Responding to Atheism

@bijouxbroussard merry Christmas to you too.

@bijouxbroussard i think in the past few years SCOTUS has worked to redefine the term congress the wording of the first amendment is: The first clause in the Bill of Rights states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” SCOTUS seems to interpret that totally differently then prior SCOTUS

@samueltyler2 I don’t know what decision regarding religion you refer to. is SCOTUS supposed to legislate? Congress needs to make laws not depend on SCOTUS to change existing law.

@Underconstruction Define god.

@Underconstruction A fundamental issue with atheism, is that even if you intellectually and rigorously square all the circles pertaining to whatever was (or wasn't) the uncaused cause, that a fundamental aspect of human nature is left hanging.

Assuming a hardline scientific materialist atheist worldview, man is a wretched creature indeed, because it is an overgrown ape with a tendancy to want to believe in some sort of "divine" or "spiritual," however one defines it.

As though evolution, by accident or "design" (ha ha) ended up producing an animal with a craving for something that does not and can not exist. Why in the Universe would this be a byproduct?

That is like a kind of mice evolving with a desire for a food, let's call it Mana, that doesn't exist. But their idea of it is so compelling that they fly into deluded rages and slaughter one another over it!

Sounds curiously maladaptive to me. Much more so than any usual dead end trait that one imagines ends up getting culled down the line.

Moreover, atheism is ill equipped to deal with the fundamental existential issue our curious esoteric craving for the Divine/spiritual/religious poses, because it isn't its job to do so.

Reguardless, the problem persists. And atheism leaves little to nothing to ameliorate this issue of existential angst which emerges, which when left to fester can lead to a virulent form of nihilism that is not unlike what we see in much of the "Godless" developed world today.

This nihilism underscores many modern societal ills.

In the modern world, atheism is growing and much more commonplace because it is in part a worldview that stems from the alienation between man and his more primal, basic nature.

So, we have essentially made ourselves "God" now. Hence the misguided nobility of Secular Humanism, with its lofty goals but insular myopic worldview.

"God is Dead." Nietzche was trying to explain that there are severe rammifications upon society and indeed us as a species for our "murder" of God, and our attempts to replace him witj what amounts to some secular hodgepodge state religion.

@Northwest @Emosaur @LordShadowfire The Bible says, at Genesis 1:1 God created the heavens and Earth. The universe, I think science will agree, consists of the sun and moon. In Hebrew the word [bara] is the perfect state meaning at that point they were complete. Following that are more than 40 cases of the imperfect state [asah in various forms], meaning progress in action. So, when it says God made things thereafter it means he arranged them. Asah can be translated made, appointed, arranged etc. So, after they were complete he arranged them and appointed them to function in a specific way. Like a bed. Created and then made periodically.

With light there are two Hebrew words to consider. Ohr and maohr. Orh (Genesis 1:3) means light in a general sense. Later, at Genesis 1:14 the Hebrew word maohr is used, that means the source of light. So first light was visible, then the source of light. The imperfect states used throughout indicate gradual process. At Job 38:4, 9 a swaddling band surrounding the earth is mentioned. Apparently there was light visible, but the source only became visible later, from the perspective of someone on earth.

@BibleData Huh? I'm sure you think your alphabet soup means something, It doesn't. Incidentally, maohr doesn't even come close to meaning the source of light. But hey, I just noticed you're new. Carry on.

@Northwest That's really convincing. Boy.

@LordShadowfire [quote]So it's unreliable. Got it.[/quote]

More like subject to user error. In a sense, not user friendly to our temporal paradigm. The Bible wasn't written for us. The Law of Moses wasn't written for James, but as he said, it was useful to him as an example. The writing was inspired in its time but the translation of our time isn't inspired. It doesn't need to be because it's only an example. It's all we need.

[quote]Not really. Skeptics look at the most literal interpretation because the most vocal of Christians do the same.[/quote]

To some degree, yes, but atheists tend to be more demanding in their more literal interpretation. And really, I believe the atheist vs theist debate to be a product of a sociopolitical frustration on the part of a small minority of militant atheists. It's petty, really. It's our egos. A class struggle of sorts. World views colliding. Just noise that will fade away in time.

I would encourage any serious minded skeptic to not pay too much attention to creationists or Christian theology outside of the pretty well documented history of their apostasy.

[quote]"Oh, the Bible says everything was created in a week, and my pastor says it was only six thousand years ago, so your evolutionary theory is a lie!" That sort of thing. [/quote]

Likewise I would encourage the serious skeptic to avoid the trappings of ideology. If you are an archaeologist digging around in the smoky ruins of time it isn't your job to believe in the gods you are finding, or compare unfairly their culture with your own, it's your job to find out what they believed. What motivated them. Their zeitgeist.

If you really want to understand the Bible, even from a skeptical perspective, you may have to look deeper than the King James Version or what a pastor says. If you are satisfied with not doing that you probably have other motivations, just as the believer does the same for the same reason. He isn't searching for God, he's searching for tradition and a false comfort.

There's nothing that can be done for those people. You can't educate them and you certainly can't reason with them. They aren't interested in the data. That's just a smokescreen. It's gaslighting. Translucent.

If you can't get past Genesis 1:1 the odds are you haven't the motivation. And that's fine. It's your responsibility. No one else's. You've chosen your path so follow it to the end.

[quote]The original interpretation was the sky.[/quote]

Okay. What's in the sky?

[quote]We have to remember that these people had no conception of anything outside the bounds of earth.[/quote]

They couldn't see the sun? Had no idea it existed? Their description of the sky as you see it is how they saw it - and you're sure about that.

Okay.

[quote]They couldn't imagine the vast expanses we know exist between even our planet and the sun, let alone other planets. Hell, let's be honest. The author probably thought the sky was a dome over the flat earth.[/quote]

No, they didn't think that until the dark ages. But their lack of knowledge had been resolved by the time you say the sun was introduced into their crazy narrative? Three verses later? I've already explained the language to you. Now I have to argue your conjectural cultural appropriation? And I'm the one doing mental gymnastics?

Just to give you some perspective the book of Job was written prior to Genesis and it talks about several constellations. In the dark ages, however, they thought that day and night were caused by vapors, or miasmas, either from the sky or the earth. They also thought that disease was caused by these miasmas. The germ theory wouldn't replace the miasmatic school of medicine until Pasteur and Lister, among others, in the 1860's - 1870's. We still have remnants of that archaic school in modern medicine, like the surgical mask.

So smart phones a smart people do not make.

[quote]That's a poor example. You're using a well-known English expression that we all know isn't to be taken literally.[/quote]

It's the same. You can't just explain away the perfect and imperfect states of bara and asah. You aren't doing that. One conveys completion, the other progressive action.

[quote]Again, even if we assume the word day is metaphorical (or more likely, mistranslated by Dark Age "scholars), you've still got the problem of proving that the sun was made in verse 1. You haven't proven that. All you've done is overlay your own assumptions about what "the heavens" means. We're still on square one.[/quote]

I don't know what to tell you. In the creation account, day means the daylight hours, a literal 24 hour period and an indeterminate period of time. David and Paul mention the seventh day as continuing thousands of years later and I gave multiple verses where the term is used for various times outside of the creation account throughout the Bible as well as contemporary English.

There isn't much more I can do for you.

@BibleData [quote]More like subject to user error. In a sense, not user friendly to our temporal paradigm. The Bible wasn't written for us.[/quote]
You sure do use a lot of words to agree with me.

[quote]I would encourage any serious minded skeptic to not pay too much attention to creationists or Christian theology outside of the pretty well documented history of their apostasy.[/quote]
Yeah, well, [i]they[/i] say that anybody who doesn't take the Bible literally is an apostate, and a disciple of Satan, so there we go.

[quote]If you can't get past Genesis 1:1 the odds are you haven't the motivation.[/quote]
Hey, you were the one who brought up Genesis, dude. We can debate other parts of the Bible if you want.

[quote]They couldn't see the sun? Had no idea it existed? Their description of the sky as you see it is how they saw it - and you're sure about that.[/quote]
No, the Bible is crystal clear. Everything was dark. Nice try, though.

[quote]No, they didn't think that until the dark ages. But their lack of knowledge had been resolved by the time you say the sun was introduced into their crazy narrative? Three verses later? I've already explained the language to you. Now I have to argue your conjectural cultural appropriation? And I'm the one doing mental gymnastics?[/quote]
Nope. Didn't say that. Keep the straw men out of this. I said the book says God created the sky, and then the sun. End of story. It's a creation myth, a way of explaining how the sun, moon, and stars came to be.

[quote]Just to give you some perspective the book of Job was written prior to Genesis and it talks about several constellations.[/quote]
Again, you are ignoring the fact that Genesis chapter 1 is a creation myth. It doesn't matter that Job was written an unknown number of centuries earlier.

[quote]It's the same. You can't just explain away the perfect and imperfect states of bara and asah. You aren't doing that. One conveys completion, the other progressive action.[/quote]
Look. If you have to have knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and probably some dead languages I've never heard of in order to get the proper meaning, what's the point? To get good rules for behavior? I can find that anywhere.

[quote]I don't know what to tell you. In the creation account, day means the daylight hours, a literal 24 hour period and an indeterminate period of time.[/quote]
And they still fall in order, even if we assume the author means an epoch instead of a literal day.

@LordShadowfire [quote]You sure do use a lot of words to agree with me.[/quote]

I'm not agreeing with you, I'm saying the Bible isn't unreliable, we are.

[quote]Yeah, well, they say that anybody who doesn't take the Bible literally is an apostate, and a disciple of Satan, so there we go.[/quote]

They're wrong. It's important to know when to take it literally and when not to. Genesis 1:1 isn't a matter of whether or not to take it literal, it's a matter of linguistics. Something is lost in translation.

[quote]Hey, you were the one who brought up Genesis, dude. We can debate other parts of the Bible if you want.[/quote]

The point is that you are biased due to tradition.

[quote]No, the Bible is crystal clear. Everything was dark. Nice try, though.[/quote]

Everything was dark until verse 3 because of the debris surrounding the planet earth in the newly created universe. The imperfect state of asah (make) indicates this as does the gradual appearance of the source of light later which is why there are two different words for light used in each case. It's difficult to translate but some older more careful translations more clearly indicate this progressive action indicated by the imperfect state.

[quote]Nope. Didn't say that. Keep the straw men out of this. I said the book says God created the sky, and then the sun. End of story.[/quote]

Wrong.

[quote]It's a creation myth, a way of explaining how the sun, moon, and stars came to be.[/quote]

There. That incorrect assumption is why you can't have this discussion properly. Your estimation is based upon a faulty premise. An unnecessary one. It's irrelevant but you have to make it to reach your predetermined conclusion. There isn't any point in your doing that since you're already convinced. You can't understand something if you insist on misunderstanding it for your own convenience.

I've had this discussion with countless skeptics, you aren't going to convince me and you've already convinced yourself, so that isn't the point here. The point is debate? Then you need to give more reason for your observation, your hypothesis. Your logic is flawed because the sun, moon and stars are in the sky. Either way, I'm right. The sun was already complete.

Here's the evidence you have to refute to support your claim that the sun was created after plants.

1. Genesis 1:1 uses bara for created. In Hebrew it's the perfect state, meaning, without a doubt, that the heavens and earth were complete before the "days of creation" began. The spiritual heavens were already created an indeterminate time prior to that as indicated elsewhere, Job for example. The English uses the past tense, created. The sky, the physical heavens, include the sun, moon and stars.

2. The heavens are created, 1:1. Light appears, is made to shine, gradually as is indicated with the imperfect state of asah which is different than bara in verses 3 and 16. Created / made. Asah can be translated as appoint or prepare, God was preparing the already created earth in the 6 "days." You can't say the sun wasn't any more created than the earth from verse 1 because they are both being prepared. Not created twice. The "in the beginning" wasn't the beginning of all things created, it was the beginning of the heavens and earth.

3. At 1:1 the heavens and earth are created. At 1:2 There is no light, no land. At 1:3 light appears gradually. At 1:4 there is a division of night and day. Only at 1:5 is the first day. The day is metaphorical. Revelation to angels observing from heaven. At 1:6 the waters are divided. At 1:7 the expanse is made. At 1:8 God calls the expanse sky. (atmosphere) At 1:9 land is made. At 1:10 God calls land and sea. At 1:11 vegetation appears.

[quote]Again, you are ignoring the fact that Genesis chapter 1 is a creation myth.[/quote]

You haven't provided any evidence to that effect.

[quote]It doesn't matter that Job was written an unknown number of centuries earlier.[/quote]

Job was completed in c. 1473, Genesis was completed in 1513.

[quote]Look. If you have to have knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, and probably some dead languages I've never heard of in order to get the proper meaning, what's the point? To get good rules for behavior? I can find that anywhere.[/quote]

Exactly. Then do it.