'Jarwulf' said:

'superpig' said:

'Jarwulf' said:

The way I understand it. Occam's Razor doesn't apply to Entities with no beginning (which God is sometimes presumed to be) because there is no associated set of events leading up to God's existence which would make it a more unlikely event than God's nonexistence. IE its not the same thing as an assertion stating that your cup broke because you dropped it on the floor vs your cup broke because of a CIA conspiracy with the Loch Ness Monster.

Now it CAN be applied to God intervening in any way but being omnipotent and omniscient and all that God may have found some sublimely simple ways to do anything.

Occam's Razor has nothing to do with causality.
(Exactly how you count assumptions isn't defined, but it doesn't need to be for the principle to be solid).

Are you sure? it seems Occam's Razor has everything to do with causality. Each event has a probability. Because of this a situation with a more events causing it (more complicated) is less likely than one with a less events causing it (less complicated). Thats the reason why it (sometimes) works.

What you're describing is a different principle. It may or may not be solid

Its simply a justification for the Razor. Explain why it can't be.

Because it's more far-reaching (doesn't refer solely to events), makes fewer assumptions itself, and because everybody else who uses it in argument means it that way. See also Wikipedia, Google Definitions, HowStuffWorks...

So basically because the bib-I mean the internet says so without any justification of our own. But anyway before we get too off track my original point was more about the (non)applicability of Occam's Razor to this particular situation rather than its precise formulation (which basically doesn't have a justification at all).

So explain to me how the god of the old testament is not a terrorist. Terrorism is often defined as the systematic use of terror as a form of coercion. God threw plague after plague and the Egyptians, even slaughtering innocent people in order to get what he wanted from the established government. I'm sure you can come up with justifications for why God did what he did, but you cannot argue that there was not a non-violent solution for an omnipotent entity. He could have simply teleported the Israelites out of Egypt... he could have turned their bonds into flowers or something like that. There are millions of ways of displaying power without killing innocent people, and any of them would have been less than trivial for an omnipotent god. As I said before, he could even have killed the person directly challenging him... Instead he turns his wrath to the innocents.

I have to say this is a very serious question, which I have asked myself many times(I have said in the past that I don't particularly feel connected with the God of OT).


To clarify, I'm not examining if God actually exists or not. If there's any shred of doubt, about me at least in this thread, let me say it clearly: I believe, but that's only me(and no, I'm not one of the 6,000-old earth people). I'm not out to prove anything. I said it before: I believe in many things that can't be proven, ever. I believe my friends like me, and I can't prove it, ever. I believe I am more than a bunch of atoms bouncing on each other, but I can't prove it. I don't care to prove it. I accept that not everything can be proven. And when I state my belief, I expect from noone to adopt it. Noone. It's entirely personal. Therefore, I don't need to prove it to noone, even if I could.

Ok now, let's try this experiment. We take, as given, that Israelites are held slaves in Egypt by the Pharaoh(who considers himself "god on earth"). What could be done differently?

1)Organize a full-blown rebellion/war against the oppressors. This has been done, numerous times all througout history. This would, most probably, result either in total failure, or more deaths than what was described in OT, or both.

2)God performing a completely supernatural miracle, as you said, teleporting the Israelites out of Egypt at once.

I have said this myself, multiple times. Btw, I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking about it, if one is so inclined. The thing is: This would get them out of Egypt. Would it work though, in the general sense? It is described, over and over in OT, that after a miracle of any kind was performed, the Israelites first got on their knees and celebrated their hearts out, then when actual, every-day work was to be done, they started 'why God doesn't give us that and why God doesn't give us this and God has forsaken us" and so on and so on. It seems to me, that if God would give too much, they would depend on "miracles" all the way. Give them nothing, and they lose hope.

It all boils down to if you believe in metaphysics, or God causing violation of the physical laws to get His way. As I have said in the past, do we accept that a Creator would need to break his own laws He enstablished(again, I'm talking as if such a Creator actually exists, I'm not here to argue if it actually exists, most rational people would agree it's futile to argue)? Or do we accept that this Creator said, "I'm going to create the Universe this and this way, sentient beings will emerge out of it, I will guide them using subtle means, but not break any major physical laws so they don't depend on me entirely". As an analogy, think of a wealthy couple and their children. If they love their kids so much, why send them out to work and not just let them spend what's already there? Could it be that it's personal growth that this Creator wants more for his "children" than anything else? Could it be that this growth comes slowly, out of the chaos of history, and not at once? I can't answer that, but I have my opinions.

Ok, so take this, for example, which does sound harsh:

[font=&quot;Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;]You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,<br /> [font=&quot;Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;] <br /> <br /> Many people don&#39;t really seem to understand what, regardless of what it&#39;s true or not, it&#39;s of equal importance of what people believe it&#39;s true or not. Religion has always been here. For good or for worse. Many times I wonder if we wouldn&#39;t all be better off without any sort of written scriptures. I don&#39;t know. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, we <span style="font-weight:bold;">all</span> can imagine what idolatry can cause. We know it from certified history. This city particularly worships one god, the other city or tribe particularly worships one other god, the third another lesser god, this grows generation after generation, until inevitably religion becomes another excuse to declare war. Now, imagine this happening to a single tribe, just coming out of Egyptian slavery(thus obviously being affected by their religion and customs at the time). This family would believe in that earthly image(&quot;anything that is in heaven above, or earth beneath&quot; - and I&#39;m pretty sure that includes anthropomorphic figures as well) as god, the family 3 tents on the right to another, the family 5 tents aside to another, and they would have quarrels after quarrels and vendettas over vendettas about this sort of thing. This *seems* to be what this command is saying, crystallized in a form that a tribe in a, sort of speak, infantile stage would understand(slaverly really robs you of many good qualities). Many parts in the Bible(or the Koran,or Torah) seem to contain, crystallized, and in yes, a harsh language to our modern eyes, some inner workings of history and of human life, which are not so pleasant, but they are there and need to be understood. 90% of the planet believes(or at least claims to believe). What&#39;s better? Scoff their belief as &quot;irrational superstitions&quot; and insult and alienate them, or try to untangle those &quot;inner workings&quot;, as I said, with the purpose to reenstate religion as a source of hope and kindness, and not anything else? I think, regardless of what anyone believes, this answer is a no-brainer. <br /> <br /> As for the infamous Big Bang, it seems kinda funny how it was first proposed and developed by a catholic priest slash astronomer who described it as &quot;t[font=&quot;sans-serif&quot;]he Cosmic Egg exploding at the moment of the creation&quot;. Hehe&#33; Science history <span style="font-weight:bold;">is</span> fun&#33;

[font=&quot;Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;]You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me,<br /> [font=&quot;Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif&quot;] </blockquote><br /> <br /> Many people don&#39;t really seem to understand what, regardless of what it&#39;s true or not, it&#39;s of equal importance of what people believe it&#39;s true or not. Religion has always been here. For good or for worse. Many times I wonder if we wouldn&#39;t all be better off without any sort of written scriptures. I don&#39;t know. Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, we <span style="font-weight:bold;">all</span> can imagine what idolatry can cause. We know it from certified history. This city particularly worships one god, the other city or tribe particularly worships one other god, the third another lesser god, this grows generation after generation, until inevitably religion becomes another excuse to declare war. Now, imagine this happening to a single tribe, just coming out of Egyptian slavery(thus obviously being affected by their religion and customs at the time). This family would believe in that earthly image(&quot;anything that is in heaven above, or earth beneath&quot; - and I&#39;m pretty sure that includes anthropomorphic figures as well) as god, the family 3 tents on the right to another, the family 5 tents aside to another, and they would have quarrels after quarrels and vendettas over vendettas about this sort of thing. This *seems* to be what this command is saying, crystallized in a form that a tribe in a, sort of speak, infantile stage would understand(slaverly really robs you of many good qualities). Many parts in the Bible(or the Koran,or Torah) seem to contain, crystallized, and in yes, a harsh language to our modern eyes, some inner workings of history and of human life, which are not so pleasant, but they are there and need to be understood. 90% of the planet believes(or at least claims to believe). What&#39;s better? Scoff their belief as &quot;irrational superstitions&quot; and insult and alienate them, or try to untangle those &quot;inner workings&quot;, as I said, with the purpose to reenstate religion as a source of hope and kindness, and not anything else? I think, regardless of what anyone believes, this answer is a no-brainer. <br /> <br /> Established religions are about control. This was a transition from a multi-god pantheon where people could easily worship one god or many. I read this line as a clever way to establish a longer term religion. If you don&#39;t worship me, I&#39;m going to punish you and your children&#39;s children&#39;s children. This takes away the freedom to choose your god as it outlines a consequence for worshiping anything other than this one true god.<br /> <br /> I don&#39;t think scriptures themselves are a problem. It&#39;s the blind acceptance of the texts that bothers me. There should be open and honest communication about scripture which really isn&#39;t possible if you start from the assumption that the bible is divinely inspired and the absolute truth with no possibility of error. I believe a healthy religious person should be able to ask themselves those questions. What if parts of the bible are divinely inspired but not others? What if none of it is? I understand people can feel a connection with God and that&#39;s great, but does that necessarily mean that every word in the bible is true? Does that mean God actually sent 10 plagues down on Egypt? Even if you feel a connection with God, how does that somehow validate the entire bible? Especially when you consider that people of other faiths can feel the exact same connection&#33;

Established religions are about control. This was a transition from a multi-god pantheon where people could easily worship one god or many. I read this line as a clever way to establish a longer term religion. If you don't worship me, I'm going to punish you and your children's children's children. This takes away the freedom to choose your god as it outlines a consequence for worshiping anything other than this one true god.

I think I didn't really made myself clear...consider this: All those commands were given to a nomadic tribe that was just out of slavery and wandering in the desert. Unity and survival was the no1 cause. Had they been permitted to "worship" other gods, discord would grew immediately.

Of course, I am utterly confused as about what "The Lord told Moses this and that" means. Was it God talking to Moses, as in, an actual physical voice coming out of nowhere? Were they "voices in his head", that is, his consciousness "telling" him what was right and wrong, and this was later put in the scriptures this way? Was it someone, or some group, that were watching the Israelites and decide to behave as a "medium" between what they perceived as God, and Moses and his people? And who can really tell? Is it even worth obsessing over those parts and forgetting the core? Even then, they were given a command as such "don't misbehave the other people already in Canaan, because you were once slaves yourselves".

I'm just saying. If all those "commands" were a teaching tool...are they the Truth(whatever that may be), or only what those particular people, at that particular time, could perceive as the Truth?

This is all very confusing, and yeah I admit that, in this day and age when we are tought(and maybe rightly so) to be skeptic about anything, I don't think it's very appealing to young people like us to sit and study ancient scriptures...but you know, I still like Jesus and what he said and done. So I start from there and work my way down.

I think I didn't really made myself clear...consider this: All those commands were given to a nomadic tribe that was just out of slavery and wandering in the desert. Unity and survival was the no1 cause. Had they been permitted to "worship" other gods, discord would grew immediately.

Sure, in the same way non-kosher foods could have come from foods that make people sick if not properly prepared. I understand that these were most likely used as teaching tools, that make sense. I have no doubt that they could have been valuable at the time, what I have a harder time understanding is how a person today could believe the stories are 100% actual fact as dictated by God. Faith in an unknowable being is one thing. Faith in a book that is full of contradictions that do not hold up to scrutiny is another. (Queue the Christian claims that the bible has no contradictions and is entirely logical)

< snip > what I have a harder time understanding is how a person today could believe the stories are 100% actual fact as dictated by God.

Who has stated that the Bible was dictated by God? Certainly no Christian I know. Unless you mean something else. Why is it so hard to believe the stories are true if you accept that God is real? If you don't believe God is real, of course the stories seem absurd.

Faith in an unknowable being is one thing. Faith in a book that is full of contradictions that do not hold up to scrutiny is another. (Queue the Christian claims that the bible has no contradictions and is entirely logical)

While there are portions of the Bible that contradict one another, almost invariably these are cases of numbers not matching up and such, most of which could be due to copyist error. So what? Does it really destroy Christianity if two sets of numbers in the O.T. don't match? What matters is the areas of doctrine. I've yet to see "contradictions" which are not a result of lack of understanding of things like the Trinity and such.

Who has stated that the Bible was dictated by God? Certainly no Christian I know. Unless you mean something else. Why is it so hard to believe the stories are true if you accept that God is real? If you don't believe God is real, of course the stories seem absurd.

When I was in school, we were taught that God inspired men to write the bible, and He watched over the authors, and then watched over the translators, etc... i.e. we didn't learn that He dictated it, but that he approved of the writings enough for us to call it "His word".

While there are portions of the Bible that contradict one another, almost invariably these are cases of numbers not matching up and such, most of which could be due to copyist error. So what? Does it really destroy Christianity if two sets of numbers in the O.T. don't match? What matters is the areas of doctrine. I've yet to see "contradictions" which are not a result of lack of understanding of things like the Trinity and such.The parts that contradict each other are things like being commanded not to kill, while being told to cut the throats of scores of men, women and children... Or being told not to commit adultery, but being told to take two heathen virgin girls for your own use... The contradictions that non-Christians point out basically boil down to God acting like a bipolar amoral schizoid. The OT God and the NT God also display wildly different 'personalities'. IMO, God shouldn't even have a personality, which makes all the fables seem comparable to Greek myth, etc.

'Machaira' said:

Who has stated that the Bible was dictated by God? Certainly no Christian I know. Unless you mean something else. Why is it so hard to believe the stories are true if you accept that God is real? If you don't believe God is real, of course the stories seem absurd.

When I was in school, we were taught that God inspired men to write the bible, and He watched over the authors, and then watched over the translators, etc… i.e. we didn't learn that He dictated it, but that he approved of the writings enough for us to call it "His word".

While much of scripture is inspired, I've never heard it taught that he "watched over the translators, etc.". That sounds like the story of Joseph Smith transcribing the Book of Mormon.

The parts that contradict each other are things like being commanded not to kill, while being told to cut the throats of scores of men, women and children... Or being told not to commit adultery, but being told to take two heathen virgin girls for your own use... The contradictions that non-Christians point out basically boil down to God acting like a bipolar amoral schizoid. The OT God and the NT God also display wildly different 'personalities'.

Of course it seems that way when you don't take the circumstances into account. The 10 commandments that you're referring to are rules for men to follow on their own, not when told tells them to do something to ensure things happen the way they're supposed to in order to bring about his plans. You can make the Bible say and mean anything if you twist it enough.

[size=2]The 10 commandments that you&#39;re referring to are rules for men to follow on their own, not when told tells them to do something to ensure things happen the way they&#39;re supposed to in order to bring about his plans. You can make the Bible say and mean anything if you twist it enough. <img src='http://public.gamedev.net/public/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif' alt='dry.gif'></blockquote>Not sure if that&#39;s directed at me, or ironically directed at the previous sentence justifying the killing of a person&#39;s mother, father and brother, before selling them to a brothel. It&#39;s that kind of twisting of moral judgement that makes the stories seem contradictory, even to believers.

While there are portions of the Bible that contradict one another, almost invariably these are cases of numbers not matching up and such, most of which could be due to copyist error. So what? Does it really destroy Christianity if two sets of numbers in the O.T. don't match? What matters is the areas of doctrine. I've yet to see "contradictions" which are not a result of lack of understanding of things like the Trinity and such.

There are definitely numbers that don't match up, but also things like the creation of the earth. Were man and women created at the same time, or was women created days after man? Were men or beasts created first? Are the children punished for the sins of their father or not? What were Jesus' last words? How did Judas die? Each of those questions have different answers in different parts of the bible, and this is just a few examples.

So do you believe the bible is infallible or not?