Crazy Bible Stories

[Lion IRC]

Speaking of Crazy Bible Stories, check out Numbers 22, the story of Balaam and his talking donkey....[snip]

…In other words, go do what you were already doing before I threatened to stop you from doing. Utterly and truly bizarre.

You didn't explain that it was Balaam's vacillating motives which were the reason for the stop/go/stop.

It's possible I've missed something, Please point out Balaam's vacillating motives.

Balaam was initially going to collude with King Balak - so God intervened and Balaam agreed not to go to Moab.
Then he was again tempted to go after Balak offered a bigger bribe so God intervened and told Balaam to do the exact opposite of what King Balak was enticing him to do. So Balaam was back on team Jehovah.
While on the way to Moab to do God's bidding Balaam flip flops again and decides he is going to curse the Israelites. And God intervenes once again.

Had Balaam learned his lesson? No. After that, Balaam tried to curse Israel three times, but each time Jehovah made him bless them instead. Eventually, the Israelites attacked Moab, and Balaam was killed. Would it not have been better if Balaam had listened to Jehovah in the first place?

https://www.jw.org/en/library/books/bible-stories-lessons/5/balaams-talking-donkey/

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

*hand wave*

Thats all I really got to argue with. No scientific claims or denials of science to argue against unfortunately.

FIFY

So you have nothing, use ignorance as a cloak to defend your inability to defend your claims when pressured even a little. Tiptoeing between 'honest' willful ignorance and snark. We are past post 300 and you have yet to bring up a single viable piece of information to defend your positions. Asking questions doesn't provide a defense. Nor is resorting to a 'design' defense and running from it when shown natural 'design'.

 

[Learner]

FIFY

So you have nothing, use ignorance as a cloak to defend your inability to defend your claims when pressured even a little. Tiptoeing between 'honest' willful ignorance and snark. We are past post 300 and you have yet to bring up a single viable piece of information to defend your positions. Asking questions doesn't provide a defense. Nor is resorting to a 'design' defense and running from it when shown natural 'design'.

I'll just say briefly. You could at least quote and underline what ever claim you think I supposedly said. Perhaps you were creating a something that wasn't actually there, hence your introduction to "handwaving".

Perhaps you saw too-much into, being a theist, and making the claim to be sceptic or sceptical. By being sceptical giving you the notion in your mind, that I use the word to make the claim, that I am right and they were all wrong noticeable in several of your posts. Seems like you're looking for something thats not there but something to grasp onto.

When I say Im sceptical .... I really mean I am unsure who IS actually right when there are differring established ideas. More than one option.

 

[DBT]

A cake that nobody baked looks invisible.
They were asking you the equivalent of...what the laws of physics be like if they were unpredictable and chaotic.

Assuming the universe is a creation....why believe that 'God' - whatever that is - did it? If there are super advanced aliens in existence, they may be generating any number of quantum simulated universes into existence, which makes that a far more likely option to assume than some unknown, non definable supernatural agency.

God is a "super advanced alien" And as for the creation (out of nothing) of quantum simulated universes, that sounds pretty close to what you can read in the book of Genesis.

Aliens are considered to be physical beings. In this instance, beings who have evolved and developed their technology to the point where they can generate quantum simulated universes. Which doesn't relate to the genesis creation story but is far more believable given what we understand about the world, virtual reality, etc.

So the question, if you believe in a created universe, why not go with the more likely option?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

FIFY

So you have nothing, use ignorance as a cloak to defend your inability to defend your claims when pressured even a little. Tiptoeing between 'honest' willful ignorance and snark. We are past post 300 and you have yet to bring up a single viable piece of information to defend your positions. Asking questions doesn't provide a defense. Nor is resorting to a 'design' defense and running from it when shown natural 'design'.

I'll just say briefly. You could at least quote and underline what ever claim you think I supposedly said. Perhaps you were creating a something that wasn't actually there, hence your introduction to "handwaving".

Perhaps you saw too-much into, being a theist, and making the claim to be sceptic or sceptical. By being sceptical giving you the notion in your mind, that I use the word to make the claim, that I am right and they were all wrong noticeable in several of your posts. Seems like you're looking for something thats not there but something to grasp onto.

When I say Im sceptical .... I really mean I am unsure who IS actually right when there are differring established ideas. More than one option.

You should try out some homeopathic medicines next time you have a serious ailment. After all, both are established ideas.

And no, this isn’t different.

 

[Learner]

Come on Mr. Brown, agreed or not agreed, I think the obvious is that they see it as compared to an observable picture e.g. mechanisms, cyclic not random, clockwork-like , forecasts and predictabilities in such, that we can rely on their properties and behaviours of each element to create tables and graphs, to repeat the processes by the same methods (for lack of articulation ..pardon me).

Not because the answer is so simplistically .... "Compared to the beach that the watch is laying on,"

It torpedoes ID right out of the water using the very argument for ID. It demonstrates that ID is crock. A person can hand wave all they want while they're backing up, which is what you did here, but it does not change the fact that your argument has been revealed as unsound.

Compared to the beach that the watch is laying on - that would also be unsound to me. No argument from me here.

But that's how religion always works when it comes to incorporating science. Religious folk seem to be wearing blinders for the most part. They like the religious view, it feels good. But eventually something always comes into view that unsettles some aspect of their religious belief.

Again ... No argument from me here. I don't doubt this happens somewhere in the world.

So maybe religious behavior is symptomatic of a learning disability. Considering how folks embrace all those crazy bible stories maybe it is.

And some of those folks are still getting PhD's? I'm having another one of those unsure moments again.

 

[James Brown]

Balaam was initially going to collude with King Balak - so God intervened and Balaam agreed not to go to Moab.

I see nothing in Numbers 22 to indicate that Balaam was going to collude with Balak. In verse 13 he told Balak's advisors to go back home, because Jehovah had refused to let Balaam go with them. When they returned with a higher offer, Jehovah told Balaam to go back with them to meet Balak, "but do only what I tell you." If Balaam was going to collude with Balak, he would not have asked Jehovah twice what to do with their offers.

The only way to say that Balaam 'decided' to curse the Israelites is to play mind reader. Your link states that Balaam "tried to curse Israel three times, but each time Jehovah made him bless them instead." Nothing in the text indicates that Jehovah took over Balaam's brain and possessed him to say words that he didn't want to actually say. So much for the argument that God won't interfere with man's free will.

I've seen other apologists do the same thing with this story. On it's face, it makes no sense, so apologists conclude that there must be some good reason why Jehovah would act so capriciously. Balaam was doing exactly what Jehovah commanded, and Jehovah got upset, so Balaam MUST have been doing something else instead. Another apologist told me that Balaam was planning on spending the night in a brothel on the way to Balak--what else could make God so mad? There's not a hint in the text to indicate that Balaam was doing anything other than what Jehovah told him to do, but squinting at the text and inventing stories helps ease the cognitive dissonance.

As a counterpoint, look at Jonah. God told him to go preach, and Jonah didn't want to.

But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

So it's possible for the author to make perfectly clear that the person in question is up to no good. Jonah didn't say that he would happily go, book passage to Nineveh, then end up in the belly of the great fish because he "decided" he didn't want to go after all. And yet for Balaam we have to imagine scenarios based on wishful thinking, because otherwise we'd have to admit that Jehovah was hypocritical.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And some of those folks are still getting PhD's? I'm having another one of those unsure moments again.

humans are champion rationalizers. Maybe they just understand stuff like Genesis to be allegory.
Or they just have faith thsst it's true but not necessarily factual, true in a way that God intends, but maybe not the way humans understand it.


Or they only think about it for an hour on Sunday.

 

[steve_bank]

It is not hard to understand the origin of the stories.

I know a Baptist who grew up in 1940s La. He was baptized in the traditional way, immersion in a pond.

He tells his grandkids an alligator swam towards him and the minister told it to go away and it did. He admits it is a story he likes to tell his grandkids and laughs about it, but it shows how a story linked to divine intervention of the supernatural comes into being.

It gets repeated until it becomes mythology. Like the Exodus myth. The oral tale must have grown in scale over generations and locale. Noah, Jonah and the whale.

I knew someone around 10 years ago who had absolute belief in faith healing. He trveled to a center for it in XCa periodicaly. He recited a litany of actual cases, but never witnessed any of it.

A modern oral tradition for which no one never sees it actually happen.

 

[Learner]

And some of those folks are still getting PhD's? I'm having another one of those unsure moments again.

humans are champion rationalizers. Maybe they just understand stuff like Genesis to be allegory.
Or they just have faith thsst it's true but not necessarily factual, true in a way that God intends, but maybe not the way humans understand it.


Or they only think about it for an hour on Sunday.

Very good point! Yes I have no doubt this would be true, and it would be misleading to mention people of faith giving the impression that ALL are the same, without being reminded or stating that there'd be, individually varying degrees and outlooks to each of their respected faiths.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And some of those folks are still getting PhD's? I'm having another one of those unsure moments again.

humans are champion rationalizers. Maybe they just understand stuff like Genesis to be allegory.
Or they just have faith thsst it's true but not necessarily factual, true in a way that God intends, but maybe not the way humans understand it.


Or they only think about it for an hour on Sunday.

Very good point! Yes I have no doubt this would be true, and it would be misleading to mention people of faith giving the impression that ALL are the same, without being reminded or stating that there'd be, individually varying degrees and outlooks to each of their respected faiths.

Meh.
Their relative degree of faith doesn't really matter.
WHY they hold that degree of faith might be interesting. The argument or the experience they base it upon. If it can be shared by anyone else.
But if it's not testable, then it's really not at all comparable to science, scientific observations, conclusions, measurable results, repeatable observations, peer-scrutinized processes...

ETA: Oh! And RESULTS. ...he said over the internet.

But ultimately, the simple fact that there ARE people of faith researching and producing science shows it's not a purely atheist industry.

 

[Learner]

Meh.
Their relative degree of faith doesn't really matter.
WHY they hold that degree of faith might be interesting. The argument or the experience they base it upon. If it can be shared by anyone else.
But if it's not testable, then it's really not at all comparable to science, scientific observations, conclusions, measurable results, repeatable observations, peer-scrutinized processes...

ETA: Oh! And RESULTS. ...he said over the internet.

Taking from a Christian scientist:

"If we don't know much about energy etc. (the areas unknown to science) then you'll have to forgive us when we are also unnable to explain God" (scientifically, more so for physics) . Not exactly word for word but thats the gist of it.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So maybe religious behavior is symptomatic of a learning disability. Considering how folks embrace all those crazy bible stories maybe it is.

And some of those folks are still getting PhD's? I'm having another one of those unsure moments again.

A strong correlation needn't be 100% to be a statistically significant correlation.

Taking from a Christian scientist:

"If we don't know much about energy etc. (the areas unknown to science) then you'll have to forgive us when we are also unnable to explain God" (scientifically, more so for physics) . Not exactly word for word but thats the gist of it.

You're saying that because we don't know everything we can't know anything.

Do you know if you brushed your teeth this morning?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Meh.
Their relative degree of faith doesn't really matter.
WHY they hold that degree of faith might be interesting. The argument or the experience they base it upon. If it can be shared by anyone else.
But if it's not testable, then it's really not at all comparable to science, scientific observations, conclusions, measurable results, repeatable observations, peer-scrutinized processes...

ETA: Oh! And RESULTS. ...he said over the internet.

Taking from a Christian scientist:

"If we don't know much about energy etc. (the areas unknown to science) then you'll have to forgive us when we are also unnable to explain God" (scientifically, more so for physics) . Not exactly word for word but thats the gist of it.

Okay. God is beyond science to explain. Or identify. A tool for identifying and measuring natural processes, forces, events is unable to measure the supernatural the same way my ohmmeter can't measure gravity.

Which just makes it incredibly obvious that attempts to hold religious faith and faith-stories as being just as valid, and on similar footing, as scientific results are doomed to failure and mockery.

And yet there are entire organizations of scientists out there, pretending they can prove God, or pretending they have an answer to a mythical science claim that God is disproven.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Meh.
Their relative degree of faith doesn't really matter.
WHY they hold that degree of faith might be interesting. The argument or the experience they base it upon. If it can be shared by anyone else.
But if it's not testable, then it's really not at all comparable to science, scientific observations, conclusions, measurable results, repeatable observations, peer-scrutinized processes...

ETA: Oh! And RESULTS. ...he said over the internet.

Taking from a Christian scientist:

"If we don't know much about energy etc. (the areas unknown to science) then you'll have to forgive us when we are also unnable to explain God" (scientifically, more so for physics) . Not exactly word for word but thats the gist of it.

That Christian Scientist believe in creationism or the flood?

 

[Lion IRC]

Balaam was initially going to collude with King Balak - so God intervened and Balaam agreed not to go to Moab.

I see nothing in Numbers 22 to indicate that Balaam was going to collude with Balak. In verse 13 he told Balak's advisors to go back home, because Jehovah had refused to let Balaam go with them. When they returned with a higher offer, Jehovah told Balaam to go back with them to meet Balak, "but do only what I tell you." If Balaam was going to collude with Balak, he would not have asked Jehovah twice what to do with their offers.

He was quite obviously considering the offer. And if he wasn't then why would God tell him NOT to accept the offer?

The only way to say that Balaam 'decided' to curse the Israelites is to play mind reader.

It's right there in the text - he was going to curse the Israelites. (Of his own free will albeit tempted by money)

Your link states that Balaam "tried to curse Israel three times, but each time Jehovah made him bless them instead." Nothing in the text indicates that Jehovah took over Balaam's brain and possessed him to say words that he didn't want to actually say. So much for the argument that God won't interfere with man's free will.

It's not an argument about free will. The Moabite King Balak wants Balaam to do "X" and Jehovah wants Balaam to do "Y".

I've seen other apologists do the same thing with this story. On it's face, it makes no sense, so apologists conclude that there must be some good reason why Jehovah would act so capriciously.

WUT?
God isn't being capricious. And I'm suspicious of "other apologists" who you claim are in agreement with you.

Balaam was doing exactly what Jehovah commanded, and Jehovah got upset, so Balaam MUST have been doing something else instead.

No, Balaam started out (grudgingly) agreeing to do what God instructed but he changed his mind. Then, irritated God has to once again strongly suggest to Balaam that it might be wise to cooperate with the inevitable- God wins every time.

Another apologist told me that Balaam was planning on spending the night in a brothel on the way to Balak--what else could make God so mad?

Gee you've got an army of 'other' apologists on your side.
What next? Balaam and Balak were gay?

There's not a hint in the text to indicate that Balaam was doing anything other than what Jehovah told him to do, but squinting at the text and inventing stories helps ease the cognitive dissonance.

If Balaam was doing everything that God wanted - and nothing else - why would God have to keep intervening?

As a counterpoint, look at Jonah. God told him to go preach, and Jonah didn't want to.

Jonah is not a "counterpoint" to Numbers 22.
Balaam and Jonah, like many other people in the bible, find themselves vaccinating and conflicted insofar as their will versus what God wants them to do.

[FONT=&]But [/FONT]Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.

So it's possible for the author to make perfectly clear that the person in question is up to no good. Jonah didn't say that he would happily go, book passage to Nineveh, then end up in the belly of the great fish because he "decided" he didn't want to go after all. And yet for Balaam we have to imagine scenarios based on wishful thinking, because otherwise we'd have to admit that Jehovah was hypocritical.

Hang on. Jonah DOES change his mind. 1st he doesn't want to go. Then he does go.
And I see you didn't finish the Jonah story. You conveniently left out what happened at Nineveh.
Jonah once again sets his will against that of God.

He tells God...
see, I told you I didn't want to come to Nineveh. Why did you make me come all this way for nothing. That why I fled to Tarshish. What a waste of time. Here's me expecting the Ninevites to get their fire and brimstone punishment and you accept their repentance and show mercy.

So with Jonah as with Balaam we see tentative obedience and tentative disobedience and the fluctuation between both. And the consequences of our/their decisions and actions.

 

[DBT]

What kind of a picture does the bible paint of its god? I'd say that it's not a good picture.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

What kind of a picture does the bible paint of its god? I'd say that it's not a good picture.

Listening to believers defend biblical stories is like listening to people denying that the Apollo missions actually went to the moon. The mind of a believer is obviously extremely credulous and will accept unsubstantiated claims that support their favorite fantasies.

Perhaps the most idiotic believer fantasy claim is that there is this otherworldly existence operated by this spooky, mysterious, woo woo creature they call their god. This other spooky woo woo reality is the real reality, the reality we are living in today only happened because we had lunch with a talking snake. The talking snake reality was never meant to be, it's not the perfect reality we all had coming before the snake lunch encounter. And they want us to believe all of this nonsense because it agrees with their emotions.

This is freaky stuff, right in line with how conspiracy theorists operate. The idea of gods and magic realities is probably the greatest conspiracy invention of all human history. It's a soap opera where you can make the characters be whatever you want them to be.

 

[Learner]

A strong correlation needn't be 100% to be a statistically significant correlation.

You bring up an interesting subject area, and... I have come across people with similar feelings towards certain people who use social media - twitter, instagram and face-book, the well-known ones. It is as if the smart-phone has become a somewhat "dependent" part of the human anatomy, in a manner of speaking.

It is alarming to think that, people actually get killed walking across the road because their phones seems to override their sense-of-awareness, or plain common-sense even at the most critical moments - others have fatal falls from high places just by taking selfies! Not forgetting having emotional and mental effects on vunerables.

These links are worth their own threads as topics (if there aren't already) but we can at least get the sense that these are happening outside the church, so to speak.

New research finds IQ scores have been decreasing for decades, and the environment is to blame.

Is Smart Technology Making Us Dumb?

Interesting topics anyway.

Taking from a Christian scientist:

"If we don't know much about energy etc. (the areas unknown to science) then you'll have to forgive us when we are also unnable to explain God" (scientifically, more so for physics) . Not exactly word for word but thats the gist of it.

You're saying that because we don't know everything we can't know anything.

He was saying that "we don't know everything therefore we can't explain everything.

Do you know if you brushed your teeth this morning?

I just realised, I wouldn't have any evidence to prove I did, without filming it.

 

[Keith&Co.]

He was saying that "we don't know everything therefore we can't explain everything.

he was saying that science cannot answer every question about the universe, THEREFORE the Faithful should be cut some slack answering questions about the God they believe in and wager their eternal souls on their understanding of His desires for their beliefs, behavior, and diet.

It's oretending the two worldviews are equivalent.
But where science is a tower that keeps getting bigger, wider, and the rooms more filled, The Faith is more of a picture of a building on the wall with people constantly painting ovrr parts, while insisting it hasn't changed....