God Yahweh Allah was a volcano.

[Hannah]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoqpM-lEUEA

One seriously freaky place. This would probably be described as an angel in the Bible.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlM3UKmNWWc

Spooky terrain or what?!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FwREz324...re=related

Oh my volcano! Convert to what? Islam because of some teddy shaped clouds???

People are still as spooked now as there were then. The cause of all religions.....being spooked by natural occurances.

[Minimalist]

Galatians 4:24

So, let me see if I understand this.

You think you can substantiate one bit of bible bullshit by quoting another bit of bible bullshit.

Have you really given any thought at all to the probability of that having much effect on a room full of atheists?

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Hannah


Just in case the words 'pareidolia' and 'apophenia' don't ring a bell.

Pareidolia (play /pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-doh-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- – "beside", "with", or "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty or wrong (as in paraphasia, disordered speech) and eidōlon – "image"; the diminutive of eidos – "image", "form", "shape". Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad,[1] who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness", but it has come to represent the human tendency to seek patterns in random nature in general, as with gambling, paranormal phenomena, religion, and even attempts at scientific observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

[Hannah]

Galatians 4:24

So, let me see if I understand this.

You think you can substantiate one bit of bible bullshit by quoting another bit of bible bullshit.

Have you really given any thought at all to the probability of that having much effect on a room full of atheists?

Are you honestly trying to say that the Jews didn't move around from one place to another?

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@Hannah


Just in case the words 'pareidolia' and 'apophenia' don't ring a bell.

Pareidolia (play /pærɨˈdoʊliə/ parr-i-doh-lee-ə) is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon or the Moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages on records played in reverse. The word comes from the Greek para- – "beside", "with", or "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty or wrong (as in paraphasia, disordered speech) and eidōlon – "image"; the diminutive of eidos – "image", "form", "shape". Pareidolia is a type of apophenia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia

Apophenia is the experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

The term was coined in 1958 by Klaus Conrad,[1] who defined it as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness", but it has come to represent the human tendency to seek patterns in random nature in general, as with gambling, paranormal phenomena, religion, and even attempts at scientific observation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophenia

Thanks for that. 'Angels' in the Bible originate from flickering flames and gas leak optical distortions, chariots originate from clouds of ash rolling down volcanoes, etc.

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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/928064/posts

Makes sense to me.

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http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0RF42...dr&f=false

Miracles of Exodus by Colin Humphreys.

[popeyespappy]

It would be a good enough theory except that you've made provisions that leave it in the position of unfalsifiable.

Actually it would be easy to falsify. All it would take evidence confirming it didn’t happened some other way. For example a document describing the freeing of a bunch of slaves after a series of disasters would do. Even an account of the trial and conviction of the priests of Aten for heresy would show this particular version false. Why Lard Jebus his self could come back tomorrow and raise Moses from the dead followed by an immediate infliction of all atheists with a plague of boils.


BTW, did I mention that there was a well documented epidemic in Egypt during Armarna period ?

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The priests of Aten would have become pariahs practically overnight in Egypt upon the death of Akhenaten.

Occam's razor, Pap. Easier to kill them or absorb them back into the Amun cult from whence they came. But even that is not the biggest problem with the idea. Akhenaten died c 1335 BC. We see no evidence of monotheism anywhere in the ANE until the Persian period begins in 539 with Cyrus' coup de main on Babylon. That is nearly 800 years. Where were they for all that time?

Magnanimous priests? hock:

There’s an argument I never expected to hear from Minimalist.

[Napoléon]

Thanks for that. 'Angels' in the Bible originate from flickering flames and gas leak optical distortions, chariots originate from clouds of ash rolling down volcanoes, etc.

You really are as fucking cuckoo as the bible bashers we get around here.

[Hannah]

Thanks for that. 'Angels' in the Bible originate from flickering flames and gas leak optical distortions, chariots originate from clouds of ash rolling down volcanoes, etc.

You really are as fucking cuckoo as the bible bashers we get around here.

It takes a more delicate approach to spot these things. Critical subtleties are often over looked by more ham-fisted types.

[The Grand Nudger]

Can you think of anything we might expect to find with say, a dig, were your interpretation correct?

Conversely, if your interpretation was not correct, would sort of evidence to the contrary could you conceive of?

[Hannah]

Hebrews 1:7 In speaking of the angels he says, "He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire."

There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” – Exodus 3:2-3

50. Judges 13:20
For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the LORD ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground.

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2 Kings 2:11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.

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2 Kings 6:17 And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Ok, so maybe chariots can be both rolling ash clouds and fire. An enemy racing forward.

[popeyespappy]

Can you think of anything we might expect to find with say, a dig, were your interpretation correct?

Conversely, if your interpretation was not correct, would sort of evidence to the contrary could you conceive of?

A 3300 year old Bedouin gravesite in the hills north of Petra with evidence the man that been buried there was a priest of Aten would be a pretty good find. Short of that lots of things would provide further support for my argument. Egyptians were big on graffiti. “Elroy, high priest of Aten” scrawled into a cliff face at a Bedouin campsite is not out of the realm of possibility.

Seriously though, the point of my argument in this thread is not to provide proof that what I wrote is what happened. Rather my point is that it is arguable that the Exodus story might be more than a complete work of fiction. Some parts of the story could have a basis in historical fact. I’ve tried to provide an interpretation of some evidence in that light. I could lend further weight to that argument by providing more information on the details that are in the Exodus story about the Bedouin living in Edom. Details that are verifiable through non Biblical sources. However, I’m not arguing for the truth of Exodus as written so I’ve tried to avoid using those texts.