On 1/23/2014 11:08 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Jan 2014 20:49:44 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> And, well, it gets a bit worse than that, because its not the toaster
>> telling them this, its someone else, who told them that the toaster
>> thought it was the case. So.. technically, they may not be "insane"
>> themselves, but they are never the less following an idea that really
>> truly is insane.
>
> I think it comes down to what andrel was saying about trusting a prophet
> to have interpreted things correctly if you haven't been in direct
> contact with your deity - and if you have, that you may have interpreted
> things incorrectly as well.
>
> Because interaction with a supernatural being is not verifiable.  What
> transpired isn't verifiable, so it can mean anything you say it means.
>
> Some of the more religious that I've talked to about this in the past
> have said that it has to do with "internal consistency" when it comes to
> the bible (and I think they extend that to the deity telling you to do
> things that aren't compatible with the bible), but I've always found that
> to be a bit of a cop-out, because I have studied the bible a bit myself
> (I was raised Lutheran), and I found a fair number of inconsistencies
> myself.  The two faces of God (the forgiving one of the NT and the
> vengeful one of the OT) is the biggest example, and I've had the debates
> and arguments over the years about "no, it's not inconsistent" - and the
> arguments did not persuade me (so for those thinking this time may be
> different:  probably not, and I don't really have the time for a deep
> discussion of it now anyways).
>
> Jim
>
Well, its a little hard to have a consistent god, or message, when, back 
when the OT was being written, they couldn't even decide what the heck 
god they where actually following. Heck, some can't even today. If you 
look far enough back, you have either El aka Dagon, with three sons, 
Chemosh, Ba'al and Jehovah/Yehweh, and some sort of maybe fight over 
which one had the better ideas about running a society (Yehweh seemed to 
be of the modern Rethuglican strips, and considered, "Shoot first, then 
figure out how to rebuild their society.", to be a viable solution to 
thing - i.e., he was the "war expert"). Wander a bit forward from that 
and you get people using El as just "god", Dagon disappears, so does 
Chemosh, for the most part, but a bunch of others are popping up. Move a 
bit forward again and now you have some guy ranting about how there is 
only one "true" god, and its Yehweh, and the rest are all posers. Now, 
in modern times, you have really embarrassed "Christians", like the 
Seven Day Adventists (yeah, I was googling on this, and ran across the 
site in which they make this claim), who recognize that there where a 
lot of gods back then, and there seems to be historical evidence that a 
bloody lot of the "chosen people" where following Ba'al, so.. QED Ba'al 
must have just been their name for Yehweh! Oh, and.. its also OK now to 
make graven images, either crosses, or some guy nailed to two bits of wood!

Sigh...

Its only if you ignore the silly archeological and historical facts, and 
start trying to claim that the Bible is only about one god, instead of 
one culture, among a lot of gods, who managed to con, rape, and murder, 
their way into being the only ones that still had a god, when the dust 
settled, even if they still didn't exactly have a clear idea who that 
was, exactly. I mean, technically, it should be El, since he was the 
"father", but they insist its Yehweh, which is one of the sons, and just 
changed El into Elohym, making it a generic term, not a specific deity. 
But, the religion is definitely all a lot "simpler" now... lol

-- 
Commander Vimes: "You take a bunch of people who don't seem any 
different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get 
this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem."

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