Hey guys
I took a break from research for a while. Read some fiction, watched cringe reality tv, drew a fair bit. Medication is steady, I'm getting fresh air. Things are getting better.
So I was thinking about what I might want to read next when I want a new book for research and I'm interested in learning more about the evolution of monotheism, how canaanite gods became the Jewish god, polytheism becoming monotheism, etc, and I realized something. See, my first thought when it comes to this topic is, "well This is all just guess work, we can't prove how the Jewish religion came around, and what is archeologists and historians are just trying to uphold their own agenda?"
In other words, I'm very critical and skeptical about this branch of history and research, yet as you know I lack skepticism in regards to Catholic stories and books about apparitions and miracles. I can look at these scholars and historians with a critical eye but when I hear an apparition story I say ,"well it seems impossible for this to be a hoax, how could a bunch of kids fool their community? Surely none of this is exaggerated and all the eye witnesses are 200% accurate "
And I feel like being able to see the gap here is at least a step in the right direction, because I know I have it messed up. Of course history and related fields are all just doing their best with limited resources, but they're educated resources open to bring corrected when new evidence comes out.
I'm guessing this is just my indoctrination coming through, being taught my whole life that the church has all the answers and all the evidence
So that's where I am, and I'm interested if anyone can reccomend resources about what we do know about the evolution of monotheism, Judaism, etc. Is "the history of god" any good?
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@ Mikhael
The best source for that material is on the web at Tel Aviv University Department of Archeology. You will have to subscribe but they have papers on excavations and early Semitic wanderings including origins of the Hebrews.
Fascinating. I have read a lot of the "biblical stff" not so much the pre Egyptian stuff. But all is fascinating.
@Mikhael .....
I've been watching your progress for a while now ..... and as far as I can see .... you're doing alright...
dont forget you're fighting a life time of indoctrination from an organisation thats had 2000 years of
practice.
as to sharpening your sceptisism try this ..... this is the first verse of a poem by Rudyard Kipling ,
(currently unpopular ) written for his young daughter ...
Rudyard Kipling
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
When considering any point that concerns you use your "serving men" ,
in order .... ask
WHAT is being proposed?
WHY is it being proposed?
WHEN was it first proposed?
HOW was it proposed?
WHERE was it proposed ?
WHO proposed it ?
If you can get answers to most of them then you will be on your way to
asertaining the truth or otherwise of any proposition.
As to reading matter... I'd go with Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations".
Remember his quote from 'Silence of the Lambs'.
"Of each particular thing ask : what is it in itself ?, what is its nature ?"
or "The Ark Before Noah:" by Irving Finkel
The first half of the book is a little heavy going .... Finkel works in the British
Museum translating the libraries of Babylonian cuniform tablets. But he goes on to
demonstrate where & when the Hebrews got so many of the ideas they later used to
rebuild their shattered religion.
hope this helps.
I really like the poetic analogy there, expect starting with what is being proposed and why. There's a big difference between claims proposed in pursuit of knowledge and claims proposed to convince people to join or stay in a religion.
Mikhael, I am happy and relieved you are keeping your head above the water and improving. We have your back, and it will get better, good buddy.
I have a suggestion, ask yourself, why is there religion, and what starts it?
IMO it begins with uncertainty and wanting to know answers, with bullshit answers (Thor makes lightning), leading to someone self-appointing himself as the shaman and gaining power. From then on, it became the ruling class working hand in hand with the clergy to keep the peasants in line.
@gnomie,
You are absolutely right, and if there is anything made easier but being raised Catholic is that I was raised in one of the most powerful and corrupt institutions to ever exist. What Joy called miraculous I can only call dosgusting. Not even with my indoctrination can I say the church has persevered thanks to divine intervention; I know that being the branch in favor with Rome at the time of Constantine is why the RCC sueviced where "heresies" died. I know that the early church is litered with forgeries. I know how fake relics and miracles were tossed around like Tootsie rolls at a parade (levitating priests? Give me a fucking break).
And so knowing that is making it easier to not have to obsess over and answer every what if in my brain. Guadalupe not counting, Marian apparitions only became a marketable phenomena after the rise of atheism in the 18th century, when they were losing power. Hoaxing children or pious nuns, gullible villages, they draw crowds, crowds bring tourism and converts. I don't think it's far of a leap to imagine that more than once there has been a passing of threats or money or power to build up and propogate a good story. The church has everything to lose and everything to gain.
Too bad a sun miracle can't save them from their modern downfall
About a week ago, I remembered another story I was raised with, from the 30s, a supposedly instant healing, one with a name, with a doxtor and a crowd, a wound closing before their eyes.
And I didn't even care. I didn't try to debunk it or search it. Because wounds don't close before people's eyes, it's bullshit, that's not how the real world works
@Mikhael - you ended with .”... I didn't try to debunk it or search it. Because wounds don't close before people's eyes, it's bullshit,...”
Keep the real world as your measurement tool.
I’m soooo happy to read that you’ve balanced out (health wise).
Interesting .....
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Yup, that about sums it up, gnomie. I use to say that if course God doesn't want his miracles documented because then he will be too visible and he wants us to go to him on faith but that doesn't make any sense the more I think about it.
Like why are miracles so ambiguous? Why can they be held up to interpriation? There are examples like on Belgium in the 30s, when a committee declared a series of visions to be not superbatueal, but another committee overruled then later after public support grew. Why should these events be so up in the air as to be left to a fallible committee?
Seems fishy
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to get a list of logical fallacies and then sit down in the evening and watch a News broadcast. It's utterly insane the amout of bullshit that is passed off as news. Learn to detect facts from bullshit and you will do yourself wonders.
Heck, you can warm up just by listening to ads. They are good for learning what words mean what, and how they are applied.
David Killens Excellent idea as well and frankly more blatant. I recall doing that in high school. Subliminal advertising, what the adds are actually saying and all that.... Great stuff.
Mac Donald's hamburgers are made with 100% pure beef. (One of my favorites.) Now how much beef is in a Mac Donald's hamburger? 10%! Yep. They are MADE with 100% pure beef and 90% unknown fillers. Ads are a great way to wake up to fallacies of logic, reason, and lying with statistics.
Crest Toothpaste fights cavities? Wouldn't that also be true if you brushed your teeth with water? Wouldn't it be true if you just gargled after eating with sand?
Ads are great!
And I am sure lawyers and law students have a field day picking apart the ads.
Just last night the wife and I watched a weight loss ad, and sure enough, at the very end, they just slipped in quietly "and with diet and exercise "................and we both turned to each other and said "but that is what loses weight, diet and exercise."
A real ad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt0t82dmT2M
Analyzed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbfgFyfHSMU
@David: Great video. I'm off to find more... Loved it.
I saw an ad for soap the other day that claimed it contains "no chemicals".
A couple years ago I saw an "organic" frying pan in the store, made out of metal.
@Narlathotep: I just like it when I see "Organic Foods" advertised. "NO SHIT SHERLOCK!" Another favorite "ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS."
Here is one for you. Would anyone out there eat anything with this list of chemicals in it?
Water
Glucose
Fructose
Maltose
Starch
Glutamic Acid
Aspartic Acid
Histidine
Leucine
Lysine
Arginne
Valine
Alannine
Serine
Glycine
Threonine
Isoleucine
Proline
Tryptophan
Cystine
Tyrosine
Methionine
Palmitic Acid
Omega 6 Fatty Acid
Linoleic Acid
Omega 3 Fatty Acid
Oleic Acid
Palmitoleic Acid
Steric Acid
Capric Acid
ASHE515
Phytosterols
Oxalic Acid
E300 E306
Phylloqunon
Thiamin
Riboflavin
3 - Methylbut-1-yl Ethanote
Methylbutyl Ethanote
Methylpropan
Pentyl Acitate
Well, if you say "No" You are not coming to my house for dinner. Bananas are on the menu tonight.
And the Banana, as we all know, is not NATURALLY OCCURRING. It is a man made Frankenstein Fruit. YUM! :-)
@cognostic
With the most popular brands of this frankenstein fruit going mostly extinct as blight/disease kills them off.
The bananas the world ate 30 years ago are not the same bananas that we eat today. The (arguably) better bananas back then have already gone mostly extinct and are not suitable for mass production.
@LogicFTW
"The (arguably) better bananas back then have already gone mostly extinct and are not suitable for mass production."
I think virtually every kind of food we buy, eat or grow from seed has been genetically modified in some way. This has been to improve the product, and /or with GM stuff to take a patent on the seeds, or produce seeds which in turn produce a sterile crop.
There is a massive world seed bank/storage in Norway. It has seeds of many thousands of plants, including otherwise extinct plants.
I wonder about bananas . The bananas we eat most (Cavendish variety) do not produce seed, reproducing from rhizomes. Wild bananas do produce seeds but produce a smaller almost inedible fruit .
Whilst in the army, in Malaysia, I did a jungle survival course. I was amazed to discover how many edible plants there were. BUT that the fruit ended to be much smaller and not as palatable. Two were fine; a wild pineapple and wild sugar cane. I have no idea how those two plants migrated to the Malaysian jungle, in any specific sense . (who and when )
(((((((((((((((((((((((9))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Svalbard Global Seed Vault (supported by Bill Gates)
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault (Norwegian: Svalbard globale frøhvelv) is a secure seed bank on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago.[5] Conservationist Cary Fowler, in association with the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR),[6] started the vault to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds that are duplicate samples, or "spare"
copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault is an attempt to ensure against the loss of seeds in other genebanks during large-scale regional or global crises. The seed vault is managed under terms spelled out in a tripartite agreement among the Norwegian government, the Crop Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen).[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
The vault flooded in 2017 due to melting permafrost. No seeds were destroyed.
A great book on general skepticism, is a bit old, but it holds up extremely well.
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan. It is basically a tool box for turning one into a BS detector.
Another book that is getting great praise, is: The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake, by Dr. Steven Novella. It is being called the logical successor to The Demon-Haunted World.
One of the best single quotes I've even read that pretty much encapsulates skepticism, is by Philosopher Dave Hume -
"A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence”…and should “always reject the greater miracle.”
RE: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, by Carl Sagan.
The audio version is online on YouTube. There is no reason at all for someone not to have read / listened to this book.
100 Agrees!!!