Robittybob1

@Disarray - some part of that post sounded personal. Are you saying you believe in more than one God?

Something is surely going to surface to solve the mystery one day.

This part could be pertinent, I'm not sure if it will bring contentment. "To be the friend of God in any sense of the words is to be the friend of man. Those who lay claim to being the children of Abraham must do the works of Abraham." From a Christian perspective the works of Abraham is to show faith. Faith in the things that God or the Gods (monotheistic or polytheistic) have revealed to you. [Just hope you are not asked to offer a burnt sacrifice to the Lord.] What are the works of Abraham from a Jewish or Muslim perspective?

Fair enough. Wars, floods, fire, earthquakes, plagues and internal strife all could contribute to this turmoil.

How did you work that out?

@Disarray - the conversation is way beyond my normal activity. Monotheism was just a question as to whether the three major Abrahamic religions were really monotheistic. I'm asking the question because I don't know, not that I have a particular view on the topic. It was spin off from the thread on Abraham. Maybe I have had thoughts on the topic but they were very raw thoughts. But I am definitely appreciating the discussion and every point is being cross checked by my own investigation, but truly I can't match Disarray on the knowledge around the topic.

So do you think everything can be explained rationally right back the very beginning? That is the human quest for many years, we personally may never know the answer to it. But it feels like we are getting close to some sort of limit (I think that sort of sentiment has been expressed before too, only to be proven wrong later).

I'll come back to your other points later, but from this definition what do you think world means? Does it go as far as being the universe or the multiverse? Forget about piddly things like the human race or the Earth go the whole hog - the universe. Could you help me out understanding the phrase "transcends yet is immanent in the world"? Immanent - "being within the limits of possible experience or knowledge" transcends - "c : to be prior to, beyond, and above (the universe or material existence)"

You nearly understood me. If the final discovery was "perturbation of the Higgs-Boson field by virtue of some variant of indeterminacy" that caused the universe to come into existence we would be left with the God of "variant indeterminacy" whatever that means, for it was just an example that you came up with.

I'm trying to analyse what you have just said. There seems to be the need to believe, but also some are atheistic. So do the atheists also feel they need to believe but resist this? I could see this happening. Some ancient saying within himself, "No. I will not assign this event to a God. I will find out the scientific reason for this". This exploration has resulted into what we have today where the things to explain just seem to keep getting pushed back. Will we ever get to understand how the Universe started off in a highly ordered state? If there ever became just the one unanswered question, will this be the ultimate monotheism? No more need for tree gods, sun gods, rain gods, Moon gods, Mother goddesses etc but just one god that answers the final question.

I would have included Christians but since starting this thread I have come to accept that Abraham may just be a myth, and when Jesus argued Abraham was pleased to see my day, that was just a reference to a myth. When St. Paul argues Christians are an adopted part of the children of Abraham that is just part of the myth. So I needn't include Christians for one has already accepted that it may be a myth. But are we aware of the same happening among the Jews and the Muslims, for surely they must be reading/seeing the same evidence (lack of) against the reality of Abraham? The existence of Jesus has been discussed before, and is in no way linked to the existence of Abraham. (Even though his family tree probably claims to be derived from Abraham or beyond.)

The thread has evolved and covered a lot of aspects but the OP simply stated "Is there any truth to his existence? What did he really do to get all this respect?" I don't mind when it wanders and meanders a little. But since you brought up questions regarding prophets I was exploring your opinion on that topic.

Your conversations were being addressed between you two or three, albeit poorly in my opinion, but it seemed to me to be largely off topic. So what "should be addressed"?

I must have missed that bit then. Look, off course I read the thread except I don't go into it where the conversation was just between Disarray and yourself or others. The question is still there and I doubt if it has been covered by the thread as yet. "There are these 3 (main) Abrahamic religions but do we share their prophets?"

I'm thinking it was a breakthrough for human civilization to work from the constellations for that was more accurate timekeeper than the number of days in a year or the number of lunar months in a year for both of them had fractional quantities to content with. 365.25 days in a year . Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year And the Moon year is even more complicated e.g Lunar year So they would be 11 plus days out every year if they based it on the Moon. But when they used the star zodiacal constellations those fractions disappear don't they?

So what does that mean, ancient communities had a desire to believe in higher powers? Are you implying that although they were at the time atheistic they came to believe in angels, the messengers from these higher powers? I think I can see how the concept began but it requires these higher powers to be there, and laws of nature (the seasons, the equinoxes, the eclipses, comets .....) must have suggested the existence of higher powers to them.

The Jews had Abraham's covenant for the promise of a huge number of descendants. They had Moses' covenant for the promised land of Israel, and King David's covenant that a descendant of David would reign forever. You can see there are some obvious reasons why they would prefer to keep what they had even if it wasn't panning out that great. For when was the last time a King reigned who was from the House of David? The story was causing consternation rather than contentment for the Jews for they have continually being looking for their messiah. Do you accept that Mohammed was a prophet? There are these 3 Abrahamic religions but do we share their prophets?

What do you reckon, could the Jews and Muslims ever accept that there never was a person called Abraham?

In the documentaries they sort of link it to the 12 zodiacal constellations. Now that may be a Northern Hemisphere thing for I don't know about them at all as I have never tried to look for the constellations from a Southern Hemisphere perspective. I know they were found really early (Babylonians) but I personally have no other knowledge about it. (There were 12 smaller stones around their circles) http://www.pixzul.com/

@disarray - Genesis 4:26 .... Which makes me think as we evolved, humans would have been by nature atheistic, so what starts them off calling on the name of the Lord?

What I am finding is that Christians need the OT for the Christ was prophesied in the OT. But then it becomes a trap for the OT has stories in it like Adam and Eve, and Noah and Abraham, which now are treated as just fables. So the person we say is "God" didn't know the truth and was proven wrong by believing such stories. The way I look at it now is that Jesus was raised in a culture that taught the children and adults that these were facts and he took it on trust that they were fact, and there is no sin in that. So even if it was wrong it was not a sin to believe it. But for us it doesn't mean we have to believe the fables for there is no proof of their truth upon scientific analysis. I think Christians on the whole accept this but I'm not so sure about the other Abrahamic faiths. Could the Jews accept that there never was a person called Abraham?

I'm thinking this was built and used in an era before written language, a time when most things/concepts would not have the words to express them orally either. So the carvings were in themselves a form of communication. Whether it was religious or just their own attempt to explain things as best they could within their limitations, no words and no writing. What did they use to measure time? There would have been a day, and a year and the division of that year into the twelve periods. How would they measure distance? Did they have a standard? What distances are you talking about?

@michel123456 - a long post but what did you really say? I thought it was already known that civilization had a patchy start. What do you mean by "linear evolution" as it relates to Gobekli Tepe?

There is the carving of the headless man and the birds carrying an orb (which I take as the head of the headless man). To me that is the beginning of the concept of consciousness continuing after dead. Another statue was of a man with an erection, so one would think there was an element of the initiation ceremony going on as well. Sun and Moon represented by the two large pillars and the twelve astrological constellations is a start. Maybe they hadn't clicked onto alignment with the stars as yet. So it becomes a bit of a science project with them trying to understand the cosmos and life as well.

I have been questioning myself as to what category I'd actually fit. Do you know yourself? It was interesting to read "I think that it would be contradictory by definition to say that an atheist believes, for example, that angels can reveal the existence of God to humans", for something like that could have happened at some stage in human development. In the Genesis it mentions a situation where mankind was originally atheist and then "began calling on the name of the Lord", as if religion develops from atheism.