Yikes, sky dad...morals are absolute, though

[G.T.]

It's an interpretation, that Satan merely represents life as a metaphor.....but taking even that on "Faith" is the same dogmatic reasoning that leads some to believe in the Literal interpretations of these convoluted, often contradictory texts. It hoists yourself into a position that's wholly un-achievable, which is mind-reading the intent of the writers of the Centuries old book.

Thats not what I said. Satan does not represent life as a metaphor. Satan is a mythological being that represents an actual human archetype infesting religions and governments around the world like a plague.

Whatever your assertion may be, the underlying point is that it's a mere interpretation, and one you're taking liberty with.

That's not to disagree that Satan represents one of the human archetypes, because to the best of our current knowledge it's a more plausible interpretation than the one that says he was a Supernatural being...............but it's more-so a testimony to honesty, i.e. like I said before ~ it's not possible to know as an absolute what the writer's intent was, at this point.

If you are paying any attention at all to what is going on in politics and religion, you will know with 100% absolute certainly what the writers intent was.

Well, I'd disagree completely.....but like I said, this is not something that could be rationally argued as an absolute. It's a wasted exercise. As far as we know, it's the same sort of back-filling as the prophecies of Nostradamus. You could fit a lot of concepts into broad, vague language and then wait for things to pass and back-fill as you find fit.

As far as I can see people have been comparing other people to wild animals and mythological beings to either praise or condemn certain human archetypes in every culture nation and language worldwide ever since people could talk.

So have you, ever since you were in grade school.

Am I telling you something that you don't already know?

I'm telling you that you don't know if the intent of the writers was for folks to literally believe what they'd written, metaphorically believe it or a mixture of both. The fact that there's folks of all three categories is the point of that nail.

 

[G.T.]

I wonder if religion predates human imagination?

the egg predates the chicken

 

[TNHarley]

I wonder if religion predates human imagination?

the egg predates the chicken

Finally answered! Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
SOLVED!

 

[G.T.]

lol capture small children

 

[hobelim]

Finally answered! Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
SOLVED!

yup..

 

[hobelim]

Thats not what I said. Satan does not represent life as a metaphor. Satan is a mythological being that represents an actual human archetype infesting religions and governments around the world like a plague.

Whatever your assertion may be, the underlying point is that it's a mere interpretation, and one you're taking liberty with.

That's not to disagree that Satan represents one of the human archetypes, because to the best of our current knowledge it's a more plausible interpretation than the one that says he was a Supernatural being...............but it's more-so a testimony to honesty, i.e. like I said before ~ it's not possible to know as an absolute what the writer's intent was, at this point.

If you are paying any attention at all to what is going on in politics and religion, you will know with 100% absolute certainly what the writers intent was.

Well, I'd disagree completely.....but like I said, this is not something that could be rationally argued as an absolute. It's a wasted exercise. As far as we know, it's the same sort of back-filling as the prophecies of Nostradamus. You could fit a lot of concepts into broad, vague language and then wait for things to pass and back-fill as you find fit.

As far as I can see people have been comparing other people to wild animals and mythological beings to either praise or condemn certain human archetypes in every culture nation and language worldwide ever since people could talk.

So have you, ever since you were in grade school.

Am I telling you something that you don't already know?

I'm telling you that you don't know if the intent of the writers was for folks to literally believe what they'd written, metaphorically believe it or a mixture of both. The fact that there's folks of all three categories is the point of that nail.

Ok. This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

Knowing that, as a parent, if your child asked you for something good to eat would you give them a bowl of horse apples? If they asked you for an egg would you give them a serpent?

If they asked you to teach them something good about life would you fill their heads with a ton of garbage without any good, relevant, or true teaching about life involved?

 

[G.T.]

Whatever your assertion may be, the underlying point is that it's a mere interpretation, and one you're taking liberty with.

That's not to disagree that Satan represents one of the human archetypes, because to the best of our current knowledge it's a more plausible interpretation than the one that says he was a Supernatural being...............but it's more-so a testimony to honesty, i.e. like I said before ~ it's not possible to know as an absolute what the writer's intent was, at this point.

If you are paying any attention at all to what is going on in politics and religion, you will know with 100% absolute certainly what the writers intent was.

Well, I'd disagree completely.....but like I said, this is not something that could be rationally argued as an absolute. It's a wasted exercise. As far as we know, it's the same sort of back-filling as the prophecies of Nostradamus. You could fit a lot of concepts into broad, vague language and then wait for things to pass and back-fill as you find fit.

As far as I can see people have been comparing other people to wild animals and mythological beings to either praise or condemn certain human archetypes in every culture nation and language worldwide ever since people could talk.

So have you, ever since you were in grade school.

Am I telling you something that you don't already know?

I'm telling you that you don't know if the intent of the writers was for folks to literally believe what they'd written, metaphorically believe it or a mixture of both. The fact that there's folks of all three categories is the point of that nail.

Ok. This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

Knowing that, as a parent, if your child asked you for something good to eat would you give them a bowl of horse apples? If they asked you for an egg would you give them a serpent?

If they asked you to teach them something good about life would you fill their heads with a ton of garbage without any good or true teaching about life involved?

I'd be forthright and would say, "here's how to think about this using a metaphor....."

As opposed to the level of ambiguity that would lead ba ba ba billions of folks into taking me literally! lol!!

 

[hobelim]

If you are paying any attention at all to what is going on in politics and religion, you will know with 100% absolute certainly what the writers intent was.

Well, I'd disagree completely.....but like I said, this is not something that could be rationally argued as an absolute. It's a wasted exercise. As far as we know, it's the same sort of back-filling as the prophecies of Nostradamus. You could fit a lot of concepts into broad, vague language and then wait for things to pass and back-fill as you find fit.

As far as I can see people have been comparing other people to wild animals and mythological beings to either praise or condemn certain human archetypes in every culture nation and language worldwide ever since people could talk.

So have you, ever since you were in grade school.

Am I telling you something that you don't already know?

I'm telling you that you don't know if the intent of the writers was for folks to literally believe what they'd written, metaphorically believe it or a mixture of both. The fact that there's folks of all three categories is the point of that nail.

Ok. This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

Knowing that, as a parent, if your child asked you for something good to eat would you give them a bowl of horse apples? If they asked you for an egg would you give them a serpent?

If they asked you to teach them something good about life would you fill their heads with a ton of garbage without any good or true teaching about life involved?

I'd be forthright and would say, "here's how to think about this using a metaphor....."

As opposed to the level of ambiguity that would lead ba ba ba billions of folks into taking me literally! lol!!

The oral explanation was never written down, just like you never referred to any written text to explain to your children the moral teaching in the story of the boy who cried wolf.


Thats what Jesus meant by saying that he held the secrets to the kingdom of heaven. He had a grasp of the hidden teaching passed down from antiquity that had been lost to time since the time of Moses.

Why would the writers have cared if their enemies who openly expressed an obsession to destroy them took it all literally and consequently went insane?

 

[G.T.]

Well, I'd disagree completely.....but like I said, this is not something that could be rationally argued as an absolute. It's a wasted exercise. As far as we know, it's the same sort of back-filling as the prophecies of Nostradamus. You could fit a lot of concepts into broad, vague language and then wait for things to pass and back-fill as you find fit.

As far as I can see people have been comparing other people to wild animals and mythological beings to either praise or condemn certain human archetypes in every culture nation and language worldwide ever since people could talk.

So have you, ever since you were in grade school.

Am I telling you something that you don't already know?

I'm telling you that you don't know if the intent of the writers was for folks to literally believe what they'd written, metaphorically believe it or a mixture of both. The fact that there's folks of all three categories is the point of that nail.

Ok. This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

Knowing that, as a parent, if your child asked you for something good to eat would you give them a bowl of horse apples? If they asked you for an egg would you give them a serpent?

If they asked you to teach them something good about life would you fill their heads with a ton of garbage without any good or true teaching about life involved?

I'd be forthright and would say, "here's how to think about this using a metaphor....."

As opposed to the level of ambiguity that would lead ba ba ba billions of folks into taking me literally! lol!!

The oral explanation was never written down, just like you never referred to any written text to explain to your children the moral teaching in the story of the boy who cried wolf.


Thats what Jesus means by saying that he held the secrets to the kingdom of heaven. He had a grasp of the hidden teaching passed down from antiquity.

Why would they care if their enemies took it all literally and consequently went insane?

Stay on one subject at a time........We were discussing the written account of Satan in the Bible and whether it was intended to be taken literally or metaphorically, and now we're onto oral explanations having never been written down, and your Jesus quote that you got from <source> which somehow is acceptable to believe in spite of it not being orally received (barring Jesus being alive and talking to folks in your lifetime).....that's just too all over the place.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

While they may seem like fairy tales and fables (because they are, being embarrassingly disconnected from reality), they were and still are taken as absolute fact.

 

[hobelim]

This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

While they may seem like fairy tales and fables (because they are, being embarrassingly disconnected from reality), they were and still are taken as absolute fact.

Yes, I agree, what Moses was teaching was set aside and lost to time probably ever since Moses died. However there is some evidence that secret teaching was passed down to initiates but deliberately being held back from comprehension by foreigners and even ordinary Jews as can be seen in the dead sea scrolls as a rule in the manual of discipline:

Of religious discussion.

No one is to engage in discussion or disputation with men of ill repute; and in the company of froward men everyone is to abstain from talk about (keep hidden) the meaning of the Law [Torah].

This seems to be what Jesus was arguing about by saying,"No one lights a candle and then hides it under a bushel"

Thats why some said, "Where did he get this teaching? " not because it was so amazing but because it was supposed to be kept secret especially from those who the religious elite perceived as being unclean, froward, or unrepentant 'sinners' like Jesus...

Jesus said that it was revealed to him by God. They knew there was no other possible explanation. They knew his family, where he grew up, what he was doing..... being tempted by the devil in the wilderness while living among the wild beasts, in other words living in non jewish areas presumably doing what romans do, not praying to a spaghetti monster in some orthodox community or chanting in a Buddhist monastery

 

[G.T.]

This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

While they may seem like fairy tales and fables (because they are, being embarrassingly disconnected from reality), they were and still are taken as absolute fact.

Yes, I agree, what Moses was teaching was set aside and lost to time probably ever since Moses died. However there is some evidence that secret teaching was passed down to initiates but deliberately being held back from comprehension by foreigners and even ordinary Jews as can be seen in the dead sea scrolls as a rule in the manual of discipline:

Of religious discussion.

No one is to engage in discussion or disputation with men of ill repute; and in the company of froward men everyone is to abstain from talk about (keep hidden) the meaning of the Law [Torah].

This seems to be what Jesus was arguing about by saying,"No one lights a candle and then hides it under a bushel"

Thats why some said, "Where did he get this teaching? " not because it was so amazing but because it was supposed to be kept secret especially from those who the religious elite perceived as being unclean, froward, or unrepentant 'sinners' like Jesus...

Jesus said that it was revealed to him by God. They knew there was no other possible explanation. They knew his family, where he grew up, what he was doing..... being tempted by the devil in the wilderness while living among the wild beasts, in other words living in non jewish areas presumably doing what romans do, not praying to a spaghetti monster in some orthodox community or chanting in a Buddhist monastery

I believe in literally zero of that dogshit hearsay, to me its no more credible than any other Epistemological dogma.

 

[hobelim]

This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

While they may seem like fairy tales and fables (because they are, being embarrassingly disconnected from reality), they were and still are taken as absolute fact.

Yes, I agree, what Moses was teaching was set aside and lost to time probably ever since Moses died. However there is some evidence that secret teaching was passed down to initiates but deliberately being held back from comprehension by foreigners and even ordinary Jews as can be seen in the dead sea scrolls as a rule in the manual of discipline:

Of religious discussion.

No one is to engage in discussion or disputation with men of ill repute; and in the company of froward men everyone is to abstain from talk about (keep hidden) the meaning of the Law [Torah].

This seems to be what Jesus was arguing about by saying,"No one lights a candle and then hides it under a bushel"

Thats why some said, "Where did he get this teaching? " not because it was so amazing but because it was supposed to be kept secret especially from those who the religious elite perceived as being unclean, froward, or unrepentant 'sinners' like Jesus...

Jesus said that it was revealed to him by God. They knew there was no other possible explanation. They knew his family, where he grew up, what he was doing..... being tempted by the devil in the wilderness while living among the wild beasts, in other words living in non jewish areas presumably doing what romans do, not praying to a spaghetti monster in some orthodox community or chanting in a Buddhist monastery

I believe in literally zero of that dogshit hearsay, to me its no more credible than any other Epistemological dogma.

Believe or don't believe whatever you want. The quote from the manual of discipline is not hearsay. Its an actual ancient document written by ultra orthodox contemporaries of Jesus that can be read by anyone detailing what could or could not be discussed with the uninitiated, including the specific directive to keep secret the hidden meaning of the law.

 

[ding]

I wonder if religion predates human imagination?

I wonder what it is that you have accomplished in life that makes you think you know so much.

 

[G.T.]

This is how I see it. Since the stories are like fairy tales and fables it follows that they were intended as the word Torah suggests to instruct children.

While they may seem like fairy tales and fables (because they are, being embarrassingly disconnected from reality), they were and still are taken as absolute fact.

Yes, I agree, what Moses was teaching was set aside and lost to time probably ever since Moses died. However there is some evidence that secret teaching was passed down to initiates but deliberately being held back from comprehension by foreigners and even ordinary Jews as can be seen in the dead sea scrolls as a rule in the manual of discipline:

Of religious discussion.

No one is to engage in discussion or disputation with men of ill repute; and in the company of froward men everyone is to abstain from talk about (keep hidden) the meaning of the Law [Torah].

This seems to be what Jesus was arguing about by saying,"No one lights a candle and then hides it under a bushel"

Thats why some said, "Where did he get this teaching? " not because it was so amazing but because it was supposed to be kept secret especially from those who the religious elite perceived as being unclean, froward, or unrepentant 'sinners' like Jesus...

Jesus said that it was revealed to him by God. They knew there was no other possible explanation. They knew his family, where he grew up, what he was doing..... being tempted by the devil in the wilderness while living among the wild beasts, in other words living in non jewish areas presumably doing what romans do, not praying to a spaghetti monster in some orthodox community or chanting in a Buddhist monastery

I believe in literally zero of that dogshit hearsay, to me its no more credible than any other Epistemological dogma.

Believe or don't believe whatever you want. The quote from the manual of discipline is not hearsay. Its an actual ancient document that can be read by anyone detailing what could or could not be discussed with the uninitiated, including the specific directive to keep secret the hidden meaning of the law.

The document itself is hearsay, by definition. Scribing it doesnt make it any better than word of mouth.

 

[ding]

We have lots of information to draw conclusions from concerning the nature of God. The OP mistaking assumes that the only information available about the nature of God comes from the Bible, but the overwhelming amount evidence comes from nature itself. Specifically, human nature.

 

[ding]

From physical laws we can see that we live in a universe which follows rules. Rules are the domain of intelligence. We can know from the physical laws of nature that every effect had a cause which means that things in this universe do happen for a reason.

 

[ding]

In our own lives we can find that we do things for a purpose or a reason.

 

[G.T.]

tl;dr bumper sticker dogma

 

[ding]

From biological laws we can know that nature has a preference for life to not only exist but to diversify and evolve. It would not be possible for intelligence to arise if the biological laws were not hard wire into life to program life for the desire to survive and reproduce.