Adam And Eve, Noah And The Origion Of Man

[Niamh]

Good q. What's the elevation of Iraq? (formerly Messopotamia)

I looked this up on the internet. It is a topographic image of Iraq. As you can see there is quite a large blue area which is the Alluvial plain. If i remember correctly from college, the blue indecates land that is barely above sea level. If the great flood did really happen then all of this land would have been under water. Geologically the topographical map above could actually admit this. the north of Iraq is mountainous so it culd also be possible that if the water levels had risen to quite a height a boat may have found itself stuck on some kind of out crop of a hill if the "tide" went out. So there could be some kind of truth to the Great flood story. As for all the animals in and ark... i think thats an exageration of what really happened told by word of mouth for hundreds(or thousands) of years.
Hope thats what you were looking for Kiobe!

[Redzeppelin]

No. "Atheists" cannot be treated as a uniform, monolithic group. They have no rituals, no process of initiation, no fixed, static text of dubious origin, no heirarchy to pass on or dictate what to believe. They are open to diverse, expanding and testable findings, e.g. astro-physics, molecular and evolutionary biology, neurophysics, chemistry, bio-chemistry &c., as well as to secular and even theological philosophy.

Christians are often treated as a uniform, monolithic group. Despite differences (on both sides of the fence), there are certain consistencies. And, despite your listing, atheists aren't "open" to the reality of a spiritual component of reality - so they're not as "open" as they like to fancy.

Communism. In theory, atleast.

No - Communism entails quantifying and exculsion, just like every other viewpoint. Communism is a socio-political system that incorporates materialism/naturalism as a part of its overall world-view.

Yes. That is the purpose of a belief system...to systematize a complex and essentially inhuman world and make it more comfortable for those who don't like complex and essentially inhuman things. All belief systems do the same thing, regardless of whether they are religiously based or not.

Belief systems are not simply "blankies" that scared children cling to - as your wording very subtly implies. Sometimes those systems are based on the reality in front of the believer. You make assumptions about the motivations of believers that minimize the value of these belief systems - as if those who reject belief systems (impossible to do, by the way) are superior in some way.

The question of whether it allows eventual solutions is another point. All belief systems deal with "solutions." That is they reveal the "end of the story." What this does not say is whether it is accurate. So for example, if there was a belief system that suggested that time will end at the year 1000, then we know that they were inaccurate. That doesn't mean that the belief system itself didn't meet the needs of its people to know the "ending." It did. All that happened when the year 1001 came along was they redid the numbers and came up with a new "end date." They never questioned the fact that maybe the whole theory was wrong. That's the power of a belief system.

OK.

Actually there are a number of rational ways to view the world, but it depends on what is taken as evidence. For example, in your quote above it says that Christianity restricts that which is harmful, selfish and evil. If I cite the brutality of the Crusades, would not the murder, theft, and other abominations done by Christians to other Christians and to non-Christians be evidence that in fact Christianity does not restrict those traits? Or is it OK to kill, remove property and other such things if the "enemy" is "not-a-real-Christian?" What evidence will you allow that can be cited to rebuke the statement that Christianity is "only restrictive of that which is harmful, selfish, evil?"

Here we go again - the standard attack: the Crusades. Mind finding something after the 12th century to support your attack? When I speak of "Christianity" I speak of its theological points - not the human abuses enacted in (misguided) behalf of it. Try to cite something equivalent that occurred after, say, 1900. Thanks.

Yes. All belief systems do this. And every human being must see the world through some belief system or another. Our biology makes this a fundamental truth of being human. The difference between belief systems is in how well they enable human societies to function in the world of eating, sleeping, working, having and raising children, etc. (For ease, the "real world".) So if a belief system says (as many Utopian societies did in the 18th and 19th centuries- e.g. Shakers, etc) that the group must remain celibate then eventually the system is going to cave in unless it acts as a viable economic force as do many Buddhist Sanghas. If a belief system says that gravity is a myth and requires its new initiates to jump from a cliff then it will probably have a short life span. All belief systems are not created equal.

Right: some are right, some partially so, some completely wrong.

The only method we all share to judge the viability of a belief system is how it functions to support the real world where we must all eat, sleep and be comforted. This is the only rational way to judge the viability of a belief system and by that criteria there are many rational belief systems currently in operation on the earth. I say it is the only rational way because with this system all humans, regardless of beliefs about a non-corporeal world, share the corporeal world. We all have real world needs, but not all of us share the non-corporeal world. So since only the real world is fully shared then it is the only reasonable basis for human comparison.


But back to the text at hand...by this criteria, does a literalist reading of the Christian form of the Bible lead to a rational belief system?

"Rational" is the word that really needs examining. "Rational" in terms of human logic or divine logic?

[NikolaiI]

I have a lot of things to say to your posts.

Christians are often treated as a uniform, monolithic group. Despite differences (on both sides of the fence), there are certain consistencies. And, despite your listing, atheists aren't "open" to the reality of a spiritual component of reality - so they're not as "open" as they like to fancy.

I would disagree with this. I think almost everyone would. First of all, open or not open has nothing to do with it. And as an atheist, who considers terms such as atheist, theist, to be irrelevent in the extreme, and not meaningful, to say the least - I believe in a spiritual component to reality, in fact, I am closed to the idea that there is not. There is such thing as metaphysical, and let me tell you, there are metaphysical philosopher atheists...please, don't forget to reply to this, I am curious as to what you really think.

No - Communism entails quantifying and exculsion, just like every other viewpoint. Communism is a socio-political system that incorporates materialism/naturalism as a part of its overall world-view.

I am not an expert on communism, but this is politics, as is something else I will reply to a little further down the page. There are communists that believe all sorts of thing, and atheism is not a necessary component of communism. Am I correct?

Belief systems are not simply "blankies" that scared children cling to - as your wording very subtly implies. Sometimes those systems are based on the reality in front of the believer. You make assumptions about the motivations of believers that minimize the value of these belief systems - as if those who reject belief systems (impossible to do, by the way) are superior in some way.

I apologize if I am inocorectly speaking for Mary, but I wanted to reply to this. Her wording didn't imply this at all. She said a belief system - or ontology - is how we assemble information and understand the world, or systematize, and is how we understand this information, and allows us to act in the world. Logic is one such ontology, language is another. It is for everyone, not just scared children, Redzeppelin. Considering she also said "Our biology makes this a fundamental truth of being human", I think she is on the same page with you about it being impossible to reject belief systems, and you don't need to tell her this.

Here we go again - the standard attack: the Crusades. Mind finding something after the 12th century to support your attack? When I speak of "Christianity" I speak of its theological points - not the human abuses enacted in (misguided) behalf of it. Try to cite something equivalent that occurred after, say, 1900. Thanks.

That would be politics, and I could find examples very quickly for you, but its not as important as some other things, and really your post has opened up about five different debates on different subjects, so the less the better. We can't argue five different debates on the same thread.

Right: some are right, some partially so, some completely wrong. "Rational" is the word that really needs examining. "Rational" in terms of human logic or divine logic?

Should I say here that I think everything you believe is wrong? It would be appropriate after the first paragraph of your post. I would say that you have never thought to question what you were taught, when in fact everything you were taught was wrong. Christianity is not sole truth, we do not measure truth by Christianity. If there even is such a concept of truth - if any concept has relation to reality, then yes, truth would be the first, and the dichotomy between truth and falseness is how we structure everything - what is good and true, well there might be goodness and truth in christianity, but they are not limited to it at all - consider other religions, ontologies, maps for the world, for instance Buddhist ontology. I mean it, consider it, look it up or something. Instead, you believe in an ontology that is virtually completely wrong, one that does not hold up to critical analysis, in fact grew and developed out of millenia of psychosis (if we consider psychosis to mean, by its psychological definition, the lack of empathy).

It is true that this last paragraph has been an almost complete imitation of things I've seen you say before - wrong, wrong, wrong. You've got it all wrong. But that is how I feel. And I hope you don't think...I don't like you, or something, because I don't know you. I never meant for this to be personal, so if you feel that everything I've said has been wrong, feel free to say it. Really, say anything you want, as long as it is interesting.

[kiobe]

I looked this up on the internet. It is a topographic image of Iraq. As you can see there is quite a large blue area which is the Alluvial plain. If i remember correctly from college, the blue indecates land that is barely above sea level. If the great flood did really happen then all of this land would have been under water. Geologically the topographical map above could actually admit this. the north of Iraq is mountainous so it culd also be possible that if the water levels had risen to quite a height a boat may have found itself stuck on some kind of out crop of a hill if the "tide" went out. So there could be some kind of truth to the Great flood story. As for all the animals in and ark... i think thats an exageration of what really happened told by word of mouth for hundreds(or thousands) of years.
Hope thats what you were looking for Kiobe!

I am going to estimate that the elevation at Bagdad is somewhere around 65 feet. The Tigres and Euphrates rivers are very slow moving rivers and travel a relatively short distance. The two rivers originate in the in the Mt. Ararat region of Turkey, where by the way theologists believe the Arc set down. With Ethiopia being a short float through the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden and there being the place of origion as anthropoligists believe. Is that a possibility?

[MaryLupin]

I am not an expert on communism, but this is politics, as is something else I will reply to a little further down the page. There are communists that believe all sorts of thing, and atheism is not a necessary component of communism. Am I correct?

Most communists tend to be focused on the material world because they are concerned with human equality and the equal distribution of necessary goods and access to power that are required if humans are to actual live as equals in any real way. However, having said that communism is defined as
1. A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
2. Communism
1. A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
2. The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat.

American Heritage Dictionary.

Nothing here requires a person dedicated to the idea of such an economy be any particular brand of faith.

I apologize if I am inocorectly speaking for Mary, but I wanted to reply to this. Her wording didn't imply this at all. She said a belief system - or ontology - is how we assemble information and understand the world, or systematize, and is how we understand this information, and allows us to act in the world. Logic is one such ontology, language is another. It is for everyone, not just scared children, Redzeppelin. Considering she also said "Our biology makes this a fundamental truth of being human", I think she is on the same page with you about it being impossible to reject belief systems, and you don't need to tell her this.

Thank you for your careful reading. Indeed the clue to the universality of my statement was "our biology." Since I am a biological entity, I therefore include myself in that statement.

[MaryLupin]

Belief systems are not simply "blankies" that scared children cling to - as your wording very subtly implies. Sometimes those systems are based on the reality in front of the believer. You make assumptions about the motivations of believers that minimize the value of these belief systems - as if those who reject belief systems (impossible to do, by the way) are superior in some way.

Nikolai handled this one nicely.

Here we go again - the standard attack: the Crusades. Mind finding something after the 12th century to support your attack?

You probably didn't realize this but my home in the US is an Indian Reservation. I have more Native kin than white, but I have both. How many books/articles etc. would you like to read about Christian atrocities with respect to Native American peoples? And that is just the northern Protestant based Christians. That first list doesn't touch what the Catholics did in Central and South America. And of course that is just the Americas. There are long lists of similar behaviors (by missionaries for example) in every single indigenous homeland they have "visited." And lest you think this is over, it isn't I am afraid.

When I speak of "Christianity" I speak of its theological points - not the human abuses enacted in (misguided) behalf of it.

Let me please get this clear. Are you saying Christianity is something other than the lives of Christians? Are you saying that we must judge the value of Christianity by something other than how its adherents comport themselves in the world they share with others?

"Rational" is the word that really needs examining. "Rational" in terms of human logic or divine logic?

Reason, at its base, rests on shared assumptions about the nature of the shared world. Since all humans share the biological impulses/needs for comfort, food, shelter, communication, love, ecstasy, connection etc, it is the broadest possible basis for shared assumptions. A belief in God or a disbelief in a divine principle cannot possibly match this. So to base our shared assumptions (the basis for what is to be considered rational) on something that only a minority of people can share is unreasonable. Unless...unless you believe that only some people deserve inclusion.

Also you didn't address my last question. Going back to the text at hand...based on an all-inclusive basis of shared needs and assumptions, does a literalist reading of the Christian form of the Bible lead to a rational belief system?

[Mortis Anarchy]

Every race/belief has been attacked. Even Catholics themselves have been persecuted...and I stongly believe that the ways of missionaries have changed. Not only that, not every missionary treated natives of countries in a horrible way. Plus a lot of it in Latin America had to do with the Conquestadors, not so much religious men.

[MaryLupin]

Every race/belief has been attacked. Even Catholics themselves have been persecuted...

Yes this is true. To attack others, to persecute those who have less power, these are human traits. When one group gains power over another it is inevitable that the greater power will be used to coerce. No group in human history has avoided this because it is a function of what and who we are as human creatures. Again, it is a function of our biology.

and I stongly believe that the ways of missionaries have changed.

Does this mean you recognize that missionizing was problematic?

Not only that, not every missionary treated natives of countries in a horrible way.

Yes, in all bad situations there is always something good. Even in the worst excesses of our shared history, the various concentration camps in the world, the massacres of one group by another, the torture prisons, etc., there is sometimes a person who helps, who has compassion. There are never whole groups of people who are evil. There is always someone who stands up for the rights of others. This is also a function of what and who we are as human animals.

The one big, in fact inescapable, problem is that the whole purpose of a mission is to change their hosts from what they are to what the missionaries think they should be. That, in its very essence, is disrespectful.

Let me give you an example: think of a belief system that you personally abhor. Imagine for a moment a whole group of them come into your house, set up house and go about trying to convince you and your loved ones that the things you hold dear are all wrong, in fact, try to convince you that if you don't start agreeing with them you will start to suffer. You see these new people go after your friends, your children, and one by one the weak and the vulnerable are taken away from you and everything you have ever known is destroyed and made as nothing.

Plus a lot of it in Latin America had to do with the Conquestadors, not so much religious men.

There is quite a bit of good history about the role of the Protestant and Catholic churches and how they played a part in what happened to the indigenous people in the Americas. But very briefly, the first decision the churches had to make was whether these people were human, that is did they have souls. The Catholics decided yes they did. The reason was that this meant that they now had a mission to convert them. It was understood that this meant by force if necessary. So yes there was a military presence, but it was a military that worked at the behest of the church.

By the way, early on the Protestant decision was that they (the natives) had no souls. This enabled slavery. One can own an animal but not a human being, so the decision made it morally OK to try and use natives as free labor. Again, politics, economics and religion were all mixed up together. Religious doctrine was used to support economic and political agendas. This history is one of the reasons why it is so important to maintain a separation between church and state.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Yes this is true. To attack others, to persecute those who have less power, these are human traits. When one group gains power over another it is inevitable that the greater power will be used to coerce. No group in human history has avoided this because it is a function of what and who we are as human creatures. Again, it is a function of our biology.



Does this mean you recognize that missionizing was problematic?



Yes, in all bad situations there is always something good. Even in the worst excesses of our shared history, the various concentration camps in the world, the massacres of one group by another, the torture prisons, etc., there is sometimes a person who helps, who has compassion. There are never whole groups of people who are evil. There is always someone who stands up for the rights of others. This is also a function of what and who we are as human animals.

The one big, in fact inescapable, problem is that the whole purpose of a mission is to change their hosts from what they are to what the missionaries think they should be. That, in its very essence, is disrespectful.

Let me give you an example: think of a belief system that you personally abhor. Imagine for a moment a whole group of them come into your house, set up house and go about trying to convince you and your loved ones that the things you hold dear are all wrong, in fact, try to convince you that if you don't start agreeing with them you will start to suffer. You see these new people go after your friends, your children, and one by one the weak and the vulnerable are taken away from you and everything you have ever known is destroyed and made as nothing.




There is quite a bit of good history about the role of the Protestant and Catholic churches and how they played a part in what happened to the indigenous people in the Americas. But very briefly, the first decision the churches had to make was whether these people were human, that is did they have souls. The Catholics decided yes they did. The reason was that this meant that they now had a mission to convert them. It was understood that this meant by force if necessary. So yes there was a military presence, but it was a military that worked at the behest of the church.

By the way, early on the Protestant decision was that they (the natives) had no souls. This enabled slavery. One can own an animal but not a human being, so the decision made it morally OK to try and use natives as free labor. Again, politics, economics and religion were all mixed up together. Religious doctrine was used to support economic and political agendas. This history is one of the reasons why it is so important to maintain a separation between church and state.

It occurs to me that the whole of your posts, taken together, are a paean to impartial human reason, a song of encouragement to the collective human soul that has been struggling for millennia to be born, and which manifests itself in part at times in people like Nelson Mandela or Muhammad Yunus...

I read with interest your well-informed responses but am comforted most of all by the tone, a tone without animus or ego.

[dzebra]

Let me please get this clear. Are you saying Christianity is something other than the lives of Christians? Are you saying that we must judge the value of Christianity by something other than how its adherents comport themselves in the world they share with others?

A similarity can be drawn between this and the Muslim terrorist attacks. The Muslims who are terrorists are very extreme and don't abide by all the teachings of Islam (Islam promotes peace strongly). Just because someone claims the name "Muslim" or "Christian" doesn't mean they are adherents. Adherents would act as the doctrines instruct.

Reason, at its base, rests on shared assumptions about the nature of the shared world. Since all humans share the biological impulses/needs for comfort, food, shelter, communication, love, ecstasy, connection etc, it is the broadest possible basis for shared assumptions. A belief in God or a disbelief in a divine principle cannot possibly match this. So to base our shared assumptions (the basis for what is to be considered rational) on something that only a minority of people can share is unreasonable. Unless...unless you believe that only some people deserve inclusion.

I'm not sure what your main point is in this, but I'll respond to what I think it is. If your point is that Christianity is unreasonable because only a minority of people may be included, then I disagree on the basis of the nature of Christianity, which is the inclusion of all who want to be included.

Also you didn't address my last question. Going back to the text at hand...based on an all-inclusive basis of shared needs and assumptions, does a literalist reading of the Christian form of the Bible lead to a rational belief system?

I would say yes, if a person reads the Bible and takes everything as literal (excluding the obviously figurative things, like parables and poetry and the like) then there is a logical resulting rational belief.

[Niamh]

I am going to estimate that the elevation at Bagdad is somewhere around 65 feet. The Tigres and Euphrates rivers are very slow moving rivers and travel a relatively short distance. The two rivers originate in the in the Mt. Ararat region of Turkey, where by the way theologists believe the Arc set down. With Ethiopia being a short float through the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden and there being the place of origion as anthropoligists believe. Is that a possibility?

I think thats basiclly what i was thinking and posted but with out the mumbo jumbo geological and geographic stuff i wrote. The blue area in the Topographical map is the plain of the Tigres and Euphrates rivers. It apears to be quite flat and at sea level or almost below it. May have even been a large lake or part of the sea at one point. So if you agree with me, then there is quite possibly some evidence that there WAS at least a large expanse of water covering most of the middle and southern parts of Mes-, making it quite possible that there could have been a flood.

[MaryLupin]

I would say yes, if a person reads the Bible and takes everything as literal (excluding the obviously figurative things, like parables and poetry and the like) then there is a logical resulting rational belief.

Hey dzebra,

I am only going to respond to this part of your post for tonight. I feel rather poorly today. So I'll get back to your other points tomorrow.

The first thing is what are the criteria for judging what is "obviously figurative?" What this implies is that a literalist can pick and choose which parts of the text to obey and which not. This, by definition, is not a literalist reading. It is a selective reading based on some criteria or rule which is not specified. In some groups the unspecified rule is literally "what the preacher tells me to believe." In others it is more systematized but nevertheless there is a rule that guides which passages are to be considered literally true and which are to be considered figurative. As you can imagine these underlying rules differ vastly through time and across cultures and classes. So what I would like to determine is what is the base rule by which you are assessing what is figurative and what is not.

Second, lets look at how manageable (reasonable) a belief system and guide to behavior can be achieved by comparing a couple of passages from the King James version of the Bible.

The first passage is from Deuteronomy 18:10-12. It says "There shall not be found among you [any one] that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, [or] that useth divination, [or] an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things [are] an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee."

The same passage found in another version of the Bible says: "Neither let there be found among you any one that shall expiate his son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire: or that consulteth soothsayers, or observeth dreams and omens, neither let there be any wizard, Nor charmer, nor any one that consulteth pythonic spirits, or fortune tellers, or that seeketh the truth from the dead. For the Lord abhorreth all these things, and for these abominations he will destroy them at thy coming."

This is from theNew Advent Bible. Depending on translation, the same text can be read as "drive them out" or "kill them."

Then there is Exodus 22:18 which says "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" at least that is the rendition in the King James Bible. There are many other translations in different versions of the Bible. For a listing of just this section see this site.

OK. So now, how to construct a belief system when you don't know if to shove them out of your country or kill them all? Because the Bible says both.

Next, here is one more passage. It reads:

"Thou shalt not kill." Exodus 20:13

So apart from the problem of interpretation of the literal meaning of a single passage there are conflicting messages. In one place it says to kill in another it says one must not kill. It is not possible to do both. Therefore it is not possible to construct a behavioral/belief system based on a purely literal reading of the Bible. This is why those who try to do this must simply ignore certain aspects of the Bible, either by only following one testament or another or by saying "well this passage is only meant figuratively."

Of course I agree with you that much of what is in the Bible was not meant literally but my point is not really that. It is that it is impossible to construct a viable behavioral/belief system from the Bible without leaving something out.

Lastly, if you take the "suffer not a witch to live" passage as a guide to behavior, would you want to live in a society where you might get hung because your neighbor's cow stopped giving milk? (An actual case.)

[Virgil]

I would disagree with this. I think almost everyone would. First of all, open or not open has nothing to do with it. And as an atheist, who considers terms such as atheist, theist, to be irrelevent in the extreme, and not meaningful, to say the least - I believe in a spiritual component to reality, in fact, I am closed to the idea that there is not. There is such thing as metaphysical, and let me tell you, there are metaphysical philosopher atheists...please, don't forget to reply to this, I am curious as to what you really think.

I cannot conceptualize how atheism could incorporate any spiritualism within its formulation of reality. Can you please explain that because as far as I can tell they are mutually exclusive. And which philosophers are "metaphysical atheist?"

[MaryLupin]

Anthropolgists have shown that after the initial increase in the population of the world that at one point in time there was a devistating decrease in the population and estimates are at about 2,000 people. Is there a correlation between the real decrease in population and the flood story in the bible?

To repeat myself:

Where did this figure come from? Since you are using it to support a literalist reading of Genesis it is an important piece of data. You are using something that implies scientific objectivity (i.e. "Anthropologists have shown...) to support the truth value of Genesis. Please let us know where the data came from so we can explore its value for ourselves.

[MaryLupin]

I cannot conceptualize how atheism could incorporate any spiritualism within its formulation of reality. Can you please explain that because as far as I can tell they are mutually exclusive. And which philosophers are "metaphysical atheist?"

I look forward to Nikolai's response but here is a tidbit from me:

For the athiests that I know who practice spiritually, they realize that states of awareness such as awe, reverence and joy are biologically based functions. As such they are a part of our evolutionary history and future. They are not to be despised but explored and developed as an integral part of what it means to live as a human being. What these people I know say is that limiting these abilities (say the experience of satori or ecstatic awe) to a single proscribed meaning and/or source (such as a god or goddess) limits our ability to learn from and make use of these abilities. By being open to the idea that we don't know where these gifts come from or what they are for, by being open to the possibility that these abilities may not come from anywhere, nor have any intrinsic for-ness, we actually do the gift more honor than the person who thinks s/he knows what it all means.

One good philosopher to read in this general area is Alasdair MacIntyre. He has a book called Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues.

Finally, did you know that there are atheist mystics?