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    Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts

    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.



    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."

    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.
     Unfortunately, the link to the Chicago Tribune in the article appears to be broken.