Intro and 7 Wonders of Jewish History

[abaris]

Or it might be that he is just another peddler of religious bullshit deserving no more attention and respect than previous one or next one. What is there to discuss with a guy who is merely willing to consider that his tribal holy book could be man-made? It's on him to prove that there is even a shred of possibility of his holy book not being work of men.

So what are you doing in this thread? You don't want to discuss what OP posted, fine, me neither, since I'm tired of religious debates. So, just ignore his thread, ignore the poster, if you feel like it.

[Szuchow]

Have I ever proselytized to anyone here?

Irrelevant. OP is not you and you aren't representative of all Jews.

I'll give you that I'm not representative of all Jews. It's just that Jews, as a rule of thumb, do not proselytize. I didn't pick up notes of proselytization in the OP, nor did I pick up intent to proselyte in GttT's intro thread. 

So just looking at the evidence in hand, I don't think we have strong enough reason to conclude that GttT is here to proselytize.

Well, I would call coming to atheist forum and trying to "prove" his religion being true as proselytizing. Sure, he is not calling us to repent [yet?] but that changes nothing, at least in my view.

[Szuchow]

Or it might be that he is just another peddler of religious bullshit deserving no more attention and respect than previous one or next one. What is there to discuss with a guy who is merely willing to consider that his tribal holy book could be man-made? It's on him to prove that there is even a shred of possibility of his holy book not being work of men.

So what are you doing in this thread? You don't want to discuss what OP posted, fine, me neither, since I'm tired of religious debates. So, just ignore his thread, ignore the poster, if you feel like it.

I certainly will do what I feel like doing.

[Dom]

Hello again, this is GttT with the 7 Wonders of Jewish History (Henceforth 7WoJH). (You can skip this intro if you need). Sorry for the delay.

In order to avoid us misunderstanding each other, avoid discussions that go off on tangents, and becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity) I will lay down some parameters of discussion. Im not really sure how much this is needed tbh, as this is my first work post here. So if Im stepping over the line and you know all this, or I wrote to much, just lmk.

Please stick to rebuttals on the topic, while there is a lot on religion to discuss, its most productive if we go one topic at a time.

First off, I do agree with the basic premise of Athiesm, which is that things are unproven, generally assumed untrue until proven true. This is because there are so many more ways the reality doesnt work, than ways it does. So if you want to posit xyz is how reality works, prove it. Next, I am not looking to be 100% sure of anything, only up until an unreasonable doubt. This is a bit of a subjective measurement, but even so, sometimes its more obvious than others, and I will do my best to be as objective as I can. In my words, if Im 80% or 90% sure of something, thats enough.

 Second, No ad hominim attacks please, or on Religious Jews (such as, 'but Jewish schools dont teach evolution, so they dont know anything!').  You may be right, you may be wrong, but either has no bearing on if Judiasm is true. No ad hominim attacks on the Torah either please (such as 'its sexist'). Again, wether right or wrong, how appealing you think it is has no bearing on how true it is. In general, I hope Im preaching to the choir (heh) here, but it is intellectual responses that prove something right or wrong, not emotional ones. 

Third, No rebuttals from bible criticism that axiomatically assume the Torah is manmade. (such as, but 'we know it wasnt written by God, since we know the Torah is manmade'. Or 'yeah but judiasm isnt true, cause the jews got their idea of God from the babylonians'). No, we dont know those, much of that field and their conclusions is based on archeology, which is far from a hard science. To be clear about what I mean, I am willing to consider that the Torah is manmade of course, and willing to accept historical events rebuttal, from bible criticism. But to say something like 'we know that the jews got their God from the neighboring tribes, cause obviously they didnt get it from God 'Himself' ', and then later say 'See, we know the Torah isnt true because they got it from the Neighboring tribes' is circular reasoning.

I dont think it makes no sense for the Torah to be true if it describes God doing things the break the laws of nature. If God does exist and made the universe, of course 'He' could play with its laws. 
Also, no dogmatic axiom that materialism is true. To get to the Truth (heh), you have to be at least willing to consider that God and spirituality exist.
Rebuttals that destroy the Christian position on a matter don't necessarily mean that matter is wrong; Christianity and its views do not represent Judaism. 
Honestly, even if they look similar on the surface, Judaism really is pretty different.


Naturally Contradictory: Where one phenomena makes it naturally less likely the other will occur. Not impossible, and if it does happen, it will happen through natural means. But it is a lot less likely an outcome because of the first phenomena. (I.e. Being severely dehydrated is naturally contradictory to winning a footrace. It can happen, and if it does, it will happen through natural means (aka, you literally just ran faster), but still winning that race is a lot less likely when one is severely dehydrated.)

Naturally Unlikely is just what it sounds like, and outcome you would not expect, or one that is unlikely in a natural world. Again, It can happen, and if it does, it will happen through natural means, but its unlikely. (i.e. In general, smaller people are naturally unlikely to win fights.) Often, a naturally contradicting phenomena can make an unlikely event even more unlikely. (i.e. being severely dehydrated makes it even less likely a small person will win a fight.)


NOW THE PROOF. YOU CAN SKIP TO HERE IF THE ABOVE IS UNNECESSARY TO SAY.


The basic structure of this proof is that the Torah predicted these highly unlikely often naturally contradictory phenomena to happen to the jewish people across history, and they did. Additionally the prophecy itself is (often) suprising and unlikely if it was in a manmade religion. 
The predictions were made at a minimum of 2500 years ago, before any of these events take place.
Enough of this, and the unlikelyness builds to where it makes no sense that it would naturally occur in an unguided materialistic world, and really only makes sense if the same entity that wrote those predictions could also control history. aka God.

Some of these phenomena have happened to other nations/cultures as well (I.e. The Hellenistic Greeks had a similar cultural/educational impact on the world,) but all 7 happened to the jews. The difference between one (or even 2) unlikely phenomena happening to you, even ones that you guessed/predicted right, and 7 is a vast gulf in unlikeliness. So it isnt just about one or 2 wonders, but all of them happening as a whole. Especially when you add them together and many naturally contradict each other, yet they all still happened.


Im going to skip to the 2nd wonder here actually (which is more like 2 itself tbh, but it was been combined into one bigger one). Also I am trying to make the post as short as possible, so i may need to go back and add details later.

Exile/Scattering/Wandering. 
The Scattering of the Jews happened to a pretty high degree, and is pretty unlikely I think. In the initial diaspora of the 2nd temple, the jews were scattered (after and during the exile itself) to almost all of the (then) civilized world; all over the roman empire, to places in Mesopotamia, and upper africa. In the medieval peroid ish to almost all of Europe, the Muslim world, and a few more parts of Africa. In more modern times, North America, South America, more parts of asia, and Australia. 
The Jews have also been kept wandering; tons of expulsions from places they were living, then later coming back when reinvited. Persecution have driven tons of jews to move, large migrations to lands of more opportunity. The Jews have been kept on the move a ton. (On a national scale. For a person, to live in one place for 100 years is pretty sedentary, but on a national scale, a community that only exists 100 years in one place before it must pick itself up and move again is pretty mobile.)
The exile is also rare. Exile less so than Scaterring and Wandering to the extreme degree as the Jews have done, but still not that common. Usually the native population is killed, subjugated and brought into the empire, or restricted to one corner of their lands. and the jews were exiled 1.5 times (the .5 is the 2nd temple exile; only a half, cause only half of the jewish nation was there to be specifically exiled.), which is even rarer.
All of these are pretty rare (and therefore naturally unlikely) to happen to a nation, especially all 3. And yet they were predicted in the Torah, and in fact happened.
As well as I would think the prophecy itself is a little unlikely to happen/me made, if one is manufacturing a religion.

TL;DR
You don't get to set ANY rules for any discussion here.
It's all a pile of hogwash, coming under the title *Confirmation Bias*.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

The premise of this entire pile of crap is false.
*If a series of events is unlikely, then the series of events prove something*.  
That is logically false.

As a scholar of the period, I will decide which topic I will respond to, and how.
So far, there is not one topic in the "seven wonders" nonsense that has not been historically debunked, and easily refuted.
All this demonstrates is that Can't-Get-To-The-Truth-This- Way, basically has no education in either History or Biblical Studies.

Oh, and BTW, you're 100 % wrong about Archaeology.
"Archaeology is based on facts. Often these facts end up extrapolated into theories. The basic techniques of archaeology are essentially logic and hard science based. Thanks for demonstrating you also know nothing about Archaeology.
For example, the Exodus. At the time, we know FOR A FACT, that Egypt controlled the entire ancient Near East. There were Egyptian garrisons in what became Israel. It would make no sense for wandering Semites, (and actually we know from Archaeology that there were already Semitic settlements in what would become Israel), ... why would wandering Semites go from one place Egypt controlled, militarily, to another place they controlled militarily ? Yeah it's all bullshit.

We also know when the Torah of Moses (the first 4 books of the Bible) first appeared in human history.
Ezra brought back with him from Babylon two things.
1. The decree from Artaxerxes saying that the man he picked could rule in his name as king.
2. The Torah of Moses, until then, never once known of or mentioned in human history, .. that same Torah the Judaic priests assembled and invented in Babylon, with all its Babylonian references, borrowed concepts and Babylonian ideas.
(If you doubt that, see famous Jewish Philosopher and scholar, Martin Buber's book, "Good and Evil".)
This introduction in a Fall festival as described in the Book of Nehemiah, by Ezra, is the first time any human says anything about the Torah of Moses. They invented it from various sources, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis as anyone who has actually studied the subject knows well.

Thank you for a cogent answer.

[abaris]

That's one of the things I admire about the Jews.  They don't threaten to lop off people's heads as the Muslims do or threaten people with eternal torture.

There are 13 or 14 million jews in the whole wide world, as opposed to 2,4 billion christians and 1,4 billion muslims. With good reason, because they never tried to convert anyone.

[Minimalist]

The basic structure of this proof is that the Torah predicted these highly unlikely often naturally contradictory phenomena to happen to the jewish people across history, and they did. Additionally the prophecy itself is (often) suprising and unlikely if it was in a manmade religion. 

The predictions were made at a minimum of 2500 years ago, before any of these events take place.

Of course that assumes that the "torah" is what it claims to be.  Understand that we have no indication that any of this gibberish existed in a written form before the 3d century BC when Hellenistic Jews in Alexandria wrote it out in Greek, a document known as the Septuagint.  Further, we have no indication that literacy was at all prevalent in the Persian and later Hellenistic provinces of Yehud.  If anything, giving it the most generous benefit of the doubt I can muster, this is a compilation of oral legends which were passed down through the ages and have about as much reliability as any other oral tales in any other culture.

Archaeology tells us that the northern kingdom, called "Israel" but more commonly referred to back in the 8the century BC as the House of Omri was a moderately important regional force for a short time until the Assyrians overran them.  The southern Kingdom, Judah, for want of another word, was an impoverished region of goat and sheep herders which was underpopulated and an Assyrian vassal state which thrived for a time as part of the Arabian trade which flourished.  They got too big for the britches, rebelled and got smacked down.  Thereafter, other powers kept them suppressed until the late 2d century BC when the collapsing Seleucid empire was no longer able to control them or much of anything else.

If you want to learn history, study history and archaeology.  Not mythology.

http://www.umich.edu/~proflame/neh/arch.htm

[font=Arial (Hebrew)]Friday, October 29, 1999 [/font]

Deconstructing the walls of Jericho 
Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it
 
By Ze'ev Herzog 

[Bucky Ball]

So what are you doing in this thread? You don't want to discuss what OP posted, fine, me neither, since I'm tired of religious debates. So, just ignore his thread, ignore the poster, if you feel like it.

You know, we don't really need any *helicopter momming* here.
Your intrusion into discussions is inappropriate and childish.
Knock it off.

The OP came here PROMOTING the 7 wonders ... not asking what we thought of them.
There is a huge difference.

[Bucky Ball]

Of course that assumes that the "torah" is what it claims to be.  Understand that we have no indication that any of this gibberish existed in a written form before the 3d century BC when Hellenistic Jews in Alexandria wrote it out in Greek, a document known as the Septuagint.  Further, we have no indication that literacy was at all prevalent in the Persian and later Hellenistic provinces of Yehud.  If anything, giving it the most generous benefit of the doubt I can muster, this is a compilation of oral legends which were passed down through the ages and have about as much reliability as any other oral tales in any other culture.

Archaeology tells us that the northern kingdom, called "Israel" but more commonly referred to back in the 8the century BC as the House of Omri was a moderately important regional force for a short time until the Assyrians overran them.  The southern Kingdom, Judah, for want of another word, was an impoverished region of goat and sheep herders which was underpopulated and an Assyrian vassal state which thrived for a time as part of the Arabian trade which flourished.  They got too big for the britches, rebelled and got smacked down.  Thereafter, other powers kept them suppressed until the late 2d century BC when the collapsing Seleucid empire was no longer able to control them or much of anything else.

If you want to learn history, study history and archaeology.  Not mythology.

The premise of the "prediction" (prophesy) concept is fundamentally false.
Prophesy is and was not "prediction".
That is a particulary modern (uneducated) notion, that many main-stream Biblical Studies courses teach on day 1.
From a paper I posted on TTA, a few years ago :

"The ancient role of a prophet in Hebrew culture was to interpret the words or will of their god to the people OF THEIR OWN DAY. NOT to predict the future. (That's Hollywood's idea of the role of a prophet). So you often hear fundies talking about "prophesy", and how various prophesies were a 'foretelling", or prediction of the future, and indeed they count them up as "proof" that Jebus or whatever HAS to be true, as the "prophecy" came true.

In fact Leviticus forbade fortune telling and divination, so we know it was an abomination to even think in these terms for many/most centuries in Hebrew culture. However, with the rise of Apocalypticism, around the turn of the millennium, this changed somewhat, and is evidenced in many religious writings, including the gospels, as they adopted the notions absent in ancient Israel, but coming into popular view with the Essenes.

In terms of Hebrew culture, and the "telling of or prediction of" the future, was unknown, and forbidden, and not at ALL a view of the major prophets themselves. However in the the new view, certain "hidden meanings" or "pesherim" began to be looked for, in the practice of Midrash. The name for this is called "pesher", (or seeking a "hidden meaning"), which was not even known to the original speaker/writer, but only "revealed" later to certain believers. Originally, the (plural) "pesherim" were only fully revealed to the Son of Righteousness, (the leader of the Essenes), and the idea was first found and fully understood after scholars read the Dead Sea scrolls, and was a sub category of "Midrash", (or study of the texts).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midrash
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/prophets

Thus we see that "prophesy" as fortune telling as began to be practiced in Judaism around the First Century, (and picked up by Christians and the gospel writers), really was a very late invention and never a classical part of Hebrew scripture, or understanding, either interpretation, or intention, and certainly was not the function of the ancient office of "prophet", in Hebrew culture, who was to be a "mouthpiece" to the people of their own day, and not Madame Zelda with her crystal ball.
https://infidels.org/library/modern/chri...aniel.html

[Aliza]

So what are you doing in this thread? You don't want to discuss what OP posted, fine, me neither, since I'm tired of religious debates. So, just ignore his thread, ignore the poster, if you feel like it.

You know, we don't really need any *helicopter momming* here.
Your intrusion into discussions is inappropriate and childish.
Knock it off.

The OP came here PROMOTING the 7 wonders ... not asking what we thought of them.
There is a huge difference.

I'm trying to not be a helicopter here because the optics will obviously be that I'm protecting one of my own... but OP's intro thread does not show an intent to prove anything to anyone. It seems to me that they're interested in exploring something that seems compelling to them, and that they're here to ask a bunch of people who are known to find flaws in arguments to help them get to the bottom of it. 

Hello, this is me GttT. I am a student at Aish HaTorah, intrested in finding out if judiasm is true on the basis of evidence. I dont want to just believe something is true blindly, and so i went to them for what evidence or at least very compelling suggestions there is to show judiasm is in fact true (or not). So far the evidence has seemed pretty strong tbh, particularly the 7 Wonders of Jewish History, and id love to discuss them with ppl here, and see if there is a rebuttal to that proof and/or others. i just want to get to the truth.
thanks

(Bold mine)

I guess I just don't see what many of you are seeing. It strikes me as an honest inquiry.

[Dancefortwo]

.....that same Torah the Judaic priests assembled and invented in Babylon, with all its Babylonian references, borrowed concepts and Babylonian ideas

Yup.  The source story for the Biblical flood was "borrowed" from the Babylonian Epic of Gilgaimesh which goes back to some of oldest cuneiform poetry from the Dynasty of Ur in 2100 BC.   The source story of the-baby-in-a-basket-placed-in-the-river was taken from the Akkadian birth story of Sargon of Akkad who died in 2279 BC.   

The Bible was not written in a vacuum.  It contains tidbits of surrounding cultures and previous myths written by other people plus some of it's own family lore.

[Inkubus]

...So just looking at the evidence in hand, I don't think we have strong enough reason to conclude that GttT is here to proselytize.

No one said he is.
This massive derail is courtesy of Dom, who threw this in, completely out of the left field.

We'll see.

Jews don't proselytize. He is not one of our preachers.

[Minimalist]

Jews don't proselytize.

Some Jews did.

John Hyrcanus, when he subdued Idumaea and Galilee in the late 2d century BC forcibly converted the residents to Judaism.  Never speak in absolutes.

Of course, it is also true that for most of antiquity the Jews were on the receiving end and weren't in a position to forcibly convert anyone.... except for Hyrcanus' brief shining moment.

[Dom]

The OP came here PROMOTING the 7 wonders ... not asking what we thought of them.
There is a huge difference.

He didn't. He summarized what he had been taught in school, with the intent of seeing what you think of it.

And you posted some good stuff in a reply. Keep helping him to debunk it. 

[julep]

Hello again, this is GttT with the 7 Wonders of Jewish History (Henceforth 7WoJH). (You can skip this intro if you need). Sorry for the delay.

In order to avoid us misunderstanding each other, avoid discussions that go off on tangents, and becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity) I will lay down some parameters of discussion.

Oh no you won't!

You posted this thread in an open discussion forum and you will abide by forum rules as do we all. You don't make up your own.

I am in favor of no ad hominems here, instead cogent, non combative answers.

He is not here for combat, he is here because he is trying to understand what atheists object to, and open to de-conversion.

I have been repeatedly pissed off over the years when we drove people looking for answers back into the faiths by just attacking them personally.

We are here to HELP people deconvert, if they are open and thinking about things.

He simply wants to know why we think of the above things the way we do. Let's tell him without shooting the enquirer. Please.

I think he's proselytizing.  Also that his position that he just wants to "understand" atheists' objections is disingenuous.   Also his attempts to control the conversation in terms of what subjects respondents are "allowed" to address suggest to me that there's no genuine interest in a dialogue.  

First wonder presented doesn't seem all that wondrous (or much of a prophecy).

[Szuchow]

I think he's proselytizing.  Also that his position that he just wants to "understand" atheists' objections is disingenuous.   Also his attempts to control the conversation in terms of what subjects respondents are "allowed" to address suggest to me that there's no genuine interest in a dialogue.

Exactly.

First wonder presented doesn't seem all that wondrous (or much of a prophecy).

Wait till you see third wonder - anti-Semitism.

ETA: To be frank this entire list of wonders look like some laughable apologetics put together by not too bright high schooler.

[Dom]

Oh no you won't!

You posted this thread in an open discussion forum and you will abide by forum rules as do we all. You don't make up your own.

I am in favor of no ad hominems here, instead cogent, non combative answers.

He is not here for combat, he is here because he is trying to understand what atheists object to, and open to de-conversion.

I have been repeatedly pissed off over the years when we drove people looking for answers back into the faiths by just attacking them personally.

We are here to HELP people deconvert, if they are open and thinking about things.

He simply wants to know why we think of the above things the way we do. Let's tell him without shooting the enquirer. Please.

I think he's proselytizing.  Also that his position that he just wants to "understand" atheists' objections is disingenuous.   Also his attempts to control the conversation in terms of what subjects respondents are "allowed" to address suggest to me that there's no genuine interest in a dialogue.  

First wonder presented doesn't seem all that wondrous (or much of a prophecy).

He wants to stay focused on the topics that make him question things in school.

Many of us deconverted at some point, and for many it was a long, long road. Some of us were lucky and didn't have to redo everything we ever believed, but many had no such luck.

I credit people who reach out.

And again, Jews don't want goys in their midst, for the most part. They do not recruit.

[Deesse23]

...becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity)

...First off, I do agree with the basic premise of Atheism, which is that things are unproven, generally assumed untrue until proven true.

Its really a bad start to tell others that they might be confused about your belief (system) and then demonstrate your own confusion about what their (lack of) belief actually is.

Atheism = lack of belief in a god (or gods)
The premise of " things are unproven, generally assumed untrue until proven true" is a premise of reasoned thinking. I happen to agree with you about this premise tho.

In my words, if Im 80% or 90% sure of something, thats enough.

That is enough for you to believe in a god? ...and possibly live your (whole!) life according to his (alleged) rules? ....to bear all the consequences of your belief and to make others bear the consequences of your actions based on those beliefs. 80%??????

Second, No ad hominem attacks please, or on Religious Jews (such as, 'but Jewish schools dont teach evolution, so they dont know anything!').

Isnt that a bit of a high horse you put yourself on here? Who do you think you are talking to?

You may be right, you may be wrong, but either has no bearing on if Judiasm is true. 

If i think your god does not exist (hard atheism), and i am right, as in "factually correct", then the jewish god does not exist. Thus judasim is untrue. Thus, you are wrong, fundamentally wrong. This and your misunderstanding about what atheism is, tells me enough about your way of reasoning and the likelyhood of you presenting any good arguments for your belief.

No ad hominim attacks on the Torah either please (such as 'its sexist')

Thats not an ad hominem, at all.
And, you are complaining for the second time about something that hasnt even remotely happened yet. The way you are asking this, suggests that you expect (lots of) us to throw ad hominems at you. I consider this to be an affront (insult), since i have no desires to ever throw ad hominems at anybody, while you suggest that may happen, without knowing me at all.

. Again, wether right or wrong, how appealing you think it is has no bearing on how true it is. In general, I hope Im preaching to the choir (heh) here, but it is intellectual responses that prove something right or wrong, not emotional ones. 

Agreed

Third, No rebuttals from bible criticism that axiomatically assume the Torah is manmade.

for the x-th time you are warning "us" to to do something that hasnt happened by any stretch yet. As i already said, i consider this to be an insult of yours to assume i may "axiomatically assume the Torah is manmade", without you knowing me at all.

 (such as, but 'we know it wasnt written by God, since we know the Torah is manmade'. Or 'yeah but judiasm isnt true, cause the jews got their idea of God from the babylonians'). No, we dont know those, much of that field and their conclusions is based on archeology, which is far from a hard science. To be clear about what I mean, I am willing to consider that the Torah is manmade of course, and willing to accept historical events rebuttal, from bible criticism. But to say something like 'we know that the jews got their God from the neighboring tribes, cause obviously they didnt get it from God 'Himself' ', and then later say 'See, we know the Torah isnt true because they got it from the Neighboring tribes' is circular reasoning.

And again you are tearing down a strawman of what you think some people would argue here. I am slowly getting sick of it by now.
But i tell you what: Archealogy may not a "hard science", but i am 80% confident that it shows your claim(s) about judaism to be false. Do you think 80% confidence is sufficient to reject your claim? (hint: look above)

I dont think it makes no sense for the Torah to be true if it describes God doing things the break the laws of nature. If God does exist and made the universe, of course 'He' could play with its laws. 

If my grandma had wheels, she would have been a bike. So what?
You make a claim, you have the burden of proof. "Ifs" dont get you anywhere.

Also, no dogmatic axiom that materialism is true.

How many more times do you want to be engaged in this straw mannig BS?
What if i told you x-times not to use this or that stupid argument for judaism, before i even listneed to any of your arguments that you actually want to bring forth?

To get to the Truth (heh), you have to be at least willing to consider that God and spirituality exist.

And you have to be at least willing to consider that God and spirituality does not exist. Now please, pretty please with ice cream, come down from your fucking high horse, will you?
Your condescension is, slowly but surely, riling me up. even more so, since you already have demonstrated your lack ok knowledge of quite a few things.

Rebuttals that destroy the Christian position on a matter don't necessarily mean that matter is wrong; Christianity and its views do not represent Judaism. 
Honestly, even if they look similar on the surface, Judaism really is pretty different.

Another straw man /insult?
Really?! No shit?
Get.down.from.your.high.horse.will.you?

At his point i wont spare more time to waste with your arrogance and ignorance*. Based on what i already know i bet your arguments are as piss poor as all the other stupid arguments of all the other theists i have met lately......"Likelyhood of events...therefore (jewish) god", yeah pretty much what expected/predicted after your completely unnecessary and offensive preamble.


*wich are not ad hominems, since you demonstrated both to be true

[Bucky Ball]

I read it as otherwise, (his saying that archeology was not "hard science"). He's speaking as an apologist.

Respectfully, anyone looking at a (cherry-picked) series of "wonderful" historical events, which leaves out ALL the bad ones,
is hardly a search for truth. No list of Jewish events which does not include the murder of over 6,000,000 Jewish people (the Holocaust) is bogus.

[Dom]

He is regurgitating what he has been taught.

I think Dessee is right, he has been taught a faulty view of atheism.

[Vera]

Also that his position that he just wants to "understand" atheists' objections is disingenuous.   Also his attempts to control the conversation in terms of what subjects respondents are "allowed" to address suggest to me that there's no genuine interest in a dialogue.  

Spot on. That some actually *believe* (ha! Get it!) that people who claim to come here in order to "hear the other side" or to seek counterproof to whatever their belief of choice may be, boggles my mind.

In all my time here and on TTA I haven't seen one single poster who joined with an introduction and claims of this type who didn't turn out to be here simply to present his pet belief theory (usually copy-pasted. Much like this one) only to disappear after a handful of posts, never ever engaging in a sincere discussion. Not. A. One.


Just because he's a Jew (I think he said his mother was Xtian so I'm guessing he comes from a xtian (aka proselytizing) background) doesn't make it any different.

I'd be glad to be proven wrong but can't say that I'm holding my breath.

And yes, *this* kind if disingenuousness is way more offensive than religious people who come without hiding behind the pretense of searching for the truth.

[Deesse23]

Also that his position that he just wants to "understand" atheists' objections is disingenuous.   Also his attempts to control the conversation in terms of what subjects respondents are "allowed" to address suggest to me that there's no genuine interest in a dialogue.  

Spot on. That some actually *believe* (ha! Get it!) that people who claim to come here in order to "hear the other side" or to seek counterproof to whatever their belief of choice may be, boggles my mind.

In all my time here and on TTA I haven't seen one single poster who joined with an introduction and claims of this type who didn't turn out to be here simply to present his pet belief theory (usually copy-pasted. Much like this one) only to disappear after a handful of posts, never ever engaging in a sincere discussion. Not. A. One.


Just because he's a Jew (I think he said his mother was Xtian so I'm guessing he comes from a xtian (aka proselytizing) background) doesn't make it any different.

I'd be glad to be proven wrong but can't say that I'm holding my breath.

And yes, *this* kind if disingenuousness is way more offensive than religious people who come without hiding behind the pretense of searching for the truth.

Amen!

[julep]

I am in favor of no ad hominems here, instead cogent, non combative answers.

He is not here for combat, he is here because he is trying to understand what atheists object to, and open to de-conversion.

I have been repeatedly pissed off over the years when we drove people looking for answers back into the faiths by just attacking them personally.

We are here to HELP people deconvert, if they are open and thinking about things.

He simply wants to know why we think of the above things the way we do. Let's tell him without shooting the enquirer. Please.

I think he's proselytizing.  Also that his position that he just wants to "understand" atheists' objections is disingenuous.   Also his attempts to control the conversation in terms of what subjects respondents are "allowed" to address suggest to me that there's no genuine interest in a dialogue.  

First wonder presented doesn't seem all that wondrous (or much of a prophecy).

He wants to stay focused on the topics that make him question things in school.

Many of us deconverted at some point, and for many it was a long, long road. Some of us were lucky and didn't have to redo everything we ever believed, but many had no such luck.

I credit people who reach out.

And again, Jews don't want goys in their midst, for the most part. They do not recruit.

I've known proselytizing Jews.  I've known quite a few converted Jews, usually for reasons of marriage, similar to puppet's felonious daughter Ivanka.  To be fair, I haven't encountered them as often as proselytizing Christians and Muslims.  From the poster's self-description, he's a convert of sorts himself, and people who have converted to a point of view rather than growing up with that view may try to self-validate this process by trying to win others to the same belief.   

He's already tried to load the dice by preemptively refusing to consider any response grounded in history or archeology (which would rule out any chance of this being a substantive or interesting conversation).

[Bucky Ball]

I'm happy to give him any benefit of any doubts there may be about motivation.
His motivation is irrelevant to any discussion, actually.
I am quite confident that we can deal with anything he or anyone else posts, ... factually, scientifically, and academically.
There are many people here, expert on many relevant topics, who know a great deal about the subject at hand, probably a lot more than he knows.
Of course we don't have to follow his (artificial) guidelines.

[Aliza]

I've known proselytizing Jews.  I've known quite a few converted Jews, usually for reasons of marriage, similar to puppet's felonious daughter Ivanka.  To be fair, I haven't encountered them as often as proselytizing Christians and Muslims.  From the poster's self-description, he's a convert of sorts himself, and people who have converted to a point of view rather than growing up with that view may try to self-validate this process by trying to win others to the same belief.   

He's already tried to load the dice by preemptively refusing to consider any response grounded in history or archeology (which would rule out any chance of this being a substantive or interesting conversation).

Where did GttT say they were a convert (literally or figuratively)? I missed that totally. @Vera also said that their mother was Christian... I'm busy as all can be IRL, but I'm surprised that I missed these details.

And of course the rules of the forum override the declared rules of a poster starting their own thread.

[Vera]

Amen!

What's the Jewish for amen, I wonder

@Vera also said that their mother was Christian...

Well, Like I said, "I *think* he said his mother was Xtian". His exact wording appears to be "In fact my mother did a lot of research into bible criticism (and wasn't convinced) in her day."... I did think I saw the word Christian mentioned but seeing as you guys don't really have a bible to be unconvinced by criticisms of it...

Either way, a Jew by birth or by conversion changes nothing for me. *This* kind of introduction and claims that he's willing to change his mind but he finds the "proof" very convincing, coupled with an immediate desire to start copypasting *and* setting their own rules (*not* how discussion work) have so far only turned out one way in all my time here.

A dishonest, disingenuous, manipulative way.

Like I said, I might be wrong...