The 8th century BCE inscription about Yahweh and His Asherah certainly don't predate the time it is believed the Torah was composed. The Hebrew Bible doesn't hide the fact that the Israelites repeatedly lapsed into idolatry, but that is not evidence that originally Yahweh came from a pagan pantheon.

Furthermore, the same name of God, like El (Semitic generic word for God or Deity) is common among both monotheist Israelites and various pagan Semitic religions. Similar to how both Abrahamic religions refer to their God as "God" in English, while European pagans would also refer to their idols as "God", because God is a generic word and not a personal name.

(December 4, 2018 at 5:47 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Magic book is the MCU comic of ANE religion.

New Magic Book is a greek crossover.

Newer Magic Book is the arab language version with fresh IP test bubbles.

Your religion...specifically, is a fanfic nerd-feud turned bloody.

Same as your religion. Stalin, Lenin, etc...

But it's not fair to assume the same today due to past events.  Change happens.

(December 4, 2018 at 5:52 pm)Cherub786 Wrote: The 8th century BCE inscription about Yahweh and His Asherah certainly don't predate the time it is believed the Torah was composed. The Hebrew Bible doesn't hide the fact that the Israelites repeatedly lapsed into idolatry, but that is not evidence that originally Yahweh came from a pagan pantheon.

Furthermore, the same name of God, like El (Semitic generic word for God or Deity) is common among both monotheist Israelites and various pagan Semitic religions. Similar to how both Abrahamic religions refer to their God as "God" in English, while European pagans would also refer to their idols as "God", because God is a generic word and not a personal name.

Wrong. You didn't read my post.... well you did, but you needed to ignore it, or more likely, didn't even know what you were reading.
You also know VERY little about Hebrew History. Practically none. 
They didn't "lapse" into anything. It was an integral part of their culture until AFTER the Exile. Cultures don't, in multiple places, create statues of gods they "lapsed" into.

The finds by archaeologists in the Royal Library at Ashurbanipal FAR FAR predated the 8th Century BCE. The Sumerian Creation myth and other Sumerian gods, INCLUDING Yahweh, (which every scholar knows ... so obviously you have no real education in the field) predated Hebrew culture by THOUSANDS of years. El Elyon was the chief god in the Babylonian pantheon, and EVERYone who has taken even ONE course in the subject, knows that. 

Monotheism arose "organically" (and was finally insisted on) by the prophets AFTER the Exile, when (as anyone who took one course in Western Civilization knows) the concept of "individualism" arose in the West ... a change from "tribal" (family) identity.. and with individualism came monotheism.

The ENTIRE "Torah of Moses" has NO historical value or historical validity. It's all myth. No Adam. No Eve. No Moses, no Abraham, no Noah.
The Hebrews were monolaterist polytheists ... they believed in (recognized) many gods, but agreed to worship one. They were not monotheists. The BEST Israeli archaeologists (who have the most to gain by finding evidence) find nothing to support the myths as factual in the Torah of Moses, (the first 4 books of the Bible).  The Hebrews were no different that their surrounding cultures. 

 

(December 4, 2018 at 6:03 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(December 4, 2018 at 5:47 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Magic book is the MCU comic of ANE religion.

New Magic Book is a greek crossover.

Newer Magic Book is the arab language version with fresh IP test bubbles.

Your religion...specifically, is a fanfic nerd-feud turned bloody.

Same as your religion. Stalin, Lenin, etc...

But it's not fair to assume the same today due to past events.  Change happens.

We've got another contestant for the wingnut commie con lightning round! Max, you're up..come oooon dooooown.



Why don't you go and fuck with someone you could roll...maybe find a mirror? I want you to pick a number between zero and everyone....that best reflects the number of stalinists and leninists you think there are on these boards. If you wan't, I'll sell you the answer for a dollar fitty.

(December 4, 2018 at 6:03 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote:

(December 4, 2018 at 5:47 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Magic book is the MCU comic of ANE religion.

New Magic Book is a greek crossover.

Newer Magic Book is the arab language version with fresh IP test bubbles.

Your religion...specifically, is a fanfic nerd-feud turned bloody.

Same as your religion. Stalin, Lenin, etc...

Russia (and Germany) were Christian nations which permitted the rise of these people.

(December 4, 2018 at 11:46 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote:

(December 4, 2018 at 6:03 pm)T0 Th3 M4X Wrote: Same as your religion. Stalin, Lenin, etc...

But it's not fair to assume the same today due to past events.  Change happens.

We've got another contestant for the wingnut commie con lightning round! Max, you're up..come oooon dooooown.



Why don't you go and fuck with someone you could roll...maybe find a mirror?  I want you to pick a number between zero and everyone....that best reflects the number of stalinists and leninists you think there are on these boards.  If you wan't, I'll sell you the answer for a dollar fitty.

Reading comprehension is important.

I say, "But it's not fair to assume the same today due to past events. Change happens."

and you ask me to:

"...reflect the number of stalinists and leninists..."

So if I said it's not fair to assume today, then why would I assume stalinists and leninists?

But here is the reflection regardless (0,0). Enjoy.

................ ............

(December 4, 2018 at 11:43 pm)Bucky Ball Wrote: The finds by archaeologists in the Royal Library at Ashurbanipal FAR FAR predated the 8th Century BCE. The Sumerian Creation myth and other Sumerian gods, INCLUDING Yahweh, (which every scholar knows ... so obviously you have no real education in the field) predated Hebrew culture by THOUSANDS of years.

Now what ancient Sumerian text that predates the Torah mentions Yahweh?

(December 4, 2018 at 10:30 am)Cherub786 Wrote:

(December 4, 2018 at 10:18 am)Jehanne Wrote: I don't know where you are getting your information; even if true, the majority to most scientists are atheistic:


Wikipedia -- Demographics of atheism: Geographic distribution

Ditto for most philosophers:

The Largest-Ever Survey of Philosophers: What Do They Believe?

It's immaterial whether majority of scientists are atheists or not. The point is that majority of cosmologists and physicists acknowledge the truth that the universe is not eternal, and they generally agree that they have no solid explanation for how and why the universe came about.

They say that the beginning of the universe is a "singularity". Now it is all theoretical, based on mathematical formulas and so many assumptions.

Even these atheist scientists are forced to admit that the questions about the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being naturally lead to belief in God, as Dawkins said:

I think that when you consider the beauty of the world and you wonder how it came to be what it is, you are naturally overwhelmedwith a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration and you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this, I recognise that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it. We, all of us, share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life. For the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it's tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing, a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator.

I think that you are taking Dawkins out of context.  Read his The God Delusion sometime, which I just saw on the shelves of Barnes & Noble here recently!

As for the Universe being "not eternal", if you read Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick and Walker (voted by the APS as being the greatest undergraduate physics textbook of the 20th century), they say that speculating what came "before" the Big Bang is a meaningless question, that is, nothing came before the Big Bang.  This is, of course, a very old observation.

(December 5, 2018 at 7:22 am)Jehanne Wrote:

(December 4, 2018 at 10:30 am)Cherub786 Wrote: It's immaterial whether majority of scientists are atheists or not. The point is that majority of cosmologists and physicists acknowledge the truth that the universe is not eternal, and they generally agree that they have no solid explanation for how and why the universe came about.

They say that the beginning of the universe is a "singularity". Now it is all theoretical, based on mathematical formulas and so many assumptions.

Even these atheist scientists are forced to admit that the questions about the nature of the cosmos and how it came into being naturally lead to belief in God, as Dawkins said:

I think that when you consider the beauty of the world and you wonder how it came to be what it is, you are naturally overwhelmedwith a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration and you almost feel a desire to worship something. I feel this, I recognise that other scientists such as Carl Sagan feel this, Einstein felt it. We, all of us, share a kind of religious reverence for the beauties of the universe, for the complexity of life. For the sheer magnitude of the cosmos, the sheer magnitude of geological time. And it's tempting to translate that feeling of awe and worship into a desire to worship some particular thing, a person, an agent. You want to attribute it to a maker, to a creator.

I think that you are taking Dawkins out of context.  Read his The God Delusion sometime, which I just saw on the shelves of Barnes & Noble here recently!

As for the Universe being "not eternal", if you read Fundamentals of Physics by Halliday, Resnick and Walker (voted by the APS as being the greatest undergraduate physics textbook of the 20th century), they say that speculating what came "before" the Big Bang is a meaningless question, that is, nothing came before the Big Bang.  This is, of course, a very old observation.

That's what I've been saying all along. The universe had a beginning, and is therefore finite, and before it there was nothing, so the universe came from ex nihilo.
The question I'm posing is what caused it to come into existence and how.