EADD Theology Megathread - Book II - Exodus

[NightsEpiphany]

Slow down! What rules?

I thought you said there isn't a set of rules?

Logic, cause and effect, Law... The rules governing nature.

If we don't have faith it follows were under law perhaps?

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

Thing is, SHM. What's your actual objective here?

Cheap laughs. Religion is full of them and I can't resist. Lets call it a weakness.

Meanwhile, oh judgemental one, just why are you so upset and jumping all over me (the messenger) for this? I'll give you your £14.50 back if it's going to cause you so much trouble.

Although I did spend it on HR if that helps?

 

[Raasyvibe]

^ lol, sorry I woke up a bit grumpy this morning afternoon.

But looking at extreme cases and attributing them to religion is a whole is something many have tried on this thread and I find ignorant. Perhaps I was a bit ticked off as I consider it a smug attitude towards religion.

What did u spend ur birthday money on? You can't get drugs over amazon. maybe next year i'll give out some bitcoins

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

My £10 (£7 of which was postage from HK) digi scales broke after ten years usage. Someone on here (the gorge' Inflo) was wanking on about scales and reminded me I really shouldn't be guessing at that missing last digit on mine. As I regularly drug people senseless am the responsible designated divider your £14.50 may actually have gone 3/4 of the way to saving many lives.

A real Christian would be proud of themselves before falling over spectacularly.

And no, I don't conflate all Christians on such a singularly base level. Americans on the other hand...

Joke! Oh come on.

 

[Marmalade]

Both mine are fucked too. I need to buy 2 sets desperately. One set of the small flat surfaced ones, which are normally to a g, and mico ones too. I hated the micro ones I had anyway .... knock and ceres both said they were semi-decent for cheapies but they're awkward as hell with only a real tiny metal pan, which isn't big enough to put even a small bag on to. And it had like a rough galvanised kinda finish on the pan, so stuff just kinda sticks into it.

recommends to specific decent cheapo ones would be greatly appreciated. I havent got the mental agility to look through a mega thread atm tho.

 

[BecomingJulie]

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at... but yeah, your understanding here is spot on.

So you have this omnipotent being, who is constrained to act in such a way that He might just as well not exist, because He cannot allow Himself to be definitively detected.

Isn't that about the ultimate exercise in futility? Events in the universe have to unfold in exactly the same way, irrespective of whether or not God exists or not; otherwise God would prove He existed and therefore destroy everyone's Faith. Therefore, there can be no eternal damnation. If God doesn't exist, then Hell doesn't exist either; and since, even if God exists, then He has to at least make it look as though he doesn't, God cannot send anybody to Hell (because that would not happen if He did not exist). Also if God didn't exist, then there would be no salvation, and no Heaven. So even if God does exist, then there is no way that believers can go to Heaven. Why would you expend all that conscious effort of will believing a patent absurdity, that ultimately will not make a blind bit of difference? One life is what you get. Even the Sun is going to shine its last one day, about eight and a half minutes before anyone on Earth finds out about it. There is no Hell, no Heaven, only this one life; and you might as well make the best of it because (1) it's not as short as you think it is and (2) it's not as long as you think it is, either. Just try and be slightly nicer to the next person you meet than the last person you met was to you, is all you need to do.

 

[Raasyvibe]

My £10 (£7 of which was postage from HK) digi scales broke after ten years usage. Someone on here (the gorge' Inflo) was wanking on about scales and reminded me I really shouldn't be guessing at that missing last digit on mine. As I regularly drug people senseless am the responsible designated divider your £14.50 may actually have gone 3/4 of the way to saving many lives.

A real Christian would be proud of themselves before falling over spectacularly

That's the last time I'm donating £14.50 to a druggie over the Internet. :D was ur 50th mind. Enjoy it. And dose me up some crack for my birthday, yeah.

*Falls over spectacularly*

So you have this omnipotent being, who is constrained to act in such a way that He might just as well not exist, because He cannot allow Himself to be definitively detected.

Isn't that about the ultimate exercise in futility? Events in the universe have to unfold in exactly the same way, irrespective of whether or not God exists or not; otherwise God would prove He existed and therefore destroy everyone's Faith. Therefore, there can be no eternal damnation. If God doesn't exist, then Hell doesn't exist either; and since, even if God exists, then He has to at least make it look as though he doesn't, God cannot send anybody to Hell (because that would not happen if He did not exist). Also if God didn't exist, then there would be no salvation, and no Heaven. So even if God does exist, then there is no way that believers can go to Heaven.

*Picks himself up*

You're totally over-complicating things. I've had to re-read that paragraph about 4 times just to grasp it, and it's very bizarre reasoning.

God can only give a choice of heaven/hell, ignoring him or not... by making it appear he may not exist.

Heaven and hell stand, regardless of our choice and ignorance of the matter.

 

[BecomingJulie]

OK, I'll try and simplify it. Or at least break it down into bits so you can tell me which of them you have a problem with.

Premise 1: God has to avoid giving definitive proof of His existence.
Premise 2: Anything that could only happen if God existed, would be evidence that He existed.
Conclusion 1: Therefore, God cannot do anything that would not happen by itself if He did not exist.
Premise 3: If God does not exist, then Heaven and Hell do not exist.
Conclusion 2: Even if God does exist, then Heaven and Hell cannot exist, otherwise there would be proof that God exists.
Conclusion 3: If there is no Heaven and no Hell either way, then it makes no difference in practice whether or not God exists.
Premise 4: Believing needlessly in entities and phenomena is a net cost.
Conclusion 4: You might as well save yourself the bother of all that shit, believing stuff the part of your brain that keeps clinging stubbornly to reality tells you is bollocks, when even if it was true nothing would happen anyway that would not happen if it was not true.

 

[Raasyvibe]

OK, I'll try and simplify it. Or at least break it down into bits so you can tell me which of them you have a problem with.

Premise 1: God has to avoid giving definitive proof of His existence. Only to some, not to everyone,...but yeah go on
Premise 2: Anything that could only happen if God existed, would be evidence that He existed. yep
Conclusion 1: Therefore, God cannot do anything that would not happen by itself if He did not exist. Yeah, I accept
Premise 3: If God does not exist, then Heaven and Hell do not exist. obviously
Conclusion 2: Even if God does exist, then Heaven and Hell cannot exist, otherwise there would be proof that God exists. Totally wrong here. Heaven and hell are in a DIFFERENT REALM. So always going to be unprovable to us in this realm.

From here onwards you fallacious logic falls apart completely.

That is really appalling logic. You should really address why you are being so blind on this subject.

 

[HouseFever]

I want to hear satans side of the story.

 

[Vurtual]

....... Just try and be slightly nicer to the next person you meet than the last person you met was to you, is all you need to do.

Spot on. Raas how did you miss this bit which is ironically the important heart of christianity in a nutshell? (previous sentence notwithstanding). To me if jesus was worth bothering with, he'd agree that this sentiment is many times more important than the fine detail of ritual and bible analysis, believing in heaven/hell (is hell even in the bible?) or 'only finding the father through me' for that matter.

Despite buddhism always being associated with reincarnation, whenever buddha was asked about the afterlife or god or anything like that, he would say something like 'these are unknowables, so there's no point worrying about it - just be nice and all that jazz' (i paraphrase). I think this is a good approach for a religion, and one which the jesus i would bother with would agree with.

On another note - theology doesn't always have to be about christianity - what do you think about the stories of krishna and hindu mythology?

 

[StoneHappyMonday]

believing in heaven/hell (is hell even in the bible?)

I don't know about hell but I know that actual descriptions of heaven are surprisingly thin on the ground. Amazingly thin considering millions of followers are supposed to put their faith in this concept for a better 'after-life'.

The word 'heaven' itself is apparently mentioned over 600 times. Virtually all of these mentions are a mistranslation of a Hebrew word that, in the Hebrew version, is there to indicate either the 'sky', literally, or 'God', figuratively. There is no Biblical Hebrew word for the concept of heaven. Which is kinda interesting.

 

[Sammy G]

There's no concept of the soul at all in pre-NT biblical literature, nor of an afterlife.

Raas will claim that these are the gifts bestowed upon us by the New Covenant, and rather than questioning their existence we should embrace them and be thankful to the Lord.

Fucking hell, I could have a US TV career in the pipeline here...

 

[Vurtual]

Hell is a norse word for the underworld i think. Correct me if i'm wrong: if hell is in the bible it's as the contemporary idea of the underworld (like hades) rather than the pinhead-style punishment dimension which was added/embellished later by us medieval barbarians (europeans). i've got no problem with the more cosmic version of heaven, which is like nirvana or something - hell is bollocks though.

The gnostics and cathars would say this world (matter) is hell/evil created by the jehova the demiurge (fake god); and heaven is spirit containing the real god - in their version of eden the snake is the goodie and jehova is the baddie (how it always seemed to me anyway). Then there's sarte's 'hell is other people'. And david byrne's 'heaven is a place where nothing ever happens'. (which are both analogies of buddhism really).

My personal vague idea is that you could (if you wanted to) think of the afterlife as just your actual life viewed from outside the time dimension: all the things that have happened/will happen/could happen all just exist eternally - the illusion of being alive is just being restricted to time dimension, but in some sense you are always all that you've done/will do existing as one big complex interacting thing (and directly connecting to all other times/space/people). When you die (or ++++) maybe you loosen from the time dimension and become the one big now (or you always were/are) - which you could think of as heaven if you like. This doesn't mean 'i' go somewhere 'after' i die as these are all time based concepts; however when we have a glimpse of this reality from time-world, the only way we can understand it is by putting it into a narrative (i.e. into time), which leads to paradoxes (like i go to the eternal heaven 'after' i die; how's that eternal?). and when this cosmology seems a bit fixed and deterministic, i chuck in the many worlds quantum interpretation into the mix (ie all that could happen).

 

[Sammy G]

The Christian basis for what we now know as 'Hell' was possibly the Jewish 'Gehenna' / 'Ge Hinnom' (the Valley of Hinnom), which was an actual ancient bit of wasteground used to dispose of rubbish (as well as suicides and other 'dishonoured' corpses) which eventually attained mythical status.

It was an idea that was much-expanded by rabbis over centuries, and interestingly enough, it seems to predate the concept that comes closest to 'Heaven' in Judaism, 'Olam Habah' (the world to come).

Seems that the stick of punishment necessitated the eventual introduction of a carrot of reward, though only for those who behaved. It would also appear to be based entirely on rabbinical doctrine rather than anything explicitly stated in scripture. As if it suited their needs.

Funny, that.

 

[Raasyvibe]

There's no concept of the soul at all in pre-NT biblical literature, nor of an afterlife.

I have heard this said before (possibly from you) but it is not true at all. The OT does refer to the concept of an afterlife, many times. Not in such detail as the NT, but it is referred to and recognised.

I refer you to the book of Samuel, where King Saul engages in mediumship to contact a dead person (Samuel) who had passed over from earth to the afterlife.

1 Samuel 28 (New Living Translation)

About that time the Philistines mustered their armies for another war with Israel. King Achish told David, “You and your men will be expected to join me in battle.”

2 “Very well!” David agreed. “Now you will see for yourself what we can do.”

Then Achish told David, “I will make you my personal bodyguard for life.”

3 Meanwhile, Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him. He was buried in Ramah, his hometown. And Saul had banned from the land of Israel all mediums and those who consult the spirits of the dead.

4 The Philistines set up their camp at Shunem, and Saul gathered all the army of Israel and camped at Gilboa. 5 When Saul saw the vast Philistine army, he became frantic with fear. 6 He asked the Lord what he should do, but the Lord refused to answer him, either by dreams or by sacred lots[a] or by the prophets. 7 Saul then said to his advisers, “Find a woman who is a medium, so I can go and ask her what to do.”

His advisers replied, “There is a medium at Endor.”

8 So Saul disguised himself by wearing ordinary clothing instead of his royal robes. Then he went to the woman’s home at night, accompanied by two of his men.

“I have to talk to a man who has died,” he said. “Will you call up his spirit for me?”

9 “Are you trying to get me killed?” the woman demanded. “You know that Saul has outlawed all the mediums and all who consult the spirits of the dead. Why are you setting a trap for me?”

10 But Saul took an oath in the name of the Lord and promised, “As surely as the Lord lives, nothing bad will happen to you for doing this.”

11 Finally, the woman said, “Well, whose spirit do you want me to call up?”

“Call up Samuel,” Saul replied.

12 When the woman saw Samuel, she screamed, “You’ve deceived me! You are Saul!”

13 “Don’t be afraid!” the king told her. “What do you see?”

“I see a god coming up out of the earth,” she said.

14 “What does he look like?” Saul asked.

“He is an old man wrapped in a robe,” she replied. Saul realized it was Samuel, and he fell to the ground before him.

15 “Why have you disturbed me by calling me back?” Samuel asked Saul

References to those leaving their flesh on this earth, and proceeding to heaven, in Isaiah. (don't make silly jokes at the "worm passage")

22 "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, says the LORD; so shall your descendants and your name remain. 23 From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the LORD. 24 "And they shall go forth and look on the dead bodies of the men that have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh."

And hell is referred to in Psalms:

For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

23 But you, O God, will bring down the wicked
into the pit of corruption;
bloodthirsty and deceitful men
will not live out half their days.
But as for me, I trust in you.

There's probably many more if you look for them.

 

[ColtDan]

oh aye

 

[Sammy G]

Raas, look at my posts on the last page re: Judaism and the concept of 'the afterlife'.

Then (and only then) can you post a lengthy passage which (mis)translates the original Hebrew ('Gehenna' / 'Ge Hinnom' - an actual place) into 'hell', and fails to explicitly mention 'heaven' altogether.

PS: If you look for the place where the souls of the righteous were meant to ascend according to later rabbinical writings, 'the world to come' (עולם הבא), in the Hebrew bible, then you're out of luck. It doesn't even make an appearance.

Talking to the dead? Magic? Yes. Necromancy? Yes. Proof of a realm beyond the corporeal? Perhaps.

Proof of pre-existing Jewish belief in Christian concepts? No.

 

[Raasyvibe]

Yes, but your exact words were "mention of afterlife", and that is what I was responding too. Because, as seen in Samuel, afterlife is very clearly recognised.

What you should have said then is "Old Testament believers did not have the clear revelation about heaven".

I'll give you the hell and pit mis-translation, however. I have heard that before and it does make sense.

 

[Sammy G]

Yes, but your exact words were "mention of afterlife", and that is what I was responding too. Because, as seen in Samuel, afterlife is very clearly recognised.

Life after death (of some kind) is not part of religious eschatology as such, but part of folklore and popular myth. So 'afterlife' is stretching it just a bit, but life after death it is.

And yes, maybe I should have phrased it less explicitly than I did, but the fact remains that both Heaven and Hell (key concepts around which Christian eschatology is formed) didn't actually exist around the time of Moses. At least not explicitly in the scriptures from around that period.

I find it interesting that the need for such concepts seems to have arisen later on down the line. Don't you?