And God said, Let there be light: and there was light

Something funny I noticed in the Manning thread:

I think you're misunderstanding the "other creation stories" argument. While there are others with some passing resemblance to the Genesis myth such as the Enuma Elish (due to their contemporary origins in Mesopotamia), these are still very different accounts.
The reason we think that Genesis actually consists of a number of stories "woven together" and edited over time is because of the language used in the text itself - different styles, different words for "God" and so forth. But there are no surviving copies of these stories.

cultural memory in an oral-tradition world would necessarily turn out that way, regardless of the truth or fiction of the story being told.

If we assume it's a myth, or that it's true - if the same basic outline of origins survived from the earliest days of the race when the population was small and the "mythology" was largely commonly held, then if you look again 100 generations later, you are going to have a wide variety of somewhat similar stories, any of which can be said to appear derivative of the others.

It ought to surprise me - bt doesn't - how people with an ax to grind can so blind themselves to perfectly rational logical thinking when it comes to attacking that which the find threatening.

Frankly, the religion that they despise is not built upon the story of Creation.

The validity (or lack thereof) of the Christ story is the foundation. Wasting energy trying to discredit the creation story is kinda sad.

So a story is told without regard to the audience?

or, when trying to communicate a truth, is it best to frame it in the rhetorical vehicles of the target audience?

No one can disabuse you of blindness when you WISH to be blind.

you have not even bothered to counter my explanations, which are perfectly valid, logical, and reasonable and call for no presumed first person audience.

if the world is blown up, it will always be over bullshit. what does it matter if it's "god bullshit" from 4,00 years ago or "we're better than you " bullshit from the 21st century?

IIRC from my Old Testament classes, there's a school of that that scribes - possibly during the Babylonian exile? - consolidated and (the Jewish version of) "canonized" the Torah (at least) if that were true it wouldn't be remotely surprising that over the intervening centuries there would be a mix-mash of various source materials from different dates. The tradition is that these books were the works of Moses and that particular point is not important. if the discussion is "Moses didn't really write the Torah" - fine, you win. It's not a point that's remotely important to Christian or Jewish theology.

The faith position is that God superintended the preservation of the account he wanted transmitted (and as an aside, if you look at all the bad stuff Dicky dances on, it's clear that God - if he did preserve "his version" of events didn't set out to whitewash himself or his followers) but that is obviously not something which can be demonstrated by physical evidence.

but the bottom line to your tangent, as to Dan's original question, is that no one can BEGIN to analyze the Bible, particularly the OT, without doing so from the science of textual criticism. Whatever one believes or rejects concerning the existence of God, there are certain literary rules which apply when examining any text, and the more distant in time and place the greater the need for those principles.

I have nothing but respect for the skeptic who employees this methodology and ask a legitimate question based on their findings.

I have nothing but contempt for word games which are no better than "Can God make a rock so big he himself can't lift it"

That much seems very likely to me. That was approximately 450BC, although the bits and pieces, especially in the case of Genesis, go back several centuries farther.

EDIT: Some of the Psalms are even older, of course.

If He possessed the attributes claimed for him by his followers, no whitewashing would have been necessary. Instead, Yahweh comes across exactly as one would expect the tribal deity of an unsophisticated culture to do, warts and all.

If Genesis, including "original sin", is myth, what did Jesus get nailed to a stick for?

Didn't say otherwise.
But one bullshit at a time.
Religion has it thumbs poked into every other bullshit pie right now.

I do, it's a very stupid inefficient way to do things.

An omnipotent God could very easily reveal himself to everybody, and remove all doubt.

But it's always one prophet, when they're alone, with no other witnesses.
Why, isn't that convenient?

By the way, I keep having to restate this, because it doesn't seem to stick...
The Bible isn't revelation.
To the first person, it's revelation, to everyone else he tells, it's hearsay.

It's why evidence becomes so fucking important.
And there hasn't been any for 5 millenia.

Just theologians tapdancing, and shoving pies in their overpaid gobs.

I've got far less proof of the existence of Dicky than I do of Jesus Christ, btw.

of course.

Im reading a novel by Orsen Scott Card called "Pastwatch" and while i won't descend into a plot review here, the key point for this discussion is that three people from the future travel into the past, in three different times and locations in an attempt to "redeem" the voyage of Columbus and avoid the consequent slavery (among other things)

In one passage, the traveler who comes to the MesoAmericanism natives presents himself to the natives as a representative of their Gods, including a lot of ritualistic mumbo-jumbo which, in a vacuum, would seem at best silly and at worst positively disturbed.

Point being, if you are a superior being (only if superior in knowledge, let alone power) and you address yourself to a primitive culture you do so in the context of what they can understand. if you address a people who only understand a God of Wrath, then you don't come as a peace-loving hippie God - they wouldn't listen.

For all the flaws that modern man identify in the "God of the Old Testament" - that God was remarkably more progressive than that of the surrounding cultures - as progressive as the traffic would bear.

Further, you can see it (as has been often pointed out before) in how one deals with children. the way that you communicate "that's dangerous, don't do it" to a toddler is different than how you do that with a 12 year old or a 22 year old. God was dealing with a highly immature culture.

(presumes the truth of the stories for the sake of the discussion)

I'm talking right to you.
It's hot off the presses.

You only have second-hand writings 50-300 years after for Jesus.

Original sin can be a true concept and stories about snakes and fruit be stylized metaphorical vehicles for transmitting the core truth to primitive peoples.

It may or may not be - but that such a concept is entirely plausible and logical is self-evident.

No you're not. You're not even alive. You're one of those programs that only appears to be alive and responds randomly appearing to have conversations. God knows they would make more sense than you do sometimes.

I can think of few things less plausible and logical than original sin. Why should I be punished for the sins (symbolised by fruit or not) of anyone else?

Walk me through that one.

Your ancient ancestor did something that was "wrong", according to some archaic obsolete law, so you, are born guilty.

Or, more to the point, you're born sick, and are commanded to be well.

Yeah, really logical, that.

A sufficiently sophisticated program running on a sufficiently sophisticated computer could be said to be alive.

Only argument against it is God "just likes", carbon based neurons over silicon based ones.

But, that would mean naturally evolved silicon based lifeforms on some planet out there somewhere aren't alive.

But, that's just nonsense.

By the way, "original sin" isn't universally accepted by all Christians and it doesn't necessarily mean the same thing to all who use the term.

Even if you didn't take Nova's words out of context there.

"The bullshit ye will always have with you"

Still, the persona you claim to be doesn't exist. Prove it.

You first.
License and debit card, please.