly technological advancement as well. Which other country could maintain the satellites and earth studies? I expect China to become a technological leader but it is taking longer than I expected. Japan is very impressive but it is too small to have the economy for space projects. Again I am not confident of what I think but it sure is fun making the effort to think. What if the world united to save our planet and advance technology for the good of the whole world. :groan: That is not going to happen with religion or leaders like Trump because religion relies on a god not the potential of humanity. The religious still have not adjusted to reality of what we have done to feed the world, keep the young and old alive with medicine, improve life on earth with clean water and in-door plumbing, etc.. We have over come evils with science but the religious folks don't see it as what we have done with our desire and effort.
I am watching college lectures about the rise and fall of South American civilizations and they also lived with a prediction of doom. I am thinking, their expectation of doom caused their doom just as it could cause ours. Whoopy, we could be entering a world war and prove all the religious people right about the will of God is to destroy us just it destroyed Mayans and Aztecs who walked away from the great cities.
What a delicious question about despots!!! How do we organize ourselves so the Government can do what Government has to do? The answer may not be that easy. I kind of what to stick with the subject of the thread so I will point out that the organization problem was a big problem for the Church. The Church had to rely on kings to take care of worldly matters. In the competition for power and authority, some kings aligned themselves with the Church to legitimize their claim to power and authority. Then the Church loses the struggle for power and Protestants are broken up seats of power that in the US is no power at all without the blessing of the Government. :lol:
This gets even messier because when Franklin Roosevelt came to power he with the help of Hoover adopted the Prussian model that is Prussian military bureaucracy applied to the masses. This is a huge shift if power and authority away from the people, and the people in the US are clueless. They have no idea that this happened and the are virtually powerless because they are so ignorant of the bureaucratic change and what it has to do with them.
Hum, why would say education does not influence the flow of history? :gasp: How did you come to that notion?
Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man. Aristotle
"Give us a child till he's 7 and we'll have him for life." a Jesuit
"Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted."
Vladimir Lenin
Every nation prepares its young for life, just as tribal people did with storytelling and rituals. The word "civilize" means to make another one of us. In some ways, this is even more important in a nation dependent on technology. The US has forgotten what education has to do with being civilized and it may self-destruct as culture wars tear us apart. We began preparing our young to be products for industry. Immigrants who have not had this preparation are not of much value. For military and industrial reasons our children must be prepared as we are doing it but this is not the culture we once had that made us strong in wars.
Oh yes, our liberal values were understood, but the meaning was not shared. In different degrees none Whites were excluded from the benefits of our nation, and most White people saw discrimination and exploitation of the powerless their right. Oh, oh, oh, this has so much to do with the change in our bureaucratic order but now I put so many points into this thread it has lost its coherence. My grandmother walked away from a teaching job when the Principle interfered with her authority in the classroom and today we are seeing teachers, nurses, and doctors walk away from the corporate control of them. Today's reality is not the one I grew up with, where women accepted low pay or did things for no pay because they believed what they were doing was the right thing to do and very meaningful. Our liberty is tied to a sense of dignity and self-worth. We have destroyed that.
Reading these posts and thinking about them often is an enlightening experience. I am holding a new concept or get a deeper meaning of a concept and then wonder why it took me so long to realize it before. When we old we have a much broader perspective. We may have trouble learning facts, but our ability to understand meanings increases.
However, if Einstien were to speak to me about math concepts, I am quite sure I would not understand him. If God spoke to me, he would have to make it very simple. It worries me when someone thinks s/he can know the word of God and God's will. I don't think things work that way.
Thank you. He seems well-informed and pleasantly rational. He says it as it is without emotionalism. I think he is right up there with Walter Cronkite. :up:
Hum, I should never post when In a rush. My post was missing a lot of words. But to get back on subject, I don't think selfish interest are much good compared to having a good understanding of what is so and why.
"Unless we're motivated by principle in our voting, we walk into a mirrored echo chamber, where there's no coherence," Kucinich
Why would it matter "what God had to say" if you aren't even sure it was God? Seems backward...
Quoting Fire Ologist
Yep, but they are almost certainly wrong.
Quoting Fire Ologist
This is Akin to saying seeing a UFO could constitute evidence of a particular Alien race. That's kind of absurd, don't you think?
Quoting Fire Ologist
I think if this is your reaction to novel forms of thought or conceptualisation, your first port of call might need to be a different kind of confidant than the Church.
The US does not have a monopoly even here.
The decline of democracy in the US will have much less of an impact on us than you might suppose.
The United states likes to think of itself one of the strongest democracies. But it does not rank with Europe, Canada and Australia, as much as with India, Brazil and Indonesia.
What if what was said was exactly what the person needed to hear and the person didnt even know they needed to hear it? Like in the movie the Sixth Sense when the kid says grandma said everyday and the kid didnt know yet what the meaning was and the mom wasnt ever expecting an answer. The words become more important than how on earth the kid knew to say them.
No big deal here but Im just saying that the content of the message might have more of an impact than the delivery in a burning bush or whatever.
This doesn't seem to touch my question. I have often had this experience and never once even considered that it could be 'God'.
Defocalisation/derealisation/depersonalisation/drug use is a well-known tool for insight. Many people claim that they themselves are God, or that Eric Clapton is God, after undergoing such experiences as much as people receive genuinely helpful insight into their well-being or place in the world (or some such else as would be important to a given S). Simply spacing out having given you the impression of an omniscient all-pervading, personal force of Creation is... odd**.
Quoting Fire Ologist
I would hazard a guess that a religious person would think this, as communication with the dead isn't off the table (and, in fact, is somewhat sought after!). For a Hard Atheist, I cannot imagine giving a toss about the content more than that it had happened. The implications of the latter are immense in comparison to the first. I could also charge one who actually responded the way you seem to imply, as being perspectivally ignorant. The latter matters for everyone. The former only matters to you and yours.
But, this just speaks to biases.** The religious v the irreligious. Only cases such as Francis Collins give me pause here, and it is pause to consider what type of mental facilities are required for being a decent scientist. Gullibility seems to be involved..
I thought it did. But if God doesn't blip the radar, I get it.
Quoting AmadeusD
Always a possibility. Anytime we listen to anyone else's words we are in jeopardy. Especially if it involved a talking bush.
This has nothing to do with the topic of this thread but here is information about the space efforts made by all the nations. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-space-programs
It was the USSR that was the first to enter space. The Sputnik launch changed everything!!! That is one of my most passionate arguments because it is what resulted in the 1958 National Defense Education Act that replaced US liberal education with education for technology. https://www.nasa.gov/history/sputnik/index.html
Also if you follow my arguments, I credit the Prussians and Hilter's Germany for where the USA is today. Had it not been for the Prussian bureaucratic order and WWII and the USSR developing a nuclear weapon and a satellite that circled earth, the USA would not be the country it is today. Like if you and others want to argue with me about perceived US elitism, I am willing but that should be a different thread. I don't think my arguments are the arguments you expect from a US citizen.
Yeah, i think you've intuited how i'd explain that response.
The issue is what reason would that person have to invoke God? I can see none.
Quoting Fire Ologist
:lol:
I will try to make my point again just to see if I can make it. This doesnt have to be about God until the end of the basic point. We can only come to God (or in the case of the Sixth Sense grandma) by something fabricated out of thin air. I admit that. But if I make my point, you might see how one might find a reason to give the experience over to a God.
A person is walking down the street on a bright sunny day and they hear thunder and lightening and the sky fills with grey clouds and a thunderous voice says .
Ok stop. Some people might say this is God surely - clouds cant do that and thunder cant appear like that and voices cant be loud like that . That must be God. But the rational person would say, there is a such thing voice amplification and modulation, and strange weather, and this may all be scientifically explained.
But the rest of the story has to include and a thunderous voice said (for instance) this is my beloved Son, listen to him.
And the person who was stopped in his tracks by this can also consider those words. Forget the voice and the thunder. Instead of wondering how the thunder and booming voice happened, the person might remember just yesterday thinking how he wasnt sure who to listen to if anyone was worth listening to at all, and though he liked the Son, the Son could be confusing and he was doubtful about how good the Sons really was, and as he remembers his doubts lightening strikes again
And the person realizes no one knew he was doubting anything. No one knew he was looking for someone to listen to. He never told anyone he had any opinion about the Son at all. It was as if the voice knew just what to say, precisely in a way that the person could know something new, maybe even change his life (hopefully for the better).
So my point was there may be more reason to think a burning bush was an impossible miracle of God, not because the bush burned but wasnt burned, but because of the words that were communicated. Something, to that person (not you, I dont know what words might give you pause, because Im not God), something to that person brought awe and fear and inspiration and power, something overwhelming making one willing to say God, just because of the words spoken.
Ok, Cool.
Quoting Fire Ologist
I reject that. Someone's incredulity, or lack of knowledge isn't a reason to come to a rash conclusion. Novel situations don't, in the vast majority of cases, Have people invoking concepts they don't understand. Even less so, 'God'. I note you said this wasn't required. But what else is someone going to invoke? If they don't know what God is, in the Testamentary sense, there shouldn't be any way to invoke it.
Quoting Fire Ologist
This is putting me in mind of some film I've seen wherein there's a character capable of saying to someone exactly what they need to hear, at exactly the right time to change their mind. It's not the Adjustment Bureau - its something where this aspect is part of the plot but I think it might include time travel? Ah, I wish i could remember. It was recent, and smacks of Nolan. *sigh*.
See now, what if tomorrow, you are walking down the street and clouds overtake the sky with thunder and a voice says AmadeusD, the movie was and he knew the movie. Still totally reject it? No chance the clouds might be a miracle?
Sorry I dont know the movie. Still cant play God for you.
How about this.... You are speaking of a mythology and not about a god. Do you have anything to say of the concept of "god" that is not dependent on the God of Abraham mythology?
'God' could be anything, including some type of Pagan Gaia-ism. The concept of God isn't that wide, really.
I still all cop-outs on my view, though. Doesn't really matter what goes there unless it's an empirical description of what actually caused the event.
Yes, Im not speaking about any particular mythology, or even necessarily God. (I did use dead grandma to make the same point.) Im saying if there was any unexplainable physical event someone experienced (maybe unexplained because they were stupid), but unexplained by all reason they can muster, AND, that fantastical miracle forced into their face came with words and a message, AND those words showed a meaning to that person that was bigger than they knew before - then they might say no wonder the bush didnt burn, or the phoenix rose from the ashes. Something even more than all of this happened here. I am now included in this new meaning, by hearing this new message.
You dont have to say more here. The point is made. Amadeus gets it and rejects it.
I do think Id need a pretty big, crazy miracle, with some trusted witnesses around maybe to compare notes, before I delved to deeply into the message. But Im just guessing how Id be listening to a sprit or something.
This argument might do better in a different thread. What exactly is the experience? Words can be "heard" but they do not "show" meaning.
Any sense of meaning comes from the thoughts of the person hearing the words. We are observing animals and attempting to explain the meaning of the noises they make. Only after we have ascribed meaning to the sound do we know the meaning of the sound. Otherwise, the meaning is not implicit in the sound.
If someone believes a burning bush and a loud voice means a god is present, that meaning is based on what that person believes. In other words, you have to believe in gods and that gods do such things, before you can think that is the meaning of the moment.
Nonbelievers just can not believe such stories. If I had an experience like that, I might look for aliens but not a god.