- The national revelation at Sinai probably never happened
The traditional “proof” of Judaism is that there were 600,000 witnesses to the revelation at Sinai with God himself speaking to the entire Jewish nation. Standard apologetics around this idea include:
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No other group has or can ever lay claim to a national revelation.
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Such a large group of people cannot possibly have all been simultaneously deceived or have all suffered from the effects of a mass hallucination/delusion.
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Such a large group of people cannot possibly have cooperate to tell a lie.
The first of these argument, that no other group has ever laid claim to a national revelation is readily dismissed as erroneous. Roman and Greek mythology has an abundance of stories about various gods revealing themselves to armies, cities, or nations. The Aztecs also have a similar national revelation story (which is, coincidentally, a migration story much like that of the Hebrews) in which the entire Aztec nation heard Huitzilopochtli’s thunderous voice1. So the first of these arguments can easily be dismissed as erroneous.
The second argument is that such a large group of people could not possibly have all been tricked into believing that they heard God speaking to them or that they could not have all suffered from a mass hallucination/delusion. This argument again is easily dismissed. There are multiple recorded instances of large groups of people suffering from shared hallucinations. Most of these are actually cases of pareidolia, which is a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples of pareidolia include:
• People believing that they can see images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, or the word Allah in a potato, on piece of toast, or reflected in the scales of a fish.
• Electronic voice phenomenon (EVP).
• Backmasking in music.
Singular cases of pareidolia can readily trigger mass hysteria or mass hallucinations, as in the case of the Sinai “revelation”. All it takes is for one person to claim to have heard an intelligent voice in an otherwise unintelligible sound before everyone begins to claim to be able to hear an intelligent voice. Few of us would have seen a sphinx on Mars were it not for the UFO theorists telling us that a natural rock formation was a sphinx2.
Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University also suggests that the Israelites who supposedly witnessed this bogus “revelation” might simply have been high on hallucinogenic drugs at the time. Shanon notes that two plants native to the Sinai desert contain the same psychoactive molecules as those found in plants from which the powerful Amazonian hallucinogenic brew ayahuasca is prepared3.
On the balance of probability, which is more likely: that God literally spoke to all the Israelites, or that they were all just hallucinating on some of the local weed? Common sense demands that we dismiss the second Jewish apologetic as nonsense.
The third argument, that such a large group cannot possibly have cooperated on a lie is even more interesting, because I will contend that no large group cooperated on a lie; it was a lie told to them by a much smaller group centuries or generations after the supposed event.
Most schools of Judaism firmly believe that the Torah was written by Moses, dictated atop Mt. Sinai by God, in much the same way that Muslims believe that the Quran was dictated by God to Mohammad. This idea has traditionally been accepted without question and it is heresy to even question this narrative, perhaps because it reinforces the belief in a national or mass revelation. But the truth is that the Torah cannot have been written by Moses, or any other singular person. Even the most basic analysis of the Pentateuch will show that it was shoddily written by numerous authors. The Pentateuch is highly inconsistent, showing drastic differences in style, language, and numerous contradictions in the texts. I’ll go into greater detail about these inconsistencies and amateurish writing in a later debate. But for now, let’s look at some of the inconsistencies that reveal multiple authors, starting with the name of God.
Most of you will know that God is explicitly named in Genesis 2:4 as Yahweh. Yahweh is described as very human-like, even being able to hold conversations with Adam. Yahweh’s earlier incarnation in the Pentateuch, as Elohim, is strikingly different. Elohim is completely removed from the universe as we know it, showing no connection with nor need for mankind. Clearly, these characters are the work of different authors. Had Moses really been the source of the Torah, and it had been dictated by God, these inconsistencies should not exist. So clearly, the Torah is a later work of fiction.
Into this developing narrative, the authors inject a story about a national revelation. This story is controlled by a priestly class whose power to control the narrative is unquestionable. They related this revelation story to the Jewish people, telling them that their ancestors were witnesses to this miraculous event of God speaking to all of them from atop Mt. Sinai. It’s a lie, but it’s a lie that feeds their egos. And if you think that’s impossible, consider what happened in relatively recent history with the German people’s belief in their status as the master race. Much like having a priestly caste of rabbis telling the Jewish people that they alone had been chosen by God, that their ancestors alone had witnessed and heard God’s voice, it was a “priestly” caste within the Gestapo charged with disseminating the lie of Aryan or German racial superiority.
So I argue that the Jewish people did not cooperate in a lie about national revelation. Instead, the Jewish people were lied to about a national revelation. There is absolutely no evidence at all for the revelation at Sinai. The Israelites were simply lied to, and their unwillingness to question this lie is the supposed evidence for the lie being true. This is perhaps the mother lode of irrational behavior.
In conclusion, having addressed the major apologetic defenses of Judaism and having shown each of these apologetics to be weak, we must concede that the founding event upon which religious Judaism is based, the national revelation at Sinai, has no basis in fact and cannot be logically supported.
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If 600,000 people witnessed god giving them food from the sky, speaking to them, giving them orders, etc. — not to mention the plagues brought against Egypt before they left — and still began to worship a golden calf, then they were quite possibly the stupidest human beings of all time. Well, either them or Jesus’ disciples, who were told he was the son of god and still questioned “who is this man who can do these things” every time he performed one of his many miracles.
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christian1 year ago
I’ll try to contribute to the discussion by addressing your conclusion.
The Christian does not need a reasoned historical account to be warranted in accepting the reliability of biblical accounts. If one is warranted in accepting a belief through faith, then it doesn’t need to be validated through other beliefs. Since we are warranted in our beliefs free of any need for historical information, I’m not troubled by problems or objections raised by historical criticism.
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Atheist1 year ago
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why have you concluded that it’s legit to accept a belief through faith? Can you accept any and all claims on faith?
I think that would be a poor path to truth. -
there are certainly at least SOME historical “facts” that you – I believe – would require to be true. Ex: Jesus being crucified and resurrected. No?
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agnostic atheist1 year ago
If one is warranted in accepting a belief through faith
No one is warranted to believe anything through faith alone. Doing so is epistemically irresponsible, as it is literally impossible to distinguish between any two beliefs on the basis of faith.
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If one is warranted in accepting a belief through faith, then it doesn’t need to be validated through other beliefs.
That is a big if. I can point out examples where faith leads to false conclusions, so one is not warranted in accepting a belief through faith
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You are free to believe what you want that is true. How is this anyway relevant to the discussion apart from saying that I don’t care about whether my beliefs are true or not .
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[deleted]
1 year ago·edited 1 year ago
Your first argument is that the claim of God revealing himself is erroneous because in Greek mythology for example, they revealed themselves as well. I’m not aware of any examples if you would like to source some examples but I don’t think you understand the claim of Judaism. The claim isn’t that the god in question revealed him or her self. The claim is that the entire nation, at least 600,000 men not 600,000 people, was present at Mt Sinai when God revealed himself and every man, woman, and child physically heard the voice of God, not through a mediator, like the Aztec nation.
Your second argument is very unlikely: 600,000 men being drugged out while in the wilderness. Traditionally, it’s said 3,000,000 people were there and I doubt all 3,000,000 people could be drugged out by weed or some other hallucinogen.
There’re many problems with your third argument. In Judaism at least, it’s not heresy to question the revelation at Mt Sinai. Judaism allows and accepts questions because it could help with the understanding of the text such as “apparent contradictions.” It is heresy to deny the revelation at Mt Sinai because Judaism is founded on the revelation with God at Mt Sinai or then there would be no reason for the nation of Israel to follow the Torah of Moshe.
First off, the name isn’t Yahweh. I hate seeing that name used by non Jews because they are blindly following scholarship with the assumption the Jews don’t know God’s name. Anyway, the original Hebrew text doesn’t have chapters or verses. These insertions lead its way into the Tanach in the 12th century. So even if “YHVH” is seen with human like qualities, that’s throughout the Tanach and by the context of Genesis, it’s no question it’s the same god, not a sense of any other god present. Even in Genesis 2, YHVH God is seen creating animals from the dust of the earth. How is that a human like quality? Also, God spoke with a lot of people throughout the Tanach. Is every time God spoke with someone one god and another god if he doesn’t interact?
You also don’t seem to know what being chosen by God means. The Jewish people aren’t some master race as the Germans claimed and used that to eradicate other peoples. The Jewish people were chosen because of God’s promise to Avraham, not because they were better or great in number. In fact, the Jewish people have been around as long as the Chinese and Indians but don’t have a population of a billion as you would expect. The Jewish people were just given the task to keep the Torah of God and to serve the nations with the light given by God. Also, not only the Jews were spoken to by God. Other peoples in the Tanach spoke to God like the Pharaoh of Egypt in both Genesis and Exodus.
Edit: I would like to know what you could come up with for Genesis 6. I could easily see the argument from someone that it was written by a different author but it says YHVH was the one who created mankind. Is the text in error because you believe “Elohim” created mankind?
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It most certainly did not.
…an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives [shows] that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE context.”
On the basis of that evidence Finkelstein and Silberman propose
an archaeological reconstruction of the distinct histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, highlighting the largely neglected history of the Omride Dynasty and attempting to show how the influence of Assyrian imperialism in the region set in motion a chain of events that would eventually make the poorer, more remote, and more religiously conservative kingdom of Judah the belated center of the cultic and national hopes of all Israel.
In 1999 Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog wrote a cover story for Haaretz that reached similar conclusions. When asked about Finkelstein and Silberman’s book The Bible Unearthed, he said that some of these findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for years and even decades, even though they had only recently begun to make a dent in the awareness of the general public.
In the early 70’s, William Dever was a Christian seminary student. He wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but “no one would do that today,” he says. Later in his career as a preeminent and notably conservative archaeologist said the question of the historicity of Exodus is “dead.”
Ze’ev Herzog:
”The Israelites never were in Egypt. They never came from abroad. This whole chain is broken. It is not a historical one. It is a later legendary reconstruction — made in the seventh century [BCE] — of a history that never happened.
The Book of Numbers gives a list of sites at which the Hebrews allegedly settled, in Sinai and its immediate surroundings, during the Exodus. Of these sites, a select few can be pinpointed relatively well by description and deduction. Two such sites are the Biblical Kadesh Barnea, modern Ein Qadis, and Ezion Geber, on the Israeli side of the border between Israel and Jordan, just outside Eilat. Both sites have been investigated archaeologically, and found to have been founded during the Ancient Near Eastern Late Iron Age — no earlier than 700/800 BCE, with the obvious exception of early neolithic/nomadic activity.
Exodus portrays Edom as a nation. The area wasn’t even inhabited. The place the Hebrews stop at wasn’t even built until 800 BCE, many centuries after the supposed Exodus and conquest.
The archaeological evidence of local Canaanite, rather than Egyptian, origins of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel is “overwhelming,” and leaves “no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40‐year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness.” The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult objects are of the Canaanite god El, the pottery is in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing Israelite villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones.
There is a lot more that clearly shows the narratives are not at all historical. Though there may be some bit of history behind them.
Faust, A., 2015, The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus:
It appears that while many individuals, families and groups were involved in the process of Israel’s ethnogenesis throughout the Iron Age, and that many of those who eventually became Israelites were of Canaanite origins, the first group was composed mainly of Shasu pastoralists. Other groups, probably including a small “Exodus” group which left Egypt, joined the process, and all were gradually assimilated into the growing Israel, accepting its history, practices and traditions, and contributing some of their own.
Now, we know from the Ugaritic texts that El was the chief deity of northern Canaan. Over time, one of his and Asherah’s 70 sons, Baal, became the dominant Canaanite deity. El became the executive power and Baal the military power in the cosmos. One variant of Deuteronomy 32:8–9 describes El dividing the nations of the world among his sons, with Yahweh receiving Israel. But Deuteronomy was written in the late 7th century BCE when Israel was the northern kingdom and Judah the southern kingdom. Deuteronomy was written with a theological agenda, to assert that the southern, Yahweh worshiping Canaanites were the true sons of El. The scholarly consensus is that Yahweh was originally a divine warrior from the southern region. The oldest plausible recorded occurrence of his name is in an Egyptian inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE),
The narrative crafted by the late 7th century BCE authors of Deuteronmoy and redactors of the other texts portrayed Israelites turning their back on “God” to worship of Baal and Asherah, almost immediately after God’s great display of power in freeing them from Egypt. That god of course was the one worshiped by the southern kingdom, namely Yahweh. And they retconned Yahweh and El to be the same, by editing Exodus: “I am Yahweh. And I showed to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El-Shaddai, and by my name, ‘Yahweh’, I did not make myself known to them.” Translation: I was totally that God all along, I just used a different name.” You might expect to see “And don’t go asking any questions, either” appended to it.
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It most certainly did not.
…an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives [shows] that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE context.”
On the basis of that evidence Finkelstein and Silberman propose
an archaeological reconstruction of the distinct histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, highlighting the largely neglected history of the Omride Dynasty and attempting to show how the influence of Assyrian imperialism in the region set in motion a chain of events that would eventually make the poorer, more remote, and more religiously conservative kingdom of Judah the belated center of the cultic and national hopes of all Israel.
In 1999 Israeli archaeologist Ze’ev Herzog wrote a cover story for Haaretz that reached similar conclusions. When asked about Finkelstein and Silberman’s book The Bible Unearthed, he said that some of these findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for years and even decades, even though they had only recently begun to make a dent in the awareness of the general public.
In the early 70’s, William Dever was a Christian seminary student. He wrote a paper defending the Exodus and got an A, but “no one would do that today,” he says. Later in his career as a preeminent and notably conservative archaeologist said the question of the historicity of Exodus is “dead.”
Ze’ev Herzog:
”The Israelites never were in Egypt. They never came from abroad. This whole chain is broken. It is not a historical one. It is a later legendary reconstruction — made in the seventh century [BCE] — of a history that never happened.
The Book of Numbers gives a list of sites at which the Hebrews allegedly settled, in Sinai and its immediate surroundings, during the Exodus. Of these sites, a select few can be pinpointed relatively well by description and deduction. Two such sites are the Biblical Kadesh Barnea, modern Ein Qadis, and Ezion Geber, on the Israeli side of the border between Israel and Jordan, just outside Eilat. Both sites have been investigated archaeologically, and found to have been founded during the Ancient Near Eastern Late Iron Age — no earlier than 700/800 BCE, with the obvious exception of early neolithic/nomadic activity.
Exodus portrays Edom as a nation. The area wasn’t even inhabited. The place the Hebrews stop at wasn’t even built until 800 BCE, many centuries after the supposed Exodus and conquest.
The archaeological evidence of local Canaanite, rather than Egyptian, origins of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel is “overwhelming,” and leaves “no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40‐year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness.” The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult objects are of the Canaanite god El, the pottery is in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet is early Canaanite. Almost the sole marker distinguishing Israelite villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones.
There is a lot more that clearly shows the narratives are not at all historical. Though there may be some bit of history behind them.
Faust, A., 2015, The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus:
It appears that while many individuals, families and groups were involved in the process of Israel’s ethnogenesis throughout the Iron Age, and that many of those who eventually became Israelites were of Canaanite origins, the first group was composed mainly of Shasu pastoralists. Other groups, probably including a small “Exodus” group which left Egypt, joined the process, and all were gradually assimilated into the growing Israel, accepting its history, practices and traditions, and contributing some of their own.
Now, we know from the Ugaritic texts that El was the chief deity of northern Canaan. Over time, one of his and Asherah’s 70 sons, Baal, became the dominant Canaanite deity. El became the executive power and Baal the military power in the cosmos. One variant of Deuteronomy 32:8–9 describes El dividing the nations of the world among his sons, with Yahweh receiving Israel. But Deuteronomy was written in the late 7th century BCE when Israel was the northern kingdom and Judah the southern kingdom. Deuteronomy was written with a theological agenda, to assert that the southern, Yahweh worshiping Canaanites were the true sons of El. The scholarly consensus is that Yahweh was originally a divine warrior from the southern region. The oldest plausible recorded occurrence of his name is in an Egyptian inscription from the time of Amenhotep III (1402–1363 BCE),
The narrative crafted by the late 7th century BCE authors of Deuteronmoy and redactors of the other texts portrayed Israelites turning their back on “God” to worship of Baal and Asherah, almost immediately after God’s great display of power in freeing them from Egypt. That god of course was the one worshiped by the southern kingdom, namely Yahweh. And they retconned Yahweh and El to be the same, by editing Exodus: “I am Yahweh. And I showed to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as El-Shaddai, and by my name, ‘Yahweh’, I did not make myself known to them.” Translation: I was totally that God all along, I just used a different name.” You might expect to see “And don’t go asking any questions, either” appended to it.
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-5 points·1 year agoMore than 4 children
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gnostic atheist1 year ago
First of all, it was 600,000 men who fled Egypt. With women and children, I’d say it must have been around 1.5 million. But why do you think it matters whether that many people agree that it happened? It’s not like anyone’s claiming there’s witness testimony.
Exo 12:37 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. Many other people went up with them, and also large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.
That’s literally the entire population of Rhode Island plus cattle walking to Washington DC for 40 years.
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The number of Israelites is highly debated on and a controversial topic. However, as far as my knowledge on this subject goes 600,000 men is indeed an absurd amount. If you include the women and children this leads to 1.5 million or so. This means that the population increased from 70 people to 1.5 million in 215 years. If these 1.5 million leaving Egypt in rows of 5, as the Bible says, this would form a 500km long line that escaped in one night. That’s impossible. Also, the 70 palm trees and 12 water springs couldn’t provide enough for the entire group. Therefore and for other reasons mentioned in this thread, the Israelite population couldn’t be that big.
There are other calculations that give a way smaller number, about 50,000 I believe, but I definitely agree with you that 1.5 million is impossible
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appropriate1 year ago
let me put 600,000 men in perspective.
the largest single battle we have documented from the time period is the battle of qadesh. it involves one of the parties in the exodus narrative, the egyptian empire, and indeed, one of the candidates for the biblical pharaoh, ramesses the great. at qadesh, some 100 miles north of jerusalem, ramesses conquest ran into the hittite empire.
these were, at the time, two of the three biggest empires on the planet, fighting for control of their borders.
they had less than 60,000 men between them. on both sides.
600,000 is an absurd amount. alexander the great took over the world with a twentieth of that. at the height of persian empire, their forces numbered maybe half that.
with 600,000 men, they wouldn’t be begging pharaoh to let them go.
moses would be pharaoh.
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agnostic atheist1 year ago
That’s literally the entire population of Rhode Island plus cattle walking to Washington DC for *40 years*.
Dont forget to add without a single trace of their presence. No buried bodies, no waste, no discarded tools or abodes or animal remains nothing not so much as a worn out spoon. One and a half million men, women, and children managed to leave behind less trace of their passing than the best trained special forces units ever could.
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-5 points·1 year agoMore than 6 children
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anti-theist1 year ago
Considering that even Jewish archaeologists agree that there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jewish people were ever in captivity in Egypt, that would rule out Sinai as well.
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The story is only validated by scriptures, so at most it is only as true as the scriptures can get.
I don’t even understand what’s the point in going so far to discuss this event. Myths are rampant in ancient histories all over the world, and honestly their truth value doesn’t effect the truthfulness of God and religious teachings at all.
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anti-theist1 year ago
The whole point of the Kuzari argument (what OP is debunking) is that there are people who claim that it’s not just validated by scripture, but by a huge amount of personal testimony and belief (of the Jewish people), the nature and scope of which is such that it couldn’t possibly have come about unless it was based on real events. Not saying these arguments are any good, but it’s something that is argued in detail by apologists using claims about history, psychology, etc.; it’s not just “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”.
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humanist1 year ago
If the religious teaching is that god revealed himself to a bunch of people, then yes it does effect the truthfulness of it.
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agnostic atheist1 year ago
Fourth and easiest argument: none of it ever happened, and by the time it was written down and taken as history all involved would have been very very long since dead.
For the sinai story to be true, a number of things would have had to be true that we already know aren’t, namely, that Jews were enslaved by Egypt, that god worked through Moses to bring about 10 plagues in Egypt culminating in the Exodus, that the number of Jewish slaves that escaped was that large.
We have no evidence outside the bible story that Moses existed, that Jews were enslaved by Egypt, or that anything surrounding the story of the Exodus is in any way even remotely historical.
The whole thing is a myth, including the revelation.
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atheist1 year ago
It’s just not at all implausible that a small group or one person promotes a false story that results in a large group believing it later.
Especially, as here where the large group is defined by the fact they believe it.
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[deleted]
I agree that it most likely never happened. However I think the hallucination theory is also unlikely. There is no evidence that a) the event happened b) 600k people witnessed it c) 600k people passed on this info d) god exists e) moses wrote down the torah. So there is a lot that needs to be proven before considering that this event could have possibly occured.
I think the most plausible answer is that it is a lie made up by a few people and was passed down as truth, just like many other religious myths.
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atheist1 year ago
I think the most plausible answer is that it is a lie made up by a few people and was passed down as truth, just like many other religious myths.
Sure, but if the two options are “a god did it” and “magic mushrooms” I know which one is more likely.
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a lie
I don’t think that’s how those things work. Nobody sits down and deliberately fabricates a myth. Much less so in a time before typewriters or even widespread knowledge of reading. Stories evolve over time, somebody thinks they saw something, somebody else expands on it or even just misunderstands it, misremembers it, and so on. Calling it a lie is unnecessarily incendiary, and what’s more, it’s probably wrong.
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level 1
-6 points·1 year agoMore than 6 children
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-8 points·1 year agoMore than 7 children
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-9 points·1 year agoMore than 2 children
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[deleted]
Benny Shanon of Jerusalem’s Hebrew University also suggests that the Israelites who supposedly witnessed this bogus “revelation” might simply have been high on hallucinogenic drugs at the time.
That’s a very lazy explanation. Reminds me of people asking if artists who do creative stories are on drugs.
On the balance of probability, which is more likely: that God literally spoke to all the Israelites,
Seems like you’re already assuming that God does not exist, which is circular reasoning.
Most of you will know that God is explicitly named in Genesis 2:4 as Yahweh. Yahweh is described as very human-like, even being able to hold conversations with Adam. Yahweh’s earlier incarnation in the Pentateuch, as Elohim, is strikingly different. Elohim is completely removed from the universe as we know it, showing no connection with nor need for mankind. Clearly, these characters are the work of different authors.
What incredibly weak reasoning! Adam and Eve lived in a sinless world, and a sign of that world is that they’re able to live in direct contact with God. Catholics and other Christians believe that those who receive salvation will receive a similar state after death, which is the beatific vision.
Of course, God doesn’t literally have a body, but he can create the appearance of a body, or form a body.
This story is controlled by a priestly class whose power to control the narrative is unquestionable.
The idea of a sinister legion of priests making up Jewish beliefs that didn’t exist beforehand is cartoonish.
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atheist1 year ago
There is a simpler explanation that doesn’t require anything supernatural. Some people experienced something, more people claimed to experience the same thing, then exaggeration and false memories snowball over time. And eventually it turns into a story that people honestly believe happed.
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atheist1 year ago
I agree, 600,000 people all having the same hallucination at the same time isn’t likely.
Likely it was only a few people who truly thought they experienced this at first. Then exaggeration, flat out lying, and false memories, eventually create a situation where a vast amount of people truly believe it happened.
It’s really not all that surprising. In fact the OP even has examples of this sort of thing happening in may places and times around the world. They are all easily explained with natural human tendencies.
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Harry Potterite1 year ago
We had an event here in the US back in 1969 in which 500,000 were getting high on everything from marijuana to LSD, magic mushrooms, purple haze, MDMA, orange sunshine, synthetic mescaline and psilocybin. It was called “Woodstock”.
Therefore, history tells us that 600,000 people all getting high and hallucinating is certainly possible.
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atheist w.r.t the Christian God | agnostic w.r.t others1 year ago
I agree that is sounds improbable.
Incidentally, what’s your view on the right way to deal with situations that sound improbable?
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Christianity has no actual evidence warranting belief.
To look at the issue, we must look at the origin. Christianity is not it’s own natural idea, it is a copy of ideas strewn from other cultures and religions.
Here are some things:
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As Christian’s tend to look towards the new testament rather the old, I’ll skip most of the old.
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While I do agree that science does not currently explain everything, I do also find that there are things science will never actually explain.
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Before you downvote simply from point 2, realize that the idea of consciousness and a few other things humans so are not actually physical in nature. As a result, while I do agree with the scientific method, I only agree that it has the capacity to look at physical concepts and principles.
To go forward with the argument, we need to look at the main character in Christianity. Jesus.
Jesus has no evidence of having existed except in religious text. There are no Roman records of his existence, miracles, or even birth.
Even in the event that Jesus did actually perform everything that the messiah was supposed to, it means nothing. Every action was written down beforehand, meaning it could have very well been a staged event.
Moving from Jesus, comes Mary. A virgin is someone who has not had sex. It is simply a concept we use to distinguish between people, but it is not actually a “real” thing to find out. Even a split in the hymen means nothing. But, if you haven’t had sex, you are a virgin.
How does a virgin give birth? Now it’s possible, with our technology. Before? You’re telling me some kid was birthed in a barn and she was artificially inseminated? Of course not, following from before, it’s a sham.
Also Mary is original sin. She was born sinless, and yet every conversation I’ve had thus far about sin gets different definitions. But apparently God makes everyone with sin, except for the 13 year old he wanted pregnant. How convenient.
So as of right now, no reason to believe in Christianity because it’s not truthful. It hinges on false testimony and false idols.
Moving on from that, we have the issue of stealing ideas. While I forget the proper term for this, it’s essentially when you take the cultures of people from around you and insert them into your work. That’s the Bible. It is not a original text, as a lot of it is simply worded just a bit differently.
Now comes morality. The Bible accepts buying, selling, trading, and lifelong slaves. It also accepts rape as long as you marry the victim.
Mixing in all of this, Christianity has no reason to warrant believing it.
Granted that God is the source of objective morality, the god depicted in the Bible and Quran is not that God.
Using moral evaluation many people, including myself, have come to the conclusion that the God depicted in the Bible and Quran commits acts that are immoral by the objective moral analysis that is argued to be from god. Muslim and Christian apologists should abandon the moral argument for the existence of their Gods.
The necessity of a God only exists if you view time in a linear fashion.
One of the main arguments I see for God is simply that an ultimate being is a necessity, and when asked how it necessitates God usually the response is that every action needs a cause, and therefore at some point an ultimate cause must exist.
The premise of an ultimate cause already concedes this original premise. If all things needed a cause then so would God, and you are just worshipping a middle man. To not view God as a middle man, you must agree that self necessity is a possibility. The question therefore isn’t if, as the premise concedes it is possible, but when.
One way to both deem cause and effect possible and create self necessity is the potrayal of time in a loop instead of a straight line. A clock would be a good example. Time moves clockwise, but it does so in cycles rather than a line with a single beginning point needing a creator.
Now I’m agnostic to this and God and won’t premise it as a fact, however acknowledging the fact that self sustenance is possible before God means any middle man between our universe and God would logically also have the potential of self sustanance, along with any possible god-creators.
The doctrine of eternal conscious torment is unbiblical.
•Is God a torturer?
The teaching of eternal torment has done more to turn people away from God than any other false teaching. It is an attack upon the loving character of a loving heavenly Father. “They built the high places of Baal that are in the Valley of Ben-hinnom to make their sons and their daughters pass through the fire to Molech, which I had not commanded them, nor had it entered My mind that they should do this abomination, to mislead Judah to sin.” (Jeremiah 32:35)
•Is God unjust?
God would not punish people throughout eternity because of a life of sin that lasted about 70 years, more or less.
•The punishment for sin is death, not everlasting life in hell fire.
“God … gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). The wicked “perish,” or receive “death.” The righteous receive “everlasting life.”
•No one is in hell right now.
Sinners will go to hell at the end of time at the Judgement “So shall it be in the end of this world. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire” (Matthew 13:40-42).
•Hell is not eternal.
If the wicked lived forever being tortured in hell, they would be immortal. But this is impossible, because the Bible says “only God has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). When Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden of Eden, an angel was posted to guard the tree of life so that sinners would not eat of the tree and “live for ever” (Genesis 3:22-24). The teaching that sinners are immortal in hell originated with Satan and is completely untrue (Genesis 3:4). God prevented the immortality of sin when it entered this earth by guarding the tree of life. An eternal hell of torment would perpetuate sin.
•The wicked will be obliterated.
The Bible says the wicked will suffer “death” (Romans 6:23), “destruction” (Job 21:30), “shall perish” (Psalms 37:20), will “burn” up (Malachi 4:1), “shall be destroyed together” (Psalms 37:38), will “consume away” (Psalms 37:20), “shall be cut off” (Psalms 37:9), and “shall be slain” (Psalms 62:3). God will “destroy” them (Psalms 145:20), and “fire shall devour them” (Psalms 21:9). All of these references make it clear that the wicked die and are destroyed. They do not live forever in misery.
•Destroying sinners is foreign to God’s nature.
“As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?” (Ezekiel 33:11). Destroying the wicked is a strange act to God “The Lord will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon—to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task.” (Isaiah 28:21)
The Argument from Plurality of Religions proves the Christian God is a contradicoty notion
The only two attributes of God that are needed to prove the concept of God contradictory are: omnipotence and the will to communicate his message to all humans.
P0: There are many, mutually incompatible versions of Christianity in the world, many of which are based on the SAME BOOK. Catholics, Evangelicals, Calvinists, Orthodox Christians, Coptics, Rastafarians, Jeova’s Witnesses, Mormons, Adventists all have differences in their doctrines and claims (the total amount is a staggering 45k denominations of Christianity in the world)
P1: God is omnipotent.
P2: God wants his message to be clearly and unambiguously received and understood by all humanity.
P3: If God is omnipotent and God wants X, then X is the case.
C1: (by P1, P2, and P3): It is the case that God’s message is clearly and unambiguously received and understood by all humanity.
Contradiction (P0, C1)!
Either God doesn’t want to have his message received by the people, or he can’t make that happen by, for instance, communicating with humanity with a less ambiguous method than “inspiring” a magic book to some nomad shepherds in the Middle East, or he can do it, and he wants to, but then, how does one explain the fact that the message in everything BUT clear and unambiguous?
it’s not possible to be a ‘true’ biblical literalist
lots of people running around saying they believe in the Bible literally, but this is technically impossible based on functions of language (among other things).
As an example when Jesus says “…it’s better to cut out your eye than to lust…” he literally said “cut out your eye” but by virtue of language we understand (or hope) that he is speaking metaphorically, and the moment you add even one metaphor you are forced to make a personal judgment about what the metaphorical words actually mean. now you are forced to reckon with the entire text, if this one verse was actually metaphorical then its possible (if not likely) that other bits of the text might also be metaphorical, so you now have to devise a way to determine what’s metaphor and what isn’t, and without being able to talk to the author you can never claim full certainty (reasons for this uncertainty include antiquated terms, jokes, colloquialisms, or other rhetorical devices we may be unfamiliar with and so miss the authors true intention)
“ah!” you say “but I CAN talk to the author, I communicate with the spirit of god, the ultimate author behind the text” – well… everyone claiming biblical truth also says they’re hearing the “correct” interpretation from god, only they all conflict with one another. we can’t determine which of these interpretations are correct or truthful without consulting the text to see what it says, which was the thing we were trying to determine in the first place
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