Telling God What He Can Do
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ย. 2023
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For a religion that claims to view their god as the most powerful, supreme being in the universe, some Christians have an interesting habit of placing restrictions on what he can and can’t do. God can’t make a world without suffering, he has to inspire a collection of written texts (that have no mistakes in them), and he certainly can’t be sympathetic to anyone who practices other religion. But where do these limitations come from, and what purpose do they serve? In short: who says?
Megan asks Bart:
- Was the Christian god always considered to be a supreme, all-powerful being, or is this an idea that developed over time?
- Do we see these kinds of restrictions in early Christianity? OR When do we see these kinds of restrictions being introduced into Christianity?
- If we look at some specific restrictions, are they usually grounded in a Biblical passage, or are they more often apologetic arguments, that is, a defense of the Bible or Christianity against criticisms from outsiders? For example, does the Bible itself say that god requires an inerrant Bible in order for Christianity to be valid?
- When you were an evangelical, how did you view these limitations, and how would you have responded if someone told you that you were telling God what he could or couldn’t do?
- What's the most problematic restriction?
- How are these restrictions related to the problems of evil and suffering?
I am an old man. I don't feel old at 86, but I sense the changes over time and I am pleased with Dr. Ehrman's work and ideas. Thank you Bart for these past years and your wonderful understanding.
Same here. I just turned 84 and my sentiments are exactly the same.
As an old man I agree with you 100%.
I don't feel old at 86, but I sense the changes over time
Bravo I am an old man. Only 34 but I was a Born Again Book Worm.
I am rather excited at the changes over time I was a M.A.R.S. Amatuer Radio Operator W5AWG in Hot Springs, Arkansas when 9-11 Occurred, that was 2001, I was playing Electric Guitar in a Gambling and Sports Bar at Age 19 Years of age At 6:05 P.M. on Thursday, 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead, I also remember the McCarthyist anti-communist reign of terror happened. Then in 1963 November 22, 1963: Death of the President John F. Kennedy Broke my 14 Year Old Mind- I never watched Television again, much. I worked on Traveling Carnivals, learned to be a Tattoo Artist 1972 in Milwaukee, Wi taught by a Tattooist who started in 1932 Old Doc Webb, I spent 40-50 Years as a Freight Train Hobo, I also Found Torah and Christian teaching at The Jesus House in Oklahoma City who taught me "it is better to give, than to Withhold, The God of Moses and David has 10 Good Ideas, ( The Ten Commandments) and Yahweh Elohim is my power that keeps me being alive. I have a Dell Precision T5500 Computer that weighs 75 Pounds and was designed to operate 24/7 has 2 Xeon Processors BECAUSE I am Going Blind. . I use Ubuntu Linux Operating System . Have Good Day, the Thing just quit, Bart Possable to Not br Christian
As a 42 year old I look to the wise and thoughtful. Non dogmatic. Thank you Dr Ehrman.
Well said.
I can contribute to that. Losing two children in two years is something nobody can ever explain to me. It has shaken me to the inner core, and forced a realistic look at the world. Honestly, I much prefer a realistic approach than the fantasy world that I used to believe in.
learning bible history has really helped me understand A LOT about the ancient world/religious practices.
😢so sorry
I agree with you. I can accept reality much easier than I can accept some of these belief systems. My father died when I was twelve. I was there when it happened. Since then I've grown accustomed to death and it doesn't surprise me. It's a natural part of a person's life and I've accepted it as such. Just as I didn't expect my dog or pet pigeons to ascend to heaven, I accepted that humans had the same fate. Why should we be any different? We are all part of nature. Humans don't have any special status. Most of us are forgotten in the end. Just look at all those gravestones in an old church graveyard.
@@edwardgrabczewski my goal is to be remembered by my kids and my family, and even that,I will only get 2 generations before I am completely forgotten. Make as much impact on the world while you can.
I feel for you, in addition to friends and family you may find some comfort from Marcus Aurelius 'Meditations'.'
The distinction between atonement and forgiveness is thought provoking.
Exactly what I thought 💭
At One Ment. For Give.
I know that this is a Christian forum and Dr Ehrman is an esteemed bible scholar and has moved from Christianity to an agnostic position, but I feel obliged to state as a believer in the unity of the God upon whom.we depend for our existence that the question of atonement versus forgiveness is the main stumbling block which essentially defines Christian faith.. And yet the Jesus of the gospels does not speak of it.
When I was a Christian, I often struggled during the worship part of service because half the songs weren’t praise- they were just telling God to do a thing. It felt blasphemous until it felt silly.
This is such a great topic. "Christians bossing god around," I love that. It's a great perspective of one of the many flaws of Christianity.
Bart has been very influential in helping me recognize the fallacies that I have been taught from childhood. Thanks Bart!
1 cor 2:14 says, " The natural man doesn't accept or understand the things of God..."
Bart is in darkness. I'm amazed that those who want to jettison christian ideologies will not move to N. Korea, Russia or China were you can fully embrace atheist family values. Bart is a coward, he wants to enjoy Christian virtues and values hear in America which is obviously founded on a faith in God. Mythicists have to steal from Biblical morality to be happy. There is no Book of Monkey Virtues for agnostic . The Gospel has done more to help suffering, struggling people then any communist ideology...which is the religion of mythicists. Bart should move to N Korea to fully imbrace his ideology.
In Australia, the Conservative Party deliberately and cynically withdrew government support for humanity degrees so humanity degrees are now the most expensive degrees. How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.
And they removed aspects of critical thinking from the curriculum after a relentless media campaign against Humanities teachers and universities. We used to teach students how to detect bias in media reports, but that got taken out, for example. What is done is very watered down.
Duttons D!*k#e@ds are basing their political future on greed, misinformation and division.
Stupidity, lack of education and critical thinking skill are keystones.
This playbook appears to be consistent with conservative parties worldwide.
That end part of this worthwhile video was the most vital. The role of universities goes way beyond teaching people what to think... its most important role is to teach people HOW to think.
And the benefits of teaching even one person how to think may rub off onto anyone they then have contact with.
Reading the title, all I can think is: "I already told him what he could do, where he could go, and where to put it."
Bart is absolutely correct in his assessment of god believers.
They all know what the unknowable god Yahweh is thinking and what "He" (a male) is capable of
while disregarding the contradiction.
This is what cult programming does to the primate brain.
This podcast and the topics discussed are so thoroughly enjoyable on so many levels and in different facets of life. I’ve learned a lot, broaden and expanded views. In some cases I’ve doubled down on them. This particular episode though is my favorite so far. Both in terms of the discussions on what God must do as well as Dr Ehrman’s talking about his end of semester assignment for his students. A fascinating and challenging idea. Additionally, the soap box comment about the humanities is something deeply meaningful. In a lot of ways it brings to mind Churchill’s saying, “those who do not study the past are doomed to repeat it. And I know he certainly wasn’t the first to express that view either. Again, very enjoyable and thought provoking. Oddly relaxing as well as I usually listen to the podcast after working all night. Thanks to Megan and Bart for a great discussion.
Excellent as always. There are so many places where it just doesn't make sense; I mourn for all the minds and lives wasted struggling to keep believing in nonsense.
Great topic. It just shows the artificiality and flatness of most peoples' concept of God.
Bart's soapbox segment makes me think "old man yells at cloud". I'm right there yelling at it with you, sir
Haha. Simpsons analogy. Love it. I often say I’m old, though I’m not really, but I still feel this comment strongly as well.
I love Bart for his insights into the thought-world of the Bible. His kind of work is necessary. It is important to know what cannot be believed so that we understand the nature of what can be believed and why we--some of us--must believe.
One of the best teams on YT. Love every episode. Thanks Megan, Bart, et al. And re: Bart's soap box - a friend on Facebook posted a meme saying Bart was a mythicist and other fictions. I corrected that post. Made me mad - guess I got on my own soap box.
Not only was I fascinated by the content of the show, but especially by the Bart’s “rant”. I noticed the decline in school’s roles in teaching critical thinking with the education of my own children. It seemed to me that children’s capacity of what they are capable of learning was underestimated. There was no civics training, the arts are treated as extras, not classes that might spark an interest in a new area, and a course that I always thought the purpose of was to teach logical thinking, algebra, was undermined by the use of calculators which did the logical sequences for the student. Books that I had been introduced to in 7th grade, weren’t introduced until 10th grade, and, if the book had been made into a movie, that was shown instead. Bart is right. The frustration is real
That's mostly a problem with the American education system. Because all kids are being sent to the same high school they have to dumb it down relative to the tiered European systems where the best students are challenged way more than the slow learners. Your only choice there are private schools.
As Mark Twain once wrote (more or less) for one of his characters, "[t]he trouble with the Christians' God is that He is almighty but it seems to me He doesn't use all the power He's got. Now, the Injuns' god is not all-powerfull, but he uses every bit he has."
Feathers or dots?
It is so nice to spend time with smart, informed people and to go away with a lot to reflect on regardless of your faith.
The point about the Greek gods and circular reasoning in Christianity was amazing and explains a lot about what my reservations were about Christianity not providing a straight answer for why certain things are the way they are.
I especially liked it when Bart said he doesn’t kill his child’s cat in order to forgive her for something that she did. If I were to believe in a God, I would look for a God worthy of my belief. I have often thought about the value of polytheism. Separate gods and goddesses for separate purposes. One God for everything is problematic.
The god idea goes away when you understand the scientific Laws of Thermodynamics and are ready to accept responsibility for your own existence.
Are you worthy of your belief and faith? If you don't faith in yourself, what good is a faith in god. The old gods were part of the social order of city states, before there were police and judges there were piety rules. You followed these rule otherwise people made you believe the god would do something bad to you, or worse, the city might collapse and you would end up living like those miserable Mar.Tu.
The gods we modern people believe in are platonic, they represent an idea of purity, wholeness and completeness that doesn't exist. We believe this because we saw the shortcomings of these older gods, who because of their attachment to temple towns and sacrificial sites, died when those sites were destroyed.
So the question is there a god worthy. The old gods were unworthy because their form meant that most were going to die in the sands of time, and most of the new gods are unworthy because the are disembodied phantoms. If you looking outside, none are worthy.
It’s even worse under Old Testament law-she would have to kill her cat herself.
No it does not. I met God. You can too. My door was Practice of the Presence of God. I have and can keep thermodynamics too. @@JamesRichardWiley
Regarding lack of critical thinking. I specifically lied all the time to my kids, in a joking way, so both sides had fun with it, including Mom who make sure that truth won out. I've come to think that perhaps one of the reasons I did this was to make sure my kids question everything they hear. And it seemed to have worked.
Megan, we all dig your glasses😂❤
The last part regarding people not thinking through what others (news, politicians, pastors, trump, etc ) tell them is just the defining quality of blind faith. Why would anyone be surprised that (mostly) evangelicals are trump's core audience when they have been educated that way their whole lives? Trump speaks just like a successful prosperity pastor does.
As a fellow university professor in the humanities, I hear you, Bart
If you can't trust a prophet because anyone could come up and say I am a prophet, how can you trust someone who comes up and says "I just wrote the inspired word of God"?
I think the conclusion to draw is that nobody was claiming to have written an inspired word of God - that’s something that was created in like the 19th century to retroactively make the Bible more authoritative. The Bible is much more fun when you can view it as a library of books about how ancient people saw their god 😊
@@JacoBizkit Good point. So why do so many people accept that it is the inspired word of God when even the author does not make that claim -- someone is making that claim on their behalf?
@@milowadlinFirst of all, to deny the claim of the inspiration of Holy Writ has immediate social penalties, particularly the need to decide your pastor is a liar, and if that is found out suffering a loss of high standing among peers and in the community at large, and the ultimate expulsion from that social group that is loaded with benefits just by being a member of that group. Second, people accept devine inspiration of scripture because, I think, the concept of "faith" often boils down to a series of denials of reality. There are several specific denials that kind of hold together in Christianity, not just claiming the rather magical authority of Scripture, but also magical elevation of the Rabbi Jesus to divine status, his magical coming back to life, all sorts of magical actions by the magic holy spirit such as magical healings, speaking in foreign languages, tongues of fire on heads, and the like. Basically, if you are going to assent to all of those other magical things, what is one more (i.e. the magically accurate Bible)?
I personally dislike most the magical conclusion that "God will take care of me" because, well, he just has to, because he is in charge because he just has to be in charge. And besides, God has an escape clause because it doesn't really matter if he doesn't take care of me in this world because if I die I already got my magic heaven ticket punched because of magic words I said once, and so I will magically be elevated to eternal life in a magic place called heaven to seat gorified, but no no no, not deified, oh no, can't have that) just below Christ on the one hand and above the angels on the other. And poor Adam didn't get to eat of the tree of Life, but, Ha!, I win, because I magically get that eternal life Adam never tasted and I get to party with God forever and ever while Adam molders in Sheol...
Yeah, the way I see it, it is all magic, all the way up and down. And from the first toke of the mesmerizing sweet magic scent, the next toke of magic gets easier, and then a third lungful even more. Soon you are in a daze and just don't care, as long as the magic bong is passes regularly by, always ready for another toke.
20:05 atlast Bart has acknowledged her spectacular glasses 😂
I liked the other ones too. How many pairs does she have? Yes, I check her glasses 1st thing.
Thank you Dr. Erhman and Ms Lewis. Very enjoyable thought provoking discussion. Keep up the good work!
I believe Megan is a Dr as well.
@@mikeharrison1868 I saw her as a guest on MythVision few days ago and I think she said she was still working on PhD?
It's ironic that there's a Hobby Lobby ad in the middle of this conversation😜
😂
Regarding the soapbox issue, Bart said "there's nothing I'm going to be able to do to change it." To the contrary, I'd say you're both doing all that you can do to change it. Thank you for setting that example and for doing what you do.
Brilliant conversation, as always.
Yaay! New video! 🦋🧡🦋
Great stuff to think about thx both.
What a great episode!
👏🙂
Great video as always
Wonderful episode, as always!!
the important thing is that we can sit down and discuss these important questions ~~~ the fact there has to be a level of existence in the first place for any thing (anythink) to exist ~~~~
Awesome Podcast superb quality and great content very educational love it
Great Soapbox, Bart. I couldn't agree more. Yes, the humanities teach us critical thinking and logical argumentation, but also how to be human, how to view the world through others' eyes, how to recognize other values besides money.
Thank you.
Excellent point about critical thinking! Thank you, Prof.Ehrman!
I remember the debate with Dinesh, where he was arguing why earthquakes were necessary; his argument was way less coherent than the way Bart recapped it here, and at some point Dinesh says, "Earthquakes can only happen on Earth," as if he misread a pun and thought it was a fact. The audience is completely silent, and my mind was racing through a thousand ways to poke holes in the argument, when Bart comes in with a sledgehammer.... God couldn't have created a world without Earthquakes?! He's God! If you believe that, then you actually believe something closer to what I believe: That there is no all powerful God! The audience goes wild. One of the best debate moments on TH-cam for sure.
To those who have accepted the lie that there is no God, unless you change, someday you all will regret having belived that lie. I can understand being agnostic, but to say there is no God is an act of the will. Moral evil comes from humans, furthermore God made humanity finite for a reason, but His plan is to give us immortality if we want to accept it.
I dont think anyone can know God's plan for sure.
@@ufoskeptik-uw9oi Yes we can. He is searching for those who want to accept Him to share His glory with them, that is His plan.
I see
@@fcastellanos57did he tell you that?
George Carlin hits the nail on the head regarding religion and prayer.
I start listening to Christmas music in October.
Glutton for punishment...^^
Believe it or not, you are now going to hell.
After all this time, Bart's glasses envy finally came out.
lol. Well, it's not like the hostess would be likely to miss them at any rate. She seems to get a new pair every couple of new videos anyway.
@@danielgregg2530 I'm amazed at all the glasses analysis. Why care?
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's glass. :)
I thought the remarks were funny. I have to admit though, Megan’s love of fashionable eyewear is not something I would do. I’ve worn glasses most of my life and I absolutely hate going for eye exams. Unless her’s aren’t prescription, I can’t see spending that much time at the doctor’s office, but whatever floats your boat I guess.
I go to the optician’s once a year, and have done since I was about 10 years old. I have an astigmatism and most definitely need glasses to see 😊
To put it diplomatically, I was raised in Christian Cabala. Based as it is on Jewish Kabballah, the story of the deity's self-limitation is worth checking out. The idea is that G-d is infinite and as a logical fact, had to restrict his being to make room for the creation of the finite. This is why self-discipline is central to g-dliness. As G-d desired to be known, this desire necessitated restricting his being to make room for those who could know him. The gnostic nature of this form of religion might be obvious to experts, but for many people, gnostic religion is alien. In gnostic religions, a key element is always how the desire for g-dliness requires self-discipline and in so doing, imitates the process of creation itself. It is out of this nature of self-discipline that a 'will that is free' is derived. That is, g-dliness without a will that is free is not the imitation of the divine creative process. It is the divine desire that Kabbalists say provides the constraints on divine action. Here is why this theosophy is wrong. As Spinoza points out, the Absolute Infinite could in no way contain any limitation by definition. Only the relative infinite contains limitations. Therefore, the "G-d" of Kabballah is not the Ein Sof, if the the Ein Sof is said to be the Absolute Infinite. The second problem, and the more disastrous, is that the logic of action combination [the calculus representing the order in which actions may be performed] is not a truth-functional logic but an abstraction modelling the contingent nature of how actions may conflict with other actions, given how things are. Thus, claiming that the divine desire constrains the divine creative process is to base the divine will on contingent facts about how, in this finite world, some actions can be combined in some order but not in others. For example, the rich young fool could first buy a barn and then give away all his money, but he could not first give away all his money and then buy a barn, all else being equal. The typical response to this complaint is that in Cabala, all finite reality is in truth the emanation of the divine desire to be known. Thus, the logic of action combination is theological in nature. However, the point of the whole theory is to present G-d's self-limitation as the overflow of divine desire, which would be free. If the logic of action combination is theological, then G-d's will is not free but constrained instead by his nature as emanating through the various levels of reality. That is, some things G-d could not will because of how things are. Not because he does not in fact will it. If the Kabbalist responds that the divine will, in freely choosing to create us to know him, was thereby refusing to will anything that would ever conflict with that desire, they are failing to grasp the problem: that the nature of what would conflict with the 'divine will to be known' is not intrinsic to that will, rather the theological nature of action combination. I have always been an atheist--I was born an atheist and the first thing I learned was what it meant for the light to be G-d's first creation. If you know, you know.
I no longer look to people from antiquity for my medical advice, nor for intergalactic realm advice..amen
At the Christian churches I used to go to, they always used to sing about You are this and You are that, and it drove me nuts where people would tell themselves what God is or can be
I would like two hours of Bart just dissecting this topic, please and thank you.
The issues about God and Jesus having to die for our sins never made sense to me either as a young Catholic. Bart verbalises these nonsensical issues which, if they can't be accepted, undermine the whole Catholic programme. Having said that, it's not the reason why I dropped that faith. My issue was that I simply didn't believe in the "existence" of a supernatural God. That's a knock-out punch when it comes to the Catholic religion and many other religions for that matter. Notice that I put the word "existence" in quotes, because existence only makes sense in the physical world, and God isn't of that world, so it doesn't make sense to use that word when describing "Him". In the end, I came to the conclusion that there's no way any human can know anything about God. Anything that humans think they know about God is a human thought or creation. If I'm intellectually honest with myself then I must believe that humans created the concept of "God" and all "His" attributes. But humans have found the concept of God very useful in directing their lives and helping them to reflect on their behaviour. So it's not all bad. Maybe there's something that can be salvaged from even a human conception of God. I've been investigating this approach for the last 29 years with the help of the Sea of Faith Network ...
Xmas is a celebration of family, child bearing, and of winter solstice, with all that it implies: lights, decorations, a bit of debauchery before the long wintertime asserts itself, focusing on each other now that days are short (in the north, none of this works in antipodes), enjoying the first snow if it's there already. Of course, we know Jesus wasn't really born on this day (the chance is 1/365), and the stories we find in Luke and Mathew (but not in Mark or John) are fairy tales that contradict each other to boot. But who cares! We sing the Carols and enjoy the season, and this is what Xmas is really about.
It ain't xmas till you hear Fairytale of Newyork in Tescos.
For me, it's Feliz Navidad by Rainbowdragoneyes and Carol of the Bells by U-Reckon Talamasca remix.
What kind of music can one listen after reconversion? Wonderful work!!!! Enjoyed and learned reading dr Bart s books!
Can God make a burrito so spicy that He cannot eat it? 🤔
It's so sad that some people are still holding on to bronze age mythology 😢
We should celebrate life everyday and enjoy the ride as best possible. Christians diminish the value of this life by pretending to believe something else exists after you die 😮
Don't touch he glasses! They are ALL amazing!
A long time ago I studied symbolic logic and found that it taught me to be able to deconstruct arguments presented to me by various institutions and individuals. This allowed me to determine the truth value of said arguments, whether I was hearing a valid argument or plain bs. Symbolic logic confers an immunity to, among other things, advertising and political speech. The capstone of the course was an analysis of Richard Nixon's resignation speech. Since studying logic in general and symbolic logic in particular, I have believed that students should be introduced to logic sometime during grade school and it should be a part of the curriculum right through to the end of high school. Only those who for their own se reasons would oppose such an addition to their children's education.
I knew Dr Josh couldn't be perfect, but I never expected his annoying quirk to be enjoying Christmas music 😹
😂
Little HaMoshiach , Bart!
Hugs!
❤
Too many people think that the best known schools are the best for everything. The reality is that graduating with a humanities degree and a couple hundred thousand in debt is going to be a problem. Universities are changing. It used to be that a college degree in anything was a sign of dedication and would always get you decent a job. Now many famous universities are just profit centers. It is more important to churn out students than to educate them.
Interesting about the Greek and Roman gods. You didn't have the conundrum of why one all powerful god would be responsible for suffering and injustice that the Christians had to get round. Bart says the Greek and Roman gods were constrained by the fates. Actually the first Greek divinity was Annanki - Necessity. So all the gods are constrained by necessity. That places the invention of the Greek pantheon on a far more sound footing than the invention of Jewish monotheism. In my humble opinion.
One of the purposes of religion is to make sense of existence. This includes making sense of suffering.
We tend to suffer if nothing has meaning or does not make sense, so ultimately religion, also one with a cruel god, can minimize our suffering if it provides us a meaning.
You give life whatever meaning you want.
You don't need a religion for that😮
Every week there is a big relief when Megan doesn't wear the S-shaped glases. So I am able to actually watch and not just listen. ;-) I can't tell what bothers me, but I can't stand them.
Great content as always...
Asymmetry is tough for some of us to gaze at. It's a wonderful psych experiment.
Yeah her weird glasses were very off putting and UGLY
“Telling God what he can do.” That is the name of one of the missing books of the Bible (or should be, it would be a great addition). I could not understand Ezekiel, I was reading the Bible straight through, it is a spectacular piece of literature that covers stories that possibly were first told through pantomime by Homo Erectus through the creation of religious rituals to nation building to proto-communism based on a Herculean character. The central, and most important single story is the one where human sacrifice is disallowed, ending ritual cannibalism, consider the city-state social paradigm of Meso-America, it dead ends. Ezekiel, after a second read years later, turns out to be a compendium of memorable wrath of God declarations down through the ages. A book like that, where they would put all the limits on god would be a great addition to the “sacred cannon”. The Book of Bart, hey, like why not?
I'd like to hear about Bart's understanding of justice and if it plays a role in the New Testament. More specifically, what is the relationship between justice and love?
None.
@@ObjectiveEthics I'm asking what Bart finds to be the New Testament postion (or positions).
@@ObjectiveEthics I believe this is a question often raised historically, so I'm not asking for an answer to me personally..
@LizzyAtAtica On line communication is imperfect. You said "None", which I understood to mean there is no relationship. I feel there is an important relationship to be explored. Can't justice without love or love without justice easily degenerate into vengence or sentimentality? A question which can''t really be answered with this format. Which is the reason I suggested it might be a question answered in more depth by Bart.
According to buddhist logic, anything that can change is impermanent by nature and therefor will die. So a god who has opinions that change over time is by definition a mortal being that will die eventually.
Regarding the term "God Breathed" which was mentioned in the first section. Armenians call the Bible "Breath of God" in the Armenian language.
0:16 Bart’s picture on the podcast title card looks like Agent 47 in disguise.
I'm glad that both of them are critical thinkers. 😊
I really do love to hear Bart's reasoning on such things. But this podcast (as always) is clearly focused on addressing the (to me, a non-American, non-Anglophone, lapsed Catholic) bizarre and small minority of Chistendom inhabited by American fundamentalist Protestants.
I still value Christian mythology (or perhaps mostly its Catholic/Orthodox variants and their Judaic predecessors) in the same way as I value ancient Greek myth and other mythologies (especially those of the dharmic faiths of the Indian subcontinent).
These are not scientific "facts" but "stories" we humans have long told each other to entertain ourselves, give us pause to think a bit, and in the best cases to help guide our lives in a way that enhances the collective well-being and long-term perpetuation of the communities we have always lived in. (For the record, I view "science" in the same way - as a set of stylized (even "mythical") stories we tell ourselves - albeit with a different set of rules for how they can be structured and a different role in our societies.)
In my view, it doesn’t matter that our "God-breathed/inspired" myths are "true" or not: that's not their (objectively observed) ROLE in our world.
For this reason, if I did believe in the existence of some conscious (and vaguely humanoid) Godhead, I would be quite comfortable with the idea of such a "designer" (of our "reality simulation" to use a popular concept nowadays) experimenting with ways of ensuring his complex, chaotic simulation became self-sustaining without further intervention even though it evolved from a relatively simple initial set of rules.
Such a being - should it even give any thought at all to a single species existing (for a brief time) on a single planet during a particular point in the evolution of the cosmos - could easily tinker with a mechanism whereby some "holy texts" would arise from the story-telling imaginations of humans (and analogous simulated beings on other simulated worlds) and capture their collective imaginations for quite a long time.
I see no reason why such "holy texts" should be devoid of apparent contradictions or slavishly correspond to (perceived "scientific") realities of the observed universe - as long as they play an effective role in perpetuating (and, probably enhancing the complexity of) the phenomenon of a "conscious" bit of the universe.
Science says the supernatual exists. . . . .
Yay
God had to inspire inerrant scripture? Yes but that book was not given to Jews and Christians.
Some worship the Bible rather than truth, evolving knowledge, science. And the worst thing is that a lot of defenseless Baptist parishioners take their beliefs from the Pastor who has, if lucky, read the Bible maybe once as fast as possible to avoid the complexities.
prety gd. very fun. _JC
Regarding the tectonic plate conundrum: Whether or not God is necessary for a world whose inhabitants seek perfection or transcendence or meaning beyond their perception brings up questions; such as why is there such seeking and why the consciousness from which these speculations arise in the first place? If an exoplanet were discovered which had both life and possessed the physical characteristics we imperfect beings deem perfect, would that be enough to convince a nonbeliever that a God truly exists? Would consciousness, or at least an inquiring intellect, come about in such a world, one without physical challenges such as those we experience here on Earth?
I think it’s ironic and hilarious that when I watched this program this morning the advertiser is Hillsdale College, a private, conservative, Christian liberal arts college.
Questions
These are topics I was hoping you could some day tackle.
1. If the Apostle Junia was a woman how does that correlate with Pauls epistles on woman in the church?
2. Which bible version would you say is closer to the Apostles?
3. Does Mathew say wise men or Magi, and if so why do modern Christians say wise men?
Matthew says that a bloody corpse vanished from tthe inside of a sealed tomb. . . . Science now says the same thing. . . .
I also stole two of your books from the library and wrote so much in them.
I tried to tell them to redo inventory i just need to replace them
Also subscribe to the penn museum. I found them in a haleys bible handbook.
Was called university museum
Certainly agree with Dr. Ehrman about the decay of the Humanities
and Liberal Arts. My opinion is that's also leading to a failure in the
development of ethical technologies and their management.
Fundamentalists appear to reject critical rigor in all those disciplines.
I think it’s ironic and hilarious that when I watched this podcast this morning the advertiser is Hillsdale College, a private, conservative, Christian liberal arts college.
...and telling him where he can go....
And down the rabbit hole we go, an infinite regression,all the way to singularities, let's tie ourselves up in knots,😊
I think you had way too much to drink, kid. ;-)
what is God and how did God get there
16:18 that's the end of this Religion for me. 😢
How did Megan begin working with Bart?
A former student?
Where he is...
Interesting that humanities curriculums do not offer courses solely in critical thinking.🧐
We don't have fee will: prof.Spolonsky of Stanford.
.Prof.Dr.Nasir Fazal Cambridge.
Neither do we have free will nor do we not have free will. The whole concept of having free will is completely muddled and kinda nonsensical. As is the opposite view. Why? Because all attempts to explicate what one means by "having free will" or "no such thing exists" become either circular or contradictory or both.
Whats interesting is that the Bible except Acts and Revelation first was written in the Codex Gigas the Devils Bible
Of themselves, numbers would render erratic any service from a god.
What if God did not & could not create this world? Would this world be the opposite of Heaven & Spirit = HELL. If Jesus overcame physical death of the body why could He not continue teaching us how he did it by forgiving both our brother & ourselves. Why do we
clink to a bible with so many flaws that has so many oppositional teachings from people
who spent a fairly brief time with Jesus. Most of them did not have enough education to
truly understand what He was teaching them on both psychological & spiritual levels.
Why are we not willing to ask why Jesus has not returned to continue His teaching us. I
think He has and what He is teaching is truly amazing! The teachings were dictated to a
Profession of Psychology at Columbia University in the mid 1960 & 70s. This process took 7 yrs in which involved two other PHDs. This produced A Course in Miracles printed in 1974. Again In the late 1980s two ascended masters appeared to a young man to expand & explain the concepts of CIM for more than 7yrs. This produced the book DISAPPEARANCE OF THE UNIVERSE. I have studied & applied it's teachings on FORGIVENESS for 45 yrs.
These teachings are not for everyone but are invaluable to those would seek to understand
the insanity that motivates us and how to heal our mind and return to God.
I think the older I get the more I love Christmas.
The fine-tuning argument for intelligent design, a favorite among creationists, is a classic example of telling God what he can do. This argument puts severe limitations on how God could have done his job; there was only one way that the universe could have been created to allow for life, and God was smart enough to figure it out.
Whilst simultaneously asserting same god is all powerful and created the laws by which all this stuff he created is governed....
But wasn't God free to create those laws however he chose?@@roscius6204
The problem of suffering is not a problem at all and I am surprised always when people say they lost faith because of it. The problem of free will is unsolvable tho.
So why don't you explain your point? Why would an omnipotent, omniscient, beneficent god create a reality that includes suffering?
God is always limited by whatever beliefs human's have about it, or them, or him, or she.
36:30 i'd say than more than a lack of analytical habilities it's a lack of analytical interest, the just don't care
I stopped talking to imaginary friends when I was a kid.
Some thing I don’t think it went ever talks about is the fact that, instead of having the word of God innately in your mind, when you’re born, you have to go buy a copy of the word of God. This right there shows that this is not real this is all my.
"Blessed is the one who acknowledges our Creator and Her wonders, and who confesses that She is not to be questioned about what She does."
Mirzah Husayn Ali'
😂 a man with a biased from over a hundred year's ago without modern knowledge 😂
Nothing on earth was created, all life is emergent and evolved.
Do not question the creator that we have no idea exists. Just treat it as any other thing we do not know to exist. Because we do not question why leprechauns hide the gold at the end of a rainbow or why vampires can not stand the sun light.
Yes…that functions perfectly.
‘I am blessed by God because by God I just know it’ ….right?
This functions to assert the authority of dozens of supernatural belief systems.
Indoctrination works.
A real God is not prevented from revealing that earth is a sphere that revolves around the sun and that life evolved over millions of years.
We are truly the stuff of stars.
But …depending on one’s theology… the true wonders of ‘creation’ can be rejected based only on the authority of ancient narratives.
Such denial of reality is blessed according to words a human carves onto paper.
Biblio- idolatry trumps scientific inquiry.
Of course. But then there are those strange images of a crucified corpse on that bloody linen cloth that shouldn't be there (but anyone can see them. . . )@@jameswright...
Speak for yourself, sir, because I have an idea. . . . .. . . . @@robertjimenez5984
As a former retail worker, I just have to say...Xmas music is the devil. Not that I believe in the devil, but if there is one, he has a Xmas music theme song.