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Can a religious text be used for evidence?


nephili

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Is there any use for even bringing up any part of any religious text in a debate and try to use it to make a point? If so, which ones and why not others?


Most of the things mentioned in any of them can't be proven anyways. It seems to only derail a conversation to quote from a text that has no validation and kind of wastes time.

 

Edited by nephili
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I don't mind quoting scripture to atheists. It adds depth to a conversation. It can also make them see the texts they thought they knew from a different viewpoint. Scritpure isn't evidence but when debating the workings of a particular religion, it will come up as useful.

Edited by Clockwork_Spirit
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20 minutes ago, Clockwork_Spirit said:

I don't mind quoting scripture to atheists. It adds depth to a conversation. It can also make them see the texts they thought they knew from a different viewpoint. Scritpure isn't evidence but when debating the workings of a particular religion, it will come up as useful.

I like to use texts all the time. Except Theists runaway from texts that show it's all made up.

Example:

Mark the first Gospel is allegorical to the OT, and Pauline theology. This is not how history is written.

Does Paul make an appearance in Mark performing miracles of the spirit?

Numbers 11:27-29

"27 And a young man ran and told Moses, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp." 28 And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, "My lord Moses, stop them!" 29 But Moses said to him, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!""

Mark 9:38-40

"38 John said to him, "Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us." 39 But Jesus said, "Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40 Whoever is not against us is for us."

Galatians 3:5

"5 Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?"

1 Corinthians 12:3

"3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit."

Romans 8:31

"31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?"

Is it more than coincidence?

2 Cor 8:9=Mark 10:17-22, 1 Cor 13:2=Mark 11:23, 1 Cor 3:10-11=Mark 12:10-11, Rom 13:7=Mark 12:17, Rom 6:12-14=Mark 9:42-47, 2 Cor 9:6-15=Mark 12:41-44, 2 Cor 11:13-15=Mark 13:21-23, Gal 5:13-15=Mark 12:28-34, 1 Thes 5:4-11=Mark 13:32-37, Phil 3:21=Mark 12:25, 1 Thes 4:16=Mark 14:62, Gal 2:11=Mark 8:33, Gal 4:6=Mark 14:36, 1 Cor 5:6-8=Mark 8:15

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Just now, davros of skaro said:

Except Theists runaway from texts that show it's all made up.

 

I'm not a Theist so what's your point?

Edited by Clockwork_Spirit
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25 minutes ago, Clockwork_Spirit said:

I'm not a Theist so what's your point?

If you believe in God, and, or Gods? Then you are a Theist.

 

New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_midrash1.htm

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16 minutes ago, Clockwork_Spirit said:

My philosophical stance on God would be more akin to ''panentheism''.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Panentheism

It's still Imaginationism.

 

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davros

Quote

Does Paul make an appearance in Mark performing miracles of the spirit?

I don't think there is enough said about the exorcist character to make him out to be anybody in particular.

The character who I think "represents" Paul, or personifies his perspective, is the unnamed scribe who feeds Jesus the softball question about the greatest commandment during the final round of debates before the big hats take Jesus out,

https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/2017/07/18/mark-dramatized-if-paul-had-met-jesus/

Quote

Is it more than coincidence?

Of course it isn't a coincidence, but the relationship isn't fairly represented by an equal sign, either.

Mark was not innocent of Paul. That could be because Mark had read the letters, or it could be that Paul and his critics had raised issues that were still current topics of discussion in Christian circles when Mark wrote, and Mark explored those issues creatively.

But Mark "=" Paul? Look at your own example, the exorcist incident (9:38-41):

Quote

 

John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”

Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us. Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward..."

 

No faith, no belief, just an absence of opposition and maybe some trivial overt act of support, and you're counted as "for us" and will be rewarded.

You could argue that that's taking Paul to his logical extreme, that if there's no Law, then anybody can do anything. That is a position, advocated by unnamed others, which Paul discusses (e.g. 1 Corinthians 6:12; 10:23). But Paul doesn't agree (6:9-11, 10:24ff).

Paul's yoke is light, compared with the James Gang's Christian Judaism, but not as light as Mark's Jesus'. The very framework of Paul's remarks depends on a coherent, collective church-based approach to salvation. Jesus doesn't even suggest recruiting the guy - let him do his thing, by himself, he's OK. (The Gerasene ex-demoniac also gets an unsupervised, frankly apostolic commission to the regional Gentiles - Mark's Jesus simply isn't an organization man. Paul was.)

Conclusion to davros: You might well say "related themes" or "similar issues," maybe notated with an infix tilde (Mark 9:38-41 ~ 1 Corinthians 6:9-12), but these are not "just the same," and ought not be marked as if they were equal (=).

Bearing on thread: Behold! It seems that in some discussions, religious texts can indeed be used as evidence.

-

@davros of skaro

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On 3/14/2018 at 5:44 PM, nephili said:

Is there any use for even bringing up any part of any religious text in a debate and try to use it to make a point? If so, which ones and why not others?


Most of the things mentioned in any of them can't be proven anyways. It seems to only derail a conversation to quote from a text that has no validation and kind of wastes time.

 

A lot will depend on the point you're trying to make.

For example. the biblical story of the Exodus would be difficult or even impossible if the Heroopolitic Red Sea was full of water.  Yet the Exous crossed it at El Kubrit.  It obviously wasn't full of water - maybe eighteen inches, but probably not even that much.  Also, after the "Israelites" crossed, they spent three days in the wilderness without water.  If the Canal of the Pharaoh was operating, they could just have followed the channel all the way to Suez and had plenty of water.  So we know the canal was dry at the time.

Ramses III built a fort at Suez (It was on the small peninsula in what is now Port Ibrahim.).  If Egypt was hostile to the "Israeilites," then that fort was a major obstacle.  The fort obtained its drinking water from the spring Ayn Musa - the same one Moses purified with a tree branch.  There would have been major problems sharing it with a hostile military force.  So what do we conclude?  If there was an Exodus, it came that way before the fort was built.  Ramses III reigned from March 1186 to April 1155.  So sometime before 1155 BC.

So the Exodus took place in a geography that still exists (The campsite at the crossing is now an airport.) in times that are identifiable historically.  So did the Exodus happen?  I think so - It was an Egyptian military/mining expedition to Sinai whose military wing got caught in converging seiche waves.  After a fashion, the story is true.

Doug

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On 3/14/2018 at 6:44 PM, nephili said:

Is there any use for even bringing up any part of any religious text in a debate and try to use it to make a point? If so, which ones and why not others?


Most of the things mentioned in any of them can't be proven anyways. It seems to only derail a conversation to quote from a text that has no validation and kind of wastes time.

 

I had to reread your thread title and your post here, to to fully understand what you are asking. (Me, being my usual not sure if I'm understanding the context of what is being asked or said.) Then I realize, you're not saying 'evidence being used for explaining certain things like events, and scientific situations' and so forth. so, I would think, yeah it depends on what is the 'evidence' being used for. If it's to point out things in the book for what was really said, then I would think Davros, 8bits I believe (sorry 8bits) and some, posts best explains that. 

I don't know if you're also asking if it is 'evidence' to explain events or scientific and such situations, then I think you answered your own question with the second part of your original post. 

Personally, for me, I would expect something, like a book, to have footnotes, and a bibliography and such to explain and list sources that show it has the evidence to prove something. Yeah, I have not read any religious text in my secular upbringing, so I wouldn't know for show, but as much as I can observe, I don't think religious texts have such things. (Of course, I understand being corrected on this. :yes: ) Plus, I would think, a lot of them, were written long ago, that they aren't even updated to use as evidence in certain situations. (Well, that's how I see it, anyways. ;) ) 

On 3/15/2018 at 5:28 AM, seanjo said:

Only if there is corroborating evidence. I.e. the Pilate Stone backs up the existence of Pontious Pilate.

You, I always was thinking, what if they are starting points to research, like I would see and use historical fiction books. Like, upon reading "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Phillipa Gregory, I know that it is for most a fiction book, so I cannot depend on it entirely as a history book. But, because reading it, and already familiar to Anne Boleyn and her brother, but her sister I had yet to know, except she was a previous mistress of King Henry the 8th of England. I ended up doing research later to get to know Mary Boleyn more. 

I wonder, if a lot have read religious texts and went from there to do more research on what was written in them. 

 

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3 hours ago, stereologist said:

The archaeological evidence makes it abundantly clear that Exodus never happened. It is a completely made up story.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Exodus

There are so many clear and obvious reasons listed that the story of the bible is just a story - never happened.

As I said:  "...after a fashion...."  The Exodus story is a folk story, a legend based on half-remembered details "my grandfather told me."  The people who finally wrote it down tried to tell a true account as best they could, but their sources were abysmal, at best, and they were recounting events in light of their own world view.  In the sixth century BC, sea levels had risen so that the Heroopolitic Red Sea again held sea water.  The writers knew where the crossing was, but with water now six feet deeper than it had been in Moses' day, it obviously would take a miracle to get across.  So that's what they wrote:  a miracle.  The idea that the sea might rise was completely foreign to them.

Also, you are interpreting the story in light of your own world view.  You are trying to get them across the Red Sea proper.  That would take a miracle, indeed.  South of Ras el Adabya the sea bottom drops off to 7000 feet, an ocean deep.  Obviously, they didn't cross there.  The underwater ridge from Ras el Adabya to Ras Messala has a depth of 300 feet.  It hasn't been above water since the Last Glacial Maximum.  This is where Josephus thought they crossed.  What kind of wind would it take to hold that much water back?  Who could stand upright in it?  But Josephus lacked bathymetric maps of the area so he didn't understand the problem.

But 19 miles north of Suez is El Kubrit.  This was where the trail from Egypt to Suez crossed the narrows between the Bitter Lakes.  It was a pack trail used to carry supplies and trade goods from Lower Egypt to Suez where they were loaded on boats for the trip to Sinai.  The crossing site was a ford when the Bitter Lakes were not being fed by sea water coming over the Shallufa Sill, or by tail water from the Canal of the Pharaoh.  "At Pi-hahiroth between Migdol and the sea."  Pi-hahiroth means "mouth of the channel."  Here the channel between the Bitter Lakes opens northward into Great Bitter Lake.  Six miles west is Gebel Geneifa, a mountain shaped like an ancient watch tower/fort, a migdol.  And 4.5 miles southeast is a low hill on what once stood a temple to Baal.  This is the hill from which the "east" wind blew to the crossing.  The Bible specifically mentions Baal Zephon and implies that it was he, not Jehovah, that protected the crossing.

"A wall of water on the left and a wall of water on the right."  "The Exodus" happened during a typhoon or hurricane in the Indian Ocean.  This generated a southeast-to-northwest wind that pushed water up the Red Sea.  In 1910 such a wind produced a storm surge of 13.2 feet at Suez.  Tides at Suez range betwwen 1.2 and 3.2 feet - not much, and the Exodus probably arrived at the crossing about two weeks after the New Moon that marked Passover.  Add 1.3 feet to the height of the storm surge and you get 14.5 feet.  The channel going north from Suez (Tia beni-Israel) converges as it goes north, compressing and heightening any waves that find their way into it.  The Shallufa Sill (DeLeseps blew it up in building the Suez Canal, using all the black powder in Egypt at the time.) was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.5 feet high.  It was at the outlet of Lesser Bitter Lake.  Something like nine feet of water would have poured over this ledge and into the lake.  About the time the wave crest was passing Suez, the wind died away, leaving the wave to continue under its own momentum.

That same wind pushed water in Great Bitter Lake ahead of it, piling about 3.5 feet of it against the northwest shore.  When the wind died, that water would start back across Great Bitter Lake in a seiche wave traveling about 20 mph.  The two waves met in the north end of the channel.  Normally there would have been about 1.5 feet of water over the ford, but with two waves, each about three feet high converging from opposite directions, the combined depth would have been as much as six or seven feet.  It doesn't really matter how deep the water was because if you're wearing armor, you're going to drown in six feet of water.  The "walls of water" were less than six feet high - not the towering things depicted in movies.  Those chariots that lost their wheels - the channel is 1200 yards wide.  Observers in the east bank would be at least 1800 feet away.  To them a bogged chariot would look like it lost its wheels - just point-of-view.

"On dry land in the midst of the sea."  Navigation maps of the Suez Canal show a shoal with rocks breaking the surface at El Kubrit - hence the name - The Bollards.  Before the Suez Canal this area was an island with water levels about 6.5 feet lower than today.  The ford would have been first across a shallow channel, then over the island and on across the rest of the channel.  It was literally possible to walk on dry land in the midst the the sea.

After the crossing they spent three days in the wilderness without water.  Ayn Musa is 24 miles away and sheep are able to travel about six miles a day.  If you push them, they could do eight.  There is a closer spring.  It's name is Ayn Marah - "Salt Spring."  They didn't go there because there was no drinkable water.  So the nearest potable water fits the description, too.

The Exodus was organized like an Egyptian mining/military expedition.  It had a military wing, a skilled labor wing (the Kenites) and a laboring wing.  How do we know it had a military wing?  It was led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  The Egyptian army of the time travelled in a column led by a soldier carrying a smokebox on a long pole by day and one carrying a torch on a long pole by night.  That way everybody could see where the head of the column was.  Do you really think a group of bedraggled ex-slaves could meet and defeat the Amalakites a few weeks after the Red Sea crossing?  The "Israelites" did it.

That organization leads me to believe that they were soldiers, miners and craftsmen en route to the mines in Sinai, not refugees.  They were not hostile to Pharaoh.  In fact, they were his employees.  They had the misfortune to be crossing the ford when the two converging wave trains struck.  It was all just bad timing.  But the story it produced has lasted thousands of years.

Doug

 

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Religious texts can be used as evidence for debates that operate on the assumption that the contents of the text is true. For example, a debate between two muslims on the necessity of wearing a headscarf or not, which does not appear anywhere in the Koran. A religious text is utterly worthless when used in any other context, however, since they are all works of fiction and mythology and nothing more, and therefore cannot be used for historical debates, moral arguments, or anything that requires facts or evidence.

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9 hours ago, davros of skaro said:

It's still Imaginationism.

 

As is the idea that we are biological robots living in a meaningless Universe?

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25 minutes ago, Clockwork_Spirit said:

As is the idea that we are biological robots living in a meaningless Universe?

What qualifies as 'meaning'?  Isn't panentheism just the idea that this same meaningless universe dwells or is interconnected within some kind of god or divinity?  The universe looks just as 'meaningless' in your belief/framework to me, unless you can state how under your beliefs there's some objective 'meaning' to the universe.

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On 15/03/2018 at 9:14 AM, nephili said:

Is there any use for even bringing up any part of any religious text in a debate and try to use it to make a point? If so, which ones and why not others?


Most of the things mentioned in any of them can't be proven anyways. It seems to only derail a conversation to quote from a text that has no validation and kind of wastes time.

 

Any text can be used academically to debate and discuss ideas etc  from within that text. In addition, parts  of the bible have been verified as historically accurate from other contemporary records and from  archaeology So yes, a book like the bible can be used as evidence in some debates 

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On 15/03/2018 at 9:27 AM, Nuclear Wessel said:

It depends on the nature of the debate. In terms of using it as evidence for the existence of a god, for example, it is completely worthless. 

If the debate concerns the content of the bible, however, it can certainly be used.

Example:

Person A: God did not encourage killing of innocents in the bible.
Person B: Oh, but He DID!
 

 

That is a good example for your purpose, and your point is valid. However, one  internal question would be, given the context of that paragraph, WERE those people innocent?.  It is a subjective, value laden  point, as is the question of how much, guilt is a society's and how much an individual's. 

   Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

So, for example, if a society practiced the sacrifice of infants as part of its religion, should that whole society be destroyed?  (supposing they will fight to the death to defend their own beliefs and practices)  If not, what do you do with the young children too young to be already indoctrinated into those beliefs and practices?  

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12 hours ago, stereologist said:

The archaeological evidence makes it abundantly clear that Exodus never happened. It is a completely made up story.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_Exodus

There are so many clear and obvious reasons listed that the story of the bible is just a story - never happened.

People used to say that about the voyages of Odysseus. :) 

The problem is verifying both time and route. There certainly was a Hebrew "slave"  population in Egypt and it certainly adopted and carried back to Israel many of the Egyptian  beliefs, just as the Hebrews adopted Babylonian beliefs during their time in captivity there.

Edited by Mr Walker
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7 hours ago, Podo said:

Religious texts can be used as evidence for debates that operate on the assumption that the contents of the text is true. For example, a debate between two muslims on the necessity of wearing a headscarf or not, which does not appear anywhere in the Koran. A religious text is utterly worthless when used in any other context, however, since they are all works of fiction and mythology and nothing more, and therefore cannot be used for historical debates, moral arguments, or anything that requires facts or evidence.

Again take the travels of Odysseus. People once thought this was true of them as well but eventually experts identified each of the places mentioned along the route and mapped the voyage They even found the origin of the sory of the golden fleece It helped historians with things like mapping trade routes and understanding the geo politics of the time. 

Ps when have moral arguments ever involved   facts and evidences? :)  They are generally subjective, and belief /value driven. 

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8 hours ago, Doug1o29 said:

As I said:  "...after a fashion...."  The Exodus story is a folk story, a legend based on half-remembered details "my grandfather told me."  The people who finally wrote it down tried to tell a true account as best they could, but their sources were abysmal, at best, and they were recounting events in light of their own world view.  In the sixth century BC, sea levels had risen so that the Heroopolitic Red Sea again held sea water.  The writers knew where the crossing was, but with water now six feet deeper than it had been in Moses' day, it obviously would take a miracle to get across.  So that's what they wrote:  a miracle.  The idea that the sea might rise was completely foreign to them.

** snipped **

The Exodus was organized like an Egyptian mining/military expedition.  It had a military wing, a skilled labor wing (the Kenites) and a laboring wing.  How do we know it had a military wing?  It was led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  The Egyptian army of the time travelled in a column led by a soldier carrying a smokebox on a long pole by day and one carrying a torch on a long pole by night.  That way everybody could see where the head of the column was.  Do you really think a group of bedraggled ex-slaves could meet and defeat the Amalakites a few weeks after the Red Sea crossing?  The "Israelites" did it.

That organization leads me to believe that they were soldiers, miners and craftsmen en route to the mines in Sinai, not refugees.  They were not hostile to Pharaoh.  In fact, they were his employees.  They had the misfortune to be crossing the ford when the two converging wave trains struck.  It was all just bad timing.  But the story it produced has lasted thousands of years.

Doug

 

Sorry, but the exodus story si completely fiction. You didn't bother to look at the link did you? Exodus is not partially true. It isn't true at all.

The writers of exodus did not know where the crossing was because there was no such crossing. Did 6 feet more water matter in a sea basin as deep as the Red Sea? Not a bit.

There was no other crossing. People pretend it was here or there. Never happened. You suggested that exodus happened during a big storm. Oh for heavens sakes you really are making a mockery of the event now. You have families now walking around in a typhoon. That's simply laughable.

The problem is that there is no evidence of a large Hebrew slave population in Egypt, nor any large loss of military capability, nor economic loss, or anything else that would have come out of this event. It never happened. There is no evidence for anyone in the desert at that time.

Thanks for the pretend history. There is zero archaeological evidence to support exodus. The evidence is quite clear it never happened. You are free to construct laughable accounts with all sorts of fake details, but the evidence tells us it never happened.

Edited by stereologist
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1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

People used to say that about the voyages of Odysseus. :) 

The problem is verifying both time and route. There certainly was a Hebrew "slave"  population in Egypt and it certainly adopted and carried back to Israel many of the Egyptian  beliefs, just as the Hebrews adopted Babylonian beliefs during their time in captivity there.

Archaeology originally thought they would go to the places mention in the bible and find support. Instead they found little to no support.

People would like to pretend that once they find some support that it all must be true, when that is not the case. Take some of the bible stories which are not true: Noah's flood, exodus, neither of the creation myths in genesis. There are plenty more.

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1 hour ago, Mr Walker said:

Again take the travels of Odysseus. People once thought this was true of them as well but eventually experts identified each of the places mentioned along the route and mapped the voyage They even found the origin of the sory of the golden fleece It helped historians with things like mapping trade routes and understanding the geo politics of the time. 

Ps when have moral arguments ever involved   facts and evidences? :)  They are generally subjective, and belief /value driven. 

There has never been a single mapped out course. There have been proposals with some in the Blacks Sea and some in the Mediterranean. There is no consensus.

BTW, the golden fleece is not from the "travels of Odysseus." You are mixing up your stories.

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2 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

Any text can be used academically to debate and discuss ideas etc  from within that text. In addition, parts  of the bible have been verified as historically accurate from other contemporary records and from  archaeology So yes, a book like the bible can be used as evidence in some debates 

No, it can’t be used as evidence of anything as it is a book taken on faith. 

But, it certainly can be discussed. 

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