Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Godless Wonder · 12-08-2003, 08:56 PM

Thumbing through the Bible, I came across this (from KJV):

Quote:

Exodus:004:001 And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The LORD hath not appeared unto thee.

Exodus:004:002 And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.

Exodus:004:003 And he said, Cast it on the ground. And he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from before it.

So it seems back in the day, God granted Moses the ability to do some magic tricks to convince people that his story about God was true.

Later,

Quote:

Exodus:007:010 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so as the LORD had commanded: and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh, and before his servants, and it became a serpent.

Exodus:007:011 Then Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers: now the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments.

Exodus:007:012 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.

And the Pharoah's magicians proceed to do yet more tricks:

Quote:

Exodus:007:021 And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt.

Exodus:007:022 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments: and
Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said.

Quote:

Exodus:008:007 And the magicians did so with their enchantments, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt.

But the magicians couldn't conjure lice . . .

So, some obvious questions spring to mind . . . how do people get past these?

1. Why did God need Moses to tell the people . . . why couldn't he just
do it himself?
2. Why doesn't God give evidence of his powers to us anymore like he used to?
3. How did the Pharoah's magicians make rods into snakes? They apparently
knew this trick already, but what's the secret to it? Are we to suppose they also were secretly having God do the trick for them? It wasn't like the magicians were surprised that they were able to turn rods to snakes, apparently this wasn't the first time they'd done it.
4. How did they turn the river to blood (a second time, redundantly so.)
They knew that one too. How? Had they done it before? Why?
5. How did they conjure (more?) frogs? Why did they conjure more frogs?

This story isn't making sense to me. The rods-to-snakes, I can see the motivation for the magicians there, that's a simple parlor trick by comparison to the others. They can say, "yeah, we know that one too." But wouldn't the magicians want turn the bloody river back to water? And get rid of the frogs? Why would they make more frogs?

Or, are the words "the magicians" in those last two magic tricks supposed to refer to Moses and his brother? But that can't be the case because it talks about how "the magicians" can't conjure lice as Moses and his brother can.

If this story is not to be taken literally, then what are we supposed to make of it?

Magus55 · 12-08-2003, 10:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Godless Wonder

1. Why did God need Moses to tell the people . . . why couldn't he just
do it himself?

God always uses prophets and believers to do work. For one, no one can see the Father's face ( hence why Moses only saw Him in the burning bush), and the people probably trusted Moses a lot more. The Israelites and the Egyptians knew him.

Quote:

2. Why doesn't God give evidence of his powers to us anymore like he used to?

No need yet to do anything as big as the Exodus plagues, although it will happen again according to Revelation. And who said God doesn't still use His powers today? We just tend to ignore it and call it coincidence, or try to explain it away with science. You see something as a natural event, we may see it as nature being manipulated by God.

Quote:

3. How did the Pharoah's magicians make rods into snakes? They apparently
knew this trick already, but what's the secret to it? Are we to suppose they also were secretly having God do the trick for them? It wasn't like the magicians were surprised that they were able to turn rods to snakes, apparently this wasn't the first time they'd done it.

Satan probably bestowed the Pharaoh those powers to try God. Satan is capable of parlor tricks.

Quote:

This story isn't making sense to me. The rods-to-snakes, I can see the motivation for the magicians there, that's a simple parlor trick by comparison to the others. They can say, "yeah, we know that one too." But wouldn't the magicians want turn the bloody river back to water? And get rid of the frogs? Why would they make more frogs?

They wanted to try and equal God's power, not fix it. Assuming they were even capable of restoring what God did. Maybe they only had the power to make parlor tricks happen, not make them disappear. And would it really have made a difference if they could make the blood and frogs disappear? The magicians couldn't compete with the following plagues anyway.

Quote:

Or, are the words "the magicians" in those last two magic tricks supposed to refer to Moses and his brother? But that can't be the case because it talks about how "the magicians" can't conjure lice as Moses and his brother can.

The magicians are the Pharaoh's servants, not Moses and Aaron.

contracycle · 12-09-2003, 04:13 AM

First observation, Magus does take these claims literally.

Second observation. Stage magic is an interesting skill, but one of its limits is that the setup has to be very very specific. I offer this as a possible suggestion for why we see tricks duplicated rather than reversed. Maybe you can in fact have a frog up your sleeve, and thus produce frogs, but that doesn't mean you can elegantly get the frog back in your sleeve and still look mysterious.

From this approach, what we see is teams of stage magicians duplicating each others repertoires.

On the other hand, I have seen seom arguments to the effect that there were natural disasters, such as the bloody river being mud and so forth. Of course, we might be looking at a conflation of both. Or, it might be out of whole cloth.

lpetrich · 12-09-2003, 05:51 AM

Magus55:
God always uses prophets and believers to do work.

Seems like a wimpy approach for an allegedly omnipotent being to take.

For one, no one can see the Father's face ...

What will happen if we do? Will we burst into flames? But an omnipotent being would have no trouble preventing that.

Also, where's the Mother?

No need yet to do anything as big as the Exodus plagues, although it will happen again according to Revelation.

No need?

And who said God doesn't still use His powers today? We just tend to ignore it and call it coincidence, or try to explain it away with science. You see something as a natural event, we may see it as nature being manipulated by God.

A god who does not manifest itself clearly is not a god I think worth worshipping. I'd like to see some big, splashy miracles worthy of an omnipotent being, rather than perpetual cowardice.

butswana · 12-09-2003, 08:46 AM

Quote:

hence why Moses only saw Him in the burning bush

Wasn't it AS a burning bush?

Didn't Moses see Gods ass too?

MortalWombat · 12-09-2003, 09:18 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Magus55
For one, no one can see the Father's face...

Except for Jacob of course

Quote:

Gen 32:30
So Jacob called the place Peniel, [which means "face of God" - ed.] saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Quote:

Originally posted by butswana
Didn't Moses see Gods ass too?

Yup. It was while he was in the Lord's glory hole.

Quote:

Exodus 33
21 Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. 22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."

12-09-2003, 05:51 AM	#4
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	Re: Re: UnGodly Magic Magus55: God always uses prophets and believers to do work. Seems like a wimpy approach for an allegedly omnipotent being to take. For one, no one can see the Father's face ... What will happen if we do? Will we burst into flames? But an omnipotent being would have no trouble preventing that. Also, where's the Mother? No need yet to do anything as big as the Exodus plagues, although it will happen again according to Revelation. No need? And who said God doesn't still use His powers today? We just tend to ignore it and call it coincidence, or try to explain it away with science. You see something as a natural event, we may see it as nature being manipulated by God. A god who does not manifest itself clearly is not a god I think worth worshipping. I'd like to see some big, splashy miracles worthy of an omnipotent being, rather than perpetual cowardice.

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12-09-2003, 04:13 AM	#3
contracycle Banned Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,425	First observation, Magus does take these claims literally. Second observation. Stage magic is an interesting skill, but one of its limits is that the setup has to be very very specific. I offer this as a possible suggestion for why we see tricks duplicated rather than reversed. Maybe you can in fact have a frog up your sleeve, and thus produce frogs, but that doesn't mean you can elegantly get the frog back in your sleeve and still look mysterious. From this approach, what we see is teams of stage magicians duplicating each others repertoires. On the other hand, I have seen seom arguments to the effect that there were natural disasters, such as the bloody river being mud and so forth. Of course, we might be looking at a conflation of both. Or, it might be out of whole cloth.

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