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crotch
climber
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May 23, 2005 - 08:39pm PT
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Karl,
I don't know if this is up to date, but last I heard, scholars had identified a number of writing styles in the bible via linguistic analysis and believe that each one can be attributed to a separate "redactor". It's probably been 10 years since I've visited this topic....
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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May 23, 2005 - 09:08pm PT
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Just noticed this one: "...you can't separate the creator from the creation. It's not like there's "God," then there's reality. Everything is intertwined. That's my take on it anyhow."
Are you saying that God is evil? By the statement that reality and creation are the same thing I can conclude that God is evil. Evil exists and is part of reality. Since evil is reality then it is a created thing and also intertwined with God. Hence God is interwined with evil, or rather he is evil.
This 'you can't separate the creator from the creation' idea ulimately leads to Panthology. This is very different than what the theology of creation implies.
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Ouch!
climber
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May 23, 2005 - 09:18pm PT
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What is evil? A subjective opinion of the opposite of good? For evil to exist as something other than bad deeds by flawed humans, seems to require belief in the boogerman.
I'll have to consult my Ouija board about that one.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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May 23, 2005 - 09:20pm PT
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Yes, there is an amazing detective story behind Biblical scholarship regarding the sources and authorship of Biblical Books. I recommend the book "Who wrote the Bible?' by Richard Friedman. (Simon and Schuster-Summit Books)
The analysis goes beyond writing style and includes word usage, theology, politics, and the stories that are often repeated several times with significant variations.
It's a complicated story but suffice to say that battles over the power of the priesthood (particularly who was entitled to be a priest) were exacerbated after the split of the Kingdom into Israel and Juda after Soloman died figure prominently. Both kingdoms developed their own version of the scriptural stories and when they were reunited, they had to combine their versions into a unified work.
Just like you could figure out what came from where if somebody combined the Roper guide, the Supertopo guide and an early Reid guide, you can see where the different strains of Bible sources come from as they differ much more than the books in my example. Unfortunately, political power and religious power have influenced the development and spread of scriptures from most religions.
That doesn't mean you can't suck some wisdom out if you "have ears to hear."
Peace
karl
Since God created all, the buck stops with God, and that includes Evil. If I could have built a strong anchor but make a sketchy one and gave it free will to fail, who'se fault woud that be? Still notions of responsibilty for creation are centered on our limited human view. I wouldn't "Blame" God though since we don't understand the point of creation to begin with.
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Brutus of Wyde
climber
Old Climbers' Home, Oakland CA
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May 23, 2005 - 09:25pm PT
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"It's a complicated story but suffice to say that battles over the power of the priesthood (particularly who was entitled to be a priest) were exacerbated after the split of the Kingdom into Israel and Juda after Soloman died figure prominently. Both kingdoms developed their own version of the scriptural stories and when they were reunited, they had to combine their versions into a unified work."
No wonder I'm forever getting off-route... err... putting up first ascents...
Brutus
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Blight
Social climber
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May 24, 2005 - 05:41am PT
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"Hence God is interwined with evil, or rather he is evil."
Close but not quite.
If you accept the biblical proposition of God (and if you don't then th erest of this is redundant) then you accept that he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.
Omnipotent means all-powerful; God can do anything. That doesn't just mean he can do intersting things like being in all places and all times simultaneously and seeing everything at the same time, it means that he can do totally counterintuitive things like being perfectly good but creating evil, being part of and not part of the universe and anything else no matter how difficult to understand.
That God clearly doesn't fall within the narrow set of cirumstances that the arbitrary set of rules we made up and called "logic" can explain is certainly inconvenient. But to argue that he doesn't or can't exist because we don't understand and can't explain him is patently absurd and childish.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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May 24, 2005 - 10:53am PT
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There's a flaw in your argument. Agreed the God of Israel is omnipotent according to the scriptures, but just because he can do anything doesn’t mean he will do everything.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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May 24, 2005 - 03:06pm PT
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Jay wrote: "This 'you can't separate the creator from the creation' idea ulimately leads to Panthology. This is very different than what the theology of creation implies."
Nope. The word is Panenthism, al a Whiehead, Bergson, and the others involved in "preocess theology."
I noticed that you mentioned the "God of Israel," so I assume you are qualifying God with terms and constructs particular to your creed. Of course God cannot be contained in this way--of that we may be sure.
JL
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Ouch!
climber
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May 24, 2005 - 03:29pm PT
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The God of Israel is pretty much of a fixed entity. Has been fairly inflexible and steadfast in his notions for a long time. He was probably the first god who was not made of stone in some Greek temple or primitive cave. He was constructed so as to be highly mobile. Until recently, he mostly visited his plagues and
extinctions on his own people. Now he seems to be a bit distracted by Hezbollah and other people of the sandy regions.
The Fundy god is malleable and subject to the political whims of whatever election happens to be at hand. He hasn't the patience for evolution. He forgives any transgression by any rightwing politician or jackleg preacher. All in the middle or to the left of Attilla the Hun are condemned to the fiery pit of minimum wages.
Judging from the mutants emerging from the rightwing, evolution is alive and unwell.
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Claude
climber
where I'll end up
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May 24, 2005 - 03:32pm PT
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Largo~
How can the potter be part of the clay formation that was created by the potter?
Humbly asked,
claude
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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May 24, 2005 - 03:55pm PT
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Largo~
How can the potter be part of the clay formation that was created by the potter?
Humbly asked,
claude
Mind you, my comments are only my take on this all, nothing more. It is, however, my direct experience, for whatever that's worth.
Anyhooo, you're still thinking of God in terms of an entity or some thing separate from reality as we live it, much as a potter is separate from the clay. This is the model that sees God as one thing, living, perhaps, in a castle in the sky--who exerts influence onto other things--read, us. I'm sugesting that God includes the whole shebang, and excludes nothing, including evil, sex, hang doggers, nuns and saints.
It's our rational minds, specifically lour left brains, that divides reality into things.
Push this any further and we'll be into the timeless discussion of the one and the many, a debate that spans the centuries.
JL
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Claude
climber
where I'll end up
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May 24, 2005 - 04:45pm PT
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I still don't feel you are answering the question. I hear this all the time, and i am straining to understand it. I feel like i am in touch with the breaking free from black and white thinking and allowing for greyness to creep in. I am trying to shed all "pre-understandings", but i am unable to find a solid basis for this thought that you suggest. the mere existence of created matter, implies that there was once uncreated matter. what pulled it all together to become what it is today? you are suggesting that the created matter itself pulled itself together to create itself. How can that be brother?
would you say then that at a garbage dump, eventually an airplane may arise out of the garbage?
help me.
claude
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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May 24, 2005 - 04:52pm PT
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A look in any town's yellow pages under "Churches", even a town as small as Hood River, Oregon shows that god has done pretty lousy PR job relative to anyone understanding what it was he has said or what his intentions are. Even within a particular sect or cult, say Baptists, the "word" of god and the interpretation of the bible is so badly fragmented as to be completely laughable. That coherent interpretations of religious texts can't be maintained over the course of a generation let alone endless generations makes it pretty unlikely that the original thought and intent behind any given religion has survived the butchering of a litany of agendas on its way to paper let alone over the ages on its way down to us.
From the bible, to the qur’an, to the vedas, to the book of mormon, to the works of L. Ron Hubbard there is nothing that distinquishes a single one of these egocentric, self-referential, human fantasies from the other beyond their use to segregate people and imbue power. As far as I'm concerned none have legitimacy rooted in fact of any kind, but exist today as an unbelievably direct and unconfronted [group] emotional tie to primitive fears. I see no difference whatsoever between a Sunday Catholic mass and ritual sacrifice in a village in Borneo - both as primitive and rooted in ignorance and fear as human behavior gets.
When it comes down to a choice between the fantasy and the dogma of make believe answers of religion or an incomplete science which doesn't claim to know more than a fraction of the answers to our existence - I'll take the latter everytime. It's hard to conceive of a more twisted and comical history than the evolution of religion, or one more inextricably tied to our enduring legacy of war and genocide...
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Claude
climber
where I'll end up
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May 24, 2005 - 05:18pm PT
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Thanks Dingus. I understand what you are saying, for i's heard it before.
"Otherwise there has to have been a before. And before implies after. Omnipotent beings don't really cotton to before and after. Why should the universe?"
It is true, but omnipoptent beings can create a universe with a beginning and an end. That is my point though, how can an omnipotent being become part of its powerless creation?
And also, will the lives that life will create (cloning, stem cell, etc.) ever be the same? Ever be as good, as superior, as perfect as the original? My prediction is in no way will they be. we will see serious repercussions.
I just don't want us to get caught up in cool sounding ideologies and self serving philosophies that sound rad over the ever burning campfire, but the next morning sound like complete hogwash. i want us to truly strain for the truth. of course, much of the time i would rather be outside thinking about nothing, but this thread caught me. I appreciate your words brother.
claude
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Ouch!
climber
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May 24, 2005 - 05:25pm PT
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Healyje may possess the vision to look through the trees and see the possum in the forest beyond.
How many of us profess to believe only as a hedge against
the possibility. Is this not the epitome of hypocracy. Reseeding in each generation through indoctrination of children.
Then what if we are spiritual beings of some energy, temporarily
inhabiting matter, like hermet crabs, only to move on when the matter becomes unfit for occupation. Too bad we have to die to have a clue.
Before there was anything, there was something else. What, we can never know, for we are limited by knowing through our human perspective and we are the sum total of our short life experiences in our limited environment.
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Jay
Trad climber
Fort Mill, SC
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May 24, 2005 - 05:30pm PT
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Largo –
No, I didn’t refer to Panenthism I meant Pantheism (which are related I think). I probably made up that word panthology. A definition for pantheism is: "God is everything and everything is God ... the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (Owen 1971: 74). Which is a virtual rewording what you said, no? Theism is the belief in a god or gods especially with regard to them having distinct personalities or being personal. Pantheism regards no such distinctions that theologies have attributed to God. And the Bible paints a picture of a most personal God. He obviously relates to individuals in a personal way. So Pantheism in a way is the opposite of Theism. I suppose it could be a theology given a broad enough definition of the terms but I’ve explained what I meant well enough.
By saying the God of Israel I’m making very clear that I’m speaking of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob’s name was changed to Israel. It’s his God I speak of. There’s no question I’m referring to the God so detailed in the Bible.
Paraphrasing you said “God cannot be contained in the constructs particular to a creed –of that we may be sure.” Why are you so sure? Have you seen proof of that? Are you saying the Bible is wrong or inadequate in it’s depiction of God? That’s pretty bold. No one can argue successfully either way without a strong enough premise, and who has that kind of premise but God?
I will concede you this though, even the most Bible adherent people admit that they are progressing toward godliness (or getting to know him better) and will never truly know him completely. So in a way your statement has some truth to it if you twist it a little and maybe that’s what you meant. The Bible states that the revelations of God will never end. The picture it paints is that God will continue to be infinitely beyond our understanding and he will manifest himself in increasingly more glorious ways at every stage of our growth. This goes on for eternity. Wow! Pipe dream? Maybe. Not my decision to say it is so, but that is what the Bible says.
Back to my question… You answered it with your response to Claude. I wasn’t sure if you believed that or not but I guess you do. BTW, I sort-of believed that too for a while.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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May 24, 2005 - 05:37pm PT
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"Healyje may possess the vision to look through the trees and see the possum in the forest beyond."
Man, I don't know about that, but I have no problem with a finite existence borne of a statistical [im]probability...
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Ouch!
climber
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May 24, 2005 - 06:30pm PT
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Some of this stuff is mind blowing. Like Mormons baptizing long dead Jews and Catholics. I read where they were accused of ripping off souls.
Some, downright hilarious. I worked with an old rake who got
visited by the young men on bicycles. Like a reformed smoker or drinker, he became a bit fanatical in his new faith. His bishop told him he must visit and ask forgiveness from those he had done wrong. He started visiting women with whom he had dallied and some of their husbands took a dim view of his testimony. After a few near death experiences, he chose to forego forgiveness for transgressions of the flesh and focus on more mundane petty sins. A most practical epiphany. Curiously, he became enchanted with firearms and always went about heavily armed.
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Brutus of Wyde
climber
Old Climbers' Home, Oakland CA
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May 24, 2005 - 08:12pm PT
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"how can an omnipotent being become part of its powerless creation?"
1. If the being is omnipotent, then by its very nature it has the power to both have the power and not have the power to both become part of its powerless creation, and to not do so at the same time. Or not. No? Yes?
2. Why do you assume its creation is powerless?
Blessed are they who expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed.
“Then what if we are spiritual beings of some energy, temporarily inhabiting matter, like hermet crabs, only to move on when the matter becomes unfit for occupation. Too bad we have to die to have a clue.”
Energy and matter are two faces of the same thing, so the less energy you put into it the less it matters.
"Not everything that counts can be counted. And not everything that can be counted counts." -- Either Albert Einstein, or "the Count" from Sesame Stree (depending upon who you ask)
We have all the clues we will ever need. Like Mandelbrot, nature is not a linear mathematician.
Remember the book by Carl Sagan, “Contact” wherein the astrophysicists became obsessed with the search for the signature of God, a perfect circle of ones and zeros buried deep within pi as expressed in base eleven arithmetic?
We have all the glues we will ever knead – remember playing in the horse hoof paste in the first grade? eating the paste, tasting Mr. Ed's toenails?
Or when we realized we were getting old, when we were first grayed?
The Chaos of non-linear mathematics expresses itself, God’s signature, in every aspect of her creation.
Chaos reigns.
Choss rains.
All hail Discordia.
Golden apple of Discordia, Illuminati, eye in the pyramid, i.e. in the pyramId, pyr am id, self-burning Lutheristic pre-theses self-punishment, seeking redemption, is there any Mir in the mirror, on the wall we crawl, we fall, grasping at the fairest wheel of them all, The Ferris Wheel, the world is a wheel, we wheel and deal but in the end we’re all fish in the creel, as we gasp our last breath still longing for the Lost World of Atlantis, the unfound door, the distant and magical mountains of our childhood, looking homeward Angel as the fish, the angelfish we are, angled for, snap up the worm never seeing the glint of the long-sought brass ring, the golden hook buried within, becoming at the moment of our feasting the feast, the food for the worm, the full belly of the snake, dreams of reptillian pleasure in the belly of the persona of evil, looking out of lidless eyes, tasting the air with our forked tongue
welcome to the food chain. We taste just like chicken, a snake eating its own tail, the perfect circle.
The world is a wheel. My tire’s flat, flat on my back and tired, and I’m missing spokes. I mis-spoke. I must have Miss Polk.
No wonder I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.
"you run and you run to catch up to the sun but it's sinking
racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
shorter of breath, one day closer to death." -- Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
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