Do you know that the God of the Bible exists?
techstepgenr8tion
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03 Jun 2007, 1:29 pm
The first revolutionary conscious choice was recorded in the Biblical legend of Adam and Eve. In the story, God told them not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or they would die. Eve either had to trust that she should not eat of it because she was told so by God or trust her own reasoning, something she had never done before, and make a conscious choice.
She did not understand God's reasoning because he did not share it, but only his conclusion, that they would die. Eve, for the first time ever, not believing God, but the serpent and herself instead, reasoned that the tree was pretty to look at, good for food, and good for making one wise. She ate the fruit and gave some to Adam and he also ate.
Eve, leaning on her own understanding, reasons, and conclusions, made a conscious choice against what she was told by God about the tree. This made possible all rational thought and all conscious choice without which we could not now survive nor, incidentally, could we even define what is good or evil since there would have been no choice between the two.
Because of the success of our conscious choices, evolution selected that our heads grow to unusually large sizes to the point that pain in childbirth became overwhelming. The choice of gender roles based on an early sexually dimorphic state sustained the superiority of men over women through time although their differences in sizes became negligible. Also, conscious choice made the agricultural revolution possible so that people could eat by the sweat of their own faces rather than by finding what they needed in the wild like they used to in a what seemed like a garden. Isn't this exactly what God predicted would happen in the legend?
Although I don't think he would appreciate it in this context, I'll refer to Daniel Quinn's Ishmael. At this point the Cains of the world (agriculturalists) started killing the Ables of the world (hunter gatherers) for their land so they could expand their culture. The Huron Native Americans have a similar tale in their culture of two brothers fighting at the beginning of the world also between the agriculturalist and the hunter gatherers, but in their story, the hunter gatherers win. Coincidence? Anyway... I'm getting off track.
So we kept making rational choices, shaping our evolution and our fate up to the very present. Triumphantly, we now have, by our conscious choices, created global climate change, resistant strains of bacteria, and weapons of mass destruction. We continue to choose not to live a sustainable lifestyle and are slowly creeping towards our own destruction by our own rational choices. Can we really say that God's conclusion in the beginning was wrong? Surly they will die because of conscious choices, not Adam and Eve themselves but the entire species that they represent, us.
At this point, I think that God is rationally correct and that we didn't have the foresight to know his reasons back at that fateful tree. Given that our ability to reason for ourselves is what makes us fallen, it does not make sense that God would allow us to rationally choose to believe in God. Belief in God is, therefore, intentionally, strictly non-rational but not irrational just as to choose not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was also non-rational but not irrational.
Wow, never really thought of it in that context - particularly the story of Cain and Abel, it could very well have more of an anthropological meaning rather than the context of envy or betrayal. Me personally though I think free will is calculated as being much more prevalent than it is and God would have known already what would happen not only by the fall from grace and how future generations would change and mutate but also the very fact that Adam and Eve would only listen to him so long if they weren't given reason, consequence, and especially if they were completely unguarded and unprepared for hearing a counter-view provided by the serpent. Being completely innocent they stood no chance of making a rational decision because complete innocence in that sense before eating of the tree of knowledge was an unenlightened state.
techstepgenr8tion
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03 Jun 2007, 1:46 pm
My answer to the first question - I really hope he doesn't exist. Why? We live in a world where Hitler was right - genetics are everything, many people are either naturally culled or eventually if too many seemingly 'good' people keep procreating it will breed more weaklings and one of these days world governments will reluctantly, under the weight of their own consciences, have to start doing the same thing he did just that they'll try to do it more humanely and without making a race issue of it (since all races have alphas). The very fact that our realities are this crass, this disgusting, have been throughout all of history and knowing that we live in Disney Land in the world of now as compared to ancient history; the reason I hope God doesn't exist is because if he does he's a hell of an a**hole. Really, I'd be terrified of what kind character he'd be. Its like that game God Of War where the gods of the Greek world are a little....well....BTK'ish, the realities of our world kind of paint a similar portrait of him and he made us so diverse; just like sexuality isn't a conscious choice so many other things aren't as well and for him to say 'either you believe in my son or you don't go to heaven' seems pretty messed up when you have people the world around who flat out can't do that, even if they were to go through the emotions they'd be sickened by how hollow it felt and they couldn't believe a word they're saying or reading because none of it adds up in their mind. If a God is to be as anal as to hold salvation to minute technicalities that have so little to do with someone's morality the very least he could do is send infallible signs of his existence; ie. things that are impossible to science, things that a skeptical person can't dispute, things that people who want to believe but need proof as to not feel like they're completely lying to themselves for the sake of optimism or conformity - CAN.
The only end of Christianity that I'm actually at peace with is Valentinian Gnosticism, it paints a portrait of the Logos creating our world, a mistake being made, and if you read the Tripartite Tractate it accounts for a lot of the grime, agony, mass stupidity, fatalism, and doom that we experience on this earth. Not to say its real, its plausible but could just as likely be a work of overactive wishful thinking trying to find a more accurate way of demonstrating a world with a god for the people whom the idea of blind faith drove crazy and who couldn't add up all the 'just take that in faith' stuff, if that's the case its just another thing that shows we weren't much different in 1st and 2nd century AD either. All I know is I used to be really into searching for my own faith and spirituality but the more I see and the more I learn through life the more existence itself, as well as for everyone else and their ills they deal with, just makes me ill.
03 Jun 2007, 1:48 pm
I would agree that people who choose to believe are inclined to think in the domain of irrational thought and that's why I don't see the reason for believing because there isn't a tangible one. I don't think that choice has anything to do with intelligence and it's a popular myth among atheists that they are more intelligent then religious people which I think is delusional.
I'm not changing the meaning of everything by seeing the literature as the type of literature it is. I'm trying to see if there is any truth to the myths that we carry with us as a species. I'm trying to ask myself, is the point of the story of Adam and Eve, that we changed ourselves through making conscious choices into what we are today and what we are today is going to self destruct/die because of those choices, true. I think that it seems probable. I highly doubt that enough can be done retroactively to fix all the problems we've created for ourselves before one of them wipes our entire species out. I'm surely not saying don't try, but I'm not exactly hopeful in our own abilities to save ourselves.
On a spiritual level, the story explains to me WHY belief in God is always non-rational. It cannot be a rational choice for people to believe in God because our downfall would simultaneously then be our salvation which would be a paradox.
I only have a laymen understanding of the bible. The reason is I can't test it against any other ethos and have a quantifiable way to say it's better. There are big holes in our understanding of the universe but they could be explained by any number of organized religions including the flying spaghetti monster. If you want to interpret moral lessons from the biblical stories that's great but almost all the evidence tells us we are just another animal and I don't see any reason to apply notions of morality to animals. If you want to have insight into the future of the species then I think history, economics and political science are far more relevant to that question.
03 Jun 2007, 5:49 pm
Richard Dawkins
It takes some kind of balls to try to pass ideas that aren't yours off as your own. I find Richard Dawkins to be just as dogmatic and closed minded as Ted Haggard, just at the other end of the spectrum of belief.
Also, the word I used was not irrational, it was non-rational. There is a difference. For example: I love my husband. If he asks me to prove that I love him, I can't, all I can say is that I do. He can only choose to believe me non-rationally, but it is not irrational for him to believe me.
03 Jun 2007, 6:02 pm
Richard Dawkins
It takes some kind of balls to try to pass ideas that aren't yours off as your own. I find Richard Dawkins to be just as dogmatic and closed minded as Ted Haggard, just at the other end of the spectrum of belief.
Also, the word I used was not irrational, it was non-rational. There is a difference. For example: I love my husband. If he asks me to prove that I love him, I can't, all I can say is that I do. He can only choose to believe me non-rationally, but it is not irrational for him to believe me.
I wasn't trying to take the flying spaghetti monster as my own idea I think most people have heard of it. I didn't know Richard Dawkins had anything to do with the flying spaghetti monster. Explain how something that is non rational is not irrational.
03 Jun 2007, 6:05 pm
this is not to say that there is absolutely no higher being...but the one of the bible, torah, koran, greek gods, roman, gods, persian gods, babylonian gods....those are made up by men.
it's impossible to say yes or no to there being a god....but it is possible to go "okay, these guys are just retelling this story which is just a retelling of this story which is just a made up story anyways" and through that process, eliminate man made religions. of course those involved in such religions would never stand for their world being pulled out from under them....but hey, if they could go along with it for constantine, the spanish inquisition, the crusades, the moorish invasions and so on....yeah...the world would continue on.
I think that you are assuming that a story doesn't exist until it is written down, and that the stories written first must have then been told first. I think much of what was written both in Greek literature and in Biblical literature came from more ancient oral traditions. I think it is obvious that what is recorded in the Pentateuch is a preexisting oral tradition. I don't think it is logical to say that because it was written first it was told first.
Also, it doesn't seem logical to me to say that because my beliefs have the same name (however different the content) as beliefs that others have used to do awful things, therefore I am somehow condoning those things. Saying that I somehow condone the crusades started by Christians in their time because I am called a Christian today is like saying if you are a Democrat today that means that you condone the the Vietnam war because a Democratic presidents started it.
I have to agree with skafather84, if you look at it in the anthropoligical or historical way it seems that many cultures have absorbed traditions and mythologies from earlier cultures, so judaism and christianity would not be an exception.
After the Babylonians conquered the Sumerians they adopted and transformed most things of sumerian culture including their religion.
The Romans absorbed and transformed the Greek mythology to their own after they conquered them, they did the very same thing with early christianity, which is actually the origin of the Catholic Church doctrine, Romans adopting, transforming and merging early christianity with some of their mythology.
I agree that one story influences the next throughout history. What I disagree with is the assumption that the story written first was the story created first. After all, we know that most cultures had long lasting oral traditions before anyone started writing. We can't possibly be as sure about what story influenced which as you all seem to be, enough to prove or disprove any of them.
03 Jun 2007, 6:28 pm
Basically, anytime you "take someones word for it" you make a non-rational choice to believe something, if you know that the "something" is logically possible, your belief is not irrational.
03 Jun 2007, 6:40 pm
I just wanted to pause and say thanks for all the thoughtful responses. I'm really glad to be able to have a place on the internet to engage people like you in a debate. 
I'm running out of things to say other than what I've said already about why I don't think it is possible for anyone to know/prove there is a God.
03 Jun 2007, 6:52 pm
03 Jun 2007, 7:35 pm
If you are in a room with no windows and someone comes in from an adjacent room that has windows and tells you it is raining. It is rational for you to believe or disbelieve her because it might be raining and it might not, but your actual choice to believe/not believe her is non-rational because you have no evidence for or against her statement.
It is rational for my husband to believe or disbelieve that I am a secret agent because both are possible, but his choice to believe one or the other possibilities is non-rational because all he has to go on is my telling him that I am a secret agent.
03 Jun 2007, 7:42 pm
03 Jun 2007, 7:53 pm
i'm ignoring the other part because discussing what came first and what societies were around when is a waste of my time, the information is out there and you can do the research yourself.
as far as attacking your beliefs...it's not a matter of attacking the beliefs....i'm saying it's false. it's man-made. nothing more to it than that. there's some nice spots and there are some bad spots but in the end, it's a man made set of myths that were used for law at the time. you're a philosophy major, you should know that. you can call yourself whatever you want but that doesn't change that the mythology is just mythology...not fact. jesus didn't really walk on water, it was just one of the many ways of proving he was the messiah along with that lineage which provides little more than a vague way of connecting jesus to adam proving he is the son of god. the whole new testament is more an effort both prove jesus was the messiah because there were a lot of those around at the time. think of it how there's a ton of people who claim they talk to ghosts like john edward and james van praagh. same thing. along with that, there was an effort by the christian sect to reform judaism. they weren't looking to make a new religion...it was supposed to be just like how the baptists are christians along with the catholics. that changed from judaism to christianity as a religion of its own probably around the time of constantine, if i'm not mistaken (which i very well could be).
but anyways, the point is that christianity is just another myth. there's even spells and such in the bible...but they label them as prayers instead. rites and ceremonies. there's even a splash of human sacrifice with jesus being killed. but in the end, it is just derivative of other works previous to it. mithra being one of the big sources (kinda like how the 70s and 80s funk was a source for puff daddy).
03 Jun 2007, 8:50 pm
It is rational for my husband to believe or disbelieve that I am a secret agent because both are possible, but his choice to believe one or the other possibilities is non-rational because all he has to go on is my telling him that I am a secret agent.
Whether or not I believe the statement of the person who comes in from the other room depends on how likely the statement is to be true. If it's summer and they say it's raining outside, I'd be inclined to believe them since rain during the summer is not the least but unusual.
If on the other hand if it's summer and they say that it's snowing outside, I would want to see that for myself before believing it. (I have seen it snow in June, but it is exceedingly rare.)
And if they were to say that alien spaceships are landing and the aliens all look like Elvis Presley, I would disbelieve it without even bothering to look.
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techstepgenr8tion
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04 Jun 2007, 12:05 am
I think spirituality, Biblical or not, is something that people really have to feel out. Its much less about the specific details and more constructing the overall picture and guess at the outerstructure in terms of what's really impacting your life, how its all built, and why. In that sense I think if choosing one prescribed view or another doesn't work and at heart you find yourself really at odds with it as well as the influences it has on the culture - if something gnaws at you about the reality it presents the best and probably only path to go is just feel it out on your own. Its putting your own due diligence in at trying to figure out just what's going on, what the real bottom line is, and continuing throughout life to be fascinated by the question and even if you feel like you've met a semi-stable conclusion for the time being one has to still keep an open mind.
Like for me, a lot of the stuff I just stated, if enough of the right things happen in the next 5 years that influence my views on this thing in one way or another, I could flip almost on a dime. Its not that I'm wavering or waffling IMO, and I won't blame myself for my view from the past versus the present just because you only know what you know at a given point and can only forge the connections and not just to literal facts but feel their much deeper relevance and driving force with time, its almost never automatic, instant, or something you can just attain in a few sitting just by willing yourself to find the answer. If the Bible is the book of the true God and the whole mystery of the pain and suffering on this earth is some way gets reconciled with me finding that there is a God who has a wonderful, benevolent nature and who loves us all infinitely, I at least trust now that since I've taken all the grime of life in that it will also be a view that encompasses that, deals with that, and has me feeling pretty content in that many of my biggest fundamental problems with that view are eased - I personally can't have faith in anything without that solid understanding. Not to say that ever will happen, just giving an example and IMO its kind of crazy to stick to a view right or wrong just because its what you've done in the past, yeah its safe but safe isn't growing, safe isn't living, safe isn't evolving, safe is really just collecting dust and possibly a good deal of spiritual atrophy (at least in the abstract emotional sense if such a thing doesn't literally exist).
