MayfieldFan...your logical analysis is flawless. You have obviously spent much time in giving in-depth thinking to this topic, and no doubt more than just casually.

 

I can understand where you are content with the title "Atheist", considering your conclusions, and I don't think that there's anything that you've presented here that I disagree with. You are making complete sense.

 

I also recognize, other than the effects that religious indoctrination has had for generations on the multitudes as a result of human conditioning, that for many the belief in a god brings a sense of peace of mind, and though whether or not they're willing to be realistic, if it helps them get through this puzzle of a life, and if they're not pushing it on anyone else, then so be it.

 

Sadly though the problem with religion is that some do push it, and history has shown that it hasn't always been so kind in doing so.

 

If someone is truly searching, yet are open to the type of thoughts you are offering, it's hard to see how they could continue to blindly believe after following your logic.

 

Since being raised Catholic, for years now it's been important for myself to analyze and consider, guilt free, this type of logic, and clear away that which are obvious man-made concepts to at least allow myself a clean enough slate, absent of conceptual clutter, so if perhaps there's any possible way for me to see and understand, if in fact there is anything to see and understand, I can at first free my mind of delusional fantasy.

 

While I can't offer any absolutes that there is a god, I can't offer any that concretely conclude and prove that there isn't, and if not a god per se, a dimension beyond my human comprehension.

 

With thinking logically, I am left with the notion that though this helps to remove said clutter, I still don't know anything with any certainty, and while I'm "content" (or at least have to be) with this human limitation, and far more comfortable with it than just believing in "made up stuff", and though I'm not keen on labeling myself, the closest that I can come towards Atheism is Agnosticism.

 

Atheistic ideas make a million times more logical sense than do Theistic ideas, and the way you have described it here makes that quite apparent.

 

Thankfully one can remain open to the possibility of a god without having to subscribe to religion, while also remaining open to the idea that there might not be one.

 

World religions have built themselves in such a way that has left them wide open for holes to be shot through them by anyone clearly and logically thinking things through.

 

Though what you have presented is all too clear, those deeply indoctrinated would not likely be interested in hearing it for it would turn their belief system upside down, and many are just not mentally or emotionally prepared to be rattled like that, while many others would not be capable of following the logic anyhow, and especially with a head full of religion.

 

I, in no way shape or form consider myself a genius or an exceptional thinker, and while I do understand human conditioning and the effects of mass scale religious indoctrination, it does baffle me how the ideas that you are presenting here make such clear sense to me and only a few others, all the while knowing that we are in the minority of those who get what you're saying.

 

As you well know, a much larger percentage of humanity follows religious beliefs, while a much smaller percentage would entertain such logical, yet opposing ideas.

 

Those of religion might even consider those like us to be adversaries of evil by contesting and questioning their beliefs. It's one of the guilt trips of religion to try to prevent people from thinking.

 

It took me years to quit feeling guilty for questioning. Early on I was a scared wreck realizing that I had so many questions, and some around me would reinforce that guilt by painting me as "bad" for doing so.

 

How dare I question?

 

Religious guilt is real, and trying to shake it isn't always easy. Some would suggest that this feeling of guilt is God's way of warning you not to question. When one is full of guilt, no matter what logical thoughts are presented to them, the fear that this guilt creates is so strong that it only adds a ton of confusion, and often times anger and resentment.

 

Personally It's not my mission to turn a believer into a non-believer. I have no mission at all. I'm content as long as we're all free to believe whatever we want. I feel fortunate that I don't live somewhere that it would cause me issues to question religious beliefs or feel forced to follow them.

 

I feel fortunate also that though realist types are but the few in our society, there are at least a handful that I can identify with. It seriously would feel suffocating if not one other person could relate to these thoughts.

But traces still exist. Take for example when moses went up the mountain and came down and the people were worshiping false idols. Think about that. They had just been delivered from slavery, they had just seen the red sea parted. If you can part a sea in front of me...I am a believer. But not these people, they went after a false idol the first chance they got. Would be beyond stupid. Anyway, that isn't what happened. Yahweh, the god of war had been their best bud when they were fleeing, and now that they were safe, they were going over to the goddess of fertility. Because they believed in multiple gods. That puts their actions in a more sensible light. Centuries later, the yahweh worshipers take control, demand sole worship, and go back and change the stories. There is a really good video out there that goes over this in some detail, I will dig it up for you.

 

I do not believe there are inconsistencies in the Bible regarding one god existing. There are cases where people started worshipping other godds (baal, moleh, asherah) but this always made God upset. The example of the idol in Exodus 32 is not an example of them turning to another God. An Idol of a calf was made from gold in order to represent the God. They made the idol and said "this is the God of Israel"

 

But please do throw the biblical inconsistencies to me, I may have missed them.

I do not believe there are inconsistencies in the Bible regarding one god existing. There are cases where people started worshipping other godds (baal, moleh, asherah) but this always made God upset. The example of the idol in Exodus 32 is not an example of them turning to another God. An Idol of a calf was made from gold in order to represent the God. They made the idol and said "this is the God of Israel"

 

But please do throw the biblical inconsistencies to me, I may have missed them.

 

You are going to have to play fair @PP1. The issue at hand is traces of polytheism of the early israelites left in the bible even after the bible was changed to remove the evidence of polytheism. so you quote the bible

Here is your quote: They made the idol and said "this is the God of Israel." You are right, that is not evidence of polytheism, or a trace of it. But then again, you have changed what the bible actually says.

 

Here are the verses, King James Version:

 

32:1

32 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

 

32:4

4 And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

 

32:7-8

7 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves:

 

8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

 

(throwin this one in just for fun. lord can do evil, who'd thunk it?)

14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

 

Now, PP1, you have to play fair. Those verses make it very clear that the Israelites were worshiping "gods". Not "God" as you have in your misquote. And further that the Lord was not happy about it. And it only makes sense, given that they were in fact polytheistic. You don't just jump from walking across a sea bed parted by the one and only god and start worshiping a cow the next day. Nobody is that dumb. But if the people walking across the sea bed already believed in a whole host of gods, then it makes perfect sense. But we are going to have to agree on what the bible says if we are going to discuss it. I will promise to not misquote the bible if you do the same. Then, if you want the other traces of polytheism still left in the bible, I can point some out to you.

And just who are "thy Gods, O Israel, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt."

 

That sounds like they believed multiple gods brought them out of Egypt.

I do not think you are trying to say that the King James was the original Bible. But the word used in in this verse is Elohim which is the name of the supreme creator God of israel. A great source for original language is strong's concordance. He gives every word a number and attaches the original hebrew/aramic/greek translation. Here is the link to the Exodus 32 verse you speak of.

 

KJV w/ Strong's Concordance - Exodus 32

 

I love these discussion just so you know. I am on my way to Moe's in crestview hills and then to starbucks in case anyone wants to sip a latte.

I do not think you are trying to say that the King James was the original Bible. But the word used in in this verse is Elohim which is the name of the supreme creator God of israel. A great source for original language is strong's concordance. He gives every word a number and attaches the original hebrew/aramic/greek translation. Here is the link to the Exodus 32 verse you speak of.

 

KJV w/ Strong's Concordance - Exodus 32

 

I love these discussion just so you know. I am on my way to Moe's in crestview hills and then to starbucks in case anyone wants to sip a latte.

 

I read what you linked, quickly, and the verses there also say "gods" not "God." I just state KJV to make it clear what I was quoting, and because that is the only bible I have ever read, other than snippets of other versions, usually if I run across a KJV passage that I can't make heads or tails of.

 

Edit: I also read the concordance of the word "gods" as it is used in Exodus 32. It is not what you wrote. "gods",according to the concordance means elohim, the PLURAL of eloha. You stated it was the name of the supreme creator God of Israel, but the concordance does not state this. The definition is "plural of 433(433 is the concordance number of the word eloha); gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God; occasionally applied by way of deference to magistrates; and sometimes as a superlative:--angels, X exceeding, God (gods)(-dess, -ly), X (very) great, judges, X mighty

 

It looks pretty clear that Exodus 32 is strong proof that the Israelites were worshiping multiple gods, just like I said they were.

Edited March 14, 201610 yr by MayfieldFan

I think I misunderstood what your were saying. Yes absolutely the ISraelites would go back and forth between being faithful to God and worshipping foreign gods. This happens all throughout history. At one point God even refers to them as committing adultery (Hosea) and divorcing him.

 

I recently preached a sermon on the 2nd Commandment. It applies very much to this part of our discussion.

 

http://lystracoc.sermon.net/main/main/20613990

 

But as far as the religion of Judaism is concerned, it always was monotheistic. The Law of Moses was always monotheistic. The Bible has always been monotheistic. IT was the people who strayed.

 

When convenient, please continue to play with the concordance website, it is a great tool for interpretation.

Well, if they worshiped foreign gods, then they were not monotheistic by definition. The bible, even after it's whitewash, still shows traces of this. But apparently, not only did people worship more than one god, apparently there was more than one god.

 

Exodus chapter 7

8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”

 

10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the Lord commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake. 11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: 12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

 

Hmm. That's kinda interesting. Not only were other gods worshiped, but apparently these other gods could turn sticks into snakes. So there are other gods with miracle powers in the bible. That's because the first israelites did not believe in just one god and their stories reflect that. It was much later when the stories were changed. Is there any more of this? Let's look.

 

Genesis Chapter 1

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

 

Huh. Who is god talking to? Who is "us" and "our" image? Angels? Other gods? Could be angels, but why would angels have an image like god. Why would they be "our". Sounds more like a grouping of gods to me, as all polytheistic religions had. But not entirely convincing. Is there more?

 

Genesis Chapter 3

22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

 

Now who is god talking to? The holy trinity? Ummm no. That was an invention of Catholicism centuries later. No Israelite would have understood that. A bunch of angels. Angels aren't equal to god, aren't the same. "man is become as one of us" again sounds like a group of gods. A group just like every other religion believed in at the time, and from which these stories clearly borrowed. Again, not convincing on it's own, in isolation, but why does the bible keep mentioning other gods, who is god talking to, and who changed that darn stick into a snake?

 

Not going to post all of 2 Kings Chapter 3 here. A link for those that want it: 2 Kings 3 KJV - Now Jehoram the son of Ahab began to - Bible Gateway

 

Here is the story. Three israelite kingdoms are aligned against Moab. Moab worships one of the other gods, Chemosh. Yahweh, or god, says we are gonna take everything they have, wipe em off the earth. God does some stuff with blood and whatnot, and the moabites think its a sign that the israelites gave up, so they advance. The israelites jump up, surprise, and slaughter them all, but the king of moab retreats to the final stronghold, and sacrifices his son to Chemosh and then there is a great anger which drives the israelites away. Wait, what? Did god just lose a battle? Yep. How could this be? This isn't people just worshiping other gods (which is polytheism) but these other gods actually having powers. How is that? Simple, they believed in all sorts of gods and were not monotheistic.

 

Moving on, Psalms

82 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

 

2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.

 

3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

 

4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

 

5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.

 

6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

 

7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

 

8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

 

How did that get in the bible. That sounds like god is speaking before a council of other gods. Because he is. Really? Yep.

 

BTW, the "though shalt have no other gods before me" is starting to make sense now. If there were no other gods, then one would more likely say, "don't worship false god."

 

 

You asked for some more verses . There are at least a dozen more like it.

I'm about to hit the hay but I will quickly respond. The sorcerers were people who knew tricks. They would hold the snake by the tail and it would straighten out like a rod. Later on moses' snake eats theirs.

 

Genesis 1 is referring to the trinity. It coincides with John 1. Kind of an odd example for you to pick.

 

When God addresses foreign gods it is usually because his children have been coerced or influenced by pagan people to participate in their worship. This was the case with jezebel.

 

God is not saying the other gods exist. He addresses these figments of ones imagination by name in order to attack the idea. It's actually the exact reason theorem plagues were what they were.

How could Genesis 1 be referring to the trinity? The trinity is father, son, and holy ghost no? son is jesus. Genesis was written down long before jesus was known. Kind of a stretch to say the authors of Genesis were referring to the concept of the "trinity" when the concept of the trinity was unknown, and the "son" was unknown. Let's get snopes on this.

How could Genesis 1 be referring to the trinity? The trinity is father, son, and holy ghost no? son is jesus. Genesis was written down long before jesus was known. Kind of a stretch to say the authors of Genesis were referring to the concept of the "trinity" when the concept of the trinity was unknown, and the "son" was unknown. Let's get snopes on this.

 

Not at all. John 1 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

Skip to verse 14

 

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth

 

100% doctrine states that father, son, and Holy Ghost always existed. Of course this is according to scripture and those that do not hold scripture the same way Christians do will not be swayed by it.

Sure, the trinity could have existed for all time, but the authors of genesis would have been unaware of it. I mean, it was written down BEFORE jesus was born. So regardless of whether you want to believe that Jesus was hanging out in heaven for all time, waiting to become a fetus and go be born, there is simply no way that the authors of Genesis would have known that.

 

Jesus is part of the trinity, so they could not have been referring, very ambigiously, to the trinity when they wrote it down. Now, they did believe in a pantheon of gods, and that could have been what they were referring to with the word "us."

Because Christians believe and the Bible teaches that the author of the Bible is God. 2 Timothy tells teaches that "All Scripture is God-Breathed"

 

2 Peter teaches us "20But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, 21for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God."

 

This is called Divine Inspiration. I'm a little surprised if you have not heard of this considering you spent several years in the Baptist church.

 

An interesting thing about this is that most of the time Prophets did not understand what they were prophesying about. When Isaiah spoke of a savior being born in Bethlehem, he really did not know exactly what that meant. When John the Baptist preached about Jesus, even to the point of his life being in danger, he still asked Jesus point blank "Are you really the one I have been waiting for?" Or words to that effect.

 

Because scripture comes directly from God, we can expect man, even though they were actually scribing, did not entirely know or understand what was being said.

So god, when breathing this scripture into the scribes, was describing a concept of which the scribes had no idea of. And he did this through language like the word "us." Just a quick pause here to note that you are proving my point by admitting that the language used is plural, and means ...something.

So then god does this scripture-breathing, and puts it into a story about how he created the world, when it really doesn't fit into the story.

And then what? Thousands of years go by and no one asks any questions about why god breathed into them these plural words and references to other gods. Remember, you in 2016 may say it was the trinity, but they could not have said that, they could only have written down the breathed words, with as you now say, the inability to understand. But they didn't ask questions, or exhibit, for thousands of years, the inability to understand.

That's because they understood perfectly. They believed god was part of a group of gods, so the the words they wrote down, breathed into them or not breathed into them, those words made sense and were consistent with their beliefs. It is only now, because the words they wrote down are inconsistent with your beliefs do you try to shoehorn this shaky concept to try to explain it. It is a weak weak explanation, and ignores all the other verses, and the history that we know. The Israelite were polytheistic.

This is just another example of the larger issue. There are countless books describing Israeli polytheism, most by Christian scholars. It really isn't even a contested issue anymore. So far, in this thread, it has been just me and PP1 talking about it. So what if I was one of his congregants? And I went to him, as I did go to my pastors. You get the view of that pastor. And an affirmation that it is okay to doubt, and a prayer for understanding, and encouragement to think and study. But you get all that from only one side. You never get closer to the truth that way.

Religion never really takes on the truth. Just kinda deflects it, or changes it, or misquotes it, all of which has been on display here. And the longer you debate it, the further down the rabbit hole you go, words start to lose their meaning, logic starts to fray, and all in the name of maintaining a belief. Oh, you can believe PP1's explanation if you want, and the only cost to do so is a sacrifice of logic, reason, and knowledge of history.

I have reached my limit of talking for a bit. For anyone interested, here is a 15 minute video