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You watch a lot of BBC don't you? Hehehe :PBlack Adder reference on the Civil Religious Discussion?"Will no one avenge me of one turbulent priest?"
-Henry II refering to Thomas a Becket
I own Vicar of Dibley, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, and Black Adder. I'd like to own the entire Monte Python, but it's a bit pricy and the truly funny bits are a bit too much hit and miss.
It's actually kind of surprising to me how many of them both respect and make fun of religion.
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You watch a lot of BBC don't you? Hehehe :PBlack Adder reference on the Civil Religious Discussion?"Will no one avenge me of one turbulent priest?"
-Henry II refering to Thomas a BecketI own Vicar of Dibley, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, and Black Adder. I'd like to own the entire Monte Python, but it's a bit pricy and the truly funny bits are a bit too much hit and miss.
It's actually kind of surprising to me how many of them both respect and make fun of religion.
Religion is, for a lot of comedians it seems, something they feel deeply committed to lampooning but never aim for the kill shot.
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Religion is, for a lot of comedians it seems, something they feel deeply committed to lampooning but never aim for the kill shot.You watch a lot of BBC don't you? Hehehe :PBlack Adder reference on the Civil Religious Discussion?"Will no one avenge me of one turbulent priest?"
-Henry II refering to Thomas a BecketI own Vicar of Dibley, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, and Black Adder. I'd like to own the entire Monte Python, but it's a bit pricy and the truly funny bits are a bit too much hit and miss.
It's actually kind of surprising to me how many of them both respect and make fun of religion.
I'd have to disagree the great George Carlin did a nasty number to religion he totally fried it onstage. It was one of his most famous bits.
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I'd have to disagree the great George Carlin did a nasty number to religion he totally fried it onstage. It was one of his most famous bits.Religion is, for a lot of comedians it seems, something they feel deeply committed to lampooning but never aim for the kill shot.You watch a lot of BBC don't you? Hehehe :PBlack Adder reference on the Civil Religious Discussion?"Will no one avenge me of one turbulent priest?"
-Henry II refering to Thomas a BecketI own Vicar of Dibley, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, and Black Adder. I'd like to own the entire Monte Python, but it's a bit pricy and the truly funny bits are a bit too much hit and miss.
It's actually kind of surprising to me how many of them both respect and make fun of religion.
I'm not saying all comedians, in my estimate just the best 90%+ of them avoid kill shots on religion. GC went for a lot of throats, but he was funny as all get out!
Religion is, for a lot of comedians it seems, something they feel deeply committed to lampooning but never aim for the kill shot.
When your livelihood is dependent on the continued good will of the audience, one can be a bit gun shy.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I don't know of any Christians who keep the Hebrew Bible commandments as Orthodox Jews do, though, which I don't understand. Jesus states very clearly that those who follow him must obey Jewish law.
Most Christians seem to feel that it's enough to be 'nice' or live what you feel to be the spirit of the law, but Jesus states that you must be
fanatically lawful. Maybe a Christian here will help me understand this. I don't mean this in a snarky way; it's something I really don't understand, and I would be interested to hear Christians' opinions.
We separate the requirements of the law into several categories. There is ceremonial or ritual law which governs the operation of the temple, the ordination of the priests, the system of sacrifices, etc. There is the moral law, which governs acceptable behavior. I'd say that there is a civil/criminal law as well, which exists because ancient Israel was established to be a theocratic state. Now there isn't absolute agreement about which specific laws fall into these categories, and that creates different ideas about which laws should be followed. But the big idea is that Christians do not carry out the ceremonial laws because those laws were fulfilled by Jesus: we don't sacrifice cattle or birds or what have you because Jesus's sacrifice on the cross filled the requirement of the entire sacrificial system. Different Christians will disagree on whether or not Christians are bound by OT moral law based on verses like Romans 7:6 and 10:4 (I think that we are). There's a lot of discussion in Romans about the law, but it can be pretty technical unless you understand the context. Galatians was mainly written to address the issue the early church had with believers who were requiring converts to be circumcised in accordance with OT law, and contains a solid exposition of the relationship of Christians to the law. I believe that we are not bound by the civil/criminal part of the law because we don't live in the state of ancient Israel for which that law was intended--although it does lay down some good principles of jurisprudence that are still observed today.
Another reason that we don't keep the same ritual requirements as Orthodox Jews is that many of the observations they keep are based on the Talmud or other commentaries on the Law. For instance, the Law prohibits eating certain things, but strict kosher law based on Talmudic commentary requires a whole regimen of dietary practices. For example, from the prohibition in Ex. 23:19 and 34:26 on boiling a goat in its mother's milk comes the practice of separating meat and dairy entirely. They don't eat meat and dairy at the same meal; they even have different utensils, dishes, and kitchens for meat and dairy. Since Christians recognize the law but not the Talmud, we naturally wouldn't follow the same practices.
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It also has a lot to do with Saul/Paul. Remember that the earliest Christians were basically a Jewish sect - Christian-Jews. But along came Paul (formerly Saul). Christianity wasn't spreading very well beyond poor and disposed Jews; the upper and middle class Jews weren't as interested in the messiah or a "new kingdom." Paul was really one of the first to suggest making Christianity something other than an tribal religion. He and a few others spread the new faith to (mostly poor and disposed, at least at first) Greeks, Copts, Romans and so on, making Christianity one of the only non-ethnically-based in the ancient world.
Many of the new converts weren't interested in becoming Jews, though. They were more interested in this Christ guy and his promises of Heaven. Many of them didn't want to follow the old Jewish restriction on diet and what not, or to get circumcised, and Paul said they didn't have to. (He was one of the more anti-Jewish apostles after his conversion. Many of the other apostles he rails against in the Acts and all the Letters are from the more pro-Jewish-traditions camp.) The argument was that - as Charlie said above - Jesus was the fulfillment of all the old covenants and was the New Covenant. All those places where Jesus calls himself (or gets called by whoever wrote the Bible) the Lamb are quite literal as well as figurative. Ancient Jews used to do some animal sacrifices, including lambs. Well, Jesus was the Lamb to end all lambs. He sacrificed himself to fulfill all those old debts, obligations and contracts. Now, the new converts didn't have any obligation to follow the old Jewish rules, just the new ones set down by Jesus ... and the folks who built the early Church, like Paul.
[As you maybe can guess, I think Paul tends not to get enough attention in discussions of Christianity. For better or worse, he had a huge influence in shaping what would become one of the world's most dominant religions and packaging it for export out of the desert backwater where it first emerged.]
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Jesus fought the Law and the Law won! ;-)
A little bit of a misinterpretation, but regardless Jesus himself broke "the Law" quite a bit. Which really seemed to piss off the religious leaders.Oh noes!
They'z bringing alignment into me religion!
/jk.
Hmmm...what alignment do you think Jesus would be?
I probably shouldn't even make that joke should I, because someone, somewhere, is stupid enough to respond, and then we'll end up in some stupid debate about Jesus' alignment and whether he could/would kill goblin kids.
Sigh.
Actually, on that note, and at risk of adding further kindling to the potential topic, the main religious organization in my campaigns was usually the Trinity - composed of the Father (LN), the Son (NG), and the Spirit (LG). All other religions were viewed as cults of lesser gods and/or demons/devils. My alignment choices were based on campaign needs as much as anything else, and I don't mean to imply that they are correct or even reasonable. I've just never liked D&D's pantheism because it clashes so much with medieval Europe.
I thought about that at one time, but never felt I could do so respectfully enough. How has it worked for you?
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Okay, I actually think this is a tough question... maybe I'm asking more than I am but I can fill in the other parts of the question later.
Through out history we've seen the rise and fall of all sorts of religious beliefs across the world. Mithraism was a top contender to steal Christianity's place in Europe but it would eventually disappear under pressure from Christianity during the 4th century (there may've been hold outs as late as the 7th century in some things I've read). Oddly, when Christianity is under pressure it survives and eventually thrives.
So why do some religions survive and others do not?
Actually, on that note, and at risk of adding further kindling to the potential topic, the main religious organization in my campaigns was usually the Trinity - composed of the Father (LN), the Son (NG), and the Spirit (LG). All other religions were viewed as cults of lesser gods and/or demons/devils. My alignment choices were based on campaign needs as much as anything else, and I don't mean to imply that they are correct or even reasonable. I've just never liked D&D's pantheism because it clashes so much with medieval Europe.
I thought about that at one time, but never felt I could do so respectfully enough. How has it worked for you?
A Catholic friend of mine once asked why I never thought about running a game that was more or less medieval Europe, complete with medieval monotheism. The ensuing exchange went like this:
Me: Do you really want me ruling on the code of conduct and alignment violations of a paladin of Jesus?
Him: Good point.
But D&D resembles medieval Europe about as much as the Lion King is a nature documentary, so I don't let it much worry me. :)
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Okay, I actually think this is a tough question... maybe I'm asking more than I am but I can fill in the other parts of the question later.
Through out history we've seen the rise and fall of all sorts of religious beliefs across the world. Mithraism was a top contender to steal Christianity's place in Europe but it would eventually disappear under pressure from Christianity during the 4th century (there may've been hold outs as late as the 7th century in some things I've read). Oddly, when Christianity is under pressure it survives and eventually thrives.
So why do some religions survive and others do not?
There is always the Theological answer that those closer to the Truth will survive while those which are not will fade with time.
There is the pessimistic answer that some religious practices are easier to bend towards what is needed for the time and place and then change with the seasons to fit in at another era.
It really depends on what way you approach the subject and the answer has been debated for years.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I thought about that at one time, but never felt I could do so respectfully enough. How has it worked for you?
It's worked fine - I tend not to go so far as to have them use a cross or other real life holy symbols, but I like having the single organized religion with cathedrals and such. Honestly though, they haven't really gotten all that much screen time, so it's not really been an issue. To the extent I have used them, I've had them be the Good guys with a capital G because that's as much their function as anything else about them. I don't use them to make a point about Christianity or comment on real world religion - I think that's in bad taste - I mostly just use them for the sake of the trappings (cathedrals, titles, etc).
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Okay, I actually think this is a tough question... maybe I'm asking more than I am but I can fill in the other parts of the question later.
Through out history we've seen the rise and fall of all sorts of religious beliefs across the world. Mithraism was a top contender to steal Christianity's place in Europe but it would eventually disappear under pressure from Christianity during the 4th century (there may've been hold outs as late as the 7th century in some things I've read). Oddly, when Christianity is under pressure it survives and eventually thrives.
So why do some religions survive and others do not?
IMO, throughout time religion has evolved and has been used to control the masses. You see it with greek and roman mythology. You see it in ancient egypt with the pharoah-gods. Where christianity went "right" that other religions went wrong is there selection of a deity and the reward and punishment system.
The pharoahs of egypt were man and therefore susceptible to disease and death. You had the afterlife, but what you took with you after death once again depended on what the mortals back on earth sent with you. Also, nothing puts a kink in your power base like having your god-king die of the flu. :(
What christianity did was take these concepts and refine them. They still needed an authority figure, but not one that could be seen or challenged. Hence the judeo-christian sky-god was born. What better way to control your ignorant masses than to base a religion off of a text which most people couldn't read or afford? You have the authority figure be intangible and vengeful and you have rewards and punishments be at the extremes of good and evil and last forever (literally). I think nowadays most people still follow due to a kind of subconscious Pascal's Wager. When the punishment for NOT following is eternal pain, suffering, and torture, why shouldn't you follow?
You are now $0.02 richer.
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There are also aspects of historical accident too. Christianity really git a boost when Constantine began to push it in the Roman empire. Prior to that, it was persecuted. What Constantine was able to do was co-opt what was an essentially anti-establishment religion and bring it in to the establishment. Then it acquired wealth and power, a headquarters in Rome, and so on.
Generally, I would agree that the "economic use" of a religion is that it essentially tells people to shut up, keep their heads down, and that they will be rewarded for it when they die. Very useful for a regime, especially a non-democratic one. But I will imagine that it is a lot more complicated than that because belief in the supernatural was pretty universal at the time of Constantine so I doubt his was an entirely cynical approach. Also, the Romans had a long history of co-opting different gods (Greek, Near East and so on) and this may well have been a similar act in Constantine's eyes. Certainly, the old pagan gods were not banned until a long time after Constantine's death.
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My religion requires one assumption: God exists.
Even if that assumption is given, how does one go from "God exists" to "the Bible accurately describes the God that exists"?
Also, I'm not sure that having one assumption be "magic makes things work!" is really what Occam's Razor is about. Every event ever can be "explained" with that assumption.
Why do books fall when I drop them?
God.
Why can't I see in the dark?
God.
Why don't people regrow lost limbs?
God.
Pretty useless explanation for the physical world.
Why am I so damned handsome?
Yep.
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You watch a lot of BBC don't you? Hehehe :PBlack Adder reference on the Civil Religious Discussion?"Will no one avenge me of one turbulent priest?"
-Henry II refering to Thomas a BecketI own Vicar of Dibley, Red Dwarf, Black Adder, Fawlty Towers, and Black Adder. I'd like to own the entire Monte Python, but it's a bit pricy and the truly funny bits are a bit too much hit and miss.
It's actually kind of surprising to me how many of them both respect and make fun of religion.
I picked up the complete Flying Circus series (with hollywood bowl and another disc as a bonus) for about $70. You can usually find the movies for about $5 to $10 each these days as well :)
Spam.
Spam.
If you buy one, I'll give you a second at 50% off.
There are also aspects of historical accident too. Christianity really git a boost when Constantine began to push it in the Roman empire. Prior to that, it was persecuted. What Constantine was able to do was co-opt what was an essentially anti-establishment religion and bring it in to the establishment. Then it acquired wealth and power, a headquarters in Rome, and so on.
Sort of, yeah. Christianity was rarely persecuted in the Empire, and most of those persecutions were ad hoc, local affairs. If Rome as a whole had decided to wipe it out, Christianity would have gone the way of the Carthaginian Empire. Nobody was better at genocide than Imperial Rome. The few empire-wide persecutions (I can only remember one) were short. Not fun times, but it wasn't an on/off transition between persecution and tolerance. Christianity was already a fairly successful religion among the urban middle and upper classes before Constantine elected to give it state sponsorship.
But aside historical contingencies, it's not that hard to figure out how religions survive and thrive. They're subject to all the same social dynamics as any other ideology or organization. Religions which allow you to largely go about your life as usual are better favored to thrive than those which do not. Religions which attract wealthy patrons do better than those which do not. Religions that eagerly seek and welcome converts do better than those which shun them. Religions which do not confine themselves to a particular geographic area or ethnicity do better than those that do.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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So why do some religions survive and others do not?
Sometimes persectution can galvanize a faith. Other times, it destroys it. In the case of early Christianity, the shared experience of persecution and religious separation from the larger society made the church stronger. In 15th-16th century Japan, persecutions basically destroyed it.
I believe Charlemagne had a large part in the continuation of Christianity as well. If it were not for him, I bet we would all be Muslim...well, except for maybe Kirth.
I believe Charlemagne had a large part in the continuation of Christianity as well. If it were not for him, I bet we would all be Muslim...well, except for maybe Kirth.
I think you're thinking of his grandfather. But it's by no means clear that had things gone otherwise at the battle in question, Western Europe would have become overwhelmingly Islamic. That didn't happen in the Iberian or the Balkans.
[As you maybe can guess, I think Paul tends not to get enough attention in discussions of Christianity. For better or worse, he had a huge influence in shaping what would become one of the world's most dominant religions and packaging it for export out of the desert backwater where it first emerged.]
Paul believed in focusing on the teachings of Jesus. This differed from the views of others that still saw Christianity as a reformation movement within the Jewish religion.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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/snip overwhelmingly Islamic. That didn't happen in the Iberian or the Balkans.
It did happen in Iberia for a while, but Muslim rule of the peninsula was overturned over the course of several centuries of the Reconquista. The Balkans aren't dominated by Muslims, but modern conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo can be traced back to Ottoman occupation of that area and the resulting presence of substantial Muslim populations.
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So why exactly must we trust the text of the bible when it's origins are dubious at best. Like for example Moses was credited with writing the pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) However the end of Deuteronomy records his death and burial which makes it suspect at best that he wrote that bit. Not to mention exterior sources can't collaborate the events that took place, for example egyptologists, still can't find a mention of jews in egypt, any mention of the 10 plagues, any mention of the flight from egypt, any mention of the red sea parting, or any evidence of them wandering 40 years in the desert. Or any exterior reference that a man named Moses ever existed. So whats up?
That's the exact same question Mykull asked with regards to science, just turned around. To my mind, the answer to BOTH questions is: we should neither accept nor reject anything, until we learn enough for ourselves to judge competently one way or the other -- and even then, we need to be VERY reticent to declare "case closed." Willingness to changing one's mind based on new information or understanding is a healthy thing, as I see it.
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So why exactly must we trust the text of the bible when it's origins are dubious at best. Like for example Moses was credited with writing the pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) However the end of Deuteronomy records his death and burial which makes it suspect at best that he wrote that bit. Not to mention exterior sources can't collaborate the events that took place, for example egyptologists, still can't find a mention of jews in egypt, any mention of the 10 plagues, any mention of the flight from egypt, any mention of the red sea parting, or any evidence of them wandering 40 years in the desert. So whats up?
Moses also wasn't there when Adam was created either.
"Wrote" is difficult at best to pin down. Especially since most of the Old Testament most likely wasn't actually written down until many, many generations after he died.
"Jews" (or really the Hebrews) weren't a people in Egypt. At best, they were "Canaanites" or something similar. They didn't become a nation or a unified people until much later.
The numbers given in Numbers is where a lot of people get their "evidence" to the massive hordes of Hebrews, and from what little I've read from archeology publications, this was most likely an early translation error/propaganda exageration. For example, one thing I read said that it was unrealistic since the population of the Hebrews would have been something like 2/3 the entire population of Egypt at the time.
Red Sea some people say was mistranslated as the Sea of Reeds and this would have been a more likely route for the Hebrews to have taken at the time.
While the Egyptians took painstakingly detailed information about some things, it seems like every time there was a new dynasty, the new leader went to great lengths to wipe out as much of the previous dynasty as possible -- "There is no one more important than me!" And I'm not sure how much they would have wanted to record an embarassing event like the plagues. I'm sure that there were a lot of other events that happened that never got recorded.
But in the end, the answer to your initial question -- it depends. If you are looking to the Bible and especially the Pentateuch as an accurate historical reference document, then you probably shouldn't. Most anything else it's a matter of faith.
Willingness to changing one's mind based on new information or understanding is a healthy thing, as I see it.I should note that I seriously thank Samnell for pushing me to research the truth of this stuff. Ironically, I feel that my faith is "healthier" as a result.
They're going to take away my Evil Atheist Conspiracy member card now. That means I can't curse at priests or get 10% off at my local gaming store. Dammit.
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They're going to take away my Evil Atheist Conspiracy member card now. That means I can't curse at priests or get 10% off at my local gaming store. Dammit.Willingness to changing one's mind based on new information or understanding is a healthy thing, as I see it.I should note that I seriously thank Samnell for pushing me to research the truth of this stuff. Ironically, I feel that my faith is "healthier" as a result.
You can still curse at priests, you just don't get bonus XP for being in character for it.
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They're going to take away my Evil Atheist Conspiracy member card now. That means I can't curse at priests or get 10% off at my local gaming store. Dammit.Willingness to changing one's mind based on new information or understanding is a healthy thing, as I see it.I should note that I seriously thank Samnell for pushing me to research the truth of this stuff. Ironically, I feel that my faith is "healthier" as a result.
I'll try not to tell too many people. Gaming stores should be unaffected and depending on the severity of the curse, priests should still fear you.
/snip overwhelmingly Islamic. That didn't happen in the Iberian or the Balkans.It did happen in Iberia for a while, but Muslim rule of the peninsula was overturned over the course of several centuries of the Reconquista. The Balkans aren't dominated by Muslims, but modern conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo can be traced back to Ottoman occupation of that area and the resulting presence of substantial Muslim populations.
Political dominance, sure. But Muslim rule didn't change everybody into Muslims, which was my point. If it had, accomplishing the expulsion of the same wouldn't have been possible. This is more or less what happened in the Balkans too: centuries of Muslim rule and the creation of pockets of Muslims on the ground. But Christianity didn't vanish. I don't see how the pattern would have been much different had the Frankish kingdom fallen too. It would have changed a lot of European political history to be sure, but the demographics? I doubt it. Egypt retained a Coptic Christian majority into the 1400s, and it was both the center of Muslim power and culture for much of that time and far more geographically isolated from other Christian communities.
Which is why I doubt the implication to which I was responding, that had the Battle of Tours gone otherwise Europe and Europeans would be Muslim-majority today. It's a fine distinction, I admit, but one I think significant. Cuius region, eius religio isn't a law of nature. :) Maybe I read too much into what I was responding to.
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/snip overwhelmingly Islamic. That didn't happen in the Iberian or the Balkans.It did happen in Iberia for a while, but Muslim rule of the peninsula was overturned over the course of several centuries of the Reconquista. The Balkans aren't dominated by Muslims, but modern conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo can be traced back to Ottoman occupation of that area and the resulting presence of substantial Muslim populations.
Al-Andalus of the Ummayads and the subsequent dynasties of Moors was never overwhelmingly Islamic... the beauracracy was mostly made up of Islamic Moors with a large minority of Jews. The indigenous population of Iberians and Goths remained mostly Christian.
Kosovo's conflicts have little to do with religion... but actually because of the existance of several Kingdoms in the past that have attempted to call themselves Serbia... it stems from a regional nation vs. ethnic national identity crises. However, the number of people who identify themselves as Albanians in Kosovo is enormous, so there is some underlying truth though.
Bosnia is right on the money though. Religion has been the main source of conflict for Bosnia... but it always has been. Even before their conversion to Islam, Bosnian christian churches had refused to acknowledge the supremacy of either the Pope or the Patriarchs leading to some serious strife in that part of the Balkans for centuries preceeding the occupation of the Ottoman Empire.
Edit: Ninja'd but I felt explanations were necessary still.
The numbers given in Numbers is where a lot of people get their "evidence" to the massive hordes of Hebrews, and from what little I've read from archeology publications, this was most likely an early translation error/propaganda exageration. For example, one thing I read said that it was unrealistic since the population of the Hebrews would have been something like 2/3 the entire population of Egypt at the time.
The Ancient Near East really liked numbers. They had our same predilection to place an arbitrary number on things which was understood at the time to just mean "really big" or "really large". We'd say a million or a billion. They liked forty (as in days and nights). The Sumerians routinely added centuries on centuries to the reigns of dead kings (which if we took their kings' lists seriously would mean their civilization lasted a quarter of a million or so years) and that seems to be one of the habits picked up by the ancient Jewish priesthood when it was tabulating ages for its own founding fathers. So naturally now we have people who will insist that Methuselah really did live and lived for nine hundred years or whatever. Great ages indicated considerable personal prowess, divine favor, and religious importance. The authors did not necessarily think his odometer literally read 900.
While the Egyptians took painstakingly detailed information about some things, it seems like every time there was a new dynasty, the new leader went to great lengths to wipe out as much of the previous dynasty as possible -- "There is no one more important than me!" And I'm not sure how much they would have wanted to record an embarassing event like the plagues. I'm...
Certainly possible, but it seems unlikely. Egypt went through many periods of division where it was a collection of city-states with different patron deities and royalty that later chroniclers papered over. They tended to ignore co-regencies or name the co-regents as consecutive monarchs. Many names were re-used again and again, often without regnal numbers. Trying to sort out the real chronology has been a huge pain for two hundred years.
That said, we can't assume that any one monarch had a total command over all the scribes and the perfect ability to wipe out every trace of past embarrassments. We still know there was a ruling female pharaoh, and one who went over to monotheism, despite organized campaigns to erase them from history. Damaging floods, disease, and civil unrest do all appear in various chronicles and inscriptions. We know about foreign powers taking over the Nile valley for a time, which was certainly an embarrassment to any Egyptian. It seems unlikely that events as startling and widespread as the Exodus plagues would simply vanish into the memory hole when far less severe and conspicuous failures did not.
But I think we can set that aside. Even if the Egyptians were capable of totally erasing all documentary evidence of these calamities happening so suddenly, in such quick succession, and associated with both the death of a pharaoh and an entire army and a major, successful, massive revolt and departure from the realm (I don't mean to gild the lily here, but Exodus is pretty grandiose.) we would still have other means of finding out about such widespread devastation. All of those bodies had to go somewhere and it's unlikely that out of an entire army and all their various gear, animals, and so forth, the vast majority of corpses would never have floated up. At the very least we can expect mass graves. Likewise this would have presented a massive power vacuum. Some of the dead firstborn would have been treasured lone heirs of nobility and the like. They would have had tombs or been entombed with their ancestors. Physical evidence for a calamity on this scale (and the inevitable retaliation in Egypt-dominated Palestine) would have to have been considerable even absent written records.
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The Ancient Near East really liked numbers.
Another thing that I remember reading was that if the numbers were actually correct, that there would have been no chance (having a population of like 15 to 1 for any individual city) for all the tiny city-states to defend against the Hebrews in Canaan. So then, what were they afraid of?
Samnell, you seem to know more about this stuff -- are there any documents/writings that claim to come from around that time that were a little more realistic and not so fantastical? Or were most of them campfire "Wow!" stories?
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Egyptian domination in the Levant would be extensive only during certain kingships. The time after the Second Intermediate Period (which would be before or around the time of Exodus) was a time when Egypt couldn't exert much military pressure beyond the Sinai. Whether through foreign invasion or due to weak dynasties, there would be little chance of retaliation against any groups in the southern Levant or northward until much later.
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The Ancient Near East really liked numbers.Another thing that I remember reading was that if the numbers were actually correct, that there would have been no chance (having a population of like 15 to 1 for any individual city) for all the tiny city-states to defend against the Hebrews in Canaan. So then, what were they afraid of?
Samnell, you seem to know more about this stuff -- are there any documents/writings that claim to come from around that time that were a little more realistic and not so fantastical? Or were most of them campfire "Wow!" stories?
I'm not Samnell, but there are a lot of big fish stories through out history. Embelishment is classic. The Pyrrhic victory of Rameses II (the classic biblical Pharaoh) at Kadesh is a good example. Of course he wrote it down as his greatest victory in stellas and tablets through out Egypt. The Hittites and the Egyptians had obliterated each other and gained no ground... they signed a peace treaty and each went home since their armies had both essentially routed.
Samnell, you seem to know more about this stuff -- are there any documents/writings that claim to come from around that time that were a little more realistic and not so fantastical? Or were most of them campfire "Wow!" stories?
I've been more up into my neck in the American Civil War and Early Modern Europe lately, but I'll give it a shot with the proviso that I'm a bit rusty.
It's not a firm demarcation between campfire tales and secular inscription. Studpuffin mentioned Kadesh. There exists at least one monument detailing the battle in Hittite and Egyptian. (Multilingual inscriptions are a wonderful thing, enormously helpful in deciphering ancient scripts.) Each text claims that the other got pounded into the dirt. Monumental inscriptions are always propaganda, despite the fact that many of them are fairly secular documents. (King X built Y here for Reason Z sorts of things.)
We do have some valuable caches of ordinary administrative and diplomatic sorts of documents. The library at El-Amarna includes many, as later on does one from the Byzantine period that I can never come close to spelling properly. I haven't read them myself, but their content is reportedly far more mundane than your average stories about gods, monsters, and George Washington with a cherry tree.
The dating of the Exodus, even based on internal textual evidence, is pretty contentious. As I said, numbers were often picked arbitrarily or for various theological and political purposes. Going back to that old post of mine, the story as a whole is generally seen as a fiction. Getting precise dates for events that never happened isn't something a lot of scholars concern themselves with. But some give it a shot.
The oldest consensus amounts to 1479-1425. That one had a lot of problems, which I think I alluded to back in that big post from last year. So Albright, the founder of Biblical Archaeology, came up with a later range: 1200-1250. This is the one most fundamentalists like and you're most likely to hear bandied about. It was very popular in the mid-20th century before the advance of the discipline led most to conclude the whole story is mythic. There are some attempts to push the date way back again, but these run across issues of the story describing the situation as it obviously did not exist at the time. Cities not settled until later, areas settled that we know to be abandoned or inhabited only by nomads at the time, etc. (Actually these are rather the generic problems with the account in general.)
These errors are actually very helpful to us, as it's quite likely that the original authors were describing their present-day realities in writing about their past. They're rather unlikely to make it all up because then even the commoners would probably notice they were wrong. But even the elites of the day didn't know what we do about their past.
There was a question here and I promptly forgot it. Bother, now I have to scroll up. My poor mouse fingers! :)
So right then, given the problems with dating do we have any contemporaneous, fairly non-mythic and non-propagandistic documentation of the eras in question? There are always monumental and funereal inscriptions, but those fall into the mythic and propagandistic problems. What comes to mind is the Amarna Letters. They span somewhere in the 15 to 30 year range and are dated to the 1300s. They would postdate the early Exodus theories and antedate the late, so not a lot of help there. They're very helpful elsewhere, of course.
We don't actually have a lot of straight workaday inscriptions from much of ancient history. (Or history in general prior to widespread literacy, though the rise of bureaucratic states helped enormously.) They certainly existed, but virtually all were lost and only some have survived and been re-discovered. Archaeology can plug a lot of the gaps, but it has its own limits. It's been very difficult to learn anything new about ancient Mesopotamia in the past thirty or so years, for reasons you can find on CNN every day.
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Embelishments on ancient accounts like Josephus don't help either. It seems that translations of Josephus that come down to us today contain phrases that were added by later translators of his work, so though he lived closer to the time he wrote about his works are considered conflicting at times.
At the same time his work is highly propagandized and meant for his Roman patrons, so his histories seem dubious as well.
I think you're thinking of his grandfather.
No, I actually meant Charlemagne. However, I defer to your obviously superior knowledge of European history (What? I've read one book on Charlemagne!).
I did not think that the Muslim calif would have conquered Europe sans Charles, only that I think Islam would have replaced paganism.
No, I actually meant Charlemagne. However, I defer to your obviously superior knowledge of European history (What? I've read one book on Charlemagne!).
I tried once, but found the guy pretty boring overall. Maybe I got a bad book, but I'm generally not much for biography to begin with. I've always read Charles Martel being the guy associated with "saving" Europe (or at least Latin Christendom) from Islam at the Battle of Tours.
I did not think that the Muslim calif would have conquered Europe sans Charles, only that I think Islam would have replaced paganism.
Ok. I'm pretty close to the limits of my knowledge on the period and subject, but this is what I'm working from in seeing an Islamic Europe sans Charles as a long shot:
I know Charles stomped down the Frisians and Saxons (and it took quite a bit of doing for the Saxons) and conversion was a consequence. The Saxon Wars were the beginning of the end for central European paganism, sure. Without Charles' victories it would have likely persisted longer. But the already-Christian Franks (and the already-Christian Byzantines) are right in the way of Islam's spread into central and eastern Europe.
In the absence of state edict and oppression, conversion would have to progress the old fashioned person-to-person way. That can certainly work out, but I don't know enough about Muslim missionary expeditions to have any confidence pronouncing on their ability to effect substantial conversions of, say, the Saxons. I suppose I can see a Muslim conversion of Saxony outflanking and short-circuiting the spread of Christendom. The chance of that actually happening seems remote even absent their defeat by Charles.
I could be wrong, of course. If there was some kind of Muslim embassy with the Saxons and they were seriously considering conversion from Germanic paganism to Islam prior to their defeat, that would certainly change my opinion on the issue. I just don't know that there was one and if there was that the prospect was taken seriously by the Saxons.
And now that I write that I thought of the other possibility: an Islamic advance that takes European paganism from the east. Should the advance of Christendom stalled sans Charlemagne, Eastern Orthodoxy could have gotten outflanked. For centuries Muslim states controlled sections of the Caucasus, the Ukraine, and the like. There's an old Russian joke to the effect that the founders of Russia could have picked Christian Orthodoxy or Islam for their state religion, and had enough subjects of each faith that they were viable options, except that Islam would have prohibited vodka. :)
I guess that scenario might have played out to the effect of Islam dominating central and eastern Europe, but it also introduces further variables. It's not just sans Charlemagne anymore. Now it's sans Charlemagne and sans the Orthodox Rus.
All this counter-factual cause and effect speculation can get trippy. :)
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There are also aspects of historical accident too. Christianity really git a boost when Constantine began to push it in the Roman empire. Prior to that, it was persecuted. What Constantine was able to do was co-opt what was an essentially anti-establishment religion and bring it in to the establishment. Then it acquired wealth and power, a headquarters in Rome, and so on.Sort of, yeah. Christianity was rarely persecuted in the Empire, and most of those persecutions were ad hoc, local affairs. If Rome as a whole had decided to wipe it out, Christianity would have gone the way of the Carthaginian Empire. Nobody was better at genocide than Imperial Rome. The few empire-wide persecutions (I can only remember one) were short. Not fun times, but it wasn't an on/off transition between persecution and tolerance. Christianity was already a fairly successful religion among the urban middle and upper classes before Constantine elected to give it state sponsorship.
The only Empire-wide one I can recall was Diocletian, true, but the Christians certainly were not liked (Pliny the Younger repeats some anti-Christian propoganda at a earlier time, for example). It was certainly something people could hold against you, with lurid tales of cannibalism and so on. The question is less did it survive at all but why did it become a huge world religion (in a way that the worship of Mithras, for example, did not) and I think the boost it received from Constantine (and the clarification of the creed and doctrine at the Nicean Conference, for example) will have helped massively.
But aside historical contingencies, it's not that hard to figure out how religions survive and thrive. They're subject to all the same social dynamics as any other ideology or organization. Religions which allow you to largely go about your life as usual are better favored to thrive than those which do not. Religions which attract wealthy patrons do better than those which do not. Religions that eagerly seek and welcome converts do better than those which shun them. Religions which do not confine themselves to a particular geographic area or ethnicity do better than those that do.
Absolutely. However, I think historical "accident" should probably not be entirely dismissed either, though of course it is also one of things you can never really know.
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The only Empire-wide one I can recall was Diocletian...
It happened quite a bit during the Crisis of the Third Century, they were often used as scapegoats during this time. These were short in duration.
Diocletian spent a great deal of time trying to put order back to the Empire when he came to power... and he felt the Imperial Cult was the best way to do so by directly deifying himself.
Julian the Apostate, after Constantine, was the last real attempt to prevent the Empire from going Christian. If his reign had been longer and he hadn't been beset by so many problems on the frontiers he may've changed history... though its speculation at best.
No, I actually meant Charlemagne.
I think your right on this one too. Charles Martel only blunted the Moors advance into France. Moorish armies occupied Narbonne and parts of Gascony until the time of Charlemagne who drove them back into Iberia. Charlemagne was unsuccessful in moving south of the Ebro river, and so we only end up with the Spanish Marches and the Song of Roland as a result.
The question is less did it survive at all but why did it become a huge world religion (in a way that the worship of Mithras, for example, did not) and I think the boost it received from Constantine (and the clarification of the creed and doctrine at the Nicean Conference, for example) will have helped massively.
Sure. I agree completely. The question is an interesting one.
I recalled reading something on the numbers of the subject a few months ago and managed to dig it up. This suggests to me that while Constantine certainly helped (State support always helps religions prosper, which is why they want it.) and may have even kick-started the growth rate a fair bit, Christianity was set to become a huge religion in the empire even without him by brute force of demographics. Its growth rate is quite similar to that of Mormonism, in fact.
As for assumptions, Christianity asks most of its adherents to accept some assumptions about God and Jesus based on common experience and authority. Those assumptions are founded on reason and observation--the theological discipline of apologetics. Science instruction does the same thing. Students are asked to assume certain scientific truths without personally verifying them by experiment, but underlying those assumptions is actual research. You don't have to have a Ph.D. in apologetics to grok Christianity, just like you don't have to be a scientist to grok science. The simple fact is that most of what people believe about any given topic, they take on authority rather than personal observation.Yes, but the underlying scientific assumptions can be recreated. That is why there is only one science, practiced around the world, and not multiple competing branches of science. In India, if they perform the same experiments as in the U.S. under the same conditions, they will achieve the same results. Same in China. Same in Russia. If the foundations of science were based upon getting people to buy into some faulty assumption, you would see a wide variety of sciences, each based upon a different set of faulty assumptions.
The underlying theological assumptions of Christianity cannot be recreated. They are not universal. No one showed up in India 2,000 years ago and claimed to be the son of god. When the son of god was allegedly killed in the Middle East, the Chinese didn't notice. That's because, unlike science, religion is based upon culture and tradition, not observations based upon the real world.
That we all agree about observations of 'the real world' and can 'recreate underlying scientific assumptions' doesn't prove anything. We might all be in Plato's cave, confident in our shared misperception of what we consider reality. You can never attain a total and final victory over skepticism. Also, direct theistic knowledge can never be decisively rejected as a possibility. Simply because some piece of knowledge is not 'universal' and cannot be 'recreated' doesn't necessarily mean it is invalid. I myself, an unbeliever who has completed some graduate work in biological anthropology, am of an empirical bent, and yet I don't assert that anyone else's claim to knowledge of God is invalid simply because I don't have evidence of it (beyond what the person says).
That we all agree about observations of 'the real world' and can 'recreate underlying scientific assumptions' doesn't prove anything. We might all be in Plato's cave, confident in our shared misperception of what we consider reality.
If one's only defense of religion is to invoke the Matrix and Last Thursdayism, I'd say his or her faith is pretty well gone, though.
I'm not Samnell, but there are a lot of big fish stories through out history. Embelishment is classic. The Pyrrhic victory of Rameses II (the classic biblical Pharaoh) at Kadesh is a good example. Of course he wrote it down as his greatest victory in stellas and tablets through out Egypt. The Hittites and the Egyptians had obliterated each other and gained no ground... they signed a peace treaty and each went home since their armies had both essentially routed.
Mistranslation over the years have also caused some problems. I remember seeing something that suggested the the parting of the Red Sea may have been a mistranslation of "Reed Sea," a marsh that once existed along the northern edge of the Red Sea. It is apparently mentioned on a stele in the Egyptian Museum.
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Mistranslation over the years have also caused some problems. I remember seeing something that suggested the the parting of the Red Sea may have been a mistranslation of "Reed Sea," a marsh that once existed along the northern edge of the Red Sea. It is apparently mentioned on a stele in the Egyptian Museum.
This is one that is fairly easy to account for as well. Translators would look at a map and find the currently existing landmarks under the wrongful assumption that nature is permanent. The Sea of Reeds was very small and in a place that wasn't very important to people living in other parts of the world... or even to Egypt for that matter. Easily bypassed by sea routes and northern roads, the Sea of Reeds would be ignored for a long time.
The Red Sea, however, is a large body of water just to the south of where biblical scholars are looking anyway. What could be better propaganda wise than a major miracle that parted a deep salty sea rather than a mushy, shallow tidal bog?
Another thing I've noticed is that Abram is from Ur... and most biblical scholars assume that means he comes from the famous city of Ur in Sumeria. There were, however, other Urs that existed during that time period. The place where he's most likely from is in Syria or Turkey today.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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That we all agree about observations of 'the real world' and can 'recreate underlying scientific assumptions' doesn't prove anything. We might all be in Plato's cave, confident in our shared misperception of what we consider reality. You can never attain a total and final victory over skepticism. Also, direct theistic knowledge can never be decisively rejected as a possibility. Simply because some piece of knowledge is not 'universal' and cannot be 'recreated' doesn't necessarily mean it is invalid. I myself, an unbeliever who has completed some graduate work in biological anthropology, am of an empirical bent, and yet I don't assert that anyone else's claim to knowledge of God is invalid simply because I don't have evidence of it (beyond what the person says).
Okay, then we can't reject anything. Hooray! Nothing exists.
Or everything exists.
I'm not sure.
And, I don't particularly care.
If the best argument that can be put forward is "but we can't prove that we aren't in the Matrix, therefore we might be," color me unimpressed.
Also, I don't think it's all that much to ask of the biblical one true God that it manifest universally and recognizably to all of humanity. If math can do it, why can't the all powerful divine being who created math do it? The fact that the biblical one true God is not universally recognized or experienced by humanity suggests that he is not the one true God and the description of him as such in the bible is inaccurate.
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The fact that the biblical one true God is not universally recognized or experienced by humanity suggests that he is not the one true God and the description of him as such in the bible is inaccurate.
It seems to me that if the Flat Earther's won't accept overwhelming evidence that they're wrong that humans are just inclined to be naturally skeptical of things that are new to them. Or that which goes against their current belief system. Even if the Abrahamic deity appeared before the world and said "I am God." I think we'd still have a large number of skeptics still denying his existence. Its part of human nature, IMO. I think that one of the best ways out of this is to try and be like a philosopher and a scholar.