Doug Shaver

I think a definition of proof would be more pertinent. My point to sotto was that I don't infer "It can't be true" from "I can't believe it."

Steve Weiss

What people choose to believe is totally irrelevant and arbitrary. The fundamental issue is what is true, the true being "that which conforms to the facts of reality as perceived by the senses and organized by a rational mind."

Belief ignores issues like proof, and a test of belief is to accept on faith that for which there is no evidence or for which the evidence contradicts. The faithful defy facts and reason and substitute wishful thinking and mysticism. For the believer, reason is a whore (Martin Luther).

Steve Weiss

The above is an example of unlimited revisionism and the destruction of language as such in defense of predetermined religious doctrine. This sentence (..."if a sinner does not change his ways, and is found 'in Christ' [in the Ark of the story], he will perish" is totally reconstituted out of context and is meaningless. No definition of sin is offered, and no reference to Christ is to be found in the OT. As written the sinner will perish if he is "found in Christ" whatever that may mean.

sotto voce

Here, there is nothing for belief to ignore. Not one word of proof, only excuses, have we seen in 143 posts. Will #144 break the habit?

sotto voce

Unlimited revisionism, eh. That's what people mean by, "Oh, of course that's what it means. Thank you so much for explaining the meaning of the Bible, at long last."

Plenty more, for those interested.

Sheshbazzar

Don't be mistaken Steve, my position or argument is not at all that of sotto voce who chooses to accept as much of these texts as will bear it, literally.

But you have come very close to hitting the nail dead on the head with your reference to Samson.
So, if you can take a little break from attempting to tell me what it is that I believe, I'll give you a little better explanation of my position.

Do you have any military experience Steve?

If so you might be aware of the workings of military tactics, if not I'll point out a few of the most basic and salient facts and examples.

1. As much as is possible, Never let the enemy know your weaknesses.

If you only have 500 men equipped for battle, and your enemy has 30,000, do you let your actual troop strength be known far and wide?
Or wouldn't it make more sense to publish far and wide that you have 300,000 men of war spread out in in twelve camps or tribes, all well armed, battle seasoned, and fierce warriors ready to come to the defense of your people?

2. Your secret weapon is always greater and more terrible than that of your adversaries.

How do you get much larger and far better equipped foes to believe that is the case, and steer clear of you?
It has often been pointed out, that the pen is mightier than the sword.
It is far easier for a small and weak nation to bluff with scary sounding words than for them to have to actually enter battle.
Let everyone far and wide hear that you have the ultimate atomic bomb doomsday weapon, and most will tread a bit more cautiously. 'The Ark of Yahweh', and the claims of its powers and Yahweh's extreme wrath against Israel's enemies was ancient Israel's 'Atomic Bomb' doomsday weapon.

3. You need to establish a reputation of your soldiers bravery, strength, craftiness, and readiness to engage in slaughter without quarter or the least shred of mercy.

This requires the creation of propaganda, a 'disinformation' campaign fed to the world at large that your troops are well seasoned and experienced on the battlefield. So your propaganda campaign will include a good many ancient (fictional) bloody battle tales.

4. You need to be clever. Making the most of what forces you do have.

So you only have 500 fighting men, and you need to fool the enemy as to the strength of your forces. What do you do?
You take maximum advantage of their preconceptions and you capitalize upon their standard military operating procedures.
Ancient army regiments normally carried 'standards', an identifying flag, emblem, or their 'colors' that their legions would march under and rally around.
So to take advantage of this, you put out a fictional propaganda story that you have TWELVE legions of warriors ready to fight for your nation under twelve differing 'STANDARDS' or flags.
Then you set up a large camp under the bright, shining, colorful, eye catching identifying (sigil) or flag of one Legion, making yourself as visible as possible to the world.
The next day or a few miles away you set up another camp under an identifiably quite different bright, shining, colorful, eye catching identifying sigil, perhaps also swapping the noticable color of your troops tunics. And so on.
Spy's will then report that you have many Legions encamped in the area.

Now perhaps you can see where I am going with this, ancient Israel never was what its ancient propaganda books would lead you to believe.
First of all, these Hebrew hill tribes were never anywhere near as monotheistic, or as united as the religious propaganda texts portray them. The early 'Yahwhistic' unity of worship portrayed is nothing more than a wishful pipe-dream, one that grew for a bit and then ended with the name even becoming unspeakable.
Israel's early 'history', as contained in these Biblical texts, is almost entirely fictional, and was created as a defense mechanism, first as a political alignment tool to protect their small and quite defenseless villages from the depredations of other minor local chieftains and petty warlords, and latter with population growth, on the international scale.

Hating on 'Yahweh' and what 'Yahweh' allegedly 'said' or 'did' is a senseless exercise.
I take it that you don't believe that 'Yahweh' the god of the Hebrews was real or -is- real?
Then it ought to follow that you don't believe that this 'Yahweh' ever actually 'said' or 'did' anything at all.
To hate 'Yahweh' is as senseless as hating Jupiter, Thor, or Quetzalcoatl.

Perhaps if you can wrap your mind around this, you might be able to remove your darkling glasses long enough to appreciate the value of the other aspects of ancient knowledge that may be gleaned from the contents of these texts, because there is one hell of a lot more to be found there than simply 'Moses said Yahweh said'.





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Steve Weiss

Taking a wild guess at what you mean, I am assuming that your verbiage boils down to the Samson story being propaganda to deceive the enemy about the militray weakness of the Hebrews or Israelites if you prefer. I can only guess because you do not refer to Samson specifically in this essay of yours.

If the above is indeed your thesis, I would have to point out to you that 1. you assume that the events in question actually happened with no objective evidence to support such a claim, and 2. If this Samson story were designed to mislead the enemy, how would this tactic apply when the OT was written many centuries after the alleged events? Who is supposed to be fooled by this propaganda?

As for the ancient writings giving us modern people of reason and science some timeless and useful insights into knowldege and truth, perhaps you would care to give a few examples as I can think of none. By useful ideas I mean, for instance, knowledge about the germ theory of disease. immunization, the idea of an electric current, something like that. After all, Yahweh must know about these things, so why is he so quiet about them in his special collection of books?

Steve Weiss

I have been advised by some mods to disregard posters who are blantantly irrational, and so I am placing you on my ignore list.

Sheshbazzar

I expect the Samson tale is little more than a entertaining hero legend. Perhaps based on some incident blown all out of proportion, maybe just totally fabricated, I'm not losing any sleep over it.
NO, I DO NOT assume that the events actually happened.
My 'thesis' above, if you take time to think about what I wrote, clearly indicates that I think most of reported early Biblical events were made up stories. No flood, No Exodus, No huge battles involving stupendous numbers of soldiers and fatalities, and No miracles.
But that can hardly be stretched to the point to claim that there were no Israelites at all, or that they never did anything. There were some certainly, there simply weren't as many as they claimed, and they most certainly didn't do all of that fantastic stuff recorded in the Bible, they made-it-up.
There is nothing radical about this, as perhaps every Bible scholar except the most extreme of Fundamentalist accept that the Bible's record of Israel's numbers and exploits are wildly inflated.
As you noticed I didn't directly reference the Samson tale. My point was based upon your statement about;
Which was a common propaganda tactic, and one that is still being employed by the military. An extreme example was in WW II when the U.S. faked a decoy military buildup prior to the invasion of Normandy. The inflatable planes, tanks, and landing craft were accompanied by a propaganda campaign to mislead the Nazi war machine.
I notice you skipped making any reply to this;
splitting it up into smaller bites for your reading comprehension.

Do you think Jupiter, Thor, or Quetzalcoatl provided us with much knowledge about the germ theory of disease. immunization, the idea of an electric current, or something like that?
'Yahweh' is just as much a fictional deity as any of these others or a thousand other fictional deities.
Why in the Sam's hell would you expect an ancient fictional deity to provide you with scientific information. Are you totally nuts?

I sure as hell have never said that any of the material I have been studying and collating comes from 'Yahweh' or from any other supernatural or mystical source.
In fact, in multiple posts I have stated that this information on numbers, geometry, linear measurements, and the calculations of large units of time, as employed in the Bible did not originate with the Hebrews (or latter, the Jews) but was derived from the mathematicians/astronomers of ancient Mesopotamia. Simply the Bible is the best preserved of any ancient set of documents for the investigation and determination of the ancients mental processes with regards to calculations of mathematics and plane geometry.
Modern society uses these tools every day. My undertaking rests in the determining of the -WHY- a circle or a square contains 360 degrees & 21600 minutes & 1296000 seconds, and a cube 2160 degrees & 129600 minutes & 7776000 seconds.
I'll tell you now, it was not a random choice. No one ever said;
'Hey, lets divide a circle into 360 parts' -rather than 27 or 74 or 430 or any other sum you might choose.

Now. Although you may be unable to presently grasp the fact, this exacting ancient mathematical information has the capability of exposing every one of the Abrahamic religions as being built on erroneous concepts. (-as if we didn't know that already.)
But for what it is, it is another, and quite possibly the final nail in the coffin of religion once enough people come realise the implications.

So I'm not about to give up, or knuckle under simply because pundits like you are lacking in knowledge or comprehension.

sotto voce

What alternative is there?

150 posts, and not a single word among them to justify a title that any university lecturer would account worthy only of the shredder. It's nothing more than crude propaganda.