I am a subscriber to this magazine but usually find the humor in the cartoons to be too dry and elusive for me. But this is a good one.
Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
I am a subscriber to this magazine but usually find the humor in the cartoons to be too dry and elusive for me. But this is a good one.
Now I get why YHWH did not like ‘graven images’!
https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Exodus%2020%3A4-6
Before I read the caption, I thought it was a drawing of an unevolved Charles Darwin.
It looks like one of those cartoons that was drawn for their regular “add the best caption and win a prize!” contests. So that means the only Ne Yorker cartoon you ever laughed at was one they’d crowdsourced.
@2- I agree that the drawing is too Darwin-like.
Funny indeed. I thought of a Darwin portrait also. But then again, being woke, going along with the times, I protest the binary presentation of modern humanity.
“make man in our image, after our likeness”
So, txpiper, does Dog have a penis or a vagina?
(I guess it has both)
Which is a shame; no other gods with whom to fuck.
(I guess it fucks itself)
I see a Russian Orthodox Monk wearing a Fred Flintstone costume. The cartoon reminds me of the Xtian humor found in Readers Digest.
It’s a saltine of a joke. Dry, bland, and pale.
“We” made man in our image (later on “We” made woman separately as an unclean sex toy and puching bag for man).
“We” are schizophrenic.
“We” are a pantheon.
Or my pick is that “We” a mysogynised version of the primal coupling, the female of which was considered dirty and wicked by weak-minded men so wiped out of the narrative.
If “We” made man in our image, “We” is therefore a weak-minded mysogynistic arsehole.
“We” make humanity sick in the head. If we are an image of “We”, “We” is sick in the head too.
Dog just fuck us over (by changing their rules over and over again). The sooner we say fuck off to “We” the better off we will be.
And the cartoon is wrong anyway. Dog should not be clothed or carrying a weapon.
tuatara, you might look into why the Ivy League and other colleges in the US were founded, and who the founders were. And while you’re at it, do the same with hospitals like Methodist, Baylor, St. Lukes, Providence, Mt. Sinai, Presbyterian, Mercy, Beth Israel, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic.
Also, I’m pretty confident that most hospitals have people on staff equipped to deal with emotional disturbances.
@txpiper:
If man and woman were made in the image of God, then the image of God contains both male and female. Thus, God is nonbinary in gender. So transpersons and those who are nonbinary in gender are more similar to God than those who are binary-gendered, nontransgender, or cisgender, whichever term you prefer.
Owlmirror
“If man and woman were made in the image of God, then the image of God contains both male and female.”
.
image = ṣelem
צֶלֶם tselem, tseh’-lem; from an unused root meaning to shade; a phantom, i.e. (figuratively) illusion, resemblance; hence, a representative figure, especially an idol:—image, vain shew.
likeness = dᵊmûṯ
דְּמוּת dᵉmûwth, dem-ooth’; from H1819; resemblance; concretely, model, shape; adverbially, like:—fashion, like (-ness, as), manner, similitude.
Neither word means duplication, and authentic Christians are not going to agree with your rationale. But there are lots of apostate churches around that will lap that right up.
…authentic Christians are not going to agree with your rationale. But there are lots of apostate churches around that will lap that right up.
Yep, where “authentic Christians” are the ones who agree with your fantasy, and “apostate churches” are all other Christians.
And of course every Christian sect call themselves “authentic” and call each other “apostates.” And every Christian sect has the same amount of evidence proving they’re the “authentic” ones…
tuatara, you might look into why the Ivy League and other colleges in the US were founded…
txpipsqueak, you might try to explain why that’s relevant.
@txpiper:
Who said either of them did? My argument certainly doesn’t require that either of them does.
It’s amusing that all you have is this ludicrous and irrelevant red herring, not an actual rational counterargument.
Since my rationale is based on the text of the bible, anyone who disagrees is disagreeing with the text of the bible. But then, people who claim to follow the bible have been disagreeing with the text of the bible for thousands of years, so that’s hardly new.
“Since my rationale is based on the text of the bible, anyone who disagrees is disagreeing with the text of the bible.”
.
Yes. We anticipate abuse:
“…which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.”
Elohim is plural, though in later Hebrew it evolves into a dative 3rd person singular. It is the royal we of her majesty.
Thus we will make humans in our image.
In ancient days the three Magi came across Ask and Embla, driftwood lying on the strand.
Senses they lacked, and fate-less. The gods gave them three gifts.
So it is written.
@txpiper:
Or you perpetuate abuse, and accuse those who are right, logical, and correct of abuse. (DARVO)
Really, you have no other counterargument?
“Really, you have no other counterargument?”
.
No. There are plenty of people who would probably like to discuss your conclusion with you, but I’m not one of them.
txpiper, I have no idea why I you think my looking into the foundation of those institutions is at all relevent to my disdain for stupid xians such as you. Unless it is some oblique insult at my lack of tertiary education. If so, you can fuck off.
Education and intelligence are two different things. You are obviously better educated than I, yet that didn’t help you to rise out of the bullshit soup you were obviously raised in. I pity you and people like you for that awful indoctrination you received. But I also despise you for clinging to it.
You are so immersed in the woowoo that you not only fail to consider but it is evident you also actively refuse to consider that your sacred text was written by men who were driven to do so by a political agenda, with the new testament more politically driven than the old.
History clearly shows us that in old testament times kings and priests were considered gods. You are therefore correct that your sacred text is the word of your god but you fail to ask the fundamental question of who your god was. You therefore fail the test of rationality and bcause you fail that test you are in no position to question the results of rational thought.
I am not emotionally disturbed. I just hate your stupid myth because it was fundamental in the genocide and dispossession of my people.
And I am starting to strongly dislike you too so fuck off.
@ tuatura
I disagree that txdrip is educated. I think he is just a loud mouthed plumber, repeating nonsense to get attention. I assume nobody likes him in person anymore than anyone here appreciates his vomiting creationist lies all over the place.
I won’t ever understand why the extra stupid assholes Xtians are obsessed with bothering the nice people by proselytizing. Pompous windbag.
“it was fundamental in the genocide and dispossession of my people”
.
I don’t know who your people are, or when the genocide and dispossession occurred. But you should be able to appraise those things in evolutionary terms. In the US, we have all kinds of invasive species like fire ants, African bees, kudzu, water hyacinth, etc.. They thrive here, but they displace native species. It is just winners and losers in the mutations lottery duking it out. Survival of the fittest. Classic natural selection. Don’t let your indignation blind you to the fact that humans are just another species, no more valuable than termites.
#21 tuatara
I don’t know his level of education, but we can certainly rule out quite a few fields. Anything that contradicts the extremely short timeline of his sect is out, so there goes biology, geology, astronomy, large chunks of physics, paleontology, anthropology, and history. I’d also rule out philosophy from the low quality of his arguments and the lopsidedness he shows in evaluating premises. As a prime example of poor reasoning, there he goes in #23, conflating evolution with eugenics.
Whitesplaining is truly repugnant.
I don’t know who your people are,…
I’m completely ignorant, but let me justify racism, colonialism and genocide for sadistic giggles!
Mano, I know you don’t like banning people, but perhaps you could draw the line at racist abuse?
In case you hadn’t noticed, txpiper, this whole post is mocking your childish beliefs.
Who my people are is irrelevant. Dispossession and genocide of indigenous peoples in the “new world” (lol) had nothing to do with evolution, but it did have a lot to do with religion -- specifically your beloved christi-insanity.
I suggest you discover the lands that comprise the continent of your own history, starting with the Doctrine of Discovery.
And…
You may not know (or evidently even care) who indigenous people are, but we know who yours are.
txpiper attempts to be patronising while exhibiting ignorance:
Way to evince a total misunderstanding of the whole concept of evolution.
See, invasive species like fire ants, African bees, kudzu, water hyacinth, etc. are *different species*. Colonisation and genocide are not different species.
(Those “invasive species”, BTW, are a form of artificial selection; they are brought in due to human activity)
—
I’m pretty sure such as txpiper have sucked at the teat of Social Darwinism, which is a ridiculous misapplication of the concept.
(That’s not how it works! There’s competition, but there is also cooperation… and symbiosis and other things. Biology is complicated)
tuatara, that’s almost subtle.
In olden days, there was less subtlety; cf. Dum Diversas.
Oh yeah, for anyone who is unfamiliar with the nym: tuatara.
(I knew that)
I didn’t justify anything, Tethys.
Darwin saw primates as four evolutionary tiers, and anticipated that the two in the middle would be eliminated:
.
“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”
The Descent of Man
=
Darwin’s assessment, and the search for missing evolutionary links, is what led to grotesque stuff like this:
In 1904, several Pygmies were brought to live in the anthropology exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair
“The pygmy exhibit was immediately controversial. In addition to what we would call a natural aversion to locking up a person as a zoo exhibit, some Christian ministers objected to the “demonstration of the Darwinian theory of evolution.” (And, yes, I think it’s sad that we’re still arguing about evolution a century later, even though now at least we know that pygmies aren’t a “missing link.”)”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-tragic-tale-of-the-pygmy-in-the-zoo-2787905/
=
Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia, “is the ancestral home of the Larrakia people. On 9 September 1839, HMS Beagle sailed into Darwin Harbour during its survey of the area. John Clements Wickham named the region “Port Darwin” in honour of their former shipmate Charles Darwin, who had sailed with them on the ship’s previous voyage.”
Heh. Yes, back in the mid nineteenth century, Darwin published the insight which has led to the fundamental understanding of modern biology and ecology, but he — and get this — only had access to the knowledge available at the time.
Of course, it’s a desperate red herring. Quite irrelevant to the knowledge-base built up worldwide in the many succeeding generations since his day.
Darwin’s conjectures about civilisation and races back in the day have nothing to do with the biological reality of 2022. Perhaps it was coloured by the well-underway process of subjugation and rapine (“colonisation”) he saw happening during his travels.
No such thing as a genomic analysis back then. Not even the idea of DNA.
It’s a bit like the fundamental theorem of calculus, except for biology instead of math.
(I know, I know. You think scientists think of Darwin as the equivalent of one of your “prophets”, and that the biological sciences have not advanced in the nearly two centuries since)
I wonder if tx is even aware that modern biologists disagree with Darwin on multiple points. Creationists so far all seem to think biology marches to the beat of a 150 year old drum, and research stood still for all that time. I seem to remember Darwin recanting various things said about races, too.
The issue is not what biologists think now. It is the mentality behind the things that tuatara is upset about. Darwinism, a religion that claims that humans are just animals, has been wildly successful.
LOL.
Yes, much lie Geocentrism, a religion that claims that Earth goes around the sun, has been wildly successful.
I love it, that shallow religionists try to impugn scientific ideas by labeling them as “religion”. Really, it could hardly be more ironic.
(What about Einstenism? Newtonism?)
[or was that Heliocentrism? All these sects in science… 🙂 ]
In the US, we have all kinds of invasive species.
Sort of how the creationist has a compulsion to invade every thread and proceed to make every discussion about himself?
Or how a bunch of racist sexist Xtian fundamentalists have infested the GOP right into blatant fascism?
I’m really looking forward to the orange bigot and friends getting indicted for their multiple crimes against American democracy. . Should do wonders to drive the xtian cockroaches out of mainstream society, and back down their sewers, where they belong.
txpiper.
Darwin lived centuries after the xian church “legalised” dispossession and genocide. His time and place were informed by those xian bigotries because they were all canonised into international law by that time. The USA itself was actually founded on those legalised bigotries before Darwin was even born you fucking muppet, as was the colony of New South Wales which grew to be called Australia.
Bigots (christofascists like you) later used the ideas of evolution to justify their inhuman treatment of “other” people in the 19th and 20th century (and you still would in 21st century christofascist texas given the slightest encouragement).
Can you not see that?
Oh wait……
….no…. actually, no. You really can’t. You think everyone lives in a time-vacuum because you are a myopic simpleton. Look around you at your time and place, then look in the mirror, you bell end.
History, mate, actually happens outside the fucking bible.
As for the tuatara, my nymsake. If complexity is the measure of gods creation, the tuatara is far above humans.
From the link kindly provided by John Morales above (thanks John).
So it tis written.
But you should be able to appraise those things in evolutionary terms…
Yeah, sure, let’s talk about one thing you’re too stupid to understand in terms of a totally unrelated thing you’re also too stupid to understand.
Your lame attempt to recycle that tired old blither-point linking Darwin to racism is noted, and dismissed. Don’t you creationists have any talking-points less than twenty years old to recycle?
Anyway.
Primitive god of primitive people.
(That’s the joke)
Oh, c’mon, txpiper. What for you slink away?
#Engage!
@6:
“Our” image.
“Our” likeness.
Either the speaker is a collective, or an individual.
If it’s a collective, it is a mistaken use of language.
If it’s a singular entity, it’s the “royal we”.
Care to clarify?
(After all, the Babble is quite literal for such as you, no?)
—
I think the chewtoy is done. Shame, I’m still chompy.
PS make man does not mean make woman.
(So, quite literally, Dog has a dick.
And, presumably, it has lopped the foreskin off its dick, as per the Covenant)
—
Ah yes, Babble. I know it.
” “Our” image.
“Our” likeness.
Either the speaker is a collective, or an individual.
Care to clarify?”
.
The school of thought I subscribe to accepts “Our image..Our likeness” as a reference to triunity. The first created man/woman were trichotomous beings; soul, body and spirit, and as such were, respectively, reflections of the Father, Son and Spirit. The fall killed the spirit element, and every person who descended from Adam is spiritually dead. Being “born again” restores that lost dimension. An unregenerate, dichotomous natural person is incomplete and incompatible.
That’s probably more than you can stand.
txpiper, good on ya, for coming back. Thought you’d broken already.
A reference to some abstract correspondence via an allegory is the opposite of a literal reading.
One would have thought if that was what was intended to be meant, then that’s what would have been written. But then, I tend to be a literal person.
For example, if I read the words ‘father’ and ‘son’, I think of an actual father and an actual son, not of soul and of body.
So sure, I get you think it’s not a literal truth, it’s a hidden truth that needs to be explained away via exegesis.
(FWIW, I was brought up Catholic, and their explanation is similarly abstract, though different)
“One would have thought if that was what was intended to be meant, then that’s what would have been written.”
.
One, like myself, might even wish that it always worked like that. But it doesn’t. Some things are surmised. It is the same with prophecy.
Thing is, different versions of Christianity, different surmises. Same with prophecy.
But science can’t use surmises, right? Not how it works.
Anyway, thanks. You’ve been quite informative about your belief structure and epistemology.
txpiper
txpiper
So, you are happy to re-interpret a 4,000 year old book using new data (lol) found in a 2,000 year old book, but criticize those that accept the modern theory of evolution for making inferences from physical evidence, and accuse it of being unscientific if it changes due to the discovery of new data.
Hahahaha. Good one. This sure is more than I can stand. You are killing me.
I will put this out again……
Of Cloths they had not the least part but naked as ever our general father was before his fall, they seemd no more conscious of their nakedness than if they had not been the children of Parents who eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
…because they weren’t. The fall is simply a myth, but a myth with which your religion has dragged the rest of us down.
The Fall is quite the nasty myth; Genesis 1-3 is the source.
Basically, Adam and Eve sinned, and were cast out.
And every human descended from them suffers the punishment for their actions.
(Then they had children and populated the earth… which means exactly what one would think it means: lots and lots of incest)
Contrast with Ezekiel:
But hey, it makes sense to set the tone right away.
Obey unquestioningly, or suffer.
Lots of theology on the subject, but that’s what it boils down to.
“every human descended from them suffers the punishment for their actions”
.
Only One did that.
General condemnation, general atonement
I’m very familiar with the tangled claims.
What you call “the fall” is what Catholics call “original sin”.
The setup is this: everyone is doomed to perpetual excruciation forever more after death by default, but after that marvelous incident where God kills his son who is Himself but then unkills Him, *now* if they convert to [some particular sect] and commit to and practice utter and perpetual obedience and submission to [some interpretation of scripture] they have the opportunity to prevent eternal torture after death.
(What a worldview!)
“*now* if they convert to [some particular sect]”
.
No.
=
“commit to and practice utter and perpetual obedience”
.
No.
=
“and submission to [some interpretation of scripture]”
.
Barely.
=
“they have the opportunity to prevent eternal torture after death.”
.
Yes.
Well, there you go.
Thing is, unless one believes this supposed threat in the first place, there is no need to prevent the threat, is there? That is, in order to justify belief as something that saves, one has to already believe that one needs to be saved.
Saved from torment, that is.
Something believers don’t seem to get.
Also, I note that, if one is tortured eternally, then one is not dead.
Only the living can be tortured.
So everyone gets eternal life either way, right? Damned or not.
Eternity in the company of xians and their god-sized arsehole IS torture.
Bullshit. You MUST pay all of your soul to the One to avoid eternal punishment for eve’s one sin. Refuse the One’s bribe and you remain condemned.
That is how the deal works you know -- if you believe that you need to be saved that is. It all hinges on your gullibility.
And the fall of (wo)man is a myth that belonged to a small group of misogynistic iron-age goat herders. It needs be be sent back there. Humans need to move on from it.
#45 tx
Yes, sometimes a bible passage is so vague or absurd, lengthy navel gazing is required before the words can be hammered into something like sense through the magic of stretched interpretation. “Mysterious ways” is such a handy excuse.
“sometimes a bible passage is so vague or absurd”
.
That’s close. Psalm 22 was written a thousand years before the crucifixion. It is written from the point of view of a man who is being crucified. None of the things David wrote were pertinent to his own life. Ditto with verses like Psalm 69:21. It is information that only made/makes sense after the historical fact as recorded in the Gospels.
Isaac Newton, in a commentary about people who try to aggrandize themselves, explained that prophecies are not altogether about revealing the future. They are there so that:
“the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence”.
“And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son of God!”
Historical fact, that is, being in the Gospels and all.
<snicker>
(The zombie incident)
txpiper.
I was going to apologise for insinuating your gullibility earlier, but then you came out with the doozy @56.
There is nothing in psalm 22 that alludes to a perspective of one being crucified. So who told you to view it that way, huh?
The illusion that it is from the perspective of a victim of crucifixion only works backwards, but you don’t for a moment stop to think that the writers of the new testament were prophesy-hunting woowooists (to use the technical term) who were intimate with the old testament passages, and who therefore wrote the stories of jesus in such as way as to mimic the imagery from those old testament passages, because doing so served their political agenda, an agenda dependent on jesus being the prophesied christ and messiah.
You definitely are the type of gullible mark they were aiming at.
“the writers of the new testament were prophesy-hunting woowooists (to use the technical term) who were intimate with the old testament passages”
.
So, you think (actually you have to think) that the people who wrote the Gospels were shrewd conspirators.
How did they coordinate their efforts?
What was their “political agenda”, and how did it benefit them?
“the event of things predicted many ages before, will then be a convincing argument that the world is governed by providence”.
And the event of End-Times prophecies consistently FAILING to come true, and having to be re-interpreted and re-applied over and over again, year after year, is an even more convincing argument to the contrary.
So, you think (actually you have to think) that the people who wrote the Gospels were shrewd conspirators.
How did they coordinate their efforts?
Do you really think that embellishing stories, and retconning them so the appear to conform to earlier prophecies, requires that much sophistication or coordination? It happens all the time. You’d know this if you even had a high-school-level grounding in history and folklore.
The context includes the struggle against Roman occupation, the desire to restore the David line to the rule of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Herodian line, the factional infighting among the various groups involved for control of the money and power the dominant group would accumulate.
In other words, fairly normal human behaviour.
So yes, why wouldn’t you think that the founders of a new religion (as an offshoot of the then established jewish orthodoxy) in this context had a political agenda?
What details in the four conspiratorial Gospels show that the object of the game was to end the Herodian dynasty? Which of the writers got rich and powerful? And, how did those writers coordinate and conceal their efforts?
txpiper, exactly. We know fuck-all about those writers.
Also, beware the false dilemma; there are plenty of other reasons other than wealth and power, such as nationalism or ego, for people to over-interpret stuff.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia
It doesn’t matter what we know about those writers. What we do know is that there are four accounts. If they were written to deliberately deceive, an amazing and fantastically successful crime was committed. What I want tuatara to do is apply his penetrating analytical skills and determine the means, the motive and the opportunity behind this conspiracy. I will have some questions.
You think that the early xian church didn’t manipulate their own texts to suit their own ends?
Or that the xian powerbase have never manipulated it since?
Hahaha, you are funny.
Now please refer to Raging Bee @ 60.
tuatara, it’s worse than that.
Texts weren’t, um, printed.
Scribes transcribed them over the generations.
Also, who needs to manipulate the text itself? Just the interpretation.
For an apposite example, take https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_22#History_and_context
Only Christians interpret it thus, though it long predates the religion.
Jews sure don’t.
(Always amuses me that Jesus was a Jew — another blind spot Xians have)
Jesus was no ordinary jew. According to the new testament jesus was the king of the jews. His lineage is specifically given as that of the david line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus
No wonder these xians are confused.
It continues….
Lets digest that for a moment. This is admitting that the early xians ‘invented’ the genealogy of jesus to align the details of jesus into the jewish messianic criteria, or in other words the gospels were altered to fit the political needs of the movement?
What was that you were after, txpiper?
And why would they feel the need to conspire in that way anyway?
In either version jesus is specifically named as the son of joseph and joseph is specifically named as the heir to the david throne. That seems a compelling place to start the struggle to overthrow the Herodian line.
But you will notice my bolding in the second excerpt above shows that xians can conveniently discard the evidence that doesn’t fit their narrative (not that many of us partaking here need any convincing of that).
Well, given Jesus was a Jew, clearly Christianity has history with Judaism.
And history reveals the actual Christian values and mercy for what they are, in rather stark contrast to its supposed values.
cf. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/papal-bulls
(yeah, sorry, txpiper. This stuff far predates your particular splinter sect, but it’s most certainly part of the history of Xianity, the religion of peace and of turning the other cheek)
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy seems applicable in relation to this purported prophesy.
(Nostradamus wrote about then-current affairs, yes his opaquely oblique quatrains were interpreted as prophesy, too)
It doesn’t matter what we know about those writers.
What other people know doesn’t matter to you, txpipsqueak, because you’re “living” in a world of pure fantasy.
“That seems a compelling place to start the struggle to overthrow the Herodian line.”
.
Marcus Borg’s dates for the Gospels were:
Mark -- 70
Matthew -- 80-90
John -- 90
Luke -- 100
John Dominic Crossan has them at:
Mark & Matthew -- mid to late 70’s
Luke -- 90’s
John -- beginning and middle of the 2nd century
The last Herodian emperor of Judaea was Agrippa II, who died in 92. But the Herods only ruled with the approval of Rome. Since Titus razed Jerusalem in 70, it looks like the conspirators were upset at the wrong people and getting a really uncoordinated late start, doesn’t it?
If this was a conspiracy, why would the writers of Matthew and Luke publish conflicting genealogies?
If both are historical — as you purport — why would the writers of Matthew and Luke publish conflicting genealogies?
(At least one must be wrong)
Because they did not coordinate with each other, duh.
In passing, Putin’s Russia puts out a shitload of laughable propaganda.
There are many instances of particular claims conflicting with others.
Yet, by and large, the Russian population — publicly, that is — goes along with it.
Obs, some are True Believers.
“as you purport”
.
What I think is not relevant to the analysis. This is about what tuatara purports. He needs to develop motive, means and opportunity, and we’re working on motive.
No, you are the original claimant regarding the purported historicity of the Gospels, which you employed as a premise.
(Burden of proof)
Nah. You’re arguing on speculation alone.
Me: We know fuck-all about those writers.
You: It doesn’t matter what we know about those writers.
Is it not bleedingly obvious to you that, if we know nothing much about the writers other than their (many-times copied) writings, their motivation is therefore unknown?
Thing is, we know actual history, we have much scholarship regarding the historicity of the Gospels (within which you yourself claim there are contradictory accounts), and furthermore it’s obvious that the old Psalm is being shoehorned into being prophesy much as Nostradamus’ writings were.
—
Is it not likewise obvious to you, by now, that unless one is a motivated religious person or an utter ignoramus, the sort of claim you make is unconvincing at multiple levels of interpretation?
“Is it not likewise obvious to you, by now, that unless one is a motivated religious person or an utter ignoramus, the sort of claim you make is unconvincing at multiple levels of interpretation?”
.
No, what is obvious to me is that this will be like believing that accidents can produce super-complex things, but not being able to explain how.
Talk it over amongst yourselves. I’m not doing this again.
Good grief txpiper. Are you for real?
Those were examples of the political turmoil in place during the time of jesus, as, you know, EXAMPLES for you to think about.
I should have known better. You, think?
I am not a non-believer because of some specific proof somewhere on the internet that it was all a conspiracy. I am a non-believer because I was raised by an atheist family. That upbringing afforded me the ability to assess the babble openly, and I openly conclude that the NT is a load of inconsistent crap full of lies, and the OT is a load of older inconsistent crap full of lies.
You obviously had a different early life that has impaired your ability to be objective about your ‘faith’ (therein lies the problem -- that single word -- faith).
The question you should be asking is not what proof I have of motive, means and opportunity for some imagined conspiracy 2 millennia ago.
You should instead be asking ‘if jesus was the son of god why would they need to give these genealogies at all’?
FYI. The dates the gospels were penned is irrelevant because the events related in the gospels actually occurred before the gospels were written.
I know! Aren’t recollections just fucking amazing! They travel backwards in time in the future!
You are a lost cause to me as much as I am a lost cause to you. I will not give you any more because I now don’t see the point.
So fuck off then.
#78 tx
It’s not obvious to you that you are unconvincing here? Then please point to even a single person that has been convinced.
Replace ‘accidents’ with ‘stochastic natural processes’ to reach a decent description of our position; replace it instead with ‘magic’ to describe yours.
Not accidents, changes. You exhibit teleological thinking.
Aren’t you supposed to proselytise? Part of your religion.
(But hey, you want to disobey your own scriptures, go ahead)
I’m not doing this again.
I hope that promise turns out to be a little less false than everything else you’ve said.
@txpiper:
So, you seem to be saying, no-one is actually punished by damnation to Hell?
Universal salvation?
“So, you seem to be saying, no-one is actually punished by damnation to Hell?”
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No, I am not saying that. They will judged for unbelief, not sins. The issue is actually incompatibility.
In other words, unbelief is the new sin.
But the damnation is the same old intolerance!
Hooray for such a loving god!
The only incompatibility evident is between xianity and reason.
So please don’t.
[meta]
tuatara, txpiper is not doing it again with us.
Owlmirror apparently has dispensation.
To be honest, I’ve never been keen on telling commenters to “go away” — and not because I get it a lot, but because it’s not our space. It’s the blogger’s, at whose sufferance we comment. Which we obviously all do volitionally and voluntarily.
But mainly, I find it boorish.
(Also, I don’t like losing chew toys; this one, I eventually broke, but that’s not the same thing)
Fair enough, John Morales. Thanks.
Sorry Mano.
Welcome back, txpiper.
They will judged for unbelief, not sins. The issue is actually incompatibility.
Yeah, thanks for reminding us, yet again, how pathetically stupid and depraved the whole Christian concept of Hell really is.
@tpiper:
So let me make sure I understand: You mean all theists are saved, and only atheists are damned?
Jews and Jesuits, Muslims and Mormons, all the heretics and all the orthodox considered as being believers; all will be saved?
Do you mean all Abrahamic theists, or theists in the broadest and most general sense? Where do Hindus and Taoists fall in this metric? How about Deists and Panentheists?
“all will be saved?”
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No. It is an exclusive status, acquired by an act of volition.
#83 tx
Subservience is more important than moral behaviour. Nice admission.
Referring to morality exposes the incoherence of your beliefs. Your faith says that you are no better than a jackal, and morals are just malleable human constructs.
As it pertains to being saved, the standard is perfection, not sporadic morality.
Believing in both evolution and moral behaviour is not incoherent, as neither of those precludes the other. Evolution makes no comment on morality, we invented it. And you ignore the point made, probably because it is awkward to confront: your christianity excuses murder easier than apostasy. As moral standards go, it is primitive, as befits its origin.
A perverse worldview, and incoherent and circular to boot.
“Because I believe in this particular interpretation of the Abrahamic deity, I must therefore believe that my fate is to be tortured eternally unless I believe in the Abrahamic deity and I exhibit perfection, in which I will be Saved.”
(Such needless angst!)
And as kindly pointed out by txpiper with the link to Romans 4:5-6, belief is itself interpreted as perfection.
txpiper. You appear to be admitting that for xians being nice to others is unnecessary.
Thanks. That explains a lot!
Your faith says that you are no better than a jackal…
Where does “his faith” say that? Citations required.
Mm. I think the bible contradicts this.
Consider the cases of Enoch (Genesis 5:21-24) , Elijah (2 Kings 2:11-12), Moses (not mentioned specifically in the OT as going to heaven, but described as being there, along with Elijah, by Matthew 17:1–8, Mark 9:2–8, Luke 9:28–36) , and Abraham and Lazarus (both mentioned in Luke 16:19-31).
All of these were described as ascending to or being in heaven without believing on Jesus, who of course had not yet been born before they died.
Clearly heaven is not as exclusive as you seem to think.
. . . except possibly for Lazarus, who is, however, certainly narrated as having died before Jesus died and resurrected.
And it seems rather implausible that Lazarus would be the only one after Elijah to be admitted into heaven. It certainly seems like the scenario described is a one whereby righteous Jews had been going to heaven all along.
“It certainly seems like the scenario described is a one whereby righteous Jews had been going to heaven all along.”
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OT saints (Gentiles and Jews) were sequestered in the paradise side of hell (Heb, sheol/Gr, hades), where Jesus went after the atonement was accomplished at the crucifixion. He apparently led an Exodus at the time of the Resurrection. Other related verses are Matthew 27:50-53, Luke 16:19-31, Luke 23:43, John 20:17, 1 Peter 3:18-19 and others.
Paradise is not (or was not) heaven. It was a temporary place, as is torments, the hot side of sheol.
@txpiper:
It’s fascinating how you have all this made-up stuff that isn’t in the bible, and in fact directly contradicts the bible.
I note that Matthew 12:40 is false, since by its own text, Jesus was only two nights “dead”. You can’t get three nights out of Friday night and Saturday night. And it’s hard to see three full days in Friday afternoon to Sunday at dawn. 40 hours or so, not 72.
The term “Paradise” only occurs 3 times in the NT, and not at all in the OT (since it is not a Semitic term), and the first 2 times, it certainly looks like it is intended to be synonymous with “heaven”. What, you really think Jesus was telling the thief: “We’re both going to Hell, but the nice part of Hell”? Really?
And of course, you have to assume that 2 Kings 2:11-12 is just a lie; a complete falsehood. Fake bible verses. Elijah did not go up to heaven in a chariot of fire; he went down to the nice part of Hell? Seriously?
“You can’t get three nights out of Friday night and Saturday night.”
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The first Passover (Exodus 12) was a prophetic forecast for the week of the passion. What we call Palm Sunday would have been on Nisan the 10th, which would put the slaying of the Passover lamb on Thursday, the 14th.
The three days and nights are as follows:
+ Th=ddd1 Fr=nnnnn1 Fr=ddddd2 Sa=nnnnn2 Sa=ddddd3 Su=nnn3 ^
Mark’s account is the easiest to follow on a day by day basis leading up to the crucifixion.
This is a very involved and detailed study that observes the prophetic nature of the Levitical (Lev 23) feasts. The first three (spring), Passover, Unleavened Bread and First Fruits are about what would be accomplished during the First Advent. (We are at the tail end of the middle feast, Shavuot (Pentecost). The fall feasts, Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Tabernacles are about the end times and Second Coming.)
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“[paradise] certainly looks like it is intended to be synonymous with “heaven”
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The best take is that the two compartments mentioned in the Luke 16 Lazarus/rich man account, are movable. Paradise was relocated, or at least emptied, at the Resurrection. Torments will be incinerated.
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“you have to assume that 2 Kings 2:11-12 is just a lie”
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Some people look at Elijah as the exception that proves the rule. I do not. שָׁמַיִם shâmayim does not necessarily mean the residence of God. I think that Elijah’s journey placed him where Samuel came up from in 1 Samuel 28:11-14.
Hel is female, and she rules the world of the dead. Her father is Loki. If you die in battle you go to Valhalla, to become a warrior in Odins Einharum war band. Then you get to fight at Ragnorok, and the world will be reborn.
That seems just as likely as anything written in the Hebrews old book of old stories about Gods.
OT saints (Gentiles and Jews) were sequestered in the paradise side of hell (Heb, sheol/Gr, hades), where Jesus went after the atonement was accomplished at the crucifixion.
What, they all got stuck in the wrong place until Jesus showed up to sort them out? Even Roman bureaucrats were more competent than that. Dude, are you even smart enough to be aware of how stupid your beliefs sound?