Religion III - Friday the 13th

[inmate running the asylum]

Thanks for the post, Orangeskin. I was starting to believe there were no Christians out there.

8-1 - So... this religious website is claiming that the verses found in Joshua 10:12-14 refer to a POEM? Yeah right! :laugh: Then how come my Catholic and King James Bibles which were published in the 1960’s for hundreds of millions of Catholics and Protestants worldwide, do not indicate these verses were a poem? They don’t even indicate that these verses are poems with a footnote! Poems in the Bible are usually set up in type so that they are easily recognized as poems, such as those you find and read in Proverbs and Psalms.

8-2 - Noooooooo.......... my friends.... this is another case of organized religion being trapped by science and education and now trying to pull a fast one and make a modern day end-run. After teaching that this and other supernatural events in the Bible were literally true for almost 2,000 years, when modern astronomy catches them in this snafu, NOW organized religion wants to set THIS supernatural event aside but SELECTIVELY maintain that some of the others are still true. But you see, they can’t have it BOTH WAYS. At least not if you have any intelligence. In that there is no proof to any of the supernatural events in the Bible, if Joshua 10:12-14 is a poem, then when God parted the Red Sea for Moses and when Jesus is crucified and resurrected, who is to say these supernatural events are not poems too? :laugh:

8-3 - :shootinth: And common sense should tell you that organized religion never considered the Joshua verses as poems in 1633. For if they did then why did the Vatican use these very same verses to indict and prosecute Galileo? I mean are you going to have a trial and torture and execute a famous man of his day, because his writings disagreed with a fictitious poem? Instead the Vatican cited the Joshua verses as being proof that the sun and moon had really stood still, and threatened to torture and execute Galileo based on these specific verses. Of course it helped that most of the people living then were illiterate, and very few owned personal Bibles, because what did they know. And although Galileo did have the good sense to recant -- although he was still punished by house arrest -- how many other people down through the centuries were persecuted, for also not believing the Joshua verses to be literally true?

8-4 - No people, I’m sorry, but if you are gullible enough to fall for this poem business as put forward by modern day theologians -- who were not eye witnesses to any of the supernatural events described in the Bible -- then I got a piece of the Brooklyn bridge I want to sell to you. :laugh:

8-5 - And isn't it odd that the Bible says that God threw down great hailstones from heaven Joshua 10:11 to help Joshua in battle, but yet when 6 million Jews were being exterminated in the Holocaust by the Nazis, no help from God was forthcoming?

8-6 - As the scientist and author, Carl Sagan once said: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” If organized religion is going to persist in claiming that supernatural events once occurred in Biblical days, which do not today -- such as invisible devils and angels flying around; the parting of the Red Sea; dead people coming back alive; etc., -- then the BURDEN OF PROOF should be on organized religion to prove these absurd claims.

[inmate running the asylum]

rskin24,

Ive never claimed that EVERYTHING in the Bibles is false or everthing is not true. Many things described in the Bibles did occur. What I mainly claim is that the Bibles are not "the word of God" nor did any God "inspire" the writing of these books, which are full of falsehoods, errors, mistakes, contradictions and deceptions.

Think about it. If Gypsies had written the Bible -- instead of the Hebrews -- the Gypsies would have said they were God's chosen people also.

[inmate running the asylum]

Terry,

I already acknowledged to you in the last post, that I was wrong and that indulgences were not "the driving force" in the crusades. There were many reasons and motives for the crusaders to participate in these historic events. But the popes also encouraged the crusades by granting indulgences to the nobles and some crusaders, for "donations" to the church.

[Romo]

Inmate,

Sorry I havnt gotten back to your point yet. Just moved back from school and all my books are as of yet unpacked. About the indulgences thing I didnt mean to say Popes never sold indulgences but in the case of the first crusade i believe that selling indulgences is a picky point. The indulgences were granted to those who went on crusade-essentially they were sold for services. Many other nobles who didnt go on the crusade

"bought" there way out of the crusade by funding it but i dont believe they indulgences and if they were they were not the same ones granted to those who went on crusade. Indulgences were most likely bought at other times before, during and after the crusades by anyone who could afford them.

The best know historian of the Crusades is Jonathan Riley-Smith, who has written several books and articles on the subject. Ill find the book I have he wrote about the first crusade and make sure what im saying is correct.

[inmate running the asylum]

Ok guys... we had 380 hits and responses up to this point, but I think we have gone as far as we can go hashing over the one post on the Joshua verses. So I got another post for you to mull over.

Number 10 - God can’t remember what he says and makes several false statements in the Jewish Torah, Catholic Bible and King James Bible.

10-1 - As I have mentioned before, organized religion claims that the Bible and God are perfect. This is far from the case, however, as I will show, when God made statements that turned out to be false. In that this first false statement was also made by God to Moses, and is also in the Torah, we see that the Torah could not be true revelation or the true revealed word of God.

10-2 - In the Book of Exodus, just before God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, God tells Moses that no man CAN SEE HIS FACE AND LIVE. We then discover that God’s statement is not true but is false. For we discover that God “forgot” and just 9 verses before making his statement, Moses had already seen God’s face and lived! We first read below what God said in all three Bibles.

And HE said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee; and will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy. And he [God] said, Thou canst not see my face: FOR THERE SHALL NO MAN SEE ME AND LIVE. [Ex. 33:18-20 -KJB]

10-3 - God then proceeded to tell Moses to stand upon a rock and HE would cover his face, and he could see God’s backparts, but HIS FACE shall not be seen. [Ex.33: 21-23]

10-4 - Then after reading above where God said to Moses that no man can see his face and live, we discover that God’s statement was not true and was false. For just eleven verses back, we read in all three Bibles that Moses had ALREADY seen God’s face and LIVED, before God made his statement in verse 20. We read this below.

And the Lord spake unto Moses FACE TO FACE,

as a man speaketh unto his friend.... [Ex. 33:11 - KJB]

10-5 - God’s statement that no man can see his face and live, is also contradicted in a number of other places in the Bible. Such as [Deut. 34:10] and in the King James Bible at [Gen. 32:30].

10-6 - Then we read where God tells Jacob that he is changing his name to Israel and that he will no longer be known by the name of Jacob. We read this below.

And God said unto him. Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and he called his name Israel. [Gen. 35:10 - KJB]

10-7 - Then only eleven chapters later on, still in the Book of Genesis, God forgets and instead of calling Jacob by his new name of Israel -- which God previously gave him -- God calls him by his old name Jacob.

And God spake unto Israel in the

visions of the night, and said JACOB, JACOB. And he

said, Here am I. [Gen. 46:2 - KJB]

10-8 - Then we compare what we have just read with what Jesus says about God in the New Testament. Somehow what Jesus says does not carry much credence, after what we just read in the Old Testament.

Jesus says:

Are not five sparrows sold for two

farthings, and not one of them is FORGOTTEN by God?

But even the very hairs of your head are numbered.....

[Luke 12: 6-7 -KJB]

And what I can't figure out, is what's the big deal here as to why God doesn't want man to see his face? Especially if God made man in HIS IMAGE [Gen. 1:26] and HE allowed Moses to see HIS backparts.[Gen. 33-23] And how were the 70 elders of Israel, along with Moses able to see God's FEET but not his face? [Ex. 24:10]:laugh:

So we have seen in the verses where God himself is speaking, but yet GOD FORGOT WHAT HE SAID. What is also funny is that although Jesus and the Biblical writers like to claim that no man has ever SEEN God, almost all the Biblical writers claim they have HEARD him, as evidenced by all the “Lord said’s” found in the Bible. [Gen.7:1]

No guys....... I’m afraid that with hundreds of mistakes that can be found in the Bibles, these books are not “the word of God,” nor were they “inspired” by any God. OK, I’ve stuck my neck out again.... fire away. :shootinth:

[Yomar]

I don't mean to be trite or rude when I say that I share your opinion about flaws in organized religion, but thats why I don't share them in a public forum like this. Because what is that if not organizing? We were not brought here together as libertarians or logicians, we are united as Redskins fans, so it strikes me that here perhaps wouldn't be the place to share these thoughts. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed reading this discussion from a far, and I am glad for it and hope to see it continue, this sort of open discussion is insightful particularly when you have so many perspectives. But at the same time I wanted to point out what to me was the seeming hypocrisy in promoting the sanctimoniousness of organized religion, shouldn't people be left to find their own way?

Again I am not trying to offend, it is more a case where I agree with you that organized religion is a false idol crafted by mortal hands (if that is indeed what you are saying, it is how I read you but I don't want to put words in your mouth), and it is because of that understanding that I am curious as to why you ask these things here and now simply because I wouldn't and I believe we agree on so much, I found that surprising.

[inmate running the asylum]

Yomar,

What can I tell you? I noticed on your profile you have only been a subscriber since Feb 6th, so I don’t know if you were here when OrangeSkin started the first thread on God and religion a few months ago. I got in on that so late, that I hardly participated, but people must have found it interesting judging from the number of hits. Apparently we Redskins fans get bored in the off season, because when I started the 2nd thread Religion II, it got over 1500 hits before we switched to this new web server. And of course I just started this 3rd thread Religion III.

It seems that on the Extremeskins board, almost every controversy has been a topic of discussion, as long as it has been in good taste, from terrorism to religion to the Palestinian-Israeli war. After all aren’t we supposed to have freedom of speech here in this country? Believe it or not though, I am not the least bit interested in religion per se and was not even interested in it before I researched the origins of the Bibles. But I am very much interested in cosmology or whether ANY GOD could possibly exist and how man came to be on earth.

Although I was formerly raised as a Baptist, after conducting 4 years of extensive research on the origin of the Bible, I no longer believe in any “holy books” and have serious doubts now that ANY GOD exists. But that doesn’t mean that I am not open to other ideas or perspectives on God and religion. You just have to prove it to me. That being said and being in the minority here I presume -- because I am an agnostic -- I have played devil’s advocate with my anti-Biblical and anti-organized religion posts. Although you will find hundreds of pro-religion books in the libraries, and a few anti-organized religion books, you will have a very difficult time finding any anti-Biblical books. I know because I looked high and low for them and very few have ever even been written. That being the case, I have tried to provide information along those lines.

Frankly when I made my anti-Bible posts -- speaking from a minority viewpoint -- I thought they would “die on the vine” so to speak. But people keep posting and responding. I have tried to keep it fair by not singling out for criticism any one religion -- but all of them -- Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, including my former religion.

So Yomar, you say you hope to see this discussion continue -- well then throw some ideas and thoughts out there. It doesn’t have to be original thought, drag something out of a book that is interesting. I quote from other authors all the time.

By the way, you said that shouldn't people be left to find their own way? Yes they should... but sometimes their interest has to be aroused. With that in mind, I am just curious. How many anti-Biblical books can you name? Not anti-organized religion books, but books critical of the Biblical texts. :?:

[Yomar]

Originally posted by inmate running the asylum

But I am very much interested in cosmology or whether ANY GOD could possibly exist and how man came to be on earth.

By the way, you said that shouldn't people be left to find their own way? Yes they should... but sometimes their interest has to be aroused. With that in mind, I am just curious. How many anti-Biblical books can you name? Not anti-organized religion books, but books critical of the Biblical texts. :?:

To the first point, since you asked for me to throw out some ideas, I'll tell you I am not agnostic. I recognize that any attempt to "prove" the existence of anything metaphysical is futile in its very nature. I personally believe it is important to accept that which I cannot know, but that does not mean I have to relinquish my right to choose to believe anything I want.

To ask questions about one's existence is natural. Any proof that purports to answer these questions is dependent on a leap of faith of some sort, be it not only the infallibility of science, but also scientists or not only God but also His mediums. Hence, if you are going to entertain the question objectively, you realize that the choice is yours.

I have made a choice for myself about what to believe and so I go further than saying I simply don't know and say that I do not know, but I believe in something greater than myself. Ask me to describe it and I would ask you to take a moment to fully appreciate the complexity and detail of everything which comprises yourself and that is where I choose to see a divine hand.

As for anti-biblical books, they don't interest me, I believe the bible was written by human hands and by human hearts and heads, but I allow for the possibility that any text ancient or modern may have been guided by some metaphysical influence. The gnostic bible and all books regarding these equally ancient texts is an entire genre based on being anti-biblical in the sense that they call the bible incomplete at best. Books that suggest that Jesus lived and started a family in France or that there were two men known as Jesus one a politician the other a prophet or that Judaism and Christianity are simply a rip off of ancient middle eastern religions are anti-biblical in that they contradict the literal events of the bible. But at the end of the day, its about what you choose to believe, all proposed scenarios are equal in their insubstantiability.

If you believe the Devil and Jesus and God all visited Joseph Smith in upstate NY in the 1800s and were followed by visits from a metaphysical being called Moroni, I certainly can't disprove it, and this is an event that supposedly happened less than 200 years ago. Fatima happened less than 100 years ago yet no undeniable proof could ever be provided today regarding what actually happened in Portugal in 1917. Everyone has to make a leap of faith at some point, the only distinguishing characteristic is at what point to I choose to jump? Getting caught up in the literal and the logical is to get wrapped up in all that is human in any writing, rather than appreciating that which is divine in it. Neither choice is good or bad, right or wrong, its simply two ways to look at an unaswerable question. We might as well strive for Utopia, which, like a quest for proof of God or a quest to know God, is self-prophesizing in its futility. That being said, while the quest for "knowledge of God" may prove futile that does not mean it does not have its merit, because along the way I have examined myself and my life and that for me has been and continues to be well worth the experience and I would go so far as to say divine.

[Terry]

Inmate,

while I don't have your obvious understanding of the bible, nor studied it to the degree that you have, I do know that it is the product of many authors, and that even the same events have two, three, or even four accounts intertwined.

We know that the books of Moses had at leat two authors and a redactor, and likely another author.

And we know that the different authors had different agendas, both political and priestly, for providing their version of the stories.

So pointing out inconsistencies in the bible, especially the first 5 books is merely belaboring the obvious. One author may indeed have believed that to look upon the face of God would be fatal, while another would disagree. And when the stories were intertwined, you end up with the inconsistency.

The bible is rife with them.

[inmate running the asylum]

Terry,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read on another thread that you had majored in history or at least studied it extensively in college. If so that puts you far ahead of the average American. From what I have read in newspaper polls, the average American has very little interest in the history of other periods or nations, especially after they get out of high school.

Posted by Terry

So pointing out inconsistencies in the bible, especially the first 5 books is merely belaboring the obvious.

So Terry although I do not know what your religious beliefs are -- or even if you have any -- I am not sure I can agree with you on your above statement. I have a Jewish orthodox friend who immigrated here from Israel and he said the orthodox Jews believe every SINGLE WORD of the Torah -- first five books of the Bible -- was revelation from God to Moses and therefore was written entirely by Moses.

Then in my 1964 Catholic Bible -- distributed to tens of millions of Catholics I'm sure -- it says in the foreword that God is perfect and there is not ONE SINGLE ERROR in their Bible. For the Vatican claims that because God "inspired" the writing of the Bible, if there were any mistakes, God would not be perfect.

Then I can recall from my bygone Sunday school days, that as a Baptist we were then taught that the KJB was the "word of God," and therefore perfect.

And of course I know for a fact that there are almost no anti-Biblical books in the public libraries, so where would the general public be getting this information? What few television documentaries one sees or newspaper articles one reads on this subject, you generally find the authors and producers "tiptoeing" around on the subject. The reason for this is they are afraid to criticize any ONE particular religion --Catholic, Protestant or Jewish -- which would make them appear to be taking sides and then be accused by the other two of being against someone else's "freedom of religion." It is my contention, however, that all three Bibles are erroneous, which is why I try to show comparisons between them. For example can you name the title of ONE BOOK off the top of your head -- without doing research -- that criticizes and compares the Biblical text of all three Bibles?

So I think my research is providing some unique information here. So I would be interested to know from readers of these posts, whether in fact I really am pointing out the obvious. Because I know for a fact that the average Christian has not read their entire Bible!

I hope Om notices I didn't reply with an essay here. :laugh: I don't write essays, OM, I just use a lot of spacing between paragraphs. :laugh:

[Yomar]

Originally posted by inmate running the asylum

Then in my 1964 Catholic Bible -- distributed to tens of millions of Catholics I'm sure -- it says in the foreword that God is perfect and there is not ONE SINGLE ERROR in their Bible. For the Vatican claims that because God "inspired" the writing of the Bible, if there were any mistakes, God would not be perfect.

I was not aware of this, but I find it almost funny that this would come out of the Vatican during the time of Vatican II.

[inmate running the asylum]

Posted by Orangeskin

Inmate: The answer to your question about suicide is a simple one. When God wants you, he'll take you. Bottom line. Suicide goes against God's will.

:read: So where are the friggin Biblical verses to back up YOUR statement, Orangeskin? God never says in the Bible that he is against suicide, nor does he threaten to punish anyone for committing it.

And I'm sure the very same God who is also portrayed in the Koran, is not against suicide. Otherwise we wouldn't be having all these suicide bombings by Muslims in the Middle East.

So share dude. :laugh:

[Terry]

Inmate,

No, I'm not a history major. I'm an avid reader, and I prefer history as a topic, but by no means am I anything other than self taught.

I've read up on a lot of Egyptology, Assyryology, about the Hittites, Phoenicians, or other ancient middle eastern and north African cultures. Inevitably, there is an attempt to cross reference different contemporary sources from ancient times, such as Egyptian treaty documents to Hittite foreign office cylinder seals, both in Akkadian.

One of those contemporary ancient sources, obviously, is the bible. And it becomes readily apparent that the bible is a dubious historical reference except for a fairly cicumscribed period from around 900 to 600 BC, and then only through a priestly filter.

So when I went to read up on the bible as a historical source, I quickly discovered the issues prevalent among biblical scholars, such as the doublets - two creation tales, two accounts of the flood, two accounts of Moses receiving the tablets, and the resultant inconsistencies; the conflict between Judah and Israel, and the resultant stress on the bible to justify the legitimacy of each; the Levite influence, and in particular, the influence of the Aaronid priests; and the final form of the bible as conceived by the post exilic redactor.

In other words, I'm not a dedicated student of the bible by any means, and I yet was pretty quickly made aware of the problems and issues surrounding that book.

But perhaps you are right. Perhaps the average christian reading the bible has no idea of these things, and doesn't notice the problems.

[OrangeSkin]

So where are the friggin Biblical verses to back up YOUR statement, Orangeskin? God never says in the Bible that he is against suicide, nor does he threaten to punish anyone for committing it.

The Bible doesn't really mention suicide, from what I can see, but I think we can gather that if God has a divine plan for everyone's life, then he does not want us taking matters into our own hands and killing ourselves.

And as far as your comment about Jesus comitting suicide, that is downright ridiculous. If I was the son of God and I knew that dying on the cross would save all of humanity, I would probably do it instead of fleeing and looking like a chicken$hit, and basically nullifying all of my teachings up to that point.

[dan454]

Responding to recent events on Earth, God, the omniscient creator-deity worshipped by billions of followers of various faiths for more than 6,000 years, angrily clarified His longtime stance against humans killing each other Monday.

"Look, I don't know, maybe I haven't made myself completely clear, so for the record, here it is again," said the Lord, His divine face betraying visible emotion during a press conference near the site of the fallen Twin Towers. "Somehow, people keep coming up with the idea that I want them to kill their neighbor. Well, I don't. And to be honest, I'm really getting sick and tired of it. Get it straight. Not only do I not want anybody to kill anyone, but I specifically commanded you not to, in really simple terms that anybody ought to be able to understand."

Worshipped by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, God said His name has been invoked countless times over the centuries as a reason to kill in what He called "an unending cycle of violence."

"I don't care how holy somebody claims to be," God said. "If a person tells you it's My will that they kill someone, they're wrong. Got it? I don't care what religion you are, or who you think your enemy is, here it is one more time: No killing, in My name or anyone else's, ever again."

The press conference came as a surprise to humankind, as God rarely intervenes in earthly affairs. As a matter of longstanding policy, He has traditionally left the task of interpreting His message and divine will to clerics, rabbis, priests, imams, and Biblical scholars. Theologians and laymen alike have been given the task of pondering His ineffable mysteries, deciding for themselves what to do as a matter of faith. His decision to manifest on the material plane was motivated by the deep sense of shock, outrage, and sorrow He felt over the Sept. 11 violence carried out in His name, and over its dire potential ramifications around the globe.

"I tried to put it in the simplest possible terms for you people, so you'd get it straight, because I thought it was pretty important," said God, called Yahweh and Allah respectively in the Judaic and Muslim traditions. "I guess I figured I'd left no real room for confusion after putting it in a four-word sentence with one-syllable words, on the tablets I gave to Moses. How much more clear can I get?"

"But somehow, it all gets twisted around and, next thing you know, somebody's spouting off some nonsense about, 'God says I have to kill this guy, God wants me to kill that guy, it's God's will,'" God continued. "It's not God's will, all right? News flash: 'God's will' equals 'Don't murder people.'"

Worse yet, many of the worst violators claim that their actions are justified by passages in the Bible, Torah, and Qur'an.

"To be honest, there's some contradictory stuff in there, okay?" God said. "So I can see how it could be pretty misleading. I admit it—My bad. I did My best to inspire them, but a lot of imperfect human agents have misinterpreted My message over the millennia. Frankly, much of the material that got in there is dogmatic, doctrinal bull****. I turn My head for a second and, suddenly, all this stuff about homosexuality gets into Leviticus, and everybody thinks it's God's will to kill gays. It absolutely drives Me up the wall."

God praised the overwhelming majority of His Muslim followers as "wonderful, pious people," calling the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks rare exceptions.

"This whole medieval concept of the jihad, or holy war, had all but vanished from the Muslim world in, like, the 10th century, and with good reason," God said. "There's no such thing as a holy war, only unholy ones. The vast majority of Muslims in this world reject the murderous actions of these radical extremists, just like the vast majority of Christians in America are pissed off over those two bigots on The 700 Club."

Continued God, "Read the book: 'Allah is kind, Allah is beautiful, Allah is merciful.' It goes on and on that way, page after page. But, no, some assholes have to come along and revive this stupid holy-war crap just to further their own hateful agenda. So now, everybody thinks Muslims are all murderous barbarians. Thanks, Taliban: 1,000 years of pan-Islamic cultural progress down the drain."

God stressed that His remarks were not directed exclusively at Islamic extremists, but rather at anyone whose ideological zealotry overrides his or her ability to comprehend the core message of all world religions.

"I don't care what faith you are, everybody's been making this same mistake since the dawn of time," God said. "The Muslims massacre the Hindus, the Hindus massacre the Muslims. The Buddhists, everybody massacres the Buddhists. The Jews, don't even get me started on the hardline, right-wing, Meir Kahane-loving Israeli nationalists, man. And the Christians? You people believe in a Messiah who says, 'Turn the other cheek,' but you've been killing everybody you can get your hands on since the Crusades."

Growing increasingly wrathful, God continued: "Can't you people see? What are you, morons? There are a ton of different religious traditions out there, and different cultures worship Me in different ways. But the basic message is always the same: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism... every religious belief system under the sun, they all say you're supposed to love your neighbors, folks! It's not that hard a concept to grasp."

"Why would you think I'd want anything else? Humans don't need religion or God as an excuse to kill each other—you've been doing that without any help from Me since you were freaking apes!" God said. "The whole point of believing in God is to have a higher standard of behavior. How obvious can you get?"

"I'm talking to all of you, here!" continued God, His voice rising to a shout. "Do you hear Me? I don't want you to kill anybody. I'm against it, across the board. How many times do I have to say it? Don't kill each other anymore—ever! I'm [censored] serious!"

Upon completing His outburst, God fell silent, standing quietly at the podium for several moments. Then, witnesses reported, God's shoulders began to shake, and He wept.

[Die Hard]

Hey dan454. That was a funny article indeed. I've read it before... but I can't remember the source. Where did you find it?

[Skins24]

What are we going to do with you dan :doh:

[Romo]

Originally posted by inmate running the asylum

Terry,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought I read on another thread that you had majored in history or at least studied it extensively in college. If so that puts you far ahead of the average American. From what I have read in newspaper polls, the average American has very little interest in the history of other periods or nations, especially after they get out of high school.

Inmate you may have got him confused with me. I was the history major, just finished my undergrad at the end of April.

[inmate running the asylum]

Romo sits to pee - Terry,

Romo sits to pee, congratulations on completion of your studies. Yeah, I guess I did get you and Terry mixed up. But both of you guys seem very knowledgeable about history, which I also love to read and study.

Terry you mentioned the "doublets" in the Bible. Don't get me started on that. I doubt that the average Christian knows what you are talking about. Maybe you could drag something out of a book on that some time. You seem to have a great interest in ancient Egypt as I do. I was wondering if you have ever visited there? I have been there twice so far.... a really interesting country if you enjoy their ancient history. I plan on going back again, if I can find some free time.

Contrary to what you read about the Arabs in the Middle East with all this terrorism going on, I have always found the Arab on the street friendly and helpful to me. The same as when I traveled through communist Russia and China at the height of the Cold War. The people on the street were always friendly there too, but it was U.S. foreign policy they sometimes didn't understand. Of course I never traveled with tour groups in buses with other tourists, but always backpacked alone, as I don't like being herded around like cattle. Besides the only way to really get to meet the people of a foreign country, is to get out on the street.

Speaking of Egypt, from my research I personally don't think that Moses and the Hebrews were the first believers in one God or monotheism. I think that honor should probably go to the pharaoh Akhenaten. I also recently read in a book written by the Jewish historian and author, Howard Fast, where he also stated that the Hebrews led by Moses on the Exodus, did not believe in monotheism. He pointed out that the Levites were the only one of the 12 tribes that believed in monotheism initially. I found that hard to believe at first, but checked it out in the Biblical verses, and Fast seemed to be right-on about that. I was wondering what you had found out or thought about that from your Egyptian studies?

Posted by Orangeskin

The Bible doesn't really mention suicide, from what I can see,

Yeah it does Orangeskin, in a number of places.... but I aint gonna help you defend the Bible. :laugh: Of course I still don't think it shows that God prohibited suicide or threatened to punish anyone who wanted to commit it.

[inmate running the asylum]

Ok guys... here is something else for you to mull over this weekend.

A Forgery is Revealed in the Catholic and King James Bibles

11-1 - Although it is not my intention to single out any one particular religion, nevertheless as I pointed out in previous posts in Religion II, the Vatican’s past historical track record leaves much to be desired. It has been well documented by historians, that too many of the ancient cardinals and popes committed and were involved in all sorts of crimes, even felonies such as murder. The 1400 lawsuits pending now in the U.S. against Catholic priests and Protestant pastors for sexual molestation and pedophilia, pale in comparison to what was perpetrated centuries ago. This does not mean of course, that there were no humanitarian or good popes in history, because there were.

11-2 - The historian and author, Will Durant, mentions Catholic forgeries in his monumental history series The Story of Civilization, but I also described another forgery in Religion II by the Vatican forgery mill. The one I previously showed you was known as the Donation of Constantine forgery, whereby the Vatican stole about half the land in Italy. In this post, however, I will show you a forgery in the Bible text itself, whose main purpose was to deceive the faithful over the centuries.

11-3 - :shootinth: Now common sense should tell someone, that based on their involvement in more serious crimes in history, what were the odds that some of the ancient popes would commit forgeries and “doctor” or tamper with the Biblical text in order to make it fit their religious interpretations and doctrines? I mean if some of the popes and anti-popes were willing to commit murder, why would they be all that concerned about a little fraud or forgery? :doh: Especially being that Rome and the Vatican had a virtual monopoly on the Christian religion and Bible, from 325 until the 16th century and the Protestant Reformation. And the fact that it entailed little or no risk, as the public was forbidden to read the Bible on their own until the 11th century under penalty of death, and printed Bibles did not come into existence until 1454.

11-4 - There is no doubt in my mind that all three Bibles contain numerous fraudulent alterations or interpolations, which were either ordered by those in high authority at the time or were perpetrated by those who had access to the original manuscripts, such as priests monks and scribes. How many fraudulent alterations occurred down through history, cannot be determined or proven at this late date in time. For no ORIGINAL Bibles are known to exist anywhere in the world. All Bibles known to exist today, are nothing but COPIES of COPIES of COPIES. But proof of just ONE FORGERY should be enough for any intelligent believer to realize that they have been conned and that the Bible was not written through the “inspiration” of God but only through the manipulation of men. For if the Bibles were truly inspired by God and therefore perfect as claimed, why the need for any deceit or deception?

11-5 - Now Jesus Seminar Biblical scholars have often claimed that someone "put words in Jesus' mouth" in the Biblical texts, but I don't think that even they had come up with this one. Below in the Catholic and King James Bibles, can be found an obvious forgery, where some unknown scribe obviously put words in Jesus’ mouth long after he died and the Matthew gospel was originally written. In these verses we read where Jesus is reported to have spoken to his Jewish disciples after his resurrection and given them the following instructions just before his ascension to heaven.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and of the Holy Ghost. [Matt. 28: 19 - KJB]

11-6 - The above saying attributed to Jesus is an obvious Catholic forgery, not written by the gospel writer Matthew, but what is called in forgery investigations an interpolation. Meaning these verses were plugged into this gospel at a much later time in history. How do we know? The reason we can be sure of this is the following: Jesus was a Jew preaching the Jewish faith and his twelve disciples we can be almost positive were also Jewish. When Jesus lived and when he died according to historians around 33 A.D., there were no Christians, no Christian church, and most importantly Catholicism did not exist.

11-7 - The Trinity -- reference to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost which Jesus makes reference to in the above verses -- is a Catholic concept and doctrine, but there was no Catholic Church or Catholicism when Jesus lived. Although the gospel of Matthew is estimated to have been written around 80 A.D. by the Vatican, the concept of the Trinity did not come into being until the Catholic church later developed it and first officially introduced it at the Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D. This was some 350 years after the death and crucifixion of Jesus! Does anyone today truly believe that Jesus a Jew, would be preaching a Catholic concept to his Jewish disciples and urging them to spread this non-Jewish concept?

11-8 - The first followers of Jesus in the Bible were primarily all Jews with a smattering of non-Jews which made up what historians refer to as an early Judeo-Christian movement. Until this movement splits apart many years later under the leadership of Paul -- over a heated dispute read in the Bible, as to whether Gentile initiates should submit to circumcision and Jewish dietary laws -- Christianity as a separate religion did not exist. [Acts 15: 1-7] Following this dispute which was one of the main reasons for the split into the two separate religions of Judaism and Christianity, Jesus had probably been dead at least 50 years!

11-9 - Jesus and his disciples being all of the Jewish faith, would have had no idea or concept of the Trinity or Catholicism in their day, which is a difficult concept to even define and understand today. And being Jewish we can be sure they certainly would not have preached it. It should also be noted that although this was a Catholic forgery originally, this forgery was still translated into the King James Bible in 1611, and is still found in most Protestant Bibles today.

11-10 - Further verification and proof of this forgery can be found in the New Testament. Jesus being a Jew, had never intended to do away with Judaism and create a new religion of Christianity, as he obviously states below in the New Testament. For he says very plainly when giving his famous Sermon on the Mount speech, that he had not come to destroy or change the Jewish religious laws or the prophets.

Jesus said: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one title shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. [Matt. 5: 17-18 - KJB]

Concerning the willingness of the early church "fathers" to lie, Marjorie Strachey, in the book The Fathers Without Theology, had this to say: "Most of them saw no harm in a "pious fraud." And this kind of untruthfulness was freely imputed to the Apostles, to Jesus Christ and to God the Father. They were fond of literary forgeries. Rufinus thought nothing of altering his author's words in his translations of Origen; Cyril of Jerusalem complains that his letters were tampered with in his own lifetime; reports of synods were frequently falsified, so much so that Harnack says the so-called documents are "a swamp of mendacity .... We are helpless in the face of the systematically corrupted tradition."

That there are many other forgeries and cover-ups in all three Bibles which will forever go undetected, there is no doubt. If one reads St. Augustine's book, City of God, (Bk. 15, chap. 11), written in the 4th century A.D., one finds him defending forgery even in his day. For it seems that some sharp individual had noticed that Methuselah had somehow survived the Great Flood, even though Methuselah was not on Noah's ark! Fortunately for this unidentified individual, these were the days BEFORE the advent of the Inquisition.

For Augustine relates that there was a discrepancy then between the Hebrew and Christian Bibles in the 4th century, indicating that Methuselah who was 969 years old when he died (Gen. 5:27), would have therefore lived before, during and 14 years beyond the Great Flood! The Bibles in question no longer exist and the ones we have today have obviously been doctored, for they ALL now reflect that Methuselah COVENIENTLY DIED the same year as the Great Flood occurred. This cover-up after Austustine's day was accomplished by someone later adding some additional years to the life of Noah in the Bible, so that Methuselah died the year of the Flood, and in order to make both the Jewish and Christian Bibles correspond. :doh:

This is not the only forgery that can be found and shown in the Bibles.

[Terry]

Inmate,

I don't know whether to call Akhenaton a monotheist or not.

First off, there was another deity involved - himself. He still believed that he was a living god, and that he was not only the partner of Aton, but he was the voice of Aton. Only pharoah, though his own divine aspect, could be the suplicant to Aton, and Aton only spoke to pharoah.

Secondly, this wasn't a democratic religion. It was more a personal relationship between pharoah and the deity, and it was forced onto members of the court.

Third, I'm not even sure that Aton was a god in any usual sense. It was not anthropomorhic, there was no personality, there was no relationship between Aton and any of the other gods in the Egyptian pantheon or with the people of Egypt. It was the solar disk personified, but the personification was weak. Unlike Re, or Khepere, or the other manifestations of the sun, there was no real fetish or totem.

So I find it hard to say what the cult of Akhenaton/Aton really was. My own feeling is that it was a transitory stage in the eventual abolition of all the gods, to be replaced exclusively by pharoah. I think that the solar disk would have become one of his own aspects, and that he (pharoah) would become sole god of Egypt.

It's hard not to separate the political aspect of all of this. The priesthood of Amon was extremely powerful, perhaps threatening the powers of pharoah himself. It would certainly be considered what was known in a much later age and place as 'overmighty subjects'. So Akhenaton was trying to curb the power of the priesthood (and likely their revenues as well), and to do that he needed to sieze control of the deity himself, or become that deity. He didn't take one of the traditional gods of egypt, but picked up an obscure cult that we see signs of in both his father's and grandfather's reigns. Likely because there wasn't a priesthood and orthodoxy attached.

It could be that the original cult of Aton was picked up from sources external to Egypt.

So in a purely technical sense, yeah, I gues you could call him a monotheist. But in the sense that we understand and use the term today, I don't think so.

ps: I think the main reason that Ay is featured prominently in Tutankhamen's tomb, is that it was likely HIS tomb first, and it was borrowed for the the young king when he died suddenly.

But Ay being the power behind the throne seems like the correct interpretation of events at the time

[inmate running the asylum]

Orangeskin,

I love your new "Santa signaure." It's a riot! :laugh:

[OrangeSkin]

Much appreciated, Inmate.

[inmate running the asylum]

Terry,

You made some good points about Akhenaton. Especially the point about him being the actual deity himself. I dont recall ever reading or even considering that possibility myself.

As for the Egyptian religion not being a democratic religion, there is no surprise there. I doubt that any of the ancient religions were democratic. And even many of the modern religions are not democratic, e.g., Iran, Taliban, Vatican [infallibility of pope, etc.] Even the Old Testament of all three Bibles says that if you do not obey the priests you will be put to death.

One thing for sure about Akhenaton, is that the Egyptians wanted to rub out his memory for good. They moved his capital back from el-Amarna to Thebes after he died, and made a very good attempt to remove all reference to him in their records. Even going so far as to tear down his temples where they could. Obviously he made a lot of enemies over his new religion.

After Akhenaton died?, he was succeeded for a few months by Smenkhkare, and then the famous Tutankhamun. Of course Tutankhamun was too young to really rule when he became pharaoh, the real rulers being Ay [a civil servant] and Horemheb [a general]. Some say that Tutankhamun died young under mysterious circumstances [murder?], in that he was succeeded by Ay and four years later Horemheb.

I tend to believe that because if you visit Tutankhamun's tomb as I did in the Valley of Kings, you see Ay depicted in hieroglyphics on the wall over the tomb of Tutankhamun. I think I read where it was unprecedented, to see a man like Ay depicted along with the pharaoh. It seems like Ay was setting up the people for the idea that he was going to be Tutankhamun's successor. At any rate he made it official, when he married Tutankhamun's widow, probably against her wishes.

Egyptology -- a very interesting field to study.

Terry, where is your stuff on the doublets in the Bible? Most of the Christian believers at this site, probably dont even know what you are talking about.

[Terry]

As r the Egyptian religion not being a democratic religion, there is no surprise there. I doubt that any of the ancient religions were democratic. And even many of the modern religions are not democratic, e.g., Iran, Taliban, Vatican [infallibility of pope, etc.] Even the Old Testament of all three Bibles says that if you do not obey the priests you will be put to death.

I disagree, or perhaps, we differ in what we mean by democratic.

By democratic, I mean a religion accessible to all, that anyone can worship under, and who's benefits are available to anyone.

In the case of Egypt, I would have to say that the cult of Osiris was democratic (although it didn't start that way). True, the more spells you could afford to have written down and entombed with you to provide guidance and protection, the better off you were. But overall, anyone who believed in the protection and guidance of Osiris could theoretically navigate the dangers and horrors of the am duat, and get to the weighing of the souls. At that point, if you had lived a good life, your heart would perfectly counterbalance the feather of Maat and you would be granted permanent bliss in the afterlife.

In fact, the cult of Osiris has some stiking parallels with the Christian epic - there was no afterlife, then Osiris is killed and brought back to life, Isis is empregnated by a god, the son defeats the devil (Seth), Osiris becomes king of the underworld and all people may now join him if they lead good lives and can pass his judgement, and this cult becomes the favorite of all the people mighty and weak, rich and impoverished.

As for the bible, I'd recommend Richard Elliott Friedman's 'Who Wrote The Bible', as an excellent place to start. He covers the history of biblical research on this going back to the 4th century AD, lays out the case by pointing out the discrepencies, including the doublets and differences in style, the desrcibes the analysis to date by biblical scholars to show how many separate authors we find, when they likely lived, what they wrote, and what motivated them to write it. He also provides his own thesis on who the redactor was.

You may then want to move to 'Bible Unearthed : Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts' by Finklestein and Silberman. This account is somewhat more aggressive, saying that there's no evidence for the existence of Abraham, or any of the Patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, and the whole period of Judges and the united monarchy of David and Solomon. In fact, the authors argue that it is impossible to say much of anything about ancient Israel until the seventh century B.C., around the time of the reign of King Josiah.

Even William Dever's 'What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel' book has a lot to interest, even if the style is stilted. He puts himself between what he calls the revisionists and biblical nihilists on one side, and the fundamentalists on the other. Yet even coming down in the middles, his argument is basically that the Hebrew Bible is elitist propaganda, but when handled properly, it does yield reliable snippets of a real ancient Israelite history. And in doing so, shows that we can barely rely on the bible to provide a coherent picture if the Israelites in the Iron age, let alone back in the bronze age.

And finally, 'Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times' by Donald Redford, who provides an archaeologists view of that area from the paleolithic to the destruction of Jeruslam in 586 BC. He preents a sewwping account of the love-hate realtionship between those peoples during that time span. But he provides a lot of research on the Joseph story, the bondage, the Exodus, and the conquest of Canaan.