when you question this, where does the doubt and questioning end?
Where you think it makes sense to end It's no secret that religion reinvents itself over time to be able to exist within the changing society (when trying to make sure change doesn't happen fails anyway).
When I was younger literalism made more sense to me because either it was all true, or none of it was. Anything in between meant a subjective decision based on opinion rather than on what was explicitly written. Literalism funnily enough seems like it would appeal more to a person who likes science.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Good for Ballard for expertly identifying a geological event that happened 7500 years ago, but it is foolish to try to connect this to the biblical flood myth. My biggest problem with this idea is precisely because it occurred so long ago. 5600 B.C.E. predates virtually every form of ancient writing, and every known urban settlement. This was in the middle of the neolithic period when people were still predominantly hunters and gatherers. I just do not believe that there is the necessary social and cultural infrastructure to sustain a complex myth like the ANE flood stories for the following +2000 years at minimum before it was first put to writing. No, it's much more likely that the flood stories developed from much more closely contemporary events than this.
Is it not possible that the memory of a great flood lingered in the collective memory of the people of the ANE for 3000 years and the details (regarding the type and shape of the boat, the animals being put on the ark, Noah, the cause, etc) were added closer to when writing became more well developed such that this is both a record of this major flood, and a record of later developments?
Is it not possible that the memory of a great flood lingered in the collective memory of the people of the ANE for 3000 years and the details (regarding the type and shape of the boat, the animals being put on the ark, Noah, the cause, etc) were added closer to when writing became more well developed such that this is both a record of this major flood, and a record of later developments?
Think about it like this:
Ours is a society that has access to instant and almost in exhaustive information, and possessing an unprecedented depth of knowledge about the events of our past as far back as even 2500–3000 years, thanks to our obsession with literature. How many times do you find yourself reflecting on things that happened 3000 years ago? 1500 years ago? Even 200 years ago? And this is with our almost limitless stores of information about the past.
Now imagine a world where there are no records of any kind. No system of education. No knowledge about the greater world beyond the limits of your own senses, your overwhelming geographical barriers, and conversations that you have with your family. In this world, there is little time to think much or reflect much on anything beyond what you will eat, how you will keep warm, and how you will ensure that your children stay alive long enough to look after themselves.
Do you honestly think that anything that happened 3000 years ago would hold even the slightest bit of meaning in this world whatsoever? In a world in which people would commonly not even have known their own family lineage beyond the third generation, do you think that they will continue to preserve a collective memory around an event from over a hundred generations past?
No. Like I said. It is much, MUCH more likely that the flood myths developed out of events that were far more closely contemporary to the time that they were written.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Well, this is an interesting thread. I read the last page, then the 2nd last, then clicked back 5 pages and read through to the end, but then clicked back 10 pages. And it's completely over my head.
I read this bit about theism/atheism gnosticism/agnosticism from a couple of days ago and thought "I know I've seen a funny picture about that on the internet somewhere" A picture is worth a thousand words...
And then there's today's telephone conversation...
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Originally Posted by MarchHare
Flood myths were likely part of the oral tradition in ancient Mesopotamia (among other regions), with specific details and characters changing across cultures over many centuries like a giant game of telephone.
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Originally Posted by Textcritic
No. NOT LIKE TELEPHONE! The analogy is bankrupt because it puts forward the idea that changes which occur within the transmission of ancient myths is always unintentional, and often prone to produce nonsense. People took these stories far too seriously to allow them to change or develop incidentally.
I don't think the analogy is bankrupt, because I suspect in most games of telephone, someone subverts the system and uses it to further an agenda, which in most cases the end-game is either flatulence based humour or embarrassing romantic declarations. Not all changes in the telephone game are accidental.
Ours is a society that has access to instant and almost in exhaustive information, and possessing an unprecedented depth of knowledge about the events of our past as far back as even 2500–3000 years, thanks to our obsession with literature. How many times do you find yourself reflecting on things that happened 3000 years ago? 1500 years ago? Even 200 years ago? And this is with our almost limitless stores of information about the past.
Now imagine a world where there are no records of any kind. No system of education. No knowledge about the greater world beyond the limits of your own senses, your overwhelming geographical barriers, and conversations that you have with your family. In this world, there is little time to think much or reflect much on anything beyond what you will eat, how you will keep warm, and how you will ensure that your children stay alive long enough to look after themselves.
Do you honestly think that anything that happened 3000 years ago would hold even the slightest bit of meaning in this world whatsoever? In a world in which people would commonly not even have known their own family lineage beyond the third generation, do you think that they will continue to preserve a collective memory around an event from over a hundred generations past?
No. Like I said. It is much, MUCH more likely that the flood myths developed out of events that were far more closely contemporary to the time that they were written.
I think they could. And if they thought it was important enough, they would.
There are oral histories from Vancouver Island about an enormous earthquake that killed thousands. That earthquake has been dated by sediment samples and linked to written records of an orphan tsunami in Japan in 1700.
In a lot of ways, we in modernity are more divorced from history than at any point in the past. Maybe it is because we are more mobile than ever before, maybe it is because we have so much information at our fingertips, maybe it is because we can now form our own tribes via the internet rather than associating with our immediate and extended families. Just because we don't know our family lineage beyond the third generation doesn't mean that people didn't 1,000 years ago.
Written records aren't and weren't the only way of preserving history. And while life in the bronze age was probably nasty, brutal and short, they still told stories and sang songs around the fire. And art, in the form of cave paintings or tapestries, or relics can be used to anchor the collective memory.
It is hard for us to imagine re-telling stories for thousands of years. IMO that is because the world has probably changed more in the last 100 or 200 years than it did in the previous 5,000. But when you're a son of a goat herder living in a mud hut, you listen to your grandfather's songs about the goat herder who lived in a mud hut not far from here... well, that's a lot easier to imagine than getting a kid to put down his iPod or get off the trampoline and listen to grandpa tell you a story about the goat herder who lived in a mud hut on the other side of the planet.
OK, that's $0.04.
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I think they could. And if they thought it was important enough, they would.
There are oral histories from Vancouver Island about an enormous earthquake that killed thousands. That earthquake has been dated by sediment samples and linked to written records of an orphan tsunami in Japan in 1700.
The problem I pointed to was not just produced by the absence of a literate culture, it was greatly exacerbated by the general quality of life in the neolithic and early bronze age. There is still a social, cultural gulf that separates the second millennium native Americans from prehistoric man.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plett25
Written records aren't and weren't the only way of preserving history. And while life in the bronze age was probably nasty, brutal and short, they still told stories and sang songs around the fire. And art, in the form of cave paintings or tapestries, or relics can be used to anchor the collective memory.
Honestly, we have no idea what sorts of things pre-historic families and tribes regaled to one another in stories and songs. And the very few surviving bits of art from the period does not reflect anything like what you imagine. More like what I have said earlier, people's concerns and interest—as far as we can tell from archaeological and anthropological studies—were with day to day life. There is no evidence for the preservation of cultural memories from the distant past.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plett25
It is hard for us to imagine re-telling stories for thousands of years. IMO that is because the world has probably changed more in the last 100 or 200 years than it did in the previous 5,000. But when you're a son of a goat herder living in a mud hut, you listen to your grandfather's songs about the goat herder who lived in a mud hut not far from here... well, that's a lot easier to imagine than getting a kid to put down his iPod or get off the trampoline and listen to grandpa tell you a story about the goat herder who lived in a mud hut on the other side of the planet.
I think you greatly underestimate the time period in question here: the argument has been forwarded that the Black Sea flood from c. 5600 B.C.E. produce deeply engrained cultural memories that persisted and developed for over 3000 years before they were written down some time in the second millennium B.C.E. One of my biggest problems with the argument is the enormous time gap between the event and its first known recollection. Less than 3000 years separates us now from the time of Homer.
Even in early, highly sophisticated societies from much much later in antiquity, we find that people's connection to and recollection of past, "watershed" events from only a few hundred years ago were extremely fragile. A good illustration of this is in the comparison of the scant reliable historical records that document the resettlement of Jerusalem around 500 B.C.E. and the archaeological evidence itself. Memories about the exile and return of Jews to Judaea from even 300 or 400 years after the event are contradictory and loaded with all sorts of embellishments, but more importantly, they universally reflect contemporary concerns, and show little interest in the event itself. The point being, that while it may be theoretically possible for a cultural memory to survive in the total absence of a literary culture for over 30 centuries, it does seem to be extremely unlikely. At minimum, it would be unprecedented, because there is NO EVIDENCE for the preservation of traditions under those conditions, and for that length of time.
I will repeat again: It is much more likely that the ANE flood myths developed from contemporary historical events, and not from something that happened in the very distant past. There were still major floods in the early bronze age that were significant enough for people to reflect soberly on their own mortality, and—more importantly—upon the tenuousness of their own civilisations.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Well i told my mom the truth. She said she still respects and loves me as a person but thinks i'm a fool because the bible says that a man who doesn't believe in god is a fool....
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Well i told my mom the truth. She said she still respects and loves me as a person but thinks i'm a fool because the bible says that a man who doesn't believe in god is a fool....
See, that wasn't so hard was it.
Just for fun ask her if she can prove there is a God.
Well i told my mom the truth. She said she still respects and loves me as a person but thinks i'm a fool because the bible says that a man who doesn't believe in god is a fool....
I doubt she'd be interested in a few inspirational videos that explain why we shun organized religion, but you never know. Some of my favorite inspirational videos:
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
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So my nephew, 18yrs old from Vancouver just moved down to Midland Texas as he got a baseball scholarship to play there and its been a bit of a shock for the poor kid, racism rampant, deeply religious people, they even have a team pastor and "voluntary" weekly bible study.
Kid really feels out of place, this is why when people ask what we have against prayer in public schools, just another way to make those not religious feel like outsiders and not part of the family.
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
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So my nephew, 18yrs old from Vancouver just moved down to Midland Texas as he got a baseball scholarship to play there and its been a bit of a shock for the poor kid, racism rampant, deeply religious people, they even have a team pastor and "voluntary" weekly bible study.
Kid really feels out of place, this is why when people ask what we have against prayer in public schools, just another way to make those not religious feel like outsiders and not part of the family.
That is ####ty and puts him in a bad position, as he is on a scholarship.
One question is this a Christian based school?
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
So my nephew, 18yrs old from Vancouver just moved down to Midland Texas as he got a baseball scholarship to play there and its been a bit of a shock for the poor kid, racism rampant, deeply religious people, they even have a team pastor and "voluntary" weekly bible study.
Kid really feels out of place, this is why when people ask what we have against prayer in public schools, just another way to make those not religious feel like outsiders and not part of the family.
I spent a month down in that neck of the woods in the 90's (Odessa actually) I kind of thought racism would be a non factor by now...guess not,
I doubt she'd be interested in a few inspirational videos that explain why we shun organized religion, but you never know. Some of my favorite inspirational videos:
I don't know how a xtian could watch those and not question their faith.
These people just make too damn much sense, to ignore.
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That is ####ty and puts him in a bad position, as he is on a scholarship.
One question is this a Christian based school?
Its Midland College, public institution, but he's in culture shock as he's young and never experienced this kind of mindset. He's a top prospect in BC and a very tall pitcher 6'6", so he can't be the one to ruffle feathers and complain about anything like racism or especially their beloved voluntary prayer and weekly bible lessons. The racism is what gets him the most, he said he didn't realize that it could be this bad in this day and age, so sad to be exposed to this at 18.
Oh cannot forget this one, Sam Harris on the morality of the biblical God, brilliantly done.
I'd question whether morality is a social construct or a religious construct. Religious isn't the right term I'm searching for, more of a description of god than what he's portrayed by Christianity. We have this portrayal of who god is given to us by the Bible and than we attack this description which is already claimed as false by atheists and at least incomplete by others. If you want to stop your search for truth at the Bible, which to me is more a way that they used the concept of god conveniently to set up their social system, be my guest but it's not the best argument for god.
Sam Harris does a convincing job that science can answer moral questions, the argument is I think clear that religion is not the source of morality, but rather society is.
It's no secret that religion reinvents itself over time to be able to exist within the changing society (when trying to make sure change doesn't happen fails anyway).
