October 29, 2009
October 22, 2009
October 12, 2009
October 8, 2009
Islamo-Judeo-Christian Deity Not Creator; had Colleagues
Third 'religion' post in a row, but I just couldn't pass this one up.
If this were the 10th Century AD or so we'd have another schism on our hands, like the one that split early Christendom in two over a single word.
As it is, we're probably facing a number of angry blog posts and perhaps a couple of youtube videos at the very most.
What is the case? Dutch theologian Dr. Ellen van Wolde of the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen is about to drop the hammer tomorrow when she presents her theory that the accepted translation of the first sentence of Genesis (and the bible) was wrong all along. Traditionally translated as "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.", the more accurate translation would be "In the beginning, God seperated the heaven and the earth", according to Dr. Van Wolde.
Before this seperation there allegedly already was a kind of primordial ocean. One that housed seamonsters and the like. Incidentally, not entirely unlike other Creation myths predating the bible.
If all this would be plenty to start your own brand of Christianity, Dr. Van Wolde has more to throw onto the fire. God was not alone during Creation (or Seperation, or whatever). Her analysis of ancient Hebrew editions of Genesis turns up that God also addresses colleague deities.
She also points out that this makes the position of Creationist untenable. Well, not as if it was tenable to begin with, but if her conclusions are correct, it does rather drive the last nail in the coffin.
Not born yesterday, Dr. Van Wolde does concede she does not expect any Creationists will actually let themselves be convinced by this. But everyone else is allowed to laugh even harder.
If they were clever they might of course point this out as biblical proof of the Nebular Hypothesis. Except the bit about multiple Gods; that's going to be trickier to explain away.
Source: http://www.gelderlander.nl/algemeen/dgbinnenland/5627738/Toen-God-begon-was-er-al-zeeleven.ece (Dutch)
If this were the 10th Century AD or so we'd have another schism on our hands, like the one that split early Christendom in two over a single word.
As it is, we're probably facing a number of angry blog posts and perhaps a couple of youtube videos at the very most.
What is the case? Dutch theologian Dr. Ellen van Wolde of the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen is about to drop the hammer tomorrow when she presents her theory that the accepted translation of the first sentence of Genesis (and the bible) was wrong all along. Traditionally translated as "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.", the more accurate translation would be "In the beginning, God seperated the heaven and the earth", according to Dr. Van Wolde.
Before this seperation there allegedly already was a kind of primordial ocean. One that housed seamonsters and the like. Incidentally, not entirely unlike other Creation myths predating the bible.
Actual footage.
If all this would be plenty to start your own brand of Christianity, Dr. Van Wolde has more to throw onto the fire. God was not alone during Creation (or Seperation, or whatever). Her analysis of ancient Hebrew editions of Genesis turns up that God also addresses colleague deities.
She also points out that this makes the position of Creationist untenable. Well, not as if it was tenable to begin with, but if her conclusions are correct, it does rather drive the last nail in the coffin.
Not born yesterday, Dr. Van Wolde does concede she does not expect any Creationists will actually let themselves be convinced by this. But everyone else is allowed to laugh even harder.
If they were clever they might of course point this out as biblical proof of the Nebular Hypothesis. Except the bit about multiple Gods; that's going to be trickier to explain away.
Source: http://www.gelderlander.nl/algemeen/dgbinnenland/5627738/Toen-God-begon-was-er-al-zeeleven.ece (Dutch)
Christian Love
Made me chuckle.
In other news: Rob Sherman, (militant) atheist in America, reports that atheism is surging in his country.
An Associated Press story published earlier this week reported that organized religion is experiencing unprecedented losses of membership and donations, while the number of people with no religion is increasing rapidly. In fact, the web address for the Chicago Tribune version of the AP story included the words, "religion meltdown."Unfortunately, the link to the Chicago Tribune in the article appears to be broken.
All this comes on top of this desperate report.pdf by the Church Communication Network that up to 94% of teens leave church after high school.
October 4, 2009
Euthyphro dilemma
Here's a fun dillemma for the believers among us to solve:
"Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"
This is known as the Euthyphro dilemma and is apparently quite a puzzler for theologians as allegedly they have never been able to crack it (possibly beating even the omnipotence paradox) ever since it was first thought up by Plato.
The basic problem is that if God commands only moral things because they're moral, then the whole morality thing is something pre-existing Creation and he's only passing it on.
It gets worse if you try to argue that whatever God says is moral, just because He says so: firstly, there's no point in considering God 'good' anymore, because whatever He says is good by definition. It means that if He had described murder and rape as virtues, then those would have been the moral choice.
Of course, you could also consider morality as emerging from an evolutionary beneficial set of traits of cooperation and cohabitation within the species, but who'd believe that?
"Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"
This is known as the Euthyphro dilemma and is apparently quite a puzzler for theologians as allegedly they have never been able to crack it (possibly beating even the omnipotence paradox) ever since it was first thought up by Plato.
The basic problem is that if God commands only moral things because they're moral, then the whole morality thing is something pre-existing Creation and he's only passing it on.
It gets worse if you try to argue that whatever God says is moral, just because He says so: firstly, there's no point in considering God 'good' anymore, because whatever He says is good by definition. It means that if He had described murder and rape as virtues, then those would have been the moral choice.
Of course, you could also consider morality as emerging from an evolutionary beneficial set of traits of cooperation and cohabitation within the species, but who'd believe that?
Here he is, the clever little sod.
I hope Mr. MadnessOfArt.com doesn't mind me stealing his bandwith.
So behave, you endless torrent of visitors streaming through my blog every day. Oh, and say hi to dad for me.
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