Theism? Seriously? EVERYTHING from NOTHING?

[Waiting4evidence]

In a recent post, a theist grossly mischaracterized the atheist position.

Instead of accepting the simple definition that an atheist is one who does not believe in deities, he just made up the definition that an atheist is one who believes that the entire universe came from nothing.

We do not know how the universe came into existence, and we don't even know if the universe ever came into existence.

We make NO conclusion based on our ignorance of the universe's origin.

We do NOT, as per the theist's allegation, say "We don't know, therefore nothing did it". We just say "We don't know, therefore let's not pretend we know, but rather let's try to find out".

So, I am hoping we can put that bogus accusation to rest.


But there is another ramification of the theist's absurd accusation.

He (rightly) claims that it's wronng - given our current knowledge - to hold the dogmatic belief that the universe came from nothing.

At the same time, he believes that an entity much more complex than the universe exists.

So I can't help but ask. If it's absurd to think that something as complex as the universe can come into existence from nothing, then how do you account for the existence of something even more complex than the universe?

How did God come into existence? "You don't know therefore nothing did it"?

Do you see the absurdity of your position, given that you accuse atheists of holding a fatal flaw in their belief, while in reality they do not hold that belief, but you do?

[scourge99]

There are more ideas of religion than colors of the rainbow, so I recognize the danger in painting all religion with the same brush. I do respect Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism and other conceptual, philosophical concepts. But I wonder if perhaps we are so accustomed to and reliant upon science and evidentialism to provide us with reliable information that when it comes to speculative concepts like Gods and Devils where there are no answers, we opt too quickly for the traditional and common instead of exhibiting patience and keeping open minds. Opting for superstitious ideas about 'Gods' is really deficient and dangerously credulous IMO.

OR we have become so enthralled with science that we have come to believe it is the end-all of everything.

Who is this "we" you claim to speak for and categorically impugn?

As for myself, i do not believe science is the end all of everything. I do KNOW that it is demonstrably THE most reliable tool for understanding and predicting the world we live in. And i know of no other tool that comes even close.

And in contrast to your beliefs, scientific studies have taught me that abnormal personal experiences should be treated with the upmost skepticism and suspicion. Not as some personal revelation of truth. Scientific investigation has demonstrated that abnormal personal experiences are almost always the product of a personal error of some sort. A visit to JREF website provides ample evidence of the mistakes and illusions many succumb to when they over rely on personal experiences about the REAL WORLD that cannot be corroborated.

Theory of everything? It will take both science and spiritual understanding to make that happen.

Care to explain how you KNOW this? Is it just a guess?

I find it unwise to predict what we may or may not discover in the future unless its grounded on solid reason and evidence. And i find no solid reason or evidence to suggest we will or will not find a "theory of everything".

[cnorman18]

Perhaps you ought to read a little beyond Wikipedia. The Torah (which was the subject of your comment, not Deuteronomy) is thought by scholars to have four major sources; the J, or Yahwist source; the E, or Elohist source; the P, or Priestly source; and D, the "Deuteronomist." This last, as you say, is thought to date from the time of King Josiah -- but the J source, the oldest, probably has its origins as early as the tenth century BCE. If you want to make your case about Deuteronomy alone, I'll concede that you probably have a point; but that's not what you said.

I fully understand about the J, E, P and D sources, and I am not arguing against them. Genesis and Exodus are concerned with Jewish tribal history, their national identity, and their national deity. Leviticus details the fealty of the Jewish nation to their God and his commands, the various sacrifices that are required, and the requirements and position of the Levites in the rituals and within Jewish society as a whole. Numbers essentially finishes the story of the Exodus, defines the relationship between God and his chosen people, and specifies how to divide up the conquered lands amongst the tribes. The Levites, as the priestly class, are excluded from acting as soldiers, given no inheritance of lands to work, but instead are put in charge of the Tabernacle (Numbers 4: 2-4), and accorded wealth:

Num.31:
1. And of the children of Israel's half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them unto the Levites, which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD.
2. Even of the children of Israel's half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites, which kept the charge of the tabernacle of the LORD; as the LORD commanded Moses.

The Levites have no inheritance of lands to work but are instead given cities to reside in:

Num.35:
1. Command the children of Israel, that they give unto the Levites of the inheritance of their possession cities to dwell in; and ye shall give also unto the Levites suburbs for the cities round about them.
2. And the suburbs of the cities, which ye shall give unto the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city and outward a thousand cubits round about.
3. And among the cities which ye shall give unto the Levites there shall be six cities for refuge, which ye shall appoint for the manslayer, that he may flee thither: and to them ye shall add forty and two cities.
4. So all the cities which ye shall give to the Levites shall be forty and eight cities: them shall ye give with their suburbs.
5. And the cities which ye shall give shall be of the possession of the children of Israel: from them that have many ye shall give many; but from them that have few ye shall give few: every one shall give of his cities unto the Levites according to his inheritance which he inheriteth.

Leviticus makes it even better for the Levites.

Lev.25
1. Notwithstanding the cities of the Levites, and the houses of the cities of their possession, may the Levites redeem at any time.
2. And if a man purchase of the Levites, then the house that was sold, and the city of his possession, shall go out in the year of jubile: for the houses of the cities of the Levites are their possession among the children of Israel.

A very sweet deal for the Levites all in all. Coincidentally, the P or priestly source can be discerned wending it's way through all of the first four books of the law.

And then there is Deuteronomy, the "D" source. Deuteronomy disallows the practice of making sacrifices "in high places" other than the place which God has chosen. By the time Deuteronomy was "discovered," some 600 or 700 years after the time of Moses, the place which God has chosen was the temple in Jerusalem. Now everyone is required to trek to Jerusalem to make their sacrifices, bringing with them the very finest which they have produced. And once the goods have been consecrated they become the property of the Levites. Again, a remarkably sweet deal for the priests. Deuteronomy also sanctifies the position of King, a position which had never existed amongst the Israelites during Moses' time or before, and establishes that the King is the chosen of God. Quite a boon for the king.

My original point was that the Torah ABSOLUTELY IS all about the priests controlling the masses. If that is not clear enough in the first four books, it becomes blatantly clear in Deuteronomy.

Not so fast. The Torah, NONE of it, is that simple. You might want to take a look at a very old post of mine, and the thread that followed it, The Bible as it Is. Even within the single book of Numbers, we find layer upon layer of narrative, interpolation, and editing, from many different hands, with many agendas, some of them rather obviously in conflict. You don't get to cherrypick and hugely oversimplify the structure and meaning and intent of Scripture any more than the Fundamentalists do.

Sorry. The FIRST thing you learn when you begin to engage in serious Bible scholarship is this; It's just not that simple. You have several thousand years of literature here, and it's both inaccurate and unfair to claim that it all has a single agenda.

Oh, and as far as people still buying into it; you must be talking about Christians again. The Temple has been gone for two thousand years, the hereditary priesthood no longer exists, and the Kings -- well, now, they seem to be gone too, and I doubt that the Knesset is considering restoring the Davidic Monarchy anytime soon. This is just a collection of old books now, and if anyone ever did concoct the whole thing out of whole cloth -- a concept than any legitimate Bible scholar would find laughable -- simply to "control the masses," it didn't work very well or for very long, now did it?

Christians are certainly buying into it by the hundreds of millions, I agree. Muslims too, for that matter. But not the Jews? Is that your position?

Absolutely.

That's going to come as something of a shock for all of the Hasidim and the Haredi and the rest of the ulta-orthodox Jews to discover. They still seem to be still buying into the "teaching," the Torah Shebichtav, quite fiercely.

Yeah, they are; all 3% of them or however many there are. Sorry, that's not an argument that holds any more water than that the Westboro Baptist Church represents all Christians. The Haredim and the "black hats," as we call them around here, are a tiny minority of Jews, and the rest of us don't take much notice of them -- except to protest, and fiercely, their disproportionate power in Israel and their shameful sectarianism and bigotry (not even all the ultra-Orthodox support their stoning of schoolgirls in Israel, for instance).

And, once again -- weren't we talking about establishing the power and authority of the Monarchy and the hereditary priesthood? Where are they, either of them? Seen any video of Temple rituals lately? Who's next in line to the throne of David? Sorry -- like I said, that whole system is GONE, even for the Haredim.

Tell me this; if the Torah's agenda of "controlling the masses" and promoting the power and authority of the kings and the priests was so successful, how do you explain the MANY passages in the Prophets and Writings (and the Torah itself, of course) that explicitly oppose and undermine that very agenda? Start with Samuel's stern warnings about having a king in the first place; go on to Nathan and his open, public denunciation of the paradigmatic King, David -- who is hardly presented as an admirable hero or anything like it. Then there are the prophets, who argued the meaninglessness of sacrifice and ritual without justice for the people, and railed against the corruption of those who maintained that whole system, over and over again, for generations. None of those passages should have been there, if the plan you're explaining here had worked. If the Torah's "raison d'être" was to consolidate power and stifle dissent, it wasn't very effective if it couldn't even keep those passages out of the rest of the Bible.

Like I said; it's just not that simple. Your after-the-fact, imposed polemic isn't any more credible than those of the Christians who want to prove that the Tanakh is all about Jesus or the hardline atheists who want to prove that it's all about genocide, racism and a wholly, unrelievedly evil God. The Hebrew Bible, and the Torah, no more have a single agenda than a random shelf of books in your own library does. Parts of it have such agendas, certainly; and it's not all that hard to see which parts have which axes to grind. But the whole collection? Not a chance.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Tell me this; if the Torah's agenda of "controlling the masses" and promoting the power and authority of the kings and the priests was so successful, how do you explain the MANY passages in the Prophets and Writings (and the Torah itself, of course) that explicitly oppose and undermine that very agenda? Start with Samuel's stern warnings about having a king in the first place; go on to Nathan and his open, public denunciation of the paradigmatic King, David -- who is hardly presented as an admirable hero or anything like it. Then there are the prophets, who argued the meaninglessness of sacrifice and ritual without justice for the people, and railed against the corruption of those who maintained that whole system, over and over again, for generations. None of those passages should have been there, if the plan you're explaining here had worked. If the Torah's "raison d'être" was to consolidate power and stifle dissent, it wasn't very effective if it couldn't even keep those passages out of the rest of the Bible.

The Jewish population 2,500 years ago wasn't stupid, nor were they blind to the cozy deal that the priestly derived "books of the law," the Torah, granted to the priests. Could it be more transparent? Especially Deuteronomy, a book which was suddenly "discovered" by the Priests and then imposed on the population as the law.

Deut.12
[16] "Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:
[17] Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee."

How onerous was that? Instead of being able to make their offerings to the Lord close to home, three times a year they were now required to drop everything and bring their offerings to Jerusalem, a trek on foot which could take a week or more in each direction from the outlying areas, depending on the distance from the city. And then there was the political matter of the legitimacy of the King. So, yes there was resentment which is reflected in the other books of the Bible.

Do all modern Jews subscribe to the Torah as the indisputable word of God? No, clearly not. And that is my ultimate point here. The Bible, both OT and NT, are works of men, and not derived from any celestial deity. Lewis Black says that the OT is a wonderful story that was told to people living in a desert to distract them from the fact that they didn't have air conditioning. He also says, in reference to the OT, that "we Jews know what we're good at, and that's bullshit."

[cnorman18]

Tell me this; if the Torah's agenda of "controlling the masses" and promoting the power and authority of the kings and the priests was so successful, how do you explain the MANY passages in the Prophets and Writings (and the Torah itself, of course) that explicitly oppose and undermine that very agenda? Start with Samuel's stern warnings about having a king in the first place; go on to Nathan and his open, public denunciation of the paradigmatic King, David -- who is hardly presented as an admirable hero or anything like it. Then there are the prophets, who argued the meaninglessness of sacrifice and ritual without justice for the people, and railed against the corruption of those who maintained that whole system, over and over again, for generations. None of those passages should have been there, if the plan you're explaining here had worked. If the Torah's "raison d'être" was to consolidate power and stifle dissent, it wasn't very effective if it couldn't even keep those passages out of the rest of the Bible.

The Jewish population 2,500 years ago wasn't stupid, nor were they blind to the cozy deal that the priestly derived "books of the law," the Torah, granted to the priests. Could it be more transparent? Especially Deuteronomy, a book which was suddenly "discovered" by the Priests and then imposed on the population as the law.

Deut.12
[16] "Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty:
[17] Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee."

How onerous was that? Instead of being able to make their offerings to the Lord close to home, three times a year they were now required to drop everything and bring their offerings to Jerusalem, a trek on foot which could take a week or more in each direction from the outlying areas, depending on the distance from the city. And then there was the political matter of the legitimacy of the King. So, yes there was resentment which is reflected in the other books of the Bible.

Do all modern Jews subscribe to the Torah as the indisputable word of God? No, clearly not. And that is my ultimate point here. The Bible, both OT and NT, are works of men, and not derived from any celestial deity.

Forgive me, but DUH. Did you think I was arguing that they were? Have we been talking at cross purposes for this long?

Have you ever read ANY of my other posts? Maybe the one to which I posted a link?

This is from Post #3 on that thread. You may find it just a LITTLE relevant to what you are saying here:

The Jewish religion was once wholly Temple-oriented; but that was destined to change from the very beginning. The Law demanded that all (male, at least) Jews were to gather at the Temple in Jerusalem at the major festivals, to present their sacrifices and offerings and participate in the rituals; but that was impossible as a practical matter. Cities would be left undefended and crops unharvested if that law had been universally applied.

Long before the time of Jesus, it became the practice of Jews who lived outside of Jerusalem - not to mention those who lived outside of Israel - to gather in their own local houses of worship at festival times and read aloud the passages of the Torah which described the rituals which were being observed at the Temple, as a substitute for actually attending and as an expression of devotion to the Law. This was even done for the daily sacrifices on ordinary days; indeed, Jewish synagogues today still have daily services at the times prescribed for the daily Temple rituals - Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv, morning, afternoon and evening - when the relevant passages are read as part of those services.

These houses of worship were variously called Beit Midrash, houses of study, Beit Tefillah, houses of prayer, or, in Greek, synagogues. They were led not by priests, whose services were confined to the Temple, but by lay teachers - in Hebrew, rabbis. Even today, rabbis sometimes object to bring called "clergy" or "men of the cloth," and any lay Jew can lead any service; a rabbi is not required to officiate.

This ad hoc "movement" came to be called Pharisaic Judaism, which developed into the Rabbinic Judaism of today. It existed alongside Temple Judaism for centuries, and by Jesus's time had diverged considerably from it. Study of Torah had, within that movement, largely supplanted Temple ritual, and the authority of the rabbis (which was based on learning and Torah study) had largely supplanted that of the hereditary priesthood.

Jesus himself was, in terms of his teachings and approach to the Law, largely a Pharisee. He was clearly much more committed to the study of the Law in the Pharisaic fashion than to Temple observance - and it is significant that he was called "Rabbi" by his followers.

With the destruction of the Temple in 70, the course of Judaism was determined. The Temple and its rituals were no more, the priests had nowhere to officiate, and all that was left was local study and prayer service. Some think that Kabbalah had its origins in the esoteric teachings of the Temple priests, which they continued to pass down privately to selected students; no one really knows.

Since the fall of the Temple, still mourned today on the fast day of Tisha b'Av, Judaism has been a religion of the Book, and the Torah became a sort of "portable Temple." Where once Jews had a holy place, we have since had designated holy times - the festivals and fasts - which can be celebrated anywhere. The change from Temple to Book is a direct result of the Diaspora.

It should also be noted that indications of this eventual movement away from devotion to Temple ritual and sacrifice and toward pure ethical concerns can easily be found in the Biblical text itself. The prophets, notably Amos, often speak of the emptiness and futility of sacrifice and ritual in the absence of such concerns, and indeed of the symbolic nature of the rituals themselves. "I own the cattle on a thousand hills; if I were hungry, I would not tell you." And so on.

The hereditary monarchy, of course, had in actuality come to an end centuries before. The Herods were not even considered Jewish by the people, never mind rightful kings.

Now if you'll read what I've said in rather more than a few other places, you'll find that I've argued here, quite literally for YEARS, that the Bible is not the Word of God, but the words of men thinking ABOUT God; and that to read the Bible literally is to trivialize it, demean it, and render it meaningless (a quote from my rabbi, as it happens). Have you never noticed my signature?

Lewis Black says that the OT is a wonderful story that was told to people living in a desert to distract them from the fact that they didn't have air conditioning. He also says that "we Jews know what we're good at, and that's bullshit."

And he's quite right about that; but saying that God did not write the Bible is not the same as saying that it consists entirely of worthless polemic bullshit. Like I keep saying -- it's not that simple. The one thing that I have said MOST often is probably this: "It is possible to take the Bible seriously without taking it literally." Part of that "taking seriously" would be to be aware of the political threads in the Bible's documents; but one does not stop there and simply discard them. There is much more to be learned.

Among other things, that the Jewish religion developed -- or evolved, if you like -- from the cult of a primitive tribal mountain god, into a highly organized and ritualistic Temple hierarchy, and then into a decentralized religion of ethical discussion and debate where theological doctrines became optional and of peripheral importance -- and all that before the Bible even reached its final form. That Judaism has continued to develop and evolve even farther since the first century seems to be known mostly to Jews, but it is so nevertheless. That book, the literature of our ancestors, remains at the center of that development; but certainly not in the way that many seem to assume.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Do all modern Jews subscribe to the Torah as the indisputable word of God? No, clearly not. And that is my ultimate point here. The Bible, both OT and NT, are works of men, and not derived from any celestial deity.

Forgive me, but DUH. Did you think I was arguing that they were? Have we been talking at cross purposes for this long?

We weren't talking at cross purposes entirely. I had a purpose. I know your position. I was using you in a way as a Jew, to bounce my own position off of as a method of testing it against future discussions with Christians. I hope you will forgive ME for that. And the discussion has proved to be quite insightful. So thank you.

What IS a Jew, exactly? None of the Jews I know personally are any more religious then I am. So being a Jew is not necessarily about religious belief. And every Jew that I know personally is just as white as I am. So being a Jew is not about a distinctive race. Is it entirely about the heritage of being born into Judaism? Does that make one forever a Jew? I was born into Christianity, but I certainly don't consider myself forever a Christian simply as the result of a matter over which I had no choice.

[Goat]

Do all modern Jews subscribe to the Torah as the indisputable word of God? No, clearly not. And that is my ultimate point here. The Bible, both OT and NT, are works of men, and not derived from any celestial deity.

Forgive me, but DUH. Did you think I was arguing that they were? Have we been talking at cross purposes for this long?

We weren't talking at cross purposes entirely. I had a purpose. I know your position. I was using you in a way as a Jew, to bounce my own position off of as a method of testing it against future discussions with Christians. I hope you will forgive ME for that. And the discussion has proved to be quite insightful. So thank you.

What IS a Jew, exactly? None of the Jews I know personally are any more religious then I am. So being a Jew is not necessarily about religious belief. And every Jew that I know personally is just as white as I am. So being a Jew is not about a distinctive race. Is it entirely about the heritage of being born into Judaism? Does that make one forever a Jew? I was born into Christianity, but I certainly don't consider myself forever a Christian simply as the result of a matter over which I had no choice.

Well, being a jew is one of two things.. There is the cultural heritage.. , and then there is the religious belief. You can convert to Judaism. However, there still is the cultural heritage of many of those people that go back generations to a small group of people in the middle east. There are black Jews. .. There are Asian Jews.

More than anything else.. being Jewish is sort of like being a family. You can be 'adopted' into a family.. or you can be born into it.

THere are Jews that are atheist, but very observant.. and then there are Jews that do believe in God, but are not that observant. Then you have the secular Jews, that Judaism is the religion they choose not to practice. .. but if they DID because observant, it would be Judaism they go to...I belong to that last group myself.

I find that people of Jewish heritage.. even if they have converted to another religion a generation or two ago, share a certain cultural attitude to how they approach religion and life. There have been many times that I see someone who is Christian showing a viewpoint, or making an argument, and I think 'That is a very Jewish attitude'.... and find out their parent, or grandparent was Jewish.

Many (not all) converts have that attitude. I think that is one of the things that attract people to Judaism, is that the religious attitude matches their own.

[cnorman18]

Goat's answer was quite good; let me supplement it a bit. It's worth noting that I myself am a convert -- 30-some years ago, I was a Methodist minister -- and I converted for precisely the kind of reasons that Goat speaks of here. My conversion was intellectually based, not emotional. Anyway, to add my two cents:

Do all modern Jews subscribe to the Torah as the indisputable word of God? No, clearly not. And that is my ultimate point here. The Bible, both OT and NT, are works of men, and not derived from any celestial deity.

Forgive me, but DUH. Did you think I was arguing that they were? Have we been talking at cross purposes for this long?

We weren't talking at cross purposes entirely. I had a purpose. I know your position. I was using you in a way as a Jew, to bounce my own position off of as a method of testing it against future discussions with Christians. I hope you will forgive ME for that. And the discussion has proved to be quite insightful. So thank you.

You're quite welcome, but the idea that the Bible, or even any substantial part of it, carries water for the kind of political agenda you're advocating here isn't going to cut much ice with Christians, either; the liberal Christians know all the stuff I've been telling you, and the fundamentalists have their own imposed-after-the-fact agenda of their own to root for.

What IS a Jew, exactly?

Good question; we’ve been arguing about that for three thousand years, off and on.

This is the best I can do for you; “being a Jew� is not quite the same as “practicing the Jewish religion,� and “practicing the Jewish religion� is not the same as “holding Jewish beliefs.� It is possible to fit any one, any two, or even all three of those descriptors.

None of the Jews I know personally are any more religious then I am.

That may well be true, but don’t be TOO sure. We Jews, by and large, do not discuss our religion much with non-Jews, for a number of reasons. First, it is not much understood outside the tribe, even though many people THINK they know all about Judaism (mostly from the New Testament, which is 2,000 years out of date and wasn’t especially accurate on the subject even when it was written). Correcting those misunderstandings can cause ill feeling. Second, we do not wish to be seen as declaring other religious false or flawed, because we have no warrant to say either; and we don’t proselytize at all.

So being a Jew is not necessarily about religious belief.

That is the third reason. "Beliefs� are actually a trivial matter in Judaism. What one DOES is of much greater importance. We don’t really “debate religion� much. Many observant and practicing Jews are, in fact, atheists. That doesn’t make much sense to those who think of “religion� as being about spiritual and supernatural beliefs and nothing else, but it is true nevertheless. Those beliefs play a very minor, and often nonexistent, role in the Jewish religion.

And every Jew that I know personally is just as white as I am. So being a Jew is not about a distinctive race.

Also correct. That has never been true; the Jewish community has accepted converts from the very beginning. The most famous example is Ruth, a Moabite woman who converted to Judaism, and was an ancestor of both David and Jesus. Ruth may not have actually existed, but the story is told to make precisely the point that Jews are not all descended from Abraham. And, too, many descendants of Abraham were NOT considered Jewish (or Hebrew, if you like); Ishmael and Esau, for starters, his son and grandson.


There are Jews who are ethnically Chinese, ethnically African, ethnically Arab, ethnically East Indian, and so on. Some of those communities are very old indeed. The Indian Jewish community dates from the second century BCE; they do not celebrate Hanukkah to this day, because their community and culture knew nothing of the Maccabean revolt. They were separated from the Jews of Palestine before it happened.

Is it entirely about the heritage of being born into Judaism? Does that make one forever a Jew?

That is one way of being Jewish. In a sense, one born Jewish is a Jew forever, but that does not obligate one to practice the Jewish religion; very many Jews leave it, and many are indifferent, as your friends may be. Some Jews proudly self-identify as Jews without having any interest in the religion whatever; Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, Isaac Asimov, and many others come to mind.

One may also convert and become Jewish through the action of a rabbinical court, or bet din, In a way, being Jewish is like being a citizen of a country; one is born so, or can be “naturalized� by the action of a court. There are no other ways; one may believe and practice as a Jew, but if one was neither born Jewish nor formally converted, one is not “Jewish.� The question is governed by Jewish law, or halachah, not popular opinion.

I was born into Christianity, but I certainly don't consider myself forever a Christian simply as the result of a matter over which I had no choice.

Of course. Christianity is ENTIRELY a matter of individual belief; one’s birth has nothing to do with it, and one may consider oneself a Christian or not on that basis alone, and whether or not any particular church or denomination agrees.

Hope all that helps. As always, if you’re reatlly interested, I would recommend a good introductory book on basic Judaism; Basic Judiasm by Milton Steinberg is among the best; Judaism for Dummies is quite good too. It’s a complex subject, even in the basics, and there are differences between the various branches which many find surprising. In Reconstructtionist Judaims, for instance, belief in a personal God is optional; Humanistic Judaism is explicitly atheistic.

[kayky]

Who is this "we" you claim to speak for and categorically impugn?

I'm referring to the whole human race, myself included.

As for myself, i do not believe science is the end all of everything. I do KNOW that it is demonstrably THE most reliable tool for understanding and predicting the world we live in. And i know of no other tool that comes even close.

It absolutely is the best tool for understanding the physical universe. The mistake is made when it is assumed that it is the only way to know.

And in contrast to your beliefs, scientific studies have taught me that abnormal personal experiences should be treated with the upmost skepticism and suspicion. Not as some personal revelation of truth. Scientific investigation has demonstrated that abnormal personal experiences are almost always the product of a personal error of some sort.

Of course this is true. Such experiences should be approached with a great deal of study and discipline. But it would be wrong for you to say that there is no such thing as true spiritual experience. You can reach a level of emotional and spiritual maturity in which such experiences can be trusted.

visit to JREF website provides ample evidence of the mistakes and illusions many succumb to when they over rely on personal experiences about the REAL WORLD that cannot be corroborated.

And yet if you demand corroboration for every such experience, you cut yourself off from a great deal of human experience. The spiritual life is risky, but for me it has been well worth it.

Care to explain how you KNOW this? Is it just a guess?

I find it unwise to predict what we may or may not discover in the future unless its grounded on solid reason and evidence. And i find no solid reason or evidence to suggest we will or will not find a "theory of everything".

It is more than a guess but not quite a prophecy either! If there is a spiritual aspect to the universe (and having experienced it personally on more than one occasion, I believe it to be so), science is not equipped to discover it.

[East of Eden]

In a recent post, a theist grossly mischaracterized the atheist position.

Instead of accepting the simple definition that an atheist is one who does not believe in deities, he just made up the definition that an atheist is one who believes that the entire universe came from nothing.

We do not know how the universe came into existence,

So how can you say for sure God wasn't involved?

and we don't even know if the universe ever came into existence.

We make NO conclusion based on our ignorance of the universe's origin.

We do NOT, as per the theist's allegation, say "We don't know, therefore nothing did it". We just say "We don't know, therefore let's not pretend we know, but rather let's try to find out".

So, I am hoping we can put that bogus accusation to rest.


But there is another ramification of the theist's absurd accusation.

He (rightly) claims that it's wronng - given our current knowledge - to hold the dogmatic belief that the universe came from nothing.

At the same time, he believes that an entity much more complex than the universe exists.

So I can't help but ask. If it's absurd to think that something as complex as the universe can come into existence from nothing, then how do you account for the existence of something even more complex than the universe?

How did God come into existence?

You don't need an explanation for an explanation. In other words, if we found a large earthen mound containing pottery and tool pieces, we could reasonably conclude that men made those things, without knowing who they were or where they came from.

[Flail]

In a recent post, a theist grossly mischaracterized the atheist position.

Instead of accepting the simple definition that an atheist is one who does not believe in deities, he just made up the definition that an atheist is one who believes that the entire universe came from nothing.

We do not know how the universe came into existence,

So how can you say for sure God wasn't involved?

and we don't even know if the universe ever came into existence.

We make NO conclusion based on our ignorance of the universe's origin.

We do NOT, as per the theist's allegation, say "We don't know, therefore nothing did it". We just say "We don't know, therefore let's not pretend we know, but rather let's try to find out".

So, I am hoping we can put that bogus accusation to rest.


But there is another ramification of the theist's absurd accusation.

He (rightly) claims that it's wronng - given our current knowledge - to hold the dogmatic belief that the universe came from nothing.

At the same time, he believes that an entity much more complex than the universe exists.

So I can't help but ask. If it's absurd to think that something as complex as the universe can come into existence from nothing, then how do you account for the existence of something even more complex than the universe?

How did God come into existence?

You don't need an explanation for an explanation. In other words, if we found a large earthen mound containing pottery and tool pieces, we could reasonably conclude that men made those things, without knowing who they were or where they came from.

Well of course....but how in the world to you ever get to any certainty as to the BiibleGoid from the fact that the world exists? I see the world, I think it was created...therefore BibleGod? Come on....be reasonable.