Here is an old, but interesting story. It should be a familiar story to our Christian readers. Deanna Laney was commanded by God to stone her children to death as poof of her devotion to Him. Unlike the Biblical story of Abraham, God didn’t pull any punches at the last minute. He did not stop Laney from hitting her sons, ages 8, 6, and 1, with rocks weighing up to 14 pounds. Maybe He was out of sacrificial goats to use as replacements. She fulfilled God’s will by killing the two eldest, but failed Him by only permanently injuring the one-year-old. Perhaps that is why He abandoned her to the Texas ‘justice’ system.
While this story is not new, I recently had a couple of thoughts regarding this issue. First, how is Laney’s claim that God spoke to her any different from Akiane Kramarik’s claim? Christians cannot claim that God would never command a parent to perform such a horrendous act because He’s done it before. If the two situations are any different, what is the criteria? How are we to determine the validity of future claims of messages from God?
Secondly, since Laney ended using an insanity plea, how do we know that Abraham wasn’t suffering from similar delusions? Maybe, like Laney, Abraham only thought that God told him to kill Isaac. Claiming he was crazy would certainly go a long way to removing this problematic feature of Christian theology. Then again, it would admit that there is an error in the Bible.
–Sidfaiwu
No related posts.
April 30th, 2007 at 5:56 pm
After reading this story, it seems clear to me that God was an accessory to these murders. We can’t say what his motives were, but his hand in the events is evident and, at the very least, he did not act to stop the killing.
No one is above the law.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
“When we talk to god, it’s called prayer. When god talks to us, it’s called schizophrenia” — anon.
April 30th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
mmm let’s see. If it’s in the holy books, it’s god’s word (TM) therefore above reproach. God is merciful in instructing his followers to kill their kiddies if it so pleases his godness, even better after psychologically damaging both follower and kiddy, god has a change of heart. Too merciful, no?
If it happens now and you live in a religious society, it’s acceptable, just so long as you quote the scripture correctly and being a man always helps.
If however, you live in a society that’s somewhat less than fundamentalist, you’re insane and your belief in god makes people want to go easy on you. After all, we know religion leads to good morals don’t we? A religiou would never have a tale about a merciful god instructing his followers to commit infanticide… oh wait…
April 30th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I think that nobody should be allowed to interpret the Abraham story until they’ve read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Just a personal opinion.
May 1st, 2007 at 1:08 am
Abraham is different than this crazy woman, he was a prophet get revlation, and the last one who got the revlation was Muhammed and even through Gaberial, not directly from God. God will never talk to somebody personly.
Second thing, that Abraham went to the desert where there is no water, nor food, and he had his two sons, and it was an order from god, and God told him call the people and they will come from every where, and his son hit the ground with his legs and it opens a well in the ground, and this well still exist till now to prove that was true.
The summary of what I wanted to say, tha Abraham did what god told him through his angel, and God never let him down.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:34 am
“and God told him call the people and they will come from every where, and his son hit the ground with his legs and it opens a well in the ground, and this well still exist till now to prove that was true.”
Bullshit, pure bullshit. Show me this well and show me how you know it’s the well from the myth.
“Abraham did what god told him through his angel, and God never let him down.”
God was a monster for asking a man to kill his son. No loving being that cared about the wellfare of another would do this. He could’ve just given them water. Second Abraham was a monster for obeying.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:47 am
Here’s a brain bender. Aside from religious texts that come from Abraham’s distant “descendants” via Ishmael and Isaac, what record do we have of his actual existence? Moses, the guy who supposedly wrote about him, turns out to be at least 3 different people, as discovered by writing style analysis of early Hebrew texts. Then you have the ramblings of Mohamed, a schizophrenic jerk who’s teachings can be interpreted as both the religion of peace and the justification for “killing the infidels”. If that isn’t loony, I don’t know what is.
Pretend for the moment that the religious history written in the Bible and Koran are both steaming piles of crap. What real, secular evidence is there for the existence of Abraham, much less the validity of the story of him being told to kill his kid? What if this is merely a tale told to illustrate the level of faith “God” requires so the religious leaders can hold power while the blind sheep just follow along.
Crazy: adjective, Using a fable to justify the blind following of an invisible bearded man in the sky whose voice consists of chemically imbalanced men writing their delusions on paper.
May 1st, 2007 at 11:02 am
<sarcasm>
Wow, people, way to be tolerant and understanding of others’ beliefs. Great to see no one is throwing nasty names and descriptions around.
</sarcasm>
Now as to the post Mohamed made:
I thought God DID talk directly to Moses. That was what made him “glow” after receiving the 10 commandments.
Also, why do you believe the story? IS it based on objective evidence, or it it beacause you were told to believe? I am not trying to belittle your faith, but I am curious.
—————————————————
As to the story, What makes people believe the story of Abraham, but not this lady’s story?
If Abraham lived today he would be in a psychiatric ward somewhere, because in modern societies, we judge people (in law) based on their actions, not their beliefs.
May 1st, 2007 at 12:20 pm
It is just *too* convenient that God won’t speak up and confirm anything in the bible or the koran. Too convenient that Mohamed was the (self-declared) last prophet, that God will not speak to anyone anymore, that there won’t be any miracles anymore, and so on. You know, just a little “yes, I really meant that” would help a lot, for an all powerful being, surely that’s not so hard to do.
It’s all circular logic, either hearsay or just the word of a “prophet” and nothing is verifiable. And that stinks of deception. Maybe “Abraham” didn’t really exist, and he’s a character invented to indoctrinate and manipulate people. Maybe most of the prophets were insane, conmen or both. People can be so gullible, and without independent confirmation, there’s no way that I can trust anything written in one of those books.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Pseudonym Says:
“I think that nobody should be allowed to interpret the Abraham story until they’ve read Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. Just a personal opinion.”
from the wikipedia article on the subject:
“faith is founded in the belief in the absurd”… “Silentio’s opinion is that what separates Abraham from being a killer is his faith.”
So simply because Deanna Laney has faith, she’s not a killer, according to Kierkegaard? The 9/11 terrorists, and other suicide bombers, aren’t killers either?
Or, is it a special kind of faith? How do you measure or assess faith to know if it is of that kind?
That really is so absurd.
May 1st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
How could Muhammed knows about all of these stories, and how he could tell that accurate and he didn’t study the bible because he didn’t even know how to read.
Stop being ignorant, and don’t forget that you beleive in fairy tales(evolution and big bang).
May 1st, 2007 at 7:17 pm
NoReligionIsPeace: Kierkegaard’s book goes much deeper into it than that. That summary isn’t exactly inaccurate, but it’s also fairly misleading.
DeusExMichael:
We have pretty much the same record that we have for any other ancient figure who wasn’t a monarch. We don’t, for example, have any external documentary evidence for the existence of Aesop. All we have is what he wrote (and not all of what he “wrote” was actually written by him), and a story about his life that came much later. But nobody seriously doubts that he really existed.
This seems like a good opportunity for a mini-rant.
When we read about ancient figures like Aesop or Helen of Troy, we usually have no problem with believing that they really existed, even though we may concede that some (or even most) of what’s written about them is not literal history. It would be unreasonable, after all, to require that 2000+ year old writers play by modern rules of journalism and biography.
But for some reason, when it comes to a religion that still exists and is locally in the majority (e.g. a Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion), some people seem more eager to believe that maybe those figures never really existed at all. That’s when we start leaving history and start the journey into pseudohistory.
I don’t have a persecution complex or a siege mentality, by any means, but I think it’s intellectually dishonest when a small minority of secular historians and prehistorians (usually armchair historians) treat Judeo-Christian religious texts differently from any other work of ancient mythology.
May 1st, 2007 at 7:25 pm
“I don’t have a persecution complex or a siege mentality, by any means, but I think it’s intellectually dishonest when a small minority of secular historians and prehistorians (usually armchair historians) treat Judeo-Christian religious texts differently from any other work of ancient mythology.”
on the contrary, you treat it differently. atheists treat ALL mythology the same.
May 1st, 2007 at 7:41 pm
“Stop being ignorant, and don’t forget that you beleive in fairy tales(evolution and big bang).”
Lying again Mohamed? You state that you know people don’t believe in evolution one day, then say that we believe in them another. Just like you state that you don’t want anyone to go to hell and suffer one day, then one another state how you’ll be so happy in your Islam boudoir with sweet wine and milk knowing that us non believers will be suffering in your pathetic god’s hell. Check your posts on this forum, you contradict yourself whenever convenient.
Which is it? Do you say we believe in evolution or not? Do you not want us to suffer or do you really hope we do? It can’t be all of the above. Which is lie and which is truth?
May 1st, 2007 at 8:33 pm
“…and God told him call the people and they will come from every where, and his son hit the ground with his legs and it opens a well in the ground, and this well still exist till now to prove that was true.”
According to Greek myth, Hercules placed the Pillars of Gibralter where they are. They are still there today. Does that make the tale of Hercules true?
May 1st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Here’s were Mohamed said he knows we don’t believe in evolution:
http://religiousfreaks.com/muhammed-caricatures/comment-page-13/#comment-50627
May 1st, 2007 at 9:38 pm
At first there was nothing. Then god said “let there be light”. There was still nothing but atleast you could see it now…..
May 1st, 2007 at 10:32 pm
For what it’s worth, I treat my mythology different from most Christians, too. I acknowledge that it’s mythology. I also claim that it works for me, and your mileage may vary. But we’re off the main topic…
I’m sure that you do. It’s true of most atheists, but it’s not true of all. Some have a real bug about mythology that’s associated with the locally-most-common religion. (In most English-speaking countries, that would be Christianity. In other places, it’s something else.)
I don’t think this is surprising. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all. But it is intellectually dishonest.
My point is that this “What evidence do we have for Abraham’s existence?” question would likely not be asked if we were talking about other legendised historical figures.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:48 pm
My point is that this “What evidence do we have for Abraham’s existence?†question would likely not be asked if we were talking about other legendised historical figures.
Because we have these fictional biblical figures shoved down our throats as if they were as real as our parents. We don’t have Zeus, Venus, Woden, Ulysees and the rest of the gang jammed down our throat as real. And very few if any people in the world use these guys as a moral compass.
May 1st, 2007 at 10:49 pm
I think some of us feel it’s intellectually dishonest but politically expedient in this environment where myth-based politics are killing dozens every day.
I think that approach though is intellectually cowardly. There are better ways to deal with dangerously irrational thinking than by adopting the opposite irrational stance - there is no real need for it ~ nothing destroys irrational ideas quite as well as honest and open-minded inquiry (although getting people to be either honest or open-minded, is not so easy!!)
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:48 am
On an unrelated note, the site RSS feed has a “hacked by chinese” entry. Not a patch on CyberWarrior Tim’s efforts, but you still might want to check it out.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
Brian
What kind of evidence do you want , should we shoot video for you to know that he existed, if you just can make me a time capsule I would really take my video camers and go shoot it for you:)
Seriously what kind of evidence, just give me one evidence you would like me to provide and I will do it. so what the evidence that napelone was a butt hole, or even existed?
The other thing, stop trying to be smart and take my words out of text and try to make a story out of it, you act like fox news, they take one word and make a story out of it.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:19 am
Evidence
Ok, go to this well you speak of and get definitive proof that it’s the well from you fairy tale. You can’t and you know it. It’s like the Pope saying he knows Mary was a virgen. He doesn’t know it and can’t prove it.
And I’m not twisting your words. You lie. It’s that simple. You say you know that people don’t believe in scientific theories but turn around and say that we believe in them like you believe in religion. You either think we believe in scientific theories like evolution or you don’t. One is a lie. I’ve shown links where you say this. Stop lying.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 am
I’m not lying, and the person who lies is the one who scared, I’m not scared of any thing, the one who should be scared is the one who doesn’t know where is he going and where is he coming from, and I think it would be you.
Secondly I don’t like somebody to call me liar, I never called such a thing and actually I know you lie, you lie even to your self by believing in what you thing and convincing your self that you are right.
Any way it’s ok, athiest accused our prophet Muhammed that he is liar, and I’m not better than him, I know your motive, so it’s ok.
You can ask sidfaiwu if I lie or not, and I think he will tell you better.
I hope you become more civilized and don’t call people names and trying to be silly like that, if you can’t take argument and you can’t win, don’t act like kids “you are liar waaaaa”, we are not here to win arguments, people come here to say what ever they want, you want to answer it, it’s ok we are in free country:))
May 2nd, 2007 at 5:23 am
Mohamed, you have said that you accept that I don’t believe in evolution, I have the link above. That is a fact. And in post 11 on this page you said that the people who (I have posted above) have posted before you believe in evolution and the big bang. That is also a fact. These facts contradict. You can’t believe both. So, you are lying. I like Sidfaiwu for his comments and insight. But I don’t need his opinion about whether you have lied or not. You plainly have.
I have been extremely civil with you. I have explained to you that science isn’t belief. That is is supported by evidence. That evolution isn’t random. Yet you show how uncivilized you are by not even arguing that. You ignore it totally. I have not called you names. I have only stated that either you lie when you say you know I and others don’t believe in evolution or you lie when you say we do. Now stop attacking me for being more civilized than you.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:50 am
The evidence I seek is simple. I want a reference to Abraham in a record that is separate from the Bible and Koran as they have shown to have all the historical accuracy of a dime store romance novel. He is supposedly a very important man in his time so why is there no record of him in the Babylonian or Egyptian texts? Why is it only those who claim descent from him that record his existence? Further, why is the only surviving record of his story penned hundreds of years later? Why is there no contemporary record? How about one penned by his own hand? I know if I am talking to God, I am going to write some of that shit down. Further, Moses, the one who supposedly wrote Abraham’s story turns out to have been at least 3 different people, not one actual man. How anyone can call that historical record is beyond me.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:10 am
Pseudonym,
“…treat Judeo-Christian religious texts differently from any other work of ancient mythology.”
The stakes are much higher. I think it’s legitimate to require higher standards of evidence for religious texts. It’s fine to try out an ice cream store simply because someone tells you they liked it. However, it’s also normal to have a house inspected by an expert (well, I wish house inspectors really were experts) before buying it, even if someone tells you they like it. The levels of assurance that are needed by a rational person increase with the stakes.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:17 am
Oh, and if you want me to believe in an invisible man in the sky who watches us all the time, will send us to hell if we misbehave to suffer for all eternity, but loves us, you better have good evidence! (inspired by George Carlin).
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:23 am
Mohamed Says:
“How could Muhammed knows about all of these stories, and how he could tell that accurate and he didn’t study the bible because he didn’t even know how to read.”
He could have faked being unable to read. Or, someone else could have read the bible to him. Or, the facts that he didn’t know how to read, or knew all about these stories, could have been made up by whoever reported it. There are tons of possibilities and other explanations if you open up your mind. Are there any proofs that he really didn’t know how to read, and couldn’t have learned of the bible stories in some other way?
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:53 pm
On a side-note: I’m going to see George Carlin this Saturday!
Anyone else notice the hacked RSS feed? Where the hell is Gas?
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm
To go back to the topic a bit.
That woman is going to hell on the fast track. Either god told her to kill the kids, and she goes and denies god by pleading insane, or god didn’t tell her and she murdered two kids… wrong move lady.
anyway, Mohamed, i wonder.
We keep showing you counter proof (well, not actaully counter, because you bring none) that all you claims are either plain wrong, or highly circumstantial.
As far as I remember, every single point brought up by you, supporting your side of the story has been chewed up and spat out as crap (sorry for the unpleasant use of words) How can you still claim your belief in God in founded in proof?
If you believe in God because you need the feeling of someone looking out for you, of having a purpose in your life and to feel safe, then why not just admit it? There’s no shame in that.
But trying to back your claim with this evidence, which doesn’t hold up to even the slightest scrutiny is not the way to go. If you believe in God, believe because you want to, believe because you NEED a god, but don’t say have proof there is a god, because there is no such thing.
I can’t say that there is no god, but I will rip every argument you support his existence to shreds.
I should really write a good piece about this someday.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:41 pm
The evidence again, that Muhammed told the stories in Quran and it’s the same prophets that the bible mentioned, he didn’t know how to read, nor how to write.
Why is that, because it’s the same god for the three reiligion, and let’s assume that Muhammde was that smart and he can fool a lot of people( which is impossible), why would he tell the same stories like bible, he should tell different story, so at least he would be uniqe and he looks like he get something different, but he didn’t because it’s the same god.
Mr Brian, I said before which I thing you are trynig to act like stupid intentionly, that I beleive that evolution exist for weak creature to survive, it’s just tool god put in this earth for the species that doesn’t have brain to survive, but it doesn’t QUALIFY( I hope you get it this time) to explain human-being existence.
By the way Utah Jazz is going to bea Huston( off topic)
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:48 pm
DeusExMichael:
Once again: Why would you expect otherwise? Who is going to record the existence of an Egyptian Pharoah except for a) the Egyptians, and b) anyone who defeated them? (After all, anyone who lost to them is hardly going to record it.)
You’re thinking too much like a modern biographer/journalist and not enough like an ancient chronicler. Back in the day, writing cost a lot. You needed someone who could write (i.e. a scribe), and materials that were expensive to produce. Nobody is going to write anything down just for the hell of it. And most of everything that wasn’t literally set in stone was lost, reused as a palimpsest or simply degraded over time.
Here’s a little research project for you: What documentary evidence is there for the destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE? The physical evidence is good, so we’re not going to disagree that it happened. This was a pretty significant event, we can probably agree on that. So what contemporary documentary evidence would you expect to find today? And what is there?
And the $64k question: Is it better or worse than the documentary evidence for Abraham?
NoReligionIsPeace:
If the point is to convince someone else to follow the religion, that makes a certain amount of sense, I suppose. But that was not the question being asked, was it.
BTW, I suspect that you don’t actually believe that the stakes are high. I know I don’t.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
“I should really write a good piece about this someday”
Didn’t Sam Harris do this already? It’s only like 80 or so B5 pages, you can finish it in an hour and a half, maybe two hours at the max…
I would love to try a challenge one day with a fundie where he get’s his best “conversion” text up to 100 pages long, and I bring along “letter to a christian nation”, and then we take turns for 30 minutes every day reading the *others* book out loud to the other, without comment or argument, and see what our belief systems look like at the end of it.
I don’t think they could sit through it :)
//does anyone know any cute 20-something fundie girls?
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Mohamed, you are either unable to understand what I write or deliberately avoiding my question. I don’t care whether you believe or don’t believe in evolution. My point is you say I do believe (see above) but also say I don’t (see other post). You are lying in one of those cases
Now the reason I’m harping on this is simple. You try to have it both ways. When it’s convenient you say we believe, like it’s some little fairy tale that you scorn in comparison to your belief. This is false, we have offered numerous explanations as to why it is false. You have not argued that these explanations are valid. You choose to ignore them so you can repeat you childish claim that we believe them.
When pressed you say you know we don’t believe in evolution, that you know that it’s only an explanation.
Which is it? Own up to your beliefs, either you believe that we believe in evolution or you believe that we don’t. You can’t have it both ways. Either you lied when you said we believed, or you lied when you said you knew we didn’t. Arguing with you is like handling a slippery fish, always changing to suit. You might believe it’s clever, but it only reveals that you have no argument firm enough to defend. Now, in all likelyhood you won’t address the substance of all my posts, and will pretend that it’s something else. I hope you don’t. I would like to see what you actually believe, and to see you argue it with something that approaches logic.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:57 pm
“Here’s a little research project for you: What documentary evidence is there for the destruction of Pompeii in 79 CE?”
Pliny the elder saw it, went and had a look from Stabie, with a retinue of people. He died there from the fumes. His nephew Pliny the younger recorded it. There were witnesses. And he wasn’t the only person to record it.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Brian: Who else was there and recorded it? So far, you have one first-hand report which still exists.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:37 pm
Pseudonym: Okay, show me physical evidence that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt. There is no Egyptian record of it. In fact, the Hebrew men involved in the pyramid construction process were honored with tombs near the Pharaoh himself, not the mass graves of a slave. Further, the Hebrew word Moses literally translates to Ramses. So their leader was a Pharaoh?
Further there is no physical evidence of a huge group wandering the desert for 40 years. One would think thousands of people would have left traces somewhere. The only peoples wandering that desert were the nomadic people that wander it to this day.
Pompeii’s destruction was widely chronicled by many scholars from the land surrounding the disaster. There is both physical and recorded evidence of this occurrence. Show me even one piece of physical evidence to back up the stories in the bible.
Lacking the physical, I will even take the writings of these men’s contemporaries. There must have been one to have written of the mass exodus of Egypt’s slave workforce and destruction of its army in the depths of the sea, right?
Nope, not even one shred beyond the writings in the Bible. No physical evidence and only one witness to all of this. Even in the Bible that wouldn’t have worked.
“In the mouthes of two or three witnesses shall all thing be established.” 2 Corinthians 13:1.
Where is your second witness? No physical evidence and only one writer that isn’t even the contemporary of the event and you really want me to believe? That is just silly.
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Oh, and one more thing: Do you know why Pliny the Younger wrote that letter to Tacitus?
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
“Do you know why Pliny the Younger wrote that letter to Tacitus?”
Well, obviously to start a new religion based upon stories of mountains blowing their tops and killing uncles who got too curious. I mean it’s not like Pliny the Elder, Pliny the younger, and Tacitus have been verified as being actual historic characters. And we all know that mountains don’t erupt, the whole idea of a volcanoe is obviously fraudulent and a fairy tale. Pompeeii, Herculeum, Stabiae, and Mount Vesuvius, never existed did they? Not attested to. Not like those real characters from that great history book called the bible. I still marvel at how a single man, with no real tools could build a boat in 40 days, that we couldn’t do this day. Then house all those hundreds of thousands of species inside his boat and how he forgot the dinosaurs and trilobytes so they became fossilized. And how even though he forgot to put plants in his boat they didn’t drown that whole time under the water. Now that’s real verified history.
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:13 pm
DeusExMichael:
You’re off topic. We’re talking specifically about Abraham.
But you’re almost making my point for me. My point is that even huge events in a relatively literate culture (like the destruction of Pompeii) often leave almost no documentary evidence. We have one document from one eyewitness.
Asking for evidence “that is separate from the Bible and Koran” is simply not going to happen, because, quite frankly, we’re lucky to have even one documentary reference. If we weren’t talking about a buried city that we happen to know the location of, the documentary evidence would almost be on par.
I say “almost” because, of course, the Torah was not written down by eyewitnesses. Traditionally, Moses wrote the account in question. He almost certainly didn’t, but even if you assume he did, there’s no way he was an eyewitness to his own distant ancestor’s life.
I don’t care what you believe. I just want you to treat the Bible as you would any other ancient text, like boris claims that atheists do. (And, indeed, most of them do.)
Look, I don’t know if Abraham really existed or not. What I do know is that the evidence is about as good as that for the existence of any other non-monarch-level non-writer ancient historical figure that you care to name.
You may, of course, not agree that everything said about him is literal history. Can’t argue with you there.
Now, we’re getting off-topic, but…
I think you’re mistaking me for a biblical literalist.
I’m not sure where you got that from. As far as I can see, that’s not true. “Mosis” actually means “son of”, much like “Mac” in Scotland. There were several Pharoahs with the name Thothmosis, which literally means “Son of Thoth”.
Even on the off chance that it’s true (which I doubt; evidence please), you might like to think about European surnames, which often came from professions. “Smith” was a blacksmith or metalsmith, for example. Where did surnames like “King”, “Bishop” or “Pope” come from?
Excuse me? Why would a nomadic culture (I don’t know how many they were, perhaps not “thousands”) leave a large trace? Exactly what evidence would you expect to find? Not permanent structures, that’s for sure.
For the record, plenty of nomadic groups settled down eventually. Or did you think that our pre-human ancestors also built cities?
Only one witness to the destruction of Pompeii. Your point?
That’s a quote from Deuteronomy 19:15. I didn’t know this was a legal case.
Where did I say that?
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:42 pm
“I don’t know if Abraham really existed or not. What I do know is that the evidence is about as good as that for the existence of any other non-monarch-level non-writer ancient historical figure that you care to name.”
If that’s the standard of proof then we have to accept that Ulysees existed and cyclops, poseidon etc. The Illiad was written down long after it “occurred”. It has magic and miracles. Characters that may or may not have existed. Shouldn’t we fear the wrath of Zeus? Consider Troy, it was out of favour with the gods……
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:47 pm
ok, there is big differnce when I say I beleive in god, and when I say I beleive in evolution, I beleive in god means that I worship god, when I say I beleive in evolution exist for species sake, that means that I think in it as a good thoery for weaker and primitive creature to exist to go with the surounding enviroment.
I hope I got your point and you got mine, because I still don’t get why you calling me liar for?
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Since you have no intention of answering the question, I’ll do it for you.
Pliny the Younger wrote his account in a letter to Tacitus because Tacitus asked for it for his Histories.
Think about that for a moment. Had someone not asked for it, there would be no eyewitness evidence to the destruction of Pompeii at all. As important and remarkable an event as it was, it wasn’t important enough for a very literate eyewitness to write about it at the time.
Why, then, would you expect anyone to write about a guy who happened to have a lot of nomadic ancestors? Why would you expect this evidence?
I hope you’re not suggesting that merely being mentioned in the Bible, Egypt and Canaan didn’t exist either.
You are completely and utterly missing the point, so I’ll try to spell this out again.
History is a methodology. It’s a bit like science a bit like detective work. It’s like science in the sense that you make hypotheses about what happened, and then you work out what evidence you’d see if X happened, and what evidence you’d see if X didn’t happen.
Today, people have blogs where they note every time their cat hacks up a furball. Two thousand or so years ago, literacy was rare and writing materials were expensive. People simply didn’t write things down unless there was a reason to. And without the benefit of modern archival technology, what was written down was either reused (because paper-equivalents were so expensive) or destroyed. Unless the document was important enough to copy, it’s likely that it didn’t survive.
For our purpose, this is the key thing: If you have no reason to expect any evidence of X exists, even if X really happened, then its absence proves nothing.
Indeed, there are plenty of examples of historical events which nobody seriously doubts happened (reports may have been embellished in the retelling, of course), but for which there is exactly no first-hand evidence left.
As an example, whether or not the Trojan War really happened is up for some debate, but most historians believe that at least some of it is true. This is despite there being no first-hand documentary or physical evidence. All we really have is the Iliad, and we know it’s at best a fairly fanciful retelling.
The suggestion that the question of the existence of Abraham requires two pieces of evidence is, quite frankly, obtuse. You’re lucky to get one piece of evidence at all.
And all we’re really talking about here is whether or not there was a guy of that name who had a lot of descendents. Honestly, what’s the big deal here?
As for Noah, sure, the story that we have is almost certainly fanciful, but I don’t find it hard to buy that there was a real flood (or possibly several floods) which decimated the “world” as it was known at the time and eventually ended up as mythological legend. We even have other flood stories from the region, like the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Atrahasis Epic.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:02 am
“Stop being ignorant, and don’t forget that you beleive in fairy tales(evolution and big bang).”
“there is big differnce when I say I beleive in god, and when I say I beleive in evolution, I beleive in god means that I worship god, when I say I beleive in evolution exist for species sake, that means that I think in it as a good thoery for weaker and primitive creature to exist to go with the surounding enviroment.”
I called you a liar because of the above quotes. Your first quote makes it quite clear that you are talking about belief in gods. You make it clear that people who “believe” in evolution have faith in it and are ignorant. The who “fairy tale” quote makes it quite clear that you don’t mean belief as in best explanation.
So, the next time someone says that you don’t have proof for the Quran or that Mohamed was a prophet don’t retort “Stop being ignorant, and don’t forget that you beleive in fairy tales(evolution and big bang).” Because if you do, you will have lied again.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
“You are completely and utterly missing the point”
I had no real point. Just being sarcastic. I tried to put a hint at the end but the website cut it off assuming it as a HTML tag.
To be honest I agree with you, we just don’t have the evidence. Obviously Pomepeii has been discovered and that coincides with Pliny’s account. And there are cuniform tablets from the Hittites that seem to suggest that the Trojan war was fought over territory/resources. But it’s only a suggestion. I think that’s why anybody who says this or that happened in antiquity really is just fantasizing. And that goes for the whole bible/Koran. Sure, there are some factual tidbits in those books, and some common sense. But to suggest there is a god from those books is the same as saying the Illiad confirms the existence of Zeus.
May 3rd, 2007 at 12:48 am
Brian,
I don’t beleive that Evolution is the reason for the human being existence and that’s the fairy tale of it, and then the whole big bang is really fairy tale.
Should I repeat my self 500 times. I think you are lying saying that big bang and evolution are the reason for this world existence, because I have feeling that you don’t even beleive it.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:01 am
Brian: I think we’re in essential agreement here.
Where I disagree with most Judeo-Christian religious people is in the very nature of religion itself. Religion isn’t something you believe in, it’s something you do. And as such, it makes no more sense to ask “Is Christianity true?” than to ask “Is the wearing of hats true?”
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:08 am
“I think you are lying saying that big bang and evolution are the reason for this world existence, because I have feeling that you don’t even beleive it.”
I never said evolution was the reason for the worlds’ existence. I don’t believe I’ve ever actually argued about the big bang with you, but if I have I’m sure you’ll show me the links.
I have said so many times that I don’t believe in scientific theories. You have read that. How many times do I have to say it? I have said they are just explanations for naturally occuring phenomena. Are you incapable of understanding this? This is why I call you a liar when you compare belief in a god to accepting evolution as the best explanation we have for all the forms of life we see. You say you know I don’t believe in it (see link above) and yet you still come out with crap like “Stop being ignorant, and don’t forget that you beleive in fairy tales(evolution and big bang)”
You either do believe that I believe in scientific theories like you believe in religion or you don’t in which case don’t compare it to religion. Is it that hard for you to understand?
Science is not faith, it’s a series of explanations that change to fit the evidence. Saying I or other rational people believe in science as though it were like your faith in the Quran is a lie.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:14 am
“Religion isn’t something you believe in, it’s something you do.”
Yeah, it’s most definetely a cultural thing. The trouble is people can be so attached to it, that they can’t see it’s just something that through sheer luck their family/culture practises. Not a truth, just a parochial tradition.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:22 am
You can’t have faith in something might change all the time, so as you said theories could change, but god never change.
Just to let you know something, I don’t read any of the wikipedia links, I don’t trust Wikipedia, I don’t like to read user writting and fantasis, based on wishings and dreams.
Man with out beleif is an empty man, what are you here for in this life, is it working and eating and drinking, is it any purpose for your existence, or it’s just happend, have you ever thought about, and if you thought about, did you read about it, and see what options out there to explain what you are here for in this life, or it’s just life you are going to spend it with no purpose.
That’s why Gasonmo felt the way he is feeling now, the way he can’t explain, the emptiness in his life, even though as he mentioned he has every thing any man could hope for, but it still something missing, the purpose why is he here for.
I didn’t want to jump on this topic when he mentioned it, but that’s the truth, if you forget god, god will make you forget your self, he will make you confused.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:36 am
“You can’t have faith in something might change all the time, so as you said theories could change, but god never change.”
Good, so don’t ever say: “Stop being ignorant, and don’t forget that you beleive in fairy tales(evolution and big bang)” again, because you know it’s a lie!
As to your unsubtle attempt to change the subject.
I don’t believe in god and I have a great life. I know many people who also don’t believe in god and have a great life. So, you using Gasmonso as evidence, without any proof as to why he is having a funk is just wishfull thinking on your part. You have no proof that it’s because he doesn’t believe in god. It’s quite sad how religious people use other’s suffering as proof that they are somehow in command of a truth. Like those guys who said the recent college shootings in Virginia were proof that god was angry that he’d been kicked out of the classroom. As if you could kick an all powerful god out any place. Silly.
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:24 am
Brian, dont you see? It’s because god gave us free will that we have pushed him out of the classrooms. So god sent an unbalanced college student into the world to set it all straight by killing innocent fellow college students. Man, that is some sick logic, however iv heard it more than a few times on my college campus(NCSU is a lot like VT and not to far away). I really wish all the best to the survivors of that tragedy and hope that this changes their lives for the better in the end. The most powerful story that came out of this was a professor giving his life to save those of his students. This man survived the Holocaust, he survived against an entire country wanting to kill his kind, all so that he would be murdered is cold blood by a sick little prick. What god would let that happen?
Sorry for not being on lately, just wrapping up exams. Plus most of the fundies seem to have disappeared.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 am
Maybe not, but humanities view of god has changed A LOT over time.
Why does life have to have a purpose? This is where most religious nuts go wrong. You asume, most egocentrically, that life has to have a purpose, your mind simply cannot grasp that the world is not about you.
If you need comfirmation of life in the form of God, then that is a weakness in YOUR character. If you need to hide from real life, in the feeling that God wants good for you and that everything will be fine, then go ahead and hide in religion, we don’t mind.
However, when you call us empty and sad (clearly not the case, i’ve never been happier since i left church and christianity behind me) I have to say that you are obviously wrong, and know nothing at all about humanity.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
Heh, I almost dated one, until she asked if I was “A good catholic guy” When it turned out she was serious, I ran like hell.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:43 am
“Why does life have to have a purpose?”
Alcari, its very simple, as humans our purpose is to continue and further the progress of mankind. This is the same with all other animals for that matter. So its not that we dont have a purpose, its just that our real purpose isnt good enough for them.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:51 am
Pseudonym,
you say “I think it’s intellectually dishonest when a small minority of secular historians and prehistorians (usually armchair historians) treat Judeo-Christian religious texts differently from any other work of ancient mythology.”
So, you accuse people of being intellectually dishonest and when I respond to that, you belittle my answer by saying “that was not the question asked”. If that’s not dishonest, it’s disingenuous.
Then you go on, being more dismissive: “BTW, I suspect that you don’t actually believe that the stakes are high. I know I don’t.” Let me explain why I believe that they are very high, although I suspect that you’re a troll. People organize bible study groups all the time. The bible is quoted to them every time they go to church, and by every bible thumper. Fundies (many of them in the bible belt here) believe firmly in what is written in it. The characters in the bible are used to indoctrinate us from early childhood, with story books, etc… Then these people go and make political and ethical decisions, they vote, make laws, and judges smuggle monuments to the 10 commandments in the courtroom with religious fervor (real event). To suggest that the accuracy of the bible doesn’t matter is disingenuous, when it makes such extravagant claims and people believing in it almost word for word have such a great influence on our world. And finally, because the accuracy of that book is not questioned openly and often enough, you get people doing copy-cat crimes, sacrificing their children and whatnot without understanding that they are committing a crime. If those are not high enough stakes, I’d like to know what you think are.
Then don’t get me started on Sharia law: an entire legislative system ruling the lives of millions, based on the interpretation of another old book that could be a complete fantasy. So, I believe it is evident that all religious books that carry power in our lives should be held to greater standards of evidence, due to that very power, whether they are from the “Judeo-Christian-Islamic religion” or any other religion.
You say:
“The suggestion that the question of the existence of Abraham requires two pieces of evidence is, quite frankly, obtuse. You’re lucky to get one piece of evidence at all.”
To get back to the original post, the question is not whether or not someone named Abraham existed; it’s whether or not there really was someone ordered to sacrifice his children to God, by God himself, as some kind of sick test of his faith, who was going to do that, and who got spared at the last minute by God’s intervention. Why doesn’t that happen all the time anymore? If it was a just thing to do then why isn’t it now? Or did God make a mistake? Or is this story pure fantasy, or the telling of the story of a psychopath, serving as a justification for yet more psychos?
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 am
Mohamed Says:
“The evidence again, that Muhammed told the stories in Quran and it’s the same prophets that the bible mentioned, he didn’t know how to read, nor how to write…”
Huh, thanks for trying to explain it. That doesn’t make sense to me, however. I find it somewhat humorous and sad that I must appear as obtuse to you as you appear to me (this is not meant as an insult).
May 4th, 2007 at 1:45 am
It doesn’t make sense to you, because you don’t want to think about it, you don’t want to think how his stories about the prophet which came in Quran matched the bible.
You are going to say he might heard it and he fooled people with it, but would that be reasonable?, if somebody want to fool somebody, I think he would get his own stories and compete with the bible, but it’s all from God, so there is no competetion, he was just telling what comes to him from God.
I know it’s not going to make sense to you again.
May 4th, 2007 at 2:17 am
@Mohamed
If a man writes a book then says “I couldn’t read or write, but now I can, by magic of god! So I wrote book, but I didn’t copy, promise! It is the same by magic of god!”
2 possibilities are:
#1. He can write by magic of god
…or…
#2. He is lying crazy guy
What do you think?
And… “I didn’t copy, honest, it was miracle” - sounds exactly same like every lazy university student who copies!!!
That is NOT proof. You are smart guy, come on, you know in your heart that, even if there is proof, THIS is not it…
May 4th, 2007 at 2:19 am
sorry, #2 is vague - I should say
#2. He is crazy guy who learned to read the normal way but wants to tell lies about it
May 4th, 2007 at 2:54 am
so you mean to tell me that “the prophet” taking a highly successful (already was at that point) religion model and copying it, is somehow unlikely and hard to believe? what better way to give one self “credibility” than to claim one is the last (ever) prophet in a long line of other “holy” prophets. if i was to start a religion, thats exactly what i’d do…
mohammed, i have a bridge to sell you. god told me you need a bridge… interested? think about it, i know nothing about bridges. truly a miracle…
May 4th, 2007 at 2:57 am
Plagiarism is rife with religious texts and as any good salesman knows. Selling a new, unknown product with little commonality with the crowd is a hard sell. Where upon a product with ties to existing product is easier to sell as people respond more positively to something which has been tested and found usable.
It does not have to be the same product but it has to be similar so people are familiar enough with it. Familiarity breeds contentment.
We could also debate which parts of the bible were not already plagiarized by Christians from other cultures, would be a short to non-existent list but that is not the point.
The point is that there is really nothing confirming that the stories of bible or quran are original but those stories do try to obfuscate the true origin with internal references and various taradiddle with the oh, so willing help from the believers.
Me, I believe Abraham and Laney both were insane but Abraham had the good fortune to have some servant bold enough to stop him from killing his son. Deranged mind transformed that servant into an angel.
I find it highly peculiar that god who talks to people never seem to talk them out of silly acts or just tell them to stop acting like twits but keeps sending angels to do the stopping.
May 4th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
to make a short translation of what jagannath said, and what is our biggest problem with the bible and quran.
There is nothing that proves the books are true, other then what is written in the books themselves
May 4th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Ah, well my sentiments can be composed with elect words as Alcari has established here. :)
May 4th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Not sure if this was covered, but God actually did allow this in the bible:
Judges 10:6-12:7. The story of his daughter’s sacrifice is covered in Judges 11:29-40.
So, let’s not think that God won’t allow anyone to go all the way.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:40 pm
Actually Jephthah decided it himself to sacrifice the first living thing coming to meet him after he returned victorious, that was not required by the god. Not really comparable with Abrahams story where god told him to go and sacrifice his son.
God does allow and disallow sacrifices in the bible and that is the root of the problems. One would expect to make his mind of such issue instead of dilly dallying around it.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Alcari,
“There is nothing that proves the books are true, other then what is written in the books themselves”?
So, are the places, people and events mentioned in the Bible all made up? Were the apostles fictional characters or real people? If they were real people, why on earth would they commit their lives to spreading the “made up” story of the resurection? Why endure constant ridicule, abuse, arrests, and finally death for what they must have known was a lie?
May 4th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Boris,
If you read enough, christinity wasn’t spread at the area where Muhammed raised, so there is nothing to copy from.
Muhammed didn’t write by him self, Muhammed was telling it and Osman write it down for him.
Muhammed didn’t know any thing about any other reiligions, the only thing he didn’t do, that he didn’t worship idols like his people, other than that he had no knowledge of any other religion.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Does the Koran teach that Muhammed died?
May 5th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Also, I believe that large portions of the Koran seem to have been taken directly from the Torah.
May 5th, 2007 at 12:49 am
The Quran teach that Muhammed is just human being he was chosen and he is the best human being came to this earth, so human being mean he also died.
We beleive in Torah and Bible and Quran, Muslim can’t be a Muslims with out beleive in the three messages, Torah and Bible change by people through the time, but it still has the god word in most part of it, while Quran didn’t change.
The other thing Quran is written differntly than the Torah and the Bible, Torah and Bible wrote by people after Moses died and after Jesus lifting to the sky(he didn’t die yet), but the Quran has been written as Muhammed said after revlation in his life.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:36 am
@mohammed
how exactly do you know that he had no knowledge of other religions? islam is so similar to other abrahamic mythology that there are only two explanations: plagiarism or divine influence. i don’t need to tell you which one is infinitely unlikely.
May 5th, 2007 at 5:24 am
@Doug:
You have to be joking. If, as I interpret from this, you are a christian, then you hold hinduism, islam, sihkism etc all to be lies, and yet you see these people on the TV news doing exactly what you say the appostles did. You think they “must know” it’s a lie? Or not? Yet early christians would be different???
How is that an argument????
May 5th, 2007 at 5:34 am
uhh, all the places, most of the people and some events in the last Tom Clancy novel are real. Does that make it thruth?
May 5th, 2007 at 5:39 am
@Mohamed:
Muhammed didn’t write by him self, Muhammed was telling it and Osman write it down for him.
Thanks, I wasn’t aware of that - sorry for my ignorant presumption…
But it doesn’t change anything, what you are describing, these days, is called “academic collusion” or “conspiracy to fraud”….. So if we have Osman saying “it wasn’t me, honest, it was all him”, and Mohamed saying “yeah, what he said”… that’s pretty weak evidence for god-magic.
Also, what about Islam people today who can’t read, but hear Islam only from the Mullah? So if Mohamed can’t read but knows about Jewish religion, then I think perhaps then the similarities show Mohamed was sneaking off into the Synagog to worship with the Jews! Well ok… I know that’s not a very nice idea, but still, what would make that so impossible?
So still we have:
Observation: Someone says a book came from god-magic
Possible causes:
1) They saw some god-magic
or
2) They are lying
Like I said before - and you are too smart not to know it - there might be evidence, but THIS is not evidence.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:06 am
Lets see, christianity had been around for nearly 700 years at the time of quran was written but for some reason rumours and knowledge of it had managed to skip by the lands of muhammed.
Seriously, claiming that no one knew of christianity or judaism in medina makes it look really bad for the society and I for one am not ready to believe the arabs of that time were as ignorant as claims like that would require them to be.
They would not admit of borrowing texts from others but claiming that they just managed to avoid the myths of their own homeland and new teachings being spread around and then wrote near identical holy book to existing ones borders ridiculous and I for one cannot believe it.
Today you can be a muslim without believing in any of the holy books as you are born to a society where converting to other religion or to forsaking religion is impossible without moving to a country where it is possible and even then you are in danger of being targeted by some true believer.
May 5th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Jagannath,
There was Christians around and there were Jews around too, but they didn’t dare to invite people to their religion, because the people wouldn’t let them do that. Mecca was the pilgrimage for a lot of people who worship idols, which brought them business, so nobody dared to change this fact(Christians or Jews).
Again, if people treat Christians so bad in ME, that’s not Islam, it’s from the ignorance of Muslims, not from Islam.
By the way I was in Egypt, and I visited the Alexandrian catacombs, it’s really amazing place to see, I lived in Alexandria for 25 years, I didn’t know such place exists, thanks for my wife, you can see how the Roman tortured Christian in this place. Here is the link if you want to see the pictures, and one of the pictures for Hall Of Caracalla Remembrance To Christians Killed in Alexandria’s Amphitheater.
Islam saved Christians from the Roman, the evidence in this link if you want to check the web site http://www.delange.org/Catacombs/EP8.htm.
Any way you can visit the web site, it’s really amazing place to see, I was so amazed how this people build this thing, and how they buried their dead people, and how civilized and organized they were, by the way this place now is under the modern city of Alexandria, where they had to dig so deep to show this place.
I’m sorry if I got off topic here, but it something I wanted to share with you, and I think it proves how the Christian were prosecuted under the Roman and who saved them, and it was Islam but different Muslims than what you see now, so the Islam is right and the Muslims now is wrong.
May 5th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
recovered catholic,
Sorry for the delay in responding, but I just got home.
The difference between the Hindus, Muslims, and others who die for their beliefs today and the apostles is huge. Someone may die today for what they believe to be true but no one will die for what they know to be a lie. The apostles claimed to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection and they went to their deaths affirming that claim. Not something most would be willing to do for a made up incident.
Oh, and Alcari, are you aware of anyone who believes that Tom Clancy is writing non-fiction?
May 5th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Sorry, Doug, but I still don’t see a difference. Would you mind elaborating a little more please? Also, how do we know the apostles were martyred and for what reason?
May 5th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
sidfaiwu,
A person may be sincere in their religious belief and may even die for that belief, even though it may actually be false. The apostles however, claimed to be eyewitnesses to the resurrection. If they were fabricating the story, it is inconceivable that they would face a lfe of persecution, arrest, and ultimately death for what they knew was a lie. Could they keep the conspiricy going? Does that seem reasonable? It’s not like they had anything to gain by spreading this crazy sounding story about Jesus. What was their motivation? What changed them from cowardly followers of a dead rabi to bold proclaimers of an impossible sounding claim?
As far as the apostles deaths go, there are some deaths recorded in the NT, (which you probably won’t consider trustworthy), for instance Acts 12 records the death of James by Herod Agrippa who died in AD 44, the 4th year of Claudius Caesar. Also, early church history records other deaths (which you will also probably find unsuitable).
Just curious, what would it take for you to consider the New Testament reliable?
May 5th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
sidfaiwu,
Hey, I guess I am talking to you on two threads:^) I will stick with this one for the duration. I am off to study algebra and will look for your response in the am. Later.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
“Islam saved Christians from the Roman”
Ok, a few dates here. Unless I’m wrong christianity was a separate cult from Judaism in the decades after the supposed crucifixion/resurection thingy. The Christians were persecuted for a few centuries by the romans. Then Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire. All this happened before Mohamed was born. So which christians were saved by Islam? Were they heretics? And secondly, were they forced to pay a tax for not beling muslims and treated as second class citizens to speed up their conversion?
May 6th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Brian,
Let me tell you the history my friend, when Muhammed shows up, Roman was still in Egypt, and they slaved Christians, you can read the history and you will find me correct, Muslims went to Egypt and they throw the Roman out, and Christian suffering stopped.
Muslims paid Zakat too, there were not taxes at this time, otherwise I shouldn’t pay taxes in USA because I’m not Christian, if that’s your logic.
Christians didn’t convert because of what you mentioned, Christians converted for what they found are true, and they found Muslim mercifull with them, that’s why, you can’t change somebody’s beleif by money, Both parts pay money, Zakat couldn’t be for non-Muslim.
I’m afraid you are going to accuse me that I’m liar again :) just kidding.
By the way GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO UTAH JAZZZZZZZZZZZ(off Topic).
May 6th, 2007 at 4:14 am
The Roman Empire under emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion. He died in 337. So any romans in Egypt at the time of the Islamic conquest would have been christian. It is possible that the christians you refer to were Coptic not orthodox. But they were still christians just like the romans. In fact I think you’ll find the romans were actually byzantine greeks. The muslims didn’t go to Egypt to throw out the Greeks, they did it to expand the muslim territories.
The tax I was refering to was the “Jiyza”, which only non muslims living in a muslim country pay. And non believers have to acknoledge the supremacy of Islam and not convert anyone to their religion. I think anyway. I’m sure you’ll correct me.
May 6th, 2007 at 4:19 am
Hello Mohammed. You really have your history mixed up. Christianity flourished across North Africa in the six centuries before your prophet, but the persecution of the Roman Ceasars ended with Constantine in the early 4th Century, four centuries before the beginning of Islam. When Islam subjugated the North African church, the Christians became second class citizens and were prohibited to practice freely, if not forced to convert. Also, North African Islam has always practiced the evil of slavery even to this day.
All too often the Islam that is preached in the West is sanitized to make it more platatable. If you would look at the history of your religion from *outside* of Islamic sources, including the history of the Quran and your prophet, you might get a clearer picture.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Hello Doug,
Forgive for taking a while to respond. I’m actually entertaining a guest all week so my participation will be intermittent, I’m afraid.
So the difference between the apostles and other religion’s martyrs is that they were eye witnesses? Okay, I can give more credence to firsthand accounts than secondhand or more. But that is precisely the issue I have with the accounts of the apostle’s deaths and the NT. The earliest copies of the New Testament that we have were written over 300 years after the life of Jesus. These have probably been copied, interpreted, and translated numerous times. Worse yet, these copies were not used to create our moder New Testament, inferior copies were. These where then copied, interpreted, and translated numerous times. The conclusion that I draw from this is that is that the miraculous elements of the New Testament were added slowly and incrementally over the centuries by parties who had an interest in adding them. This would especially be the case if the stories were passed down orally for a few generations before making into writing.
I admit that I am no biblical historian and can easily be mistaken on some of what I wrote. I have only talked with people who have a lot more knowledge on the subject than I and read some online information. So please, don’t take my word for it. Instead read up on Biblical history and make your own conclusion how reliable the NT is.
“Just curious, what would it take for you to consider the New Testament reliable?”
Separate, written, eye-witness accounts from multiple and separate parties that can conclusively be tied to the location and time of the eye-witnesses. Some of the witnesses would have to be non-believers as well.
May 6th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Hey Sidfaiwu,
I believe that you are a bit off as far as NT manuscript dates go. You can look at some early NT papyri such as p52(John Rylands Fragment)125 A.D., p46
(Chester Beatty Papyrus) 200 A.D., p66(Bodmer Papyrus) 200 A.D. These are some pretty good examples of early manuscripts. Especially p45 p46 p47 p66 p75 of the Chester Beatty Papyrus group which contains almost all of the New Testament and is dated around 200 A.D. The originals are thought to have been written between 50 and 70 A.D. Even though these papyri are from different geographical areas, they are very good copies with only minor grammatical differences between them and the numerous other copies of the text (aprox. 24,000).
I will also admit that I am not an expert in the field of Biblical textual criticism, but I do think that there is some compelling evidence for the New Testament’s reliability which should be seriously considered before casually dismissing it as myth or well intentioned exageration. The scribes thought that they were copying God’s word and were very careful as the ancient manuscripts prove.
Perhaps you would consider reading “The New Testament Documents, are they reliable?” by F.F. Bruce. It is only about 12 chapters and you can read it here: http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocont.htm
As for non-believing witnesses of the same time and location, have you considered the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus (A.D. 55-120)? In his “Annals” he writes about Nero’s persecution of Christians and he names “Christus” as the founder of their group who “…was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius…” He goes on to make an allusion to the resurrection by writing about the “…pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again…through the city of Rome also.” (Annals XV, 44)
There are more examples, but for now, algebra calls:^0
I will give serious thought to your points and I hope you will do the same.
Thanks for the dialogue.
May 6th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Mohamed may be talking about the persecution of the Monophysites (in 629), ten years before the Arabs invaded in 639.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegyptus_(Roman_province)
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relevant parts copied from the wikipedia page
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Byzantine Egypt
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The new religious controversy was over the nature of Jesus Christ. The issue was whether Christ had two natures (Human and Divine) or one. This may seem an arcane distinction, but in an intensely religious age it was enough to divide an empire. The Monophysite controversy arose after the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and continued until the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which ruled in favour of the position that Christ was “In two natures”. This belief was not held by the monophysites as they stated that Christ was out of two natures in one nature called the “Incarnate Logos of God”. Many of the monophysites claimed that they were misunderstood, that there was really no difference between their position and the orthodox position, and that the Council of Chalcedon ruled against them because of political motivations. But Egypt and Syria remained hotbeds of Monophysite sentiment, and organised resistance to the orthodox view was not suppressed until the 570s.
The reign of Justinian (482–565) saw the Empire recapture Rome and much of Italy from the barbarians, but these successes left the Empire’s eastern flank exposed.
Persian conquest
The Persian conquest of Egypt, beginning in 619 or 618, was one of the last Sassanid triumphs in the Roman-Persian Wars against Byzantium. Khosrow II Parvêz had begun this war in retaliation for the assassination of Emperor Maurice (582-602) and had achieved a series of early successes, culminating in the conquests of Jerusalem (614) and Alexandria (619). A Byzantine counteroffensive launched by Emperor Heraclius in spring 622 shifted the advantage, however, and the war was brought to an end by the fall of Khosrow on 25 February 628 (Frye, pp. 167-70). The Egyptians had no love of the Emperor in Constantinople and put up little resistance. Khosrow’s son and successor, Kavadh II Šêrôe (Šêrôy), who reigned until September, concluded a peace treaty returning territories conquered by the Sassanids to the Eastern Roman Empire.
The Persian conquest allowed Monophysitism to resurface in Egypt, and when imperial rule was restored by Emperor Heraclius in 629, the Monophysites were persecuted and their patriarch expelled. Egypt was thus in a state of both religious and political alienation from the Empire when a new invader appeared.
Arab conquest
An army of 4,000 Arabs led by Amr ibn al-As, was sent by the Caliph Umar, successor to the Prophet Muhammad, to spread his new faith, Islam, to the west. The Arabs crossed into Egypt from Palestine in December 639, and advanced rapidly into the Nile Delta. The Imperial garrisons retreated into the walled towns, where they successfully held out for a year or more. But the Arabs sent for reinforcements, and in April 641 they captured Alexandria. Most of the Egyptian Christians welcomed their new rulers: the accession of a new regime meant for them the end of the persecutions by the Byzantine state church. The Byzantines assembled a fleet with the aim of recapturing Egypt, and won back Alexandria in 645, but the Muslims retook the city in 646, completing the Muslim conquest of Egypt. Thus ended 975 years of Græco-Roman rule over Egypt.
May 6th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Hey Hokan, thanks for the info. Mohamed won’t accept it though, because you quoted Wikipedia and he doesn’t trust that source. Just teasing Mohamed ;-)
So, I think we can agree that Islam kicked out the Greeks, who saw themselves as successors of the roman empire?
Hey Doug you say that the papyrii were dated about a century or so after the time Christ is suppossed to have died/resurrected. What dating did they use? Second, it’s still a century after in a superstitious, highly politically charged and largely uneducated society that’s more than enough to make up resurrections and miracles. You only have to look at how quickly the cargo cults of the Pacific islands arose and how remarkably similar they were to the incipient christianity.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Brian,
I guess it would be easier to dismiss the NT if there were not so many accurate ancient manuscripts. The copies, which are dated around 150 A.D., (I’ll get back to you on the dating method used) are nearly complete copies of the entire NT of which fragments dated much earlier match almost exactly.
You mentioned a “superstitious, highly politically charged and largely uneducated society”. Were you talking about people who watch The View?
Also, I really think it’s a big stretch to compare early Christianity to the cargo cults.
One last thing, do you believe that Jesus was a real person?
May 6th, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Hi Doug, I think there we lots of people called Jesus around that time and no doubt a few were radical Jews, preaching some form of modification of the mainstream judaism of that time. So, sure, one or more of the Jesus preachers could’ve been recorded. But the message was massaged and changed so much. Miracles added to impress the superstitious people along the way.
It’s very much like the cargo cults. Within a few years people were waiting for the return of a John Frum, who would give them great material rewards. There is no evidence of this man existing, but don’t tell that to the faithfull. Just like christians waiting for superJesus to return and conquer the bad guys.
And the society of the era was superstitious, they believed in god (or gods if you’re roman), though sickness was caused by demonic possession, etc . It was politically charged as the Romans were supressing the Jews. And largely uneducated, if you weren’t a religious person or roman functionary, you probably didn’t read or know much more than local cultural “wisdom”.
May 7th, 2007 at 1:45 am
Brian,
Just correction, Muslims didn’t conquer these countries to expand their empror, they did it to spread Islam, that want the only way to do it, like now I don’t thing it’s proper to do it this way, because there is a lot of ways to do it, communication now make it easier for people to hear about Islam, you have the media every where, you have the internet.
Muslims didn’t force Islam on any body, they conquer these countries to just tell there is religion called Islam, people stayed in Christinity, no body heard that Muslims tortured Christian to enter Islam.
You are right about Jizyah, but do you think it was wrong thing to do, especially when Muslim pay Zakat too?
I really don’t like Wikipedia, I’m sorry for my feeling for it, I know there are people objective about what they are writting, but I don’t trust that all people are.
I’m always skeptical about what I read, even when I read to sheikh, I have to think about what I’m reading, and if this sheikh didn’t make sense in what he wrote, I don’t even read to him again, and you can apply this to a lot of things that I read, sports and computer and other politics, the only one is not objective and I really like to hear him is Bill o’rally, because he really amazes me, he knows that he is lying and he is still lying.
The other thing that I want to indicate to here, that why always Jewish supressed from somebody?, is not werid?
May 7th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Brian, your opinion doesn’t have foundation in fact. The documentry evidence for the reliability of the NT writings far outstrips any other ancient writings. It is such that to consistently deny it one has to deny the evidence for all the classical writings also. The science of textual criticism has established a 99+% accuracy of reconstruction of the original texts. There is nothing missing from those texts and where there are variants, no real difficulties arise as to probable meaning. The information available is massive.
The kind of theories you propose have no basis in historical fact. It sounds more like 19th Century theories that were created in a sceptical yet factual vacuum and have long been debunked. Yet these myths persist in this so-called enlightened age because people want them to. If you consider yourself a free thinking person, follow the evidence where it leads. Mohamed accepts what he has been told as true; are you not also following the opinions of pop secularism?
May 7th, 2007 at 5:12 am
@Neando
Which branch of textual criticism gives the 99+% accuracy? Eclecticism, Stemmatics, Copy-text or Cladistics? I am asking this as the highest score I know is, 83,5% by United Bible Societies, admittedly that number is from few years back but it probably has not changed that much.
One has to remember that textual reliability does not equal historical reliability, merely how well the original text has been preserved.
Harry Gamble put it better than I can,
May 7th, 2007 at 6:22 am
@Pseudonym
I personally have issues with Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and I cannot really suggest anyone to use it as basis for evaluating the story of abraham.
Kierkegaard separated ethics and faith to autonomous concepts and even allowed to use faith as means to be elevated above the law. I do admire Kierkegaards battle for individuality against the Hegelian unity concept but on this issue, I believe he dropped the ball. Maybe it was due his personal issues of the time.
If one is to use great authors in regards of abraham then perhaps one should consider Kant.
This would be much more feasible interpretation of the whole issue of a talking god, who is for some reason overly fond or dialog instead of public speaking.
Also, assuming the existence of god and the story of abraham, then one comes to a conclusion that the whole situation is all bent out of shape to start with.
Why would a god, omniscient god need the act of sacrifice to know the depths of Abrahams faith? God would know it already and this leads to a thought that faith was not in the test but understanding.
Bible makes it seem so that Abraham had a direct line to god and they had a personal relationship, he if any should know what god wanted but the sacrifice test showed that he had no clue of gods desires. God was forced to stop him from destroying the grand-sire of gods chosen people.
This is peculiar also as story says an angel stopped Abraham but why? If god is omnipotent why he did not stop Abraham directly? God who loves parting seas and burning bushes decides that on this occasion grandstanding is bad taste?
I still do believe that Abraham was insane as are any who perform such acts in name of god or any other authority figure.
May 7th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Hi Mohamed, how are you today?
“Muslims didn’t conquer these countries to expand their empror, they did it to spread Islam”
Couldn’t the have sent a few envoys? Maybe a few muslims to live in a town and demonstrate that Islam was better than conquering? Would seem a better way to me. Worked for the early christians.
“Muslims didn’t force Islam on any body”
That’s not true Mohamed, many people were given the choice, die or convert.
“You are right about Jizyah, but do you think it was wrong thing to do”
Why should they pay any different to muslims? They were humans after all.
I didn’t quite get your comment about Jews. Can you repeat please?
May 7th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Hi Neando, Jagannath said it for me already. :-)