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Einstein Letter Critical of Religion To Be Auctioned On EBay
cheesecake23 writes "In an admirably concise piece in The Atlantic, Rebecca J. Rosen summarizes Einstein's subtle views on religion and profound respect for the inexplicable, along with the news that a letter handwritten by the legendary scientist that describes the Bible as a 'collection of honorable, but still primitive legends' and 'pretty childish' will be auctioned off on eBay over the next two weeks. Bidding will begin at $3 million."
Um, something about Jesus, Jews and a cross, keeps coming to mind.
Something's come up. I'll, uh, see you guys later. Have a cold one for me.
I'm fairly certain that were Einstein still alive, he would be shaking his head at such ridiculousness.
Also Einstein said:
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . ."
"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
ORIGINAL SOURCE (you need a paid subscription): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html
ALTERNATIVE SOURCE: http://www.thinkingchristian.net/2008/12/time-christians-in-germany-during-world-war-ii/
Was it about, Jesus being cross with the Jews?
Um, something about Jesus, Jews and a cross, keeps coming to mind.
You must mean the famous joke:
What happens when you drive nails through the hands of the son of a jewish carpenter? He gets very cross...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Prove it. Saying you feel it in your soul doesn't count. A book with very little forensic evidence backing it up, while concurrently having ample evidence of several rewrites by parties with something to gain over the centuries also doesn't count.
Religious nuts scare me.
They have no problem screwing over anyone not of their religion. They are only good at all because they think the invisible man is watching them all the time. And even that isnt absolute. They can be a tool. Confess. And hey! its all good!
All the non-religious peeps are good without the afterlife reward carrot in front of them.
Someday.. long after im dead im afraid.. society will finish growing up. and religion will earn its proper place. as a subset of CRAZY.
Sure wish i could see that.
I am sick and tired of people (mostly atheists) confusing Christianity and Religion. Stop it. He was critical of Christianity not "Religion"
You just saved me $3 million.
No... why did Jesus get crucified? He forgot the safe word.
Jesus promised the end of all wicked people.
Thor promised the end of all ice giants.
I don't see many ice giants around.
Jesus continues to give us problems; Einsteins' many contributions continue to benefit us while he himself become forgotten.
Hear me out here, but had Jesus said in the bible something like "judge not less ye be judged... and the earth is round, keep sailing west for months and there's a whole new land!"
or "I die for your sins... and gravity can be explained simply using numbers and counting on a few fingers, try it for other stuff and eventually you'll be in space and walking on the moon."
He may well have been the son of God to be able to impart such insights ahead of their time.
Einstein's insights I believe are like this, they were not for this age. Man remains too immature to wield such knowledge and the vast acceleration of understanding about the secrets of nature the universe he has brought about.
Politicians and businessmen still control the fruits of the knowledge of humanity, and not the scientists and learned who first discover them.
Anyway for this reason Einstein > Jesus. E=MC^2 = God
Actually it's not a "book" as such. It is distinctly a collection of stories and letters that were at one stage compiled and bound together. The original authors never intended for them to be in a book. Many of the letters were probably never even meant for more than one person. Go figure.
What "ample evidence" is there that any individual part was rewritten?
All praise Thor!!
This reminds me of catholic high school when I quoted Einstein for an assignment in my religion (indoctrination) class as a way of proving that god DID exist. To make my (nonunderstanding) teacher look foolish in front of the rest of the class. Good times.
Any takers on how long it will take for the religious people to find this thread and turn it into a big nerd-vs-religion flame fest?
*ducks and hides*
Urk is a fishing village in Holland known to be part of the bible belt. They were also FIERCE resisters, their fishing vessels carrying many a Jew and downed allied airmen to safety. There reasoning wasn't so much a love of Jews and others they helped to safety but a pigheaded resistance to being told what to do. They knew wrong and right and nazism was wrong, end of story. They were good men, who did do something.
But I wouldn't call them lovers of freedom, just people who when pushed, push back, by instinct. They would also have had nothing to do with mass religion, claiming "protestants" are one group is damn silly. Most consider the people in the next village to be weirdos.
Meanwhile the pope at the time was thought of to be a good man too. He just didn't do anything.
Mussoline and the holocaust were strange bed fellows, it has to be remembered that nazism and facism are not the same thing. And Mussolini was a fascist, not a nazi. He regonized Jews were part of Italy and should be left undisturbed, Jews were members of his party in quite high positions. It is only with the increasing power of Germany that this changed, resulting in Jews being stripped of citizenship rights in 1939.
This was not at all popular with the Italian fascists and the pope even send a strong letter of critism on this. To increasingly appease Hitler, Jews were started to be round up in Italian controlled areas and send to labor camps but Mussonlini until the Italy surrender refused to send them to German controlled extermination camps. The Germans complained that Italy and its territories were becoming a save haven in Europe for Jews.
After Italy surrendered, Mussonlini was freed by the Germans and they took over control over the remaining Italian land and started to put their holocaust plan into action. Italian soldiers who were not captured by Allied forced found themselves improsoned by the Germans, Italy very much became subjegated to full German control and all that entailed.
The role of religion in WW2 is far from clean, but it is not as simple as some Discovery Channel programs would like you to believe.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
His definition is basically that "God" is the mystery, AKA creating force, of the universe itself. Whether that "force" turns out to be a bearded dude or natural laws is a lower level than the definition.
It's a great wiggle-room definition. Thus, you can be a geek who admires the "glory of God" without having to subscribe to a particular religion or "shape" or sentient-level of creator.
It's the kind of non-committal fuzz that would make Mitt Romney proud ;-)
Table-ized A.I.
Evidence of alterations come from textual analysis. For example, some of the alterations use phrases that were in use much later than the stories were supposedly written down.
Albert hit the religion nail on the head in the last paragraph of his famous speech "My credo", which he gave to the German League of Human Rights in late 1932.
My Credo
It is a special blessing to belong among those who can and may devote their best energies to the contemplation and exploration of objective and timeless things. How happy and grateful I am for having been granted this blessing, which bestows upon one a large measure of independence from one's personal fate and from the attitude of one's contemporaries. Yet this independence must not inure us to the awareness of the duties that constantly bind us to the past, present and future of humankind at large.
Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here, involuntarily and uninvited, for a short stay, without knowing the why and the wherefore. In our daily lives we feel only that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own.
I am often troubled by the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings, and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.
I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.
I have never coveted affluence and luxury and even despise them a good deal. My passion for social justice has often brought me into conflict with people, as has my aversion to any obligation and dependence I did not regard as absolutely necessary.
I have a high regard for the individual and an insuperable distaste for violence and fanaticism. All these motives have made me a passionate pacifist and antimilitarist. I am against any chauvinism, even in the guise of mere patriotism.
Privileges based on position and property have always seemed to me unjust and pernicious, as does any exaggerated personality cult. I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I know well the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual have always seemed to me the important communal aims of the state.
Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice keeps me from feeling isolated.
The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is.
Einstein - 1932
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
3 million.
The Japanese indeed never went after the Jews, specifically. They did however put civilians from conquered territories into labor camps and had their troops rape women and children for relaxation. Not specifically Jews, just anyone really who they had captured.
They did kill millions of Chinese in their holocaust but their generals were not sickened by a little blood so they never bothered with gas chambers.
Still, I don't think that exactly makes them the nice guys of the axis powers.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...believed in a "personal god", which includes but is not limited to Christianity.
Prove it.
woosh. "2012" too subtle?
As several commenters on the source article mentioned already, the word "Childish" does not appear in the original text. My German may be rusty but I concur, "Kindish" is not present in the original letter... but lets not let the facts get in the way of a sensational headline...
30 seconds on Google turned up this article and a speech on the subject.
The bible has been in human hands for centuries and copied by hand before printing presses came in. A spelling mistake here, bad handwriting there, the next guy comes along and misreads a word and then 'fixes' the sentence so that it makes sense. I'd be shocked if there was a single page in there that hadn't changed. And that's only accidental changes.
Looking at the things politicians do today, when it's easier to fact-check and catch them out than ever before, I find it completely believable that people just... mis-copied parts of the bible to justify whatever they felt like doing. It's not like people in the year 900 were going to get on Facebook and compare notes with people in other countries. They'd probably never touched a copy of the Bible. Probably couldn't read. A man with a bible could tell people it said anything. Make some changes in his copy, noone would ever know.
Einstein never said that as he confirmed in an unpublished letter: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-05/
...And a Spaniard.
The game.
He said "primitive susperstition". That's way different. You can look it up in the original yourself , it is barely recognizable in the JPG but you can see he said "primitiven Aberglauben" (http://www.auctioncause.com/cf/einstein/images/large.jpg see second picture middle) und nicht "kindisch" which would be childish. Methink the person translating made a bit of creative translation here.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Hey mod: This is not Flamebait -1. This should be Funny +1. It's funny. Laugh. Why so serious?
The bible has been in human hands for centuries and copied by hand before printing presses came in. A spelling mistake here, bad handwriting there, the next guy comes along and misreads a word and then 'fixes' the sentence so that it makes sense. I'd be shocked if there was a single page in there that hadn't changed. And that's only accidental changes.
Of course, The Faithful claim that $DEITY in his glorious omnipotence has kept The Holy Word pure and absolutely identical to The Original.
In common-speek that's a circular proof and can thusly be completely ignored.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
It's really sad, that grown men organize their lives around some rules that an iron age tribe wrote on the skin of dead animals to keep the peace in their tents.
The bible has been in human hands for centuries and copied by hand before printing presses came in. A spelling mistake here, bad handwriting there, the next guy comes along and misreads a word and then 'fixes' the sentence so that it makes sense. I'd be shocked if there was a single page in there that hadn't changed. And that's only accidental changes.
Looking at the things politicians do today, when it's easier to fact-check and catch them out than ever before, I find it completely believable that people just... mis-copied parts of the bible to justify whatever they felt like doing. It's not like people in the year 900 were going to get on Facebook and compare notes with people in other countries. They'd probably never touched a copy of the Bible. Probably couldn't read. A man with a bible could tell people it said anything. Make some changes in his copy, noone would ever know.
You are way wrong on this.
Transmission
B. The Masoretes
The Masoretic scribes (A.D. 500-1000) in charge of the Old Testament manuscript copying used a very meticulous system of transcription and had a deep reverence for the text. God used their almost obsessive respect for the text to preserve the text’s accuracy. They had specific rules on the type of ink and the quality and size of parchment sheets. No individual letter could be written down without having looked back at the copy in front of them. The scribe could not write God’s name with a newly dipped pen (lest it blotch) and even if the king should address him, while writing God’s name, he should take no notice of him. They were so meticulous that they counted all the paragraphs, words and even letters, so they could know by counting, if they had done it perfectly. They knew the middle letter of each book so they could count back and see if they had missed anything. . .
D. The Dead Sea Scrolls
Since the oldest complete copy of a Hebrew Old Testament in existence is dated about A.D. 1000, that’s a long time after the originals were written (1450-400 B.C.). But there are portions that date back farther. Most significant are the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in caves in 1947 by an Arabian shepherd boy. These well-preserved Hebrew text fragments date back to 100 B.C. They include many Bible portions, including some complete books. Their value to the credibility of our Bible is that amazingly, there is virtual agreement between these Hebrew texts and the ones dated 1,100 years later! This proves how accurately the scribes copies for all those years.
The evidence shows that our Old Testaments today are extremely accurate reflections of the original manuscripts.
Meticulous Care in the Transmission of the Bible
So how reliable are the manuscripts that all these Bibles are translated from? The evidence is overwhelming and seldom disputed. Manuscripts prepared from different individuals spread over various parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean region agree remarkably with each other. Also, the manuscripts agree with the Septuagint, which was translated to Greek from Hebrew possibly as far back as the 3rd century BC. The Dead Sea scrolls discovered in 1947 also provided a profound testimony to the reliability of the centuries of transmission of the Bible text, as every Old Testament book found was virtually word for word with today's Bible! (the few differences were "obvious slips of the pen or variations in spelling"1).
The scribes who were in charge of the Old Testament text dedicated their lives to preserving the text's accuracy when they made copies. The great lengths the scribes went to guarantee the reliability of the copies is illustrated by the fact that they would count every letter and every word, and record in the margins such things as the middle letter and word of the Torah. If
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
He did a few things back in WWII and later went on to be Pope John Paul the second, I'm sure you've heard about him. He wasn't the only one.
I asked God: "Do you want me to believe in you?" And God told me: "Write the following program, and you will receive my answer." I haven't run the program yet. Maybe I am scared of what it will tell me.
No offense, but I would give those sources more credit if their entire existence wouldn't be completely undermined by saying anything to the contrary.
And if it wasn't completely unrealistic and contradicted by the incredibly well documented existence of Apocrypha, multiple councils to determine the true gospels, and the fact that the Church has always been far more political than religious even if its followers are not.
Um, something about Jesus, Jews and a cross, keeps coming to mind.
You seem to be forgetting something - kind of important too, as far as Christianity goes - something about an empty tomb.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The reliability of the New Testament is also beyond reproach.
Now there's a scientific attitude.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I am no programmer, but i am guessing its very bad code. No good comments, no explanation of what and why. Just like in the real religion!
DO NOT LET THIS FALL INTO THE HANDS OF RELIGIONSISTS who constantly use out of context quotes by Einstein to "prove" he variously a Christian a religious Jew, sympathetic to Christianity, a fundie, believed in god etc etc etc. none of which he did.
I wouldn't be concerned with minor typographical errors, it's unlikely they could actually result in changed meaning. For the sake of argument, look at the dead sea scrolls, which are thousands of years old, and compare with the modern hebrew bible. What you'll find is that they are largely identical. So even over long spans of time, it seems that minor typographical errors won't add up to significant changes.
The problem areas with the text itself are the time between when the events occurred and when they were written down, and stories that were added to the text after the fact. We know that peoples memories change over time, and the more time passes the more details they fill in. So, it seems that the different authors filled in the details a little differently. But the details are hardly the point of the stories they wrote. The link you provided points out stories we know weren't included in the earliest manuscripts of the text, but since we don't have the originals, there may be (and probably are) others.
However, the real problem one which applies to all forms of human communication. The foundation of communication is shared experience. We experience concepts and then learn to associate words with them. But we all have different experiences, and have associated them to words differently. That means that when one person talks, what he's saying and what the other person's hearing are going to be different conceptually. I have an identical twin brother and even with him, I run into these kind of misunderstandings.
So when it comes to reading the Bible, some of which is probably 3500 years old, there are going to be some language barriers even if it's "perfectly" translated. The person writing it would have had many experiences that most of us will never have.
You are way wrong on this.
Transmission
B. The Masoretes
The Masoretic scribes (A.D. 500-1000) in charge of the Old Testament manuscript copying used a very meticulous system of transcription and had a deep reverence for the text. God used their almost obsessive respect for the text to preserve the text’s accuracy. They had specific rules on the type of ink and the quality and size of parchment sheets. No individual letter could be written down without having looked back at the copy in front of them. The scribe could not write God’s name with a newly dipped pen (lest it blotch) and even if the king should address him, while writing God’s name, he should take no notice of him. They were so meticulous that they counted all the paragraphs, words and even letters, so they could know by counting, if they had done it perfectly. They knew the middle letter of each book so they could count back and see if they had missed anything. . .
D. The Dead Sea Scrolls
Since the oldest complete copy of a Hebrew Old Testament in existence is dated about A.D. 1000, that’s a long time after the originals were written (1450-400 B.C.). But there are portions that date back farther. Most significant are the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in caves in 1947 by an Arabian shepherd boy. These well-preserved Hebrew text fragments date back to 100 B.C. They include many Bible portions, including some complete books. Their value to the credibility of our Bible is that amazingly, there is virtual agreement between these Hebrew texts and the ones dated 1,100 years later! This proves how accurately the scribes copies for all those years.
The evidence shows that our Old Testaments today are extremely accurate reflections of the original manuscripts.
So how reliable are the manuscripts that all these Bibles are translated from? The evidence is overwhelming and seldom disputed. Manuscripts prepared from different individuals spread over various parts of the Middle East and Mediterranean region agree remarkably with each other. Also, the manuscripts agree with the Septuagint, which was translated to Greek from Hebrew possibly as far back as the 3rd century BC. The Dead Sea scrolls discovered in 1947 also provided a profound testimony to the reliability of the centuries of transmission of the Bible text, as every Old Testament book found was virtually word for word with today's Bible! (the few differences were "obvious slips of the pen or variations in spelling"1).
I see your possibly biased sources and raise you a wikipedia!
According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:
The biblical manuscripts from Qumran, which include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther, provide a far older cross section of scriptural tradition than that available to scholars before. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.
Sure, wikipedia may not be the best academic source on the planet, but at least the source article above is well cited. Oh, and that doesn't sound like "slips of the pen" to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea_scrolls
They were roaring out of the global depression far faster than anyone else.
That's because all the wicked people killed them...
And you can't see the problem with believing information published on sites with a vested interest in the bible being reliable?
Various religious people I have spoken to talk about the divine hand of God guiding the translators. A deity who is only "virtually free from any corruption" doesn't sound that good to me.
Actually it's not a "book" as such. It is distinctly a collection of stories and letters that were at one stage compiled and bound together. The original authors never intended for them to be in a book. Many of the letters were probably never even meant for more than one person. Go figure.
What "ample evidence" is there that any individual part was rewritten?
There were religious councils held in europe through the middle-ages that specificaly focused on rewriting parts of the bible so they suited the changing views of church.
I thought he went out to get nailed.
I am no programmer, but i am guessing its very bad code. No good comments, no explanation of what and why. Just like in the real religion!
There two most central lines of the code to understand are these:
The first computes a SHA512 hash of a 111 byte buffer. The second checks if the last 64 bytes of that buffer was actually the hash of the buffer itself. Producing a 111 byte string with that property would require you to either find a security problem in SHA512 or perform a brute force computation which is out of reach even for the best know quantum algorithms. So the theory would be, that only God could produce such an input. I say the existence of a weakness in SHA512 is more likely than the existence of God. Hence even if the program did produce any nontrivial output, it doesn't prove the existence of God.
/dev/random, and repeatedly XORs 111 bytes blocks from there until the result contains a NUL character. Looks like some lame approach to ensure that the contents of the buffer is NUL terminated if it is finally printed out (which is never going to happen anyway).
/dev/random are given by God. I don't feel qualified to attempt an answer to that question, since I am already convinced about the non-existence of God, and hence that question makes little sense to me.
Where does the contents of that buffer come from in the first place? It reads data from
One can ask whether the bytes read from
And if anyone STILL thinks about them as nice guys, read about Unit 731
30 seconds on Google turned up this article
Good grief, that's hilarious. Not the article, the comments. I love the whole thread about "lol so your book is wrong and so are everyone else's but it's a fact that the quran is flawless so you must believe its every word".
I love the faithful. They are the source of endless amusement. I'm convinced if they'd just stop and listen to themselves for _one moment_ they'd realise how ridiculous they are.
Thanks god Einstein did question Islamic writings.
"Don't worry if you don't believe in God. Just know that God believes in you."
Too true. The rape of Nanking by the Japanese, where a quarter of a million Chinese were massacred is still very much in the minds of the Chinese today.
That's some nice religious propaganda there.
Thank you, that is an interesting post. Of course it accepts that the transmission of the Old Testament for at least 2,100 years or so as being very accurate. It then raises some issues about older versions. I've started looking at it, and have already found some interesting things.
. . . some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around A.D. 100.
It turns out that the book of Daniel was found with several variants as well, but it appears that actually helped clarify some matters with careful study. I won't be surprised if other books turn out the same. And it is worth noting that having three "families" of versions of a book with accurate transmission is a different question than chaos in the content.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The premise is flawed in any case. If there is a God and he is powerful, he could just as well shout in a loud voice from the sky. The program appears designed to detect the presence of a weak god, who is able to influence only small things. If a powerful God refuses to shout from the sky every time some arb asks, why should he then influence the /dev/random pseudo random process? Or the path of one program?
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
If everyone is an ice giant, then no one is an ice giant.
After Walt Simonson, Thor was a bore.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Of course, The Faithful claim that $DEITY in his glorious omnipotence has kept The Holy Word pure and absolutely identical to The Original.
Actually, many Christians are taught that the bible is a living thing, that changes and adopts to culture and society so as to always give us the meaning god truly intended. Many churches also teach that we all get from the bible that which we need at that time, allowing for our interpretation of the writing to change as we want/need.
Mighty convenient, if you ask me.
The most effective "propaganda" is the truth.
For an 'open minded' group, you guys sure do like religious bashing. I am ashamed to call you fellow nerds. Grow the fuck up.
Uh huh. Where are the transitional bible fossils then!?
Forget religion, which is all created by fallible men and women like you and me. It's all man-made', and imho has little to do with God.
I've personally evolved my thinking of God as a stern but fair dean of a college of learning, and we are all the students enrolled in that school. And if we do learn, in many ways, what we should know (play nice with the other students, don't hit, share your toys, etc.), when we die we may get to 'graduate' to a higher level. Those who don't graduate at the first attempt may have to go to summer school, or be 'held back', that's all. May God bless you all, regardless of whether you believe in God or not. :-)
"Don't worry if you don't believe in God. Just know that God believes in you.
AFAICT, you don't have enough evidence to warrant a knowledge claim. I consider it likely you don't even have enough evidence to make a belief based claim. That only leaves you with a faith based claim. Faith and delusion share the same definition -- eg they are synonyms. What does this tell you?
brandelf -t FreeBSD
If there existed an omnipotent god, who would like all humans to believe in him, then there would be no atheists.
This wild accusation is entirely untrue. The scriptures of the different centuries, whether 200AD or 2000AD, or anywhere in-between, agree with one another. We also have many writings from different centuries that quote the scriptures. It is said that those quotes are of sufficient volume to recreate the scriptures of most eras on their own, if the scriptures of those eras were suddenly unavailable.
So a land littered with empty tombs and the spawn of tomb raiders is some sort of evidence for your belief?
brandelf -t FreeBSD
Not necessarily. What if the omnipotent God desired humans to be free to make a choice, to interpret the world as they would? Some sects of Christianity would argue that there is an omnipotent God who does not desire all humans(only some) to believe. It is not so simply dismissed.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
30 seconds on Google turned up this article and a speech on the subject.
The bible has been in human hands for centuries and copied by hand before printing presses came in. A spelling mistake here, bad handwriting there, the next guy comes along and misreads a word and then 'fixes' the sentence so that it makes sense. I'd be shocked if there was a single page in there that hadn't changed. And that's only accidental changes.
Looking at the things politicians do today, when it's easier to fact-check and catch them out than ever before, I find it completely believable that people just... mis-copied parts of the bible to justify whatever they felt like doing. It's not like people in the year 900 were going to get on Facebook and compare notes with people in other countries. They'd probably never touched a copy of the Bible. Probably couldn't read. A man with a bible could tell people it said anything. Make some changes in his copy, noone would ever know.
Case in point, many protestants accept that "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" as the ending of the lord's prayer (or our father), when in fact, it was added to the margin by a monk copying the original text, either because it was part of a liturgical prayer or his own personal inspiration. The earlier texts, however, do not have it. But the King James version of the bible included it.
If there was a god and it was powerful, then humans wouldn't have needed to invent it. And the evidence that humans did invent it is all over every religion.
I see your possibly biased sources and raise you a wikipedia!
But your source disagrees with mine, so that means it's biased! See? Seeeeeee? Just admit I'm right already! I devoted a lot of my life to these stories! They're really really really important! Waaaaaaah!
Hm... actually, maybe I should stop that line of satirical response, given how legitimately devoted some people around here are to specific comic books, cartoons, and novels...
Not convenient, deliberate. The priests at these churches are just being more honest... "The bible means what I say it means just now, and what's convenient just now... Now do what I say, it's in the bible!"
Of course, The Faithful claim that $DEITY in his glorious omnipotence has kept The Holy Word pure and absolutely identical to The Original.
In common-speek that's a circular proof and can thusly be completely ignored.
Actually, the catholics, which are the largest christian denomination on the planet do not hold this point of view. They talk about the "truth" contained, but accept that variations in the text have crept in. So, at least for the largest christian sect, your circular proof argument is invalid. Also, the Jews don't hold that point of view, either. So, it's not valid for them, either. And finally, the Muslims don't care about the judeo-christian bible, so it doesn't apply to them, either.
No offense, but I would give those sources more credit if their entire existence wouldn't be completely undermined by saying anything to the contrary.
And if it wasn't completely unrealistic and contradicted by the incredibly well documented existence of Apocrypha, multiple councils to determine the true gospels, and the fact that the Church has always been far more political than religious even if its followers are not.
Hmmm, sounds like a disgruntled Catholic. However, even with all of those multiple councils to determine the true gospels and the apocryphal books, there is no evidence that the words of the accepted books were changed, which is what the previous post is trying to show with the citations given. Now, if you have citations to the contrary then I'm sure the readers here would love to see them.
No-one believes in me, hence God does not exist. QED.
Actually it's not a "book" as such. It is distinctly a collection of stories and letters that were at one stage compiled and bound together. The original authors never intended for them to be in a book. Many of the letters were probably never even meant for more than one person. Go figure.
What "ample evidence" is there that any individual part was rewritten?
There were religious councils held in europe through the middle-ages that specificaly focused on rewriting parts of the bible so they suited the changing views of church.
Citations please.
I mostly agree with you, until the point of not thinking by themselves. I am religious, and I do learn science and have a very letftiah libertarian way of thinking, so I dont see how can someone say that I dont think by myself, still I might be blind.
Religions can only exist if people accept someone else's story regarding the existence and nature of a mythical being based on no factual evidence whatsoever. People believe in religions because it brings them comfort. But if you accept anything purely on faith and especially if you cannot possibly verify the claims, that is pretty much the definition of not thinking for yourself. You have traded rational and independent thought for comfort. Seems a costly trade to me.
I disagree. The existence or non existence of any God (or indeed most things in general) is not dependent on human viewpoints. Your logic is broken for all deists for example. What if there is a god who chooses not to intervene? In which case he/she/it might be amused by those who believe. Or not care. Even if we allow your first statement, there exist multiple possible variations on the concept of God which would lead someone like you to conclude that the concept was invented even if such a God really existed. It is therefore impossible to conclude from your logic anything about the existence of any god, unless we delve much deeper into probabilities and philosophies. Such questions are never so easily dismissed.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Suppose I've never encountered religion before, and I discovered God and desire to become religious.
What religion should I choose, and why?
By your own argument, God wants me to be an atheist. Hence the GP is right.
It's generous to ascribe peace as the goal.
In history the high priests have been adept at wielding political power over the credulous.
Look, buddy, I'm a Christian. Stop trying to make me look bad, you're coming across as the same type of troll I'm always castigating antitheists about.
Free Martian Whores!
What argument? I simply stated two possibilities. One in which there is a God who desires your atheism and one in which there is a God who desires your ability to choose(which is not the same thing). I did not assert anything about the existence of God. In both cases there can exist atheists and (a) god(s). How is he/she correct? GP asserts that a God desiring everyone to believe and atheists are mutually exclusive. I showed one possibility where this is the case. Therefore he or she is incorrect. You could however make a case for the view being probable.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
You're a sub-atomic particle looking out at the vastness of the universe. In fact, if the universe is nothing more than another particle in a vastly larger organism, scientists trying to discover the particles that make up that universe wouldn't be able to see you. On top of that, you consider the logic capability of your infinitesimally small brain to have the capacity of understanding the beginning of the universe, how life began, as well as why -- for some yet unexplained reason -- life propagated itself over and over again. Yet, you're the one saying "prove it", as if you have some special comprehension of the facts that others who disagree with you don't. The fact that you want to require physical proof for a spiritual experience only proves your lack and capacity for critical thought on the topic.
of course you are right. There is not one single bible even today as the gathering of books that bible is looks differently depending on for which version of Christianity the book was prepared. Even if you take the book catholics use now it is still a compendium that at some point has been accepted as a 'proper' version so that unified book can be promoted and used. This process of unification involved removal of some texts. There have also been different translations. All this means that the book albeit for some holy is just some sort of base for those that consider it a book of truths. IN reality all big religions have this problem that their canon has been changed over time. Some ignore this, some use this fact as a reason to dismiss the whole thing as a valid source of anything and for some it is just a good hint pointing them in the some direction. I guess Einstein was in the 3rd group also when he did not follow the direction as considered the whole book of christianity as a set of rather primitive stories. I guess one thing that we usually miss on this is that majority of humans living so far have been primitive in this respect independently what religion or not they committed themselves to.
and if not, the Big G will need to know the answer for future reference - She's mainly a Perl hack.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
He was pissed at him self?
Actually maybe you should read "Misquoting Jesus" by B. Ehrman - it is written by a blblical scholar, actually the farther back in time you go the _less_ consistent the texts of the new testament are - the exact opposite of what you would expect if they all derived from a common source - this coupled with the fact that stories similar to story of Jesus (except with Egyptian or other mediteranean gods as heros) had been floating around for years before the supposed birth of Christ and finally the lack of any historical Roman records of Christ's existence make even the statment that "Christ was a historical figure" that I hear from even many atheists and agnostic completely untenable - there is no evidence for a historical Christ
AFAICT, you don't have enough evidence to warrant a knowledge claim.
Without evidence one way or another, the only logical conclusion is agnosticism. So why am I a Christian? Easy -- God has revealed himself to me. He'd reveal himself to you if you weren't so afraid he might actually exist.
You won't find what you're not looking for, and you certainly won't find something you're sure doesn't exist.
Free Martian Whores!
Exodus 21
20: “If a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod and he dies at his hand, he shall be punished. "
21: “If, however, he survives a day or two, no vengeance shall be taken; for he is his property."
Thanks to this scrutiny I can learn from Exodus 21 that it is okay to beat the crap out of my slave as long as I do not kill him and Leviticus 12 teaches me that baby girls leave their mothers twice as dirty as baby boys do. In Leviticus 21 I see that no hunchback or a dwarf, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles can approach the altar.
Where would civilization be without these priceless advices!
"Think globally, act locally".
By your own argument, God wants me to be an atheist. Hence the GP is right.
Allow is not the same as wants.
I disagree. I have desmissed it, truly.
Actually it's not a "book" as such. It is distinctly a collection of stories and letters that were at one stage compiled and bound together. The original authors never intended for them to be in a book. Many of the letters were probably never even meant for more than one person. Go figure.
What "ample evidence" is there that any individual part was rewritten?
There were religious councils held in europe through the middle-ages that specificaly focused on rewriting parts of the bible so they suited the changing views of church.
Well there's some "ample evidence". Too bad it's contradicted by this evidence: There were no councils in Europe that specifically focused on rewriting parts of the Bible.
Actually maybe you should read "Misquoting Jesus" by B. Ehrman - it is written by a blblical scholar, actually the farther back in time you go the _less_ consistent the texts of the new testament are - the exact opposite of what you would expect if they all derived from a common source - this coupled with the fact that stories similar to story of Jesus (except with Egyptian or other mediteranean gods as heros) had been floating around for years before the supposed birth of Christ and finally the lack of any historical Roman records of Christ's existence make even the statment that "Christ was a historical figure" that I hear from even many atheists and agnostic completely untenable - there is no evidence for a historical Christ
I'm not sure you understand Ehrman very well. Have you read Did Jesus Exist? If you are going to cite Bart Ehrman, a former Christian, a current professor of the New Testament, and the holder of a Masters in Divinity, why not quote the part where he's 100% certain the evidence points to there being a historical Christ. Ehrman has many doubts about Christianity, but one of them isn't whether Jesus was a historical figure.
Wouldn't you already be doing the right thing? I mean you found God at that point.
Well done. I have never desmissed anything in my life, but kudos to you. How is it done exactly? But then I shall dismiss your disagreement, as it is really in the grand scheme of things unimportant to me...
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
I reference Ehrman in relation to the consistency of various biblical documenst over time, which was the topic the post I was replying to was refering to - I was not refering to his opinion about a historical Jesus, in fact I referenced the historical stories floating around the middle east and the fact that there are no Roman records of Jesus as collaborating evidence _along_ with bibilical inconsistency which point to Jesus not being a historical figure.
It takes an open mind to go against one's culture and possibly upbringing to apply critical thinking and education to religions devised and evolved in societies severely lacking in both.
To say somebody is close minded for dismissing the existence of Santa Claus, Zeus, or Scientology is just grasping for a defense. There are an infinite number of untestable positions as well as an infinite number of time-consuming difficult to test positions. We only have a finite amount of time.
I wasted too much of my time on religions; they do not deserve the time in our lives they got already.
You "open minded" religious people need to be more "open minded" Satan might the one true god. Jesus might have never existed or if he did he might have been married or GAY... you are not being "open minded"... Do you have a tin foil hat? Why not? WHY TAKE THE RISK if you are open to the possibilities? Have you read the Koran or Book of Mormon? Why are you not open to another prophet?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
It's a great article, IMHO. It's short, and definitely worth a read to get past the simplistic analyses of Slashdot posters. ;) ....
===========
That's not, however, because Einstein rejected the notion of God, but because he took the idea of God very seriously, elevating it above a religious conception to a mathematical one. To Einstein, the elegance of the phsyics guiding the universe were God's handiwork, the mark not of a humanlike being that maintains control over the world, but of a divine beauty in nature's laws. As Walter Issacson wrote in his biography, following a religious phase in childhood, Einstein retained "a profound reverence for the harmony and beauty of what he called the mind of God as it was expressed in the creation of the universe and its laws."
The religion of the Bible was too provincial, too small, to contain the God Einstein revered. That God, the one he found in physics and who inspired his science, deserved more. But, nevertheless, Einstein didn't believe that differing views on God should interfere with the development of understanding among men.
God has revealed himself to me as well. Then I realized it was just this hashish joint I got a bit earlier.
Ok, I'll bite anyway. How can you tell it's God reveling himself and not some random hallucination?
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Agreed. He "wants" to be an atheist, and that is fine, free-will in action! And if not for free will, wouldn't we all just be mindless robots carrying out our pre-programmed responses? That gets boring after a time, re: The Dinosaurs. Now, add beings with sentience, free will and a curious mind, now you've got something! A game that's way more interesting to observe. To see all the different types of human interactions. And perhaps God's not into self-promotion, doesn't need to resort to outrageous P.R. stunts, and prefers to stay 'low-key'.
There is a problem with your statement. If you take some statement made by somebody on the Internet, there is a probability that the person was lying. That probability is higher than the probability that God exists. Hence any rational person would consider it more likely that you are lying than that you are telling the truth. If you want to make such a statement and have rational people believe you, you have to support it with evidence.
Making unfounded statements about what other people think, does not improve your credibility. Suppose Galactic Dominator is not afraid that God might exist. Then Galactic Dominator knows that this particular statement of yours is invalid. I would not expect Galactic Dominator to take you serious at all.
Besides, why would anybody be afraid that God might exist? People have been saying God is good. Are you telling us that God is not good, and we should be afraid he might exist?
There are plenty of people who was never afraid God might exist, who have seen no evidence indicating the existence of any God. That means there is loads of empirical evidence against your claim that God reveals himself to somebody who is not afraid he might exist.
You say it doesn't happen. The facts say otherwise. It happens all the time that people find something they thought didn't exist in the first place. Throughout history people have gone looking for God over and over again. Either they searched and found nothing, or they searched and found something, which they misinterpreted to mean that God was there.
Deism ( i/di.zm/[1][2] or /de.zm/) is the belief that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a creator, accompanied with the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge.[3][4][5][6][7] Deism became more prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Age of Enlightenment—especially in Britain, France, Germany and America—among intellectuals raised as Christians who believed in one God, but found fault with organized religion and could not believe in supernatural events such as miracles, the inerrancy of scriptures, or the Trinity. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
Actually, many Christians are taught that the bible is a living thing, that changes and adopts to culture and society so as to always give us the meaning god truly intended.
I've been in a lot of different Christian churches. I've been to a catholic mass, Lutheran, Baptist, methodist, I attend a nondenominational church weekly. Not once have I ever heard this espoused. What church does this, the Mormons maybe? JWs? Christian Scientists? The Church of Satan? The FSM?
Free Martian Whores!
From a science perspective, he advanced our understanding of how things work greatly, but the more he figured out, the more he understood that ultimately there would be no answer, and so you would have to rely on faith.
I think this was because to date, whenever we peel away an onion layer in our understanding of the Universe, there is always another layer. If you ask where did the Universe come from, you are left with the Universe just is. (Similar to the answer to who made God. God just is as well.)
By definition, the Universe includes everything which makes it all powerful. God is likewise. From a logic standpoint, you can't have two things being everything unless they are the same thing. I think this says the study of the Universe and the study of God should ultimately be the same path.
We can see the limits in progress our feeble minds have made on the path to understanding the Physics aspects of the Universe. This gives us humility. Folks who claim to understand the root of these matters (be they scientific or religious) seem silly at best.
It seems tragic that instead of joining forces to try to better understand this path, we use our differences in understanding as an excuse to cause harm to others.
In that case, he wants them to not just believe, but blindly believe like a fool. When I want someone to believe in something, I make sure I have some evidence to show them to make my case.
The whole belief thing doesn't make any sense anyway. What does god get out of people believing in him? Why would this even matter to all powerful being? Punishment for being rational and logical is his 'love'. "You don't believe I exist even though there is really no good reason to believe I exist...here's a world of endless torment for your efforts..."
This is the argument for a hateful, spiteful, self indulging, evil god. A god not worthy of my worship.
People should believe in something greater than themselves, I feel. To take the view that you are the greatest being in existance is myopic, don't you think. Did you create you? Are you able to create any living thing? Okay, forget about living beings, just show me say... a star you made. No, how about a planet? A simple moon? Still too much for you, huh? A rock? Gosh, maybe there's a possibility, stick with me now, of a being greater than yourself. One that may just be omnipotent and all powerful, despite your "belief" that there is no such thing. BTW, it is a 'belief' you have, and you cannot prove your belief that there is no God.
Many years ago I read the book "Teachings of the Church Fathers", which has or refers to many writings from the 100-200 AD era. There are also many ancient Roman writings, such as from the Roman historians Tacitus and Josephus. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus
The Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to the crucifixion of Jesus by Pontius Pilate and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, Annals (written ca. 116 AD).
As for the ancient non-biblical writings you allude to, yes, there were many, but only after a number of generations. Once Christianity spread among enough people, it became profitable for hucksters and frauds to write such things. One of the primary reasons for gathering the first big Christian counsel around 320 AD was because the appearance of the fake gospels and other writings were becoming a problem.
Dismissing the question? It took about 20 years. It helped to realize that the answer is unattainable. Any reason you are so smug about it? I certainly was not.
What humans think or do not think cannot influence the existence of a God. However the existence of a God can influence what humans think. Hence human viewpoints can still be used as evidence about the existence of a God.
Sounds like a variation on some Buddhist themes. Cool.
Agreeing with Einstien about anything doesn't make you smart. I you agree with the quote under discussion that makes you no smarter than the people who argue against religion thinking they're smart because they don't believe in a deity. All I can say it discussions of religion bring out the idiots from both sides.
That doesn't help anyone, because it just raises the question: How can I know God believes in me? Telling me "just know" isn't enough; if I had the capacity to accept that kind of dogmatic command, I'd probably already believe in gods.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Without evidence one way or another, the only logical conclusion is agnosticism.
Wrong. Contrary to popular opinion, absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
God has revealed himself to me. He'd reveal himself to you if you weren't so afraid he might actually exist.
You won't find what you're not looking for, and you certainly won't find something you're sure doesn't exist.
Sounds startling similar to wish-thinking. What criteria do you use to separate the two?
brandelf -t FreeBSD
Actually it's not a "book" as such. It is distinctly a collection of stories and letters that were at one stage compiled and bound together. The original authors never intended for them to be in a book. Many of the letters were probably never even meant for more than one person. Go figure.
What "ample evidence" is there that any individual part was rewritten?
There were religious councils held in europe through the middle-ages that specificaly focused on rewriting parts of the bible so they suited the changing views of church.
Citations please.
A start, but you didn't even try.
Listen here shmuck, if you don't like 3.5, you can always go start your own 4th Ed. group somewhere else.
Yeah, ok, you're right, it's a little dated. But we own all the books, knows the rules, and upgrading would be a pain. We like it, we know it, and damnit it's enjoyable. We're also the only group in town so it's not like you really have a choice. Stop rocking the boat. Now roll 6x 3d6 in a row and pick a class.
Is the fact that there are different versions of the bible not ample evidence enough?
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
I never said such a God required blind belief. I suppose one variation might. People have different ways of perceiving reality, and human experience is not completely shared. In any case, this is about the existence of (a) god(s), not the character of such a being. Besides how do you even define "evil" then? Who is to say your definition is correct? You? Society? Why do people always want to pull the argument around to this? The whole "argument is for a hateful [etc] god" is a false dilemma.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
I was making fun of your spelling.... But you seem to have missed that. :P
According to this subsequent slashdot article,
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/10/15/1238227/shut-up-and-play-nice-how-the-western-world-is-limiting-free-speech
this sale would be intolerant, which can't be tolerated. Clearly, we can soon expect Christians and Jews everywhere to begin slaughtering people until this horrible piece of paper is destroyed. It's obviously immoral to sell something that questions biblical teachings.
Right?
It's a pretty sad thing that I feel I need to post this anonymously.
I didn't miss it. I ignored it. :)
Yes, but in science, we don't believe in things pending their refutation. If that's the standard, I suspect you also believe in the giant squid of Pampanelle who has infinite appendages, and rapes you for eternity if you don't sing the sacred song each morning. You haven't proved he doesn't exist, right? You really ought to start singing ...
The universe, and nature are majestic in their own right. Stop cheapening them by implying that they couldn't exist on their own. They do, and that's really freaking awesome.
Thor was the cave nerd who invented the hammer. So yes, he does indeed deserve praise. Imagine a man with a hammer in a world without hammers. In that world, your hammer makes you a god.
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However the existence of a God can influence what humans think.
Ah, if only it were that simple. The existence of God may influence what humans think in diverse ways. It is an oversimplification to think that this can easily be used to prove/disprove god(s) existence. One of the central tenants to most religions appears to be some sort of conflict with one side negative the other positive. If true it means there is more than one influence... Perhaps even more than two.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
The Josephus references are HIGHLY suspect. For example, he was decidedly NOT Christian, but the Testimonium states, 'Jesus, who was the Christ". A non-Christian wouldn't have referred to him like that. Christian apologists don't begin to reference the works until early 4th century. Josephus was the man, he was huge, and having such a prominent reference would have been slung far and wide.
Tacitus is a Roman historian living well after the events supposedly happening. He's explain the story of the Christians who are popping up in Rome.
Richard Carrier is coming out with a book on the historicity of Jesus in the next several months.
Are you implying that only ice giants are (were) wicked people?
Bonus captcha: objector
All knowledge can only exist if people accept someone else's story regarding the event.
Utter nonsense. I don't need anyone else for me to figure out that the earth is round or that gravity behaves a certain way or that I am two inches taller than my wife. While it is true that I cannot verify everything around me, I certainly can verify things that I feel need verifying. If someone else comes up with a good explanation for why something behaves the way it does, I don't have to accept their model blindly. Just because someone says something doesn't mean it is true. That is vastly different than reading some special book and accepting whatever it says as factual , no matter how absurd, without any critical thinking or correlation with ones own senses and logic.
People also believe in science because it brings them comfort.
People believe in science because it works and the findings can be verified. That's the whole point of it. Science makes a prediction about how something will behave and then we verify that it actually does behave that way. If the model is wrong we change the model rather than making up a fanciful story to protect our ignorance.
Most advanced physics is accepted purely on faith by your reasoning, because it cannot possibly be verified.
If you believe that you know nothing about physics. I absolutely can verify physics and in fact it doesn't work unless you can verify the models. We have verified with countless experiments the Standard Model to about 12 decimal places. It is incredibly well tested and you can test it yourself. When physicists don't know something they say "I don't know" instead of making up fairy tales and deities to explain what they don't understand.
Why is it irrational to follow "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,"
It's not. The irrational bit is believing someone else's nonsensical story about an invisible man in the sky who told you to believe that. You don't need to invoke a deity to think treating others with decency and respect is a good idea. Some (though not all) of the teachings of religions are perfectly fine. It's when they start with the supernatural stuff that it becomes irrational.
Since my brother had a severe nervous breakdown (lack of sleep), 'God' revealed himself to him too. Except it wasn't a single god, but two of them which he calls 'ma' and 'pa'. He's otherwise sane now, but he firmly believes in them. He's an ace person, but as blind as you are in this respect.
Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
The real question is who has a lesser grasp on reality -- somebody who believes there is a god or somebody who is willing to pay $3,000,000 for this letter of Einstein's.
The original KJV, while certainly one of the great masterpieces of Early Modern English, is notorious for errors in translation. I own a copy simply because it's probably the most readable of all English Bibles, but when I'm in serious debate with a true believer, it's not what I view as a good source. The American Standard and modern KJV are much better Bibles.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And which councils were these?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There is enough knowledge of the untainted writings of Josephus to give weight to the notion that there was a man named Jesus teaching around the third decade of the 1st century AD. When you look at it that way, all Josephus was doing was giving some relatively minor notice to a religious figure who had been executed by the Romans and who had a number of followers.
There are plenty of ludicrous things in the Bible, and specifically ludicrous claims about Jesus, but that the man, no matter how much nonsense may have been piled on him later, did exist I don't think one can reasonably question.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, there isn't enough knowledge of the untainted writings. We have 11th century copies of Jospehus' works, and 3rd century references. Coincidently, the 3rd century references, by Christian apologists, don't reference the passages that talk about Jesus. It wasn't until the 4th century that they start claiming Josephus as a source for Jesus' historicity.
The primary references for Jesus are the items in the Bible which are, themselves, 2 or 3 times removed.
Jesus is taken as a given because of Christianity.
Scholars, you know, are able to recognize interpolations in texts. It is by no means 100% reliable, but neither are they utterly incapable of determining where it has happened.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Your understanding of the actual bible is not as good as you might think.
Bible, indeed, is a "collection of books" (more similar to a library than a book) but it was kept as a historic record. The Old Testament is extremely unique among historical records, however, as it does not clean up anyone's mess. There are no glorious, perfect kings seeking physical immortality. There are no all-knowing prophets who never make mistakes. There are bumbling kings, discouraged/faithless/ignorant prophets, and a chosen people who screw up everything they're given. Their fathers are not paragons, rather thieves, drunkards, and sinners. All in all, these candid admissions are evidence that the bible the most accurate glimpse of history we have, despite the existence of historical texts dated older than the books of Moses/Job (such as the Bhagivad Gita).
You also have a misunderstanding of epistles. Epistles are meant for everyone. They are addressed to a single individual, from a single individual, but they are "open letters" in truth. The most interesting examples are the negotiations before a war, where the enemy generals/leaders would use the epistle's language to rally his troops and demoralize the enemy's. It would be addressed from one general to the other, yes, but it was meant to first, be read aloud and distributed amongst the writer's supporters and then read aloud and distributed amongst the enemy, calling for all traitors, cowards, worms, and defectors to abandon the enemy army. The most famous of such, in recent history, would be this beauty.
If Paul had meant a private communication for Timothy, he would not have had his letter distributed amongst all the believers, recited in secret, etc. He would not have used an epistle, either, as epistles follow a strict, unmistakeable (in their time) form.
Actually it's not a "book" as such. It is distinctly a collection of stories and letters that were at one stage compiled and bound together. The original authors never intended for them to be in a book. Many of the letters were probably never even meant for more than one person. Go figure.
What "ample evidence" is there that any individual part was rewritten?
Well, the fact that an average bookstore has more than a single version on sale for one.
It's also a matter of historical record that the council of Trent convened to decide which texts to exclude from the bible.
Global warming will do that.
Not necessarily. What if the omnipotent God desired humans to be free to make a choice, to interpret the world as they would? Some sects of Christianity would argue that there is an omnipotent God who does not desire all humans(only some) to believe. It is not so simply dismissed.
If God exists, then it is obvious that he expects us to believe in him contrary to the available evidence. He is effectively hiding from man, but at the same time demanding that we believe in him and follow him anyway. That makes him a demanding and needy prick.
If he is omniscient, then he knows what horrors would come out of his creation. But he created everything anyway, despite how many innocents would suffer. If he is willing to subject creation to countless horrors so that one day a small minority could hang out with him in heaven one day, then he is a selfish needy prick.
If he is all omnipotent, and could have stopped suffering of the innocent, then he is an apathetic prick.
If he isn't omniscient and omnipotent, as his followers claim that he claims, then he is a lying prick.
So, it seems to me, that either he is a prick or that everything important about him is made up.
They're they nice guys out of pity due to the ass reaming they took from a pair of atomic bombs.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
First, as I stated, it is a saying, your reaction is more telling of your bias, and your inability to be open to ideas that don't fit neatly your perfect model. But that's cool, we're all at differing levels of knowing, I harbor no ill feelings. Second, that saying does help some people, I've used it, and people come up to me later (months) and told me so, and I also happen to know it's so. Others here have now read it for the first time in their lives, I hope it helps them. And please. Don't reply with the old " prove. it or it doesn't exist " line, it's old, and I don't waste my breath on people whose minds are closed. You can't prove God doesn't exist. I cannot prove He/She/It does. (God don't sit for polaroids.) I see my post modded troll, first time for me, yay me! (Actually, I'm much taller than 4feet)
ahhh! Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, God, Republican Party. I used to believe in all those things because my parents told me to. Then, I turned 10 and began to use my brain.
It is not a false dilemma. Even if god exists, if I am going to worship him he must be worthy of my affection. So far nothing the christian god has shown me makes him worthy of my attention.
And if he doesn't want my attention, isn't directly helping me or affect my life, why call him god?
If God exists, then it is obvious that he expects us to believe in him contrary to the available evidence.
Yet all your reasoning falls apart if we do not grant the above. And most religious people don't. Available evidence is subject to interpretation through point of view. Humans do not all share exactly the same experience of reality. And we have some control over our points of view. Therefore, no, we can not grant the above - God if he exists does not necessarily expect people to believe in him contrary to available evidence - religious people have plenty of evidence. Your acceptance of that evidence is not critical to their acceptance of it.
If he is omniscient, then he knows what horrors would come out of his creation. But he created everything anyway, despite how many innocents would suffer.
Which do you value more? Freedom or absence of suffering? Perhaps such a being might value one above the other? Trouble with all you strong atheists is you don't seem to realise your arguments aren't really all that convincing. But you like them, so carry on....
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
My need to prove a supreme deity doesn't exist is exactly the same as my need to prove Godzilla isn't lying in a slumber in a deep chamber somewhere under the Pacific waiting for a prime moment to cause chaos.
I don't waste my breath on people whose minds aren't susceptible to con jobs
Fixed.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
Everyone has an opinion, and now we've heard yours.
It is a false dilemma. You assume that the only two options are "hateful god" or "no god". You ignore all other possibilities or variations in between. This is the very definition of "false dilemma". Go look it up if you do not believe me. All this black and white thinking sickens me somewhat. I should never have joined this discussion. I came here for the science and tech news, not the religious debates....
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Quoting Hitchens:
Of course you have free will, the boss insists upon it.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
Why are we arguing about the validity of a book that makes no sense and contradicts itself. One does not need to read past Genesis chapter 3 to find several verses that do not make sense. One verse says that if one eats of the forbidden fruit one will surely die on that day or even when eating it. If one takes the later to be literal than Eve should have died seconds after the fruit was in her stomach. Adam would have not eaten it but even if they were to die on the same day than none of us should be existing since they would have had no time to produce any children. In chapter 3 god ask Adam if he ate of the fruit. Why would Adam tell god he ate of the fruit if he thought he was going to die? Why would god not have already known this fact. Why would Jesus not have known that they were going to eat of the fruit and at least tried to talk them out of it? Surely he would have known that if they had eaten the fruit he would have had to die on the cross. Besides none of that matters since it has already been proven that mankind did not descend from just two people. Second is when Jesus comes to judge us and separate the sheep from the goats. Jesus never ask if we had faith in him or if we were baptized but if we can answer yes to his question about feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the sick or imprisoned than we would have a place reserved for in heaven. But other verses say we need to have faith in Jesus and need to be baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven and so they contradict each other. Jesus does not say every time either so my reading of the 25th chapter of Matthew is that if one can say that one feed the poor or clothed the naked or visited the sick or imprison even only once than one will go to heaven. This is also contradicted by the story about a woman who anoints Jesus with expensive oil. If her salvation depended on feeding the poor than surely she should have saved that money for that purpose.
The FSM literature only varies with the blasphemers who belive god is al dente.
3 Million is a lot to ask from an atheist who does not care about religious stuff. Religion itself or museums would be more interested in this writing.
~ Best man at your service.
So, why do you believe in only one god? I think your mind is unable to be open to the idea that there are actually hundreds of gods. It simple doesn't fit neatly your monotheistic model.
Dilbert RSS feed
Which do you value more? Freedom or absence of suffering? Perhaps such a being might value one above the other?
Why would a god have to choose?
Dilbert RSS feed
Since theists can paint god under whatever light it suits them, nothing can be concluded about it, regardless of philosophies or probabilities. Therefore, the question is irrelevant and dismissed as such, until an actual concrete definition of god is brought forth.
Which is why the Ignostic position is the only sensible one.
Dilbert RSS feed
No one is going to suggest a particular religion?
Perhaps because none is a defensible choice.
It seems that the 'Age of Mockery' began quite a while ago.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/10/15/1142246/thousands-of-muslims-protest-age-of-mockery-at-googles-london-headquarters
Anyways, allow me to waste some breath and 'expand your mind' for you, and not to worry, it won't damage your brain any more than the drugs you must've been on when you were choosing your /. user name, I promise.
There are things in this life that just can't explained scientifically. We know there are more than three dimensions, but no hard 'proof' yet, and we're starting on the path to seeing that there could be infinite dimensions, all existing in the same space. We're only just beginning the process of learning that there are so many things that are possible, we just don't have the capacity yet, if we ever do, to understand them fully. Is the universe one large 'computer', perhaps the collective mind of God? These are just a couple of the questions that greater minds than yours are probing today. Einstein had an open mind. But if we only listen to the closed off minds of the 'Captain Galaxy Commando' types of this world, we'll never have even asked those ?'s, much less find answers for them. So, should we all accept the taliban theory that muhammed is the one true prophet, no. Should we accept Galactoid Commander's edict that there is no God, because he has decreed it? Hell NO! God does not show himself to just anybody, you have to WANT to find him. I've heard God likes to be searched for, you might want to try, someday. So, live out your little life, like all of us do. But down the through years, you may have a change in your thinking, as the grim reaper begins to look in your direction. You might actually hear yourself crying out to the God you don't believe in today to save you. And he will, because that's what an all powerful, all loving God would do. We all find our answers our own way, in our own time. Don't dismiss ideas just because they are not like yours so easily, that's being short-sighted, imo..
Good night, and good life to you sir. (p.s. Many religions, but one God. Coincidence? Methinks not.)
So, why do you believe in only one god? I think your mind is unable to be open to the idea that there are actually hundreds of gods. It simple doesn't fit neatly your monotheistic model.
When talking with God, pick any, or all. It won't matter to the 'Big Boss'. Just be sincere.
Wow, I didn't know that they were auctioning a religion on eBay, and that Einstein has risen from the dead to protest against it! What the hell is his problem? I always wanted to buy my own religion...
That doesn't help anyone, because it just raises the question: How can I know God believes in me? Telling me "just know" isn't enough; if I had the capacity to accept that kind of dogmatic command, I'd probably already believe in gods.
It has helped some people though. And as I said, it's a saying. Not an edict. (And for all we know, the gods of myth might well have been ET's, lots of statues of 'gods' wearing what look like spacesuits.)
I've read the posts here, and not one has 'demanded ' that anyone else has to believe what they do. Not one, no Taliban or zealots read /., I guess. And not one putdown has been posted by intelligent people who believe in a "higher power". But I've read plenty by the /.'ers who claim "prove it or it doesn't exist!", acting like petulant children, I wonder why that is. Give yourself time in your life to consider all the options available first, then you can make a thoughtful reasoned response to the "God" question, that's my free advice to you and everyone here. Enjoy your amazing lives, be good to each other, laugh, sing and dance, have fun, make love often. If God exists, that would make him happy, and what's so wrong with that?
A couple of examples are meant to be considered as a couple of examples!
It appears that you've missed my (and the above posters) entire point that a single unbalanced force in society can be a thing of evil. That is a point that has nothing at all about religeon, it's just that historically in the west the Church has been the balancing force that prevented totalitarianism from the State. European Medieval society would have been an utter hellhole for all but a few elite if it wasn't for the Church intervening at times.
It's moments like these when I realise that education is the USA has been truly fucked since Reagan decided it would be a good area to cut :( Don't take it personally since it looks like a lot of people here would make the same mistake, like raahul_da_man above that seems to have not heard about what John Paul II did in Poland during WWII.
There's no point discussing history with people that don't even know who the Pope was seven years ago even when they are cutting and pasting bits that match keywords from wikipedia.
If an infinite god exists, it follows that any definition finite beings come up with will be inadequate, so what you are asking is impossible. Most religions describe god as indefinable in full. Therefore to one such as you the question logically never could be relevant. This does not say much about the existence or non existence of god, but it does say a bit about your point of view. You might still consider it sensible, but I consider it inadequate. on that point we will probably have to agree to disagree.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
The concept of freedom includes the concept of consequences. If such a being removes consequences, we also break the concept of freedom. We could of course speculate on a universe where this is not logically the case, however our universe seems to operate on cause and effect. I can't of course prove that, but I think you might agree. There is also the idea of conflict. A dualistic view, or a polytheistic view. Even the Christian concept of a devil.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
You're setting up a strawman. Atheists aren't claiming to be god. Many don't even believe that there's no god. You should really consider looking into the idea and make sure you understand it before dismissing it.
Everything proves that I'm right! Look around you... God created all that! Since I can't think of another explanation, God did it! And why not look deep into your heart? You know you believe in God; you just haven't consciously accepted it yet.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
This does not say much about the existence or non existence of god
Of course it doesn't, if god is undefined, nothing can say anything about its existence. That's my point!
Dilbert RSS feed
Well, that leaves me out of almost every other religion, from the ancient Greeks with their conflicting gods, to Judaism and Christianity, whose god will be filled with a "godly jealously" if one worships the wrong god.
I guess you're my new Messiah. I expect promises of eternal life and preferably 40 good-looking women. The virgin part is optional.
Dilbert RSS feed
So, you're saying nothing can exist which can not be defined by a human being? Sounds a Lot like a philosophical position to me. Fair enough, but I see no reason to subscribe to that view.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
God says, "Yes Bill, that's about right." Bill then asks, "God, is it true that a penny to me is like a million dollars to you?" God says, "Yes, that's true, Bill."
Bill gets a wry smile on his face, and he asks, "God, can I have a penny?" God smiles back and says, "Sure, Bill. Just give me a second..."
Hang in there, my friend. It gets better. Much love to you. SF ;-)
Not true at all. There very well could be a good god. I'm debating that if it is the established christian god, he's an evil asshole. If it is the absent god, there is no point in calling him god.
You worship a god purely for selfish reasons. You want a good life, you want a good afterlife. If your god isn't bothering to give you that, if he isn't affecting the world, why bother calling him god?
If there is a purely good god, and he simply hasn't laid down his religion or story to 'show it'. Then again, why call him god? He obviously doesn't want us to know he's there and obviously must not want our worship.
If god is a 97 chevy truck with 4 wheel drive, then why worship him if I don't have a couch to move?
If there is a good god, who wants us to worship a false god while he does the work on the backend, well then again. Why the fuck do we bother. We obviously can't win, and god can be anything I make up because god is unprovable.
So without knowing who and what to worship, does it even matter if god exists?
What for?
Because that was the question, of course.
No answer is, perhaps, the most revealing response.
I suppose you've not heard of the phrase 'the living bible'? It was annoyingly shoved in my face, while I was growing up. I attended lutheran, methodist, presbyterian, church of christ, and baptist churches where I experienced the aforesaid language used. I'd agree that catholics absolutely do not espouse what I said. At least, at the few of their churches I've been to. I have a few catholic friends who have suggested the possiblity of such, but, I somehow doubt that their leaders would encourage that type of thought.
Too, I haven't been to a church in over 10 years, and I am no longer interested in christianity, so I can't really claim to know what's going on these days. I was, however, raised in a christian environment till I was about 19. And I actually believed it, too.
It's my experience that each church is a microreligion in and of itself, with its own rituals and celebrations. In my later teenage years several friends and I attended a few dozen local churches of vairous denominations, to better understand christianity. The fundamentals (Jesus, sins, the priest having the divine power, martyrdom) remains the same, but how they control you is up to their interpretation. And I intend no offense in saying this. I view each religion as a guideline-- as a path to walk in life with complete with guard rails and construction signs. Most churches weren't arrogant enough to say that their path was the only right one. They would just quote the familiar 'Jesus is the only way to heaven,' until you were black and blue with it. If you asked them to talk about the legitimacy of the bible, which, when I was growing up, was aflame with revelations that the books weren't written for some 70-200 years after their apparent writer's death, they would, overwhelmingly, state that the holy spirit moved the writers of the new testament to write the books. That the bible, as it is today, is perfect, and as it was intended. That despite many cultural, environmental, governmental, etc. changes, that the rules still applied-- if in a different manner of their choice. Those that accepted that it may be flawed, and even taught its other translations, still found ways to encompass the lessons as they felt was right. And this was the case in most churches that I visited.
And, to bring back my original point-- after studying these different christian denominations for years, I found it all to be highly convenient.
You'll not only know, you'll know.
Free Martian Whores!
No, I'm saying that it doesn't even make sense to talk about the existence of undefined. Please read on ignosticism and theological noncognitivism.
To put it in another way: Does _ exist?
Dilbert RSS feed
Well, that leaves me out of almost every other religion, from the ancient Greeks with their conflicting gods, to Judaism and Christianity, whose god will be filled with a "godly jealously" if one worships the wrong god.
I guess you're my new Messiah. I expect promises of eternal life and preferably 40 good-looking women. The virgin part is optional.
I don't want the job, but thanks for the vote of confidence, even a sarcastic vote is still a vote! (and btw, wouldn't the leader get first pick o' da' womenfolk? Like what mormon leaders do, make sure their rules say that the leaders get pick of the litter? Some sickass religions out there, boy...
Perhaps let me clarify. You seem to be stating that it does not make sense to talk about something we can not fully define? even if we may define parts of it?
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
if you're debating only the Christian god, then you failed reading comprehension. Even so, the false dilemma remains. You are not considering all possibilities. I find your responses emotional, not objective. Therefore I do not see the point in continuing this discussion. Have fun.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
I've re-read the posts, and I think I've mistaken your position, and I apologize.
Yes, a definition doesn't have to be complete to be useful. But history shows that whenever parts of the definition are put into question, those are suddenly considered optional or figurative.
Dilbert RSS feed
no worries. I am not defending any particular group or viewpoint. I simply don't discount the possibility because the advocates may be closed minded. The search for truth has little to do with who can debate better.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
Please point out where I've said I'm only debating a christian god. I have addressed all your points and yet you still redirect. I have no dog in the fight, I simply wanted to discuss the issue at hand. I mentioned situations covering every possible assumption of god I could come up with in the time I wrote that post.
Christian god,
Absent god
Fraudulent god
A god that is really just my old truck
etc
My point stands, either god doesn't exist, is interactive, and thus we have to pick a religion (and that is pointless because we have no way of knowing we picked the right one), or god is non-interactive (or fraudulent) and for all intents and purposes he simply doesn't matter. In which case we might discuss flying ponies. What other possibilities am I missing?
I can't see how I can be any more clear.
One might suggest you read your previous posts to find where you said what. If a god is interactive, it follows you can establish the correct position through interaction. Your tone appears emotional, which is fine, but not so useful for discussion. You do appear to have a dog in the fight to use your expression. I see no reason to continue this. The truth of a matter does not depend on its advocates abilities to defend it. Leave it at that. I intend to.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
You mean, I'll know ???
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Jesus technically is correct, as all evil men eventually die. Ask Jerry Falwell,
As for Thor, I'm pretty sure that's not how it happened...
Yes.
Free Martian Whores!
Yes.
Can't wait.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
I like the part where the US gov give them immunity for some reasons. Are you sure there is nice guys in that story?