Kosh

What blows me away is that with stuff like this,
quotes from early church leaders, explicity pointing out the alterations, Christians will
still deny that it has happened.

Amazing.

thedoc

[QUOTE]Originally posted by turtonm:

Further, while some portions of the OT in the DSS seem to be close, others seem to differ, sometimes markedly (Jeremiah is shorter, for example) from the MT.

For the sake of anyone that may read this. I believe both versions of Jeremiah the long and the short were found at Qumran. The shorter form at 4QJerb and the longer form at 2QJer, 4QJera and 4QJerc. The longer form became the received Hebrew form of the Masoretic Text.


<a href="http://www.bookreviews.org/Reviews/0802846114.html" target="_blank">One source on the topic</a>

Haran

I suppose you could see lpetrich's comments in a little different light:

Mother: Now eat your veggies, sweetie...

Child: Aw Mom!! But, I don't wanna eat my veggies...

Mother: Do as I say, my child, they're good for you.

Child: They sure don't taste good for me!

Mother: I know you don't understand now, but in the future you'll be glad you ate them.

Child: Hmph... If I were an adult, I wouldn't make my children eat veggies!

Did that make any better sense? Perhaps not... I see the human race in the position of this child with God being in that of the Mother.

Did my above example with God as Mother help you?

I personally don't care whether God is he, she, it, or none of the above. However unfortunate, "he" is the most common way of referring to God. Were I to have used "she" that would have been distracting and I would probably be labeled a heretic. And I have perhaps a silly personal distaste for calling God "it". So, for lack of a better English term, "he" is what I used. There are much deeper things to concern oneself with in my opinion.

As far as the Christians seeming to "think that they alone can know the intentions of this all powerful being". All I can say is: We've got this book... There's also something referred to in the Bible as the Holy Spirit which may also make a difference for us. Aside from these, we know no more than anyone else.

Haran

Vorkosigan

Mother: Now eat your veggies, sweetie...

Child: Aw Mom!! But, I don't wanna eat my veggies...

Mother: Do as I say, my child, they're good for you.

Child: They sure don't taste good for me!

Mother: I know you don't understand now, but in the future you'll be glad you ate them.

Child: Hmph... If I were an adult, I wouldn't make my children eat veggies!

Did that make any better sense? Perhaps not... I see the human race in the position of this child with God being in that of the Mother.

You left out the part about Mom threatening to kill everyone on earth if some portion of the children don't eat their veggies....and about how, if they don't eat their veggies, they'll be tortured forever, and unable to speak with mom. Funny, but I never met a mother as evil as that.

MIchael

Kosh

Nope. It's another of your invalid analogies.

"You just keep thinkin' Butch, that's what yer
good at!" - from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid

Edited to add: This is the just the "Mysterious Ways"
apologetics. See Sec Web Lib for further
explanations of it's problems.

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: Kosh ]</p>

Haran

However, Mom does punish her child if the veggies are not eaten, perhaps by sending the child to their room, unable to talk with Mom...

Oh well. I never said the analogy was perfect and most are not. However, it does get a bit of the idea across.

Haran

Haran

Humorous. I appreciate your candor. However, this seems just a hair on the arrogant side, especially since you've not been able to tell me exactly what is wrong with any of my analogies except to say that they are invalid and refer me to Secular Web articles as if are your own infalible ideas. Whatever happened to "freethinkers"?

A link would be helpful here. The Sec Web library is big enough that I don't care to sift through it to find this article, the ideas of which you do not seem to be able to present for yourself for some reason.

Haran

Asha'man

Haran,

The problem with this last analogy is we are adults, not children. At a certain age, it is impossible to reason with a child, they simply don’t have the maturity or understanding. I, on the other hand, am an adult, and expect to be treated as one. I respond best to reason and logical arguments, not to threats. Even if the subject material is beyond my comprehension, I expect a reasonable attempt at an explanation.

Or are you really suggesting that the Bible is the clearest explanation that your omnipotent god is capable of?

lpetrich

(Me on how an omnipotent being who wanted to deliver a revelation to all humanity would
My argument is based on simple reasoning. Imagine that there exists a being B that can do anything except what is logically impossible, like make 2 + 2 = 5.

B wishes to deliver a revelation R to every human being who has ever lived. B has these options (a reasonable, though non-comprehensive set):
<ol type="1">[*]Implant R in the minds of everybody who has ever lived.[*]Reveal R to everybody who has ever lived by speaking to them.[*]Reveal R continuously to every religious, political, and intellectual leader there ever was, from shamans to sultans to scientists,
and let them spread the word to the rest of the population.[*]Reveal R to only a few people, or only one (P), who then spreads the word.[/list=a]

I'll now score them on efficiency:
<ol type="1">[*]Perfect efficiency. Everybody receives R without misinterpretation or corruption, and has it continuously accessible.[*]Depends on people's ability to understand the presentation of R, but ensures that everybody receives R. People will be able to cross-check their versions of R, however.[*]The leaders understand R OK, but if the leaders misunderstand or misrepresent it, then the rest of the population will be misled. Those will good cross-checking skills will still be able to cross-check different versions of R.[*]The worst situation. It will be impossible to check against a readily-available version of R, since only P had ever received it, and since P may have either misunderstood or misrepresented it.[/list=a]

So the first option would be the option to choose for maximum efficiency.

Revealed religions, however, work like the last option, with some once-and-for-all revelation in the distant past.

Interestingly, the last option closely mimics the way that the process of human invention works. A single person or a small group of people create some invention, and if that invention is liked well enough or inspires sufficiently zealous supporters, it gradually spreads.

Let's take the question of lightning. It could have been that God had one day said to himself , "Oops! I forgot to tell everybody how to protect against lightning. I must reveal the secret to someone.", then revealing the secret to a certain newspaper editor and tinkerer in Britain's North American colonies, one who had been studying the properties of static electricity.

But I'm sure that most of you people consider that hypothesis absolutely absurd, for several reasons: Mr. G. could have revealed how to protect against lightning long ago, that tinkerer had never claimed that he had received any special revelations, and that tinkerer describes having come to that conclusion by noticing the similarities between lightning and electric sparks, and then doing some experiments to see how far the similarities hold up. Experiments including a certain famous kite experiment.

However, the clergy never tried to claim credit for this discovery, claiming that the Bible describes how to construct lightning rods. They instead fought against it as if lightning rods give God the finger. They stuck to ringing bells, which were sometimes baptized for the purpose of repelling lightning. Which often got the bell-ringers struck by lightning. The suffering and death resulting from this virtuous activity only added to the agonies these clerics suffered as they contemplated the question of why God would strike his favorite buildings, or let the Devil do so.

But this never stopped lightning rods from gradually spreading over the North American colonies and over Europe, which they did. And the clergy gradually gave in, as they saw lightning rods protecting all those who used them.

Finally, I am a computer programmer, which makes me a creator, though a very limited sort of creator. Thus, I feel competent to comment on other supposed creators.

[ February 02, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

HRG

The analogy leaves out one essential point: the alleged omniscience of your God. Your Mommy knows exactly that her strategy will not make the kid eat his veggies - as your God, should he exist, knows exactly that his messages do not convince the majority of humans of his existence.

If a PR specialist knows that his PR strategy does not get the intended message across and nevertheless does not change it, what would you conclude about his real intentions ?

Regards,
HRG.