PhD thesis: Does Yahweh exist?

behemot

I found this very interesting paper. It's a PhD thesis at the Old Testament Science Department of the Pretoria University, titled "Does Yahweh exist? A philosophical-critical reconstruction of the case against realism in Old Testament Theology".

It offers a devil’s advocate's case against realism in Old Testament theology, in the form of the following seven arguments against the existence of Yahweh:

1. the argument from theological pluralism

2. the argument from unorthodox theology

3. the argument from polymorphic projection

4. the argument from mythology and syncretism

5. the argument from fictitious cosmography

6. the argument from fictitious history

7. the argument from meta-textual history.

The chapters can be downloaded as a PDF files at:

http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-03192004-135203/

Behemot

behemot

Sorry I posted it twice.

Behemot

Narkissos

From the abstract it sounds like a good approach, thanks. Too bad I have a problem with Acrobat on my computer and cannot read the PDFs...

moshe

I looked over chapter 8. Many valid arguments. Nothing shocking to enlightened Rabbi's. It won't change the Jewish view of belonging to a nation or tribe and worshiping the God of the Israelites. The existence or non-exisence of God is hard to prove either way to people who base their beliefs on faith. Judasim is a belief system which has stood the test of time for many millenia. Perhaps men in the future will no longer depend on religion to make sense of their chaotic lives.

M.J.

Man, Nark, I couldn't function without PDFs! I wonder--is it something that can be fixed by removing whatever version of the reader you have and downloading & installing the latest reader? http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Narkissos

Thanks M.J.

I had an old version which worked so far, but I am having problems with new files since last week. I tried to download 7.0.8. but the downloading stops on a file (AdbeRdr708_fr_FR.exe) which cannot be rewritten -- there's a firewall alert without any "ignore" option apparently...

M.J.

hmmm. Got me. I also had trouble downloading 7.0.8. through the site. It hangs up my computer. But what just DID work for me was updating the program from within Acrobat Reader itself. Try opening your existing Adobe Reader, go under Help and select "check for updates now", then follow the prompts to download updates to the program. Hope this is helpful.

Santisimo

If you didn't create yourself, then you were created. If you were created there is a creator. This simple logic cannot be broken in any way.

Consider this, the simplest watch is made of several hundred parts. Take each of these parts, throw them in the air, let them hit the ground and start counting the days before they join to make a watch. How long do you think you'll be waiting?

If a watch can't make itself regardless of how many billions of years you wait, how is it possble that TRILLIONS of cells came together to form the MILLIONS of life forms we see today? Do you think this just happened?

Whether we want to deal with it or not, we were created and we have a creator to answer to, period.

jayhawk1

So, who created the Creator that created us?

VM44

Narkissos,

Try using the free Foxit PDF reader.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader_2/down_reader.htm

--VM44

PhD thesis: Does Yahweh exist?

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