Agnosticism

Cee Lo Green Changes 'Imagine' Lyrics To 'All Religions' From John Lennon's 'No Religion'

2012-01-01T10:45:00.001-08:00

By - - THE HUFFINGTON POST
Added: Sunday, 01 January 2012 at 11:13 AM

Cee Lo Green's small change to the lyrics to John Lennon's song "Imagine" is causing a very big uproar.

Charged with singing Lennon's famous solo-era tune on NBC's New Year's Eve show shortly before the ball dropped in Times Square , Green changed the lyrics from "Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too" to "Nothing to kill or die for, And all religion's true."

The change didn't go unnoticed, and to preempt criticism, he soon tweeted, "Yo I meant no disrespect by changing the lyric guys! I was trying to say a world were u could believe what u wanted that's all."

That did little to comfort angered Lennon fans, who lashed out over Twitter. Watch the performance below and then read the angry exchanges over Twitter.

UPDATE 9:49 AM: All of Green's tweets have been deleted from his account, but can still be seen below.

WATCH:

Extraterrestrial Psychosis from Creationism to Evolutionism: Who Are We as Human Beings?

2011-12-13T07:35:00.001-08:00

'Zulu Elder Credo Mutwa and other indigenous historical representation, suggests that humans in a higher state of consciousness were telepaths who were without the need for speech. This state of telephathic connection, served to affirm humanity's former elevated spiritual interconnectedness with each other and with nature.

Many indigenous communities today, have sought to maintain the highly developed spiritual appreciation of each other and also with nature that had once been embraced by our human ancestors in general. According to indigenous elders and investigative researchers who include Michael Cremo, David Icke, and Dr. Michael Salla., elite-driven institutions of our global capitalist milieu have sought to destroy indigenous knowledge that would reveal the true nature of our origins.

To the human in the reported former state that existed before Manipulative Extraterrestrials came into contact with our planet Earth, Cremo suggests that our so-called "advanced technological society" and accompanying economic system and political-military institutions today would appear to them to be backward/regressive, oppressive, and barbaric.'

Debunking the Israelite Myth: Ancient Egypt Knew No Pharaohs

2011-12-10T05:50:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

...

In the mid-nineteenth century the genuine version of the history of ancient Egypt and the Near East was beginning to unravel as its true stories were retold again.

Ironically enough, what the excavated records of ancient Egypt told the modern historians and archeologists was totally different from what the Hebrew narrative said. But what struck historians as a total surprise is the fact that ancient Egyptian records had no mention of any Israelites in Egypt, non whatsoever, while the Hebrew Bible is replete with tales of Egypt, and the more of ancient Egypt texts and inscriptions were unraveled, the remoter from truth the Biblical narrative looked.

Interestingly, and as the historical findings and the non- stop archeological discoveries were in the process of resurrecting the true story of ancient Egypt the Biblical narrative kept on decomposing subjecting some of the dominant Israelite stories, like the exodus, to demolition after it had been scientifically refuted by prominent modern archeologists, many of whom are Israelis and who amongst other Canadian and American Egyptologists now view the story of the Israelites exodus as a mere myth or one of the ancient Israelite’s tales that had been somehow magnified, stretched out and skillfully embroidered by the gifted Hebrew scribes of the Bible over the years.

...

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/12/09/ancient-egypt-knew-no-pharaohs/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ancient-egypt-knew-no-pharaohs

Consciousness: The Black Hole of Neuroscience

2011-11-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

Megan Erickson

“By the word ‘thought’ (‘pensée’) I understand all that of which we are conscious as operating in us.” –Renee Descartes

The simplest description of a black hole is a region of space-time from which no light is reflected and nothing escapes. The simplest description of consciousness is a mind that absorbs many things and attends to a few of them. Neither of these concepts can be captured quantitatively. Together they suggest the appealing possibility that endlessness surrounds us and infinity is within.

But our inability to grasp the immaterial means we’re stuck making inferences, free-associating, if we want any insight into the unknown. Which is why we talk obscurely and metaphorically about "pinning down" perception and “hunting for dark matter” (possibly a sort of primordial black hole). The existence of black holes was first hypothesized a decade afterEinstein laid the theoretical groundwork for them in the theory of relativity, and the phrase "black hole" was not coined until 1968.

Likewise, consciousness is still such an elusive concept that, in spite of the recent invention offunctional imaging - which has allowed scientists to visualize the different areas of the brain - we may not understand it any better now than we ever have before. “We approach [consciousness] now perhaps differently than we have in the past with our new tools," saysneuroscientist Joy Hirsch.

"The questions [we ask] have become a little bit more sophisticated and we’ve become more sophisticated in how we ask the question," she adds - but we're still far from being able to explain how the regions of the brain interact to produce thought, dreams, and self-awareness. “In terms of understanding, the awareness that comes from binding remote activities of the brain together, still remains what philosophers call, ‘The hard problem.'"

What's the Significance?

Discovering how mechanistic processes work - the firing of neurons or the earth revolving around the sun, for example - is considered by some to be an "easy" problem because it involves observation, the description of an event from a third person point of view. "Hard" problems, on the other hand, involve first person experience. They're the questions that persist even after physical processes have been mapped and explained.

It's tempting to see them as universal to humanity, but whether and how they've been framed has varied historically. Historians of philosophy have observed there was no ancient Greek word that corresponds to “consciousness," while the modern Western perspective on consciousness seems to have been developed during the Reformation era - the age of “I think, therefore I am,” and “To be or not to be.” (Hamlet was written around 1600, and Rene Descartes’ Discourse on the Method was published in 1637.)

So there's no reason to assume that consciousness is eternally inexplicable. However, it may never be explained through neurobiology, says David Chalmers, the philosopher who originally made the distinction. "In so many other fields physical explanation has been successful… but there seems to be this big gap in the case of consciousness," he says. "It’s just very hard to see how [neurological] interactions are going to give you subjective experience."

Hirsch sees it more practically. Though functional imaging has not explained where perception comes from, it has important applications for unconscious patients. “The boundaries have been broken a little bit, clinically," she says. "As we study patients with disorders of consciousness, we can probe their levels of awareness in ways that other traditional ways of asking them to respond."

It's no different than any other aspect of the brain that we cannot presently explain, she says:

For example, we don’t understand how the brain creates colors. That’s a perception that is very private - I don’t know that your perception of blue is like my perception of blue, for example. Smells are another one. I don’t know that your perception of the smell of an orange is like mine. These are the hard problems of neuroscience and philosophy that we haven’t made a great deal of progress on.

What do you think? Is the distinction between "hard problems" and "soft problems" useful, or reductive? Does the brain create consciousness? Will we ever empirically understand where it comes from or how it works?

This post is part of an ongoing series, The 21st Century Brain.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/40965

Mr. Deity and the Philosopher

2011-08-28T19:02:00.001-07:00

Juanita Bynum II Speaks in Tongues On Facebook Page

2011-08-26T09:33:00.000-07:00

Written by Oretha Winston on August 23, 2011 10:13 am

Dr. Juanita Bynum II spoke in tongues on her Facebook wall, while caught in the spirit talking and praying out loud. Juanita was raptured by the spirit and began posting in tongues. See it below. If anyone can translate, I am open for it.

Related Stories:

Juanita Bynum II Signs Historic TV Deal With The Word Network

Juanita Bynum Offers Advice To Bishop Eddie Long

Bible Teachings: Girl spanked to death in the name of god

2011-08-19T07:35:00.001-07:00

Hmmmm....

2011-07-30T07:15:00.001-07:00

IN HIS IMAGE...

by Mike Rivero

Reverend Billy leads mass exorcism in Tate Modern Turbine Hall over 'taint' of BP sponsorship

2011-07-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

A Farewell to Harms

2011-07-14T08:12:00.000-07:00

I just deleted a bunch of websites from my reader. The so-called atheosphere. And good riddance. They are about the most intolerant community you can imagine. That is something they have in common with the religious fundamentalists they rail against.You would think they would be welcoming of independent-thinkers. But they are not. It's because of their rudeness that I will never self identify as an atheist. I am an agnostic.

(Update: Just looked up the definition of "freethinker". I sure as hell ain't one of those.)

Through the Wormhole: Does Time Exist?

2011-07-14T07:37:00.001-07:00

When you’re having fun, time flies. Waiting in a traffic jam, not so much. Your birthday was last month, and your mortgage payment is due in a few days. The fact that we perceive time is certainly no illusion. But is it really there, or is it something we invented?

Early on in human history, we decided to start measuring the days and weeks, and eventually hours, minutes and seconds. Time was useful in organizing society, planting crops and getting ready for dates. Things worked extremely well until scientists started muddling it all up.

In the 17th century, English scientist Isaac Newton was pretty sure time existed as a universal constant. But in 1908, Hermann Minkowski, expanding on one of Einstein’s ideas on the relationship between space and time, suggested a space-time continuum. This theory held that space and time were inextricably mixed, with all events occurring along the same timeline. Einstein presented his theory of general relativity not long after this and proposed that time is but an illusion.

Around the same time (if you believe in time, that is), the field of quantum mechanics grew out of an effort to explain the relationship between matter and energy. This presented a little problem for scientists trying to create a single, unified theory to account for the universe and its component parts. Quantum mechanics requires the existence of time to work. General relativity does not. List of all episodes here:Through The Wormhole.

Watch the full documentary now (playlist – 42 minutes)

The Real Housewives of Canaan

2011-07-13T10:04:00.001-07:00

Neurological Science and the Meaning of Dreams

2011-07-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

by:

David Lindorff, Sr.

Years ago while studying in Zurich to be a Jungian analyst, I was exposed to an aura of this great person, Hearing the recounting of some of the exotic dreams of my fellow students only made me more awestruck. It therefore came as a shock when in that setting I dreamt of sitting at a small table across from Jung, a half empty bottle of wine between us, as Jung said in a slurred voice, “Don’t believe everything I say.”

I was on my way.

Jung once said he would have had no interest in dreams if they didn’t have meaning. For thirty years I have been intrigued by Jung’s thoughts on the subject as well as the thoughts of others. Therefore a recent television program on “Why we dream” naturally caught my eye.

It was largely a behavioral study of REM sleep, in which, not to my surprise, Jung’s name went unmentioned.

My purpose here is to introduce some of Jung’s thoughts to a largely uninformed public, and to explain the reason for his omission, which is typical of scientific studies of the dream state, and reports on those studies.

The author's book

Early in the 20th century, the depth psychologists Freud (b.1856) and Jung (b.1875) played out the respective rolls of the controlling father and and rebellious son. An inevitable split came when the ‘heir apparent’ could no longer tether his growing need to strike out on his own. This involved his seeing the unconscious (what Freud called the subconscious) as having a limitless depth, which in turn meant the symbolism in dreams are seen as containing a wealth of meanings, so that the dream can be seen to be truly a door to the unconscious. (To Freud, in contrast, a dream had a specific meaning based on sexual repression.)

Jung hypothesized that dreams arising from great depth contained archetypal imagery common to all humanity, though, like the instincts, these are colored by the dreamer’s particular culture. It rests with the individual to find that aspect within her/himself which is authentic. Jung called this process individuation.

One may ask why dreams come from such different depths, or why there is recall of dreams at all. Jung’s answer was to say, “The unconscious responds with the face you turn towards it.” This remark explains why the medical/scientific model steers clear of using the word ‘unconscious.’ A dominant segment of our culture is interested exclusively in things that can be rationally explained. A concept like the unconscious, which is not amenable to controlled experiments, lacks a reality check. My doctor says he believes only what he reads in his medical journals.

Even Jungian practice is opening itself to behavioral theories, which are blind to the unconscious. Is it no wonder that Jung has been left out. And that’s before we even get to Jung’s theory of synchronicity.

It took Jung many years to write about his hypothesis that archetypal dreams can be related to real-world events which would appear to have no causal connection. He called this phenomenon synchronicity. Like ESP, the idea of synchronicity can be hard for a rationally minded person to swallow.

Recently the Red Book of Jung has been published. This massive volume is comprised of a facsimile of his handwritten thoughts together with many colored plates of his art work, created over a ten year period, along with an English translation of his writing. Much of the book relates to conversations with his soul, from which he says he learned so much of his psychology.

To this it must be added that Jung, also an MD, claimed to be a scientist. Speaking as someone who is both an analyst and an electrical engineer, I’d say that if by this Jung is saying he is an astute observer unafraid of breaking with tradition, I can back his claim. Certainly within the realm of quantum physics there are obsevations which can’t be rationally explained. The physicist Wolfgang Pauli, a patient of Jung, hoped that physics and psychology would one day be brought together by a recognition of their interaction.

It is my hope that, along with Jung and Pauli, the theory of synchronicity will ultimately be accepted in a world view where the non-rational and rational can sit comfortably at the same table.

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/692

DAVID LINDORFF, Sr. is a retired electrical engineer, a practicing Jungian analyst, and is author of (Quest Books, 2004). He lives with his wife Dorothy in Mansfield, CT, and can be contacted by email. This article was written for ThisCantBeHappening

A message for Israel and Evangelicals: Genesis isn’t a policy guide

2011-06-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

By Walter Rodgers / June 27, 2011

I recently passed a local evangelical church here in rural New England with a sign that read: “We Love You Israel. Hold God’s Land.”

The sign is part of a wider phenomenon: the American Christian right’s dogmatic support for Israel and the Jewish state’s claim to the “Holy Land.” It’s a loyalty born out of a literal interpretation of the Bible and its apocalyptic narrative and a view that ascribes divinity to a physical place. And this reflexive support for Israel has spread to the broader conservative base and American political scene in general. Look no further than Glenn Beck’s “Restore Courage” trip to Jerusalemplanned for this August, which at least one GOPpresidential contender has noted he will attend.

Such religious attachment isn’t an isolated theological agenda. It’s at the heart and history of the conflict in the Middle East.

But with a Palestinian bid for statehood planned for September and escalating tensions in the region, there’s too much at stake to use God as a real estate broker. To avoid a potentially violent flash point, leaders must look to a peaceful constituency – not the political ploys – of the world’s great religions, all converging in this Holy Land.

Mixing religion and foreign policy

Mingling religion with foreign policy has a longstanding history: from the Islamic armies of Allah marching across the first millennium Christian world, followed later by two centuries of theologically dubious European Christians crusading across Mediterranean lands. In some respects, we moderns have never escaped medieval traditions. The problem is that these traditions are the foundation on which diplomats are still forced to build.

“Isn’t it unwise to use the Bible to settle real estate disputes?” I asked the pastor of the conservative congregation whose sign I’d passed.

“We take the Bible literally, every word,” he replied on the other end of the phone.

“What about Genesis 15:18, where Jehovah promised Jews all the land ‘from the river of Egypt[the Nile] unto the great river, the river Euphrates [think Baghdad]’?” I said, “Surely you don’t think Israelis have claim to a huge chunk of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, do you?”

The evangelical clergyman replied, “I am kind of excited to see what God will do for Israel.” He went on to tell me he thought all Arabs and Palestinians living within Israeli borders should be deported to neighboring Arab countries, an idea that has had underground currency in Israel for more than a decade. “God made a covenant with the Jews that the land would be theirs in perpetuity,” the minister explained.

Finally I asked, “When you say ‘Hold God’s land,’” I asked, “which God are you talking about? Isn’t the Islamic Allah just another name for God?”

With a dogmatic loyalty to Israel born out of a literal interpretation of the Bible, is the American Christian Right the new Jewish lobby in US politics? Mixing religion and statecraft isn’t just dangerous and unwise. It’s sacrilegious.

“No, Allah is a false God,” the evangelical clergyman said, lending credence to Muslim fears that some in the West are out to delegitimize their faith.

The concept of 'The Holy Land'

At the root of the issue is the concept of “The Holy Land.” Although the idea of the Holy Land didn’t exist in Jesus’ time and didn’t emerge until some centuries later, Timothy Robinson, a theology professor at Bright Divinity School at Texas Christian University, noted that “for a lot of Christians, there is a deep connection to earth where Jesus may have walked.”

Israeli tour guides often fabricate facts to gull the would-be pilgrims, Mr. Robinson said. “There is a lot of tripe they feed the crowds, especially Evangelicals.” Israeli tour guides generally ignore genuine Christian holy sites in East Jerusalem like Lazarus’s tomb. That would divert tourist dollars to Arabs and lend legitimacy to Palestinian claims to being the “first Christians.”

The very idea of the Holy Land is a sticky wicket. So many of the sites in the “Holy Land” are simply “traditional,” lacking any historical corroboration. The grotto below the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, said to be where Jesus was born, is a prime example. I recall a discussion I had with one Israeli rabbi who privately acknowledged the worship of land itself probably violated the second commandment against graven images.

Theologically based claims to the Holy Land drive politics and undermine peace in the region. When the US Congress slavishly cheered and fawned over Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in his recent address to a joint meeting of the House and Senate, it was, I suspect, as much this evangelical Christian constituency that lawmakers were pandering to as to the “Jewish Lobby.”

Mixing religion and statecraft isn’t simply dangerous and unwise; it also smacks of sacrilege.

Zealots and policymakers alike need to shift away from any obsession with the concept of a Holy Land and recognize that thousands of years of worshiping real estate has only produced several millenniums of war and shameful bloodshed. If there remains any constituency for peace, then the angels of humanity’s better nature – charity, tolerance, and simple decency – must supersede the religious triumphalism that seems to be too much in evidence today.

Walter Rodgers, who served as the CNN bureau chief in Jerusalem for 5-1/2 years, writes a biweekly column.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Walter-Rodgers/2011/0627/A-message-for-Israel-and-Evangelicals-Genesis-isn-t-a-policy-guide

Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth

2011-06-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

Rationality evolved to win arguments, some scholars suggest, and flawed reasoning is itself an adaptation.

excerpt:

For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity for reasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path to philosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment.
Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completely different purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationality too, but we’ll get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wired compulsion to triumph in the debating arena. According to this view, bias, lack of logic and other supposed flaws that pollute the stream of reason are instead social adaptations that enable one group to persuade (and defeat) another. Certitude works, however sharply it may depart from the truth.
The idea, labeled the argumentative theory of reasoning, is the brainchild of French cognitive social scientists, and it has stirred excited discussion (and appalled dissent) among philosophers, political scientists, educators and psychologists, some of whom say it offers profound insight into the way people think and behave. The Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences devoted its April issue to debates over the theory, with participants challenging everything from the definition of reason to the origins of verbal communication.
Read the full article |

Mormon Prophet:Blacks Represent Satan On Earth

2011-06-08T11:39:00.001-07:00

Mormon Prophet:Blacks Represent Satan On Earth

John Fugelsang Effinfunny Standup - Jesus Is Republican

2011-04-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

The great Jesus swindle

2011-04-04T07:53:00.001-07:00

The Brain Creates Religion

2011-03-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

LIONEL TIGER

Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University

Believing in God generates soothing "juices" in the brain that make us feel good.

MORE IDEAS FROM TIGER

Part of series: Believe It or Not

Question: What evolutionary purpose does religion serve?

Lionel Tiger: It is of course a very vexing issue because people who believe devoutly in religion will tell you that there is no question there. It is already answered, which is that we’re obligated to respect and believe and follow the word of God however that word is determined. I did with a colleague of mine who had been at the UCLA Medical School, head of the Psychiatric Research Institute, Michael McGuire, a book called God’s Brain in which we were I think able to suggest, if not demonstrate that religion is really made by the brain. It is a secretion of the brain and this gets us away from the issue of whether religion is true of not true. The fact is that there are 4,200 religions in the world, each of them believing they’re absolutely correct and everyone should follow their views and some 90% of human beings are describable by themselves, if not other, as religious, so we’re not dealing here with a casual phenomenon even though no one has any evidence of the stories behind the religions and so we got interested in this massive unreality, which is in fact finally a real reality, namely religions and so there are cathedrals and towns. There are tax exemptions. There are people donating money to religions still in America. Religions receive more donations than any other part of the community and so we were fascinated with what animated this and as I said I think we were able to suggest, if not also demonstrate that the brain creates religion and the brain consumes religion.

Question: When you say the brain creates religion, is that a neurochemical process?

Lionel Tiger: Yes, that is the argument that Michael McGuire discerned in the matter of serotonin. He discovered that serotonin in primates was associated with high status and that when animals had high status they felt better. It’s not unreasonable. If you took away their high status their serotonins levels would crash. Their brains would begin producing more cortisol and other neurotransmitters that are associated with feeling mean and feeling bad and feeling low and so we decided that one of the ways of looking at religion is to what extent and how does it generate the serotonergic juices that make us feel good. Hence, you go to a mass in a major cathedral or anywhere or a slum Baptist church and there is music and there is color and there is activity and it appears that people actually get some brain juice out of it and that brain juice again self created and self consumed is the story we think of religion.

Question: If we have drugs that can create this kind of soothing, do we need religion?

Lionel Tiger: Well there is an argument about Europe, which has tended in the years, recent years to become less formally religious, so the French for example rarely go to mass. There are certain fictional religious observances, but they don’t really abide by it. On the other hand, they’re the most enthusiastic pill poppers in Europe and it may be that they’re taking the mass into their skull with a pill, so there is the pharmacological element of brain soothing. Let me just backup for a second. What we described was a kind of malaise of the brain we call brain pain. That is when you’re late for work. You’re driving somewhere vital and you get a flat tire. You’re working with somebody who is a certified moron. You have brain pain and everybody has that. It is in the nature of the human brain to observe, to seek out and to conjure up problems, evaluate the environment. In contrast, we suggested that one of the things that religions do is provide brain soothing and they soothe the brain the way a spa does or a massage or exercise or going for a walk in the park and so there is a kind of bracket here between brain pain, brain soothe and religion may be one of the main producers of the brain soothing phenomenon in a way that is not that expensive or destructive or difficult. All you have to do is show up Sunday morning.

Jay-Z: Profit of Rap

2011-03-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

Identifying With God: Jay-Z's Power to Profit

By EBONY UTLEY

(excerpt)

---

Although Jay-Z would not be considered a religious rapper per anyone’s definition (including his own), he came of age with religion in the air. In his book Decoded, Jay-Z explains, “Church wasn’t a major part of my life growing up…. But when you grow up in a place like Bed-Stuy, church is everywhere. So is mosque. So are a thousand other ways of believing.” Jay-Z alludes to cultural Christianity and cultural Islam—the experience of being surrounded by religion without embracing it as a ritualized practice.

Jay-Z is merely one of many rappers who incorporate religo-cultural influences into his lyrics about surviving economically depressed environments. In the hood, the air is thick with both religion and poverty; the mix often results in lived religion—a dynamic religion-in-action where people negotiate contradictory motivations and desires by adapting traditional religious practices to new conceptual spaces.

Jay-Z’s body of work lives religion by connecting it with capitalism. As Jay-Hova, Jay-Z’s power to profit is endless. As he boasts on “U Don’t Know” “Put me anywhere on God's green earth, I'll triple my worth.” Jay-Z believes in God, and he believes he can be God when it suits him. His presentation as a peerless entrepreneur is secured through these appropriations of an Absolute authority. Lived religion makes room for a coexistence of piety and braggadocio that should not be mistaken for blasphemy.

In addition to being God, sometimes Jay-Z rocks an icon of God around his neck. Despite criticisms that wearing a platinum Jesus piece is disingenuous, Jay-Z habitually wears a Jesus piece while recording an album. Jesus’ presence, close to Jay-Z’s heart prophesies the album’s future profits.

Jay-Z’s lyrical characters often ask God to support their attempts to make money by any means necessary. In “Pray” the gangster asks the Lord to forgive and guide him as he enters the unscrupulous world of drug distribution and corrupt police. The final verse alludes to shame and regret but contextualizes the drug profession as a response to oppression. In “Public Service Announcement,” a song that also traffics in the drug distribution theme, Jay-Z makes it clear “Only God can judge me, so I’m gone / Either love me, or leave me alone.” God understands, and can be petitioned with any request—even for help in an illicit underground economy.

Doing wrong for all the right reasons

Serving God and money is Jay-Z’s way of addressing the contradiction that comes from living in a neighborhood where there are a thousand ways of believing and little evidence that conditions are improving. Jay-Z lyrically balances the external forces of poverty and oppression with the adrenaline rush and capitalist successes of the hustler’s life, and then with the hustler’s private conversations with God. Many of Jay-Z’s suffering, sin, and salvation narratives are appealing because his characters do wrong for all the right reasons.

For Jay-Z, aligning rap and religion was the right decision to secure his place in the hip hop hall of fame. After the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. the hip hop world experienced a void that Jay-Z filled by propagandizing bling as a God-ordained form of worship.

Hip hop scholars Marc Lamont Hill and Josef Sorett have tracked the simultaneous rise of the bling era of hip hop with the bling era of Christianity. Hill writes, “Hip-hop's obsession with ‘flossing’ and ‘stunting’ is matched only by the New Black Church's flair for the ostentatious. Many of today's superstar preachers are similarly lavish in their public appearances.” Prosperity gospel is not limited to Sunday sermons.

The acquisition of wealth as a signifier of success has been interpreted as a blessing from God by both preachers and rappers. As Sorett has argued, “To invoke Christianity, whether or not one expresses an exclusive allegiance to its theological tenets, has been to avail oneself of rhetorical, cultural and financial capital.” Part of Jay-Z’s legacy is the marriage of God and money as a lifetime partnership for the purist of power and respect.

...

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/4326/identifying_with_god:_jay-z's_power_to_profit/

Repurposing the Gospel Aura: Eminem's Chrysler Ad Borrows Some Spirit

2011-02-28T07:04:00.000-08:00

"Much of what is considered stylistically distinctive about black gospel today derives at some level from its links to the history of oppression and overcoming that has long defined the African American experience. There is a certain world-historical gravitas to this music that, when it’s good, commands a virtually unquestioned aesthetic authority in mainstream culture.

This attitude toward black gospel choirs has been especially prominent in mainstream America since the Civil Rights Movement. The galvanizing role that mass singings of “We Shall Overcome” and other reworked spirituals played in the public struggle for Civil Rights redefined black gospel music in the popular imagination as not simply the sacred song of black churches but the soundtrack for democracy’s slow but steady march toward greater freedom and equality in the modern era. In the process, black gospel was effectively nationalized as an American cultural resource."

readtherest: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/4287/repurposing_the_gospel_aura:_eminem's_chrysler_ad_borrows_some_spirit/

Soul?

2011-02-11T10:21:00.000-08:00

How to Be A More Human Human

Brian Christian is an exemplar of the human species. In 2009, Christian participated in the annual Loebner Prizecompetition, which is based on Alan Turing’s eponymous test for determining if a computer is able to “think” like a human. Christian did not submit an A.I. he had programmed, but his own mind. Christian was a “confederate,” that is, one of the humans representing humanity in the competition. Five A.I. programs and five humans compete to be judged the most human:

During the competition, each of four judges will type a conversation with one of us for five minutes, then the other, and then will have 10 minutes to reflect and decide which one is the human. Judges will also rank all the contestants—this is used in part as a tiebreaking measure. The computer program receiving the most votes and highest ranking from the judges (regardless of whether it passes the Turing Test by fooling 30 percent of them) is awarded the title of the Most Human Computer.

What makes the competition so intriguing is that, as all contestants are ranked, be they human or computer, there is not only an award for the Most Human Computer, but also an award for the Most Human Human. Brian Christian is one of the vetted few humans who has earned the accolade. He describes his experience in the competition in his outstanding article “Mind vs. Machine” in The Atlantic. The article presents a snippet of what will surely be a wonderful book, The Most Human Human.

Like Sherry Turkle, Christian argues that machines are calling our humanity into stark relief. Yet he sees human-like computers not as automatons dragging us into banality, but as imperfect mirrors, reminding us of what makes us human by what they cannot reflect. I suspect it’s Christian’s double-life as a science journalist and poet that drew him to consider our dual-natured human brain:

Perhaps the fetishization of analytical thinking, and the concomitant denigration of the creatural—that is, animal—and bodily aspects of life are two things we’d do well to leave behind. Perhaps at last, in the beginnings of an age of AI, we are starting to center ourselves again, after generations of living slightly to one side—the logical, left-hemisphere side. Add to this that humans’ contempt for “soulless” animals, our unwillingness to think of ourselves as descended from our fellow “beasts,” is now challenged on all fronts: growing secularism and empiricism, growing appreciation for the cognitive and behavioral abilities of organisms other than ourselves, and, not coincidentally, the entrance onto the scene of an entity with considerably less soul than we sense in a common chimpanzee or bonobo—in this way AI may even turn out to be a boon for animal rights.

Among many conclusions Christian draws is that to be more human you must be yourself. But this is no idle command. The process of being oneself is an active, conscious, and, in some cases, laborious task. Consider your average conversation at a cocktail party – safe topics, non-confrontational questions, scripted answers. Part of Christian’s message, it seems, is not that we should worry about a computer sounding human, but that we humans may make the task too easy. So go forth and be quirky, odd, unique, expressive, honest, clever, eccentric, and above all yourself; in a phrase, be more human.

Image of The Most Human Human via RandomHouse

bible-writers-intended-to-deceive

2011-02-09T14:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/02/06/968376/.html

Demons at Leisure (Millenium TV series)

2011-01-27T07:28:00.001-08:00

Consider Animism

2011-01-24T06:43:00.000-08:00

The New Atheists' Narrow Worldview

By Stephen T. Asma

...

Contrary to the progress-based story the West tells itself, animistic explanations of one's daily experience may be every bit as empirical and rational as Western science, if we take a closer look at life in the developing world.

Consider animism in context. An indirect way to see the geographical distribution of animism is to look at the UN's map of the Human Development Index—a composite statistic for each country that contains data on per-capita GDP, life expectancy, and education. There is a striking correlation between animism and the indexes for countries designated "developing" and "underdeveloped."

Animism can be defined as the belief that there are many kinds of persons in this world, only some of whom are human. Your job, as an animist, is to placate and honor these spirit-persons. But it's important to remember that the daily lives of people in the developing world are not filled with the kinds of independence, predictability, and freedom that we in the developed world enjoy. You do not often choose your spouse, your work, your number of children—in fact, you don't choose much of anything when you are very poor and tied to the survival of your family.

When I lived in Cambodia, some of my college students at the Buddhist Institute, in Phnom Penh, didn't even have homes; they slept at a humble local temple. I regularly watched children on the streets raising their little siblings, while their necessarily absent parents slaved for pittance wages. Many of the kids, like their parents before them, will not get formal educations. Many will not have clean drinking water. Many will die from simple, almost trivially treatable illnesses, or perhaps from land-mine explosions. Add the myriad barriers to opportunity, the omnipresence of local corruption, and unpredictable violent political upheavals.

In that world, where life is particularly capricious and more out of individuals' control than it is in the developed world, animism seems quite reasonable. It makes more sense to say that a spiteful spirit is bringing one misery, or that a benevolent ghost is granting favor, than to say that seamless neutral and predictable laws of nature are unfolding according to some invisible logic. Unless you could demonstrate the real advantages of an impersonal, lawful view of nature (e.g., by having a long-term, well-financed medical facility in the village), you will never have the experiential data to overcome animism. Our first-world claim about neutral, predictable laws will be an inferior causal theory for explaining the chaos of everyday third-world life. In the developing world, animism literally makes more sense. The new atheists, like Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett have failed to notice that their mechanistic view of nature is in part a product (as well as a cause) of prosperity and stability.

...

from: http://chronicle.com/article/The-New-Atheists-Narrow/126027/

Benny Hinn - Dark Lord of the Sith

2011-01-23T04:37:00.000-08:00

Not worth the effort

2011-01-21T16:33:00.000-08:00

Okay, I give up. Agnosticism2010 it is. Even though it's 2011.

Penn Jillette: "The population of atheists...is going through the roof."

2011-01-21T09:05:00.001-08:00

Why can't I post videos to my new blog? Heck, I may have to stay here.

2011-01-17T02:51:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I would export it. But what does it mean "This type of file can hurt your computer"?

Okay. This is where this blog continues

2011-01-05T07:58:00.000-08:00

Goodbye 2010.
http://agnosticforms.blogspot.com/

That was easy.

The enigma of America's secular roots

2011-01-05T07:19:00.000-08:00

Joel Barlow's disavowal of Christianity as the basis for US government in the 1797 treaty of Tripoli is a mystery

- Sam Haselby
- guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 January 2011 17.32 GMT
- Article history

John Adams, who served as US president between 1797 to 1801, signed the treaty of Tripoli without comment. Photograph: Time Life Pictures/Mansell/Getty Images

On 3 January 1797, 214 years ago, Joel Barlow, an American poet pressed into service as the US consul-general in Algiers, drafted and signed the treaty of Tripoli. Its article 11 states: "The government of theUnited States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christianreligion." In 1797, to those who had drafted and signed the declaration of independence and the constitution, it seemed a statement of plain truth. American newspapers reprinted the treaty of Tripoli without igniting public debate. The US Senate approved it unanimously and without discussion. President John Adams signed it without comment.

In the past two generations, a "Christian nation" movement in the US has made article 11 of the otherwise-forgotten treaty of Tripoli's an occasional point of debate. In a sense, article 11 is a bit of an enigma. Why was the disavowal of Christianity included in the treaty? Did Barlow intend it to mollify the Bey of Algiers and other Muslim leaders of theBarbary states, whose piracy exerted an expensive toll on US shipping in the Mediterranean? Was it meant to rally European revolutionaries, who had become Barlow's friends and allies? Did it aim to consolidate the authority of Thomas Jefferson and other secularists in America, whose achievements Barlow prized? It is not clear, and Barlow never explained.

It may not be clear why Barlow put article 11 in the treaty of Tripoli, but it is clear that he had once had religion, and lost it. Following his 1778 graduation from Yale, he entered the ministry and, in 1780, became a chaplain in the revolutionary army. In 1784, the Connecticut general assembly even made Barlow the state of Connecticut's official translator of the Book of Psalms. In 1792, however, after four years in London and Paris, he published Advice to the Privileged Orders, a revolutionary work which, basically, offered members of the European aristocracy their lives in exchange for their surrender.

Advice to the Privileged Orders included a polemical attack on religion. "Nations," wrote Barlow, "are cruel in proportion as they are religious." The jury was still out, he wrote, on whether Islam, "the crescent of the east", was infused with "the lust of slaughter", but he insisted it was simply a matter of the historical record that Christianity had "committed greater ravages" than any other religion. "The cross of the west," he wrote, was "the wandering demon of carnage."

In contrast to the militant secularists of today, whose work suggests that ignorance and feeble individual minds lead to religion, Barlow thought that sick societies led to religion. More moderate secularists today are quick to concede the formal beauty or theoretical appeal of religion. Barlow granted no such allowance. Religion is not a good idea that men corrupt, he wrote, rather "men are corrupted by the church".

Barlow thought that a religion or "mode of worship" granted "any preference in the eye of the law" was incompatible with "equal rights". Therein lay the force and the fury that drove the first generation of American secularists. Religion, they insisted, was responsible for inequality. The moment any member of a society is granted "familiar intercourse with God, you launch him into a region of infinities and invisibilities", which alone could obscure the natural equality and brotherhood of all men. The creation of a clerical class, the "giving to one class of men the attributes of God", was the very inception, the root and branch, of inequality. Abolish all legal privileges for religion, Barlow wrote, and you will then begin "to tear the bandage from the eyes of mankind, to break the charm of inequality".

In Advice to the Privileged Orders, which was meant primarily for European readers, Barlow boasted of the historic contribution of the United States to secular government. It was American secularism, he wrote, that made possible, "the continuation of public instruction in the science of liberty and happiness".

Today it would impossible to appoint a man with Barlow's outspoken radical views to a high-level diplomatic post. No doubt, too, that Barlow would be dismayed at how, in the United States, secularism and the fight for equality have parted ways. For him, that was the point.

Agnosticism2011?

2011-01-01T10:51:00.000-08:00

What? It's 2011? Guess I'll be archiving this blog. I duuno. Other issues have superseded my concerns for religion. What's happening in politics is becoming increasingly troubling. Urgent even. True, religion was an urgent issue for me in the first lustrum of the 21st century. But my journey through the internet has revealed something even more critical. The shadow empire. At the same time, it has become clear that my 5 years researching religion essentially ended a year or two ago. I am no longer doing much reading about religion.
However, I do from time to time find interesting articles about religion, so I will continue to maintain a blog on religion/atheism. Maybe here. Maybe not. Stay tuned.

What am I saying! Of course it won't be here. TBA.

This should be in Ironymous

2010-12-27T11:23:00.000-08:00

Police: Pastor with criminal record caught burglarizing church member's home

by Jonathan Betz / WFAA

khou.com

Posted on December 27, 2010 at 10:37 AM

Updated today at 11:09 AM

DALLAS — Never has Serita Agnew's faith been so shaken.

Police told her that the person who stole fur coats and laptop computers from her home was not a random criminal... but her trusted pastor.

The alleged crime took place on Christmas Eve.

"I'm still having a hard time," Agnew said. "I don't know what it was about."

She said her pastor, Sandy McGriff, called her on Christmas Eve, shortly before the break-in. A short time later, police said a neighbor spotted the 52-year-old preacher breaking a window and climbing in.

Arriving officers said they caught McGriff loading her car with Agnew's furs and purses — and then resisted arrest.

"It's not like she needed them; she didn't need them, she has fabulous things," Agnew said.

McGriff has been preaching for years; she's part of a well-known spiritual family in South Dallas. She recently began holding services in a small chapel in the back of her husband's furniture store.

"My biggest mistake was going through... going through the window," McGriff told WFAA, KENS 5's sister station, explaining that she was checking on Agnew on Christmas Eve and she caught two men breaking in.

McGriff said she climbed through the window so she could protect Agnew's property. She said she couldn't find the key to the house.

But why not just call the police? "My mistake," she said. "I should have."

Record show McGriff has a lengthy criminal past and goes by several aliases.

Police booked her under the name "Kathy Robinson," which McGriff concedes is a fake.

"Everyone has a past," she said. "I am a giver, not a taker. I'm not a burglar."

McGriff admits taking pain medication, but insists she's been clean since the late 1980s.

Serita Agnew has her belongings back, but she worries about what's been lost.

"She seems to have this connection with God; she seems to be a woman of God," Agnew said. "I made a decision not to let it shake my faith."

McGriff said she will plead not guilty to the theft charge. She told WFAA her faith remains strong, and she even held Sunday services just hours after being released from jail.

THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY

2010-12-19T10:23:00.001-08:00

Agnosticism2011

2010-12-05T06:20:00.000-08:00

Wow. The end of the year. The end of two years for me. That's how long it has been since I acquired a computer and was able to get on the web on a regular basis. Since then I have started several online projects, in the form of blogs. Neglecting most of them. Like consolidating my notes on religion. It does take a lot of work. It's almost like doing the research all over again. So it is going to go at a slow pace, I see, due to my other priorities. Agnosticism2010 becomes Agnosticism2011. Or Agnosticforms. (http://agnosticforms.wordpress.com/). I'll probably leave it as an ongoing collection of articles on religion. These are things on the web that I find of interest, as in my other reader blogs

Atheist Rap

2010-11-17T05:48:00.000-08:00

Not a Fan of Hip Hop?

from Friendly Atheist by Hemant Mehta by Hemant Mehta

You will be when you’re done listening to “Beyond Reason” by Tombstone Da Deadman:

Popout
(Thanks to Claudia for the link!)

The Irony is so Ironically Ironic

2010-11-15T05:53:00.000-08:00

Atheist Ministers Struggle With Leading the Faithful

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/atheist-ministers-leading-faithful/story?id=12004359

2010-11-11T06:19:00.001-08:00

Ancient sanctuary dedicated to Mithras discovered in France

from Xenophilia (True Strange Stuff) by Xeno

Ann Wuyts – Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Archaeologists excavating at Angers, France, have discovered the remains of a temple dedicated to the Indo-Iranian god Mithras. The small, rectangular chapel, in which worshippers gathered for banquets and sacrifices dedicated to the god, is dated to the third century AD.
At the sanctuary, a typical bas-relief of the god Mithras wearing his Phrygian cap shows him slaughtering a bull – the so-called tauroctony. The depiction of the god was intentionally damaged in ancient times, possibly by early Christians trying to suppress the pagan cult.
Among the artefacts discovered are oil lamps, fragments of a chandelier containing Nubian terracotta figures, a bronze 4th century crucifix fibula and about 200 coins. Large quantities of cockerel bones (a favoured dish at the cultic banquets) were found inside and around the ancient temple.
A ceramic beaker – offered by a certain Genialis, in the first half of the 3rd century – reads: “DEO [INVIC]TO MYTRH[AE]…/…]VS GENIALIS CIVES MA [...]VS EXVOTO D[.../...]RIBVS OMNIS LOCO OMNIS (…)” or “To the unconquered god Mithras, Genialis, citizen of ?, offers in ex voto (this vase)”.
The earliest evidence of occupation at the 9,000 square metre excavation site is dated to about 10 BC. The dig also revealed the remains of two major urban roads; the cardo (north-south oriented street) and decumanus (east-west oriented) axes of Roman Angers.
It is believed the cult of Mithras was brought to the Roman Empire by soldiers coming from the East, at the end of the first century AD. Mithraism, a religion exclusive to men, first became popular with the elite, but quickly spread through all layers of society. Later it became known as a soldier’s cult. Shrines dedicated to Mithras are most often found at the borders of the Roman Empire, where large amounts of troops were stationed.
With the rise of Christianity, the worship of Mithras became fiercely opposed. In 392, the Mithraic mysteries – and all other pagan religions – were banned by Emperor Theodosius.
Angers’ Mithraeum: Sanctuary dedicated to Persian god Mithras discovered in France
via Ancient sanctuary dedicated to Mithras discovered in France – News, Archaeology – The Independent.

Kiss my cowardly, lazy, over-polite ass

2010-11-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

Pharyngula is much too crowded for me to try to enter this discussion. But I do get tired of this trope about agnostics. The cartoon is funny though.

-nomad

Agnostics have the virtue of always being right, sorta

Category: Humor
Posted on: November 8, 2010 8:52 AM, by PZ Myers

Jump to end

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Comments

Posted by: catalinsf | November 8, 2010 9:03 AM

We actually need to define "near"

Posted by: rewarp | November 8, 2010 9:09 AM

That's why I hold a personal conviction that people who call themselves agnostics are cowards.

Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmWtJ6c1DG5AiDaszSgkznu83lAvN4c1Yg |November 8, 2010 9:15 AM

I dont think they are cowards, Just lazy.

Posted by: johnkearns314 | November 8, 2010 9:16 AM

Looks and Sounds very much like a certain little cretin I found on YouTube, I believe his surname was Tapley!

Posted by: SallyStrange | November 8, 2010 9:18 AM

Cowards, or lazy, or just overly polite - I think that about covers it.

Skepticism

2010-10-29T06:33:00.001-07:00

First published Sat Dec 8, 2001; substantive revision Thu Oct 28, 2010

Much of epistemology has arisen either in defense of, or in opposition to, various forms of skepticism. Indeed, one could classify various theories of knowledge by their responses to skepticism. For example, rationalists could be viewed as skeptical about the possibility of empirical knowledge while not being skeptical with regard to a priori knowledge and empiricists could be seen as skeptical about the possibility of a priori knowledge but not so with regard to empirical knowledge. In addition, views about many traditional philosophical problems, e.g., the problem of other minds or the problem of induction, can be seen as restricted forms of skepticism that hold that we cannot have knowledge of any propositions in some particular domain normally thought to be within our ken. This essay will focus on the general forms of skepticism that question our knowledge in many, if not all, domains in which we ordinarily think knowledge is possible. Although this essay will consider some aspects of the history of philosophical skepticism, the general forms of skepticism to be discussed are those which contemporary philosophers still find the most interesting.

Heribert Watzke: The brain in your gut

2010-10-25T07:44:00.001-07:00

Counter-Revelations

2010-10-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

Adam Kirsch
October 20, 2010 | 12:00 am
Print

"The Lord Ansering Job out of the Whirlwind" William Blake (1825)

The Wisdom Books

by Robert Alter

W. W. Norton & Company, 416 pp., $35

Robert Alter’s ongoing translation of the Hebrew Bible into a new, more accurate and forceful English version is one of the most ambitious literary projects of this or any age. Turning the Bible into Greek, in the second century BCE, required seventy-two sages—which is why the Greek version is called the Septuagint (after the Latin word for “seventy”)—and the King James Version, in the early seventeenth century CE, was produced by a committee of forty-seven Anglican divines. Yet Alter, working alone, has already produced new English versions of the Pentateuch, I and II Samuel, and Psalms. Now he gives us new renderings of the books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes—possibly the most challenging and perplexing works in all of Scripture.

For this very reason, they are also the Biblical books that speak most directly to the modern, skeptical, secular reader. If the Torah is revelation—an ostensibly factual account of God’s actions and commandments—the Wisdom Books are a kind of counter-revelation: an emphatically human expression of the impossibility of knowing God or believing in His justice. As Alter writes in his introduction, “the three Wisdom books are, in different ways, worlds apart from Genesis, Deuteronomy, and the Prophets.”

One sign of the difference is that Job, Proverbs, and Qohelet (Alter uses the Hebrew name, whose actual meaning is hard to ascertain, rather than the familiar Greek name Ecclesiastes) do not deal with the people of Israel, but with humanity in general. Job is a monotheist but not an Israelite; he lives in “the land of Uz,” which Alter glosses as “a never-never land somewhere to the east.” In Qohelet, God is referred to only occasionally, and then only as Elohim, not by His specifically Israelite name, Yahweh. And while Proverbs ascribes its often banal sayings to Solomon, at least one section of the book is an adaptation of an Egyptian text from the second millennium BCE, the “Instruction of Amenemope.” Indeed, the scholarly designation “wisdom books” assigns these texts to a genre that is also found in Egyptian and Mesopotamian literature. “The perspective of Wisdom literature,” Alter summarizes, “is international and, in many instances, one might say, universalist. It raises questions of value and moral behavior, of the meaning of human life, and especially of the right conduct of life.”

What makes the Wisdom Books stand out so starkly from the rest of the Bible is that, in asking such primal questions, they implicitly or explicitly reject the answers that the Hebrew Bible usually gives. In the Book of Psalms, the Psalmist sometimes laments God’s inaction—“Has God forgotten to show grace,/ has He closed off in wrath His compassion?” asks Psalm 77, in Alter’s translation. But the answer that follows—“And I said, it is my failing/that the High One’s right hand has changed”—makes clear that, if God punishes Israel, it is for good cause, out of his supreme justice. In Job, on the other hand, we hear the greatest indictment ever made of God’s injustice:

It’s all the same, and so I thought:

the blameless and the wicked he destroys.

If a scourge causes death in an instant,

He mocks the innocent’s plight.

The earth is given in the wicked man’s hand,

the face of its judges He veils.

If not He—then who else?

The force of Job’s protest is all the greater because it is set against the conventional pieties of his “comforters,” Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, who respond to each of his laments with blind insistence that, if God punishes Job, Job must deserve it somehow. The irony is heightened by the fact that, as Alter writes, the comforters’ speech “abounds in familiar formulations closely analogous to what one encounters in many passages in Psalms…what this means is that much of their poetry verges on cliché.” Alter’s translation draws attention to the way poetic style in Job amplifies philosophical debate. While the comforters speak in clichés, Job coins remarkably vivid metaphors (“My days are swifter than the weaver’s shuttle./ They snap off without any hope”), which make his case against God still more forceful.

And when God himself finally responds, He does not endorse the comforters’ view of justice; He does not promise that virtue is always rewarded and sin punished. Instead He employs what Alter calls “an order of poetry created to match the grandeur—or perhaps the omniscience—of God,” a language so magnificent that it puts God beyond good and evil:

Do you give might to the horse,

Do you clothe his neck with a mane?

Do you make his roar like locusts—

his splendid snort is terror.

He churns up the valley exulting,

in power goes out to the clash of arms.

He scoffs at fear and is undaunted,

turns not back before the sword…

At the trumpet he says, “Aha,”

and from afar he scents the fray,

the thunder of captains, the shouts.

This God, as martial and irresistible as a warhorse, is not the God who allowed Abraham to bargain for the lives of the innocent in Sodom.

But at least the Book of Job gives God the last word, acknowledging some government of the universe, albeit an inhumane one. This is almost heartening, compared to the very modern-sounding materialism and nihilism of Qohelet:

For the fate of the sons of man and the fate of the beast is a single fate. As one dies so dies the other, and all have a single spirit, and man’s advantage over the beast is naught, for everything is mere breath. Everything goes to a single place. Everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust. Who knows whether man’s spirit goes upward and the beast’s spirit goes down to the earth?

The passage is a good example of how Alter’s English differs from the King James Version. Where Alter has “mere breath,” the KJV has “vanity”; the famous opening line of Ecclesiastes, “vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” becomes Alter’s “Merest breath, merest breath… All is mere breath.” By using a concrete image instead of an abstraction, Alter hopes to give a better sense of the Hebrew, hevel havalim: “Hevel, ‘breath or ‘vapor,’ is something utterly insubstantial and transient, and in this book suggests futility, ephemerality….”

Concreteness and concision have been Alter’s watchwords throughout his Bible translations, on the principle that they are the essential qualities of Biblical Hebrew. This does not always lead to a more appealing English style. Alter’s desire to minimize the number of words and stresses in each line of verse often results in a run of anapests, as in Job 8:21-22:

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter

and your lips with a shout of joy.

Your foes will be clothed in disgrace,

and the tent of the wicked gone.

This moves like a trot, compared to the stately stride of the KJV:

Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing.

They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to naught.

But Alter’s versions are not destined to replace the King James Version; they are meant to strip away its familiarity, to help us see the Biblical text more closely and accurately. For this purpose, his commentary is as useful as the translation itself, as when he points out that the lines from Qohelet quoted above are a direct repudiation of Genesis. “In the Creation story, the human creature is brought into the world after the beasts and is enjoined to hold sway over all other living creatures. Here, man and beast are seen to share the same fate of mortality, and there is no qualitative difference between them.” Nothing but this was the radical insight of Darwin, which is why evolution is anathema to Biblical fundamentalists—but here is the Bible itself making the same disenchanting argument.

It is enough to make you wonder how the Wisdom Books came to be a part of the Biblical canon in the first place. It would seem that, as Alter writes, “there must have been Hebrew readers…who were not willing to let go of Qohelet,” who cherished its literary power and human insight in spite, or maybe even because, of its “subversive skepticism.” The poets who wrote these books, and the editors and scribes who assembled and preserved them, are never more alive than when we can see them as suffering and questioning human beings—as Alter’s The Wisdom Books helps us to do.

Adam Kirsch is a senior editor at The New Republic. This piece was originally published in Tablet.

Dawkins: We Are All Africans

2010-10-21T05:50:00.000-07:00

Dialogue of Reason: Science and Faith in the Black

Community

Does the Historical Jesus Matter?

2010-10-14T08:12:00.000-07:00

Testing good theology’s ‘cash value.’
By PETER LAARMAN
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/3543/does_the_historical_jesus_matter/

Moderate vs. Extremist Islam

2010-10-08T06:29:00.001-07:00

Also see this article: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/10/amanpour_inadvertently_exposes.html

Oliver Sacks on Humans and Myth-making | Oliver Sacks | Big Think

2010-10-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

Oliver Sacks on Humans and Myth-making | Oliver Sacks | Big Think

Question: Is the human brain predisposed to create myths?Oliver Sacks: Yeah. First I would say that the human brain or the human mind is disposed to create stories or narratives. Children love stories, make up stories.

Jerome Bruner, a great psychologist, has spoken of two modes of thinking. One is to create narratives, one is to create paradigms or explanations or models. And of course some of these will come together because then you want to have a story which explains.

We all come into the world and human beings are evolved into a mysterious world and had to wonder where they came from, how the world came from, what are the stars doing.

And in the absence of better explanations, I think, supernatural explanations sort of come to mind. There must have been some great figure who created the universe and who perhaps is keeping an eye on us now.

And say before 1859 and before [Charles] Darwin, before The Origin of Species was published, there was no natural explanation of how different animals and plants had come into being, let alone human beings.

I think Freeman Dyson, a great physicist who once wrote, “I am a practicing Christian but not a believing one.”

So I think my parents were practicing Jews, but not believing ones. I don’t think that belief is a particularly strong thing in Judaism. But my mother was also botanically inclined. I grew up in a Darwinian world, and I was very startled when I came to the [United] States and found that millions, millions and millions of people didn’t believe in evolution. I still am profoundly perplexed.

To proclaim that one doesn’t believe in the evolution, I think, what would label one as an idiot in most of the civilized world; certainly, in Europe.

And again, growing up in Europe, it was our feeling the world would become more and more secular. And now, of course, as the world stands by mad, dangerous fundamentalism on all sides; who would have thought that the 21st Century would dissolve into religious conflict?

I’m a sort of quiet, old, Jewish atheist. I’m not a militant atheist. I don’t sort of argue about things like [Richard] Dawkins and [Daniel] Dennett and Sam Harris. I quite like their books, but I’m not militant by nature, and I’m not very argumentative by nature. And if people want to believe, well, then that’s their business.

What concerns me is when belief is used to influence and corrupt educational politics. And that seems to me monstrous that creationism, or so-called intelligent design, is thought next to evolution or instead of it. And I do think it is almost is a form of madness.

Question: Is all religion madness?

Oliver Sacks: I think I need to say that there are specifically some conditions of the brain which predispose to mystical or religious thinking. In particular, when people have so-called temporal lobe epilepsy or temporal lobe seizures, they may have religious or mystical visions. Or even between seizures, they may have a gradual personality change which disposes them to mystical and religious thinking.

I think that thinking of this sort is, if you want, built into the nervous system. Although it doesn’t have to take an explicitly theistic notion.

[Albert] Einstein always used to say that the most beautiful thing in the world is the mysterious. And I think that the fundamental sets of mystery and awe and of the sublime is behind all science and art. Basically, I think, science springs from a sense of nature’s mysteriousness and the wonder of nature. And there is no need to invoke anything supernatural. Indeed, I think too much involvement in the supernatural may blind one to the wonder of nature. And I’m slightly terrified by certain fundamentalist who say, let the planet go to hell, the Final Coming is going to be soon. God will take care of it all.

I live, for myself, happily and completely within nature. I love it. I have a sense of being at home. I don’t pine for anything else. And so, I think, those parts of my temporal lobes are devoted to, as it were, to an almost religious feeling for nature.

Recorded on: Sep 4, 2008

The Unbelievable Truth: Why America has become a nation of religious know-nothings

2010-10-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

BY DANIEL DENNETT

...

The Pew study also reveals why atheist critiques of religious doctrines are largely a waste of effort: Few people believe them in any case; they just say they do.

The more interesting question is, why do they feel the need to say these things? And what consequences flow from this?

One effect is widespread and most unfortunate. We increasingly see pastors who no longer hold the beliefs they are professionally obliged to preach, but go on executing their duties for various reasons, some good, some not so good. These folks are caught in a web of what might be called designed miscommunication, and it takes an unmeasured toll on their consciences.

My colleague Linda LaScola and I are currently studying this phenomenon, and when discussing our first pilot study of closeted non-believing (or other-believing) clergy, we often heard two jokes about the seminary experience that was part of the training of most clergy: "If you emerge from seminary still believing in God, you haven't been paying attention," and "Seminary is where God goes to die."

...

Dennett, a philosopher and cognitive scientist at Tufts University, is the author of "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" and "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon."

The Gospel According to Armstrong

2010-09-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

by nomad

According to Armstrong, because the Jews were passionate monotheists, "nobody expected the Messiah to be a divine figure [to be a diety?]...he would simply be an ordinary...human being."(p.80) "After his death, his followers decided that Jesus had been divine."(p.81) It was a gradual process that, in terms of documentation, can be traced back as far as Paul. As a Jew and "passionate monotheist", Armstrong tells us, Paul "certainly did not believe that Jesus had been the incarnation of God himself."(p.83) Such a notion would scandalize modern-day evangelical Christians, who use the words of Paul to make the case for Jesus's deity. While it is true that Paul was devoutly Jewish, it should also be pointed out that Paul was a Hellenized Jew, a Roman citizen no less. He was likely familiar with Neoplatonism and with a religious sect prevalent among Romans that had practices similar to those of early Christianity: Mithraism. These (likely) influenced his own ideas about the nature of the new religion of Christianity, which he was instrumental in creating.

According to Armstrong, Paul made subtle distinction between "possessing God's power and being God, a Neoplatonic idea not always grasped by his followers. He talked as if Jesus was more than a human being, but not God incarnate. Unlike the numerous Buddhas and Hindu avatars, however, the single incarnation of Christianity suggests that "the whole of the inexhaustible reality of God had been manifest in just one human being".(p.87) If, as Armstrong says, a Jew, such as Paul, would not have believed such a thing, it was the later interpretations of Jewish ideas, by the Greeks and the Romans, that was responsible for the incarnation doctrine.

To summarize

2010-09-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

by nomad

The original gods were the gods of myth. Yahweh was, initially, the fierce tribal god of the ancient Hebrews. The crisis of the Babylonian captivity(587-538 BCE) profoundly changed the Hebrews' concept of God, creating the new religion of Judaism. After the Babylonian captivity, there developed, in Judaism, a trend of thought known as apocalypticism, that continued into the next millenium. Simultaneously, Judaism came under the influence of Hellenism, with Alexander the Great's conquest of the Levant (332 BCE).

Hellenistic Judaism was a movement which existed in the Jewish diaspora that sought to establish a Hebraic-Jewish religious tradition within the culture and language of Hellenism. The major literary product of the contact of Judaism and Hellenistic culture is the Septuagint translation fromBiblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic to Koine Greek, which began in the 3rd century BCE in Alexandria. The decline of Hellenistic Judaism in the 2nd century CE is obscure. It may be that it was marginalized by, absorbed into or became Early Christianity.[Wikipedia]

Around the time of Christ, then, some radical new ideas had already emerged: Hellenism, with its Neoplatonic philosophy; and apocalypticism, with its Mazdean-like dualism, pseudonymous authorship, and emphasis on an end of time Armageddon and afterlife. Clearly the teachings of Jesus are apocalyptic. Christianity itself is (probably) a product of the apocalyptic movement and Hellenistic Judaism.

Apocalyptical Literature

2010-09-25T15:24:00.000-07:00

from Wikipedia

Origins

Apocalyptical elements (αποκαλυπτειν, to reveal something hidden) can be detected in the prophetical books of Joel and Zechariah, while Isaiah chapters 24-27 and 33 present well-developed apocalypses. The Book of Daniel offers a fully matured and classic example of this genre of literature.

...

[edit]Object and contents

The object of this literature in general was to solve the difficulties connected with the righteousness of God and the suffering condition of His righteous servants on earth... Apocalyptic prophets sketched in outline the history of the world and mankind, the origin of evil and its course, and the final consummation of all things. The righteous as a nation should yet possess the earth, either via an eternal Messianic kingdom on earth, or else in temporary blessedness here and eternal blessedness hereafter. Though the individual might perish amid the disorders of this world, apocalyptic prophets taught that the righteous person would not fail to attain through resurrection the recompense that was due in the Messianic kingdom or in heaven itself.

[edit]Difference from prophecy

[edit]Message

The message of the prophets was primarily a preaching of repentance and righteousness if the nation would escape judgment; the message of the apocalyptic writers was of patience and trust for that deliverance and reward were sure to come.

[edit]Dualistic theology

Prophecy believes that this world is God's world and that in this world His goodness and truth will yet be vindicated. Hence the prophet prophesies of a definite future arising out of and organically connected with the present. The apocalyptic writer despairs of the present and directs his hopes to the future, to a new world standing in essential opposition to the present.^[6] This becomes a dualistic principle, which, though it can largely be accounted for by the interaction of certain inner tendencies and outward sorrowful experience on the part of Judaism, may ultimately be derived from Mazdean influences. This principle, which shows itself in the conception that the various nations are under angelic rulers, who are in a greater or less degree in rebellion against God, as in Daniel and Enoch, grows in strength with each succeeding age, till at last Satan is conceived as "the ruler of this world"^[7] or "the god of this age."^[8]

[edit]Pseudonymous authorship

The prophet stood in direct relations with his people; his prophecy was first spoken and afterwards written. The apocalyptic writer could obtain no hearing from his contemporaries, who held that, though God spoke in the past, "there was no more any prophet." This pessimism limited and defined the form in which religious enthusiasm should manifest itself, and prescribed as a condition of successful effort the adoption of pseudonymous authorship. The apocalyptic writer, therefore, professedly addressed his book to future generations. Generally directions as to the hiding and sealing of the book^[9] were given in the text in order to explain its publication so long after the date of its professed period.

...

[edit]Conception of history

Apocalyptic writing took a wider view of the world's history than prophecy. Thus, whereas prophecy had to deal with governments of other nations, apocalyptic writings arose at a time when Israel had been subject for generations to the sway of one or other of the great world-powers. Hence to harmonize such difficulties with belief in God's righteousness, it had to take account of the role of such empires in the counsels of God, the rise, duration and downfall of each in turn, till finally the lordship of the world passed into the hands of Israel, or the final judgment arrived. These events belonged in the main to the past, but the writer represented them as still in the future, arranged under certain artificial categories of time definitely determined from the beginning in the counsels of God and revealed by Him to His servants the prophets. Determinism thus became a leading characteristic of Jewish apocalyptic, and its conception of history became mechanical.

[edit]Old Testament

[edit]Canonical

Isaiah 24-27; 33; 34-35
Jeremiah 33:14-26
Ezekiel 38-39
Joel 3:9-17
Zechariah 12-14
Daniel

Some are possibly pseudepigraphic except the passages from Ezekiel and Joel. Of the remaining passages and books, some consider large sections of Daniel attributable to the Maccabean period, with the rest possibly to the same period. Some consider Isaiah 33 to be written about 163 BCE^[10]; Zechariah 12-14 about 160 BCE; Isaiah 24-27 about 128 BCE; and Isaiah 34-35 sometime in the reign of John Hyrcanus. Jeremiah 33:14-26 is assigned by Marti to Maccabean times, but this is disputed.

[edit]Non-canonical

Main article: List of Old Testament pseudepigrapha

[edit]New Testament

In the transition from Jewish literature to that of early Christianity, there is a continuation of the tradition of apocalyptic prophecy. Christianity preserved the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, as Judaism developed into Rabbinism and gave it a Christian character either by a forcible exegesis or by a systematic process of interpolation. Christianity cultivated this form of literature and made it the vehicle of its own ideas. Christianity saw itself as the spiritual representative of what was true in prophecy and apocalyptic.

[edit]Canonical

Matthew 24
Mark 13
2 Thessalonians 2
Book of Revelation

The Intertestamental Period

2010-09-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

by nomad

Armstrong's coverage of the intertestamental period is surprisingly thin. It is one of the most critical periods in the history of religion, yet she fails to mention one of its most important developments: apocalyptic literature. Here is a brief summary of the period, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The intertestamental period is a term used to refer to a period of time between the writings of the Christian "Old" and "New Testament" texts. Traditionally, it is considered to be a roughly four hundred year period, spanning the ministry of Malachi (c. 420 BC), the last of theOld Testament prophets, and the appearance of John the Baptist in the early 1st century.
Several of the deuterocanonical books, accepted as Scripture by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, were written during this time. In addition, many Biblical scholars believe that several Old Testament books were in fact composed much later than 400 B.C. includingDaniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.

Political history of Levant
[edit]Persian rule
400-330 B.C., Persian rule under Artaxerxes I, Darius II, Artaxerxes II, Artaxerxes III, Arses and Darius III.
[edit]Hellenistic Period
330-328 B.C., Greek Conquest of Alexander the Great; spread of the Greek language.
The conquest of Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. not only brought the Jews under Grecian domination, see also Hellenistic Judaism, but also introduced the Greek language and ideas throughout the ancient world.
Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties, 323-166 B.C.
After the death of Alexander, his kingdom was divided, and a struggle between the Ptolemies of Egypt and the monarchs of Syria ensued, resulting first in Egyptian, then in Syrian, rule over Judea.
The latter was a dark period in Jewish history, especially during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, who committed many outrages against the Jews, sought to establish idolatry in Jerusalem (abomination of desolation), and defiled the Second Temple.
[edit]Jewish Independence
Under Maccabees and Hasmonean dynasty 166 B.C. - 63 B.C., spreading teaching of unity of God, messianic hope and Scriptures.
Antiochus' activity led to the Maccabean revolt, 166 B.C. in which the priest Matthias and his sons defeated the Syrians in a series of battles, which secured the independence of the providence of Judea.
This was the foundation of the Hasmonean dynasty, which reigned from 166 - 63 B.C.
[edit]Roman Rule
Main article: Iudaea province
Roman Around 63 B.C., Pompey of Rome conquered Palestine, putting all of Judea under control of the Caesars. This eventually led to Herod being made king of Judea by the Roman emperor and senate. This would be the nation that taxed and controlled the Jews, and eventually executed the Messiah on a Roman cross. Roman, Greek, and Hebrew cultures were now mixed together in Judea.establishment of stable government, uniform laws, and Roman roads.
[edit]Significant events
Publication of the Septuagint
Establishment of the synagogue
Aramaic becomes the common language of the Jewish people
Dynasty of Herod the Great begins
Production of copies of the Hebrew scripture and other related writings, known as Dead Sea Scrolls when unearthed in mid 20th century.
[edit]Development of Jewish sects
Pharisees
Sadducees
Zealots
Essenes sect at Qumran

Blog and Reblog

2010-09-22T12:52:00.000-07:00

This blog will probably be moving. You see, I like Zemanta. It really is a time saver. But I had problems using it here on Blogger. On Wordpress, however, it works smoothly. What I have begun doing lately is composing on my Wordpress blog and copying to my Blogger blog. I want to eliminate that extra step. Especially since more of the posts are my own thoughts now. The interesting thing I have learned, now that Blogger provides stats, is that those are the posts that are most visited (by the two people who actually read this blog). Go figure. So anyway, I want to make the blogging process as efficient as I can. I'm composing over at Wordpress. I might as well move there. The blog is changing anyway. It's blog more than it is reblog.

The Birth of Judaism

2010-09-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

by nomad

It was in the crucible of the Babylonian captivity that Judaism was forged. It was the time of the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and "Second Isaiah". The humbling experience of subjugation changed the Israelites perception of God. He was no longer the triumphalist tribal god envisioned by the Deuteronomists: at least not entirely; or, better yet, not merely.

Yahweh had finally absorbed his rivals in the religious imagination of Israel; in exile, the lure of paganism had lost its attraction and the religion of Judaism had been born...Yahweh...had become the one and only God. (Armstrong p.61)

Approximately 60 years after the Babylonians carried away the elite of Israel, Cyrus, the King of Persia, conquered the Babylonian empire and released its Jewish captives. In 539 BCE, he permitted the Jews to return to their homeland. Though many chose to remain in what had been home for 2 or 3 generations, the 42,000 that did return brought with them the new form of Judaism they had developed in exile. As the hereditary elite of the Jewish leadership, these repatriates imposed this new Judaism upon the rest of Israel.

The fourth of the primary sources of the Torah , the Priestly author (P), emerges at this juncture and gives the founding texts of the Jewish religion its now familiar final form. It added to the writings of J, E and D a new level of philosophical complexity and broadness of scope. Whereas J and E begin their origin stories with the creation of man. P, influenced by the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish, begins his origin story with God's creation of the cosmos. Genesis now begins with the words of P. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"(Gen1:1). P adds its own interpretation of events covered by J and E and introduces two new books of sacred writings, Numbers and Leviticus. The ancient story of Job was also revised, by another anonymous author, in the same spirit, in order to ask "fundamental questions about the nature of God and his responsibility for the suffering of humanity".

For the first time in Jewish religious history, the religious imagination had turned to speculation of a more abstract nature. (Armstrong p.65)

The End of God?: A Horizon Guide to Science and Religion (1/4)

2010-09-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

Yahweh takes his stand in the Council of El

2010-09-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

by nomad

The earliest of the four sources of the Torah, J and E, present God as an anthropomorphic figure, like the other gods of myth. Like the generative gods of other cultures Yahweh/El is thought to have created the first human beings. But neither J (c 950 BCE) nor E (c 850 BCE, combined with J to form JE c 750 BCE) seems to have credited this god, Yahweh or El, with creation of the universe. That attribution would come later, after the Babylonian captivity. It was the tribalist view of Yahweh, rather than the universalist, that prevailed in the earliest stages of the development of the Hebrew religion. Yahweh is seen as the greatest among the gods of myth, rather than a replacement for them altogether. The idea of the onliness of God would come later.

When he stood to confront the Council over which El has presided from time immemorial, Yahweh accused the other gods of failing to meet the social challenge of the day (Psalm 82)... In the old days, Yahweh had been prepared to accept them as elohim, the sons of El Elyon (God Most High), but now the gods [of myth] had proved that they were obsolete....They would wither away like mortal men.(Armstrong p.51)

In the early phase of the Abrahamic religion, Yahweh was still a tribal god, fiercely dedicated to the triumph of his "chosen people". This tribal triumphalism culminated in the Deuteronomist Period(622-587 BCE), characterized by increased intolerance for idolatry and of other people(Armstrong p.55). This period began in 622, when the text that would come to be known as Deuteronomy was "discovered" (Armstrong p.52). Under influence of this more radical version of the Hebrew religion, the earlier books of the OT were rewritten from a Deuteronomist perspective (D). The existing texts, Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings were revised and given a more militant ethnocentric outlook. The Deuteronomist period came to an end with the Babylonian conquest of Israel and capture of its people in 587 BCE.

From out of myth

2010-09-18T16:21:00.000-07:00

by nomad

According to Armstrong the idea of our God emerged about 14,000 years ago in the Middle East (Armstrong, p.4). But that seems inaccurate. Our God, the god of history, emerges a good deal later. The original gods were the gods of myth. These mythological beings arose out of the sense of being surrounded by the unseen that was once universal among ancient people. Early societies personified these unseen forces and made them into gods. Originally these gods were essentially tribal deities, in contention with other gods for the loyalty of human beings. During the "axial age" (the period from 800 BCEto 200 BCE, during which similar revolutionary thinking appeared in China, India and the Occident) one of these tribal deities, the god of the ancient Hebrews went through an extraordinary transformation. He was transformed into a universal deity whose domain encompassed all tribes. The Old Testament is, in fact, a chronicle of that transformation.

Our God, Yahweh, the god of history -who acts in current events- emerges from amongst the gods of myth (Baal, Marduk, etc.) in the story of Exodus. Throughout the Old Testament we find the mighty Yahweh alternately brutally devastating the foes of His "chosen people" and punishing the Israelites by allowing them to be conquered. Perhaps it was the fact that Israel was so often conquered that led the prophets to the realization that Yahweh was not just a tribal deity. He was not always on Israel's side. Certainly Yahweh was mighty enough to have overcome any foe the Israelites might have faced. Therefore, if Israel has been conquered it must have been God's will. Obviously His plan has features that at times favor the foes of His chosen people. It follows that, to whatever lesser degree, His plan includes other tribes besides Israel. Because these other tribes are part of His domain, Yahweh can no longer be viewed as merely a tribal deity. He reigns over all tribes. According to this new way of thinking, He is the one and only true God.

In the Beginning Man Created Myth

2010-09-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

by nomad

Karen Armstrong's A History of God is an exhaustive account from an accepting perspective. It proceeds from the assumption that religion is a venerable institution. While she criticizes various aspects of its development she ignores its perhaps greatest flaw: conflating the real and the imaginary; i.e. the creation of myth. In the beginning man created myth! Armstrong explains how the creation myth, the Enuma Elis, was used for ritual purpose. In the Enuma Elis, it is claimed that the gods built the Ziggurat, the cite of Babylon's annual ritual celebration, in honor of the salvific hero, Marduk. According to Armstrong, the Babylonians "knew perfectly well that their own ancestors had built the Ziggerat..." . Yet they averred: "The liturgy they celebrated at the New Year had been devised before human beings came into existence...". Armstrong gives little scrutiny to the significance of this foundational religious act. This first prevarication, substituting, as it were, a myth for reality. Her assurance that the Babylonians were "well aware" that the story was not literally true is unconvincing, given the fact that even in our enlightened age religious people overwhelmingly believe in the literalness of religious ideology. How much more susceptible to the literal interpretation of myth would a pre-scientific people be? There would be nothing to contradict religious claims. The coercion and punishment powers held by theocracies, which is what early societies were, would insure that people embrace the myth as factual in all practical senses.

And yet, there is nothing to justify mythological truth as valid, except the fact that it "works"; that is, that it dominates the populace and governs its thoughts. It evokes the proper attitude to the numinous, one of veneration. Whether this attitude is proper in a larger sense, beyond promoting religious thinking, for the betterment of mankind, is not clear; given the enormity of crimes against humanity committed in the name of religion.

Armstrong next turns to the Hebrew religion, where the conflation of myth and reality are taken to extremes. God becomes an active participant in history, personally intervening in the lives of Abraham and his descendants. The Old Testament does not present God as a subjective, inner dimension of reality, as Armstrong repeatedly suggests is the true nature of God. He is very much depicted as an independent force "out there". One with a decidedly irascible personality.

Agnosticism

Cee Lo Green Changes 'Imagine' Lyrics To 'All Religions' From John Lennon's 'No Religion'

Extraterrestrial Psychosis from Creationism to Evolutionism: Who Are We as Human Beings?

Debunking the Israelite Myth: Ancient Egypt Knew No Pharaohs

Dr. Ashraf Ezzat

Consciousness: The Black Hole of Neuroscience

Mr. Deity and the Philosopher

Juanita Bynum II Speaks in Tongues On Facebook Page

Bible Teachings: Girl spanked to death in the name of god

Hmmmm....

IN HIS IMAGE...

Reverend Billy leads mass exorcism in Tate Modern Turbine Hall over 'taint' of BP sponsorship

A Farewell to Harms

Through the Wormhole: Does Time Exist?

The Real Housewives of Canaan

Neurological Science and the Meaning of Dreams

A message for Israel and Evangelicals: Genesis isn’t a policy guide

By Walter Rodgers / June 27, 2011

I recently passed a local evangelical church here in rural New England with a sign that read: “We Love You Israel. Hold God’s Land.”

Mixing religion and foreign policy

With a dogmatic loyalty to Israel born out of a literal interpretation of the Bible, is the American Christian Right the new Jewish lobby in US politics? Mixing religion and statecraft isn’t just dangerous and unwise. It’s sacrilegious.

The concept of 'The Holy Land'

Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to Truth

Rationality evolved to win arguments, some scholars suggest, and flawed reasoning is itself an adaptation.

excerpt:

Mormon Prophet:Blacks Represent Satan On Earth

Mormon Prophet:Blacks Represent Satan On Earth

John Fugelsang Effinfunny Standup - Jesus Is Republican

The great Jesus swindle

The Brain Creates Religion

Jay-Z: Profit of Rap

Repurposing the Gospel Aura: Eminem's Chrysler Ad Borrows Some Spirit

Soul?

How to Be A More Human Human

bible-writers-intended-to-deceive

Demons at Leisure (Millenium TV series)

Consider Animism

The New Athe­ists' Nar­row Worldview

Benny Hinn - Dark Lord of the Sith

Not worth the effort

Penn Jillette: "The population of atheists...is going through the roof."

Okay. This is where this blog continues

The enigma of America's secular roots

Joel Barlow's disavowal of Christianity as the basis for US government in the 1797 treaty of Tripoli is a mystery

Agnosticism2011?

This should be in Ironymous

Police: Pastor with criminal record caught burglarizing church member's home

THE DIGITAL STORY OF THE NATIVITY

Agnosticism2011

Atheist Rap

Not a Fan of Hip Hop?

The Irony is so Ironically Ironic

Atheist Ministers Struggle With Leading the Faithful

Ancient sanctuary dedicated to Mithras discovered in France

Kiss my cowardly, lazy, over-polite ass

Pharyngula is much too crowded for me to try to enter this discussion. But I do get tired of this trope about agnostics. The cartoon is funny though.

Agnostics have the virtue of always being right, sorta

TrackBacks

Comments

Skepticism

Heribert Watzke: The brain in your gut

Counter-Revelations

The Wisdom Books

by Robert Alter

Dawkins: We Are All Africans

Dialogue of Reason: Science and Faith in the Black

Community

Does the Historical Jesus Matter?

Moderate vs. Extremist Islam

Oliver Sacks on Humans and Myth-making | Oliver Sacks | Big Think

The Unbelievable Truth: Why America has become a nation of religious know-nothings

BY DANIEL DENNETT

The Gospel According to Armstrong

To summarize

Apocalyptical Literature

from Wikipedia

Origins

[edit]Object and contents

[edit]Difference from prophecy

[edit]Message

The New Atheists' Narrow Worldview