Is organized religion a 'belief system' or a 'suspension of disbelief system'?

Both, depending on the individual. Some truly believe, while others want the benefits of being in a supportive group such as a church congregation. The latter group suspends disbelief in order to fit in, but still entertain doubts.

It depends on your vantage point.

To me, as I believe in logic and science, it is a suspension of disbelief, as many things organized religions claim have happened are simply impossible to have happened in accordance with the laws of nature.

Both

@Darwin It’s logical what you say. But even for those who truly believe, wouldn’t be necessary for them to suspend disbelief in the first place?

It depends on what people believe.
The religion I found is now mine because it reflected my beliefs.

The latter. I think religious belief basically requires lying to yourself—or else keeping yourself in ignorance of the religion’s content.

Take Christianity. Christians believe that a Jewish cult leader died and came back to life, like a zombie or a vampire or what have you. Now, most Christians probably just vaguely believe this on Easter and Christmas and don’t give it much more thought. But if you dig a little further into the content of this religion, you get into the associated beliefs. Specifically, that Jesus is, in fact, an ancient Mesopotamian deity named Yahweh—and simultaneously, he is this deity’s son. The point of the whole death and resurrection thing was supposed to be a sacrifice—to himself. Because only by sacrificing himself to himself could this Mesopotamian deity change the requirements for humans to be saved. Saved from what? From his own punishment for disobedience. Disobedience from what? From ancient laws this deity supposedly gave to a tribe of savage desert nomads (that, incidentally, strongly resemble earlier Babylonian laws), many of which most Christians today would unhesitantly describe as absurd or downright immoral. Also, the reason humans have a propensity to disobey these laws is because our ancestor ate a magic apple from a tree. Our ancestor, as it happens, was made from clay—again, just like in other Mesopotamian myths.

It is the stupidest, most nonsensical set of beliefs I am familiar with. Scientology makes more sense to me. A space alien emperor flying the souls of his people into Earth’s volcanoes on an airplane and then blowing them up with nuclear weapons, so that the souls are all trapped in our bodies now—that is less nonsensical than the basic beliefs of Christianity. And yet most Christians would not hesitate to dismiss Scientologists as crazy or deluded.

So yes. I think the main purpose of organized religion is to give these obviously nonsensical beliefs an air of sensibility and respectability. It’s sort of like how you would feel like an idiot dressed up as Chewbacca on the street, but at a Star Wars convention you feel normal. Edit: actually, maybe a better analogy would be furry conventions.

@Maldadpermanente – Not if they truly believe. Then there is no disbelief to suspend.

My daughter truly believes. She always has. I, however, do not. We both go to the same church because I suspend my disbelief on Sunday mornings (because it worries her if she thinks I don’t believe).

@Qingu Though I agree with some parts, namely that Christianity seems rather over the top in what is expected to believe. But I wouldn’t call religion as a whole ignorant. I still reserve that even though scientifically there are notions that point to a general lack of a God or gods, I must stay true to the Scientific method that I hold so dear. It has not been proven either way, and may never be, but until it does I can’t bring myself to say definatively either way.

Qingu: From what do you base that Yahweh is mesopotamian? I am interested. Haven’t heard of found anything about that before. Would be interesting to investigate.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03, that’s because you are defining “religion” and “God” to include things that are so vague and so far removed from the traditional understanding of these words that your statement becomes correct.

I’m a pretty hard-core atheist here, but if you define the word “God” to mean a vague, universal force that exists outside the bounds of logic and has no interaction with humans and no testable artifacts, then yes, I’d say such a God could well exist. It just wouldn’t resemble anything I’d call a “god.”

See Carl Sagan’s Dragon (a short essay) for a better explanation of what I’m talking about. This is why I don’t like to talk about the vague idea of “God” but rather specific gods, like Yahweh.

Also, you can’t prove a negative, so it strikes me as a bit silly to hem and haw about this. It’s like your saying “I can’t definitively say either way that there are no fairies.”

As far as a big guy with a beard goes, well yes, I’m right there with you. It seems rather ludacris that sort of entity would exist.
I’m an atheist as well, I don’t think there is any higher force at work, but still, I can not say I know there isn’t.

@dynamicduo – We have to distinguish between dogmatic and non-dogmatic organized religion. The latter doesn’t teach anything that’s in violation of the laws of nature. I’m aware that dogmatic religion is more widespread in the United States, but believe me, the situation is quite different in Europe. Creationists are a very small minority. Most Catholics over here think the Pope is dead wrong when banning contraception. Most Protestants think Jesus had a biological father and virgin birth is a metaphor. Disbelief does not have to be suspended.

Dogmatic religion is about social control and policing. Non-dogmatic religion is about social guidance and enlightenment and freedom and individual choices.

This also means that the related belief systems vary a great deal.

By the way, I really believe that the silent majority of religious people in the United States are non-dogmatic in their beliefs, while the vocal minority creates a lot of media hype trying to spread fear and stupidity. Most religious people are much smarter than many realize. I recommend reading Barack Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope”. It’s a great book of a very intelligent man. Read his chapter on “Faith”.

@mattbrowne The Audacity of Hope is a fantastic book. drilled through it rather quickly and read it a second time for good measure.

I only suspend disbelief when I go to the movie theater.

@Qingu Would that universal force outside logic be responsible of our world creation or would it be just a superior force alien to us?

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – Scientifically, there are no notions that point to a general lack of a God or gods. At the same time, scientifically, there are no notions that point to the existence of a God or gods. Yes, it’s the scientific method that we must hold so dear. In my opinion existence issue will never be proven either way. We have to live with the fact that there are some statements that science and math will never know whether they are true or false. So, in a sense and this was mentioned before here on Fluther, agnosticism is the only logical conclusion in a scientific sense. However, religion or atheism is about belief. If people think God exists it’s a belief and not a fact. If atheists think God doesn’t exist it’s a belief and not a fact. We should respect both and judge people by their character and not by their beliefs.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 – Yes, it’s one of the best non-fiction books I’ve read in years. I know many Democrats but also many Republicans who are also very impressed.

From an atheist point of view, clearly a “suspension of disbelief”.

@oratio, there are numerous parallels between the early books of the Old Testament and Mesopotamian myths.

The most obvious is the flood story, which has many identical details to the earlier Atrahasis myth. In Atrahasis, the leader of the gods, Enlil, wants to flood the earth because humans are bothering him. But Ea, a Prometheus-like god, warns a wise man (named Atrahasis, the Noah of the story) to build an ark, seal it with pitch, and load it up with animals. Ea floods the earth, destroying everything. Afterwards, Atrahasis appears and makes a giant burning sacrifice. Ea and the other gods think twice about killing everyone (because they like the sacrifice) and so they let humans breed, but institute certain conditions. The theology is different, but the details and template of the myth are identical to the one in Genesis. An even earlier version of this flood myth appears in Gilgamesh, but it lacks any theology.

As for Yahweh being a “Mesopotamian deity,” he exhibits traits of a number of Mesopotamian deities and is clearly syncretistic with respect to them. For example, in the Psalms and in Job, Yahweh is described as “defeating the sea” and “crushing the head of Rahab.” The Babylonian creator god, Marduk, also battled the ocean (Tiamat) and crushed her head. Marduk crafted the world out of Tiamat’s watery corpse—in the same way Yahweh shapes the world out of the “formless waters” in Genesis 1. Marduk speaks and brings light into being. So does Yahweh. Marduk transforms the gods into a heavenly council subservient to him. Yahweh speaks to a heavenly council (in Genesis he says “we”—there is no “royal we” in Hebrew, this is Yahweh talking to his fellow heavenly beings). The structure of Genesis 1’s creation myth, with its 7 days, parallels the structure of the Enuma Elish, with its 7 generations of gods.

Yahweh also has a lot of similarities to the Babylonian moon god, Sin. Sin was considered a “high god” (sort of like Ouronos in Greek mythology or Allah in pre-Islamic Arabian mythology). Sin’s cult believed that certain days in the month were astrologically significant and so avoided working or doing anything on them. These days were called shabatu. Mount Sinai is an important, holy place in the Hebrew Bible, but the name is clearly derivative of Sin.

The creation of people from clay is also found in many Mesopotamian myths. In Atrahasis, the gods made humans out of clay to work as their slaves, digging canals. In Genesis, Yahweh creates humans out of clay to work as his slaves, tending his garden. (The main difference here is that in the Mesopotamian myths, the clay statues need the blood of a particularly awesome god to come to live, whereas Yahweh can just breathe into them.)

Most of the scholarship on ancient Babylonian religion is relatively new. We only recently dug up and translated this stuff. But the parallels to the Bible are pretty enlightening, and a lot of modern Biblical scholars believe that the Bible should be understood in this broader Mesopotamian context. I’ve talked before about how the flood story in the Bible makes much more sense—and is actually much cooler, imagery-wise—if you understand the world in this story as being shaped like the Mesopotamians and Hebrews actually believed.

I could go on, but I have work to do. :)

Religion has value for some people. So long as the followers of religion use their faith for good and not for selfish purposes that hurt others then I’m fine with it.

Sure I know about Atrahasis, and Gilgamesh. Samson and delila is in there too. I just haven’t read about a clear connection to a specific deity. There are massive egyptian influence as well. One example is the ten commandments coming from the book of the dead. I have mostly seen Yahweh as a collection of gods though.

@oratio, yeah, I see the Egyptian thing too, although this isn’t as clearly supported in the scholarship. But I find it hard to believe it’s just a coincidence that this pseudo-monotheistic cult, starring an Egyptian exile (Moses), arose in Mesopotamia a century after the Amarna cult died off in Egypt. I don’t know if you can draw a straight line, but I think it’s entirely probable that remnants of the Amarna cult ran away from Egypt into Mesopotamia and took their beliefs and legends with them.

I didn’t mean to imply that Yahweh was identical to any specific Mesopotamian deity. But most gods are really collections of previous gods; that’s how religion tends to work (it’s a good way to get those gods’ followers to join your cult).

Well the bible states that Abraham came from Iraq.

yeah, I know what you mean by pseudo-monotheistic cult, or at least I think so. There are no monotheistic religions. They want us to believe that, heh. It’s all just semantics. The angels are varieties of strong and weak sub-gods in the heavenly hierarchy, as in all nature religions. Saints are half-gods we all know from pagan religions.

Amarna cult huh? Have to check that out. What is your knowledge of the god Ar?

I’ve never heard of Ar.

And annoyingly, the Wikipedia disambiguation page links back to itself when you click on Ar. Armenian sun god, eh?

The Amarna cult was the first monotheistic religion in history. Akehnaten basically got rid of all the gods except the sun, called the sun Aten, and said Aten was the only god. He also refashioned the entire artistic style of Egypt, which was mired in tradition. As you might imagine the priests weren’t too happy about this. I forgot if they had him assassinated or simply persecuted anyone after his death who believed in his shit. But Egypt quickly ricocheted back to the old religion after he died.

Yes, Armenian. The origin of our astrology and it’s signs has been traced there. The concept of Ar, and the connection to the whole region, intrigues me. Ar as in Ararat, the holy mountain mentioned in the bible, is the home of Ar and the lesser gods. The greek pantheon seems to come from the armenian as well, which in turn became the roman. The Armenians, “The noble men”, seems to be where the Aryans originated. Sadly, the Aryans are intimately connected to Nazi philosophy as with the ancient swastika. I pondered over a link between the armenian people and the arameans, but it seems that aramean is a semitic language and armenian is not, so that looks like a false connection. This is way out of context of this thread, but still connected to the bible.

Eh. It’s safe to ignore the Nazis’ bastardization of the Aryans. (If you want, I guess you could call them the “Indo-Europeans.”

The Aryans also went on to spawn several other major religions. The Persians were Aryans (i.e. the name “Iran”) and Zoroastrianism comes from them (Zoroastrian influence shows up in the Bible in the form of Shaytan, “he who opposes”).

The Aryans also went on to conquer India and started a new caste-based, drug-induced religion there that eventually evolved into the complex of beliefs now known as Hinduism. Lots of stuff in Hinduism, especially early Hinduism, is very similar to stuff in Greek religion (and the languages are quite similar as well).

So yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll have to do more research on this Ar dude. I’m always into the basal mythologies of the world’s religions.

Yes, and it’s very interesting to read about the Kurdish Yazidism. The angel worship religion (that is for some reason called christian sometimes when talking about iraqi kurds, which is absurd) where the central angel is Shaytan as well. The jewish angel Ha-Satan is what has become Satan in christianity, so yes, it’s well spread.

About the Aryan Invasion Theory in india, I don’t know what to think. I think it has been more or less abandoned, but their presence is there. How they came there, as invaders or not, is rather unclear I think. You mean that sanskrit is similar to greek? I think the seed came more from sanskrit than the other way around. Every european language has sanskrit roots.

There isn’t much to go on in the field of Ar actually. I would like to talk to experts in the field of religion, mythology, linguists and more about that. The culture didn’t leave literature even as broken cuneiform tablets as in Sumer and Babylon.

I found a little about Ar on this wiki page, but it seems that you will have to go to the library for more:
Angela Teryan, The cult of Ar god, Yerevan, Aghvank, 1995, p. 3 (in Armenian)

—-
A bit more on suspension of disbelief versus belief from a Baha’i perspective:

Bahá‘u’lláh affirmed that man’s intelligence and reasoning powers are a gift from God: “This gift giveth man the power to discern the truth in all things, leadeth him to that which is right, and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation.” Science results from our systematic use of these God-given powers. The truths of science are thus discovered truths. The truths of prophetic religion are revealed truths, i.e., truths which God has shown to us without our having to discover them for ourselves. Bahá’ís consider that it is the same unique God who is both the Author of revelation and the Creator of the reality which science investigates, and hence there can be no contradiction between the two.

@mattbrowne, the statement “fairies are imaginary”—is this a belief or a fact?

What about the statement “God commands me to stone you to death”?

I have to say I get kind of annoyed at these “above the fray” agnostics. As if your beliefs are functionally distinguishable from those of an atheist’s anyway.

@Qingu – according to Bob Dylan, “everybody must get stoned”

Thank you fireside. Very nice of you.

Yet another reason to use the Bible as joint paper.

@Qingu
Yes there are correlations between all the myths on the planet and yet they thrived. Your premise that they served no purpose denies the advancements of countless civilizations from the Egyptians to Greeks. They grew and advanced not in spite of their religions but in concordance with them. I imagine a Scientologist to be silly, but it seems to have served John Travolta and Tom Cruise quite well. Am I saying to become and adherent, no, but there is something to the idea of belief and imagination that we are failing to see. Einstein said that “Imagination is more important than intelligence.” And the consuming effort on this planet seems to be the premise of, or denying of, a God. Maybe it not necessarily the imagination or illusion but how we are using it, which is the question.

P.S.You add nothing to promote free and open discourse by denegrating a book that some hold sacred by your flippant remarks-Yet another reason to use the Bible as joint paper.

That’s unfair. The Bible makes some fine joint paper.

More seriously, I find it ridiculous that Christians have such thin skin about such things. Boo hoo. According to the Bible, I’m an evil fool who deserves to eat the flesh of my own children and then burn forever in hell. You don’t see me whining about lack of respect.

Also, did I say that religion served no purpose? Most religions are pretty nice social glue. They also provide some extra threats and carrots as incentive for following laws.

In the exact same way, the story of Santa Claus helps kids behave. It’s a useful myth.

Imagination has absolutely nothing to do with belief in God. Atheism doesn’t make you less imaginative. Secular societies tend to produce much more art than religious societies.

@Qingu
I don’t consider myself a Christian but it’s a matter of respectful communication for others. Your tone is a little condescending and you know it._

Imagination has absolutely nothing to do with belief in God. Atheism doesn’t make you less imaginative. Secular societies tend to produce much more art than religious societies.
I never said it did but since you brought it up.
The Renaisance was the greatest flowering of art the world has ever seen and the themes were predominantly religious. Works of art were produced that have yet to be replicated. One man’s devotion to a God created advances in painting such as foreshortening and perspective which gave rise to architectural drawing etc.
But imagination is beyond pretty pictures. It involves the thinker with ideas outside of the realm of his sensual experience else we would all still be clinging to tools in the cave. One man drew some Buffalo and Horses on the wall and blew the minds of the tribe as a magic means of securing the outcome of the hunt. Leonardo drew Helicopters long before they were built. It’s these ideas we have to explore. We still question many of the ancient Egyptians methods of engineering. Is it not scientific to consider their religion being that it was inseparable from their society? Somehow I think that the answer lies in the consciouness and the application of that consciousness interacting with ideas that will turn the tide. History, Religion, Science are not fixed but evolving and expanding as are all things simultaneously. We see in part and as we see more it affects every other component. As a marble addded to a jar changes every other marbles positioning if only infinitesimally.

Religion is the Etiquette by which an individual lives their life based on personal and unique beliefs about how the world actually works.

Organized Religion is similar except it is a prescribed etiquette by which an individual should live their lives as established by a group of people and based on shared beliefs about how the world actually works.

There is no room for any actual “suspension” of beliefs. All concerned parties will instantly believe/disbelieve anything that strikes them as logical and sensible to believe/disbelieve.

We can know this is true because we know (or at least some know) that humans never have a choice in what they will or won’t believe or disbelieve.

Yes, we all try to make sense of reality, and this is a personal mission for everyone. I don’t question that religion do good things to the peace of minds of a lot of people, but morality changes as times do, and the morality of the bible cannot, only the interpretation of it. The problem with the abrahamic religions is their lack of humility – or their arrogance if you will – and their claims to universal and unchanging truth. They are all preposterous in the sense that they either bless or damn people.

Joseph Campbell says in a universalist way, that the religions of the world are all true if you realize them as metaphores, reading into the connotation. But this again, is of course, interpretation of the religious message.

@ninjacolin True is that in essence, you can’t have true suspension of beliefs. Only change it. We are all guided by our beliefs whatever they might be.

I am a full blown atheist, but it’s not by choice, nor is it for most people. I find that whatever I experience, I judge in the light of the sum of my experiences and convictions. These previously earned realizations inclines me to include or disregard conclusions of others, and guide my line of thought.

This makes us deterministic, and makes it sometimes very difficult to change peoples minds, because to change a persons idea of something, you sometimes would have to change core beliefs for it to make sense.

It goes both ways. If one is brave enough, one will have to unwind previously held convictions further back in the weave of beliefs, to make sense of something new you realize as true. So we are all believers of something.

The beautiful thing with not settling down with static dogma as with christianity is that you are free to discover and earn your truth.

Darn, this was a bit long.

@Qingu – Are fairies imaginary? Again it depends on the definition. Wikipedia gives a (purposefully) broad and vague definition: A fairy is a type of mythological being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.

The first part is a fact, because there’s plenty of historical evidence for all kind of legends rooted in real people or real events. The second part is a belief, because metaphysics is “beyond” science. Scientific method can no longer be applied. The Wikipedia definition reads: Metaphysics investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science. Cosmology and ontology are traditional branches of metaphysics. It is concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world.

Religion and spirituality can be seen as a branch (or special form) of metaphysics in my opinion.

What about the statement “God commands me to stone you to death”? It’s a very dangerous statement and it should not be taken literally. No one in the physical world can hear the words of God in a sense that sound waves excite the tympanic membrane in your ear. Or is based on some kind of real telepathic experience as a result of forces directly tapping into the neurons or synapses of your brain. So when the Bible uses metaphors like God is “commanding” us to do something or not, e.g. in the 10 Commandments, it means the people who wrote the Bible were contemplating the morality of human actions, offering advice and social guidance (trying to “please” God). Now today in the year 2009 we have to reject certain advice, because our value systems have evolved. This includes stoning people to death. The islamic sharia still uses this method, but most states in the US have progressed to electric chairs and lethal injections, while the European Union abolished the death penalty altogether (if you’ll excuse my cynicism here).

I’ve stated this before, but it really applies to your last comments @Qingu, so here is my personal opinion, my way of criticial thinking when it comes to modern, non-dogmatic religion.

Reading the bible requires reading skills. Understanding the bible requires intellect. The bible was written more than 1900 years ago. It

1) offers social guidance
2) addresses ethical questions and offers advice
3) records historical events
4) documents myths and legends inspired by oral traditions
5) contains poetry revolving around the marvels of the world
6) uses many metaphors and symbols
7) tries to answer fundamental ‘why questions’, explaining the
world based on the knowledge available at the time (they had no Hubble telescope)
8) contains some statements that we must reject today
9) describes rituals which help humans to strenghen the bonds between social groups

@mattbrowne I don’t want to be anal. But I guess I am. I just get uncomfortable when people say that the bible was written, It was assembled 1600 years ago by a group of men who liked this and that from different texts written and rewritten over a 1500 year timespan. But it doesn’t take the point out of your comment, so it doesn’t really matter.

@oratio – No, no it’s great to aim for precision. Many parts of the original Hebrew texts of the Old Testament were written more than 3400 years ago, some are more recent like the Psalms. Significant parts of the New Testament are about 1900 years old. Yes, the Bible was frequently recompiled and of course many of the translations can also be seen as a form of rewriting. My point was that the Bible recorded “stoning” as a form of the death penalty. But despite the Bible’s record of this, it doesn’t mean humanity can’t evolve. Dogmatic religion is wrong by thinking that every word of a holy book remains true or remains the best advice forever. The world in the year 2100 will again be totally different. The year 3000 will be different. Suppose there are Muslim colonists on a planet at the far side of our galaxy. Will they face Mecca during prayers? Depending on the position of their planet they might have to perform a headstand to point into Earth’s direction.

He he. Easily solved. They can just move Ka’ba.

Yeah, a problem is that to read something literary to the letter like the bible, you also have to have an understanding of the culture who wrote it, and the era. Nigerian christians mutilate their daughters, claiming the bible tells them to circumcise them, missing that it only includes jewish men, and that St. Paul declared – as the church did – that jewish customs are not mandatory for christians. Btw Circumcision is older than the jews. They seem to have picked it up in Egypt.

@oratio – Even if the Bible contained a statement recommending the mutilation of girls, all 2009 Christians whether they live in Nigeria or the US or Germany should reject the statement. This is why some forms of dogmatic religion can become so dangerous. It erases critical thinking and forbids change. All of their so-called “truth” is eternal. Sadly some dogmatic atheists reduce all religious people to the ones practicing the most extreme forms of dogmatic religions relying on dark ages belief systems. Fortunately non-dogmatic atheists have a more open mind.

@oratio your comment was awesome. :) but I’m getting pretty tired (not really) of so many atheists and (other so called determinists) making this mistake over and over:

You said: “We are all guided by our beliefs whatever they might be.
I am a full blown atheist, but it’s not by choice, nor is it for most people.”

lol, “Most” people? Determinism doesn’t only apply to those who understand it. You have to be absolute about it. Your sentence should read: “I am a full blown atheist and it’s not by choice. After all, No one has a choice in what they believe.” ;)

Here you make the same mistake again:

“The beautiful thing with not settling down with static dogma as with christianity is that you are free to discover and earn your truth.”

in a deterministic universe no one “settles” for anything. What you happen to believe at moment X in history is what you happen to believe. You haven’t settled. You simply haven’t been convinced otherwise by then. It’s not possible to choose to settle or to choose to aggressively press forward. Everything happens exactly as it must when it must.

If anything, you would have to say that people who have “settled” with a Religious view are actually the people who atheists and others have FAILED to convince. The burden of proof is always on others.

@ninjacolin – that’s pretty pathetic to assume that people who hold religious beliefs are just lacking the knowledge atheists can provide them. But hey, you have no choice in what you say, so I can’t hold you accountable for that thought.

@ninjacolin Sorry for not coming back to you. I was… doing… saving a child…

Now to your comment:

I am swedish goddammit! I no speakey engrish like mad!
Curse you and your sudden, yet inevitable, betrayal!

You are correct however. But now you are a bit anal.
I will speak to your mother.

^ lololol

@fireside, it’s not pathetic. It’s the way the universe works. And obviously so upon close inspection.

“People who hold religious beliefs are just lacking the knowledge atheists can provide them”

This statement is exactly true. But so is this one:

“People who are atheist are just lacking the knowledge religionists can provide them”

as I said: The burden of proof is always on others. We humans will believe ANYTHING given sufficient evidence.

No one is an idiot. Everyone is rational. If they don’t believe something it’s only because they are lacking information.. lacking evidence to believe it.

Think about it: The only reason you don’t believe there is a live breathing unicorn in the room with you right now is because you’re lacking evidence for it. This is how it is with all convictions.

Okay, I can accept that calcification. Well put.

This is the deterministic universe in action, guys. Have a peek. All the buzzwords are highlighted in bold.

@fireside, look at your second last post above compared to this last post here.

1) You didn’t know the whole story.. so your belief at that moment about my opinion on the matter was: “This dude has an unacceptable opinion!”

2) That belief forced your action which was the posting: “that’s pretty pathetic to assume that people who hold religious beliefs are just lacking the knowledge atheists can provide them. But hey, you have no choice in what you say, so I can’t hold you accountable for that thought.”

3) then in the following moment AFTER I provided a bit more evidence for my case your belief about my opinion changed to, I can only assume: “Ninjacolin is the best in the whole world. I should give him money. In fact I’m going to send him money tonight. All of it. Oh and by the way, his opinion is not pathetic. It is acceptable.”

4) which then forced your action: “Okay, I can accept that calcification. Well put.”

tada!

Conclusion:

Now fireside deterministically CANNOT disagree with me on this point. He has no choice in the matter. He can in words, but not in belief. He is now stuck agreeing with me as much as he does UNTIL new evidence convinces him otherwise.

This new evidence may come from his own brain which may re-examine the data and come up with a new conclusion or it may come from some other poster who has new information that he can agree with over the information I’ve presented him.

Either way, though, he is stuck in his new belief for the moment UNTIL said information arrives. Cause and effect. This is determinism.

@ninjacolin – actually, my opinion changed as I was driving to my parent’s house to move furniture. I felt I might have been needlessly harsh due to the fact that you had include the qualifier “If anything,”

I was glad to see that you had clarified rather than begun a debate since I had already changed my opinion based on self reflection.

But nice attempt to prove your point.

Wow, did I really say “calcification”? I need to learn how to proofread.

see.. in that case i wouldn’t say “needlessly” harsh.
you were AS HARSH as you felt was appropriate AT THAT MOMENT based on the facts you did and did not consider… based on the fact that you didn’t happen to consider the qualifier “If anything” as much as your later-self would.

know what I mean?

I see your point, but the change in opinion came from myself, not from another.

Yup, that’s cool. :) as I said in the determinism tour:

”This new evidence may come from his own brain which may re-examine the data and come up with a new conclusion or it may come from some other poster who has new information that he can agree with over the information I’ve presented him.

Either way, though, he is stuck in his new belief for the moment UNTIL said information arrives. Cause and effect. This is determinism.“_

Something else about determinism, I tend to glaze over responses that overuse formatting. Maybe I’ll have to examine that issue within myself to see if I can determine why that is. : )

Well, now that i know that, deterministically I’ll be more self-conscious about my use of formatting. :)

I despise the phrase ‘organized religion’ especially since, in our day and in this nation, such powers have proven abusive and extortionist in its motives. I include such rabid thieves as the Sunday broadcast ‘televangelists’ that have been exposed every which way (from Sunday) by prime time television news magazines.
I am a Christian, a follower of Christ Jesus; I don’t follow a religion or prescribe to certain rituals, ceremonies, laws in the sense of retributive restrictions that come into effect upon disobedience. I follow a Person, the Messiah of Israel, Savior of the world.
My beliefs are simple regarding the Bible, of which I hold the conviction that it is the very Word of the Creator. I don’t have to suspend any disbelief as I’ve placed faith in Jesus Christ; I have come to know Him personally, and have no such cause to suspend disbelief.
I realize that among such intellectuals here that despise such convictions as ludicrous, silly, stupid, etc. this makes me a dinosaur, but I certainly won’t lose any sleep over it.
To have faith is to place one’s trust in something. I sat down in this chair at my computer table without a moments hesitation because I trust that it will support me, as it’s done thousands of times before. Its proven itself to be reliable.
I place my faith in Jesus, and in God’s Word in the same manner; its proven itself to me to be reliable and trustworthy just as Jesus Christ Himself has.
I will trust in Christ Jesus until my dying day, and then some.

As far as science not being able to prove the existance of God, or the idea that such expressions in the Bible seem to defy the laws of nature . . .
Science can only prove what’s physically verifiable; as far as science is concerned, ‘spirit’(or soul) doesn’t exist, nor can they be proven. So I don’t sweat it when science doesn’t come up with any kind of proof as to the existance of God (it can’t and never will!).
As far as the laws of nature, well if nature was circumvented by the One who created it in the first place, that’s His perogative and He is well able to walk on water if He wanted to, or split it in half so as to allow a couple million Hebrews to walk through it, or multiply some fish and loaves, or . . . well, you get the idea!

oh nevermind.

@TheKNYHT – Like with religions there are dogmatic atheists and non-dogmatic atheists. For the first group the non-existance of God is a fact (a dogma), for the second group the non-existance of God is a belief.

Science should have a focus on the observable universe and maybe look a little beyond like what happened during the 10^-35 second after the big bang. Everything else is about metaphysics or religion or philosophy or whatever. Scientific method can’t be applied. We can’t use concepts like empirical data, scientific theories or hypotheses.

@TheKNYHT
No, science can’t prove the existence of god. It’s not interesting and not worth the bother since science in itself is search for viable and reproducible proof of truth. The bible can be seen as a possible explanation of “why”. Science is the explanation of “how”. The two are not in conflict.

One example is that the bible is not in conflict with evolution as a concept, if you read it and don’t realize that, please read it again. The late Pope John Paul II, said himself, that there is no question that evolution is the way god creates life.

The scientific method comes in conflict with religion if you try to apply that method on it, and that is the mistake some people do. Some are misguided scientists, and some calls it intelligent design.

If you focus on the connotation of the bible instead of the denotation, you will recognize that even atheists will agree with you. You are primitive if you assume the literal morality of the bible, where homosexuals should be killed, disobedient sons stoned, and a woman’s life is subordinate of the man. Not because you are christian, but because you then assume a literal morality of a cultural norm we no longer belong to.

@mattbrowne, I think you have a very dishonest interpretation of the Bible. Its laws are not “metaphors” anymore than the laws of the Code of Hammurabi are “metaphors.” How on earth can a law be a metaphor? That negates the entire purpose of a law, which is to be as clear about proscribed behavior as possible.

The only reason people interpret these laws and other parts of the Bible as metaphors today is because, according to their non-Biblical moral system, such laws seem barbaric. It is dishonest to interpret an ancient text according to what you personally want it to say.

About your metaphysics which allows for the existence of fairies and unicorns—you are playing semantics. You do not act like you believe in fairies and unicorns—or for that matter, gods, anymore than I do. You don’t make rings of stones to offer fairies respect. You don’t construct hecatombs to Zeus. You don’t stone unbelievers to death as Yahweh repeatedly and clearly commands in the Bible. You say “maybe these things exist” but your actions are those of someone who clearly does not believe they exist, anymore than I believe that I’l lfall through my chair because of quantum indeterminacy.

@TheKNYHT, do you believe the sun revolve around the Earth? The Bible says it does.

@Qingu
I see your point and it is somewhat correct. But the bible is riddled with metaphors that were meant as metaphors at the time. Adam, Eve and the Snake is just one.

How I know it’s a metaphor? A metaphor is a method of mediating a message, meaning or a concept of value.

How do I know that Red Ridinghood and the Wolf is a metaphor? It has a message of value and example it mediates to the audience. It can be of moral conduct or as an example of what can happen to you in life.

A metaphor doesn’t either mean it is not true. It can be true and a metaphor at the same time.

Yes, I agree that cherry-picking the bible is a very curious way of being christian. But then again, imagine the chaos if people actually followed Mose’s laws to the point.

Rings of stones to fairies, huh? Must be an english custom. Can you tell me more about it?

@oratio Rings of stones to fairies, huh? Must be an english custom. Can you tell me more about it?

stonehendge :). in case you weren’t sarcastic.

@Qingu – Are you a dogmatic atheist? Just curious.

I’m a non-dogmatic Christian. In one of my previous comments I wrote: The bible
...
6) uses many metaphors and symbols
...

Does this mean everything in the bible is a metaphor? Last time I checked applying first order logic would not lead to that specific conclusion (despite the sometimes tricky semantics of natural language). Maybe I misunderstood your remark. See also @oratio remark about the use of metaphors. I agree with his view. Although I dislike the concept of a pope (too dogmatic for my taste) I agree with his interpretation that “evolution is the way god creates life”. This means God didn’t intervene directly Harry Potter style. Someone on wis.dm once said: “evolution is creation in progress” during a discussion with creationists (I noticed there are none on Fluther, at least they seem very quiet).

@ABoyNamedBoobs03
Crap! No I wasn’t being sarcastic. I read it wrong. I read it as actually making rings of stones for fairies, and missed his sarcasm. He he, I was thinking “Huh, that seems nice!” Ah well.

@oratio, Adam and Eve was not meant as a metaphor when it was written. It is a just-so story, which are common in mythology. In fact, many Babylonian myths tell of gods making humans from clay. (The idea is that we are the “statues” of gods in the same way that a statue is a king’s representative in a distant place.) But I don’t see any evidence that these ancient Mesopotamians believed the creation of humans from clay was just a “metaphor” and that it didn’t actually happen that way.

In the same way, the Bible describes the sky as a solid dome or firmement that holds up an above-sky ocean. This isn’t a metaphor, it’s exactly what many people believed about the shape of the earth.

Rings of stones for fairies—apparently people in Iceland still do this because they still believe in fairies. (Stonehenge is not an example, though.)

@mattbrowne, I don’t know how one would be a “dogmatic” atheist, since atheism, as a lack of belief, has no dogma.

I’m glad that you believe evolution is how God created life. But that is not what the Bible says. And it is intellectually dishonest to pretend that it does. In the same way, you wouldn’t read an ancient Greek myth and claim that Oceanus, the river the encircles the world, is really a “metaphor” for the Milky Way or a similar modern concept that was unknown to the people who wrote the myth. It’s simply a dishonest method of textual interpretation, and the only reason people like you do interpret the Bible in this way is because you know perfectly well the Bible is wrong and you’re embarrassed by it.

@Qingu – As I said earlier, in my opinion there are dogmatic atheists and non-dogmatic atheists. For the first group the non-existance of God is a fact (a dogma), for the second group the non-existance of God is a belief.

The people who wrote they bible didn’t have access to a Hubble telescope or the scanning tunneling microscope. Neither did they visit the Galapagos islands or engage in comparative genomics. But they still had lots of ‘why questions’ because it’s human nature. They speculated using the data available to them. Why are there men and women? What is their origin? Was there one human and one gender first? This might explain Eve created from Adam’s rib.

There are a lot of things in the bible which are right. Just take Jesus Christ’s grace of charity approach as an example. Very insightful. As to suitable interpretations of the bible I could apply the same to atheists that they do like to interpret the bible in a way that it fits best with their belief system.

@Qingu – “Adam and Eve was not meant as a metaphor when it was written”

Do you have the Cliffs Notes version of the story, or did you talk to the author?
How do you know what the intention was when this story was written?

I do applaud your scholarship, but this assertion seems like a bit of a leap.

@fireside – Adam and Eve are about a very legitimate question. Who was the first human? Was one gender first and the second came later? Today we know that sex was invented 1.5 billion years ago (as a defense mechanism against diseases) long before the Cambrian explosion and long before the first mammals appeared.

@Qingu
Are you saying that either is the bible all metaphor or not at all? I recommend that you read Joseph Campbells work in the matter. I think you would like it. It is very illuminating, very interesting and well written.

@mattbrowne, I think we are operating under different definitions of the word “dogma.” I’ll put it to you this way: is it a fact that Zeus is a figment of human imagination? Same with Yahweh. Call it whatever you want.

I understand that the bronze age nomads speculated as to the nature of the earth and humanity based on the limited information available to them. Their speculations were largely incorrect. Are you saying that because they were incorrect that means they were actually “metaphors”? Because that’s nonsense. Aristotle was incorrect about a lot of stuff too—you wouldn’t say his writing was metaphorical just because it’s incorrect.

@fireside, in order for something to be a metaphor, it has to stand for something else. What on earth do you think the ancient Hebrews thought Adam and Eve stood for? The belief that humans came from clay was common among Mesopotamians. Similarly, the belief that the sun revolves around the earth was common. As it happens, neither of these beliefs are true, but it’s simply dishonest to say that the people who wrote about such beliefs intended them as “metaphors.” Metaphors for what? It’s what they believed!

@oratio, like any other ancient text, the Bible does contain some metaphor. For example, Jesus’ parables are clearly metaphors. They stand for something else. In The Odyssey, the ocean is described as “wine-dark”—that’s a metaphor, it’s not actually wine, and the authors knew it. However, a lot of Christians say Biblical passages are “metaphors” when the literal interpretation is obviously incorrect. That is dishonest, because the people who actually wrote this text had no idea that what they were writing was literally incorrect. In fact, the literal interpretations are simply what everyone believed back then, and they even “make sense” to an unscientific savage (of course there’s an ocean above the sky—it’s blue, and rain falls from it, and something must be holding that ocean up, so the sky must be solid.)

Point being, if your only reason for interpreting a passage as a metaphor is “because it’s not true as written,” that is simply dishonest. There needs to be some internal reason to suggest it’s a metaphor. For the Adam and Eve myth, for the Bible’s cosmogony, for the vast majority of passages that modern Christians are uncomfortable with, there simply isn’t any.

@Qingu – I think it is dishonest to assert that we know the intentions of the people who wrote the story. We can assume we know what their intent was based on other stories we have seen, but that is all. Assigning a definite intent to their actions is like me assigning a definite intent to your posts based on what I have read.

We don’t “know” anyone’s intentions. When scholars analyze ancient texts, they don’t “know” what the authors were thinking; they’re all dead.

But that just goes with the territory. What we can do is use the tools available to us: contemporary texts and comparative analysis. We may not know for sure, but we can get a pretty good idea of what ancient people believed. And it definitely looks like ancient Mesopotamians believed in a flat, geocentric earth, an above-sky ocean, and a geneology that includes extremely long-lived people and culminates in a dude made out of clay by god(s).

@Qingu
You said the following conflicting statements:

1.We don’t “know” anyone’s intentions. When scholars analyze ancient texts, they don’t “know” what the authors were thinking; they’re all dead.

2.Adam and Eve was not meant as a metaphor when it was written.

3.It is dishonest to interpret an ancient text according to what you personally want it to say.

I wonder if can we know what you are trying to say?

@Qingu – It depends on the interpretation of the definition of the word figment: “something imagined rather than real”. If you limit your “reality” to objects and concepts capable of withstanding the scrutiny of scientific method, then any deity or absence of any deity is imaginary. If you expand your way of thinking a little, you might accept various answers to the mother of all questions: ‘Why?’ I admit the statements ‘They just are’ or ‘It just is’ are possible answers, but not the only ones.

Not everything in the bible is about metaphors. Therefore my list has 9 items. Have you looked at any of the other 8? Some of the issues you raised are related to number 7. Of course a lot of statements in the bible are incorrect. The part ‘let there be light’ in Genesis is remarkable close though. Good thinking, I’d say. Compare that to the idiots who locked up Galilei. Or the idiots who think the Grand Canyon is 6000 years old and was created by the Great Floor. The people who wrote Genesis had more farsightedness and were more insightful given the knowledge that was available at the time, than many of our modern creationists or intelligent designers.

@SeventhSense, statement number 1 was a hedge, and you’re taking it out of context. The point of my post was that we can’t be 100% sure about anything, but we can be reasonably sure.

@mattbrowne, I’m glad that you’re willing to admit that parts of the Bible are simply incorrect and not metaphors. But I disagree with the farsightedness of the Genesis creation myth. It doesn’t bring much new to the table that wasn’t floating around in Mesopotamian mythology at the time anyway. I would say that the Genesis myth (and other Mesopotamian myths) are more insightful than the current Christian idea of creation ex-nihilo. Back then, “creation” was considered an act like sculpting, where you take material already there and give it form. As it turns out, this looks to be more similar to the truth.

@Qingu – It’s the nature of myths to be often based on oral traditions. As you haven’t answered my question about looking at my list here it is again: (I posted it already several days ago)

Reading the bible requires reading skills. Understanding the bible requires intellect. The bible was written more than 1900 years ago. It

1) offers social guidance
2) addresses ethical questions and offers advice
3) records historical events
4) documents myths and legends inspired by oral traditions
5) contains poetry revolving around the marvels of the world
6) uses many metaphors and symbols
7) tries to answer fundamental ‘why questions’, explaining the
world based on the knowledge available at the time (they had no Hubble telescope)
8) contains some statements that we must reject today
9) describes rituals which help humans to strenghen the bonds between social groups

Now what does number 4 mean? It is totally consistent with the valid point you made about “floating around in Mesopotamian mythology”. It’s not always necessary to bring new aspects to the table. Obviously the parts that were floating around made sense and were reused in the Genesis creation myth. Given the historical context it still deserves some credit. I called it farsightedness. Others call it wisdom or insightfulness. Others love to hammer away and enjoy making jokes about the 7 days pointing out how stupid people were more than 3000 years ago and how smart everyone is today. Of course there might be other views in the past you might be more comfortable with. Fine. I like the notion of a creation act similar to sculpting as well. But this doesn’t mean the value of the thoughts expressed in the bible is limited to it being used as joint paper. Hey, even the folks in ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ picked American tax law books to keep their library warm ;-) They preserved the Gutenberg bible!

Ever smoked tax laws?

@mattbrowne, I guess what I don’t understand is what you think a god has to do with the process of the Bible’s authorship. You seem to agree with me that the Bible is the work of humans and the ideas in it evolved from nascent Mesopotamian culture. I’m not denying it’s an incredibly important historical text.

@Qingu
The ocean being wine-dark is not a metaphor. It’s a simile. I suspect that the Jesus quotes you are thinking of are similes to.

Again a metaphor doesn’t mean that something is not true. It can be true and a metaphor at the same time.

I really think you would like Joseph Campbell’s works. You seem to be a person with the intellect to appreciate them.

I’m familiar with the monomyth. I haven’t actually read Campbell though. Also, are the divisions between metaphors and similes the same in different languages? I thought a simile had to have “like” in it, but does that word even exist in Homeric Greek?

A simile doesn’t always have to have the word like in it, but it helps.

Very Like a Whale

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can’t seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn’t just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity.
We’ll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are great many things.
But I don’t imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I’ll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn’t fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say—Oh yes, they’re the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That’s the kind of thing that’s being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson;
They’re always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I’ll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we’ll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you’ll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.

Ogden Nash

@Qingu
Yes, it often has the word like in the sentence, but doesn’t have to. I know zilch about ancient greek, but I would be surprised if they didn’t have the full range of observational syntax as we do. They used similes, analogies and many other story telling techniques in their dramas.

You might be right. I don’t know if the divisions are the same in different languages, but I would think so. They are two different things, but a metaphor can contain similes.

Well, okay. Wine-dark sea may not be a true metaphor. But that was a response to an original thread of discussion that alleged the Bible has metaphors. I agree—lots of ancient texts use metaphorical language.

I just don’t see any evidence that the passages in question are meant as metaphors, when they seem to be reiterating commonly held beliefs at the time of writing.

@Qingu – I has to do with the number 7 on my list. If you keep asking why questions and keep going and keep going you eventually end up with the ‘mother of all why questions’. As I stated earlier there are several possible answers. ‘They just are’ or ‘It just is’ are possible answers, another possible answer is a supreme being or deity. The authors of the bible and other cultures around that time chose to call the supreme being(s) God or Yahweh or Baal etc. Today in the US far more than 50% of the people choose to answer the mother of all why questions with a deity as well, other don’t. Which is fine with me. But the aspect of God is only one part of a religion. Equally important is the value system and the questions about morality and ethics. But there are other great belief systems as well which offer good answers. One example is humanism.

I don’t see the relevance. In fact, it appears the Hebrews got the “Why” question substantially wrong. Humans were not created as slaves for a sky-god’s garden. We evolved from brachiating primates. The problems associated with human existence were not punishments inflicted for disobedience. They are vestiges from our uncivilized evolutionary past.

And again, I’m confused as to what on earth you think God had to do with the composition of the Bible. It sounds like your answer is “nothing.”

@Qingu
Humans were not created as slaves for a sky-god’s garden.
This is the problem with linear thought processes that say the discursive mind alone holds answers to the mysteries of the universe. Ironically the more we delve into the microscope or peer into the telescope the further away it goes and we find infinite divisions at the subatomic level-quarks and leptons or countless light years away at the other end, more dimensions added yearly; the imagination of this here and that there rather than a mutual coarising of interdependent viewer and that being viewed. Consciousness itself changes the context being viewed. Metaphor, hyperbole, imagination and stepping out of a limited localized context is the only way to consider the book. It is like no other book and it defies classification. Of course a strictly scientific, left brain divided mind will forever miss the import of the book. Likewise this mindset would fuck up a wet dream while trying to understand the nocturnal emmisions of seminal fluids rather than just step out of the way and feel. Emotions hold a tenuous position in the rational reasoning mind because it schisms everything where no such divisions exist. Mind from body, intellect from emmotions. There is no such distinction and that is a strictly man made imagination. This book is locked to this mind. We are localized energy fields interacting with and inseparable from everything. There are those who live and experience life, love, passion and history and those who would attempt to put it in a box. The bible like life itself can not be categorized as any other books and will not give up its secrets to this approach. For this mind would not necessarily expand man’s science but would only control it and attempt to make it fit into a box of their choosing. There are somethings that are a mystery. And others that can only be experienced through the collective. God is this collective and more. More so how can the localized aspect of self/ego contemplate this being an atom in the field of infinite mind? It’s like contemplating looking at your own eye. It is not possible. Life experiences you as much as you it, and is coarising and interdependent upon you as a participant. The fact is that we have no idea about the operation or thought process of a writer at the time a text was penned. From the standpoint of modern man we have a Hegellian reinterpretation of the annals of history which we have continually reinterpreted and evaluated on the basis of our current environment. Or you can imagine that the ideas behind the book were just the hallucinations and mental illnesses of some and the delusions of billions over the centuries. The arrogance of which defies description.

“The bible like life itself can not be categorized as any other books”

Why the hell not?

What is so special about the Bible that is not special about, say, the Mahabharata or the Ramayana? Or the Enuma Elish and Code of Hammurabi? Or the Quran? I’ve read them all (well, much abridged versions of the Hindu ones), and I can tell you that the Bible does not really come off favorably. Let alone magical.

“Or you can imagine that the ideas behind the book were just the hallucinations and mental illnesses of some and the delusions of billions over the centuries.”

I said no such thing. I said the myths in the Bible are basically the same as the myths in Mesopotamia at the time the Bible was written. Just as it wouldn’t surprise me to find an ancient Greek who believed gods lived on Mount Olympus, it wouldn’t surprise me to find an ancient Hebrew who believed that a sky-god created humans from clay.

Myths are not the result of mental illnesses or delusions. In fact, during the time myths were written, I’m sure many of them made a lot of sense. For example, in the Bible (as well as in many Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek and Hindu myths), the sky is said to be a solid dome. It holds up the “waters” above it. It has “windows” that God opens to let in the floodwaters. To us modern people, this sounds crazy. But to a prescientific Mesopotamian, this makes a lot of sense. Oceans are blue—so is the sky. Rain falls from the sky, so there must be a reservoir of water up there. (The Hebrews also believed there was an ocean below the ground—evidenced by the fact that if you dig, you find groundwater. Mesopotamians worshiped Ea Enki, god of underground freshwater and wisdom.)

And that’s the point of many myths. They are “just so” stories, attempting to explain phenomena to primitive people who lack the tools for more truthful understanding.

@SeventhSense – Wonderful analysis. In fact, the more I read and learn about our universe (both the macro and the microcosmos) the more I’m amazed by God’s creation.