(September 26, 2010 at 6:04 am)solja247 Wrote: I went to a friend of mine, a biblical scholar, and he asked me a powerful question; Why should we not believe Abraham existed?
Because there is no evidence for his existence...
Quote: People want evidence for Abraham's existence, but isnt that absurd?
I am the spokesman of the one true god of the universe and you should worship him or you are going to burn and scream and suffer forever.
Want evidence? Too fucking bad, wanting evidence is absurd.
Quote: Should we expect evidence?
Yes.
Quote: My skeptic mind had no answer,
You don't have a skeptical mind.
Quote:after all, there are large gaps in history, massive gaps, perhaps we should be a little more careful when dismiss historical characters, such as Abraham?
For fucks sake...
Do you believe that every character from every story set in the past exists?
And do you not just see the fallacy you committed? Hint, you put it into italics. It's called a bare assertion.
Quote:Another thing to take into consideration, is the fact that the Jews had a very very very strong oral tradition. We should NOT dismiss oral, espicially if there is no reason too.
1. Every fucking culture in times of pre-literacy had a strong oral tradition. Because of this do you believe every story passed down from pre-literate cultures?
2. We DO NOT believe things because we have no reason not to believe them, we believe things because there are good reasons to believe.
Quote: Oral tradition is what people used, a fine example of this is the rainbow serpent, in Aboriginal's mythology they believe a rainbow serpent created Australia (or the world?) we know they believe this through oral tradition, they didnt write, they drew and had symbols.
And do you believe because of this that a serpent created Australia, or that they believed a serpent created Australia? I already know the answer.
And that right there is your double standard...
From oral tradition we know they believed in a guy called Abraham, that DOES NOT meant that Abraham actually existed.
Quote:we take their oral traiditions as being credible
No we fucking don't, only you do, and at the same time you reject the oral traditions of every other ancient culture that doesn't already agree with you.
The double standards you have are beyond ridiculous.
Quote: However, for some reason, people dismiss the Bible as quick as they can,
*yawn*
Quote: and largely have no reason why,
Because there is no fucking evidence for any of the most important claims that it makes.
Quote: they dismiss Jewish history (Although they dont dismiss other culture's history) as being 'made up' by the Religous leaders,
STRAW MAN ALERT.
I do not dismiss Jewish history, I dismiss the claims made for which there is no reason to believe.
I dismiss all other such claims made by any other group equally.
Quote: being copied from the Epic of Gilgamesh
Noah's ark might stem from Gilgamesh it might not, that has nothing to do with why I believe the story is complete bullshit. Case and point being all of the other cultures who amazingly survived through the flood period with no fucking mention of it, not even in their oral traditions, which of course you don't dismiss because they are so inherently reliable...
Quote:Why should we believe that Abraham did not exist?
Because there is no good reason to believe he existed. If you think that the fact a character or claim is part of an oral tradition is a good reason to believe it is true then to be consistent you would have to believe in the existence of every fucking character and every claim from every oral tradition ever to exist.
You are the epitome of the double standard.
.
