enlightenment said:
There are masses of contradictions out there. Most of them cannot be explained or addressed without really bending things, and moving the goal posts.
well, perhaps if we could all agree where the goal posts were, or that "bending things" was a bad thing. you are clearly not aware of the assumptions that religious people bring to the bible - and, here i can only really speak for myself and in terms of the "old testament" - the Torah (pentateuch) in particular. these four assumptions were most recently and concisely stated by the fabulous professor james kugel of harvard (who i met under a duvet at a conference recently - don't even ask) in his book "how to read the bible":
1) the texts are cryptic and symbolic.
2) the texts are prophetic and homiletic.
3) the texts are consistent.
4) the texts are Divinely Inspired/Given.
so, obviously, given these assumptions, you can see how interpretations would be needed to provide explanations when the plain meaning of the texts doesn't appear to reconcile with these assumptions. one should not expect explanations that conflict with one or more of these assumptions (e.g. "it was written by humans and they didn't notice") to be provided. you are of course at liberty to provide such explanations yourself but i can certainly assure you that they are superfluous as all such apparent contradictions can be reconciled according to the traditional methods.
so, how can G!D be seen? well, for a start, it doesn't bother me what the "new testament" says, as that isn't a sacred text for me, so let's restrict ourselves to the Tanakh (or "old" testament). actually the first point is that G!D doesn't actually have a "face", at least not so we would understand, but the Torah "speaks in human language", so we are really talking about different levels of intimacy with G!D. so the "hind parts" can be "seen", but the "face" cannot - you will note:
"And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (EXO 33:11)
G!D Speaks to moses' face, but moses is not "seeing" G!D's "Face", that isn't what the text says.
"For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved." (GEN 32:30)
this quote is wrongly attributed. it's in genesis. however, the word here need not mean G!D, but more like "angelic being" - remember that jacob here wrestles with an angel, not with G!D. therefore there is no conflict with
"And he said, Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man see me and live." (EXO 33:20)
does that make sense?
as for your "list of biblical contradictions", pull another one out and let's have a look at it.
Funny you should mention Dawkins though. Great writer. V intelligent. Pity his forum admin did not permit me to stick up for theists.
i agree, but when it comes to religion, he's not terribly interested in nuance, which strikes me as inconsistent; the critic terry eagleton once observed that hearing dawkins on religion is somewhat like hearing someone hold forth on evolutionary biology armed only with his knowledge of the "standard book of british birds".
Z said:
how do we know he is a ‘creator’, there is no evidence that anything in existence is created.
well, it depends what you mean by "created". philosophically, we're talking "first cause" here, ie whatever kicked off the big bang or whatever it was. religion doesn't really talk about the "how"; there is no reason science can't help us to understand that, or that evolution can't be the answer to the bits involving "life". neither science nor evolution can disprove the ultimate "creation".
how can an infinite being visit us? ‘he’ could be with us perpetually, that is he cannot ~ not be with us!
well, that's precisely what religious people believe we are able to experience - the Divine Presence.
if god spoke once now it would change everything, even if he just said hi! this would make us believe in him hence no free choice.
now this is an excellent point - in other words doubt is a necessary part of being human. we've all come across human beings with no doubt; they are scary, scary dangerous people.
gods face if seen would be a mask, hence any such face would not be truly him, yet he is all masks and none. even in terms of meaning this is true, words are simply different kinds of masks.
this is close to the literal meaning of "you shall have no other gods but Me".
Resigned said:
Remember, I agree with you 100%! The bible, as all the alleged holy texts has been misinterpreted and mistranslated. Now which parts are corrupt and which parts are not is the game of theologians and apologists such as yourself. But since G!D doesn't come on down and ref the match, the validity of one verse being questioned questions the validity of all verses.
well, quite, but nobody has ever been able to say with any degree of certainty that this word is of Divine origin but this other word is not. certainly, from my PoV there is no need to consider any of the Torah to be "corrupt", whatever that means. to quote myself from here (
http://www.interfaith.org/forum/observations-on-the-creation-stories-9195.html#post153722):
bananabrain said:
...certain assumptions which i believe to be mistaken. one of the basic things about biblical criticism is that it rules out, a priori, traditional answers such as "Divine Revelation". personally, i think this is a mistake. one of these assumptions is that because two passages use different styles, they must be by different people writing at different times - to which i would answer thusly: if I hade wroten unto thee in this Waye, and stille maintained that I were that scurvy cox-combe Banana-Braine, the same poor forkéd creature I would stille remaine. I might even say, d'ye see, that this passage be a lubberly screed, look'ee, an' sack Tortuga wi'a curse, by the powers! Arrrrrr. Be I still that scourge of the Spanish Main, Captain Bananabrain, damme for a handspike else? Or might I propose that we synergise our paradigms and leverage our key competencies to maintain a delivery focus?
do you see what i mean? lord macaulay wrote not only the famous "lays", but also the penal code of india under tha raj. are we to conclude from the fact that these two documents are written in different way for different audiences, that there were two lord macaulays?
Resigned said:
Here's my problem. One of the 4 year old children of the heathens around me actually has converted to Judaism. Now, technically he is still heathen, at least by blood. Can I buy this child anyway, or does the conversion override the bloodline issue? I suspect that a 4 year old isn't old enough to make such a decision regarding their status, so I can buy and enslave him anyway, right? Can you enlighten me on how the bible resolves such a conflict?
there's a pretty comprehensive answer to this question here:
BBC - Religion & Ethics - History: Slavery and the Torah
let me know if there are any questions that page doesn't answer.
enlightenment said:
Most theists that I know, they feel uneasy with the idea that our distant relatives, from whom we evolved from, were the ancestors of the chimps that we see today(despite the mountain of evidence, it makes them uneasy).
well, not me. the Torah is pretty clear that it doesn't run on a timeline that we'd comprehend, nor does it rule out evolution in any way.
And, yet, at the same time, they appear to have no issue in thinking that we were 'made' out of a handful of mud.
well, if you look at some of the more interesting darwinian theory, the initial chemical reactions which formed amino-acids (although i'm a bit hazy on the science bit) would indeed have taken place in, of all places, clay. interesting, that.
wil said:
But Darwin was a believer, how do you account for that? The theist that wrote the book, made the theory and substantiated it. By your definition, he couldn't be intelligent, he's a theist.
hmmm. personally, i wouldn't pay too much attention to that. we only have to find a previously undiscovered letter (he used to write 12 a day) where he says "i don't want to upset my [christian] wife too much, so i can't say i'm not a theist, it would cause too much hassle" and that particular objection will fall flat on its face. reading between the lines, he was pretty lukewarm on christianity by the end of his life. i would stick to the science if i were you!
b'shalom
bananabrain
