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June 18, 2024 at 12:01 am (This post was last modified: June 18, 2024 at 12:10 am by The Grand Nudger.)
(June 17, 2024 at 10:07 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:
(June 17, 2024 at 11:01 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The cain and abel thing is fun. That's about the pastoralist source telling us that god likes his way of life better than the other guys. Literally translated it's the story of Farmer and Herdsmen and according to magic book - there was a city on earth at the time.
Robert L. O'Connell in The Soul of the Sword (a history of human weaponry, writ short) suggests that the divide between farmers and herdsmen may be one source of organized warfare, in that the two groups were fighting over land, one to use that land for crops, the other for pasturage. It's only supposition, which he makes clear in the book, but I think it's an interesting thought.
When we frame the fable of Cain and Abel in that light, it sure looks allegorical ... but again, that's supposition, on my part this time.
It's less important that we frame it in that light as that the authors themselves chose to do so. It would not be the only way they communicated their values in the narrative. The prohibition against pork, the poly-blend clothe bit, and what would calcify into overt and exhaustively described ethnic replacement theory by the yahwist period are all variations on this same recognizable theme of internecine conflict. You could spill alot of ink..and alot of ink has already been spilled, observing the many ways in which the establishment myths of a given society do seem to speak to at least some of the starting conditions of that society as we can find them in the archeological record. How we find a pre and post urban narrative in genesis..and a fairly accurate description of late bronze and early iron age warfare in judges and kings even though nothing else about the respective narratives seem to reflect any reality that can be found outside their pages. These observations are always the first victims of any revision to apologetic needs based on the ideological and/or historical differences and disputes between abrahamic subsects.
Go out into the pacific and everything starts with boats - because it did. In mesoamerica..the cenotes - because it did.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
June 18, 2024 at 12:14 am (This post was last modified: June 18, 2024 at 12:18 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(June 18, 2024 at 12:01 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote:
(June 17, 2024 at 10:07 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: Robert L. O'Connell in The Soul of the Sword (a history of human weaponry, writ short) suggests that the divide between farmers and herdsmen may be one source of organized warfare, in that the two groups were fighting over land, one to use that land for crops, the other for pasturage. It's only supposition, which he makes clear in the book, but I think it's an interesting thought.
When we frame the fable of Cain and Abel in that light, it sure looks allegorical ... but again, that's supposition, on my part this time.
It's less important that we frame it in that light as that the authors themselves chose to do so. It would not be the only way they communicated their values in the narrative. The prohibition against pork, the poly-blend clothe bit, and what would calcify into overt and exhaustively described ethnic replacement theory by the yahwist period are all variations on this same recognizable theme of internecine conflict. You could spill alot of ink..and alot of ink has already been spilled, observing the many ways in way the establishment myths of a given society do seem to speak to at least some of the starting conditions of that society as we can find them in the archeological record. How we find a pre and post urban narrative in genesis..and a fairly accurate description of late bronze and early iron age warfare in judges and kings even though nothing else about the respective narratives seem to reflect any reality that can be found outside their pages. These observations are inevitably the first victims of any revision to apologoetic needs based of the ideological and historical differences between abrahamic subsects.
Sure, but we have every right to practice historiography -- such as it may be when dealing with a mythology -- in assessing why these myths took root.
TBH, I don't care what Abrahamics think of their own foundational myth, I'm more interested in why it took root, rather than some other story, and how that adhesion to mythos reflects what may have actually happened. In other words, what are the stories we tell ourselves to justify the shit we do, and why do those stories resonate with so many?
If you haven't read O'Connell's book mentioned above, I'd just say read it. It doesn't address the religious overtones we're talking about at all, but it's a deep dive into the psychology of human weaponry and useful for that on its own. It's worth the money imo.
(June 17, 2024 at 11:01 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The cain and abel thing is fun. That's about the pastoralist source telling us that god likes his way of life better than the other guys. Literally translated it's the story of Farmer and Herdsmen and according to magic book - there was a city on earth at the time.
Robert L. O'Connell in The Soul of the Sword (a history of human weaponry, writ short) suggests that the divide between farmers and herdsmen may be one source of organized warfare, in that the two groups were fighting over land, one to use that land for crops, the other for pasturage. It's only supposition, which he makes clear in the book, but I think it's an interesting thought.
When we frame the fable of Cain and Abel in that light, it sure looks allegorical ... but again, that's supposition, on my part this time.
Given the known number of conflicts between farmers and herdsmen (for example, the 'range wars' of North and South America), it's not an unreasonable supposition. Resource control is frequently one of the chief causes of conflict.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
June 18, 2024 at 5:40 am (This post was last modified: June 18, 2024 at 5:57 am by Belacqua.)
(June 17, 2024 at 10:09 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote:
(June 16, 2024 at 10:44 pm)Belacqua Wrote: Well, "primitive" is kind of a tricky word.
It is just like the words long, short, heavy, light, ugly, rough, viscous, hot, hard, sharp.
These words mean whatever you want them to mean. They are relative words. They are subjective.
So, eventually, I gave a definition to make my earlier posts more clear.
It doesn’t matter if Paul, Jesus and the other primitive people didn’t have a printed copy of the tanakh. There were no high speed industrial printing machines then. All the members of the jewish faith were told the stories from a young age by their parents and their priests. All humans are going to be asking the Big questions. Like I said, some of those questions will be or are addressed by science.
Example: Why do we exist gets converted to how do we exist in Evolution theory (how does nature work, what happened in the past)
All religions try to answer how did it happen, what are the steps the gods took, what was the recipe, at what point did they felt was the best moment to create a human.
Like I said, even if Paul, St Augustine and a few of the guys were were non-literalist, this doesn’t mean that they accepted the Big Bang theory and Evolution theory. It would have been reasonable to them that the jewish god created everything from day 1, in 0 nanoseconds, in 1 nanosecond or whatever. In the end, they are YEC.
They were not aware of cavemen. They were not aware of humans being covered by thick body hair. They were not aware that all humans had dark skin and are from Africa. In their mind, humans are intelligent beings from the moment god creates them. They have a language. They know how to take care of animals and make tools and have a language from day 1. In their mind, humans have a memory from day 1.
In terms of science, humans have no memory for the entire block of 6 million to about 5000 BCE. All that time period has been forgotten.
See also BrianSoddingBoru4 comment.
It looks as though people want us to wrap this up, so I'll do a little summary here. I appreciate your willingness to talk with me about this is a civil tone.
Early on, you said:
Quote:"The guy who made up the Genesis story and his colleagues who modified it over time know very well that they are making it up.
The listeners would not be told that it is a metaphor. The listeners would be literalists and the listeners would be in the thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions over the years.
In other words, the people want a scientific answer, an exact answer as to what happened in the past. They don’t want a fairy tail or some 3 little pigs story.
Certainly it's true that people want answers to the big questions, and that priests have tried to provide those answers.
In the above, you have asserted that the priests' motives are malicious, that they intentionally tell false stories which they want their followers to take as true. While I'm sure many people have taken the stories more literally than they should have, I don't agree that the priests were trying to be tricky. As I've said, metaphorical and mythic explanations were common then, and I don't think that people were any more gullible than they are today. (Look at all the people who believe political propaganda and conspiracy theories.) Educated people have always known to be skeptical, but they have also known that different kinds of expressions work in different ways. Some lessons are told through quantified math, and some through evocative fictional example.
For example, when Virgil wrote the Aeneid as the founding myth of Rome, everybody who was capable of reading it always knew it was fiction. Nonetheless, it did the job Augustus had asked for, and provided the kind of mythic foundation of the state that he wanted.
So I disagree that the priests were intentionally trying to fool people.
As for the assertion that "people wanted a scientific answer," this may be projection on your part. Modern people want scientific answers, because we have come to the conclusion that only these are true. But what people will want will depend on what kind of "big question" we're talking about. If the big question is "how should I live?" this is not a question that science can address. And rather than worrying about how their DNA evolved, people may be more interested in knowing how to spend their time in a good way. So myths may address that issue better than science. (Ought not is.)
Quote:So, does Augustine believe that Adam and some of the boys lived almost 1000 y like the Bible says?
Does he believe that Adam was the first human?
I don't recall if he addresses that question specifically. I do think that this would fall into the category I described before: that if an interpretation is proven wrong, then Christians shouldn't stick with it. Moreover, I think that the historical fact of Adam's existence is not the most important thing for Augustine or many other Christians. (William Blake, for example, said that Adam was a state that we may be in, not a historical individual.) For Augustine, the big question that the Adam story addresses is about ethics, and knowing the difference between right and wrong. So while many have no doubt been literalists, it is clearly no problem for modern Christians to give up on literal acceptance of that story when it becomes untenable. Its historical actuality is not what's important about it.
Quote:Georges Lemaître is a 20 th century man.
Born = 1894
Dead = 1966
I don’t know much about him but a lot of christians these days seem to be OEC, they accept the Big Bang theory, Evolution theory, a 4.56 billion y old Earth. This is because they have been influenced by science and they try to keep science and the religion of their ancestors.
Right, because accepting scientific knowledge does no damage to their Christian belief. Lemaître knew more about physics than you or I, and knew more about Christianity than you or I, and had no trouble reconciling them. Only sola scriptura literalists are bothered by science. And neither you nor I is sure how many Christians in history have fit that description.
Quote:All humans are going to be asking the Big questions. Like I said, some of those questions will be or are addressed by science.
Example: Why do we exist gets converted to how do we exist in Evolution theory (how does nature work, what happened in the past)
I agree that "converted" is the key word here.
For Aristotle, "why" questions had four kinds of answer, and one of them was the Final Cause -- the goal or purpose. Science converted the asking of "why" by eliminating this part of the answer.
So some people asking the big question about "why do we exist?" will want an answer that addresses goals. "Why" as in "what am I supposed to be doing with my life?" Philosophers since at least Nietzsche have been working on post-Darwin answers to such a "why" question. Freud's discussion of this problem is particularly relevant, if ultimately unsatisfying. Rorty, in the book I mentioned, attempts an argument for how we should live that doesn't rely on our evolutionarily-developed bodies having any pre-set telos. But we can still make arguments as to what the answer to that big question should be, and religions will supply some answers, and philosophy will supply different answers, and the all-enveloping capitalist world that we live in will supply different answers. And science will continue to supply none -- science works as well as it does because it doesn't address the sort of "should" question which is what so many people want answers to.
Anyway, that's my take on the conversation. Thank you again for being civil about it. I'll end it here so the others are not bothered by it any more.
Belacqua Wrote:In the above, you have asserted that the priests' motives are malicious, that they intentionally tell false stories which they want their followers to take as true.
That is what priests frequently do, like when they say that the devil exists, that exorcism is real, that women should be subdued, that slavery is acceptable, etc.
Belacqua Wrote:I don't recall if he addresses that question specifically.
I recall what Augustine said about Adam, and you always ignore it, is that Adam existed along with his sin which is transmitted even today in semen on new people. Paul also said similar thing, so to say that these tow are not literalists is false.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
(June 17, 2024 at 11:01 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The cain and abel thing is fun. That's about the pastoralist source telling us that god likes his way of life better than the other guys. Literally translated it's the story of Farmer and Herdsmen and according to magic book - there was a city on earth at the time.
Robert L. O'Connell in The Soul of the Sword (a history of human weaponry, writ short) suggests that the divide between farmers and herdsmen may be one source of organized warfare, in that the two groups were fighting over land, one to use that land for crops, the other for pasturage. It's only supposition, which he makes clear in the book, but I think it's an interesting thought.
When we frame the fable of Cain and Abel in that light, it sure looks allegorical ... but again, that's supposition, on my part this time.
I think that the Cain and Abel story tells us about people as well.
We like the smell of BBQ, kebobs, steaks. We very much like the smell of cooked meat. By we, I mean europeans, middle eastern people, probably Russia and all the people of asia minor.
Vegetable aren’t a favorite of ours.
The jewish god is just a reflection of that. He likes the same things that we do.
It is also possible that the story is used as a tool by priests to get meat from worshipers. They can claim that the meat is for the god and just take it into the church and eat it.
If it is about land use, then there would be farmers fighting farmers, shephards, fighting shephards.
June 19, 2024 at 10:41 am (This post was last modified: June 19, 2024 at 10:44 am by Thumpalumpacus.)
(June 19, 2024 at 10:28 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: If it is about land use, then there would be farmers fighting farmers, shephards, fighting shephards.
I disagree. Famers fighting farmers leads to fallow fields, and herdsmen moving in. Shepherds fighting shepherds leads to flocks being whittled down by straying and predation.
However, unless you're raising goats, there's only so much decent pastureland, and it comes as no surprise that this land is arable and both herders and the farming communities that were feeding the first protocities wanted to turn that land into wealth.
Of course there will be some internecine warfare, but not as a general thing, imo.
June 19, 2024 at 11:22 am (This post was last modified: June 19, 2024 at 11:24 am by The Grand Nudger.)
At the time, the source(s) that came up with this part of the foundational myth was a small hillholding culture. Cities and sprawl, the requisite increase in worked land to support them, were eroding their way of life. Their daughters were going down the hill to mix with the foreigners and do shameful things. Hence the notion that the cities were both the source and the product of some original sin peculiar to them and the agriculturalists which becomes a consistent theme throughout the entirety of the ot, culminating in the apocalyptic prophets of the diaspora. People who were...very breifly...saying "See, I told you what would happen!"
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
(June 18, 2024 at 5:40 am)Belacqua Wrote: It looks as though people want us to wrap this up, so I'll do a little summary here. I appreciate your willingness to talk with me about this is a civil tone.
I have a high tolerance for idiots and all sorts of people. You are far from that.
You have your own POV and the probability of me changing that is 0%. But it is an opportunity to have a conversation.
I just go where the conversation goes to.
(June 18, 2024 at 5:40 am)Belacqua Wrote: In the above, you have asserted that the priests' motives are malicious, that they intentionally tell false stories which they want their followers to take as true. While I'm sure many people have taken the stories more literally than they should have, I don't agree that the priests were trying to be tricky. As I've said, metaphorical and mythic explanations were common then, and I don't think that people were any more gullible than they are today. (Look at all the people who believe political propaganda and conspiracy theories.) Educated people have always known to be skeptical, but they have also known that different kinds of expressions work in different ways. Some lessons are told through quantified math, and some through evocative fictional example.
I don’t think I said that priests are malicious but I’m sure that some were. I have a very high degree of certainty on that.
What is guaranteed is that they could not answer certain Big Questions such as
Why does stuff exist?
How does nature work?
Who made this?
Why do I exist?
What happens when I die?
Where did my dead son and parents go?
I am very certain that none of these guys said to the people “I don’t know.”
If they said I don’t know to the Big Question of
“How did things start? What was at the beginning? What steps did the gods take to create stuff?”
there wouldn’t be any Genesis type myths in all the religions of the world.
I don’t know what exactly was going through their minds. Maybe they felt creative. Maybe they knew they were bullshitting. Maybe they thought the gods were putting the info into their brain.
They have been dead for a long time. I don’t have a Delorian so I can’t visit them, I can’t ask them questions. I don’t have a machine to connect to their brains and extract info.
We can use basic logic to fill some of these gaps in human knowledge just like we can take a guess that some markings on bones represent lunar cycles.
I agree that the gullibility of people is about the same. Wearing modern cloths, machine made jewerly, having a PC, a lamborghini, 2 iphones, smelling good doesn’t help people to develop their thinking skills.
This is why you have new mega gigantic religions that get created recently (mormonism, scientology, and possibly other UFO religions).
(June 18, 2024 at 5:40 am)Belacqua Wrote: Right, because accepting scientific knowledge does no damage to their Christian belief. Lemaître knew more about physics than you or I, and knew more about Christianity than you or I, and had no trouble reconciling them. Only sola scriptura literalists are bothered by science. And neither you nor I is sure how many Christians in history have fit that description.
That is correct.
What I was saying is that modern science has modified christianity.
By christianity, I don’t mean just the Bible. I mean what the population believes, what priests say, what televangelist sell.... the entire set.
Modern science doesn’t damage christian faith bc it is difficult to let go of christianity.
I think it is difficult for a lot of people to let go. They would have to put into question their existence. They might have to accept that death is really the end.
If they throw away the Bible, they are left with nothing. Either they will have to search for another religion and that is not easy to do. Joining some other foreign religion probably feels weird.
Possibly, their priests and family members ridicule other religions once in a while and they were in that band wagon as well.
I think that christianity has a lot of appeal with the Jesus came to town because he loves you a lot. He has said that be careful of wolves in sheeps clothing, which probably gives some comfort that christianity is the true religion. (That line gets mentioned a lot by christians. They view it as a guarantee that Jesus really cares for you, he is looking out for you).
Islam has its appear as well. Mohamed said that his religion is perfect, don’t join anything else, all other prophets after him are crap.
Sometimes, I buy a refrigerator with a 10 y warranty. I feel safe and reassured that I made the guaranteed perfect decision. 10 y warranty is printed on the box just like lifetime warranty it is true is printed in the Bible.
I’m only giving a few possible examples.
You seem to be under the impression that christianity has always been a christianity where Genesis is considered metaphorical and that everyone accepts the Big bang theory and Evolution theory and that it was ready for the science of the 18 th, 19 th, 20 th century.
No dude. They were not ready. Millions of them had trouble accepting that they were just apes.
I’m sure none of them cried when they heard that the Sun has been running for 4.7 billion old but when they heard that we are just a bunch of cells, cells that are very similar to any other animal cell, that were are cousins with animals, with apes....I bet that hurt their ego quite a bit.
(June 18, 2024 at 5:40 am)Belacqua Wrote: Anyway, that's my take on the conversation. Thank you again for being civil about it. I'll end it here so the others are not bothered by it any more.
This is the internet.
I was told the internet was for the exchange of ideas, to learn things. People should not be bothered.
(June 18, 2024 at 5:40 am)Belacqua Wrote: I agree that "converted" is the key word here.
It has to be converted to a How type of question because the why type is invalid.
Just to be clear, the question was:
Why does stuff exist?
The question is structured by the theist that way so that he can insert the god into it.
In science, it is part of the philosophy of science to get rid of the god, to focus on how nature as a machinery works.
This position is taken by science since for an extended period of time, there is no evidence for gods and alien things.
If a god or alien thing is discovered, if we discover that he had a role in this, science will reconvert the How to a Why and would ask the god Why did you do X.
That will also get injected into the Big bang theory and all theists will be satisfied.
In short, any human that doesn’t ask these Big questions, such as how did life start on Earth, how did the Earth form, why did the earth form, are there gods and what steps did they take to create stuff.... si dead inside. I am very certain that ancient humans were curious, they asked these questions, the priests satisfied their curiosity.
(June 22, 2024 at 12:48 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: Millions of them had trouble accepting that they were just apes.
They still do have a problem accepting that we are in fact apes. That's because in the Western world it strikes directly at the origin story. Gould's no overlapping magisteria means nothings to them, first, because they've never heard of it, and second, because even if they have, as believers they see only one magisteria that is overarching, mostly. There are believers who accept evolution, but they are much quieter than the deniers.
