Excuse me, but the Adam and Eve story clearly states that mankind will forever feel the pain of god's wrath.  Or g-d, whatever.  Pain in childbirth and all that. 

It's like seeing a 2 year old pick up a packet of gum in the store, then punishing him/her for the rest of their life, and their children and their children's children.

I think the idea of Jewish retribution - repaying and repairing those you have injured inadvertently or deliberately to the extent of your ability - is more appealing than the christian idea of getting Jesus to forgive you for free.  But g-d didn't give Adam and Eve the opportunity to redress this wrong, s/he/it/they just dumped on them and their children forever.  See Genesis 3.

What a total  non-sequiter.

Firstly, 'committing any offence for any reason' you want is the very opposite of following any social rules.

And secondly, the question would be what are the rules of society based on. If they are based on a social consensus of how much harm, pain, or distress any action is likely to cause to another individual or group, then I'm fine with that.

If they are based on the imagined edicts of an imagined authority figure, which means they are effectively based on the beliefs and taboos and hang-ups and prejudices of an older and different society, then no.

And "following orders" is not the same thing as following a set of guidelines, which is what ethical behaviour is about. It is about following guidelines, principles, which you accept as essential to a healthy society, and encouraging positive interactions between people, and discouraging harmful ones.

cj answered that one pretty well. 

Hardly. I learned the method from those studying ancient cultures. I might suggest you spend some time reading up on the subject. You might not make as many ignorant mistakes if you do.

There was none because there is no evidence of a literate culture. Archaeologists have uncovered many ancient literate cultures and have identified what is common in them from the physical evidence. No such physical evidence is found in bibleland.

Of course if you believe you know of some please feel free to post it. Be the first. You might even make a reputation for yourself.

As to the existence of any culture at all, at best it was the flea-ridden goatherds you mentioned. Only believers in unprovenanced religious tradition claim there was otherwise. But again if you have physical evidence of any culture of interest you be sure to post it. Such evidence should litter the museums of Israel. Why not google it and post the results you find. You might be the first to find something. Note Roman and Greek era materials are expected. The pomegranate was discredited years ago and was worthless to the skeptic from the beginning.

Rotsa ruck!

In another post in this group I posted "Hebrew is Greek" which is the bittorrent feed for the largest collection of academic evidence. You are free to grab it and read it if you wish to learn something of the subject.

As to the archaeological evidence there are only four languages found in bibleland prior to the arrival of the Greeks, Phoenician, Aramaic and a bit of Egyptian and Syriac although that may be a phoneticized Egyptian. No "hebrew" at all. The oldest example of "hebrew" remains the DSS from the 1st c. AD. (The bible scrolls date from that century. The oldest DSS scroll is younger than the Septuagint.)

As noted, the "biblical hebrew" is filled with the stylings of Koine Greek. Aramaic does not show a Koine Greek influence. Hebrew is obviously a derivative of the Aramaic. Even today the Israeli language uses the Aramaic alphabet which is an evolution of the root Phoenician alphabet also use by Greek and us for that matter.

The Israeli language, mistakenly called Hebrew, started with the vocabulary of the Masoretic text and the Mishna. As that was insufficient for a functioning language it adopted some 2/3rd of its vocabulary from Arabic before adding modern words like electricity and airplane.

The largest number of passages is found in the Septuagint, fewer in the DSS books and least in the Masoretic, the latter being the official today. Conversely there is nothing in the Masoretic which is not in the DSS which is not in the Septuagint. I should be conclusive evidence to anyone willing to deal with the physical evidence.

You mean Jews accept following orders as a legitimate defense? Is that how they justify the many genocides and attempted genocides and mass murders they conducted as ordered by your hyphenated god? Or do you know the stories are BS and don't worry about it?

How about the millions with Joshua complexes running around in Palestine these days?

The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the sons unto the seventh generation. Rather than argue if David was sixth or seventh generation do you just shitcan the entire OT and wing it as it appears?

Christians are less savage.

No, it's the only rational conclusion that can be reached -- consensus does not guarantee any sort of reasonable moral code.  At best it produces majority rule, at worst, mob rule.  Neither protect the interests of those who need protecting the most -- the people who don't have the power to say "No" to anyone who has the power needed to create such "rules".

And trying to =enforce= some set of social rules is either a pointless exercise in navel gazing, or it devolves into "Might Makes Right".

I agree to the extent that a consensus does not guarantee an ideal moral code, but is more likely to lead to a reasonable one than the alternative, one based on some 'authority'. How do you decide which authority, and what interpretation of 'black-letter' edicts to use? At least this problem is recognized in secular legal systems in more advanced countries, with provision for appeal and re-trial. Multiple religious interpretations leave you back with the same fallible human judgement that secular morality uses, to decide which one is 'good' or 'right', but now contaminated by the ancient prejudices and taboos of the people who recorded the original texts.

Your country is faced with this dilemma right now - whose interpretation and application of the Torah is 'right', the ultra-conservative Jews or the moderates??

Yes, social consensus is imperfect, but it is possible to reform it and update it, whereas religious-based morality is ultimately purely subjective, since which is the 'true' God is unprovable, and the ultimate intentions of such a being, should It actually exist, would be utterly beyond our ability to determine with any confidence. This is why all god-based codes amount to 'might makes right', whereas more enlightened secular systems, such as designed and intended by the Founding Fathers of the US Constitution, try to provide 'checks and balances', to minimize the danger of descent into mob-rule, to protect minorities.

====

The issue of how to enforce any set of rules, whether secular or religion based, is another problem. 

Any social code will contain both rules, which require enforcement, and guidelines, where non-observance is not felt to deserve intervention. More like recommendations. The harder 'rules' become the legal code.

Rules, codes, at least the ones not concerned with dealing with acts like killing and/or seriously physically abusing others, should also make allowance for the variety of individual likes and dislikes, where differences don't amount to matters of serious likelihood of conflict. Those difference are the main problems for the Golden Rule, and less so for the Silver Rule ( the "don't do to others that which..." version ).

She is one of them?! Fat lot of business a zionist has talking about morality.

Take a stress pill, Dave.

           Well the majority of exchanges between Furry and Nony are quite interesting and a little drama from Brian with some ALL CAPS thrown in, what's the big deal ?

You must not read many of Noony's posts. If he is not a bigot, he sure acts like one. Every time he posts everything is a Jewish conspiracy. I try to tell him no, Israel's actions are NOT always good. And I do not agree with everything they do, that is not good enough for him.

"Zionist sympathizer" as if I am aiding the enemy is what he ignorantly throws back at me.

He has been throwing his hateful crap here for years. If he doesn't hate all Jews, or anyone who might agree with them on some things, he sure has never shown it.

He is stuck on one speed, "Jews always wrong" "Palestinians always right"

When I come in and say NEITHER, and life is shades of gray, I become his enemy too.

I am sick of his shit as much as I would be any Muslim who wants to wipe Israel off the face of the planet.

Because of the Age of Enlightenment, not because of Christianity. If there were no secular governments to hold Christianity at bay, it would be as tribal and bloody as it was in the Dark Ages. As tribal and sectarian as it is between Muslims in Islamic states. As tribal as Muslims treat non Muslims in most of the middle east.

Even with that secular leash, there are still Christians today who would if they could and had the political power outlaw atheist rights and gay rights. There are politicians and plenty of voters who WOULD turn back the clock if given the power.

Ron Paul just had to back off the backing of a fundie Christian because his staff didn't do a good job vetting a supporter who ADVOCATED THE EXECUTION OF GAYS.

Now in Saudi Arabia and Iran who would support Palestine before Israel, how much rights do gays have?

What do you think the hatred of gays even in the states is based on? Science? All three treat gays as an "abomination" And with what? Tribal books written in an fucking ignorant age.

You got called on your bigotry and now you are pretending that I am the one who needs a chill pill.

Ok, lets put this to the test.

Is there any Jew you know personally that you like whom you could see being the Prime Minister of Palestine?

Here is what I can do that you cant.

Muslim Keith Ellesson I would vote for. He is a Congressman. He swore in on a Koran and not a bible, which was his right as per "no religious test". I hate Furry's religious arguments as to why being Jew is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But I would vote for her for President before I would consider you. You are just as bad as Pat Robertson, and I do not care that you are an atheist.

Right because Jews got it right and Muslims got it wrong and well, when faced with that paradox belief in an unprovable non material god is better than saying they don't exist.

I am sure the Egyptians who believed the sun was a god were gracious hosts to outsiders. They would have had to have done that to some extent to survive for 3,000 years.

No, what is really going on with Muslims and Christians and Jews is the same damned thing. All of you think you got it right. What none of you do is consider that your myths are merely products of marketing.

Noony, here is where I want you and Furry and even atheists who hate me for my bluntness.

WORDS and arguments, not assumption of hate or implications of violence.

What far too many humans do, including atheists, is equate hate of a claim for hate of an entire group.

I HATE your bullshit argument of "Jews stole the land"

Yea, they did. And European Christians stole America from the natives that lived here. And even stole black people from Africa, whose descendants still suck up to Jesus and cling to Jesus no matter how much I argue they would not be Christians if slavery had never brought blacks to the states.

I HATE the fact that it is almost 2012 and both Muslims and Jews still claim an invisible friend. I HATE the fact that people claim that Astrology is as valid as Astronomy. I hate that jocks in sports think lucky socks or 4 leaf clovers will help them win a game.

But no matter what I hate AS A CLAIM, even the people I want to metaphorically bitch slap in life, come from the same product of evolution as I do.

It is ALWAYS ok to attack a claim. It does not help humanity, in attacking the claims of others, to treat them as a sub species.

But tearing up Judaism is so much easier than all of the above as it is only a ritual/taboo life style which barely passes for a religion these days. I know people try to pretty it up but adding Moses to Universal Unitarianism doesn't buy much. The problem is compounded by those who claim to belong to the Fraternal Order of Jews knowing so very little about it. How many know the Bar Mitzvah was invented in the late 19th c.? Even fewer know its sole basis is the gospel story on the young Jesus in the Temple. How many have actually read Israel Shahak on Jewish history?

It is hardly surprising the entire Jewish narrative is bound up in being the eternal victim. Who else would insist upon living apart and then complain about being considered outsiders? Take for example the whining about antisemitism in the US. EVERY new immigrant group had its time in the barrel. Jews were no different from the Irish and Italians in that regard. That which is the same cannot be considered different.

Judaism survived in Europe and Muslim countries solely because it was a protected religion. If it had not been Jews would be as scarce as Druids.

Back to the subject. I have replied to you regarding the juvenile nature of the "teachings" of the Torah and the entire Tanakh for that matter. Even if the Torah were by some miracle as old as the chronology suggests the Code of Hammurabi is centuries older, addresses the real, adult world and in fact reads rather modern.

Minor correction. Cortez never owned the land. His wife, an Aztec, owned the land. Cortez merely ruled it in accordance with Aztec law.

Despite the efforts of many prominent people including Abraham Lincoln all but a handful of those stolen slaves declined repatriation. Maybe they think Jesus saved them from Africa. In that spirit Amistad is being revived on cable TV this month. The leader of the Amistad group returned to Africa and became a slave supplier.

To keep this on topic and to delight our local furry fetishist Jewish law is very pro-slavery.

Hebrew isn't English.

It also isn't derived from Greek, but Hebrew is most certainly NOT English.

In Hebrew, nouns have gender, as do the verbs which reference the nouns.  It is very well understood that the =linguistic= gender of a word is NOT it's sex.

Likewise, words have "number" -- plural, if you will.  Masculine and feminine words have different ways of being pluralized -- "yom", which is "day" becomes "yomim", which is "days".  "Yom" is a masculine word -- it doesn't mean it has a penis.  "Mitzva", which is "commandment" becomes "mitzvot", which is "commandments".  "Mitzvah" is a feminine word -- it doesn't mean it has a vagina.

Thanks for the pictures, it's always nice to look at photos of ancient temples to false gods that are lying in ruins.

I'd love to show you lots of photos of ancient temples in Israel for all of the false gods that were being worshiped, with all of their temples scattered throughout the country, all lying in ruins, but there's this small problem with Judaism -- there's only one G-d, and only one place for the Temple for G-d.  Not one city, not one province -- one place, on top of one hill, on top of one rock.

The ruins are still there -- sacked by the Romans in 70CE.  It was in all the papers.  A mosque was built on the same site and it's still there, today.

But you know that.  You also know that the one place on top of one hill has been the site of the Temple in Jerusalem since Solomon's Temple was built, and destroyed.  And that after Solomon's Temple was rebuilt, Herod had a new Temple rebuilt.  Right on top of the same rock, on the same hill, in the same town, in the same province.

Get your head out of your ass. Europeans stole land from Native Americans. I am NOT responsible for that. Some Hispanics think California and Arizona and Texas should be returned to them because the land was once occupied by a majority of Spanish. Missing the point that even Mexico itself was invaded.

1945 happened. And Sharone since the 60s has been a Jewish Dirty Harry. Dwell in "they started it" all the fuck you want, but that does not do a fucking thing to bring peace.

There is not a fucking thing we can undo now. What is done is done. If I had been a powerful politician back at the end of the war, I would have invited Jews to move to America or Europe and not where they ended up. But we cannot change that anymore than America can go back to belonging to Native Americans.

Our actions good and bad as a species are a result of our evolution, not an invention of ANY label. Until you learn to stop dwelling in the past instead of collective problem solving, that conflict will not stop.

The future is all you the atheist and Muslims and Christians and Jews collectively have. Pissing contests over things that cannot be undone don't solve shit.

I've learned that you are an idiot and a bigot based on what you've written.

The origins of Hebrew are very well understood, and the answer isn't "Greek".

Nor is Aramaic a single language that you could say "THIS is Aramaic, and nothing else is."  Nor are all Aramaic dialects uniformly consistent such that minor phonetic differences are all that's required to translate between dialects.  The same can be said of Arabic, though less so than with Aramaic.

 Call it a form of "mission creep" when topics drift.  It happens all the time.  Don't bail.  Academically speaking, I like the higher level of debate between you and Nony.  He's the "matter" to your "anti-matter" and that makes for an interesting debate.   You're both educated and with strong opinions.  That's a good combination.

       Ignore the people who derail and engage only who you wish to debate.  If this thread is too far gone for you then start a different thread.  I was really getting interested.

  Well suit yourself.  I thought calling people out on their bullshit is what happens here almost daily.  Look at the level of debate that occurs here from most theists that come here, especially regarding hard science supposedly "proving" their particular god belief.  Yet they are engaged by the atheist science nerds almost ad infinitum.

We atheists here are subjected to an anti-atheist bigotry almost from the get-go.  We are reviled by most all of the "True Believers™"   We deserve to go to Hell, we have no real Morals....blah blah.

edit:  as far as the tactic of "baffling with bull shit" well sorry to say but that seems to be the major tactic that most theists of any category throw at  atheists.  But really, what else have they got to fall back on ?  ....yet the dialog continues between us.

Prozac, Noony IS a bigot, he is going way beyond merely saying "bullshit". He has had a few years here blaming Jews for everything. It is conspiracy crap on the level of faked moon landing.

If he had just been saying "The Jewish god is bullshit, like every other claimed deity in human history" that would be one thing.

I think Furry is capable from separating her claims from her person. We do attack claims, but hating an entire label of people is absurd. Noony cannot get it through his head that the reason that conflict has been going on is because BOTH sides and because it is tradition based and religion based.

If BOTH Israel and Palestine had a majority that took on secular constitutions like America, and their majorities on both sides wanted such, this conflict would not be happening. Noony sees every Jew and Jew supporter as an enemy, which is fucked up.

Atheists are right to attack all god claims, whatever label. I find the entire idea of any type of invisible friend to be absurd. But this world is far to small and connected to hate every single person in a group even if we may hate the claims they make.

I am quite sure if Noony would pull his head out of his as and look, he would find plenty of good people in Israel and even here in the states that are Jews. He is stuck on the "they stole my land" and "virtue of the oppressed", which is why he has his head up his ass.

He also refuses to see that while there certainly decent Muslims and Arabs in Palestine, THEY WOULD NOT set up a secular state.  And he wont accept that I am NOT for a Jewish state, just an Israeli state. And would be for a secular Palestinian state, but not a Muslim state.

It is NOT that  he attacks Jews claims, it is that he hates them for no good fucking reason, other than picking an arbitrary starting point in a conflict that has been going on for 1400 years.

Believe me, if Zionism were even remotely on par with the NAZIs or the Klan, I'd be all over Zionism like white on rice.  And having mentioned the NAZIs, according to Godwin's Law, you've now lost the debate, so kindly STFU.

"Zionism" is nothing more than the realization that there is only =one= place on this entire planet where we have enough of a legitimate claim to "belong there" that we can go that doesn't involve being murdered because we don't "belong" wherever else we happen to be.

Contrary to whatever bogus propaganda you've read -- the same bogus propaganda that has you completely lost when it comes to fundamental laws of Physics -- the problem of Jews in Eretz Yisrael is NOT NOT NOT caused, in any way, shape or form, by Zionism.  The problems are caused by theological imperatives with Islam.  There is a THEOLOGICAL belief that once a land has been conquered by Muslims, it must be protected and defended, at any and all costs, against the loss of that land to any other religion.  Furthermore, because Islam is a displacement theology, there is a THEOLOGICAL belief that Judaism is wrong and that Jews need to convert or be subjected to discriminatory practices as well as military action.  Failure to drive out the "infidel" from lands that were once conquered by Muslims is a SIN within Islam.

But more to the historical point, what created the earliest conflicts between Zionists and Muslims in Eretz Yisrael is that we did whatever they wanted when we went to buy land because they thought "Hey, it's okay to screw the Jews!"  We bought marsh and swamp land, malaria-infested parts of Eretz Yisrael, from the Ottoman Turks as well as Arabs, and turned in into productive land.  And this caused the next religious showdown -- the only way a non-Muslim, according to Islamic THEOLOGY, prospers is by theft, fraud, deceit, etc.  As we recovered more and more land, they jacked up the prices, and Jews outside of Eretz Yisrael poured money into the Zionist movement to pay what they were demanding -- that's why so much land, all with valid records for PURCHASING the land from its rightful Ottoman or Arab land-owners, was bought by the Jewish National Fund.

But it gets better -- as we developed the land for agricultural purposes, many of the Jewish families who'd contributed to BUY the land and PAY for its reclamation, moved to Eretz Yisrael.  Arabs, who saw the new kibutzim as opportunities for agricultural work, flocked to Eretz Yisrael and then discovered that the people who PAID to BUY the land that was RECLAIMED were intending to work it.  This created intense animosity which resulted in frequent attacks on Jews who were living on land they had BOUGHT and PAID FOR, often at significant multiples to it's price, had it been offered for sale to a Muslim.

The final coup de gras, they thought, was the attack in 1948 by the surrounding Arab states.  After several decades of continual attacks by Arab Muslims against the Jewish population, including aligning with Germany in both WWI and WWII, the Arab states tried to destroy the newly declared State of Israel.  Arabs that stayed put and didn't attack or pose a threat to Israel were left alone, for the most part -- that's why there is a large Arab population =inside= of Israel today.  Many Arabs living in Israel were promised that they'd be given Jewish property if they'd just kindly get out of the way of the advancing Arab armies.  So they did -- they FREELY CHOSE to side with the aggressors in the 1948 war and tried to aid in the destruction of Israel.  When the war was over they wanted to move home, but they'd demonstrated their willingness to help destroy Israel and, thankfully, haven't been allowed back in.  Our victory in the '48 war, and every other war since, continues to be seen through the lens of Islam -- we only won those wars because we "cheated" -- non-Muslims cannot have anything "good" happen unless we "cheat" somehow.

Since the '48 war, the same types of antics that prevailed from about 1890 through the '30s and '40s continued.  We'd buy something from an Arab, and actually expect to get to live in or use our property.  They'd engage in acts of violence, the same as from the 1890's through the 1920's when Great Britain tried to straighten things out, and when the negative consequences of their actions happened, they'd cry "Foul!" and want a do-over.  When the Jews who bought and paid for whatever it was we bought and paid for, Arabs would be further infuriated because we actually expected to use what we actually bought and paid for, many times at greatly inflated prices.  As a result of violence wherever Jews and Muslims interacted, more moderate Arabs would sell out, almost invariably to Jews, who'd then be accused of whatever crime was en vogue at the moment.  And if Jews engaged in self-defense, we'd be accused of still more crimes.

This is where we stand today.  Arab Muslims attack Jews, Jews engage in self-defense, this creates conflict at the borders of the conflict, Arabs sell out to Jewish buyers, Jews move in to their property, more attacks, more violence, more selling out.  If you look at land ownership patterns throughout Judea and Samaria, there is a gradual erosion of Arab land ownership as their co-religionists' violent acts drive them from their own land.  Because the problem is that Jews refuse to convert to Islam, it's our fault, period.  It is simply never the fault of the Muslims who are turning their children into walking bombs and it is never the fault of their political and religious leaders who've not pointed out that the Qur'an also says that when Muslims =don't= prevail, it really can be their own damned fault.  Which it is, and which it has been, for well over 100 years now.

+1.