The Bible (a discussion)

@Setanta,

If I began a syllogism with the statement "All cats are purple"
Felix is a cat
Therefore, Felix is purple.
My conclusion would be incorrect because the premise was false, even though the line of reasoning was proper.
Does that make sense?

The thread is about the Bible. It should be obvious by now that I take the Bible as a source of truth. It is also obvious to me that you do not share my persuasion. You believe my premise is false. I can handle that.
Nevertheless, I am certain my line of reasoning is correct.
Adam and Eve were perfect, including the qualities of love, wisdom, and justice. That would include a perfectly functioning conscience.
They chose to disobey and brought consequences to themselves.

And yes, God did state the remedy in Genesis 3:15. The entire Hebrew text leads up to it and the Greek text defines it.

OK, so you don't believe it. I just want you to know it is there.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

neologist wrote:
The entire Bible depends on it being a unified whole.
Why do you start with begging the question in the first place?

What came first, your belief in the Bible being a unified whole, or your conversion?

I could not 'convert' until I was satisfied with the above premise. Of course, the idea that God's promise of Genesis 1:28, that humans could live forever gave me reason to inquire deeply.

1 Reply

@neologist,

So, you beg the question because you don't want to ever die.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

I have already said several times I cannot provide incontrovertible empirical evidence for either the existence of God or the certainty of the Bible. But the courts have sent folks to prison with much less.

Here are two of the touchstones I apply:
1] Perceived inconsistencies within the Bible should be resolved by examination of the scriptures.
2] Where the Bible seems to contradict historical or scientific findings we may have to rely on circumstantial or anecdotal evidence. But some things may be explained by careful examination of what the Bible really does say. For those who question the time allotted in Genesis, I offer these observations:
The days of Genesis are not literal 24 hour periods, but unspecified. For example, Genesis 2:4 lumps the fist six into one. Additionally, the seventh day has not been recorded as having ended, while the first creative day did not begin until after the earth had been "formless and void" for who knows how many billions of years.

And, of course, I would prefer not to die.

2 Replies

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

I have already said several times I cannot provide incontrovertible empirical evidence for either the existence of God or the certainty of the Bible.

But you do start with question begging because of this need to believe that you will never die. This is a poor position to begin an investigation of the veracity of the basis of your beliefs.

Quote:

1] Perceived inconsistencies within the Bible should be resolved by examination of the scriptures.

Absolutely, that’s how the inconsistencies have been brought to light in the first place.

Quote:

2] Where the Bible seems to contradict historical or scientific findings we may have to rely on circumstantial or anecdotal evidence.

Here you’re merely rationalizing your question begging.

Quote:

But some things may be explained by careful examination of what the Bible really does say.

Or more precisely, some things may be explained by careful examination of your interpretations of what the Bible says to conform to your question begging, as in your example of what Genesis “really” says.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

. . . you do start with question begging because of this need to believe that you will never die. This is a poor position to begin an investigation of the veracity of the basis of your beliefs.

This is your assertion. I do not need to know any such thing any more than you or I need to know the truth.

blue wrote:

Or more precisely, some things may be explained by careful examination of your interpretations of what the Bible says to conform to your question begging, as in your example of what Genesis “really” says

I challenge any believer or naysayer to dispute the interpretations I have advanced. Don't see many believers willing to enter this arena, though.

1 Reply

@neologist,

Quote:

1] Perceived inconsistencies within the Bible should be resolved by examination of the scriptures.

But that requires a lifetime of concentrated study.

Quote:

And, of course, I would prefer not to die.

What would happen if you didn't?

1 Reply

@neologist,

Incredible, just incredible . . . that the topic is the bobble is no justification to abandon reason.

If Adam and Ever were "perfect," then they would not have betrayed the trust reposed in them, therefore your premise, wholely within the context of the so-called scripture, is false.

Genesis 3:15 is the remedy ? ! ? ! ? Are you on drugs? Emnity between men and women, bruising of heads is the remedy for human misery? You're goofy.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

. . . If Adam and Ever were "perfect," then they would not have betrayed the trust reposed in them, therefore your premise, wholely within the context of the so-called scripture, is false.

If Adam and Eve were unable to choose disobedience, they would be considered robots.If they were indeed created in God's image, they would have free. will, unless you somehow have concluded the Bible supports the idea that God is subject to determinism. Indeed, the agent who tempted Adam and Eve, (another of God's creations) also had free will

Setanta wrote:

Genesis 3:15 is the remedy ? ! ? ! ? Are you on drugs? Emnity between men and women, bruising of heads is the remedy for human misery? You're goofy.

Sorry. I thought you would make the connection between the seed of the woman and Abraham's seed, mentioned in Genesis 22:18. It is a reference to the Messiah, the reason Jews kept careful genealogies. The heel bruise, BTW, has already been dealt. The head bruise is yet to come.

1 Reply

@spendius,

I wrote:

Perceived inconsistencies within the Bible should be resolved by examination of the scriptures.

spendius wrote:

But that requires a lifetime of concentrated study.

I've been at it over 40 years and have yet to be disappointed

I wrote:

And, of course, I would prefer not to die.

spendius wrote:

What would happen if you didn't?

Doesn't make any difference, really. I feel satisfied that I have found the truth. Even if, in the end, I fail to measure up.

Heck, all the naysayers believe they have found the truth .. .They're satisfied, right?

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@neologist,

If Adam and Eve had free will, and no knowledge of good and evil, there was nothing for which to punish them. You dance around this all the time, but the bedrock of this is that your boy god was cruel and capricious, and punished them for a "no foul" situation. Your explanation of the so-called remedy is facile. The coming of the alleged Messiah did not end human misery. As always, you play a word game to attempt to make scripture say what it patently does not say.

3 Replies

@Setanta,

I begining to get worried about you, Set. You're starting to sound as though you're taking some of this bullshit seriously.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

I take Neo and his delusions seriously, not the content of said delusions.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

The coming of the alleged Messiah did not end human misery.

Human misery cannot be ended. So the statement is easy to make.

It can only be reduced. Would Setanta claim that the teachings of Jesus have not reduced human misery or suggest other ways that might be achieved without those teachings?

This "boy" reflex is quite out of place in a grown up discussion. It's a sort of literary Houdini punch.

Setanta simply does not understand the subject and, as he has no intention of ever trying to, he never will. By using terms like "sky God", "imaginary friend" and "boy", and other similar sneers, he has conditioned himself to being unable to understand the subject. Such things prove that his claim to historical expertise is groundless.

0 Replies

@timur,

Quote:

Leviticus 21:16-23 wrote:

The Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron: ‘For the generations to come none of your descendants who has a defect may come near to offer the food of his God. No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, 20 or who is a hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the food offerings to the Lord. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the Lord, who makes them holy.’”

If that is interpreted to mean who to choose and who not to choose to be your leaders it makes perfect sense and is operative today. Monarchy risks defects appearing and thus democracy is being recommended. Any system of hereditary rule is condemned.

Being in tight with God is the sine qua non of leadership. God being the collective wisdom of the race.

It is you lot who have the Sky God so firmly implanted in your noggins that you interpret everything in relation to the concept.

Our leaders go near the curtain and approach the altar. That's why we elect them because we judge them more qualified than anybody else for the task. The whole election process is a winnowing out of defects.

If you hadn't got the Sky God solidly conditioned you might have to think. It lets you off.

And the injunctions only applied to Aaron and his seed. Which, without hereditary rule, would be diffused into nothing in a few generations according to the laws of evolution and females avoiding defects too.

Quote:

He may eat the most holy food of his God

Thus pity for those with defects which hadn't always been the case before those times. And is often not the case now in our society with anti-Christians leading the charge to keep it that way and to even push it further.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Irreligious as I am, I acknowledge that freethinking has not the same meaning to both of us..

I'm the one who has a deep conditioning and you the one who has an ethereal free spirit..

I'm the one with the defect and thus not susceptible to be touched by the divine grace..

Nor can I approach the Holy of Holies..

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

If Adam and Eve had free will, and no knowledge of good and evil, there was nothing for which to punish them. You dance around this all the time, but the bedrock of this is that your boy god was cruel and capricious, and punished them for a "no foul" situation.

Their perfect conscience would prevent them from any moral error, but without choice, they would be robots. the tree represented their choice. No choice - no free will. I know it's a stretch; but it's the story nevertheless.

Setanta wrote:

Your explanation of the so-called remedy is facile. The coming of the alleged Messiah did not end human misery. As always, you play a word game to attempt to make scripture say what it patently does not say.

Maybe it would help to have the text of Genesis 3:15 to observe: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (KJV)
I noticed, when searching, that some translators use the word, 'offspring' in place of the word 'seed' and replace 'it' with 'he'. If we can agree that the serpent represented Satan, (rebel, resistor, adversary) he is the one bruising the seed in the heel. That happened at the time of Jesus' death. In the above text 'it' refers to Jesus who has yet to apply the head wound to God's adversary. Perhaps we may question what to us is God's delay; but we are not the timekeepers in this arrangement.

3 Replies

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I take Neo and his delusions seriously, not the content of said delusions.

I take you seriously, as well. One of the few naysayers capable of posting coherent objections.

You're wrong, of course. Smile

1 Reply

@neologist,

How can you take seriously somebody who only answers those posts that it suits him to answer on the basis that the others are "spurious". And somebody who has to envisage a Sky God before he can **** on it and talks about the most important man in history as "boy"? There's nothing there to take seriously.

Evolution winnows out "defects".

1 Reply

@timur,

Quote:

I'm the one who has a deep conditioning and you the one who has an ethereal free spirit..

I only interpreted the Leviticus passage sensibly and without reference to any God in the heavens. A down to earth interpretation. Looking behind the text. You don't need an ethereal free spirit to do that. You just stop looking through a chink in the wall and scale it to provide a wide view.

Once you start with the idea that it's all a load of crap you are fucked. You become so eager to look at it your way that you can't imagine there are any other ways of looking at it. You become uneducable. And the greatest masterpiece of world literature become closed to you.

0 Replies

The Bible (a discussion)

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