The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by hazel Of course Jews are not meek! We are a stiff-necked people and proud of it. Only a really stiff-necked people could have survived the long and bloody shaping that God put the Jews through. If the Irish had had to suffer anything like it, they'd be extinct by now.

Good for you! As a pagan I despise meekness. But don't call us Irish meek — we endlessly fought occupation by a much larger country and won! Well, we lost the Sick Counties, but who wants them anyway?

@hazel: I did not mean 'meekness' as today's English sense (=weakness) but in the Scriptural sense, as I explained in my post. I am aware the Jews have suffered.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Sometimes, a prophet was very explicit: "this king or that king is going to come and whup your butt - or, vice-versa." And sometimes we know from other historical sources that they were dead-wrong. (e.g. "This person is going to become king," but he is killed in battle.)

I disagree. If you think those things happen, let's see some examples, or take it that they do not. There are instances where Jehovah commutes a sentence (e.g. The Ninevites repenting in response to Jonah). There are prophecies whose meaning only becomes clear at God's chosen time. Daniel chapter 11 is an example.

As for your sweeping interpretations of scripture, I'm sure there's room in the Excited States for a view of Scripture as colourful as yours. Personally I think Mark Twain was a little closer to the bone

Originally Posted by Mark Twain It ain't those parts of the Bible that I don't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.

Are you bothered if you're right or not?

@business_kid: I'm not going to try now to enumerate some of the failed prophecies – there are plenty of web sites for that, including various ones where the authors come to God's defense. As I have said, sometimes the prophets were explicitly wrong, and sometimes they were just so vague that the reader has to provide a "meaning" of his choice. But, if you want to believe that prophets were infallible, then that's exactly what you will do.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs I'm not going to try now to enumerate some of the failed prophecies…

Some prophecies are vague, no trouble agreeing there. Where the Bible contains Witness testimonies, the witnesses may have slightly different versions of events. But I'm a little irritated by people mouthing off about Biblical contradictions and false prophecies, when they can't provide examples. Most often, it's their faulty interpretations that are false. So if you can't point at false prophecies, I call on you to justify or withdraw your jaundiced view of Scripture. Let me remind you of what you said

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs Sometimes, a prophet was very explicit: "this king or that king is going to come and whup your butt - or, vice-versa." And sometimes we know from other historical sources that they were dead-wrong. (e.g. "This person is going to become king," but he is killed in battle.)

That sounds like you knew what you were talking about. Did you?

A real life example of “false” prophecies that were fulfilled concerns King Zedekiah, the last king of the 2 tribe kingdom of Judah (reigned 7th century BC). At Ezekiel 12:10-13, Ezekiel prophesied from Babylon that Zedekiah would not see Babylon.

Jeremiah, however,Jehovah’s prophet in Jerusalem living at the same time, spoke the words in Jeremiah 34:2-5, which indicated he would see the King of Babylon and be taken to Babylon.

Zedekiah and those close to him seized on the apparent “contradiction” as an excuse for disbelieving both prophecies.

The fulfilment of both prophecies is at Jeremiah 52:9-11. Zedekiah was captured and taken to Nebuchadnezzar, who passed sentence on him. His sons were slaughtered in front of him, his eyes were blinded, and he was imprisoned in Babylon. Zedekiah had been offered many easier ways out of that situation, but had turned them all down.

Now that this thread has gone quiet, maybe it's time for a changer of topic.

Noah's Flood: I accept that atheists don't accept it, and that skeptics/agnostics don't regard it as fact either.

My question is: How many believers here believe in it? If you believe in God, but not the Flood I'd love to know. Likewise, If you believe in God and the Flood I'd love to know.

Given what we now know about the actual size of this planet, and the amount of water resources that are known to be upon it, it now seems to me very unlikely that the entire planet was actually ever inundated by water. However, it may be possible that "the geographic regions of interest" might have been flooded.

However, "I don't feel challenged." I don't feel that I need claim "one side or the other."

Desert people, many thousands of years ago, spoke of a "flood" that to them was "world-wide." Their testaments, likewise, have now ground through thousands of years of time ... now delivering to us the things that we now see and regard. I don't feel obligated to answer to this. There are plenty of inconsistencies to that story which I do not feel required to explain. At the time, thousands of years ago now, they wrote the legends that they wrote. I have no need to ascribe a purpose to any of it.

Flood stories are very widespread in Europe and around the Mediterranean (I don't know about the rest of the world). The biblical account closely matches a Babylonian one, in which the Noah figure is called Utnapishtim, right down to their use of birds to survey the post-flood world. The Greeks called their Noah Deucalion. There were also many stories of lost lands that had been covered by water and never reemerged, like Atlantis or Lyonnesse. You need to remember that the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the southern part of the North Sea are not true oceans but flooded land basins. The melting of glaciers much further north during the mesolithic and early neolithic caused them to disappear permanently and probably caused unimaginable loss of life. It's not surprising that stories were handed down about this.

I believe that we found the City of Atlantis ...

How can we possibly find a city that is now underneath the ocean? What cataclysmic "climate change" caused this to occur? All of these things simply reinforce to me how little we actually "know" about this marvelous planet. God has mysteries that so far He reserves only to Himself. (But of course, we're still working on it ... and may we never stop trying.)

So we have hardly anyone who believes in the flood.

Funnily enough, I don't believe in Atlantis - up to the time of the Flood we have no record of anyone building cities. I think the stuff about Atlantis is just another Flood legend. I don't think Flood Legends are purely tropical either. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths mentions legends belonging to Inuit and Eskimo civilizations. We even have a badly distorted Irish Flood legend too. It seems nobody let go of the poitín when they were telling stories here…

This recent Quote by James Perloff (Tornado in a Junkyard) saves us the math

In 95 percent of the more than two hundred flood legends, the flood was worldwide; in 88 percent, a certain family was favored; in 70 percent, survival was by means of a boat; in 67 percent, animals were also saved; in 66 percent, the flood was due to the wickedness of man; in 66 percent, the survivors had been forewarned; in 57 percent, they ended up on a mountain; in 35 percent, birds were sent out from the boat; and in 9 percent, exactly eight people were spared (p. 168). Perloff, James (1999), Tornado in a Junkyard:

It seems like a fair degree of agreement - more than we'd ever see here!

Before we can assess any level of "agreement" on Flood Mythology we have to assess IF the accounts actually said "worldwide" and WHAT that term meant to them since not a single civilization for over 1500 years actually had any but a limited, narrow concept of what our world actually is.

Originally Posted by business_kid Funnily enough, I don't believe in Atlantis - up to the time of the Flood we have no record of anyone building cities.

That's not true. Cain built a city and named it after his son (Gen 4 v.17). Seems a bit funny though, building a whole city just for himself and his family!

A plausible version of "Atlantis" seems to be a city in Spain that was apparently overwhelmed by a tsunami although many miles inland. Others have found actual cities now in fairly shallow water ... but under water nonetheless.

Once again, I am okay with interpreting the flood story loosely, because as has been observed there are a very great many of them. "Here is the Jewish version."

Originally Posted by hazel That's not true. Cain built a city and named it after his son (Gen 4 v.17). Seems a bit funny though, building a whole city just for himself and his family!

When you look back at the very earliest writings in Genesis, such as "Cain and Abel," you do find some ... shall we say ... "oddities." The two sons of the very first man and woman are within their lifetime building cities. Just how many humans were now on the planet and where exactly did they come from?

These are among the very many reasons why I do not conclude that "the Bible is literal," nor particularly intended to be. It is a book of legends. @business_kid You are of course entirely free to disagree with me on that.

The Flood makes no sense but Many Floods makes lots of sense, especially when viewed in context. However some fairly prominent individuals are so defined by and subject to dogma things like "If the Bible said Jonah swallowed the whale I'd believe it to be true" so I don't know how one can even imagine such people will respond reasonably to Reason. There is some evidence of this, here, since it is utterly common in Fundamentalist "thought".