RE: converting back unto theism - yes it's true.
March 15, 2010 at 10:55 pm
(This post was last modified: March 15, 2010 at 11:10 pm by Frank.)
(March 15, 2010 at 10:40 pm)Watson Wrote: Consider this, then: The OT was written by mere men, who only understood God insofar as they understood the world around them. So, whie certain aspects of the OT seem very loving because they are written by men who were a bit wiser, other parts are written by men who did not understand how scientific laws and principles worked, so certain occurences, say for example lightning, were simply attributed to God, thus making Him seem bloodthirsty.
I'm not gonna let you off the hook that easily my friend. You can't logically fit that sort of explanation into, for instance, the Exodus narrative. God killed (or directly ordered the killing) of thousands of Egyptian infants and young boys to convince a single man (the Pharaoh) to change his mind. Why not just kill the Pharaoh? Or in the alternative why not simply manipulate his thoughts? Instead, god chose mass murder, and not just the run of the mill ordinary sort of mass murder, but the mass murder of little babies. So god's loving message to his depraved little creatures is ..... obey me or I'm gonna kill your babies, right before I burn you in hell forever.
Is that seriously the type of behavior anyone with any bit of common sense would expect from a super-being like a god? Doesn't that sound all too human to you (it sure the hell does to me)? In fact not only human, but it sounds pretty consistent with the sort of thing a semi-literate, primitive human might concoct (hmmm, what a coincidence, exactly like the bible authors were).
Let's face it, Abrahamic religions are the musings of a primitive, nomadic, superstitious desert tribe. It's a sprinkling of various religious influences from the region (e.g. Egyptian, Sumerian, etc.), combined with the type of vengence they probably wished upon their enemies, and the special status I'm sure they naturally dreamed of (given that they were a small tribe who kept running into super-civilizations). The only thing unique about the whole thing is it wound up in the sphere of Roman civilization, which is why a hybrid version of it was ultimately thrusted on the human race (and didn't die the death all bizarre ancient myths are supposed to die). No divine providence, just another weird set of circumstances in the weird history of our species and the universe.