by Band on the Run 133 Replies latest watchtower bible
Amen and Hallelujah to "No shit."
These nonsense comments are messing up my Karen Armstrong thread. Karen Armstrong, a woman who is capable of reading and writing books. It must be nice to know someone who can read. So many here merely hear and discard what they read. There are others who are incapable of sustaining a conversation or reading.
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I've read the first chapters of Armstrong's In The Begining. She writes so well, IMO. Reviewing the surrounding cultures and Judaism itself, Armstrong said the authors had no intention for it to be a literal account. The account contradicts itself literally. Other cultures had chaos and gods who interacted with humans. P, one author, wanted to convey a radical new concept of God. This god is not part of chaos but orders chaos. Everyone is in their place. Americans now view this concept of god as God.
She notes that P creates the world. The earlier account, written in a later chapter of Genesis, does not have God create primodial material.
Armstrong believes no moral message was intended. Rather, humans wanted a practical guide for living to the fullest extent possible.
As soon as God meets humans, there is chaos again.
Amen and Hallelujah to "No shit."
My breakdown trumps Armstrong's tripe and your overtly basic review. She basically tells us in her book that the Torah is ridden with inconsistencies. This is laughable as it disregards the extreme meticulousness of the writers of the book. To assume they just missed these is a modern elitist view. The truth on this matter is that this woman has no understanding of the Torah as she is trying to study it through a secular lens. Like I said the Torah is a spiritual book and without a spiritual approach no understanding can be had. You and Armstrong serve as perfect examples of this. That's why Genesis 1:1 asks for faith, because that's what opens the gate to the treasure house of truth: the Torah. You and Armstrong have no faith and it's plainly obvious.
These nonsense comments are messing up my Karen Armstrong thread. Karen Armstrong, a woman who is capable of reading and writing books.
I'm not sure if you noticed, being learned and all, but I am capable of those feats as well. Except, I would never lower myself to any publishing company. They are all from the depths of hell. The internet is the new frontier and books are for the dark ages.
Reviewing the surrounding cultures and Judaism itself, Armstrong said the authors had no intention for it to be a literal account.
Reform Jews and others have been saying this for quite some time now, nothing new. However it does pose the question as to how a document originally intended to be symbolic became literal. This would mean that whole lines of thought would need to be wiped out by disease, wars or something else. Because of this factor and many others Armstrong's breakdown becomes merely speculation. You are more attracted to her credentials I would presume which helps your secular confirmation bias grow stronger like a drug. You trust her professionalism which is useless when trying to read a spiritual document. It's actually hilarious because the book is about walking by faith rather than sight, yet you and Armstrong ignore that credential (the only one that maters) and soldier on as if you are going to discover truth. When in fact you need "the Spirit" to aid with spiritual documents (who would have thought!). I'll say it again, without faith you cannot understand the book, period. Faith is the spiritual "activation protocol" as the Torah is a piece of technology not completely understood even in modern times. It will take our civilization much longer to completely understand it, but this is because not enough people walk by faith, which is what the document asks for off the get go.
The account contradicts itself literally.
No it doesn't, we just think it does when we read it wrong. Like YOU said we don't know the original writers and we also know that the intention of the document has essentially been lost. We are left to decode it in the distant future with cultures who are as speculative as anyone else. To be so arrogant as to assume it contradicts itself is simply remarkably pretentious. Such a flawed notion operates on the idea that we actually can parse this document with Science, logic and reason. Such an assumption is preposterous even from a secular perspective. Clearly, Armstrong is just trying to make her and a publishing company some money by getting "ooos and ahhs" from people like you who just eat it up.
Armstrong believes no moral message was intended. Rather, humans wanted a practical guide for living to the fullest extent possible.
The Torah means "Law" and law is always tied to morality because it attempts to bring order to chaos. Armstrong misses the basics, as modern interpretors do and she obviously is catering this book to a secular crowd. It's borderline propaganda that uses a respected mind to propagate into learned circles.
-Sab
There used to be this radio show called "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Gallaxy." The story was turned into a book series by Douglas Adams and a motion picture was done in his honor more recently. Interestingly, that particular universe had intelligent designers. According to Lester Del Rey in his book World of Science Fiction: "Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures." Therefore, the Hitchhiker's universe was based on a plausible future projection starting from the time of 1978. The morality for these designers was based on the idea that they could return all of existence back into working order from any catastrophe possible. This created the whimsical story element of Earth being destroyed by an alien race putting in a space highway. It creates the "perfect story" going from total destruction to total redemption which is the total human experience.
That's what the Torah, and the whole Bible, says that our existence is. Humanity is the "perfect story" and we just so happen to be smack dab in the middle of it. Yet, even with all that we've went through, if everything could be made right, what we previously called suffering will no longer be that at all. To me the Torah most certainly concerns itself with morality. To say otherwise is madness.
-Sab
The one book I read of Karen Armstrong's was thorough, convincing, and clearly written. BOTR, I will give this new book a try.
sabastious, I just have to ask; do you believe in talking toasters? I think I am mixing up my science fiction, hitching the hitchikers to the Red Dwarf.
According to Lester Del Rey in his book World of Science Fiction: "Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures." Therefore, the Hitchhiker's universe was based on a plausible future projection starting from the time of 1978.
In fiction, anything is possible, therefore, your conclusion does not follow.
That's what the Torah, and the whole Bible, says that our existence is. Humanity is the "perfect story" and we just so happen to be smack dab in the middle of it. Yet, even with all that we've went through, if everything could be made right, what we previously called suffering will no longer be that at all. To me the Torah most certainly concerns itself with morality. To say otherwise is madness.
THE SERPENT WAS A PENIS!
In fiction, anything is possible, therefore, your conclusion does not follow.
Science fiction is a specialized type of fiction that projects a plausible future scenario. It's still fiction, but you are just circumventing the specialization in order to provide an argument that meets a loose logical standard. Essentially it's being argumentative which means argument just for the sake of it; opposition. My point still stands even with your rain sprinkles. I suggest using a tempest if you want to blow it down.
sabastious, I just have to ask; do you believe in talking toasters? I think I am mixing up my science fiction, hitching the hitchikers to the Red Dwarf.
It didn't take any doing to steer this conversation towards my usual subject. The words "Genesis", "Adam", "Eve" and "Noah" in the title provides the setting of the Torah in general, which is what I specialize in (first 8 chapters specifically). Ms Armstrong, manifesting through Band on the Run's book club, is trying to divorce the marriage between Christianity and Judaism. While their attempt may be very clever it's ultimately in vain because the marriage of Christianity and Judaism is eternal. Attaching her credentials to a conclusion as outrageous as "the Torah was never about morality" is a shameless sellout with an obvious agenda. It's simply impossible to have a Christ without a Torah just as it's impossible to have America without a Constitution or theater without Shakespeare.
THE SERPENT WAS A PENIS!
It's remarkable to me that you would bring this up. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Serpent is, in part, a phallic symbol. It gives "Whore of Babylon" a whole new meaning.
-Sab
There's science fiction that is plausible, and there is science fiction that is not. For instance, faster-than-light travel had to be invented in order to allow dramatic tension and interaction between solar systems.
My point still stands even with your rain sprinkles. I suggest using a tempest if you want to blow it down.
Your point is trying ot use a type of fiction to prove your fiction is true. There is no point.
But if you WANT to go with science fiction, we can certainly introduce science into it. Your invisible god could always step up to the shirt challenge. It's science and a ficticious god, so it fits!
The words "Genesis", "Adam", "Eve" and "Noah" in the title provides the setting of the Torah in general, which is what I specialize in (first 8 chapters specifically).
Have you found the word "genetics" in there yet since you claim it talks about it?
It's remarkable to me that you would bring this up. I wholeheartedly agree with you that the Serpent is, in part, a phallic symbol. It gives "Whore of Babylon" a whole new meaning.
No, it LITERALLY is a penis.
There's science fiction that is plausible, and there is science fiction that is not. For instance, faster-than-light travel had to be invented in order to allow dramatic tension and interaction between solar systems.
There is no such thing as science fiction purposefully designed to be implausible. It would then just be fiction instead of scifi. Take the great scifi writer Michael Crichton for example who wrote the story Jurassic Park. He was a scientist who would do serious research for every novel he produced. His book Andromeda Strain played on the science of microorganisms, Jurrasic Park the same only with genetics. He wrote a book called Timeline which played on quantum uncertainty. The whole POINT of science fiction is to tantalize the reader into believing it could happen so that's why science is consulted for every story element. If it isn't you call that just fiction, not scifi.
But if you WANT to go with science fiction, we can certainly introduce science into it. Your invisible god could always step up to the shirt challenge. It's science and a ficticious god, so it fits!
I personally would love to meet this challenge, but I don't have enough faith that God gives a hoot about your shirt.
Have you found the word "genetics" in there yet since you claim it talks about it?
No, but the first book is named Genesis which contains the root word meaning "origin." Genetics are the origin of humanity. Therefore the Torah is about genetics, and more than genetics, before genetics existed. This is off topic however.
No, it LITERALLY is a penis.
I personally don't subscribe to literal interpretations of anything in the Torah besides Genesis 1:1.
-Sab
