Comment by quantified
5 months ago
Ask the AI for all the falsehoods and contradictions. Ask it how you can tell a false prophet from a real one. This Christianity stuff has poetry in it but the religion and the texts are far apart. Exactly which laws of the Old Testament were voided? Or must Christians abide by them all? Was the Tower of Babel's destruction just a fleeting tantrum? Who did Cain marry if there were no other women? How did Noah get all the scorpions and biting insects? Thanks for the bedbugs and typhoid, dude. Generally an incoherent scheme.
> Who did Cain marry if there were no other women?
Like, stuff like that doesn't matter. It is not the point of the story. I don't think the oral tradition cared about plot holes at all.
If the religion is just some fallible oral tradition, it is no better than an institutionalized TV show. Its claims for humanity are far too important for that.
Remember, the Gospels weren't written contemporaneously. Only after something like 4-5 generations. And when have we heard of people changing or faking history to suit their own ends?
The Judeo-Christian god is a nacissistic, somewhat sadistic mob boss. Way too human.
4-5 generations is a stretch, though it depends on what you mean by generation. Most New Testament Scholars including atheists agree that the New Testament was written while the some of the 12 apostles were still alive.
For example, agnostic atheist Dr. Bart Ehrman (Masters of Divinity and Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary) states "Critical scholars are widely agreed that the earliest Gospel was Mark, written around 70 c.e.; that Matthew and Luke were written some years later, say, around 80–85 c.e.; and that John was the last Gospel, written around 90–95 c.e."
The historical record also has the disciples (St. Clement, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius) of the apostles quoting the Gospels or referring to the letters of the apostles shortly after those dates ~90-108 AD depending on who you ask.
Regarding "faking history to suit their own ends", it is hard to imagine what gain the early Christians got by faking history. Some of these people were tortured, crucified, and fed to wild beasts by members of the Roman government because they were making these claims. Not exactly a racket.
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Of course it doesn’t. But there is a difference between treating the story as an oral tradition and the explicit and unerring word of god.
It should certainly matter to fundamentalists, who have an outsized influence in politics. They regularly pick the most questionable translations of the most vague and obscure verses and ram them down everyone else's throats.
It doesn't matter to them, but it should.
why didnt noah talk about how much more dangerous the bugs and animals in austrialia are? or say he put all the dangerous animals there? a bit of warning woulda been nice