@BWS, I'm tired of going around and around in your deluded state of mind, you care nothing about learning anything as you implied you did. So go and gloat of your supposed victory, you had better enjoy it now because if you do not change there will be nothing to enjoy. Find someone else to spout your trash at.

(July 9, 2013 at 6:42 pm)Godschild Wrote: @BWS, I'm tired of going around and around in your deluded state of mind, you care nothing about learning anything as you implied you did. So go and gloat of your supposed victory, you had better enjoy it now because if you do not change there will be nothing to enjoy. Find someone else to spout your trash at.

GC, there is no joy in seeing you leave the conversation. I thought I could have an intelligent discussion and hopefully drop a few nuggets of wisdom along the way. I had hoped that you would take up a few of my challenges and hold up your end of the bargain, which is to substantiate your claims.

If falling back on logic and reason is deluded, then I suppose I really am Batman.

(July 9, 2013 at 12:25 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote:

(July 9, 2013 at 6:06 am)Consilius Wrote: No one said Elisha was a prophet except his actions. What he did made him a prophet, and not the Bible verse that said so.
A parody is a joke. An insult is an offense.
Also take note of the identities of the two parties. One of them works in the name of God. The other in the name of pagan gods. The offending party knows the identity of the defending party as a representative of a contradictory belief to its own, and had recently proved his belief to be true. The offending party, unprovoked, insults the defending party. Israelite pagans deliberately chose pagan gods over Yahweh because they didn't like him. The theocracy of Israel made this a political struggle as it was an ideological one. There are no grounds for harmless jokes between these two strangers. The offending party got at the defending party because of what the defending party stood for was contradictory to what the offending party stood for.
Also note that Elisha wasn't simply another Jew, he was a prophet. He pretty much had God walking alongside him on the road, because Elisha was God's diplomat. To insult a diplomat is an offense against the country the diplomat is coming from. The president of the country in this case was all-powerful and flawless, with absolute control over their very existence. The greater his power and the things they owed him, the more respect he demanded.

Are we done reading between the lines? Subtext is made up as easily as the penning of Jesus' resurrection. Bottom line: I don't buy it, the Bible is bogus, God is an asshole.

Can you refute what I just said? Subtext is based on fact, and the Bible, like any other 2000-year old text, needs to be interpreted, or else things like this happen.
And reading in between the lines is the only way to read. There is no negative connotation associated with it.

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(July 9, 2013 at 12:42 pm)Faith No More Wrote:

(July 9, 2013 at 6:06 am)Consilius Wrote: The greater his power and the things they owed him, the more respect he demanded.

Seems like an awfully human characteristic, doesn't it?

By 'demand', I don't mean coerced out of people, but naturally deserved. We must limit the respect people deserve simply because they're also human. God needs to be respected more because he simply is a greater being, but, because he loves mankind, does not demand cold fear, hence, there are religious jokes and parodies. So religion can only be described with a word that many people are afraid of: autocracy. God doesn't ask us before making decisions, because we are not equals.
Think of it as a police officer and a civilian.

(July 9, 2013 at 9:40 pm)Consilius Wrote: Can you refute what I just said? Subtext is based on fact, and the Bible, like any other 2000-year old text, needs to be interpreted, or else things like this happen.
And reading in between the lines is the only way to read. There is no negative connotation associated with it.

Um...sure? I guess I'll take a stab at it.

Elisha is a prophet because the anonymous author called him a prophet. Since we shouldn't take what an anonymous author says at face value, we need to look at this story as just another fable, not as historic fact. Hardly even historic fiction.

That being said, the above-mentioned subtext is not necessarily fact. The passage itself is dubious.

It doesn't need to be interpreted because it's 2000 years old, it needs to be interpreted because no objective reader can make sense of the Judeo-Christian God of the Paradox. That's why you add your footnotes, so that you can justify the actions of murderers, rapists, baby killers, and blatant disregard for the natural order of things.

Moreover, back when the books of the bible were written, people's world views were different. For example, the authors and readers believed the world to be flat. This is reflected in the writings of the Bible, whether it's Genesis you're reading or even Job. Now that we know science has refuted this claim beyond a shadow of a doubt, this book's claims about the earth have to interpreted. Now, people even say that the Bible rightly predicted that the Earth was round. Again, that's interpretation, and since it cannot be taken at face value, it needs to be thrown into doubt. The entirety of the book should always be thrown into doubt.

I hope you realize that not only do I not believe the Bible to be true, but I believe modern science proves that it's not beyond a shadow of a doubt. Therefore, when you defend ridiculous stories in the Bible such as Elisha cursing teenagers to get mauled by bears, I don't feel at all threatened.

I see that you will defend Elisha to your grave. That's all well and good. But what about the story of Noah's Ark? What about the Zombie invasion of Jerusalem? What about the amazing population growth of the Israelites in the wilderness? Or the population boom that filled the Tower of Babel directly following the extinction of all but 8 people on the earth?

Talking snakes.

Virigin births.

Contradictory commandments.

Contradictory events.

Contradictory genealogies.

...

You cannot hope to defend it all, and saying "God made it so" simply doesn't cut it.

You don't have to answer, but I know that opening the box of worms that is the Bible will get us tangled up quickly.

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(July 9, 2013 at 9:40 pm)Consilius Wrote: By 'demand', I don't mean coerced out of people, but naturally deserved.

No respect comes about naturally. Respect is earned. Even if the Christian god were real, I would not respect nor worship him.

If a better god than that were real, I wouldn't worship it either, but there might be some respect.

What does god need with respect and worship and anything for that matter? Captain Kirk famously said, "What does god need with a spaceship?" God being real and being a creator does not preclude a necessity for worship or even respect. Those are false assumptions, and shame on the people who originally thought them up because they are only there to keep the masses under a heavy thumb.

And there is quite some conceptual incoherence in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being whose actions must be consistent with its nature, yet produces an unclear (i.e in need of constant reinterpretation) revelation.

The revelation of the Bible didn't need interpretation when it was published 2000 years ago, but it has many times and does now because we don't think like we did 2000 years ago. Words held greater meaning. Things were implied. Not to mention editing, copying, and translation.

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(July 9, 2013 at 10:05 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote:

(July 9, 2013 at 9:40 pm)Consilius Wrote: Can you refute what I just said? Subtext is based on fact, and the Bible, like any other 2000-year old text, needs to be interpreted, or else things like this happen.
And reading in between the lines is the only way to read. There is no negative connotation associated with it.

Um...sure? I guess I'll take a stab at it.

Elisha is a prophet because the anonymous author called him a prophet. Since we shouldn't take what an anonymous author says at face value, we need to look at this story as just another fable, not as historic fact. Hardly even historic fiction.

That being said, the above-mentioned subtext is not necessarily fact. The passage itself is dubious.

It doesn't need to be interpreted because it's 2000 years old, it needs to be interpreted because no objective reader can make sense of the Judeo-Christian God of the Paradox. That's why you add your footnotes, so that you can justify the actions of murderers, rapists, baby killers, and blatant disregard for the natural order of things.

Moreover, back when the books of the bible were written, people's world views were different. For example, the authors and readers believed the world to be flat. This is reflected in the writings of the Bible, whether it's Genesis you're reading or even Job. Now that we know science has refuted this claim beyond a shadow of a doubt, this book's claims about the earth have to interpreted. Now, people even say that the Bible rightly predicted that the Earth was round. Again, that's interpretation, and since it cannot be taken at face value, it needs to be thrown into doubt. The entirety of the book should always be thrown into doubt.

I hope you realize that not only do I not believe the Bible to be true, but I believe modern science proves that it's not beyond a shadow of a doubt. Therefore, when you defend ridiculous stories in the Bible such as Elisha cursing teenagers to get mauled by bears, I don't feel at all threatened.

I see that you will defend Elisha to your grave. That's all well and good. But what about the story of Noah's Ark? What about the Zombie invasion of Jerusalem? What about the amazing population growth of the Israelites in the wilderness? Or the population boom that filled the Tower of Babel directly following the extinction of all but 8 people on the earth?

Talking snakes.

Virigin births.

Contradictory commandments.

Contradictory events.

Contradictory genealogies.

...

You cannot hope to defend it all, and saying "God made it so" simply doesn't cut it.

You don't have to answer, but I know that opening the box of worms that is the Bible will get us tangled up quickly.

---

(July 9, 2013 at 9:40 pm)Consilius Wrote: By 'demand', I don't mean coerced out of people, but naturally deserved.

No respect comes about naturally. Respect is earned. Even if the Christian god were real, I would not respect nor worship him.

If a better god than that were real, I wouldn't worship it either, but there might be some respect.

What does god need with respect and worship and anything for that matter? Captain Kirk famously said, "What does god need with a spaceship?" God being real and being a creator does not preclude a necessity for worship or even respect. Those are false assumptions, and shame on the people who originally thought them up because they are only there to keep the masses under a heavy thumb.

In the Bible, Elisha is a prophet because he proved it. The writer of 2 Kings actually never called him a prophet in chapter 2, and neither did God or Elisha. The people call him one when he parts a river in 2 Kings 2:14-15. He proves it again when he cleanses water by invoking God's name in verses 20-22. This is the man that the pagans decided to make fun of.
The subtext is based on what the Bible says. It is factually true that the Bible said it. That's the fact the subtext was based on, and that's the textual fact you are ignoring.
Coincidentally, the Bible stopped making sense 2000 years after it was written, in a completely different culture that spoke a different. Those who the Bible did not make sense to said it was because humanity suddenly realized, at around the same time the biblical text was most alienated from their personal experiences, claimed that God had turned into a bad guy. It just took us a different time, culture, and language to find out.
Religion is not a scientific authority. It's a moral one. Just because the men who wrote the Bible happened to believe the world was flat, you know, like absolutely every other human being on earth at the time, doesn't suddenly nullify the Bible. I'm not a Christian because I'm afraid of falling off the Earth.
And are we arguing the authorship of the Bible or the morality it preaches? This argument is about a story about a prophet, not who wrote the Bible. Take that up with somebody who knows more about it.
And then we go into a few more of your Bible issues, most of which shouldn't be arguments because Genesis 1-11 is a compilation of Judeo-Christian myths.
A virgin birth is a miracle for the reason that it is impossible for it to occur naturally.
Contradictions in the Bible make it more valid. If the Jesus story was made up, don't you think there would be fewer discrepancies in the Gospels? Stereotyped tradition would be carefully copied down so the story would seem more convincing. Crimes are real, but witnesses have different stories to tell about them and sometimes they straight-up contradict each other.

(July 9, 2013 at 7:06 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote:

(July 9, 2013 at 6:42 pm)Godschild Wrote:

---

@BWS, I'm tired of going around and around in your deluded state of mind, you care nothing about learning anything as you implied you did. So go and gloat of your supposed victory, you had better enjoy it now because if you do not change there will be nothing to enjoy. Find someone else to spout your trash at.

---

GC, there is no joy in seeing you leave the conversation. I thought I could have an intelligent discussion and hopefully drop a few nuggets of wisdom along the way. I had hoped that you would take up a few of my challenges and hold up your end of the bargain, which is to substantiate your claims.

If falling back on logic and reason is deluded, then I suppose I really am Batman.

There was no conversation, I told you what I believe that the proof was for me and I did not come here to prove God to anyone, you got answers it's you didn't like them and that's not my fault. Live by your logic and I will continue on in common sense the thing people use to manage real life.

(July 10, 2013 at 1:18 am)Godschild Wrote: There was no conversation, I told you what I believe that the proof was for me and I did not come here to prove God to anyone, you got answers it's you didn't like them and that's not my fault. Live by your logic and I will continue on in common sense the thing people use to manage real life.

There was no conversation because you never provide a basis for anything you say. You've fallen into the standard theistic trap of mistaking the fact that you've asserted a thing, for the proof that assertion is correct.

That's why I stopped replying here, until now.

(July 9, 2013 at 10:35 pm)Consilius Wrote: A virgin birth is a miracle for the reason that it is impossible for it to occur naturally.

Not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

(July 10, 2013 at 7:48 am)Rationalman Wrote:

(July 9, 2013 at 10:35 pm)Consilius Wrote: A virgin birth is a miracle for the reason that it is impossible for it to occur naturally.

Not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis

Parthogenesis is not natural. It is made to happen by people.
And, of course, such technology was not available in the 1st century, so the virgin birth remains a miracle.