In the OT we have Yahweh playing chase with Adam, getting flustered, bargaining with Satan, telling somebody to kill his son, sending bears to rip up schoolboys and exposing himself to Moses. This picture may have frightened or amused old desert brutes but in a setting of Newtonian dynamics and Bose-Einstein statistics, Yahweh is worse than the pantomime character Widow Twankey.
Would fewer people move to atheism had Yahweh been given some dignity and perhaps described in a way that wasn't the obvious penmanship of primitives?
Or is Yahweh just right for the purpose as he is depicted?
Could Yahweh have been painted better?
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Tcg
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Re: Could Yahweh have been painted better?
Post #21marco wrote:
Noah was more than 500 years old when he built the Ark. With modern medicine, better sanitation and good education we have nobody today who reaches that ripe old age. Nor did Noah. The story is utter nonsense.
To believe it is to throw all our education away. Why?
Yes, at 500 plus, Noah would be skeletal remains. So 1213 is partially right, he wouldn't have been decrepit, he'd have been long since dead.
Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
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Tcg
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Re: Could Yahweh have been painted better?
Post #22marco wrote:It is a kindness even to extract some rationality, some selfishness, some human urge from the rubbish. We once though dragons lived at the edge of the world. Is belief in the Bible tales an advance?Tcg wrote:
Last night I was reading Malachi and I was struck by the many complaints concerning the sacrifice of flawed animals. Yahweh expressed his displeasure quite clearly. The cynic in me could not help but wonder if the priests grew tired of low quality cuts of meat and pulled out their trump card to rectify the situation. "We are tired of so much gristle" probably wouldn't have the same impact as, "Yahweh's gonna getcha!"
Not for those living this far beyond dragons at the edge of the world and demons at the edge of reality.
Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
