lpetrich

DK offers the argument that Ashur and Chemosh are fictional deities because the nations of Assyria and Moab no longer exist. However,

dk:
How the Jewish people prospered around the world, generation after generation. How the Jews from 70-1948AD prospered in exile without a homeland mystifies me.

I'd hardly call the Jewish Diaspora great prosperity. Jews lived in small scattered communities, and were often despised and persecuted on account of their not believing in Jesus Christ or Mohammed, as the case may be.

If we transported a 21st century Orthodox Jew in Mr. Peabody?s Way-back Machine to the Davidic Kingdom in 1000BC, he would slip into the culture like a glove.

Actually, he'd suffer extremely severe cultural shock. For starters, the Talmud had not existed back then, and neither had much of the Tanakh, a.k.a. Old Testament. And there would be numerous differences in practice, such as about animal sacrifice.

The existence of archeological evidence to support Exodus is immaterial, but the Jews certainly exist as material evidence.

And present-day Greeks are material evidence of the Trojan War, Olympian-deity participation and all. And present-day Italians are material evidence of the existence of Romulus and Remus, complete with their having been suckled by a wolf. Etc.

The farther back in time Archeology goes, the more unreliable its grip on reality, and the more open to errors stemming from sparse evidence, context and misinterpretation.

Which can also be said of Bible interpretation.

Since Spinoza there has been a great deal of speculation about the author and sources used in the Pentateuch. In Exodus 17:14 24:4 34:7 we are told Moses wrote it,

No, all the first two references state is that Moses had done some writing. Not the writing of every single word of all five books, complete with the details of his death and funeral in Deuteronomy. Complete with a eulogy that stated that there has never been a prophet as great as him in all the years since.

But what does it mean to say ?Moses wrote Exodus??

That Moses went to his tent, took some parchment, a cupful of ink, and a quill pen, and started scribbling.

In another 5,000 years future archeologists may dig up car bone yard, and finding several Atlas conclude people in the 20th Century believed the world was flat.

Which would be an absurd inference, since those future archeologists would also have flattened-Earth maps on hand.

The universality of human rights stems from monotheism, and the relativity of secular law follow from polytheistic roots.

Except that worshippers of a single deity are often very intent on distinguishing believers and infidels. Which is hardly universality.

Ion

In fact dk, I look at the 'Political Discussions Forum Rules' here in the Internet Infidels Discussion Forums, and find it to be a social construct on how to behave for the benefit of the population of this Forum, exactly like the UN Code of Human Rights is a social construct on how to behave for the benefit of the earth's population.

The 'Political Discussions Forum Rules' has no inalienable divine human laws in it, for example no divine laws originated in Exodus.

dk

Sorry duplicate post

dk

Social constructs structure the institutions, elements or parts a community in some suitable order. Forum rules govern the conduct of the community, hopefully on some rational basis. I'm going get some heat on this, but the source of all laws is dogma or doctrine. You should disagree because sciences are normally defined as non-dogmatic.

I agree divine laws don't oringate in Exodus. Temperal laws oringate in Exodus because it is an historical book. The only source of divine law would be a devine being.

Ion

I don't see a dogma in the Forum rules here, and neither in the UN Code of Human Rights.

With better observed and understood chemical reactions in humans, there is a social evolution in co-existence leading to constructing the rules.
The Exodus is not a historical book, because it has little historicity.

I read in the Los Angeles Times from Friday April 13, 2001:

"...the Exodus story was produced for theological reasons: to give an origin and history to some people and distinguish them from others by claiming a divine destiny."

Hence, the Bible produces fabulous and unsupported (in archaeology, in non-Biblical accounts) claims like this:

a baby is found in a basket adrift in the Egyptian Nile and is adopted in the pharaoh's household;
he grows up as Moses, rediscover his roots and leads his enslaved Israelite brethren to freedom after God sends down 10 plagues against Egypt and parts the Red Sea to allow them to escape;
they wander for 40 years in the desert, and under the leadership of Joshua, conquer the land of Canaan.

dk

o

• lpetrich
  DK offers the argument that Ashur and Chemosh are fictional deities because the nations of Assyria and Moab no longer exist. However,
  dk: (snip) How the Jews from 70-1948AD prospered in exile without a homeland mystifies me.
  lpetrich
  I'd hardly call the Jewish Diaspora great prosperity. Jews lived in small scattered communities, and were often despised and persecuted on account of their not believing in Jesus Christ or Mohammed, as the case may be.
  dk: Jews lived in small and large scattered communities. I would argue Jews have been persecuted precisely because they were prosperous. The clustered communities of prosperous Jews played into the prejudice of Jesus Killer, but the real motivation for hating Jews was their prosperity. During hard times the envy often turned to fear, blame, hatred and violence against the Jew. We don’t necessarily disagree.
  o
• lpetrich
  If we transported a 21st century Orthodox Jew in Mr. Peabody?s Way-back Machine to the Davidic Kingdom in 1000BC, he would slip into the culture like a glove.
  Actually, he'd suffer extremely severe cultural shock. For starters, the Talmud had not existed back then, and neither had much of the Tanakh, a.k.a. Old Testament. And there would be numerous differences in practice, such as about animal sacrifice.
  dk: It’s a matter of opinion, I don’t see why the sacrificial laws would present a great burden.
  o
• dk: The existence of archeological evidence to support Exodus is immaterial, but the Jews certainly exist as material evidence.
  lpetrich
  And present-day Greeks are material evidence of the Trojan War, Olympian-deity participation and all. And present-day Italians are material evidence of the existence of Romulus and Remus, complete with their having been suckled by a wolf. Etc.
  dk: Ancient texts about the Greeks were preserved in Ireland, Constantinople Islam, and Christendom. The epic tragedies of Greek myth are legitimate archeological sources, as is the Bible. Thank you for making my point, and I agree the Bible doesn’t prove itself, and to believe the Bible is the Word of God requires a leap of faith, but then its my experience that reason and faith are both necessary for people to understand one another. Faith without reason, or visa versa, tilts perspective out all proportions.
  o
• dk: The farther back in time Archeology goes, the more unreliable its grip on reality, and the more open to errors stemming from sparse evidence, context and misinterpretation.
  lpetrich
  Which can also be said of Bible interpretation.
  dk: I agree.
  o
• dk: Since Spinoza there has been a great deal of speculation about the author and sources used in the Pentateuch. In Exodus 17:14 24:4 34:7 we are told Moses wrote it,
  lpetrich
  No, all the first two references state is that Moses had done some writing. Not the writing of every single word of all five books, complete with the details of his death and funeral in Deuteronomy. Complete with a eulogy that stated that there has never been a prophet as great as him in all the years since.
  dk: Ok, we basically agree that multiple interpretations of Exodus are possible, for example there is often, but not necessarily, a literal, figurative and prophetic sense of a text.
  o
• dk: But what does it mean to say ?Moses wrote Exodus??
  lpetrich
  That Moses went to his tent, took some parchment, a cupful of ink, and a quill pen, and started scribbling.
  dk: That’s one interpretation. It might also mean he dictated to scribes, or used other ancient texts, or simply identified the ancient texts for scribes to consolidate into a single linear history. We should be able to agree there are several possibilities.
  o
• dk: In another 5,000 years future archeologists may dig up car bone yard, and finding several Atlas conclude people in the 20th Century believed the world was flat.
  lpetrich
  Which would be an absurd inference, since those future archeologists would also have flattened-Earth maps on hand.
  dk: .... which demonstrates empirically why drawing broad conclusions from a lack of evidence is even more absurd.
  o
• dk: The universality of human rights stems from monotheism, and the relativity of secular law follow from polytheistic roots.
  lpetrich
  Except that worshippers of a single deity are often very intent on distinguishing believers and infidels. Which is hardly universality.
  dk: Except that a single deity and monotheism aren’t the same thing.

I've posited a very simple hypothisis, that the domain of Universal Human Rights begins with the precept, "All persons are created equal before the Law, from king to pulper." The OT is full of exceptions to the rule, but all the exceptions are the result of infidelity, pride, envy, etc.... allowed rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Old Man

The hypothesis is meaningless, unless it can first be proved that the law applies equally to all people. Only when you have demonstrated that a priori proposition, can you deduce a further proposition that all people are created equal before the law.

For instance, supposing the law says that everyone with an IQ of 120 is entitled to a $100,000 salary, but everyone with an IQ of 70 is only entitled to a $10,000 salary. The effect of the law would be to render everyone with an IQ of 70 as serfs and slaves of those with an IQ of 120. Yet the principle "All persons are created equal before the Law, from king to pulper." would not have been violated.

So, as always, the real question is always "What should the law be". And I don't consider that the UN has any greater wisdom on that point, to anyone else.

Ion

Reason can be objectively checked, while faith is subjective because it has no outside material corroboration.

The mistake is to force faith onto people.
"The OT is full of exceptions to the rule, but all the exceptions are the result of infidelity, pride, envy, etc...." is an example of how subjectivity is enforced in faith.

I prefer the secular approach that sees "...infidelity, pride, envy..." as subjective traits, distinct from the objective.

dk

• Old Man:
  The hypothesis is meaningless, unless it can first be proved that the law applies equally to all people. Only when you have demonstrated that a priori proposition, can you deduce a further proposition that all people are created equal before the law.
  dk: Sure, Here’s proof. A fetus becomes a baby, or dies, and logically abortion becomes a cause of death. Here’s another universal law, a baby becomes a child or dies, and logically infanticide becomes a cause of death. Of course there are many causes that lead to a human beings death. A fetus or baby may die as the result of some unintended or accidental act or circumstance, but abortion and infanticide subscribe the cause of death to the intent of a person or persons that commit or conspired to commit an act of death.
• Old Man:
  For instance, supposing the law says that everyone with an IQ of 120 is entitled to a $100,000 salary, but everyone with an IQ of 70 is only entitled to a $10,000 salary. The effect of the law would be to render everyone with an IQ of 70 as serfs and slaves of those with an IQ of 120. Yet the principle "All persons are created equal before the Law, from king to pulper." would not have been violated.
  dk: That would be true if an IQ test actually measured intelligence. In fact IQ tests simple defer human judgment to an arbitrary statistical method that normalizes experience to infer intelligence. One can hardly describe an IQ test as determinant, accurate or even meaningful. In fact many scholars call IQ tests meaningless future indicators since in the best case scenario the score measures past experience, not potential. For example George Washington, Abe Lincoln and Tom Edison are but a few examples of people that lacked formal education, so predictably would have scored poorly on an IQ test given at the age of 13. I suspect the reason IQ tests are kept confidential is because they are inaccurate, and in the public domain would injury many good people.
• Old Man:
  So, as always, the real question is always "What should the law be". And I don't consider that the UN has any greater wisdom on that point, to anyone else.
  dk: No, the question is about liberty, or the discretionary exercise of power. Legalized abortion gives to a pregnant women the discretionary power to destroy her child. I’m not sure what a women does to justify such a horrible power. Medical doctors and nurses undergo years of training to perform an abortion, but strictly speaking they have no liberty in the matter.

dk

I respect your personal preferences, but submit personal preferences can not be a basis for Universal Human Rights. The idea becomes bogus unless based in a non-temperal universal idea beyond the grasp of empirical science. Why? Because all termperal things are finite, hence caused.