masonlandry

The odds of me being alive now are exactly the same as the odds of me being alive at any other possible time. Just like the odds of being dealt a hand of 4 aces is exactly the same as being dealt a hand of any random set of 4 cards. It only seems sp ciql because the outcome has significance to us. Personally. You would ask the same question no matter when you were alive.

Why does it matter to me? Because I'm experiencing it. The only other option is to commit suicide, and I have no wish to do that. Perhaps it is selfish, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. Usually, it's in my self-interest to bear other people in mind when I consider the consequences of my actions. It matters to me that the people I love care about me and are impacted what I do. I have no idea what my thoughts will be on my deathbed since I can't predict the future, but I'm not afraid of death or whatever comes after it, if anything.

I definitely hold doubt about all ancient history.

Did you read those? Specifically the second one. The first one says pretty much what you said it did, but the second one was decidedly on the side of it not being supported at all. From the link: "The reality is that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever enslaved in Egypt. Yes, there's the story contained within the bible itself, but that's not a remotely historically admissible source. I'm talking about real proof; archeological evidence, state records and primary sources. Of these, nothing exists."

I've never heard that evidence before. If that's legit I think that's exactly the kind of evidence I'd be looking for. Do you have any sources I can look at?

Yeah, they all die. What difference does that make? Does something have to last forever to matter to you? I've never felt that way. I'll gladly eat ice cream even though I know it will be finished pretty quickly. Doesn't mean I thought it was pointless to eat it. My life may be meaningless to the universe as a whole, but it sure matters a lot to me now.

The way I understand it, if the forefathers of the Hebrews believed the story of Moses to be true, they would go on telling t and eventually writing it down for generations, whether it started as a story they knew was legend or whether it actually happened, so it being repeated long enough for people to eventually believe it doesn't tell me much about what actually happened. I certainly believe the evidence is clear that Jews, for a very long time, have told the story of the Exodus. That doesn't tell me whether it actually happened, so for that I have to rely on external evidence. Jewish people would have been Jewish people whether they were enslaved mlby Egyptians or not, so it's not like "their people" would somehow dissipate if they didn't think the Exodus happened.

I'm here to talk about what's being talked about. I don't care if people believe or not. But if someone brings up an argument I think is wrong, I don't see any reason why I shouldnt say so, especially in a forum dedicated to science and religion. Morals, from an evolutionary perspective, evolved over millions of years just like everything else. There are ways to behave that are conducive to a social species, and ways that are not. And lots of areas in between. There are things you can do that are better for yourself, for your family, your community, and onward, and we see these things as moral. The better they are for everyone over time, the more moral. And the reverse, if something is bad for society, we consider it immoral, the more impact it has on the more people, the worse we consider it. No single person. Dictates what the "right" rules are. What a particular community sees as moral depends on how people demand other members of the community action, or else they don't get to be a part of it or they won't pass on the genes that predicate them to behave that way. This is the case whether the community is local, national, global, etc. The bigger the community, the fewer things we'll have in common. The closer and smaller the community, the more things they will have in common. That's why you see some basic moral understanding that pretty much everyone is clear on across time and across cultures, and so many variences in morals and ethics across the same.

What about the cases where it is actually discredited, like the story of Moses freeing slaves from Egypt and leading them through the wilderness. Jewish archaeologists have scoured the land for evidence that this happened, in the hopes of providing proof that the account is hirlstorically accurate, but instead found so much evidence to the contrary that they concluded that they can say they are sure beyond reasonable doubt that the Hebrews were never enslaved by the Egyptians.

Just want to add, this isn't even an atheist can point of evolution. It's a strawman of that too. Nothing about evolution necessitates that morals can't exist just because humans evolved from other primates. It also displays a lack of understanding of what fitness means in the context of evolution. Fitness means "fitted to the environment" and the environment includes everyone else who lives in the environment. Actions viewed as immoral make one evolutionary unfit because it makes you unlikely to be cooperated with, unlikely to get a mat to reproduce with, and unlikely to be allowed to live within society at all depending on how badly you behave. Humans are part of nature, and therefore a huge part of natural selection, even moreso because we can consciously decide what to select for.

I don't know why you thought I was setting a standard for prophecies. I was just making a distinction between literal details and symbolic or metaphorical.

I think I'm with you on everything but the last point, and maybe that's because I wasn't clear enough on what I meant. A literal prophecy would be something like, "In 1000 years, God will send his son, who will be called Emmanuel, to be born of a virgin in Bethlehem." When I say literal, I'm specifically talking about the prophecy. As in, if it isn't literally worded as "such and such thing will literally happen like this" the prophecy itself must be understood in some way other than literal in order for it to be a prophecy. So like, in Jeremiah 25:11 when it says Babylon will become a desolate wasteland and these nations will serve the King of Babylon for 70 years." That's clearly literal. The fulfillment of that prophecy would be the literal words coming true in the future. Perhaps foreshadowing has a different meaning in Biblical study and prophecy that I'm not aware of. What I know of foreshadowing is what I learned about it in school and studying literature, where something symbolically related points, as a sign, to something that will happen in the future. Not literally telling the audience that literally such and such will occur, and not the same thing happening twice. For example, a cloudy sky foreshadowing some event that causes the main character emotional turmoil in a novel. Is this different than what you are talking about?

I'm not really understanding the distinctions. That's not necessarily a problem with how you phrased it, but I think we both have different understandings of many of the words used there. One thing I'm not clear on is what you mean by "interpretation is objective." Because that seems to me like the exact opposite of what interpretation is. Also, I wouldn't say my position was that an allegory is a tool for interpreting. You don't use allegory to interpret, allegory would be the use of the author, and you as a reader would interpret the allegory and what it means. Also, it doesn't always teach morality. It can, but a broader definition is that it is a symbolic abstraction of a truth or generalization about human existence, moral or not. As far what a prophetic foreshadowing is, I'm completely lost there. I understand that people draw links between an event, usually one in the Old Testament, and another event in the New Testament. If these foreshadowings are not literally explained, how can you get to the point of understanding that one thing was prophesied by another unless you view the foreshadow as symbolic of the prophesied event? If the text doesn't explicitly say, you have to do some kind of non-literal interpreting to understand it to mean anything at all, right?

I was under the impression that an allegory is a symbolic representation. Something that foreshadows something else would be symbolic of it, would it not? If not through allegoric interpretation, where do you draw the link between the thing foreshadowed and what foreshadowed it?

The best I can do is say what I believe to be the truth. If I'm wrong, please correct me. If it upsets anyone, my apologies. That's all I've got to work with. But I'm unorthodox enough on my own to be putting my foot in dangerous water on any forum with a majority of orthodox believers. I can say though, while I have had good conversations with people who disagree with me, nobody has been unkind, so I'm quite happy with this forum.