This is a very basic argument that shows why it is that religion is flawed.


We will start by looking at 6 religions: Ancient Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Hebrew, and Catholic. The first thing I want you to see is that while all of these religions have clear similarities, even if they seem very different. The big one is that they all have, in some form, a heaven and a hell. Greek, Roman, and Egyptian all have a boat trip with a guy asking for a coin. All of them have a form of judgement for where you go when you die. These similarities suggest 2 things: Every religion is in some form a copy of Egyptian, which is the oldest, or they all are some form of the same, true religion.

But Wait!

In North and South America, the religions are totally different from the ones in North Africa. The religions in Asia are, once more, totally different.

This means that these similarities are caused by only one thing: the sharing between cultures. Its entirely possible that Hebrew was, in fact, an adaptation that took the best parts of Egyptian, such as the concept of heaven and hell, and just made it into one god.

There can't be one correct religion because if there was, many concepts should be shared between religions, as they all originated from the same source.

This is a very basic argument that shows why it is that religion is flawed.The big one is that they all have, in some form, a heaven and a hell.
Speaking of flaws...

There was no Hell per-se in the religion of ancient Egypt. If one's soul was found to be heavier than the Feather of Ma'at, it was immediately consumed by the Goddess Ammit (Devourer of the Dead). In effect, the soul simply ceased to exist.

The Christianesque concept of Hell (everlasting damnation/punishment) does not exist in Judaic doctrine.

This is a very basic argument that shows why it is that religion is flawed.I agree with you: it is a very basic argument.


We will start by looking at 6 religionsAnd what if the 'one true religion' is not one of those six? That would invalidate your argument.



There can't be one correct religion because if there was, many concepts should be shared between religions, as they all originated from the same source.And can you demonstrate that the other religions are not the work of the devil? No.

Your argument fails because it lacks any interanlly consistent logic.

Any similarities between all religions, such as some form of the "golden rule", will always be discounted as human empathy. There are simply no similarity arguments that detractors will accept, so it is pointless to make an argument of differences. There's just no refuting a confirmation bias.

@Syne --

That argument cuts both ways you realize.

Your argument fails because it lacks any interanlly consistent logic.

His argument works because if there were a God, it would make all the religions of the world consistent with his teachings.

His argument works because if there were a God, it would make all the religions of the world consistent with his teachings.

Why would it choose to do that? You assume a logical, benign God with an interest in humanity. Why do you do that?

Of course, one could assume any kind of God, but the only one worthy of worship would be one that cares about us and doesn't want to confuse us or give out mixed messages.

This is a very basic argument that shows why it is that religion is flawed.'religion' may indeed be flawed. Which has nothing to do with the reality of God.

Every religion is in some form a copy of Egyptian, which is the oldest, or they all are some form of the same, true religion.Your second possibility has some merit.

In North and South America, the religions are totally different from the ones in North Africa.Not really. Multiple gods to be placated, heavens and hells (rewards and punishments), working toward some sort of self-improvement.
The religions in Asia are, once more, totally different.Not all of them. Hindu and Buddhism seem to be, but really fall back into the same pattern.

This means that these similarities are caused by only one thing: the sharing between cultures.This has possibilities; one needs to consider at what point in time the cultures 'shared' ideas.

There can't be one correct religion because if there was, many concepts should be shared between religions, as they all originated from the same source.Illogical conclusion.
Typically when ideas - especially 'religion' - branch out, the different sects split off because they disagree with the main group/idea. So 'many concepts' would not have to be shared. They split off to NOT share.

If the history of mankind is roughly what the Bible outlines, it means God - the Creator - has been dealing with mankind since mankind has existed. So it would not be any surprise all peoples of the Earth have some 'memory' of God in some form. Those groups that have 'departed further' from God's teaching would believe different tenets than those who 'stayed close' (metaphorical terms, not physical distance). For instance, Hinduism seems to have started as a monotheistic belief. Over centuries, other 'gods' have been added in.

Issoloc, your argument actually boils down to this: "Religion is false because God does not conform to my concept of proper conduct; or because God does not conform to my preferences and sense of logic." It's the standard 'proof' of God's non-existence.

I don't find it convincing.

His argument works because if there were a God, it would make all the religions of the world consistent with his teachings.



What about on people don't obey god, Should he vaporize them with a bolt of lightening ?

'religion' may indeed be flawed. Which has nothing to do with the reality of God.
Your second possibility has some merit.
Not really. Multiple gods to be placated, heavens and hells (rewards and punishments), working toward some sort of self-improvement.Not all of them. Hindu and Buddhism seem to be, but really fall back into the same pattern.
This has possibilities; one needs to consider at what point in time the cultures 'shared' ideas.
Illogical conclusion.
Typically when ideas - especially 'religion' - branch out, the different sects split off because they disagree with the main group/idea. So 'many concepts' would not have to be shared. They split off to NOT share.

If the history of mankind is roughly what the Bible outlines, it means God - the Creator - has been dealing with mankind since mankind has existed. So it would not be any surprise all peoples of the Earth have some 'memory' of God in some form. Those groups that have 'departed further' from God's teaching would believe different tenets than those who 'stayed close' (metaphorical terms, not physical distance). For instance, Hinduism seems to have started as a monotheistic belief. Over centuries, other 'gods' have been added in.

Issoloc, your argument actually boils down to this: "Religion is false because God does not conform to my concept of proper conduct; or because God does not conform to my preferences and sense of logic." It's the standard 'proof' of God's non-existence.

I don't find it convincing.


If every religion did come from a single source, then that means that either:

1. God(s) stopped caring about humanity, allowing our beliefs to change irrevocably, or

2. (Assuming one god) He allowed 4 continents to believe whatever they liked, while trying to reconcile Africa to believe in him through Christ and other missionaries.

" And what if the 'one true religion' is not one of those six? That would invalidate your argument."

Because if it was, why would the Aztecs be so different?

" And can you demonstrate that the other religions are not the work of the devil? No."

Then God would have abandoned half the planet to the devil for several thousand years.

Heaven and hell are basically ethical ideas. They are saying that people's good and bad deeds will eventually be rewarded or punished, even if real life doesn't always look that way. Ideas of postmortem judgements are ways of addressing the thriving-sinner and suffering-innocent problems. They are assurances that things will eventually turn out right, even if it doesn't look that way now from our perspective.

The characteristic Indian idea of karma is another version of the same thing.

The relevance of those observations to the problem of religious diversity is that perhaps religious myth shouldn't always be interpreted as if it was simply sets of factual propositions about the world, propositions that can simply be labeled true or false. Perhaps some religious ideas are doing other things in human psychology, and the question might then be whether or not they are effective at whatever that is.

There may often be a variety of different ways of achieving functionally similar ends. If they all work, if they are all successful somehow, then we could argue that they all are true in a pragmatic sense, even if they are logically inconsistent when interpreted literally and factually.

In other words, it's probably possible in some cases to respond to the problem of religious diversity without assuming that at most one particular religion can be true and all the others must be false.

Actually, I've heard one Buddhist teacher note that the Buddha taught karma not in relation to the negative repercussions of one's actions, but to give grounds for faith in the power of one's actions - "If you do good, good will come around to you too."

Of course, one could assume any kind of God, but the only one worthy of worship would be one that cares about us and doesn't want to confuse us or give out mixed messages.That, however was not implicitly the subject of discussion.

Like I said on other thread, everyone has to believe in something, even those who say they don't believe in anything are lying. However, the pedophile Church and almost every other religion which requires I should do do something just to go in heaven or I'll end up in hell, only proves the true path of their target: to be stupid and remain stupid, because they need to control all people and do with them whatever they want, and fulfill their sick ideology. Religions like these should be brought down once and for all.

@Gravage --

Yeah, even nihilists believe in something.

"O.E. belyfan "to believe," earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc. *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps lit. "hold dear, love" (cf. O.S. gilobian "believe," Du. geloven, O.H.G. gilouben, Ger. glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief). Spelling beleeve is common till 17c.; then altered, perhaps by influence of relieve, etc. To believe on instead of in was more common in 16c. but now is a peculiarity of theology; believe of also sometimes was used in 17c. Related: Believed (formerly occasionally beleft); believing. Expression believe it or not attested by 1874; Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon of the same name is from 1918. Emphatic you better believe attested from 1854."

So the source meaning of believe is based around loving something. Is there a better word to ascribe to the meaning of knowing something exists? So we can move away from the issue of the definition of the word blurring across meanings. I don't think believe as a word to describe thinking god is real needs to be blurred with I believe my hand is in front of my face. I don't want to pull the discussion down into BS theoretical philosophy; just would like a better term to differentiate here. Any suggestions on how theists can word their beliefs, and how we atheists can word our descriptions of the things were KNOW exist.

I know it's just vocab, just would like to hear some different approaches for a change (maybe this is a new thread).

"O.E. belyfan "to believe," earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc. *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps lit. "hold dear, love" (cf. O.S. gilobian "believe," Du. geloven, O.H.G. gilouben, Ger. glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief). Spelling beleeve is common till 17c.; then altered, perhaps by influence of relieve, etc. To believe on instead of in was more common in 16c. but now is a peculiarity of theology; believe of also sometimes was used in 17c. Related: Believed (formerly occasionally beleft); believing. Expression believe it or not attested by 1874; Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon of the same name is from 1918. Emphatic you better believe attested from 1854."

So the source meaning of believe is based around loving something. Is there a better word to ascribe to the meaning of knowing something exists? So we can move away from the issue of the definition of the word blurring across meanings. I don't think believe as a word to describe thinking god is real needs to be blurred with I believe my hand is in front of my face. I don't want to pull the discussion down into BS theoretical philosophy; just would like a better term to differentiate here. Any suggestions on how theists can word their beliefs, and how we atheists can word our descriptions of the things were KNOW exist.

I know it's just vocab, just would like to hear some different approaches for a change (maybe this is a new thread).
Its kind of a bind.

If you want to discuss a philosophical claim you have to discuss philosophy, period, as opposed to calling it derogatory names

:shrug:

"O.E. belyfan "to believe," earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc. *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps lit. "hold dear, love" (cf. O.S. gilobian "believe," Du. geloven, O.H.G. gilouben, Ger. glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief). Spelling beleeve is common till 17c.; then altered, perhaps by influence of relieve, etc. To believe on instead of in was more common in 16c. but now is a peculiarity of theology; believe of also sometimes was used in 17c. Related: Believed (formerly occasionally beleft); believing. Expression believe it or not attested by 1874; Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon of the same name is from 1918. Emphatic you better believe attested from 1854."

So the source meaning of believe is based around loving something. Is there a better word to ascribe to the meaning of knowing something exists? So we can move away from the issue of the definition of the word blurring across meanings. I don't think believe as a word to describe thinking god is real needs to be blurred with I believe my hand is in front of my face. I don't want to pull the discussion down into BS theoretical philosophy; just would like a better term to differentiate here. Any suggestions on how theists can word their beliefs, and how we atheists can word our descriptions of the things were KNOW exist.

I know it's just vocab, just would like to hear some different approaches for a change (maybe this is a new thread).

By the same logic, "know" is just as problematic:

know (v.) Look up know at Dictionary.com
O.E. cnawan (class VII strong verb; past tense cneow, pp. cnawen), "to know, perceive; acknowledge, declare," from P.Gmc. *knew- (cf. O.H.G. bi-chnaan, ir-chnaan "to know"), from PIE root *gno- "to know" (cf. O.Pers. xšnasatiy "he shall know;" O.C.S. znati, Rus. znat "to know;" L. gnoscere; Gk. *gno-, as in gignoskein; Skt. jna- "know"). Once widespread in Germanic, this form is now retained only in English, where however it has widespread application, covering meanings that require two or more verbs in other languages (e.g. Ger. wissen, kennen, erkennen and in part können; Fr. connaître, savoir; L. novisse, cognoscere; O.C.S. znaja, vemi). The Anglo-Saxons used two distinct words for this, witan (see wit) and cnawan.

So when you "know" something, you
- claim to witness it,
- recognize / acknowledge it,
- are familiar with it,
- are able to do it.

"O.E. belyfan "to believe," earlier geleafa (Mercian), gelefa (Northumbrian), gelyfan (W.Saxon) "believe," from P.Gmc. *ga-laubjan "to believe," perhaps lit. "hold dear, love" (cf. O.S. gilobian "believe," Du. geloven, O.H.G. gilouben, Ger. glauben), ultimately a compound based on PIE *leubh- "to care, desire, love" (see belief). Spelling beleeve is common till 17c.; then altered, perhaps by influence of relieve, etc. To believe on instead of in was more common in 16c. but now is a peculiarity of theology; believe of also sometimes was used in 17c. Related: Believed (formerly occasionally beleft); believing. Expression believe it or not attested by 1874; Robert Ripley's newspaper cartoon of the same name is from 1918. Emphatic you better believe attested from 1854."

So the source meaning of believe is based around loving something. Is there a better word to ascribe to the meaning of knowing something exists? So we can move away from the issue of the definition of the word blurring across meanings. I don't think believe as a word to describe thinking god is real needs to be blurred with I believe my hand is in front of my face. I don't want to pull the discussion down into BS theoretical philosophy; just would like a better term to differentiate here. Any suggestions on how theists can word their beliefs, and how we atheists can word our descriptions of the things were KNOW exist.

I know it's just vocab, just would like to hear some different approaches for a change (maybe this is a new thread).

If we dig a little deeper into what you are addressing, it illustrates how deeply language affects the ideas that are associated with religion. It's not a very precise language since it melds these old European ideas with the foreign religions that were imposed on them from the time of Roman conquest. I think your point is important and arrives in a parallel path to what the OP says: modern religion is the product of the melding of prototype religions, languages and cultures. Confusion in and over religious ideation is just as easily analyzed as the confusion that normally arises over language and the etymology of words.

You can create a long list of words that trace the jumble of Nordic, Greek, Roman and Hebrew mythology that have come together to form the modern Western ideas about religion and religious terminology. You will be quickly led from linguistics into history. Religions and religious ideas are ancient, so to try to get to the bottom of what they are saying, and why, necessarily involves understanding the history of religion itself. From there you will arrive at the idea in the OP, that religions do not spring up out of local discoveries of cosmic truths, but from superstitions, myths, fables and legends that cultures have relied on since the dawn of history to explain phenomena for which they had no science. Now that we live in an era in which science is nearly free from the yoke of religious superstition, we are able to see this from a global perspective that was not available to them.

Thus the Gott/Guth/Goth (God) that one was beliebed (beloved) in order to get to Haven (heaven) to be with the Angelos (evangelios - messengers, angels) by avoiding the Deuwill (devil, demon, daemon), etc., takes us on a journey though Nordic, Roman, Greek and Hebrew concepts alone, and that's just scratching at the surface. Angels, the devil, and Hell in modern context can be traced to Persian influence, in the era of Alexander the Great's mixing of cultures. Jesus speaks of a fiery hell - not a Judaic concept, but a Persian one - just as one example. Jesus himself mixes several archetypes - Hebrew rabbi-prophet, Greek martyr (Socrates with the cup), Persian son of God (Mithra) with twelve followers (zodiac) who died and rose on the third day (the sun at solstice), etc., and the Roman contribution to the founding of Christianity begins with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem and the insurrection of the Hebrews against them, which introduced severe punishments like crucifixion.

We could keep drilling deeper and we would be pursuing world history and anthropology, which certainly support your idea of the significance of language and cultural roots in the development of ancient religions.

More directly to your point, the words "believe" and "know" are ideas themselves founded in ancient culture. One is founded on emotion and the other is founded on the intellect. Besides the plain reasoning you used, I think we can trace the roots of language and history, as your reminder of etymology shows, and quickly converge on a host of ideas that support the strongest of arguments against religion: that it's founded on ancient superstition.

Unfortunately, as far as dialogue with "beliebers" is concerned, there is rarely in any interest in digging around at the roots of their ideas. So it's rare to get their participation in uncovering ancient history and culture, for the same reason they avoid the basic idea stated in the OP. They already know religion is based on superstition, they just don't like to be reminded of it.

[QUOTE=Aqueous Id;2927290

Unfortunately, as far as dialogue with "beliebers" is concerned, there is rarely in any interest in digging around at the roots of their ideas. So it's rare to get their participation in uncovering ancient history and culture, for the same reason they avoid the basic idea stated in the OP. They already know religion is based on superstition, they just don't like to be reminded of it.[/QUOTE]


So why we believers believe since is it our believe or religion is based on superstition.

The same way I think about atheists they think they know it all, and believe in the fantasy of primordial soup, probably many of them did nit have mire then 3 semesters of chemistry.

By the same logic, "know" is just as problematic:

know (v.) Look up know at Dictionary.com
O.E. cnawan (class VII strong verb; past tense cneow, pp. cnawen), "to know, perceive; acknowledge, declare," from P.Gmc. *knew- (cf. O.H.G. bi-chnaan, ir-chnaan "to know"), from PIE root *gno- "to know" (cf. O.Pers. xšnasatiy "he shall know;" O.C.S. znati, Rus. znat "to know;" L. gnoscere; Gk. *gno-, as in gignoskein; Skt. jna- "know"). Once widespread in Germanic, this form is now retained only in English, where however it has widespread application, covering meanings that require two or more verbs in other languages (e.g. Ger. wissen, kennen, erkennen and in part können; Fr. connaître, savoir; L. novisse, cognoscere; O.C.S. znaja, vemi). The Anglo-Saxons used two distinct words for this, witan (see wit) and cnawan.

So when you "know" something, you
- claim to witness it,
- recognize / acknowledge it,
- are familiar with it,
- are able to do it.

While multiple cognates from older languages have been integrated into the common English usage of the word "know", that's not what makes his quest for a better word problematic. Compare his search for a word that means "I know my hand is in front of my face" with your cite at dictionary.com:


1. to perceive or understand as fact or truth; to apprehend clearly and with certainty: I know the situation fully.

This is the plain meaning of what he said. It's the resistance to common usage that makes it problematic.

So why we believers believe since is it our believe or religion is based on superstition.

Hi, arauca.

I do not understand your language exactly, but I think you are asking whether my statement refers to "belief" or "religion". Correct me if I'm wrong.

I am saying that religion is rooted in superstition, and any person who believes ("loves" as universaldistress points out) - any person who loves an idea probably doesn't want to talk about the fact of religious superstition, since it undermines that love.


The same way I think about atheists they think they know it all, and believe in the fantasy of primordial soup, probably many of them did nit have mire then 3 semesters of chemistry.

You jumped from superstition to atheism to arrogance to primordial soup to chemistry.

"Atheists know it all." Not sure what you mean. My comments were specifically directed at the history of religion, which is a history of superstition. I thought that was common knowledge, not the ideas of a know-it-all.

"[atheists] believe the fantasy of primordial soup." As I'm sure you are aware, atheism is a disbelief not a belief, in a Supreme Commander of the Universe. It may or may not be accompanied by any ideas about abiogenesis or evolution, which are also not beliefs. They are theories (plausible explanations) of science. I can say I understand that evolution explains the origin of species and I understand that abiogenesis explains the origins of life. The theist must say he believes (loves the idea of) God.

"many of them did not have more than 3 semesters of chemistry." Some do, many don't. Obviously chemistry doesn't play much of a role in their determination that there is no Supreme Commander of the Universe, and that life probably arose from non-living matter. I'm sure any of them who want to know more about abiogenesis will not be going to religious web sites for their answers. ;)

I notice that your training in chemistry did not prevent you from falling into the pattern I described in my post:


Unfortunately, as far as dialogue with "beliebers" is concerned, there is rarely in any interest in digging around at the roots of their ideas. So it's rare to get their participation in uncovering ancient history and culture, for the same reason they avoid the basic idea stated in the OP

See what I mean? You weren't digging into the question of where religious ideas came from - the history and culture that produced it.

You just proved me right.

You jumped from superstition to atheism to arrogance to primordial soup to chemistry.

"Atheists know it all." Not sure what you mean. My comments were specifically directed at the history of religion, which is a history of superstition. I thought that was common knowledge, not the ideas of a know-it-all.


There's your arrogant know-it-all-ness .. along with quip that its "common knowledge" (since even a cursory examination of relevant wiki pages indicates it is not at all "common knowledge")
:shrug:

@LG

"Common knowledge" was not a reference to any wiki pages. It was a reference to the material commonly taught in schools, usually the first chapter of a course in world history.

@LG

"Common knowledge" was not a reference to any wiki pages. It was a reference to the material commonly taught in schools, usually the first chapter of a course in world history.
More BS

Secondary schooling is hardly "avante garde" enough to lodge the teaching of religion as equivalent to superstition.

My reply addresses "common knowledge".

My reply addresses "common knowledge".
Hardly

You suggest you are not being arrogant by labeling religion as equivalent with superstition. The only common knowledge is that its simply not the case.

:shrug:

Beside the ad homs, so far you have fulfilled my prediction:


Unfortunately, as far as dialogue with "beliebers" is concerned, there is rarely in any interest in digging around at the roots of their ideas. So it's rare to get their participation in uncovering ancient history and culture, for the same reason they avoid the basic idea stated in the OP

Beside the ad homs, so far you have fulfilled my prediction:
Your resistance in examining the nature of your own bold assertions is just as plainly obvious

:shrug:

Your resistance in examining the nature of your own bold assertions is just as plainly obvious


The facts I already gave are not mine, just snippets from history. Examine away, if you have something to say about the origins of religion. You've made several replies to me, but thus far I see nothing that indicates your opposition to the factual basis I offered. Your entire thrust has just been characterizations of me.

:shrug: With the requisite shrugs. :shrug: So what's your point? :shrug:

The facts I already gave are not mine, just snippets from history. Examine away, if you have something to say about the origins of religion. You've made several replies to me, but thus far I see nothing that indicates your opposition to the factual basis I offered. Your entire thrust has just been characterizations of me.

:shrug: With the requisite shrugs. So what's your point? :shrug:

I don't see any facts.
Mainly because there is no consensus about the origins of religion (even if for the sake of argument we are simply looking at atheist perspectives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions) on the question).

That's why I said you are simply speaking from a sense of conceit by saying that it is common knowledge - IOW you try to preempt any debate on the subject by pretending there is no debate on the subject.

hence the : :shrug:

This is the plain meaning of what he said. It's the resistance to common usage that makes it problematic.

Oh, the bewildering power of the flowery words of the dictionary! How captivating, how attractive!

Oh, the bewildering power of the flowery words of the dictionary! How captivating, how attractive!

You cited the dictionary. Oh - you are fawning over yourself, but cynically. OK. :shrug:

You avoided the term "certainty" in the preferred meaning of "knowledge" from your own cite. Tssk tssk. :spank:

I don't see any facts.

Choose another word if "fact" bothers you. In brief:

1. The OP invited a discussion on religious syncretic roots.
2. universaldistress related language to the question.
3. I took etymology from (2) as a cue to attach examples from history.



Mainly because there is no consensus about the origins of religion (even if for the sake of argument we are simply looking at atheist perspectives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions) on the question).


You attacked me for my use of "common knowledge" which I then said would be consistent with an introductory chapter in World History. You were dissatisfied that this was not "avante garde" and cited Wikipedia.

I am referring to common knowledge as may be disseminated in a world history course. Among those teachings, and by that standard, we can arrive at the same point I made earlier: it is common knowledge that religions arose out of superstition.



That's why I said you are simply speaking from a sense of conceit by saying that it is common knowledge - IOW you try to preempt any debate on the subject by pretending there is no debate on the subject.

I was speaking from a sense of history. If that to you is conceited, then we can analyze your rationale, which is moot to the question of what history teaches.

You allude to a debate on the subject: "It is common knowledge that religion arose out of superstition", where "common knowledge" comes from a class in world history, the chapter that covers origins of religion (often chapter 1). You appear to be saying there is no consensus about the curriculum plan for a typical world history course. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying religions originated out of superstition.

Hi, arauca.


I am saying that religion is rooted in superstition, and any person who believes ("loves" as universaldistress points out) - any person who loves an idea probably doesn't want to talk about the fact of religious superstition, since it undermines that love.





. My comments were specifically directed at the history of religion, which is a history of superstition. I thought that was common knowledge, not the ideas of a know-it-all.




See what I mean? You weren't digging into the question of where religious ideas came from - the history and culture that produced it.

You just proved me right.


Let me see if we can come to some understanding . since we ask if every religion is based or comes due to superstition .

Was Abraham a Jew ?
Was Abraham Isak or Jacob were religious men ?
Why did they embrace to a Deity ?
Were they believer in God
Can a believer be a religious, can a believer be nin religious

Could you help me to answer those questions

Choose another word if "fact" bothers you. In brief:

1. The OP invited a discussion on religious syncretic roots.
2. universaldistress related language to the question.
3. I took etymology from (2) as a cue to attach examples from history.
If you want to use this to back up the factual conclusion that religion is non-different from superstition it might be time to rethink your conclusion




You attacked me for my use of "common knowledge" which I then said would be consistent with an introductory chapter in World History.
Perhaps in a book written by you.
Not even atheists can consistently agree that religion is superstition


You were dissatisfied that this was not "avante garde" and cited Wikipedia.
I cited wiki as a general indication that there are a variety of approaches to the question of religion, and even a variety of atheistic approaches, that stand stand outside of your estimations of "general knowledge"


I am referring to common knowledge as may be disseminated in a world history course. Among those teachings, and by that standard, we can arrive at the same point I made earlier: it is common knowledge that religions arose out of superstition.
And as I said, not even atheists agree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_origin_of_religions) with that (what to speak of theists)



I was speaking from a sense of history. If that to you is conceited, then we can analyze your rationale, which is moot to the question of what history teaches.
Its conceited since you are simply talking about your particular atheist flavor of a sense of history.
That generally is the nature of being conceited - namely by focusing on one's particular flavour and using it to the exclusion of all others to nullify any alternative discussion, perspective or debate


You allude to a debate on the subject: "It is common knowledge that religion arose out of superstition", where "common knowledge" comes from a class in world history, the chapter that covers origins of religion (often chapter 1). You appear to be saying there is no consensus about the curriculum plan for a typical world history course. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying religions originated out of superstition.
The topic is so diverse that a class in world history wouldn't think to exclusively suggest "religion arose out of superstition" .. unless its a curriculum devised by some dogmatic atheist who finds it convenient to overlook the contributions of his (both atheist and theist) peers in the fields of psychology, sociology and history.

:shrug:

You cited the dictionary. Oh - you are fawning over yourself, but cynically. OK.

You avoided the term "certainty" in the preferred meaning of "knowledge" from your own cite. Tssk tssk.

I merely acknowledged how the words and their definitions in the dictionary can have an enormous impact on some people; so much so that they forget how a dictionary comes to be, and instead presume themselves to be certain.

Let me see if we can come to some understanding . since we ask if every religion is based or comes due to superstition .

Was Abraham a Jew ?
Was Abraham Isak or Jacob were religious men ?
Why did they embrace to a Deity ?
Were they believer in God
Can a believer be a religious, can a believer be nin religious

Could you help me to answer those questions

A better question to ask is: how do we know that the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are legends, not to be taken literally?

In the Creation Myth of the Bible, Abraham is met by Yahweh, who calls him by name, then renames him, then identifies him as the father of the throng of nations. This statement uses Hebrew alliteration, playing on "ab", a root for "father". It's the literary device of a storyteller, a spinner of fables. The miraculous nature of Yahweh's interaction with Abraham is another device of a spinner of legend. Other miracles, such as Abraham's survival unharmed from immolation in the Book of Jubilees or the Quranic legend that Allah sent a bolt of lightening from heaven, causing Abraham's house to appear out of thin air, are similar devices used by spinners of subsequent legends that padded the initial version with their own miraculous innovations.

Abram of the Bible supposedly led people of Ur into Canaan. This element of the story is a continuation of the Creation Myth, one that establishes the origins of the Israel ethnically and geographically. Even if it were to construed symbolically as an ancient collective memory of a migration out of Mesopotamia, there is no physical evidence to support it. The people of Canaan could just as well have originated in Syria, Arabia or Egypt.

Since the entire Creation Myth is designed around the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh from the pantheistic Elohim, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all have been portrayed as Patriarchs who were subjugated by Yahweh, yet they were great men in the nation of Canaanites. The story is woven to build the supremacy of Yahweh over humans, the necessity for obedience to him, and to establish the central theme - the Covenant, leading to the delivery of the Ten Commandments and Yahweh's promise of protection of his "chosen people".

Unfortunately, by the time of the Books of Maccabees, Yahweh had not delivered on his end of the bargain, having left his people to enslavement by the Persians, and having turned his back on them during the destruction of the Temple. The ultimate humiliation comes in 70 AD with the second destruction of the Temple by Nero's army. It is at this time that the Jesus Myth appears and takes root, and draws a new regional populace - the Hellenized people of the Levant - into a new version of Covenant, this time delivered in the person of the legendary Jesus.

Was Abraham a Jew? There were no Jews at the time of the legend of Abraham. Their original nationality is unknown, but they would become known as Canaanites, also known as Phoenicians.

Were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob religious men? They are religious patriarchs of Judaism. They are characters in a fable, one that takes place while Yahweh interacts with humans in miraculous ways.

Why did they embrace a Deity? This goes more to the question of why people are ever religious, what is the cause of religious ideology. The legends of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are part of the elaborate cautionary tale of the Covenant. The legend appears as Canaanites were moving away from their ancestral deities, such as the Elohim - the gods who created the heavens and the earth - and Ashereh, the mother-creator and/or wife of Yahweh - into embracing Yahweh.

But the central reasons that people were seeking deities was superstition. Statues of Ashereh found in the homes of ancient Canaanites reveal that they were seeking fertility and protection from the mother-god, a form of superstition.

Were they believers in God? At some point they believed in Yahweh, but the date of that transition is uncertain. The worship of Ashereh continued for some substantial period after the switch from the Elohim to Yahweh.

Can a believer be religious, can a believer be non-religious? Anyone who holds a belief in supernatural forces, typically a Supreme Commander of the Universe, would either be exhibiting superstition or religion. I'm not sure that it matters too much how we draw the line. Religious believers may reserve the word "superstition" to characterize the anomalous behavior of their fellow believers - such as those who keep seeing the Virgin Mary appearing in paint chips and on steamy windows. However, we can use the words interchangeably by referring to superstition as any irrational belief. Religion is irrational, insofar as it requires us to accept irrational ideas - such as a Supreme Commander of the Universe.

[QUOTE=Aqueous Id;2927966]A better question to ask is: how do we know that the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are legends, not to be taken literally?

WHY ID IT . EVERY THING MENTIONING ABOUT RELIGION OR BELIEF , DOES HAVE TO BE A MYTH ? Us it not pre judging . Why should I believe you been right since WE really don;t know the beginning .

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????

In the Creation Myth of the Bible, Abraham is met by Yahweh, who calls him by name, then renames him, then identifies him as the father of the throng of nations. This statement uses Hebrew alliteration, playing on "ab", a root for "father". It's the literary device of a storyteller, a spinner of fables. The miraculous nature of Yahweh's interaction with Abraham is another device of a spinner of legend.

Again , you are coming with a positive knowledge > Let say his name would continue been Abram , the root Ab. is there. What difference makes it to Isak. What seams you have created a different story. That God have interacted with Abraham , God interacts with people in the present time also. that is my belief.
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????


Abram of the Bible supposedly led people of Ur into Canaan. This element of the story is a continuation of the Creation Myth, one that establishes the origins of the Israel ethnically and geographically.

That is a continuation of your pre judgment
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????

Even if it were to construed symbolically as an ancient collective memory of a migration out of Mesopotamia, there is no physical evidence to support it. The people of Canaan could just as well have originated in Syria, Arabia or Egypt.

What physical evidence do you want, since people in the past were not literate they did not live a document in the city hall. Let me ask you since we are looking for evidence and you analyze words .
Were Abram referred as Hebrew.?
How do you think the name of the city of Hebron come from . The reason that is been said Abram's burial ground is in Hebron , could you associate that Hebrew and Hebron to see some possibility,?

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????
Since the entire Creation Myth is designed around the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh from the pantheistic Elohim, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all have been portrayed as Patriarchs who were subjugated by Yahweh,

Again pre judgment . Is not the name Yahweh " I an who I am ?" Was it not
introduced by Moses by the burning bush ? Perhaps in that time was used Elohim or Al. currently I believe Elohim and El, those name are in use currently.
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????


. The story is woven to build the supremacy of Yahweh over humans, the necessity for obedience to him, and to establish the central theme - the Covenant, leading to the delivery of the Ten Commandments and Yahweh's promise of protection of his "chosen people".

To start a new society . You have give them some rules as to live by. Then after while the society establishes some additional rules , called LAW

?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????


Unfortunately, by the time of the Books of Maccabees, Yahweh had not delivered on his end of the bargain, having left his people to enslavement by the Persians, and having turned his back on them during the destruction of the Temple. The ultimate humiliation comes in 70 AD with the second destruction of the Temple by Nero's army.

I see you have read partially Jewish history . Israel had its ups and down much earlier then the case of the Selusid, were you mention about Maccabbee. By the way It was Vaspaisanos that started and his son Titus destroyed the temple .
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????
It is at this time that the Jesus Myth appears and takes root, and draws a new regional populace - the Hellenized people of the Levant - into a new version of Covenant, this time delivered in the person of the legendary Jesus.

Again How can you be so positive of something you don't know ?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???????????????????
Was Abraham a Jew? There were no Jews at the time of the legend of Abraham. Their original nationality is unknown, but they would become known as Canaanites, also known as Phoenicians.

As far Phoenician , You should read the history of MInoa , I doubt very much Abram was Canaanite. ( Isak was against Esau been married to a Canaanite. )
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????
Were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob religious men? They are religious patriarchs of Judaism. They are characters in a fable, one that takes place while Yahweh interacts with humans in miraculous ways.

Now you are pissing out the urinal.
?????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????

WHY ID IT . EVERY THING MENTIONING ABOUT RELIGION OR BELIEF , DOES HAVE TO BE A MYTH ?
I would ask why does it have to be anything else but myth, when it has all the elements of myth. In the first place, Yahweh, Asherah and the Elohim are borrowed from earlier cultures, from their creation myths. The creation of man from clay is borrowed from the Gilgamensh epic, as well as the flood, the ark, and the bird that gives a clue that the waters have receded. All of the magical feats that take place are elements of myth, created by the spinners of the tales to fill in the gaps for which they had no science. They had no idea that creatures are formed from DNA, or that species evolved over billions of years. They had no idea about the age of the Earth and its relationship to the sun and planets, so they invented explanations of their own.

So I return to the question: why treat this as anything else but myth when it has all the markings of myth? That is the question that remains elusive in our discussion.


Us it not pre judging . Why should I believe you been right since WE really don;t know the beginning .
I don't have anything to do with this since I am the observer not the creator of the facts. The reasoning for concluding that Genesis is myth is as stated above, not from a requirement to know the beginning, as you put it. Furthermore, it is from what we do know about ancient and primordial ages that we can say with certainty that the creation myths of ancient cultures all bear the same markings - they replace magic and fabulous explanations for the origins they could not possibly understand since they had no science.


Again , you are coming with a positive knowledge > Let say his name would continue been Abram , the root Ab. is there. What difference makes it to Isak.
My purpose in explaining Abram, Abraham and "father of the throng" etc. was to illustrate a literary device - alliteration (ab-, ab- ab-). When you examine text and you find inventions like this it helps you better understand the purpose of the writer. The purpose here was to create a sense of magic or mystery, to give power to the name, to get the attention of the listener, and to help people memorize the verse. The Bible is full of devices that give it the power and mystery of myth. As you see this has nothing to do with Isaac. It's all about myth-building.



What seams you have created a different story. That God have interacted with Abraham , God interacts with people in the present time also. that is my belief.
The interactions of Genesis are substantially different than anything you might think God is doing today. Consider God's direct manipulation of people - all of the conversations he engaged with people, the banishment, setting up the monsters to guard the gates of Eden (a place that can not possibly exist), and on and on. There are countless examples of these kinds of high interaction that have no relevance to anything in the world today.


Abram of the Bible supposedly led people of Ur into Canaan. This element of the story is a continuation of the Creation Myth, one that establishes the origins of the Israel ethnically and geographically.
That is a continuation of your pre judgment

Again it has nothing to do with me. In creation mythology, the storyteller is helping the audience confront their own questions about where they came from. The myth provides a convenient answer. Since Ur is near the Tigris and Euphates, and since those are the rivers the Bible claims lead to Eden, then putting Abraham initially at Ur helps form a continuity between the Eden story and the story of where the race of Canaanites came from.


Even if it were to construed symbolically as an ancient collective memory of a migration out of Mesopotamia, there is no physical evidence to support it. The people of Canaan could just as well have originated in Syria, Arabia or Egypt.

What physical evidence do you want, since people in the past were not literate they did not live a document in the city hall. Let me ask you since we are looking for evidence and you analyze words .

If they ever were in Ur, if they ever emigrated out of Ur, then it would seem reasonable to find some evidence of that from Ur itself, which is rich in artifacts. Even before this story sprang up in Canaan, the people of Ur - and other cities in Mesopotamia - were keeping their own records, and as a matter of fact that had city halls as you might call them, and libraries where they kept their records. My point is that this appears to be an invention by a later writer who had no idea where the Canaanites came from, so he invented this explanation. The writer has nothing to tell us about the details of the emigration - what king or prince of Ur gave them passage to leave, how many people, animals and provisions they took, the reason or purpose of their exodus from Ur, and why they went off into the unknown region of Canaan, surrounding themselves by hostile tribes, to take up homesteads in a barren arid place that was far less hospitable to human habitation than somewhere else along the fertile banks of the Tigris-Euprates. We have no idea when they supposedly left Ur and that alone impairs the credibility of the storyteller. Why is it impossible for them to date the events in their stories? Why is it impossible for them to identify the people who would have been there, the witnesses - why are there no authors who identify themselves as witnesses or participants in the events, etc. These are the kind of issues that make their passage from Ur unlikely. However, it fits well with the myth of Abraham, because Ur was probably well enough known to them to be a magnificent city far to the east of them. That makes it difficult for anyone to go to Ur and find out for themselves what the people of Ur remember about the story. Again, these are the markings of myth.



Were Abram referred as Hebrew.?

We have trouble identifying the exact rise of the Hebrew language. Obviously this story was handed down by oral tradition for a long time before it became known in Hebrew script. In the story we don't know anything about the orgin of the mythical Abraham other than the trip he supposedly took from Ur. Perhaps changing his name from Abram to Abraham helps the listener accept that a man from a foreign land could not have started with a name known to them in Hebrew.


How do you think the name of the city of Hebron come from . The reason that is been said Abram's burial ground is in Hebron , could you associate that Hebrew and Hebron to see some possibility,?
Even if the place was called Abraham, that wouldn't help establish the existence of Abaham, if that's what you mean, since legendary characters also have towns named after them. However, there is an early reference like this in Genesis "Asshurbanipal who builded Nineveh". Ashurbanipal is a name known in Mesopotamia, and this helps establish the time Genesis was written.

You ask about the relationship of Hebron and Abraham. I understand the name Hebron signifies "friendship" or "alliance", and it is associated with the idea that Abraham had an alliance with Yahweh. Of course, that does not establish the historicity of Abraham since we assume the legend of Abraham was well established when the city was named.



Since the entire Creation Myth is designed around the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh from the pantheistic Elohim, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all have been portrayed as Patriarchs who were subjugated by Yahweh,

Again pre judgment . Is not the name Yahweh " I an who I am ?" Was it not
introduced by Moses by the burning bush ? Perhaps in that time was used Elohim or Al. currently I believe Elohim and El, those name are in use currently.

There was an earlier version of their religion in which the Elohim were their god (or gods). This name and idea of the gods of creation was borrowed from an earlier culture (Phoenicia/Ugarit). They later replaced the Elohim with Yahweh, who is probably one of the gods from that ealier culture, although there is also speculation that this name comes from a god who protected a city called "Yah" (or "Yahw"). Yahweh became their single personal god as the myth evolved under these changing circumstances. Yahweh is introduced in Gen 2, the second version of the creation myth. This is what I meant when I said Yahweh emerged after the Elohim.


The story is woven to build the supremacy of Yahweh over humans, the necessity for obedience to him, and to establish the central theme - the Covenant, leading to the delivery of the Ten Commandments and Yahweh's promise of protection of his "chosen people".

To start a new society . You have give them some rules as to live by. Then after while the society establishes some additional rules , called LAW

(I should have said to build supremacy of Yahweh over all the regional gods).

The society existed for a long time before Genesis took shape. I don't know how necessary it was for the early Canaanites to have these laws. They are modeled after the Code of Hammurabi ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth"). They obviously knew Hammurabi's Code and decided to weave it into their own story. This may have occurred during the Babylonian captivity. Obviously they created a whole new flavor to the Babylonian law and imposed Yahweh as the angry jealous god who demanded that he be worshiped. I don't think that has so much to do with societal order as it does in creating a bigger better meaner god than any other culture had done so far. It appears to be done partly for establishing religious rule, partly for incorporating Babylonian Law into their society and partly so they could convince people that Yahweh was the chief god of all the gods. It is also possible that the only reason they needed a law was because the Persians imposed on them that they write a legal code before releasing them.


Unfortunately, by the time of the Books of Maccabees, Yahweh had not delivered on his end of the bargain, having left his people to enslavement by the Persians, and having turned his back on them during the destruction of the Temple. The ultimate humiliation comes in 70 AD with the second destruction of the Temple by Nero's army.

I see you have read partially Jewish history . Israel had its ups and down much earlier then the case of the Selusid, were you mention about Maccabbee. By the way It was Vaspaisanos that started and his son Titus destroyed the temple .

Their history is one of humiliation after humiliation. Yes, Nero was already dead by the time the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed. It was desecrated in the time of Nero, and the Jews rebelled, and Nero responded by deciding to crush the rebellion. Several Emperors rose until Vespasian, and I recall that his son Titus was the general who actually carried it out. Titus also succeeded his father ten years later. I had Nero on my mind because I believe the Jews at that time blamed him for the destruction of the Temple, insofar as he started the war. There is an interesting link between Nero and the AntiChrist (666) in gematria, so it seems that Jews of that era blamed him for it.


It is at this time that the Jesus Myth appears and takes root, and draws a new regional populace - the Hellenized people of the Levant - into a new version of Covenant, this time delivered in the person of the legendary Jesus.

Again How can you be so positive of something you don't know ?

The legend of Jesus takes place in the setting of the War with Nero (and his successors). In the story we find Zealots (as Simon the Zealot) who were members of the Jewish resistance. Crucifixion was a punishment given to Zealots. The New Covenant of Jesus is not exclusively reserved for the chosen people, Jews, but to the areas where the churches were instituted, as described in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles (mostly of Paul). The Covenant of Jesus therefore has an international flavor, and Jesus takes on a more international persona, including his Stoic reactions to threats, and his suicide "by the cup" in imitation of Socrates. The entire framework of the legend closely follows that of Mithra who was the product of a virgin birth, was crucified, had 12 followers, etc. It's borrowed lore. The creation of this story in Greek rather than Aramaic, the Jews' native language at that time (Hebrew had been abandoned) is another example of how Jesus takes on an international flavor. No wonder Christianity did not take root in Judaea like it did in Syria, Egypt, the Ageaen, and of course Rome.


Was Abraham a Jew? There were no Jews at the time of the legend of Abraham. Their original nationality is unknown, but they would become known as Canaanites, also known as Phoenicians.

As far Phoenician , You should read the history of MInoa , I doubt very much Abram was Canaanite. ( Isak was against Esau been married to a Canaanite. )

No, since the story is mythical, a person named Abram probably never existed and the migration from Ur is probably an invention. Canaan is land where the myth was assembled, so I suppose they could assign any nationality to him they wanted. I am calling them all Canaanites because that's where they lived. The people who began calling themselves Israelites probably emerged around 890 BCE. If that's when this story took root, then it probably gelled until about 500 BCE as oral tradition before textual composition was done. At any rate, it's possible Genesis was not even conceived of in its present form until the Exile. And yes the Minoans would be another culture that may have influenced their ancestral beliefs. I connect them with Phoenicia and Ugarit since that is where the Hebrew language originates, and that is where the Elohim, Asherah and Yahweh originate. (Asherah is in Egypt first.)


Were Abraham, Isaac or Jacob religious men? They are religious patriarchs of Judaism. They are characters in a fable, one that takes place while Yahweh interacts with humans in miraculous ways.

Now you are pissing out the urinal.

Blame me if you like, but it doesn't change the reality of what we are talking about. Again, it's not me who establishes that it's myth, I am just an observer. Any of these men may actually have existed and all of them may be storybook characters. If the story was written during the exile, who would know? There is no evidence of their existence, other than this story. We can try to date it if you like, then you can tell me if it is a credible source. There are 23 occurences of the phrase "Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" which is another literary clue that weakens its credibility.

If you believe that the text is to be read literally, then you may not understand the textual criticism I am referring to. You may have trouble understanding authorship and dating analysis. However, once you begin to treat the text with the flaws it is known to have, it changes your perspective, and then it looks like the literalists are missing the urinal. That and a whole lot more.

If we dig a little deeper into what you are addressing, it illustrates how deeply language affects the ideas that are associated with religion. It's not a very precise language since it melds these old European ideas with the foreign religions that were imposed on them from the time of Roman conquest. I think your point is important and arrives in a parallel path to what the OP says: modern religion is the product of the melding of prototype religions, languages and cultures. Confusion in and over religious ideation is just as easily analyzed as the confusion that normally arises over language and the etymology of words.

You can create a long list of words that trace the jumble of Nordic, Greek, Roman and Hebrew mythology that have come together to form the modern Western ideas about religion and religious terminology. You will be quickly led from linguistics into history. Religions and religious ideas are ancient, so to try to get to the bottom of what they are saying, and why, necessarily involves understanding the history of religion itself. From there you will arrive at the idea in the OP, that religions do not spring up out of local discoveries of cosmic truths, but from superstitions, myths, fables and legends that cultures have relied on since the dawn of history to explain phenomena for which they had no science. Now that we live in an era in which science is nearly free from the yoke of religious superstition, we are able to see this from a global perspective that was not available to them.

Thus the Gott/Guth/Goth (God) that one was beliebed (beloved) in order to get to Haven (heaven) to be with the Angelos (evangelios - messengers, angels) by avoiding the Deuwill (devil, demon, daemon), etc., takes us on a journey though Nordic, Roman, Greek and Hebrew concepts alone, and that's just scratching at the surface. Angels, the devil, and Hell in modern context can be traced to Persian influence, in the era of Alexander the Great's mixing of cultures. Jesus speaks of a fiery hell - not a Judaic concept, but a Persian one - just as one example. Jesus himself mixes several archetypes - Hebrew rabbi-prophet, Greek martyr (Socrates with the cup), Persian son of God (Mithra) with twelve followers (zodiac) who died and rose on the third day (the sun at solstice), etc., and the Roman contribution to the founding of Christianity begins with the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem and the insurrection of the Hebrews against them, which introduced severe punishments like crucifixion.

We could keep drilling deeper and we would be pursuing world history and anthropology, which certainly support your idea of the significance of language and cultural roots in the development of ancient religions.

More directly to your point, the words "believe" and "know" are ideas themselves founded in ancient culture. One is founded on emotion and the other is founded on the intellect. Besides the plain reasoning you used, I think we can trace the roots of language and history, as your reminder of etymology shows, and quickly converge on a host of ideas that support the strongest of arguments against religion: that it's founded on ancient superstition.

Unfortunately, as far as dialogue with "beliebers" is concerned, there is rarely in any interest in digging around at the roots of their ideas. So it's rare to get their participation in uncovering ancient history and culture, for the same reason they avoid the basic idea stated in the OP. They already know religion is based on superstition, they just don't like to be reminded of it.

Thanks for your reply Aqueous. And as you know theists are forever relying on using general terms/terms with multiple meanings as a way of fudging arguments. Maybe what is really needed is the coining of new words to specify here. But you know full-well that if we did that the terms would simply be diluted and convoluted by frequent use.

But/and there clearly is a difference between defining definitions and then using them (scientist) and relying on the murkiness of using multiple definitions simultaneously to fudge (theist).

As to superstition. Civilisation has been founded toe to toe with it and religion, hardly surprising our language as been befuddled in the process. But what a language we have!?! What a potently adaptable tool of invention and wonderment.

And truly, if I had the power, I woundn't change anything. The world must be allowed its freedom, language included. It will evolve as it will. Maybe the future holds a more concise lingual future, but I doubt it. I think new technologies and human upgrade will bring in new and more concise terms though, as humanity moves forward into a more precisely constructed singularity.

i'll stop here; waxing cosmic a little . . .

I suppose it is the challenge of the atheist to separate the curds from the whey, the wheat from the chaff, the Steeled from the Slags.

[QU

So I return to the question: why treat this as anything else but myth when it has all the markings of myth? That is the question that remains elusive in our discussion.


I don't have anything to do with this since I am the observer not the creator of the facts. The reasoning for concluding that Genesis is myth is as stated above,


Again it has nothing to do with me. In creation mythology, the storyteller is helping the audience confront their own questions about where they came from. The myth provides a convenient answer. Since Ur is near the Tigris and Euphates, and since those are the rivers the Bible claims lead to Eden, then putting Abraham initially at Ur helps form a continuity between the Eden story and the story of where the race of Canaanites came from.

If they ever were in Ur, if they ever emigrated out of Ur, then it would seem reasonable to find some evidence of that from Ur itself, which is rich in artifacts. Even before this story sprang up in Canaan, the people of Ur - and other cities in Mesopotamia - were keeping their own records, and as a matter of fact that had city halls as you might call them, and libraries where they kept their records. My point is that this appears to be an invention by a later writer who had no idea where the Canaanites came from, so he invented this explanation. The writer has nothing to tell us about the details of the emigration - what king or prince of Ur gave them passage to leave, how many people, animals and provisions they took, the reason or purpose of their exodus from Ur, and why they went off into the unknown region of Canaan, surrounding themselves by hostile tribes, to take up homesteads in a barren arid place that was far less hospitable to human habitation than somewhere else along the fertile banks of the Tigris-Euprates. We have no idea when they supposedly left Ur and that alone impairs the credibility of the storyteller. Why is it impossible for them to date the events in their stories? Why is it impossible for them to identify the people who would have been there, the witnesses - why are there no authors who identify themselves as witnesses or participants in the events, etc. These are the kind of issues that make their passage from Ur unlikely. However, it fits well with the myth of Abraham, because Ur was probably well enough known to them to be a magnificent city far to the east of them. That makes it difficult for anyone to go to Ur and find out for themselves what the people of Ur remember about the story. Again, these are the markings of myth.


.

You ask about the relationship of Hebron and Abraham. I understand the name Hebron signifies "friendship" or "alliance", and it is associated with the idea that Abraham had an alliance with Yahweh. Of course, that does not establish the historicity of Abraham since we assume the legend of Abraham was well established when the city was named.


There was an earlier version of their religion in which the Elohim were their god (or gods). This name and idea of the gods of creation was borrowed from an earlier culture (Phoenicia/Ugarit). They later replaced the Elohim with Yahweh, who is probably one of the gods from that ealier culture, although there is also speculation that this name comes from a god who protected a city called "Yah" (or "Yahw"). Yahweh became their single personal god as the myth evolved under these changing circumstances. Yahweh is introduced in Gen 2, the second version of the creation myth. T.

The society existed for a long time before Genesis took shape. I don't know how necessary it was for the early Canaanites to have these laws. They are modeled after the Code of Hammurabi ("eye for eye, tooth for tooth"). They obviously knew Hammurabi's Code and decided to weave it into their own story. This may have occurred during the Babylonian captivity. Obviously they created a whole new flavor to the Babylonian law and imposed Yahweh as the angry jealous god who demanded that he be worshiped. I don't think that has so much to do with societal order as it does in creating a bigger better meaner god than any other culture had done so far. It appears to be done partly for establishing religious rule, partly for incorporating Babylonian Law into their society and partly so they could convince people that Yahweh was the chief god of all the gods. It is also possible that the only reason they needed a law was because the Persians imposed on them that they write a legal code before releasing them.
.

If you believe that the text is to be read literally, then you may not understand the textual criticism I am referring to. You may have trouble understanding authorship and dating analysis. However, once you begin to treat the text with the flaws it is known to have, it changes your perspective, and then it looks like the literalists are missing the urinal. That and a whole lot more.[/QUOTE]

I can't discuss with you . You start that every thing on Genesis is a myth
I bug's the shit out of me on how an individual can be so sure of a poor written history . You mind is made up that every thing is a myth , Why should I trust your positive view , if you mention the Name Israel come to be 850 BC when David was the king in about 1000 Bc ,
If the story about flood was copied from Gilgamesh so what ? So do you believe Golgamesh story , was it a fact , Was the flood in Mesopotamia or is it a myth ?.
By the way Abrahem went to the land of Canaan not from Ur. but from Haram . So why should an individual believe in your explanation . I can pick even more if your positive points.
Most of your positive argument stand on shaky ground
Let me tell you I am a myth according to your view There was no record on when I was born , there was no name of me recorded until I was 15 years old, I went back to were I was born , there is no record of us. My father was a backer in the town. Were my fathers house was build there is an other house ,yet no one knew us, yet O lived in a modern society, Now you will come to me Abraham is a myth. Tell me how did the Israeli become as a society ? Tell me did Manco Copac existed If he did how do you prove >
You are a nice polite fellow , My suggestion to you visit a backward se how people live and learn their customs, and then you might be a little more tolerant

Religions deal with symbols, which are different from, signs or labels. A symbol is an open concept, while a sign is a closed concept. For example, the concept of infinity in science and math is a symbol, since it reflects a concept without finite boundaries. If we reduce infinity to a finite amount; sign, it is not infinity anymore. Atheism does not know how to deal with the openness of symbols but tries to reduce them to signs. Symbols don't make sense as signs. It would b like saying infinity is 1 mile long. Now it makes no sense.

When you leave symbols open ended, such as the concept of infinity, it expands the mind, since the wall of the box is removed, and you enter that which has not yet been fully defined. Atheism appears to be more defensive and prefers a box with definitive walls; reduced to a sign. Religion is less defensive and is less afraid to go outside the box and explore.

I am no sure why the symbol infinity is still around, since this religious symbol has no place within science, if we want to be consistent. It exists outside the walls of the box; cannot be proven. It may have to due with the religious roots of science, when all of science was outside the walls of atheism.

If you look at mythology, the gods and goddesses were able to do what humans cannot. They existed outside the box of human limitations. In 20/20 hindsight they often defined that which humans would someday, do. The gods could fly before humans could fly. Eventually, humans take to the air. If we proposed flight to an ancient atheist, since this was way outside their box, it would be called religion and be very taboo. But eventually the religious symbol becomes definitive.

Much of religion has to do with morality. These ideas of human interaction came from open concepts like God, which laid down modes of behavior beyond the walls of the impulsiveness of the ancient pre-humans. This opened the primitive walls to the future, but always resistance, by those who hide behind temporal walls and fear anything beyond.

The reason religion has always been part of natural selection is because it is outside the box and has a connection to the future. Even the Arab terrorists lives in a vision of their expected future. The atheist is stuck in the present and has to wait for science to move the boundary, because it is scary outside the wall.

@LG: Aqueous states that superstition is a precursor to religion. At no point did he state that superstition=religion? (please cite). At no point did he state that superstition is the only precursor involved around the formation of god belief? (please cite). Seems you are attributing your own interpretations on what he is saying, which you refuse to budge from, to customarily fudge up the argument and prevent it moving forward? Which in itself is a tactic that symbolically represents (is a clear analogy to) the stance and predicament all god believers find themselves mired in these days?

...In North and South America, the religions are totally different from the ones in North Africa. The religions in Asia are, once more, totally different...

Not so. You are forgetting the older religious hallmarks comparable to all.

Pyramids in South America and Egypt relate to a need to bring the "Mountain to Mohamed".
One can go to any high prominence, sacred peak, central outcropping, anywhere in the world, and find signs of human worship that predate other lowland locations of worship. (This is not to infer that older locations in the lowlands are not removed from the database, because of glacial and flooding erasure events).

One can go to any ancient river delta location, where civilizations migrated away from the mountains to the plains, and find "synthetic mountain-like structures", built to lift the head up at the image of it's grandeur, to encapsulate the presence of the deities, and the resting place of same.
The Salisbury bluestone monoliths come to their lowland placement from more ancient highland peaktops.
Mountaintops sometimes disappear into the clouds, bolstering its attachment to the heavens (A search of satellite images of the flat bedrock top of Mount Olympus is interesting amusement).

Cave visions and high mountain asphyxia attributed to lack of oxygen, hydrocarbon vents (burning bushes?) on the mountain. Moses getting the tablets from the peaks of Ararat, Mt. Fuji, etc,...

Conclusion: These statements don't adjust the premise of the OP, but hint to an overall open communication level between primitive cultures, or to a baser instinct of primitive people(s) to think in a similar manner. We can assume from the remains of Uzi the ice man, that individuals traveling between cultures was expected, if not prevalent.

I can't discuss with you . You start that every thing on Genesis is a myth
I bug's the shit out of me on how an individual can be so sure of a poor written history .

I wouldn't dismiss history for being too poor. In fact there are tens of thousands of artifacts from Mesopotamia alone that tell the story of that region. Hundreds of Asherah statues have been found in the homes of ancient Israelites, telling a slightly different version of their beliefs than reported in the Bible. We have the creation myths of different cultures in the region, and it's clear that they borrowed stories from their neighbors. We have the artifacts of Egypt and the evidence they left of their history. Besides, when Genesis tells of real places, such as Canaan, Nineveh, Ur, and Egypt, we can correlate the Genesis versions of what happened in those places with their own local histories. We also can tell when words were borrowed from other languages, or when places, people and events are introduced in the Bible, which are known in the history of other cultures, how to date those parts of the Bible.

But we know what creation myths are, why they existed, where and when, and how the myths sometimes shared common threads. In other words, we don't throw away the evidence, any more than you would throw away the pink streak on blue litmus paper and declare that your specimen is alkaline.



You mind is made up that every thing is a myth , Why should I trust your positive view , if you mention the Name Israel come to be 850 BC when David was the king in about 1000 Bc ,

Again it's not me, I'm just bringing my observations to the thread. I don't think anyone can say with certainty when Israelites unified under Yahwehism. I gave 850 BCE as a possible timeframe. I think if you dig deeper into the unification under David, there are still some discrepancies that archaeologists are trying to resolve. I don't think anyone can say with certainty that the Biblical David ever existed, but even if he did, the Bible accounts have to be divided between the historical reports and the fables and legends that are woven in with them. It's not a history book, and it's certainly not infallible. One of the problems with reading the text literally is the presumption that it's accurate. But experts know that sometimes the text was written hindreds of years after the events that are reported. Therefore, it's not even eyewitness reporting. Just as eyewitnessing often can't report a story accurately, eyewitnesses who came hundreds of years later will be hard pressed to be accurate. This is where the litmus testing comes in.


If the story about flood was copied from Gilgamesh so what ? So do you believe Golgamesh story , was it a fact , Was the flood in Mesopotamia or is it a myth ?.

Of course the Epic of Gilgamesh is a myth. This is why you have to read the same pH when you test the Noah myth. It was lifted straight from Gilgamesh, then certain parts were changed to make it fit with the ideas of Yahwism and the Genesis myth. Of course there were floods in Mesopotamia all the time. It's a river valley that would flood whenever there were heavy snowmelts in the mountains of Turkey. The point is this: those people knew nothing about the climate and the causes of their river flooding. They had no science to explain it, so instead they invented stories to compensate. This is what we mean by myth. The stories have a religious flavor, they explain that the flooding is punishment by the gods. In Genesis, it's a massacre to destroy the humans because they are evil. In the Epic of Gilgamesh the gods destroy humans because they complain too much. But even the Gilgamesh story is borrowed from a much older flood myth, the Atrahasis flood myth. The evidence for the linkages between these three is in the actual words and ideas they share in common.


By the way Abrahem went to the land of Canaan not from Ur. but from Haram . So why should an individual believe in your explanation . I can pick even more if your positive points.

In the story, Haran is both the name of a person (or tribe) and a place. My point is that according to Genesis there is a migration which begins in Ur and ends in Canaan. This is designed to give the Israelites a sense that their ancestors were not Canaanites or Syrians or Arabians or Egyptians, but Babylonians, Sumerians, Chaldeans and Akkadians, the people who worshipped the gods of the Gilgamesh and Atrahasis myths. Many experts doubt that the Israelites came from Mesopotamia, which was the earlier point I made. In other words, the emigration of Abraham is probably only a legend.



Most of your positive argument stand on shaky ground
Let me tell you I am a myth according to your view There was no record on when I was born , there was no name of me recorded until I was 15 years old, I went back to were I was born , there is no record of us. My father was a backer in the town. Were my fathers house was build there is an other house ,yet no one knew us, yet O lived in a modern society, Now you will come to me Abraham is a myth.

You and I have what Canaanites never had: ID. When we drive a vehicle, serve in the military, own or rent a home, subscribe to utilities, use a credit card, vote, pay taxes, travel across borders, etc., then we leave a document trail. When we die, we will be identified on a death certificate.

When we say Abraham is not a historical figure, we mean he does not exist in the writings of history in the way other historical figures do. He only is known through the Bible story which does not have the same pH as history. Again, it's not me mixing the solutions, I'm just reading the litmus paper.


Tell me how did the Israeli become as a society ?


The same as any other society - they lived in a particular place, spoke a common language and shared a common history and culture. They apparently originated from nomadic roots. I believe this is one reason some scholars think they may be emigrated from the Arabian peninsula into Canaan - it did not have the citadels that would give them skills, language and writing which they lacked "upon their arrival" so to speak.



Tell me did Manco Copac existed If he did how do you prove >




In one myth, Manco Cápac was a son of the sun god Inti and Mama Quilla, and brother of Pacha Kamaq. Manco Cápac himself was worshipped as a fire and a Sun God. According to the Inti legend, Manco Cápac and his siblings were sent up to the earth by the sun god and emerged from the cave of Pacaritambo carrying a golden staff, called ‘tapac-yauri’. Instructed to create a Temple of the Sun in the spot where the staff sank into the earth, they traveled to Cusco via underground caves and there built a temple in honour of their father Inti.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manco_C%C3%A1pac

And according to their myth he founded Cuzco, and thus founded the Incan culture. This is one of many stories of a god incarnate - like Christ, Mithra, or perhaps hundreds of similar inventions. I'm not sure what this has to do with Abraham, except to show that myth is loaded with magic. But talking to God is magic, too.

You are a nice polite fellow , My suggestion to you visit a backward se how people live and learn their customs, and then you might be a little more tolerant
You seem to assume that I've never been out of my own backyard, which is wrong. I'm not sure what my interactions with other cultures has to do with this discussion or why it even comes to your mind. One thing learned by traveling is that people in developed countries are sometimes more superstitious and naive than the supposedly backward people are. Often those cultures have been referred to as ignorant. Mainly they suffer from high illiteracy. But that's not the same as ignorance. Ignorance is also the act of ignoring something, like the litmus paper that keeps getting tossed aside because it won't read the same color we thought it would.

@LG: Aqueous states that superstition is a precursor to religion. At no point did he state that superstition=religion? (please cite). At no point did he state that superstition is the only precursor involved around the formation of god belief? (please cite). Seems you are attributing your own interpretations on what he is saying, which you refuse to budge from, to customarily fudge up the argument and prevent it moving forward? Which in itself is a tactic that symbolically represents (is a clear analogy to) the stance and predicament all god believers find themselves mired in these days?

He said it right here

My comments were specifically directed at the history of religion, which is a history of superstition.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2927402&postcount=24

Religions deal with symbols, which are different from, signs or labels. A symbol is an open concept, while a sign is a closed concept. For example, the concept of infinity in science and math is a symbol, since it reflects a concept without finite boundaries. If we reduce infinity to a finite amount; sign, it is not infinity anymore.

Some ancient cultures seem to have had finite numbering systems, or simply left the idea alone. Infinity is a fairly well developed idea, probably not nearly as universal as you think. By the same token, symbolism is probably not as universal as you think. Human sacrifice, for example, denotes a commitment that far exceeds symbolism.



Atheism does not know how to deal with the openness of symbols but tries to reduce them to signs.

What does atheism have to do with syncretic religions, the topic of this thread? Most religious universities even teach this. Are you claiming they are atheists, too?


Symbols don't make sense as signs. It would b like saying infinity is 1 mile long. Now it makes no sense.

Yes I'm finding a lot of nonsense in what you're talking about.


When you leave symbols open ended, such as the concept of infinity, it expands the mind, since the wall of the box is removed, and you enter that which has not yet been fully defined. Atheism appears to be more defensive and prefers a box with definitive walls; reduced to a sign. Religion is less defensive and is less afraid to go outside the box and explore.

Good. Go explore. When you find out what Noah has in common with Utnapishtim, and how many Christian, Jewish and Moslem clergymen have written about it as "Creation Myth", then feel free to report back to the closed minded atheists who are ROTFLTAO right now.



I am no sure why the symbol infinity is still around, since this religious symbol has no place within science, if we want to be consistent.

I thought it was a math symbol. Oh, scientists use math, so that must be why they use math symbols. You never used ∞ in a practical math problem? Now what does this have to do with the origins of religion?



It exists outside the walls of the box; cannot be proven. It may have to due with the religious roots of science, when all of science was outside the walls of atheism.

You seem to want to talk about ∞, atheism, and science. What does that have to do with the topic?



If you look at mythology, the gods and goddesses were able to do what humans cannot. They existed outside the box of human limitations. In 20/20 hindsight they often defined that which humans would someday, do. The gods could fly before humans could fly. Eventually, humans take to the air. If we proposed flight to an ancient atheist, since this was way outside their box, it would be called religion and be very taboo. But eventually the religious symbol becomes definitive.

Superstition is completely different than presupposing human flight by giving a god wings, if that's your point. In the Enuma Elish epic, the universe is created by the body fragments of the she-monster Tiamat, who Marduk defeats, draws and quarters, and scatters in the sky. It's an attempt to explain the existence of stars. It's not too far in its application from similar creation myths told by some indigenous people. It was for lack of science that they explained the lights in the sky in terms of magic. The Genesis creation myth is just another species of the same application of superstition. In the case of molding of a man from clay - not Genesis, but Gilgamesh - it may seem symbolic to you, but people back then needed an explanation for their origins, so, like many people today, they accepted the Genesis version of Gilgamesh, that a man called Adam was literally made from clay. The flood myths are similar in application as well. These are all applications of superstition to explain natural phenomena for which they had no science. Symbolism probably doesn't take root until the Golden Age of Greece. It was in full flower in the Jesus myth-making era, characterized by the use of the Greek literary device of parables. This cultural capability, to engage in symbolism, was probably preceded by the rise of Hermetics in Alexandria, the other center of Judeo-Christian history. In any case, it would be hard to find evidence of symbolism in ancient superstitious cultures that evidently feared certain elements of nature, and depicted them as angry or evil gods.



Much of religion has to do with morality.

Maybe today, but maybe not so much in ancient cultures. They seem to be preoccupied with practical matters like the sun and harvest, and when to plant, as if traumatized by past crop losses. In animism, the preoccupation seems to be simply in explaining the "life force" behind natural phenomena such as the wind or natural objects like trees or wolves. The biggest breakthrough in behavior modification was probably the Code of Hammurabi which was not a religious act at all, but a royal decree. Of course God was on his side when he wrote it, since it became the framework for the Ten Commandments. Unfortunately for Bible enthusiasts, the god in question was Marduk, the god who scattered Tiamat's remains, creating the universe. The Egyptians reasoned that living a just life would bring them an afterlife in the kingdom of Osiris, who rules the over the dead, after a council of 42 gods passes judgement over them. The alternative is that their souls are devoured. However they appear not to fear "sin". They adore the sun god because he is good to them. (The Nile doesn't swamp them when it floods, it just irrigates their fields.)




These ideas of human interaction came from open concepts like God, which laid down modes of behavior beyond the walls of the impulsiveness of the ancient pre-humans. This opened the primitive walls to the future, but always resistance, by those who hide behind temporal walls and fear anything beyond.

God was a closed concept to the polytheists who labeled Jews and Christians atheists and pagans. Greeks and Romans were incensed by the idea that mere mortals would disavow the gods of thunder and war, and of harvest and fertility, acts that threatened their safety and security. Would you call such people superstitious?

In the modern context, it's easier to regard superstition as any belief that contradicts established fact. It's different from simply being wrong in that the believer attributes the violations of natural laws to be the consequence of some kind of magic.



The reason religion has always been part of natural selection is because it is outside the box and has a connection to the future. Even the Arab terrorists lives in a vision of their expected future. The atheist is stuck in the present and has to wait for science to move the boundary, because it is scary outside the wall.
This is not even word salad. This is made from the DNA of the viruses that inhabit the mites that infest the stalks that that word salad chef normally tosses into the composter before bringing to the table something that purports to be leafy. Nothing on topic, not even actual vinegar.

I.
OTE=Aqueous I.

But we know what creation myths are,

Please explain what do you mean by creation. Is it multicellular organism, or unicellular>
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Of course the Epic of Gilgamesh is a myth.
In the story, Haran is both the name of a person (or tribe) and a place. My point is that according to Genesis there is a migration which begins in Ur and ends in Canaan. This is designed to give the Israelites a sense that their ancestors were not Canaanites or Syrians or Arabians or Egyptians, but Babylonians, Sumerians, Chaldeans and Akkadians, the people who worshipped the gods of the Gilgamesh and Atrahasis myths. Many experts doubt that the Israelites came from Mesopotamia, which was the earlier point I made. In other words, the emigration of Abraham is probably only a legend.

So how come Moses had the 10 commandments and in the 10 commandments there is version similar as in the prayer of deaths from Egypt ?

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When we say Abraham is not a historical figure, we mean he does not exist in the writings of history in the way other historical figures do. He only is known through the Bible story which does not have the same pH as history. Again, it's not me mixing the solutions, I'm just reading the litmus paper.

Pardon . I take the bible tells part oh Hebrews history is not only a spiritual guide .
Beside even a writer to write a a novel he might l have a character of outstanding statue in real life he can change its name but the story might be real.
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The same as any other society - they lived in a particular place, spoke a common language and shared a common history and culture. They apparently originated from nomadic roots. I believe this is one reason some scholars think they may be emigrated from the Arabian peninsula into Canaan - it did not have the citadels that would give them skills, language and writing which they lacked "upon their arrival" so to speak.


That is a good one : So it was a society they shared the same language , they developed a common interest ( remember before be a nation they were city state ) That means there had ti be a leader ,( we can see this even in the animal kingdom ).
If you go farther back , It is beliv3ed the population in Levant mugrated from Ethiopia via Yemen to Golf of Accaba then to Levant ( Israel ).
While those to Mesopotamia was via Persian golf

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You seem to assume that I've never been out of my own backyard, which is wrong. I'm not sure what my interactions with other cultures has to do with this discussion or why it even comes to your mind.[/QUOTE]


I did nit mean superstitious, I meant many things go on and thing are not registered and eventually the individual was a folk hero . Example Taras Schevchenco in the Ukraine

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Finally from were did the circumcision come from and what does it means, and how old is it .
( please don't tell me from the Muslim

But we know what creation myths are, Please explain what do you mean by creation. Is it multicellular organism, or unicellular>

Creation myths deal with ancient ideas about how the universe was formed, how the earth was made, how it became like it is, how natural forces and creatures came into existence and where people came from. In addition, they tend to have particular elements involved which have significance in the local culture - water, animals, the sun, etc. So you won't see a myth that deals with an actual modern issue such as the branching of metazoan life forms.


So how come Moses had the 10 commandments and in the 10 commandments there is version similar as in the prayer of deaths from Egypt ?

You are referring to The Book of The Dead. Yes that's a good point. I think that was the kind of thing the person who opened this thread had in mind (he/she opened a thread and disappeared?)

It certainly shows that Egyptians had a very ancient sense of moral and ethical values and that they believed they would be judged after death according to how well they behaved in life.

The connection to the 10 Commandments are striking. I don't know what scholars say about who influenced who, but depending on when these spells were added to their funerary formulation I would hazard to guess that it may have been possible that the Egyptians picked them up from the Israelites, or maybe it's even a coincidence they are so similar. I say this only because I think these were not kept around the home or sold at the market, but they were probably exclusively made for them at their burial.

Without a doubt there was cultural exchange between the Egyptians and the people of the Levant, and one important aspect of this is the presence of the goddess Asherah in Egyptian mythology, then in Ugarit, and then in Canaan. Just as easily as Asherah was exchanged among them, it seems plausible that the funerary code could have also been communicated.


Pardon . I take the bible tells part oh Hebrews history is not only a spiritual guide . Beside even a writer to write a a novel he might l have a character of outstanding statue in real life he can change its name but the story might be real.

Yes the Bible does give a lot historical information about the Hebrews and their neighbors. And no doubt many of the characters could have been real people. On the other hand, when we see conflicts or additional information we have to calibrate our understanding. For example, many people believe Daniel wrote the Book of Daniel while in captivity in Babylon. However the Greek word cithera appears in the text, indicating that this book was written at a much later date. So there are clues that help us understand when the texts were written and this can help establish the credibility of a particular passage.

That is a good one : So it was a society they shared the same language , they developed a common interest ( remember before be a nation they were city state ) That means there had ti be a leader ,( we can see this even in the animal kingdom ).

They developed Hebrew while in Canaan. This we know because it is derives from Phoenician. But then why did they develop Hebrew language at all? Either (a) because they were in that area since prehistoric times or (b) they wandered into from somewhere else. But if they came from somewhere else, they must not have had a very structured language; something encouraged them to abandon their ancestral language and adopt one closer to Phoenician. This I think is why it is believed they wandered in from someplace that was not well organized, whose language was dispensible. Looking around the map, the closest place that fits that description is the Arabian Peninsula. You are right about a connection to Ethiopia. They speak of the land of the Cush in Genesis, Ethiopian books are known (Ezra I think), and there was a Hebrew settlement on an island in the Nile near Ethiopia.



If you go farther back , It is beliv3ed the population in Levant mugrated from Ethiopia via Yemen to Golf of Accaba then to Levant ( Israel ).
While those to Mesopotamia was via Persian golf

Yes it's easy to visualize land passage, but travel by sea was also possible since some of the civilizations in the region were known to trade by sea routes as well as by land.


I did nit mean superstitious, I meant many things go on and thing are not registered and eventually the individual was a folk hero . Example Taras Schevchenco in the Ukraine

You are referring to the writer, artist and hero Taras Shevchenko who became famous for his poems and for promoting nationalism?



Finally from were did the circumcision come from and what does it means, and how old is it .
( please don't tell me from the Muslim
As far back as 23rd c. BCE Egypt is what Wikipedia says. There are a dozen or more possible explanations for its purpose given:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_male_circumcision

He said it right here

My comments were specifically directed at the history of religion, which is a history of superstition.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2927402&postcount=24

Which is "A history of superstition", not "THE history of superstition". Subtle difference there? The phrase he uses could be interpreted in different ways? It isn't a cut-and-dry proof of your argument. You are going to need more solid, contextually based evidence to prove your assertion/interpretation is accurate; in fact the fact it is an INTERPRETATION casts doubt. You will need Aqueous to back you up ie embellish/clarify what he was actually saying: voluntarily support your argument against HIM. Ha, shit state of affairs I feel. You do seem prone to jumping to conclusions: like say god exists for instance :)

Which is "A history of superstition", not "THE history of superstition". Subtle difference there? The phrase he uses could be interpreted in different ways? It isn't a cut-and-dry proof of your argument. You are going to need more solid, contextually based evidence to prove your assertion/interpretation is accurate; in fact the fact it is an INTERPRETATION casts doubt. You will need Aqueous to back you up ie embellish/clarify what he was actually saying: voluntarily support your argument against HIM. Ha, shit state of affairs I feel. You do seem prone to jumping to conclusions: like say god exists for instance :)
Happy to hear that you don't think religion is just all about superstition.

Can't say the same about Aqueous though ...

it was immediately consumed by the Goddess Ammit (Devourer of the Dead). In effect, the soul simply ceased to exist. ...

it was immediately consumed by the Goddess Ammit (Devourer of the Dead). In effect, the soul simply ceased to exist. ...


In other words: god dammit?

In most simple language somewhere religion is defined as:-

"the true nature of a thing"

"the intrinsic nature of a substance is its true dharma."