by Joe Bloggs 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
For Those Of you Who Still Believe That the Bible Is A Rational Work
Just reading the bible as well as other religion's epic writings shows how fantasy, that is converted to myth, and mistaken as history, has done that perfectly. The lack of knowledge of science, physics, and human nature shows the stories to be of pure myth time and time again.
seven006 wrote this...I agree with him !
Yes if we had the undersatnding of science and other disciplines we do today, when the bible was written, it would look completely different.
Who said the Bible was a Rational book anyway?
| Post 347 of 347 since 05-Jul-01 53 y 5 m 6 d |
Who said the Bible was a Rational book anyway | |
I didn't.
Joe,
Just to put up the quote out of context might start a little war on this board. That was not my intention and I'm fairly sure it's not yours. This is just part of a growing theory that I have shared with a few others and is more in-depth than what I originally posted.
For a better grasp of what I am saying, I will post what I wrote on Terry's thread about fantasies here to help some who may read this thread gain the full perspective. I don't really want to piss off my Christian friends on the board (some of them can get a bit crabby).
Thanks and glad you liked it.
Dave
Terry,
An imagination is a terrible thing to waste. I think I see where you are coming from and it parallels a theory that I share with a few others.
Fiction and fantasy taken to the point of belief and the faith has proven to keep many in the dark and give false hope by those who cannot see between it, and in your face reality.
Mixing human nature, history, psychology, entertainment and mans need to examen their own spirituality had given us the numerous religions we have today and have had for thousands of years.
Just reading the bible as well as other religion's epic writings shows how fantasy, that is converted to myth, and mistaken as history, has done that perfectly. The lack of knowledge of science, physics, and human nature shows the stories to be of pure myth time and time again.
The bible writers did not know their stories would be later examined and put to the test of scientific fact or fiction. They also did not have the communication technology that would eventually expose how they took older myths from older religious and made it part of their own. The hand me down pseudo science of those days that was turned into religion, can only be held to any resemblance of fact by qualifying it's outrageous stories to be true by replacing the word "fact" with the emotional and very effective word and concept of "faith". Mix that with the fear of god distorting you if you do not believe, and you have what we have today.
I can easily see how a modern day child who now watches TV, plays video games, reads Harry Potter books and has a large collection of super hero action figure was once a child who sat around a camp fire and listened to traveling merchants tell stories about mysterious god like super hero people. I think people crave entertainment more than they crave spirituality. Listening to these traveling merchants bring back stories from the far off lands they visited and mix it with tales of miracles, supreme beings, wars, seven headed wild beasts and virgin births must have captivated their eager audience's imaginations.
People do not change much through out history. They like to tell stories, be entertained, embellish stories to make them more interesting and astonishing and come off as someone in the know. With the limited knowledge of things we take for granted now, it was, back then, easy to say what ever you wanted without worrying about someone standing up in the middle of your story and saying "prove it".
In that aspect I can see where fantasy is dangerous. But, if you can be entertained by it and later show it to be, exactly what it is, it's just entertainment. If it is mistaken as fact, converted to fanatical faith that influences ones actions that may eventually kill off millions of people throughout history, then it is a bad thing. Some things never change, back in the bible times you had the battle between good and evil. In our time, we have Star Wars and various other science fiction epics that continue to tell the story about the battle between good and evil. Separating fact and fiction isn't always fun, but it has been going on through out history. Just count the people who stand in like to see the opening of a Star Wars movie and then count those who stand in line to hear a factual scientific and archeological proven event and you'd be lucky to fill Burger King dining room.
Dave
Myth is a powerful tool. Myth allows us to understand some very base human traits and/or natural passages such as infancy, adolescene, and maturity. Myth helps to explain testosterone and estrogen in a story to be later understood as you get more experience in life. We were never meant to always believe babies are delivered by storks, or that Santa Claus brings gifts, or that a yule log sacrifice can really replace a cannibalistic human sacrifice which may save the tribe in winter.
That said: science is not myth. Although we do see scientists using mythical characters to name "discoveries" (we really need another name for those) thats probably because those mythical characters names have become the definition of some human traits. And lets face it, we like naming big natural entities after ourselves.
Science is not faith and it should never be equated as such, this is why people of faith often confuse the two, someone is telling them that science can prove their beliefs. I think that's unfair to believers.
The Bible is full of hate, revenge, and blood sacrifice. If you study nomadic peoples of the Biblical area you will find those customs such as welcoming, feeding, and protecting strangers still in practice among Saharan nomad;s today. Though many of those are now muslim you can bet your aunt Bette's farm that they descended from the same group as did the Israelites.
The Bible was meant to act as the cohesive between groups released from Babylonish custody. The writers included Babylonian myths because that's what everyone had learned. This includes Daniel the magic practicing priest. So the familiar was included along with name changes and a god of unpronouncable greatness. But the customs were typical to the region.
"Just reading the bible as well as other religion's epic writings shows how fantasy, that is converted to myth, and mistaken as history, has done that perfectly. The lack of knowledge of science, physics, and human nature shows the stories to be of pure myth time and time again."
This is a rather broad statement, and one that is going to be terribly hard to substantiate. The lack of exactly who's "knowledge of science, physics, and human nature" do you refer? The writers of the Bible? Which particular scripture(s) do you refer to as being out of accord with known physics? I don't recall much of the Bible being based upon a hell of a lot of physics, but maybe I missed that part. Please define "epic". If you mean epic as a literary genre, I'm sorry, that's a 20th century Hollywood term and hardly applicable to the Bible, or any of it's characters.
It always makes me chuckle when I hear some pseudo-wise guy make off hand remarks about the ignorance of those poor stupid people way back when. When our "modern" science can give me a reasonable answer as to how the Incas built Machu Pichu, the Druids managed Stonehenge, and the ancient Egyptians could end up with cocaine in their system, then you can start a "reasonable" discussion of the "myths" of the Bible or any other religion.
Think of this, during Europe's Age of Reason, electricity was considered magic, while the Syrians had already invented a steam engine during the time of Alex the Great.
If you would truly like to investigage well researched and well written examinations of the Bible (and why/how some have determined it is nothing more or less than an ancient collection of fables and myths, not different from dozens of others, try reading one of Tim Callahan's books: Secret Origins of the Bible or perhaps Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment?.
Also, I found this very interesting: Don't Know Much about the Bible: Everything You Need to Know about the Good Book But Never Learned by Kenneth C. Davis. I learned more from this than from a lifetime of Watchtowerism.
Please only read these if you are prepared to think and challenge yourself and your beliefs.
Just wanted to add re: Annanias's post: As I understand (as I was taught at some point in my "History of Science and Technology" courses, Electricity was not thought of as magic during the age of reason; rather is spawned an new branch of science and further proved the usefulness of the Scientific Method (you know, the one which basically says that you have to prove stuff, and that there are no sacred cows).
Also, let's be honest: the ancient steam engine was little more than a toy (a toy for a king, but a toy none-the-less). Applied Scientific research (again, just studying, testing hypothesis, and building on the knowledge base in a logical, not whimsical manner) could have provided amazing new abilities, but it didn't happen that way, and the toy was put away as it was no more than an interesting novelty.
Since I'm in a thinking mood tonight, here is some more fun stuff to consider:
http://askepticalapproach.com/
http://geocities.com/paulntobin/index.html
~Quotes, of the "I know how the pyramids were built, why don't you?" class
Anannais, Please speak from a knowledge base of some sort. Electricity was not considered magic in the Age of Reason (Did you mean the Enlightenment?) I see that by your premise you are part of the anti-Enlightenment culture which is sending us back to the Dark Ages (not a nice time for educated folk). Please don't allow yourself to feel safe in non-knowledge. It's very dangerous. By stepping back we are reliving troubled choices we have already made. Just look at the slavery around the world. Why aren't we doing something about that? Because for a long long time we have been accepting the idea that its just part of culture... no it's just part of greed and evil . If you get the chance Carl Sagan is always a good read.
