Posts by Viviane

67

Exactly what is the HISTORIC view of the DIVINE or of what being GOD meant long ago?

by TerryWalstrom in

the purpose of this topic is twofold.. first, any who are endlessly fascinated by scholarship, practised by genuine bible scholars, are urged by me to do what i did, subscribe to bart ehrman's blog.

the subscription money (as little as $3.95) goes entirely to charity.. secondarily, by broadening our view of the new testament era on up through two millennia to the present day, our knowledge of all things 'christian' is deepened to include actual knowledge (as opposed to watchtower fabrication.

by this i don't mean to imply you'll fall to your knees and get saved, but rather, you'll simply have facts to inform your present transitional mindset toward whatever end you finally choose.. now .

Viviane

i think you're missing my point, I wasn't saying you're right. You're very wrong. by which I mean no offense.

You not knowing what the Bible contains doesn't offend me in any way.

Also so addressing your pseudo knowledge of ancient times, you are incorrect to assert that the expectation of the Hebrews to worship the one God originated as a novel idea in the Ten Commandments

That's not what I said at all.

So no, you're wrong about that. You're not wrong that there were many gods, or that some Hebrews got swept up in the worship of them - but the God of the Hebrews is recorded as far back as Abraham as being yahweh and no other.

El (the supreme God) and Yahweh are distinct and different gods, along with Asherah, who was ALSO worshiped. El, in proto-Hebrew Semitic religion (from which the Hebrew religion sprang), El Elyon was dad and Yahweh and Ba'al were brothers... so, exactly what I said. Yahweh is their national God, the one they worship FIRST, but they also worship many others.

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Viviane

Unless one proves to be absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt indisputable, then BOTH should be considered.

Sorry, not how it works.

On the other end of the spectrum, it shouldn't be that all scientific research and study must assume we appeared out of nowhere, that may result in not doing research and study that could answer questions if we are the product of another life. Both are open, both should be on the table.

Not how it works. Follow the evidence. Zero evidence for spirits and gods, tons for naturalistic processes.

Every mystery ever solved turned out to NOT have magic as the answer.

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Viviane

Hm. So let me get this straight. EOM, in your view, is "not even close" and has a "woefully lacking" view of science because he suggested we should "look" at all possibilities, whereas he should have said "investigate".

That's either an incredibly dishonest representation of what I wrote or an incredibly dumb one. Either way, not even close.

Pray tell how one should investigate all possibilities without looking at them?

I'm not advocating looking at all possibilities, no idea why you would ask me.I would, rather, advocate using the scientific method, namely, define a question, observe, gather data, devise a falsifiable hypothesis, reproducible steps, test it, publish results for others to test. Note that nowhere in the scientific method is there a line that says "investigate all possibilities".

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Viviane

those who do not follow religion prefer not to be labeled as atheists

That's how I label myself. I see nothing negative in it.

maybe our creator Isnt a God, did you ever ponder that?

Yes, many people have. In fact, that came up on this thread.

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Viviane

In science today I would think that looking at all possibilities is exactly the sort of advice I think one should give to people.

First, there are two key differences between what you wrote and EOM wrote. EOM said we MUST look at all possibilities. You wrote that people should be ALLOWED to look at all possibilities. Those are fundamentally different statements.

To negate the statement one end up with the suggestion that one should not look at some possibilities; however if we are really to take this suggestion seriously, we cannot decide to look or not to look at a possibility by investigating it's properties, because that would exactly require us to look at it in the first place

That's not true at all. No one ever said "don't investigate". The statement by EOM was "look at all possibilities". If a ball sitting on a table moves at a certain time of day, there are a variety of things I can do to determine why that is. What I don't have to do is entertain nonsensical possibilities, such as a butterfly flapping it's wings on Mars is the cause.

Saying "you don't have to consider non-sense or extremely unlikely possibilities" isn't the same as saying "don't investigate", much like saying "must" isn't the same as "allow".

69

Science still doesn't have the answers on how life first appeared

by EndofMysteries in

since so many athiests in this thread, and since i'm going to college, i was curious if what i would learn in biology would change my thoughts and show that life clearly and easily spontaneously happened.

just looking up the origins of dna or rna there is nothing conclusive.

for example, scientists today are able to manipulate life.

Viviane

That's still a more detailed answer than "God did it."

Holy scripture reveals the holy lunch was a holy BLT on rye with a cup of New England style clam chowder. Anyone who disagrees is a heretic worthy of only death.

70

Be nice to theists - they are victims of their genes

by cofty in

identical twin studies show there is a strong inheritable component to religiosity.

thomas bouchard studied identical and fraternal twins raised apart and tested them on religious attitudes.. the correlation for the former turned out to be 62% compared to just 2% for the latter.

his colleague.

Viviane

stats show that it does even in the general secular population.

What stats specifically show what?

11

Charles Taze Russell Pyramid

by enigma1863 in

so i live pretty close to the jw pyramid in pittsburgh and i have thought about going there and attaching a sign of some sort to the pyramid.

i was thinking of using a qrcode to link to something.

link.

Viviane

To what end?

15

No Black or woman became Pope or WT President—reveals what?

by abiather in

sending a messenger nearly 2000 years in advance to preach the coming of gods kingdom, and leaving the message to be carried out by his followers who would practice just the opposite of his message [eg.

catholics cannot accept a pope if he is from a black community or if sex is female, just like jws could not tolerate a black/woman wt president, which is in sharp contrast to what jesus himself practicedhe showed no partiality with regard to sex or communityhe elevated a samaritan woman sharing with her great truth, even before he did it with his own male-disciplesjohn chapter 4].

claiming something as his own, and then allowing it to decay do not befit gods superlative style!.

Viviane

That religion is man made.

67

Exactly what is the HISTORIC view of the DIVINE or of what being GOD meant long ago?

by TerryWalstrom in

the purpose of this topic is twofold.. first, any who are endlessly fascinated by scholarship, practised by genuine bible scholars, are urged by me to do what i did, subscribe to bart ehrman's blog.

the subscription money (as little as $3.95) goes entirely to charity.. secondarily, by broadening our view of the new testament era on up through two millennia to the present day, our knowledge of all things 'christian' is deepened to include actual knowledge (as opposed to watchtower fabrication.

by this i don't mean to imply you'll fall to your knees and get saved, but rather, you'll simply have facts to inform your present transitional mindset toward whatever end you finally choose.. now .

Viviane

I should have been more clear about the fact that I was talking about pious jews who kept the com mandment to worship ONLY the One God.

That was a much later invention that only certain Israelites kept to. The law, in the first commandment, admits there are other gods that can be worshiped. Scripture does not support your position.

In my comments I'm trying to make a distinction between the words deity (that which is worshipping) and divinity(that which merits "special" appreciation. ie: hebrews 13:17)

It's a false distinction. The fact that ancient Jewish writings had prohibitions against worshiping angels proves that worship of the divine (and not deity) was happening in the Jewish community. You're making a distinction without difference.

Divinity being less than God and having some attributes of God in a limited way...holiness and godliness without the miraculous, so to speak.

Look up hypostasis and henotheism. Again, angels were worshipped, the mysterious "Son of Man" was often equal to god and often not, men were elevated to the divine and God walk around as a human. There was THE god, local gods and personal gods, all in the Bible. There was a continuum of divinity and deity. All in the Bible.

because they taught that all believers should strive for holiness and godliness and Jesus Himself said "be perfect as I am perfect"...I get the sense that divinity is in view here. A "higher calling". An early example of this higher calling is the one referred to as, saint john the divine.

Why should they strive to be holy and godly unless that was something they could attain? They had examples of Jesus, Enoch and others being elevated to heaven and worthy or worship, men become gods. What were they striving for if not the same thing?