"...they may be technically fallacious, informally so, but perfectly reasonable in everyday life." How are tu quoque arguments "perfectly reasonable in daily life?" If you had said that its "colloquially acceptable" to judge a person's assertions based on their moral character, I might agree with you, but I question the reasonableness weighing the merits of the
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"The Bible in general psychologically recommends itself to people with a religiously oriented moral theory, for any number of reasons, allowing forgiveness of a few (or many) moral shortcomings." In other words, adherents to the Bible will forgive its many moral failings because some of its moral characteristics are in line with their own thinking. Is this what you're getting at?
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"Christians, and honest critics of Christianity recognize the emergence of Christianity represented a change in spiritual economy." http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,1689435,1689718#msg-1689718 To which Christianity do you refer, Tall Man? The very early Jewish sect led by Peter and James? Or perhaps you're referring to Pauline Christianity? Gnosticism? The Christianity of the
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Out of the 27 books of the New Testament, only 7 are agreed to have a known author, which is Paul. The rest are either anonymous or pseudepigraphical. As should be well-known by now,the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Do we trust the word of anonymous sources? Do we trust their assertions of what it right and what is wrong? They co
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To be perfectly honest, Steve, I take less issue with your posts than other copy-and-paste jobs, because you usually provide commentary that makes it clear that you have at least read your sources. This can not be said for certain other contributors to the board. I know that there are many on RfM who have benefited from your wealth of information; early in my transition out of Mormonism I w
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History and archaeology are collaborative endeavors. Consensus is important, if only to keep wild theories in check. I'm not saying that the popular opinion within the scholarly community is always right - this is certainly not the case - but when a scholar peddles his ideas to TLC, home of 17 Kids and Counting, Honey Boo-Boo and Long Island Medium when his own peers find his arguments unpers
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I'm not going to get into a copy-and-paste battle with someone who doesn't understand the current environment of Near Eastern archaeology. Good luck converting people to obsolete ideas and fringe theories.
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Jesus. Was Einstein an archaeologist? An historian, even? No. No, he was not. Besides, there has been a wealth of data produced in the last few decades of archaeology in the Middle East, which makes Velikovsky and Courville obsolete sources to say the very least.
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Right. Egyptologists are JUST like the LDS church when it comes to standard dating. <eyeroll> There isn't compelling reason to trust Rohl over the current chronological model. The archaeology doesn't support him. He has to change names and redefine archaeological data in the Levant, Assyria and Egypt in order to support his claims. He may not be 100% false - that remains to be seen -
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This, for instance, is a garbled mess.
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You're just copying and pasting these things, without, apparently, vetting your sources. You're going to have to do better.
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David Rohl's timeline reconstruction theory hasn't been well-received by the archaeological community, largely, it seems, because it produces as many archaeological difficulties as it allegedly confirms biblical narrative. From what I have read, it seems that his idea has only caught attention because Bible adherents desperately cling onto anything they think might confirm the stories in thei
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From your perspective, truorderofawesome, are ALL terminated pregnancies wrong under ANY circumstance? If not, where do you draw the line? Does a woman have the right to choose what is best for her life, or do you believe that what happens in her womb should be legislated? I'll lay my biases on the table: I believe in abortions for some and tiny American flags for others.
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Great! Then let's see a mass defrocking. That's not only progressive and just but also very sexy.
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Hey Darkfem! Have you met truorderofawesome? She's the board's new resident Catholic apologist. She hates birth control AND abortion! And she thinks it's just super that men get to run the world's largest Christian church while women get no real authority, just a really nice bench to sit on in the shadow of the very tall pedestal on which they've place Mary the Virgin Mother of God!
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YHWH: Humans built a block tower almost as tall as me! They're too smart. Nobody gets to talk to each other ever again! Later: YHWH: Israel doesn't pay enough attention to me. Moses, I swear to God I'll kill them all. Moses: Now God, what will the Egyptians think if you abort your little Israelites? They'll think you're a whiny child who can't handle being the god of so many people.
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So far he's throwing a bandaid over a gaping wound. I want to see those child diddling motherfuckers the Catholic church has been sheltering for decades castigated and thrown in prison en masse. This pope is a very savvy mascot. It remains to be seen if he will make any sort of a lasting positive change.
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That's right, Bona: they can dismiss whatever they want from their own scriptures when it's convenient to do so. Sexual slavery? No Worries! It's ALLEGORY! Child rape? In the Bible? Pish posh! It's make-believe! I'd love for the pope to come out and say that "Whoever wrote Numbers was really fucked up. God cried when he wrote that."
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There is a disproportionate punishment in hurting someone on Earth and being thrust down to Hell for an eternity of retribution. Also, this idea that those that cause suffering should be met with suffering is, quite frankly, barbaric and counterproductive. This belief in divine punishment is a catharsis, a way for us to mitigate the pain of the injustice of life. It's primitive, even if it's
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Tell me, Pope Francis, did Yahweh cry when he instructed the Israelites to murder the Midianite men, women and boys and take their daughters into sexual slavery? Numbers 31:18 "But all the young women who have not had sexual intercourse with a man will be yours."
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I am an ex-Mormon. I'm a humanist. I'm probably accurately described as an atheist, which might almost be cliche for someone who leaves the church. But I also love. LOVE! the Bible, not for any appreciation for its moral contents, of which it is inconsistent at best, but because it's a patchwork of a culture trying to survive under heavy assault from the superpowers which surrounded it. I a
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This has been a point of interest for me since leaving Mormonism and reading RfM, because this isn't a facet of Mormonism with which I was familiar until after I had left. My family were considered among the black sheep of our somewhat ghetto ward in California, and we had our dark secrets which we wouldn't dare share with our most intimate friends. Some of our secrets weren't really all that
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En Sabah Nur is the true name of Apocalypse, the first Mutant and adversary of the X-Men. My interest in the Bible started very early in life; I was a devout Mormon all my young life with a passion for ancient history and archaeology. Always the weirdo among my friends. Not surprisingly, The Book of Abraham played a key role in my disaffection from Mormonism. I'm currently in the proces
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“What do you think god SHOULD do?” Yes, by all means, Raptor, endow these boys with a workable theodicy within their religious framework. Teach their deity how godding is done. As an agnostic nonbeliever, it is your duty to solve their problem, to guide them out of the labyrinth they helped create. "They keep saying, 'Keep researching,' and I FUCKING KEEP RESEARCHING, but IT NEVER
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Fuck it. I lied. Let me discuss camels. There will be more swearing. Imagine you're a solar-powered, self-replicating dune buggy salesmen with a caravan of solar-powered, self-replicating dune buggies to sell traveling through Ancient Israel, where you knew they would be an enormous benefit to the people of the region. Do you sell them some of your goddamned solar-powered, self-replicating
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Acts 5 5:1 Now a man named Ananias, together with Sapphira his wife, sold a piece of property. 5:2 He kept back for himself part of the proceeds with his wife’s knowledge; he brought only part of it and placed it at the apostles’ feet. 5:3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds from the sale
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When we're discussing biblical history from a secularist position it's not helpful to quote from Jewish propaganda websites, which are by their very nature presenting a clear bias toward the authenticity of their historical traditions. Let's talk about Abraham for a moment. The narrative of the first Patriarch contains several anachronisms which place the creation of his legend much later than
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This is a perfectly valid question. If this had been a more scholastic treatise on this subject I would have been more careful with my citations, but I'll give you a few of my more recent sources in a moment. I have done years of research on this topic, and I've pored over several different versions of the Bible. I've taken courses on on the subject and have listened to university lectures
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"Aten was definitely a power grab." I'm not so sure this is true. Akhenaten's conversion to the Aten cult definitely had political and economic repercussions, but I'm inclined to believe that his devotion was genuine. Frankly, though, I don't think there's enough data available to make a definitive assertion one way or another.
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This is a great observation. The change from the more Trinitarian view of the godhead to Joseph's "every Mormon gets to be a god and gets a planet" doctrine is both drastic and damning. And now, with the church retreating somewhat from this doctrine per the recently released essays, it seems clear that Mormonism cares very little with doctrines, and the Q15 are perfectly willing t
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