Political Crossfire Forums

[Nathyn]

The first girl I ever fell in love with, when I was 15, gave a report in school on witchcraft. In English class, we were to write information reports on whatever we wanted -- she chose withcraft. Looking back, I know her report was poorly written. She obviously just wrote it the night before. But what intrigued me was that she claimed to be a witch and that her entire family had believed in witchcraft, for several centuries, even descending from one woman who was killed at Salem. That interested me, because for an American, I'd never thought that "magick," could be real.

Well, I'd studied it for a couple years. For a while, I joined a "Christian Wiccan," group at a local unitarian church. They were mostly frauds and very delusional. Most people believing in such, that I've come across, have been delusional. But still, I know how to practice magick and I've done it before... And I've found that it works. Magick, not in the sense of pointing and shooting a bolt of lightning or a fireball, or decapitating a chicken while chanting Satanic verses, but rather, simply taking a bath, clearing my thoughts, lighting a candle of a specific color, anointing it with oil, and then focusing on the outcome. Perhaps with a chant, perhaps not. All that really matters is the emotion put into it and that what you're doing, in some way, symbolically represents what you want to happen. In this respect, those who believe in Wicca claim that most religions practice magick when they perform rituals, such as baptism and communion in Christianity, marking one's door on passover in Judaism (not to mention Kabbalah), and praying towards Mecca and reciting all kinds of prayers in Islam.

However, since then, I've come to believe that, even if my subjective experiences yield such results, they're probably nothing more than my subjective experiences. In becoming an Atheist, I've had to reject the idea of "magick," too. To quote Penn Jillette, "When you're pro-science, that means you're an atheist, by definition." Magick and psychic ability, like God, have never been proven by science, so how can I give any creedence to them, even if I might 'feel' that a God exists or that magick works?

I'm cross-posting this thread to ask each of the religious groups what their religious views are on witchcraft.

What's Judaism's view of witchcraft? Does it work? Of course, the Torah mentions it, but Jews tend to be fairly rational. Even most Christians today claim that "witchcraft," doesn't actually work.

[Mailech]

Just to clear one thing up, Jews no longer paint their doors on Passover, that was a one time occurance, and it had nothing to do with witchcraft.

Now there are forces in this world that we cannot see, there is the pure force and the impure force.

I know how people like to say nowadays that the supposed "miracles" in the Torah if not made up are just natural occurances that could not be explained at the time, but that today science would have an explanation, therefore at the time it was called a miracle. As much as I like to poo-poo that there is a grain of truth in it. In most miracles there is always room to say that it was a natural occurance, that is the way it is written.

(BTW, as a side note, if a meteorite falls in the middle of a dessert in Arizona, big deal, if you are in Manahattan and some guy has a guy to your head and a meteorite hits him in the head, is that not a miracle. I love it when people say on there could be a weird confluence of events that could cause the Red Sea to split. Well if that confluence occured when several million people where waiting to cross it and then stopped as soon as they where done, well that sounds like a miracle to me)

Anyway, that is the out nowadays, why people don't have to believe in miracles. In those days they did not have science they had magic. And magic was real it was the alternative, it allowed Pharoah to say that is not the work of G-d it is magic, look my magicians can do it too. Because G-d always gives people an out, a reason to not believe, if they choose not to, if there was no out, then there would be no free will. Open miracles no longer occur, and so magic no longer has its place. Now science has taken over where magic left off. So yes there was such a thing as magic just as there was such a thing as open miracels just as there was such a thing as prophecy, hopefully the second two will return, but they do not belong to our reality right now.

[Duchifas]

Mailech wrote: (BTW, as a side note, if a meteorite falls in the middle of a dessert in Arizona, big deal, if you are in Manahattan and some guy has a guy to your head and a meteorite hits him in the head, is that not a miracle. I love it when people say on there could be a weird confluence of events that could cause the Red Sea to split. Well if that confluence occured when several million people where waiting to cross it and then stopped as soon as they where done, well that sounds like a miracle to me)

The way I heard it put, there have been plenty volcanic eruptions and strange events, but only one resulted in promulgation and acceptance of a moral code.

[Nathyn]

Mailech wrote: Just to clear one thing up, Jews no longer paint their doors on Passover, that was a one time occurance, and it had nothing to do with witchcraft.

Now there are forces in this world that we cannot see, there is the pure force and the impure force.

I know how people like to say nowadays that the supposed "miracles" in the Torah if not made up are just natural occurances that could not be explained at the time, but that today science would have an explanation, therefore at the time it was called a miracle. As much as I like to poo-poo that there is a grain of truth in it. In most miracles there is always room to say that it was a natural occurance, that is the way it is written.

(BTW, as a side note, if a meteorite falls in the middle of a dessert in Arizona, big deal, if you are in Manahattan and some guy has a guy to your head and a meteorite hits him in the head, is that not a miracle. I love it when people say on there could be a weird confluence of events that could cause the Red Sea to split. Well if that confluence occured when several million people where waiting to cross it and then stopped as soon as they where done, well that sounds like a miracle to me)

Anyway, that is the out nowadays, why people don't have to believe in miracles. In those days they did not have science they had magic. And magic was real it was the alternative, it allowed Pharoah to say that is not the work of G-d it is magic, look my magicians can do it too. Because G-d always gives people an out, a reason to not believe, if they choose not to, if there was no out, then there would be no free will. Open miracles no longer occur, and so magic no longer has its place. Now science has taken over where magic left off. So yes there was such a thing as magic just as there was such a thing as open miracels just as there was such a thing as prophecy, hopefully the second two will return, but they do not belong to our reality right now.
Mailech, I have a much better example for you. I was watching a show on TV once. It was called, "World's Craziest Videos," or something like that.

Well, there was a NASCAR race. Two cars hit eachother, one spun out of control, swerved onto his side, and the tail end of the car swerved into the crowd that was in the center of the track. The tail end swiped literally just a few inches in front of one guy's face. Had it been a few inches further, he would've been killed.

Afterwards, he says to the press, "I thank the Lord, Jesus Christ, for being with me and granting me such a miracle, so that I'm still alive today."

And I thought to myself, "Wait, you idiot! No, if God was trying to perform a miracle, wouldn't he have prevented the car from ever crashing and nearly hitting you to begin with?"

To use your same analogy: If a meteor hits you and kills you, it's just a natural occurrence. If a meteor hits right behind, just barely missing, it's a "miracle," that God "saved" you.

Duchifas wrote: Mailech wrote: (BTW, as a side note, if a meteorite falls in the middle of a dessert in Arizona, big deal, if you are in Manahattan and some guy has a guy to your head and a meteorite hits him in the head, is that not a miracle. I love it when people say on there could be a weird confluence of events that could cause the Red Sea to split. Well if that confluence occured when several million people where waiting to cross it and then stopped as soon as they where done, well that sounds like a miracle to me)

The way I heard it put, there have been plenty volcanic eruptions and strange events, but only one resulted in promulgation and acceptance of a moral code.
For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

[cap'n queasy]

Quote: "Wait, you idiot! No, if God was trying to perform a miracle, wouldn't he have prevented the car from ever crashing and nearly hitting you to begin with?"

A car not crashing is hardly a miracle, now is it? :lol:

[Mailech]

Nathyn wrote: And I thought to myself, "Wait, you idiot! No, if God was trying to perform a miracle, wouldn't he have prevented the car from ever crashing and nearly hitting you to begin with?"
BTW, I also view my near misses as a little help from G-d as well. Even when I don't get into an accident but it is close, I thank G-d.

You could say that it was a warning to that guy, and hopefully he heeds it. A way of G-d saying your life is in the balance, do better.

[Duchifas]

Quote: For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

Every culture has its gods. In reality, Greeks didn't care about mountain gods. Their god was their physical body. Roman god was power. The secular progressive god is pseudo-science.

[Nathyn]

Mailech wrote: Nathyn wrote: And I thought to myself, "Wait, you idiot! No, if God was trying to perform a miracle, wouldn't he have prevented the car from ever crashing and nearly hitting you to begin with?"
BTW, I also view my near misses as a little help from G-d as well. Even when I don't get into an accident but it is close, I thank G-d.

You could say that it was a warning to that guy, and hopefully he heeds it. A way of G-d saying your life is in the balance, do better.
The point is that if God was watching out for you, wouldn't he prevent the car crash first?

Religious people tend to give God credit for good things more often than bad things, without any logical distinction as to why.

A "miracle," is just considered a miracle because somebody says so.

Duchifas wrote: Quote: For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

Every culture has its gods. In reality, Greeks didn't care about mountain gods. Their god was their physical body. Roman god was power. The secular progressive god is pseudo-science.
But they considered their Gods to be quite real.

Here's an interesting passage from Wikipedia's article on the Greek religion:

Quote: A major function of religion was the validation of the identity and culture of individual communities. The myths were regarded by many as history rather than allegory, and their embedded genealogies were used by groups to proclaim their divine right to the land they occupied, and by individual families to validate their exalted position in the social order.
Doesn't this perhaps offer an alternative explanation for millions of Jews claiming to have witnessed the revelation of the 10 commandments at Mt. Sinai? Not to mention that it's far simpler -- more in accordance with Occam's razor -- to believe that a particular culture somehow adopted mythology as history, through the use of unverified folktales, rather than that a Jewish or Greek God actually came down, throwing around bolts of lightning, and speaking to the people.

[Duchifas]

Quote: Doesn't this perhaps offer an alternative explanation for millions of Jews claiming to have witnessed the revelation of the 10 commandments at Mt. Sinai? Not to mention that it's far simpler -- more in accordance with Occam's razor -- to believe that a particular culture somehow adopted mythology as history, through the use of unverified folktales, rather than that a Jewish or Greek God actually came down, throwing around bolts of lightning, and speaking to the people.

It is an alternative, but quite a ridiculous one. But for you, I will entertain it for a moment. I just want you to realize what exactly your alternative expresses. The key word in your ridiculous alternative is "somehow." However, that "somehow" is very important, and we need to address it.

So I'd like your explanation of how this experience of slavery, Exodus and the Sinai revelation of the Divine "somehow" implanted itself in the Jewish national memory, on a massive scale, and then has been preserved through 3,000 years, in adverse circumstances.

What your essentially postulating is that...we have a nation, living its life, minding its own business. Then, suddenly, a bunch of scholars appear and tell everyone:

Hey, everyone, guess what? You know the real history that we all know? Yes, the one your grandfather told you, the one his grandfather told him, etc. Well, it is hereby cancelled, null and void. Our real history is thus -- we were slaves, then some funky heavenly dude freed us, punished Egyptians with, hmm, lice, frogs, blood, etc, then...hmm, split the sea for us, then we had a revelation, accepted a detailed moral code, and then the funky heavenly dude sustained us in the desert for forty years. Everyone clear? Any questions? No? Ok, have a nice day Jews. Oh, just for the hell of it, we will write this all up in a book, so that you guys don't forget your made up history.

Now, granted, ancient Jews didn't know how to use cell phones. They didn't drive cars. But how absolutely dumb do you think the nation was to fall for a scam like that? Granted, I exaggerated a bit. But in essence, your "somehow" is what I described. This nation had its own national history, and then it somehow, it changed into something else. You don't think the Jews would have caught on? You don't think they would have laughed in the scholars' faces? Please. Give us some credit.

Re-writing of national history on such a mass scale never works, and to assume that it worked in case of the Jews is a ridiculous theory. Soviets tried to rewrite history. What I learned in school there as a kid was wholly different than what I learned here. Did you know that Russians invented the airplane? And that the industrial revolution was a Russian thing? There was a problem with such re-writing of history by the communist party educators. First, nobody in their right minds believed them in Russia. By the age of 20, latest, most Soviet citizens knew that the government is feeding them trash. Second, the experiment failed completely after 70 years.

Yet, you are claiming that someone, somehow implanted a new national memory in the Jews, one that was never there to start with. Let me ask you -- if your favorite college professor calls you up tomorrow and tells you that history of the US is not really what it was, that we actually were in exile in France, the Atlantic split, and then Washington led us to America, with a mass stop-over revelation in Bermuda where G-d handed him down the Constitution -- would you believe him?

Ridiculous, right?

Right. You know your history. Your dad knows the history. Your grandfather knows the real history. The second you suggest this new theory to them, they will laugh in your face. And that's why you will never fall for such a shenanigan.

Now, please explain to me why you believe that such a shenanigan could be pulled on the Jewish people.


Lastly, as to why the Sinai revelation was uniquely and significantly different from the Greek or other mythologies is a separate (and very brief) discussion.

[cap'n queasy]

Duchifas wrote: Quote: For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

Every culture has its gods. In reality, Greeks didn't care about mountain gods. Their god was their physical body. Roman god was power. The secular progressive god is pseudo-science.

Actually their god is power, as well, pseudo-science is merely an attack on something that stands in their way of gaining power.

[Duchifas]

cap'n queasy wrote: Duchifas wrote: Quote: For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

Every culture has its gods. In reality, Greeks didn't care about mountain gods. Their god was their physical body. Roman god was power. The secular progressive god is pseudo-science.

Actually their god is power, as well, pseudo-science is merely an attack on something that stands in their way of gaining power.

True.

BTW, cap'n, I got fed up with the commies in New England and moved down South (to a state where my vote actually matters). I'm more Souther than ya'all now.

[Mailech]

Nathyn wrote: Mailech wrote: Nathyn wrote: And I thought to myself, "Wait, you idiot! No, if God was trying to perform a miracle, wouldn't he have prevented the car from ever crashing and nearly hitting you to begin with?"
BTW, I also view my near misses as a little help from G-d as well. Even when I don't get into an accident but it is close, I thank G-d.

You could say that it was a warning to that guy, and hopefully he heeds it. A way of G-d saying your life is in the balance, do better.
The point is that if God was watching out for you, wouldn't he prevent the car crash first? If the crash never happened, then he would never have the opportunity of learning his lesson.
Quote: Religious people tend to give God credit for good things more often than bad things, without any logical distinction as to why.
Don't generalize, I give G-d credit for absolutely everything that happens to me.
Quote: A "miracle," is just considered a miracle because somebody says so. And to be perfectly clear it is a miracle that I wake up every morning and I am breathing that the sun is shining and that the world still exists.

[cap'n queasy]

Duchifas wrote: cap'n queasy wrote: Duchifas wrote: Quote: For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

Every culture has its gods. In reality, Greeks didn't care about mountain gods. Their god was their physical body. Roman god was power. The secular progressive god is pseudo-science.

Actually their god is power, as well, pseudo-science is merely an attack on something that stands in their way of gaining power.

True.

BTW, cap'n, I got fed up with the commies in New England and moved down South (to a state where my vote actually matters). I'm more Souther than ya'all now.

Florida has more peckerwoods than any other state. :lol:

[Duchifas]

:)

[Mailech]

BTW cap'n I love your avatar :-)

[Nathyn]

Duchifas wrote: Quote: Doesn't this perhaps offer an alternative explanation for millions of Jews claiming to have witnessed the revelation of the 10 commandments at Mt. Sinai? Not to mention that it's far simpler -- more in accordance with Occam's razor -- to believe that a particular culture somehow adopted mythology as history, through the use of unverified folktales, rather than that a Jewish or Greek God actually came down, throwing around bolts of lightning, and speaking to the people.

It is an alternative, but quite a ridiculous one. But for you, I will entertain it for a moment. I just want you to realize what exactly your alternative expresses. The key word in your ridiculous alternative is "somehow." However, that "somehow" is very important, and we need to address it.

So I'd like your explanation of how this experience of slavery, Exodus and the Sinai revelation of the Divine "somehow" implanted itself in the Jewish national memory, on a massive scale, and then has been preserved through 3,000 years, in adverse circumstances.

What your essentially postulating is that...we have a nation, living its life, minding its own business. Then, suddenly, a bunch of scholars appear and tell everyone:

Hey, everyone, guess what? You know the real history that we all know? Yes, the one your grandfather told you, the one his grandfather told him, etc. Well, it is hereby cancelled, null and void. Our real history is thus -- we were slaves, then some funky heavenly dude freed us, punished Egyptians with, hmm, lice, frogs, blood, etc, then...hmm, split the sea for us, then we had a revelation, accepted a detailed moral code, and then the funky heavenly dude sustained us in the desert for forty years. Everyone clear? Any questions? No? Ok, have a nice day Jews. Oh, just for the hell of it, we will write this all up in a book, so that you guys don't forget your made up history.

Now, granted, ancient Jews didn't know how to use cell phones. They didn't drive cars. But how absolutely dumb do you think the nation was to fall for a scam like that? Granted, I exaggerated a bit. But in essence, your "somehow" is what I described. This nation had its own national history, and then it somehow, it changed into something else. You don't think the Jews would have caught on? You don't think they would have laughed in the scholars' faces? Please. Give us some credit.

Re-writing of national history on such a mass scale never works, and to assume that it worked in case of the Jews is a ridiculous theory. Soviets tried to rewrite history. What I learned in school there as a kid was wholly different than what I learned here. Did you know that Russians invented the airplane? And that the industrial revolution was a Russian thing? There was a problem with such re-writing of history by the communist party educators. First, nobody in their right minds believed them in Russia. By the age of 20, latest, most Soviet citizens knew that the government is feeding them trash. Second, the experiment failed completely after 70 years.

Yet, you are claiming that someone, somehow implanted a new national memory in the Jews, one that was never there to start with. Let me ask you -- if your favorite college professor calls you up tomorrow and tells you that history of the US is not really what it was, that we actually were in exile in France, the Atlantic split, and then Washington led us to America, with a mass stop-over revelation in Bermuda where G-d handed him down the Constitution -- would you believe him?

Ridiculous, right?

Right. You know your history. Your dad knows the history. Your grandfather knows the real history. The second you suggest this new theory to them, they will laugh in your face. And that's why you will never fall for such a shenanigan.

Now, please explain to me why you believe that such a shenanigan could be pulled on the Jewish people.


Lastly, as to why the Sinai revelation was uniquely and significantly different from the Greek or other mythologies is a separate (and very brief) discussion.
You're being very ethnocentric. From our modern perspective, accepting folktales as history is "dumb," yes. But they didn't have science -- as you remarked, they didn't have cell phones or cars. Literacy was rare. And so, such folktales were the only means of passing on history. You might think it's wrong to consider them so naive, but that's precisely how Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans created their mythologies, and I see no reason to give legitimacy to the Jews than the other demographics. I see no reason for why such a "shenanigan" could be pulled upon the Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans, which could not equally be pulled upon the Jews.

The oral Torah is especially of dubious authenticity. Its legitimacy can be disproven by simply playing a game of telephone. In case you aren't familiar with the game of telephone, it's where you have a group of people in a line. One person whispers something to the second, the second repeats the same whisper to the third, and so on, until it reaches the last person. In every case where the game is played, the message is inevitably distorted. And yet, you would have me believe that the oral Torah was perfectly preserved over several centuries?! Particularly when some of its arguments are spurious.

The most damning thing of all for the Tanakh, however, is reason. Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein have both pointed out logical and philosophical problems with the Jewish scriptures. The only reply is, "God's reason is higher than human reason." But if all we have access to, by default, is human reason, why would God ever try to define himself in terms of something we can't understand, logically, according to our own limited mental faculties? It would be the equivalent to a mother trying to speak Greek to her child, then slapping it when it doesn't understand.

Duchifas wrote: cap'n queasy wrote: Duchifas wrote: Quote: For the Greeks, there were Gods on their mountain too.

Every culture has its gods. In reality, Greeks didn't care about mountain gods. Their god was their physical body. Roman god was power. The secular progressive god is pseudo-science.

Actually their god is power, as well, pseudo-science is merely an attack on something that stands in their way of gaining power.

True.

BTW, cap'n, I got fed up with the commies in New England and moved down South (to a state where my vote actually matters). I'm more Souther than ya'all now.
Your vote only matters when you win?

Mailech wrote: Nathyn wrote: Mailech wrote: Nathyn wrote: And I thought to myself, "Wait, you idiot! No, if God was trying to perform a miracle, wouldn't he have prevented the car from ever crashing and nearly hitting you to begin with?"
BTW, I also view my near misses as a little help from G-d as well. Even when I don't get into an accident but it is close, I thank G-d.

You could say that it was a warning to that guy, and hopefully he heeds it. A way of G-d saying your life is in the balance, do better.
The point is that if God was watching out for you, wouldn't he prevent the car crash first? If the crash never happened, then he would never have the opportunity of learning his lesson.
What lesson? That God communicates to us that we're being faithful or unfaithful by flinging cars at us?

Mailech wrote: Quote: Religious people tend to give God credit for good things more often than bad things, without any logical distinction as to why.
Don't generalize, I give G-d credit for absolutely everything that happens to me.
I simply said "religious people," not everyone. So, when you read this thread: Is God responsible for it?

Mailech wrote: Quote: A "miracle," is just considered a miracle because somebody says so. And to be perfectly clear it is a miracle that I wake up every morning and I am breathing that the sun is shining and that the world still exists.
Right. Because every day, the universe is in dire peril of collapsing in upon itself into a ceaseless void of non-existence.

That is, if it weren't for Atlas, holding up the sky.

[cap'n queasy]

Mailech wrote: BTW cap'n I love your avatar :-)

Thanks. John made it for me. :lol:

[Duchifas]

Nathyn wrote: You're being very ethnocentric.

You say that as if it's a dirty word. We are having a discussion in the Judaism forum. So I am presenting that perspective. You want more multi-culti-diversity, visit the other forums.

Quote: From our modern perspective, accepting folktales as history is "dumb," yes. But they didn't have science -- as you remarked, they didn't have cell phones or cars. Literacy was rare.

Are you talking about some tribe in Guinea or Jews? Literacy was never rare among Jews. They instituted the idea of mandatory education of children a few thousand years ago. WHAT are you talking about?

Quote: And so, such folktales were the only means of passing on history. You might think it's wrong to consider them so naive, but that's precisely how Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans created their mythologies, and I see no reason to give legitimacy to the Jews than the other demographics. I see no reason for why such a "shenanigan" could be pulled upon the Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans, which could not equally be pulled upon the Jews.

Can you re-read what I wrote above before addressing it? Thanks.

Such a "shenanigan" -- a radical revision of a national history, and genuine mass acceptance thereof forever, could not be pulled on anyone, and has never been pulled on anyone. If it has been, I want you to provide an example or two. And I want you to explain whether it would work on you, and if no, why not?

Quote: The oral Torah is especially of dubious authenticity. Its legitimacy can be disproven by simply playing a game of telephone. In case you aren't familiar with the game of telephone, it's where you have a group of people in a line. One person whispers something to the second, the second repeats the same whisper to the third, and so on, until it reaches the last person. In every case where the game is played, the message is inevitably distorted. And yet, you would have me believe that the oral Torah was perfectly preserved over several centuries?! Particularly when some of its arguments are spurious.

Quite so. The authenticity of the Oral Torah is not dubious by any measure. What could be potentially dubious is the accuracy of some opinions in it, a few thousand years after its inception.

Interestingly, you fail to address the authenticity of the Written Torah, which has been preserved accurately through thousands of years. The Torah of the Yemenite Jewish community, separated from the rest of the Jewish world for many centuries, has a variance of a few vowels, with absolutely no effect (similar to the difference between "k" and "ck"). Keeping in mind this most striking and unparallelled preservation of the written history, I find it very hard to believe that at some point a bunch of scholars just re-wrote everything, and everyone happily acquesced.

Quote: The most damning thing of all for the Tanakh, however, is reason. Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein have both pointed out logical and philosophical problems with the Jewish scriptures. The only reply is, "God's reason is higher than human reason." But if all we have access to, by default, is human reason, why would God ever try to define himself in terms of something we can't understand, logically, according to our own limited mental faculties? It would be the equivalent to a mother trying to speak Greek to her child, then slapping it when it doesn't understand.

Actually, if you ever bothered to read the Torah, you would quickly figure out that it is an attempt to relate the Divine to us, in OUR terms that we can understand, as much as possible. The fact that you are too lazy to try and just write it off as illogical and problematic is more a reflection on you than on the Torah.

Lastly, I don't quite understand your obsession with Spinoza. You mention him over and over again. You know, there were PLENTY other Jewish philosophers (and non-Jewish ones) that you could try to obsess about. How about Maimonides? How about Nachmanides? How about Thomas Aquinas?

Expand your horizons a bit, Nathyn. It is unhealthy be so Spinoza-centric. Be more open minded or you will miss out on the great diversity of opinions and philosophies.

[Mailech]

Nathyn wrote: You're being very ethnocentric. From our modern perspective, accepting folktales as history is "dumb," yes. But they didn't have science -- as you remarked, they didn't have cell phones or cars. Literacy was rare. And so, such folktales were the only means of passing on history. You might think it's wrong to consider them so naive, but that's precisely how Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans created their mythologies, and I see no reason to give legitimacy to the Jews than the other demographics. I see no reason for why such a "shenanigan" could be pulled upon the Greeks, Egyptians, and Native Americans, which could not equally be pulled upon the Jews. As they say the devil is in the details. We are not saying it is impossible for folk tales to be taken as truth, we are saying that the specific nature of the tale of Jewish history specifically revelation at Sinai and even the whole story of the Exodus is almost impossible to be accepted in a conventional way. Is the story of the two brothers who built Rome true? I don't know, but if the claim was that it was witnessed by 3 million people who from then on kept a written record of it then I might have more faith that it was.

Quote: The most damning thing of all for the Tanakh, however, is reason. Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein have both pointed out logical and philosophical problems with the Jewish scriptures. The only reply is, "God's reason is higher than human reason." But if all we have access to, by default, is human reason, why would God ever try to define himself in terms of something we can't understand, logically, according to our own limited mental faculties? It would be the equivalent to a mother trying to speak Greek to her child, then slapping it when it doesn't understand. I don't know what you are talking about, have you ever read the Tanach, that you find it so incomprehencable, and please don't tell me that you skimmed the skeptics annotated bible and that is your basis.

Quote: What lesson? That God communicates to us that we're being faithful or unfaithful by flinging cars at us? Exaclty.

Quote: So, when you read this thread: Is God responsible for it?
Yes and no, it is not happening to me, I am doing it, in this case I am excersizing my free will to read this thread. At the same time, G-d put me in a situation that I have the choise as to whether I read this thread or not.

Quote: Right. Because every day, the universe is in dire peril of collapsing in upon itself into a ceaseless void of non-existence.

That is, if it weren't for Atlas, holding up the sky. That is true, except it is not Atlas, it is G-d's continued willing the universe to exist.

[cap'n queasy]

Quote: a radical revision of a national history, and genuine mass acceptance thereof forever, could not be pulled on anyone, and has never been pulled on anyone.

Well, at least not until modern times. :lol: It's pretty common the last few decades I would say. :lol: