The 'old testament' argument

[Joel]

You're looking at it from the TV's perspective, for some strange reason. I'm looking at it from the manufacturer's perspective. A responsible manufacturer would have said "hey, sorry about that, these things happen. We'll replace it or refund your money." An irresponsible one would make the excuses you see above.

Ahhh, but everyone who purchased adm 1.0 is entitled to a free upgrade to adm 2.0 (uncorruptible). All you need to do is "accept" the warranty offered by the manufacturer...

The warranty seal is damaged and rendered void.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...describes the two creation accounts and how their differences point to two different writers reflecting the political and cultural forces at play during their times.

Perhaps. The reverse order makes sense symbolically. The first creation account refers the regeneration process. The second refers to our turning away.

[Tonus]

Perhaps. The reverse order makes sense symbolically. The first creation account refers the regeneration process. The second refers to our turning away.

But they also describe a very different deity. The creator of Genesis 1:1-2:3 is El, an amorphous and divine presence. He creates by decree; 'let there be light, and it is so, and it is good.' There are no details to speak of. He snaps his fingers, and things happen. He wraps up his work by creating man and woman in his own image, before the next creative day closes.

The creator of the account in 2:4-3:24 is Yahweh, and he is a much more human god. He does not decree; he gets his hands dirty and takes an active, involved role in each step. He creates man in his image, then after some time passes he decides to provide him with a mate. It is this creator who places them in the garden and is absent when they make a holy mess of things.

The first account seeks to make god a grandiose yet distant character; this is the god that we think of when we marvel at his mysterious and incomprehensible greatness. Yahweh is a pretty standard god of the ancient world, more human than god, a clear example of projection. The first account elevates humanity along with god-- when the great master creator is done creating this marvelous environment, he finally places his greatest creation within-- man and woman, made in his image.

In the second account, man is created from the Earth, a more humble expression of his value, and woman doesn't come on the scene until man realizes that he is alone. It is this lesser pair that falters and tarnishes god's work, plunging humanity into a downward spiral that even god finds difficult to fix without a long and involved plan.

The two creation accounts serve two similar purposes, but two different masters. The Yahwist was more interested in showing how the tribe needed to obey their god, while the Priests were more interested in linking themselves to the divine and becoming a conduit for god. Both are methods of control, and it's fascinating that their disparate accounts got smushed together into a new, discombobulated tale. I think that if either one had been told that this would happen, there might've been a few new words invented at the time.

[Sagasa]

Just putting in my two cents here.

I'm an atheist, but I do remember a small tidbit from the mandatory theology classes (Roman Catholic) in college.

Apparently, the reason that God created humanity and gave us free will is because He is love and that love wants to be shared. So He created us to be the recipients of that love and, to make the whole thing meaningful, gave us free will so that we could grow through the mistakes we made and the resulting suffering that we underwent.

As for hell and the afterlife, current catholic doctrine is that hell is actually self-inflicted rather than the mismatch between a loving, merciful God and an eternity of punishment and torment even for repentant sinners. The rationale being that sin is defined as turning away from God's grace and that this is done so willingly. Thus, hell is a willful separation from God which can end anytime the person chooses to repent sincerely, but is typically prevented from doing so by some human failing such as pride or hate. Kind of like Dante's depiction of Satan in that book of his; how his imprisonment in ice is only worsened by his continuous attempts to escape it, instead of accepting his mistake in humility.

Not that this explains how religion arrived at its first axiom though: that God exists.

[Godscreated]

[quote='Godschild' pid='418127' dateline='1363833874']
You bought a TV and it made the decision to break, the manufacturer knows it could do this and wasn't caught off guard. It was perfect until it made a decision to short to ground. It worked fine until it made the decision to break, it did have the chose to act that way, we would have preferred it hadn't and so on and so on...

You're looking at it from the TV's perspective, for some strange reason. I'm looking at it from the manufacturer's perspective. A responsible manufacturer would have said "hey, sorry about that, these things happen. We'll replace it or refund your money." An irresponsible one would make the excuses you see above.

Why would one look at it from the manufactures point, the manufacture did nothing wrong. You bought the TV with the knowledge it had a choice and might exercise that choice. It's the TV's fault it broke, it made a choice the manufacture would prefer the TV not make. The manufacture designed it with free choice, perfect in every way until it made the wrong choice.
You want to blame the designer for designing a perfect TV even when you know the TV has the ability to corrupt itself. The manufacture was not irresponsible, as a matter of fact the Manufacture in this case supplies a redemption plan.

You can't change the facts of a story to fit your needs, I used exactly what scripture gives us you should try and do the same.

We both did, you simply misunderstood where I was going with it. See my reply just above.

I understood exactly, you want to pass the blame to the innocent One. I'm not sure how you believe I changed any facts.

As for your little idea about the origins of scripture give me the proof.

Proof? That would imply evidence that probably does not exist any longer. The best I can offer is sites like this one, and specifically , which describes the two creation accounts and how their differences point to two different writers reflecting the political and cultural forces at play during their times.

Those are just works to discredit the scriptures, I could offer up works to completely disagree with those, that would leave us just where we are now. The account of creation is one account, the first part was an outline if you wish, the second part gives the details of the account, I've always found this to be quite obvious.

[Ryantology]

Why would one look at it from the manufactures point, the manufacture did nothing wrong. You bought the TV with the knowledge it had a choice and might exercise that choice. It's the TV's fault it broke, it made a choice the manufacture would prefer the TV not make. The manufacture designed it with free choice, perfect in every way until it made the wrong choice. You want to blame the designer for designing a perfect TV even when you know the TV has the ability to corrupt itself. The manufacture was not irresponsible, as a matter of fact the Manufacture in this case supplies a redemption plan.

This is a stupid analogy. Let's make it not so stupid.

Let's say you have a manufacturer, Godco. Godco claims to be perfect. Everything Godco makes will never exhibit flaws, which is good because Godco is a complete monopoly; it claims to make everything perfectly.

Taken in by this advertising campaign, you decide to buy a TV from Godco. God is happy, and reassures you that you can trust that your TV is perfect because he made it in his own perfect image. You take it home, giddy at the prospect of watching The Walking Dead or the 700 Club, but five minutes after you plug it in, it stops working. Nothing you do can make it function.

Upset, you take your TV back to Godco and demand an explanation for why this perfect TV turned out to be critically flawed. A Godco representative named Godschild tells you that the TV is perfect, but as Godco gave it free will, it has decided not to work, so you're out of luck. Remembering that Godco never mentioned anything about free will to you during the sales pitch, you consult the user manual and find no mention of Godco designing free will in its television but a number of pages indicate that the TV, in fact, was not only never designed to have free will, but that it was designed, specifically, to operate according to the whims of the Godco CEO. The representative denies the obvious truth and refuses to honor any warranty or issue any refund. Godco soon becomes the target of class-action lawsuits and pay heavy fines for false advertising, and the CEO ends up sentenced to several billion consecutive life terms, after information is revealed during his fraud trial that he was directly responsible for the murders of countless people, and that his employees committed countless rapes, murders, enslavement and tortures in response to his personal, direct orders.

[Tonus]

You want to blame the designer for designing a perfect TV even when you know the TV has the ability to corrupt itself. The manufacture was not irresponsible, as a matter of fact the Manufacture in this case supplies a redemption plan.

This sums up your mindset perfectly. God is not to blame for his faulty creation; his creation is. Your entire post comes down to you covering your ears with your hands and screaming "NOT LISTENING!!! NOT LISTENING!!!" Since you're just going to put up a wall, I'll leave the conversation at that.

[Neo-Scholastic]

This sums up your mindset perfectly. God is not to blame for his faulty creation; his creation is. Your entire post comes down to you covering your ears with your hands and screaming "NOT LISTENING!!! NOT LISTENING!!!" Since you're just going to put up a wall, I'll leave the conversation at that.

He just disagrees with your assessment. But I do agree, it is a stupid analogy.

[Godscreated]

This sums up your mindset perfectly. God is not to blame for his faulty creation; his creation is. Your entire post comes down to you covering your ears with your hands and screaming "NOT LISTENING!!! NOT LISTENING!!!" Since you're just going to put up a wall, I'll leave the conversation at that.

He just disagrees with your assessment. But I do agree, it is a stupid analogy.

Tonus started the analogy, I continued with it for the sake of not starting a new coarse. I see I should have now.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

The argument usually goes 'Oh, well that just reflects the culture that the Bible was written in.' Which can handily write off verses that modern Christians disagree with, even as take the homophobic verses (something Christians mostly agree with) to mean that the immorality of homosexuality is an absolute truth--God himself said so, after all!
...

God was in a snit that century.

It shows how meaningless the actual words of the "holy books" if in fact it is "divine" or human depending upon whether or not the believer agrees with it.

All of this focus on "understanding" the Septuagint as the religion of bibleland is meaningless. The religion of the priests is not the religion of the people. There is ZERO reason to think people were ever any different from today.

---

I just don't see how time really means a whole lot to a superior being who

1. Created the universe and everything it
2. Knows what everybody is doing and thinking at all times
3. Can not only see into the future but has a 'divine plan'

You'd think god would exist in all times simultaneously and be aware of every feeling and emotion that will exist ever and make a fair, even unchanging and CLEAR message on what is right and wrong. But no he goes " oh shit they're developing tolerance down there, I better go and modify my universal laws of humanity so I can fit in and all the cool kids don't make fun of me"

Or as I refer to it, the swiss army knife god. Way, way too much is claimed for this god. It is better to have specialized gods which Catholics and others use patron saints to satisfy.

---

...
If the old testament doesn't matter - the simple fact is that it negates the sacrifice of Jesus dying to absolve us of original sin - which is explicitly old testament.
...

Keep in mind Jews do not read the Eden story as original sin and that Augustine is the clown who invented that idea.

But anyone actually reading the Eden story finds no sin whatsoever if for no other reason that sin is undefined. A&E lacked the mens rais to commit sin. AND the walking god they were dealing with was a lying SOB as they did not die. And they were kicked out of Eden to prevent them from living forever and becoming gods. Note people didn't expect much of their gods in those days.
Knowing good and evil and living forever was all it took.

---

This topic came up in a conversation between Drich and I. The OT laws are tangled up with atonement and it is hard to discuss one without discussing the other. Hopefully, I've learned how to insert links properly...

http://atheistforums.org/thread-17275.html

The executive summary is something like this. By the time of first Advent, the internal sense of OT laws had been lost and worship had fallen into unspiritual legalism, i.e. practice of the Mosaic rules had become empty gestures. Jesus restores to the church the spiritual principles of loving the Lord and our neighbors as ourselves, that informed the rules of the ancient Hebrew theocracy. Legalistic compliance with Mosaic law can be dismissed, but only to the extent that the spiritual laws represented by the OT rituals and prohibitions are obeyed.

Like most all religions other than Christianity Judaism is a ritual/taboo religion. Christianity is a creedal religion. Islam is ritual/taboo after the initial simple declaration of Allah and his prophet. Compare that to any of the official creeds of Christianity. There are no required beliefs at all in Judaism. Nor were there any in any of the Persia to Ireland religions at the time. Christianity invented the idea of required beliefs.