Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net> Sat, 11 Oct 2003 04:30:38 GMT
In an attempt to wake walksalone up from a well deserved snooze on a rainy
morning succeeded with the following & is therefore found guilty of
disturbing my peace.
Matt Silberstein wrote in alt.atheism
In alt.talk.creationism I read this message from Elroy Willis
Matt Silberstein <matts2@ix.netcom.com> wrote in alt.atheism
In alt.talk.creationism I read this message from Elroy Willis
Matt Silberstein <matts2@ix.netcom.com> wrote in alt.atheism
<snip>
The JE has a POV, an agenda and worldview.
What is it? I'm genuinely curious.
It is a document from the Reform Movement of Judaism. It was
written at a time of scientism, of the beginning of the
scientific look at myths and stories (_Golden Bough_ was not even
published yet!). It was a time for a simplistic debunking of
religion rather than some more contextual and nuanced
understanding of the material. _Golden Bough_ and Frazer are not
the last word in understanding myths, but they are the first
word.
Good for them. Interesting how you think any debunking of religion
has to be simplistic in nature.
Snip
OTOH if it is a later story (and I don't have a clue at all about
this) it would likely have little to do with earlier cosmology.
What strikes me as interesting is that so little of the stories
concern "natural history". They don't attempt to explain the
physical world at all which is why we have to work hard to pull
their "science" from the text. Sure, they seem to have believed
that the sky was a solid dome over the Earth, but no passage,
certainly no story, is about that.
The Tower of Babel story is somewhat reflective of the idea that
people could reach heaven by building a tower tall enough. I recall
one version of the story where people used augers to try to drill
through the firmament at the top of it in order to get to heaven.
There are plenty of stories in the world with ideas like that.
Many a Native American story has someone actually going so high
they get to the Sky which is remarkably like this world here.
Wait, wait. This does not compute. There is to my knowledge no legend in
the North American First nations mythologys that indicate any thing was
built to ascend to the sky. There are legends that indicate man did manage
to reach the sky but it was always never the original intent, there are
also indications that people knew how to reach the sky as in when the sun
mother is visited according to the Cherokee mythology, or coyote shot
arrows into the sky one above the other to make a ladder to permit a
person to ascend to the sky. Normally, the sequence of events would be a
spirit descending to the earth & taking a human back to the heavens with
them as in the legend of **before Joy came to humans**. now, as to Central
& South America I can not say for I am not really that familiar with their
mythologys, either pre Aztec or pre Inca. I realize that technically the
Aztec are part of North America but there diversion into building actual
buildings is not what one can call typical North American first nation
behavior. It is not even common throughout the Southwest where it is the
only location for such activity that I am aware of today.
So if you do not mind and it would not be an inconvenience, I would
appreciate actual actual documentation on your claim that it was a theme
that was found throughout the Americas.
I'm hoping Walksalone might be reading this, since he's quite
I wasn't until you started chunking my name around in a less than proper
tone of voice. Youngsters today just have no respect for their elders.
knowledgeable about Native American mythology. He's passed on
quite a few stories to me, but I can't remember any about any native
americans building huge towers up to the sky, similar to the tower of
babel story.
Neither can I & I suspect that Matt did not mean what he said. There are
legends that have two way traffic between the spirits in the sky & humans
on earth but I have yet to encounter where any building of anything was
done for the sole purpose of gaining access to the heavens & becoming
equals to the spirits. Such a thought would be totally against any first
nation mythology I am aware of. The spirits had their job & humans had
theirs as well. It was not unheard of for a spirit to assist a human in
some manner but it was not an on demand thing like those found in the
revealed desert religions.
snip
To imagine that some actual god created a bunch of different
languages, just to confuse them, because they were building a tall
tower up to the sky, is absurd to me, dunno about you.
Well, recall that it is a mythology based on the Canaanite mythology which
requires it to have some claims that are not common. It was not expected
by various cultures that their gods would speak the same language but only
their language. Bit odd how that would work would you not think?
Sure, it assumes that, but it is not explaining the place of the Sky.
Maybe it came from a story that once explained that, I don't know.
Matt, if you study the mythology of the region that gave you your
mythology you may be able to answer your own question. It would appear
that your mythology is based on Canaanite mythology with various aspects
of the other nations that had conquered them such as Egypt &
Babylon/Syria/who ever was handy. We know that in some of those mythologys
the creation of the earth was based on the separation of sky father &
earth mother. So what you encounter in the tower of babbel myth is
possibly no more than the children of el attempting to reach their sky
father. & yes, el, the original god of Abraham, was a sky residing god.
What place of the sky? And why did you capitalize "sky?"
WELL Elroy, there is a fair dinkum question. It is based on where the
revealed desert mythology came from whether Matt realizes that or not. You
see, the home of el is the sky. This is one of the reasons you encounter
such names as el Carmel or el of Mount Carmel
What is quite interesting, to me at least, is that it is not an explanation of
natural history, nothing in the Torah serves that purpose.
Which parts of the Torah do explain any sort of natural history, in
your opinion? Any at all?
We know so little of their conception of the "natural world" because
they seem so uninterested in the subject. The Babel story serves
several purposes but not to explain the place of the Sky.
But it does indeed explain the purpose of the sky, the sky was there for
the gods to walk on & open windows to pour water upon the earth. It was
the floor of their home. According to Hebraic mythology, all lady had to
do was simply enter into be heavens and become equal to the gods. It does
not help you that during that time frame they had a pantheon and believed
in many gods. It does not help you that the original Hebraic mythology was
based upon a pantheon which is apparently a consensus among serious
biblical scholars. I say apparently for I do not read biblicaljournals & I
do not concern myself with anything but the gods which include the Hebraic
gods. As a matter of historical note according to be OT we can date when
be Jewish tradition actually became monotheistic.
You're obviously ignoring the whole idea that people could build
a tower to heaven and meet the gods up there in heaven, if the tower
was tall enough, or if they could manage to chisel their way through
some solid sky dome.
But Elroy, he has no choice for he does not understand the history of his
particular mythology. A bit like the claimed crucifixtion of the xian
mythology, a crucifixtion that could not have happened as claimed.
snip
They obviously thought that HaShem controls the weather.
Well duh! That sure follows from my comment above: HaShem is
behind *everything*.
Hashem is simply an epithet for yaweh & such is not the name for god, for
the name of your original god was el. Yaweh was missing until the non
existent exodus from Egypt. Time wise there may be a link between the
arrival of yaweh & the arrival of baal.
Cancer and ebola and leprosy too?
Absohuu>
Matt Silberstein wrote in alt.atheism
In alt.talk.creationism I read this message from Elroy Willis
Matt Silberstein <matts2@ix.netcom.com> wrote in alt.atheism
In alt.talk.creationism I read this message from Elroy Willis
Matt Silberstein <matts2@ix.netcom.com> wrote in alt.atheism
<snip>
The JE has a POV, an agenda and worldview.
What is it? I'm genuinely curious.
It is a document from the Reform Movement of Judaism. It was
written at a time of scientism, of the beginning of the
scientific look at myths and stories (_Golden Bough_ was not even
published yet!). It was a time for a simplistic debunking of
religion rather than some more contextual and nuanced
understanding of the material. _Golden Bough_ and Frazer are not
the last word in understanding myths, but they are the first
word.
Good for them. Interesting how you think any debunking of religion
has to be simplistic in nature.
Where does the "any" come from Elroy?
Sorry, I should've said "their debunking," or maybe "some debunking,"
or maybe "seem to think," or a combination of whatever I could have
said, had I thought a little longer...
You keep insisting on seeing a dichotomy where many views exist.
A dichotomy about what?
Do you have a clue (without looking it up now) what _Golden Bough_ or James
Frazer are? _Golden Bough_ represents the first attempt to do a
scientific analysis of myths. We have 100 years of scientific
work since the Jewish Encyclopedia, are you really willing to
stand up for 100 year old science?
Which parts of science?
<big snip>
Sure they knew of the Babylonian views, they all knew of the Babylonian
views. So don't look for the similarities and call it "theft", look for the
differences and see them as *commentary*,
Why not view the sharing and borrowing and embellishments and changes
as just a part of natural cultural evolution and a trading of
different beliefs and ideas?
as response to the Babylonian. Genesis 1, for example, is an assertive
*rejection* of the Babylonian cosmology and theology. It is a *rejection* of
the notion of a Sun God and a Moon God. It is a statement that HaShem
*created* these *things*.
I thought it was the Elohim, plural, not some single god named
HaShem.
ROTFLMAO. Elroy, please stop making comments about things you are
so ignorant of.
Laugh it up while you can. I'm of the firm opinion that laughter is
the best medicine in many cases.
You comment on Jewish ideas and texts in the same manner most
creationists comment on evolution: with a total lack of knowledge of the
subject. HaShem means "The Name".
Just another quazi-reference to some make-believe god, imo. I don't
care what you call it, if the god can't be called to the carpet and
tested by the scientific method, then I see no reason to call such an
idea or fantasy to be considered a god.
I leave the rest to you.
Thanks a bunch.
Yeah, we know more than them, we know more than Darwin or
Mark Twain or Einstein. BFD.
And people that come after us will know more than we do. That's why
sticking to some rigid ancient set of dogmas, be they religious, or
scientific in nature, is a bad idea, imo.
Which is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. No one is
arguing for any dogma at all.
My mistake. I thought you were claiming that the Torah has hidden
meanings in there somewhere.
And how is that dogma?
I consider ancient religious scriptures that some people consider
"holy" or supposedly inspired by some god or prophet or priest
or cult leader to be the same thing as "dogma." In fact, the
scriptures or dogmas don't have to be very old, maybe even current,
such as is the case with the Raelians.
I'd be surprised to find out I was all alone in my personal definition
of "dogma," but I'm open to being proven wrong.
And I was actually arguing that there are relatively surface meanings
you loose because of your reading.
I'm actually all for surface readings, when the surface reading is
perfectly clear, instead of being hidden inside layers and
layers of supposed hidden meanings. In fact, the idea of some
hidden meanings actually betrays the idea of some clear surface
meaning, does it not?
Isn't that what causes so much confusion when people read the stories
in collections of stories like those in the Bible or Torah or some
other scriptures?
How can you be 100% sure if the writer of a certain story, ancient, or
modern for that matter, intentionally hid some message in the story or
in the text? How can you be even 50% sure, or even 1% sure?
I've written over 50 satirical news stories, and I've received quite a
few emails from people who asked me "Did you really mean to say
that?" Or "Was there some hidden meaning in what you wrote?"
I almost feel like a failure sometimes, because I didn't put any
intentional hidden messages or meanings into some of my stories, but
that doesn't stop people from guessing about what hidden meanings, if
any, might be in some of my stories.
<snip>
OTOH if it is a later story (and I don't have a clue at all about
this) it would likely have little to do with earlier cosmology.
What strikes me as interesting is that so little of the stories
concern "natural history". They don't attempt to explain the
physical world at all which is why we have to work hard to pull
their "science" from the text. Sure, they seem to have believed
that the sky was a solid dome over the Earth, but no passage,
certainly no story, is about that.
The Tower of Babel story is somewhat reflective of the idea that
people could reach heaven by building a tower tall enough. I recall
one version of the story where people used augers to try to drill
through the firmament at the top of it in order to get to heaven.
There are plenty of stories in the world with ideas like that.
Many a Native American story has someone actually going so high
they get to the Sky which is remarkably like this world here.
I'm hoping Walksalone might be reading this, since he's quite
knowledgeable about Native American mythology. He's passed on
quite a few stories to me, but I can't remember any about any native
americans building huge towers up to the sky, similar to the tower of
babel story.
Trying to work out the geometry can make you feel a bit woozy.
Once you learn how to put yourself into the position of the people
back then, at any specific time, and understand their cosmology of the
time, a lot of the stories make more sense. You're called that
simplistic thinking, when I've given you examples, so I guess I have
to disagree with you on that. If putting yourself into some other
person's shoes, from some ancient time, is simplistic, then I guess
I'm guilty as charged.
Sure their cosmology has the sky a solid object above the Earth.
You can get a few notions of the cosmology from the Torah,
primordial water above and below, a flat Earth, a solid Sky. But
that is about it.
Don't under-estimate the influence those few ideas actually had on
people's big picture of the universe back then, or even now, for those
who still believe in astrology.
And, more importantly, the Tower of Babel is not *about* the Sky
being solid.
I've never claimed it was solely about that. It's more of the general
idea that people could somehow make their way up into the realm
of the stars and constellations and planets, where their revered gods
or heroes lived. That was supposed to be wrong, somehow, but now,
in the space age, the gods in heaven don't seem to have a problem
with people building huge towers, and even sending satellites and
rockets into space.
To imagine that some actual god created a bunch of different
languages, just to confuse them, because they were building a tall
tower up to the sky, is absurd to me, dunno about you.
Sure, it assumes that, but it is not explaining the place of the Sky.
Maybe it came from a story that once explained that, I don't know.
What place of the sky? And why did you capitalize "sky?"
What is quite interesting, to me at least, is that it is not an explanation of
natural history, nothing in the Torah serves that purpose.
Which parts of the Torah do explain any sort of natural history, in
your opinion? Any at all?
We know so little of their conception of the "natural world" because
they seem so uninterested in the subject. The Babel story serves
several purposes but not to explain the place of the Sky.
You're obviously ignoring the whole idea that people could build
a tower to heaven and meet the gods up there in heaven, if the tower
was tall enough, or if they could manage to chisel their way through
some solid sky dome.
It is mentioned in passing, almost as a side issue, while discussing
other issues.
There's quite a bit of natural descriptions of things in there if you
look for 'em.
Actually there is not that many. You really have to work at
figuring out how they saw the physical world.
How many is many? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty?
What they believed was that HaShem was behind everything, that
understanding HaShem would tell you about the world, not
understanding the behaviors of various individual Gods. In a
sense their cosmology was theology.
Exodus 9:23
"When Moses stretched out his staff toward the sky, the LORD sent
thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground. So the
LORD rained hail on the land of Egypt;"
They obviously thought that HaShem controls the weather.
Well duh! That sure follows from my comment above: HaShem is
behind *everything*.
Cancer and ebola and leprosy too?
Abssooohhhhuucckkkingloootly
That does not tell you much, if anything, about their understanding of
the weather.
It shows that they believed in a god who threw lightning bolts and
rain and hail down to earth. If you can't see that, then you're an
idiot, or blind.
Maybe you do too.
Maybe I do. Can you find any post by me that would say one way or
the other?
I'd think you might be embarrassed by admitting to believing in an
actual weather god, but I can't be 100% sure about that. You might
actually take pride in doing so for some type of persecution factor.
The world is not a simply religious/bad/ignorant domain and a
science/good/knowledgeable domain. If you don't care about the
time of the story why do you even bother to look at the stories?
To understand the different cosmological views at the times people
wrote the stories for one thing. A few hundred years isn't all that
long in the cosmological scheme of things.
We are not talking about the cosmological scheme of things. All
human history is not long in cosmological time, I still care that
some story is before or after something.
Before or after what?
In this case the Babylonian captivity would be of interest. My
point is simply that knowing how old a story is can help you
understand what the story means, what purpose it serves, its
origin. (And origin can tell you age.) You seem uninterested in
these issues entirely.
Which Jews worshipped the Queen of Heaven? Was it those who
were part of the supposed Babylonian captivity?
To answer your question Elroy, the queen of heaven was worsened by the
Jewish tribes from the beginning. She is the consort of el, & win el is
disclosed by yaweh the consort of yaweh. We do know that she was named
asherah in Israel & anat in Egypt. Yes, it is in writing and verified by
various archaeological finds.
Snip
Why would you want more, seriously?
That view seems to come from the 1900 time frame (though I
can't give you much support for that claim)
I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the above. Perhaps you can
clarify a bit.
and does not fit current scholarship on the topic. Sure, one aspect
was to explain the natural world.
Which other worlds were there to explain?
But they also (and, IMO, often) explains things about people.
People which live in the natural world. I don't have any problem with
stories which teach moral lessons about people dealing with each other
and things like that, but where does the supernatural world come into
play, in your opinion?
The people who made up the stories were not just trying to understand
the planet (yes, they did not know it was a planet) they were also saying
things about people, morality, etc.
You could take that to an extreme, and based on the color of mars
being red sometimes, it's easy to see why some ancient people
considered it to be some warrior god, since blood is red, don't you
think? Or is that beyond your level of putting yourself into ancient
people's shoes?
It was a myth that was used during the earth-centered view of things,
but once the sun-centered view came along, the myth was shown to be
unnecessary, since it was clear that Venus is an inner planet, and
the reason it can't rise high into the sky is because it's between
earth and the sun, not because some god got mad at it and cast
it out of heaven.
And if that is all you can get out of such stories I feel sorry for you.
I feel sorry for you too, if you can't see the simplicity of it all,
given the two different perspectives of the ancient people regarding
the layout of our solar system.
Any stories which claim to explain why any of the heavenly bodies are
the way they are,
Again, I reject your (and the Encyclopedia's) claim that the
story in question has that purpose.
Fair enough. You're entitled to your opinion.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, and leave it at that.
I engage you every so often because I keep thinking that you
might have some potential.
Potential for what?
snip
Making things plain enough that he can understand what you are talking
about? Goodness knows most people do not have that problem.
walksalone who is curious as to whether Matt will provide any information
for his claims about first nations of the Americas building towers of
babbel so to speak.
.
