"not a single biblical apologist has even attempted......"
Thank you, Alan. Sometimes the sidestepping and illogic gets so thick here, I begin to doubt my
own sanity! The point about Exodus stands unrefuted.
metatron
The Watchtower and Creation
by AlanF 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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TopHat
ALAN, I am so sorry to read that you are suffering from: NPD..I do hope you find a cure for your disorder.
Definition
Narcissistic personality disorder is a condition characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance and an extreme preoccupation with one's self.
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
The cause of this disorder is unknown. Personality disorders are long-lasting patterns of behavior that cause problems with relationships and work. Narcissistic personality disorder usually begins by early adulthood and is marked by disregard for the feelings of others, grandiosity, obsessive self-interest, and the pursuit of primarily selfish goals.
Symptoms
A person with narcissistic personality disorder:
- Reacts to criticism with feelings or rage, shame, or humiliation
- Takes advantage of others to achieve own goals
- Has feelings of self-importance
- Exaggerates achievements and talents
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, beauty, intelligence, or ideal love
- Has unreasonable expectations of favorable treatment
- Requires constant attention and admiration
- Lacks empathy
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AlmostAtheist
Is all the name calling and bluster leading us away from the issue? There is a simple question on the table and it's getting lost in all the peripheral stuff.
How do you reconcile a billions-year-old earth with the scriptures cited in Exodus?
If you don't have an answer, that's ok. Faith means moving ahead with a belief, even when you face stuff like this. But if anyone has an answer, it would be great to hear it.
By "answer", I mean one that addresses the issue raised. Listing all the ways the word day can be defined doesn't address it at all. Ignoring it, since creation wasn't the subject under discussion doesn't address it. (If you think those two arguments DO address it, please explain.)
Dave
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TopHat
The question raised is not for a lay person to answer BUT for someone who is a scholar in biblical scripture, history and culture...I think Alan knows that.
I have no idea. Does that make you happy? I am sure there is an explanation, I just don't have it at my fingertips right now....If I find the answer I will be back for sure. gonna take a nap now.
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hillary_step
Top Hat,
I have no idea. Does that make you happy? I am sure there is an explanation, I just don't have it at my fingertips right now....If I find the answer I will be back for sure. gonna take a nap now.
You 'have no idea'? Now that is pure understatement. I have never actually read anything you have posted on this Board that reeks of anything but the most primitive and embryonic reasoning, yet you cannot resist inserting yourself in threads that require that you need to have an idea in order to post with any credibility!
Why not stay out of posts that require an IQ higher than 45, it will save everybody much time and effort.
Cheers - HS
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AlmostAtheist
I have no idea. Does that make you happy? I am sure there is an explanation, I just don't have it at my fingertips right now....
I wasn't trying to be mean, TopHat, nor was I trying to force you into a corner. It wasn't even directed exclusively at you. I was just trying to get the discussion back on the subject and off the participants.
You have expressed your faith. I don't share it, but I don't deride you for it.
Dave
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hillary_step
Joseph,
I have already responded to this.
I am the first to admit that you are responding, but you are not responding to the questions that I posed that allow us to know what you really think of the OT attitude toward women. In order to illustrate this I will quote my first post to you, which contain my oft repeated questions:
Do you accept the OT as part of the Bible? Do you believe the OT is 'God's Word'? If you do, in what way is the point AlanF made innacurate?
Well, do you believe the OT to be God's Word to man? Do you view the Levitical Law as being God breathed or from man?
When Alan suggested that the Bible painted a picture of women being the property of men you reacted by quoting the words of Paul. Alan was clearly focusing on the OT, though I have mentioned there is plenty of room in the NT for a misogynists dirty weekend. How were his words innacurate against the backdrop of the Hebrew Scriptures?
Your defence against the assertion made by AlanF was that the word 'property' was not mentioned in the Bible when discussing the relationship between women, men and ownership, one very weak argument as I mention above. For example :
Exodus 20:17 :
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"You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male or female slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything else that belongs to him."Deuternomy 20:14 :
When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive,
And you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and desire her, and take her for a wife -
Then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and do her nails,
And she shall remove the garment of her captivity from her, and remain in your house and weep for her father and mother a for month, and after that you may approach her and have intercourse with her, and she shall be your wife.
And if you do not want her, you shall send her out on her own; you shall not sell her at all for money, you shall not treat her as a slave, because you "violated" her.Here we have the Hebrew God instructing conquering Israelite men how to treat the 'spoils' in women :
Are they not finding, are they not dividing the spoil?
A maiden, two maidens for every warrior;
To Sisera a spoil of dyed work,
A spoil of dyed work embroidered,I also suggest that you look carefully into the slang expression used by the Hebrew God to describe these women using the word 'maiden', you will find it less than dignified!
You did not live with them and see what kind of life they had. All you have is what you think the interpretation of such texts means putting the worse spin on it that you can. Did not females hold high station in Israel yielding great influence? Ex 15:20 Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her, with tambourines and dancing. 2Ki 22:14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Acbor, Shaphan and Asaiah went to speak to the prophetess Huldah, who was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe. She lived in Jerusalem, in the Second District. They were more advanced than we are today, and while there may have been bad apples in the Nation we have the same here and now. You have not disproved what I have said regarding the accuracy of Alanf's statements. In this you have failed.
Joseph, I know that you are an intelligent man, so please do not insult my intelligence by using a Biblical oily rag in an attempt to slide this issue onto territory which you feel might be better received publicly. In this you come dangerously close to copying the intellectual dishonesty of the WTS in dealing with this very subject.
From Genesis 3:16 when The Hebrew God cursed women with a painful childbirth and the desire to be dominated by man, to the instruction in Numbers 30 where a womens vow could not be validated without a mans authority, to the NT in I Cor11 where Paul declares that women were made for men, the Bible is full of examples of exactly the thing AlanF described.
If you accept that the OT is God's word, you must also accept that your God has a less than healthy respect for women, who clearly in fact and principle were the property of men.
Do you accept the OT as Gods Word? Do you accpet the Levitical and other laws as God given, or the products of men? ( Asked for the fourth time )
Best regards - HS
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AlanF
JosephMalik wrote:
: I saw your response to TopHat and disagreed with both of you.
You can disagree all you want, but unless you post an actual argument backing up your disagreement, it's meaningless.
: There was no further need to bother with such error.
How arrogant! Are you God, that you need merely to declare "error" and poof! It exists?
: You have not addressed my point which any simply look up will verify.
Of course not -- at least, not directly, up to this point -- because you have not dealt with the point I made first. Here, let me remind you. I said to TopHat: "The point was it would be inconsistent for God to both bless a sacred day and on that same day curse the creation he had just blessed. If he cursed it, then the blessing of it would have been annulled. Thus, logic indicates that the 7th day ended, and some time later the ground was cursed." And I had previously said to PrimateDave: "It's not likely that God would curse the ground on the very same day that he had already blessed and made sacred. Thus, any reference to "God's rest day" in places like Hebrews 4:3 must refer to some other kind of rest."
You then quoted the latter, and made a response. Let's see if that response contains anything that bears on my point about inconsistency.
: The scriptures are not saying that God ceased to function
My point has nothing to do with God ceasing to function. It has to do with consistency. You're inventing an argument I did not make. Nor does my point have to do with this:
: simply because of Man's indiscretion.
This is irrelevant to my point, which is that it would make God inconsistent to claim that he had blessed and made sacred the very same day on which he pronounced a curse on one of his works, namely, the ground. If the ground is cursed, then the creation can no longer be called "good".
: After all the Word was assigned to deal with human affairs and would continue to do so in God’s behalf.
Nothing here either.
: The creation of this world on this planet is all that is being discussed in the texts anyway.
Nor here.
Next you commit the fallacy of assuming your conclusion in order to prove your point:
: Hebrews therefore is not talking about some other kind of rest but simply discusses our place in this same rest in which we now live, as not everyone will qualify to continue to be a part of it and we have been warned.
You assume -- without actual argumentation to justify it -- that "we" have a "place in this same rest in which we now live", and you simply make an unsupported claim that "Hebrews therefore is not talking about some other kind of rest".
See? You have not even attempted to address my point about consistency.
I see no reason to answer your follow-on argument unless you show enough respect to answer the one I presented first.
: Regarding your further response to TopHat you also said:
:: But how far has the Bible's view of, say, women come along in that time period? Nada.
Let's note that my reference to "that time period" was to TopHat's mention of the last 100 years. Nevertheless:
:: Remember that the Bible's view of women is that they are the property of men -- a special kind of property, but still property. A girl was her father's property until she married, after which she was her husband's property. Whose property are you?
: What nonsense. Paul made it a point that women were all equal in the faith and staunchly apposed those that disagreed. He even had overseers appointed to oppose such men and sent others like Timothy out to identify and oppose them. I know that many do not understand what he was teaching and take his comments the wrong way. But I expect more from those doing a critical analysis of the texts.
Your claims are sheer nonsense because they completely ignore the Old Testament, and ignore much of the New Testament. It was Paul who said, "I do not permit a woman to teach in the congregation." He and various other NT writers made it clear that women were second-class Christians while on earth. Why else would women who prayed publicly be required to don a head covering, while men were forbidden to? The NT view is that men marry, while women are given in marriage. Given by who? By whoever owns them in that special way that fathers and husbands owned them. You can't with a straight face call that "equal in the faith". The fact that all Christians might become spirit creatures is irrelevant, because spirit creatures are neither men nor women. We are talking about men and women.
The NT view of women was certainly moderated from the OT view, but the OT view was staunchly mysogynistic. Women were property -- a very special kind of property, but property nonetheless. Men could divorce; women could not. Men could have many wives and concubines; women were permitted one and only one husband. The Hebrew word for husband, "baal", literally means "owner". The Hebrew word for wife, "beulah", literally means "owned one". The entire focus of the OT is on a man's view: look over the Ten Commandents and see for yourself that commands like "you must not covet your neighbor's wife" are focused on the man's viewpoint. Men were allowed to commit what modern Christians would term "fornication" with an unmarried woman with at worst a penalty of being forced to marry her; women of any sort who committed "fornication" were to be stoned. These mores had almost nothing to do with moral values, but everything to do with male property rights -- the property rights of a father to benefit from his daughter's value, and the property rights of a husband to do the same with his wife, and more importantly, to be the sole male who might impregnate her and gain the ultimate in property value -- children and a line of descent. Nothing that Jesus said, so far as I'm aware of, ameliorates the attitudes codified in the Mosaic Law, except for his comments, as you pointed out, that Jewish Christians were no longer permitted to divorce their wives on all sorts of grounds.
I should point out that this last thing, about Jesus abrogating the OT laws on divorce, clearly points to the conclusion that the cultural mores embodied in the Mosaic Law are nothing more than those of ancient Middle Eastern nomads such as the legendary Abraham. A God as powerful as the OT God is claimed to be would have had no problem putting into the Law exactly the same restrictions on divorce, and even on the general sexual practices of males, as Jesus enunciated and as are found elsewhere in the NT. In reality, then, Jesus' words are nothing more than a new codification of the cultural mores that had changed radically in the 2,000 some odd years from the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus. This is an extremely strong indication that the Bible is an interesting collection of fine tales, legends and so forth -- but certainly not "God's Word".
The following websites are tiny fraction of those that clearly point out the Bible's view of women:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ofe_bibl.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible_views_on_women
http://atheism.about.com/od/bibleoldtestament/a/women.htmRead 'em and weep.
AlanF
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AlanF
An interesting experience, Zack.
AlmostAtheist said:
: How do you reconcile a billions-year-old earth with the scriptures cited in Exodus?
TopHat, good little woman that she is, replied:
: The question raised is not for a lay person to answer BUT for someone who is a scholar in biblical scripture, history and culture...I think Alan knows that.
A variety of answers have been given by all manner of such scholars. Mostly, their answers depend on their prejudices, and range from "You can't" to "Don't take Genesis or Exodus literally". The fact that TopHat refuses to think upon such weighty matters, but defers to the superior male intellect, is sad but again diagnostic.
This exchange reminds me of a little-known story from Grim's Fractured Fairy Tales. Seems the Tooth Fairy's existence is being vocally doubted by EvilGambler. The ever-faithful DunceCap defends the Tooth Fairy:
DunceCap: EvilGambler, why do you doubt the Tooth Fairy's existence? There is proof! Just look around you at the abundance of teeth so well put-together and in harmony. Not just my teeth are in harmony but the whole world's!
EvilGambler: I've looked into this thoroughly, and Grim's Fairy Tales in particular. It don't cut the mustard.
DunceCap: It makes my heart glad to see you are still studying Grim's Fairy Tales....You'll get it...don't worry. You are just a little confused right now.
EvilGambler: Not really. When I was little I believed Mommy and Daddy and prayed that the Tooth Fairy would give me money. I caught Daddy trying to put money under my pillow, and, well, you can guess the rest.
DunceCap: But that doesn't prove anything about the Tooth Fairy! My Mommy and Daddy would never go in with the Tooth Fairy on something as evil as that, and she didn't! She gave me money for my teeth!
EvilGambler: But how do you know your Mommy and Daddy didn't sneak in while you were sleeping?
DunceCap: Oh, they'd neeeever do that! That would be fibbing! Besides, it says so in Grim's Fairy Tales!
EvilGambler: So? How do you reconcile the fact that most people don't believe in the Tooth Fairy with your experience getting money for teeth?
DunceCap: Well, the question raised is not for a lay person to answer BUT for someone who is a scholar in Grim's Fairy Tale scripture, Tooth Fairy history and Kid Kulture.
EvilGambler: Ok.... Now I understand.
AlanF
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AlanF
It appears that certain once-vocal Christian apologists have flown the coop.
AlanF
