disarray

RobbityBob1 The question as to the extent to which we can gain from the wisdom of our ancestors way of looking at the world (e.g, as expressed in scriptural accounts of the Abrahamic tradition) while, at the same time, discarding the chaff of ignorance and superstition of the times is not an easy one. Personally, I am not a big fan of the sort of blind obedience to what one thinks is God's will or plan for you; however, this seems to be a big part of the Christian heritage. If we boil it down, I would suggest that what this really means is that we should try to be more open to what seems to be best for ones social and physical environment, and not just focused on ones own goals. Perhaps, transcendence really just involves making the effort to extend ones sense of identity beyond ones immediate concerns (as per Tajfel and Turner social identity theory) to include, for example, ever widening circles of humanity. I think that the Abrahamic narrative, and in particular, literal fundamentalist/literal/elitist interpretations of this narrative, is essentially a militant view, given its ethos of blind obedience to higher authority, its claim that a particular group of people has a right to take over certain lands, putting the nation and its interpretation of God's will first over even love of family, its patriarch/patriarchal attitude, its insistence on the superiority of certain people, etc. Again, Freud had a lot to say about the insidious nature and dangers of ethnocentrism...In this sense, I think that Ten Oz has a good point that we look for the metaphors in the Bible (and perhaps update such metaphors in light of modern science, politics, economics, etc.). The distinction between Shiite and Sunnis goes back, of course, to differences in interpretation as to such things as to whom is the spiritual successor of Muhammed. Again, it seems to be all about who is in line of descent, who has rights to land, who has rights to rule, etc. Personally, I think that the distinctions are trivial, so that again, people seem focused on the details rather than the spirit of religious doctrine. But yes, I will have a look into that forum thread.

@RobbityBob1 Well, yes, it is a matter of clarifying what the focus is, e.g,, whether we agree that details (if we are going to use that word) refers to 1) those things in the Bible that change over time (as I guess Dimreepr is saying), or whether they refer to those things that are 2) symbolic and that don't reflect the "spirit" of the text (as I am guessing Ten Oz is stating), or, whether details refer to 3) those few passages which seem super-natural and miraculous (as I am trying to stress). So we might ask what possible ramifications or gains might arise by focusing on any of these three approaches: Focusing on the idea that the events of the Bible might change over time (given changes in interpretation, translation losses,etc.) might encourage people to realize that we cannot or should not take various scriptures literally and that no one interpretation is divinely inspired and hence definitive. The result might be that Muslims, Christians, and Jews become less adamant and aggressive regarding such major issues as the ones I mentioned (who has right to land, who is saved, what are the right morals, etc.). Indeed, there are different "hermeneutical" guideliness for interpreting Biblical passages in an effort to glean the writer's general intentions, despite scriptural differences in various versions of the text, for example: "It is usually a mistake to read any part of the Bible allegorically (where there is a moral lesson to the story). Don't read into parables too much. E.g. the parable of the Good Samaritan was famously interpreted by Augustine that the good Samaritan is Jesus, the robbers are the devil, we are the ones being robbed by the devil. This interpretation was arbitrary. There was nothing in the text to indicate this. Otherwise anyone could come up with any interpretation. In this particular case, you need to see why Jesus told this story in response to the lawyer (Lk 10:29)" http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/3292/if-the-bible-is-open-to-interpretation-how-does-one-know-which-one-is-right 2. Focusing on the idea that many of the events of the Bible are metaphorical would also encourage people to be less literal in their own particular interpretation of the Bible, and perhaps to put more effort into determining just which interpretation they think best expresses the spirit of the text, e.g., the moral implications, and how passages might be understood in terms of today's understanding of the world. A good rant in this regard is found at http://www.rense.com/general66/hide.htm, which observes, among other things, that "It is sad to watch how some religious institutions only teach the letter of the law or the literal meaning of the words. The great teachers of their time spoke in vocabulary and symbolism that could be more easily understood by the people of their time. For example, bad spirits were often portrayed as the cause of illness. Overcoming the bad spirits was the key to self -healing. Today we need no longer use these same symbols, as we now understand some medicine and science. We now know that constant negative states of mind and emotions can make us very ill." etc. 3. Focusing on the idea that the miracles, e.g., God's revelations (aka talks) to Moses, Abraham, etc. may have been interpolated by writers over the centuries to further a nation's economic prosperity, spiritual identity, personal and communal salvation, etc. (regardless of the degree to which writers thought that such miracles actually took place) would again discourage people from various religions and sects to be less militant about their supposed divine right to attack those who have different ideas about how to attain salvation, who owns what particular tracts of land in the eyes of God, etc. A good example of such a unifiying (aka ecumenical) effort is that made by Constantine: 'According to Presbyter Theodoret, there were "more than two hundred" variant gospels in use in his time. In 313, groups of Presbyters violently clashed over the variations in their writings and ‘altar was set against altar’ in competing for an audience and territory.When Emperor Constantine conquered the East in 324, he sent letters to several Bishops exhorting them to make peace among their own. But the mission failed and Constantine then issued a decree commanding all Presbyters.. to travel to the city of Nicaea...Constantine saw in this developing system of belief the opportunity to make a combined state religion and protect it by law.' The result was the unifying Nicaean creed which states the basic beliefs (e.g., God spoke to the prophets, Jesus became man in order to save us). Ultimately, I think that all three of these approaches have merit and tend to have a unifying effect on different religions and sects. Pointing out that different people all have relied on their own interpretations of the Abrahamic narrative in an effort to define their own people's relationship with God within a cultural-historical context may help these different people (e.g., Muslims, Jews, Christians, and sects within these major religions) to 'put down their swords' and achieve some peace. It seems as if literalism is a double edged sword: On the one hand it solidifies a particular nation's sense of identity as well as providing historical and moral guidance. On the other hand, such legitimization tends, I would suggest, to lead to the question as to which nation is superior to others (e.g., chosen, the favorite), and therefore has a right to claim lands as their own and to, if necessary, kill those nonbelievers (aka infidels) who don't accept their claims to land and who (because they don't accept their alleged, one true account of the Bible and therefore the one, true God who can grant them salvation) deserve to be killed. This is only a small forum, but I think that any and all efforts to clarify the value that the Abrahamic tradition might have for all people (e.g., their common effort to find meaning by examining the events and myths recorded throughout the ages by those seeking to create some sort of dialogue with God), and not just for a few who claim to have the right interpretation of divinely inspired scriptural accounts, might help reduce inter-national conflict. For example, it might be stressed that the value of the scriptures is that Jesus is symbolic of the dual physical/spiritual nature of human beings, and that the lessons of the Abrahamic narrative (e.g., take care of the land, respect tradition and show obedience to God and/or good spiritual leaders) ultimately embraces all people, regardless of color, national origin, religious ritual, etc. so that it doesn't particularly matter whether we use the term God or Allah, or whether the symbolic story of Abraham involves the son Isaac or Ishmael, etc. So, I guess all that I have gained is a sense that I have helped clarify such value, and hopefully helped others a little to clarify their own contributions towards finding common value in the Abrahamic narrative and tradition.

Dimreepr: Obviously, there are going to be conflicting scriptural details between various religions, or details that get lost in the translation (as, I think, you unnecessarily point out). But you still have not clarified exactly what it is that you consider to be the nuggets of truth that we can all take away from all these scriptures. Similarly your comment that “you can't tell someone to understanding but you can lead them to it” really has no content that I can reply to. Even your clincher statement about dogs is impertinent and vague. I would suggest that you can’t nail a point home if you haven’t made it in the first place! Indeed, when I read your last post, I am unable to determine just what point you were trying to make other than that you apparently disagreed with me. Prometheus: Your most telling phrase in your last post was, “If I understand dimreepr correctly…” I too, can only guess. Well, at least you gave an example of what you meant so let me respond: I agree that, whether it is an apple or whatever doesn’t really matter and might be considered a detail, but even your going further and stating that the fruit represents knowledge of good and evil (as if that were a nugget) doesn’t tell me much either...it seems the details are just as controversial and open to interpretation as the alleged nuggets. One religious site, for example, says that the knowledge of good and evil isn’t the issue so much as the idea that the fruit was a test to see if Adam and Eve were obedient to God. Another site says that eating the apple would make them as smart as the angels or even God and he wouldn’t like that. Another site says that the apple represents knowledge in general and that too much knowledge gives us the chance to do bad things….the example that was given in this site was that if we weren’t smart enough to make computers no one could watch porn, and if we didn’t know about nuclear energy there would be no nuclear weapons, etc. https://www.biblicaltraining.org/blog/curious-christian/4-3-2012/what-tree-knowledge-good-and-evil I find all of these interpretations of what you seem to think is an unadulterated takeaway nugget from the garden story to be somewhat ridiculous; but that aside, my point would still be that, just as there can be different interpretations of details such as what fruit we are talking about, so too can there be different interpretations of supposed nuggets such as the significance of having knowledge of good and evil. In general, I think that using words such as “detail” and “nugget” are so vague as to not be very useful. The more important issue is, I think, whether or not to take details such as Eve coming from Adam’s rib literally or metaphorically, not to mention God’s creating the entire universe complete with full grown people in a handful of 24 hour days as many people believe. Whether we say we are taking the details or the nuggets as fact or fiction (take your pick) is no small matter: the conflict between Creationism and Evolutionism, for example, has caused an ongoing conceptual and legal battle for at last a century and a half now. Again, as far as I am concerned, the really crucial passages in the Bible (be they considered details or nuggets), are those in which God speaks to a character and/or those in which miracles are performed. These are the sorts of passages that determine who God gave the land to (e.g., via Moses, Joshua, Abraham, etc.) and who can more easily achieve salvation (e.g., descendants of Isaac or Ishmael), what are the right morals (e.g., 10 commandments), and how they can be saved (e.g., Allah or Jesus/God/Holy Spirit) and just what God is like (angry Yahweh or forgiving Jesus, etc.). As for the moral lessons in the Bible, again (be they considered details or nuggets) they are a mixed bag (of good and evil, perhaps), and I think many, e.g., Thomas Jefferson would consider the NT to be more morally uplifting than the OT. Indeed he wrote his own version of the NT that left out the miracles on the basis that they were not reasonable, but rather misleading superstitious 'non-sense'. My point is not that the Bible is good or bad, but rather that there are few if any unambiguous (moral, historical, eschatological, or epistemological) nuggets of information in the Abrahamic tradition, or even perhaps in what one might call the extended Abrahamic tradition from Adam/Eve through Abraham to Jesus.....and by "unambiguous," I mean that there are few if any passages (be they considered details or nuggets) that are not open to interpretation of one sort or another. Ten Oz: You state that "If they (religious) believe god is literally watching why do the overwhelming majority still lie, cheat, steal, and etc?" I would suggest you read or reread Sigmund and Anna Freud's outline of the defense mechanisms, e.g., (moral) rationalization, denial, projection, etc. for starters. You also state that, "Push comes to shove we all know the difference between what is real and what isn't." I think human psychology is far more complex and complicated than that. Only in the court systems are people put in a position of determining whether someone is morally/criminally insane or not. Nowadays, psychologists tend to see such things as sexuality, intent, neuroticism, introversion, culpability, etc. on a spectral scale, not in terms of black or white...Similarly, I would suggest that the majority of professionals don't commonly think of people as either being in touch with reality or not, or knowing what is right and what is not, not to mention the question of there being such a thing as a black/white reality or black/white absolute morals. Indeed, one of the things that makes a literal interpretation of 'holy scriptures' so attractive is that it paints a picture of a world of moral absolutes in which every word and deed is either right or wrong, good or bad, true or false....no unpleasant gray areas here.

Tar: You write, "My constant admonishment relates to anyone, including myself, or the least of us, or the best of us, considering what is in our minds as being transcendent to reality." I can only guess what that means. I tend to agree that there is no separate transcendental realm, if that is what you are suggesting. It was Augustine who, under the influence of Plato, emphasized the concept that God was in some immaterial world (aka heaven) separate from the world we see around us. Again, I don't think that there is any need to rule out the possibility that consciousness, in one form or another, survives bodily death, though I would agree that it is perhaps a little anthropomorphic to assume that the body must go to another realm or universe distinct from nature. Indeed, Buddhists, who claim to have intuitive experiences of altered consciousness claim that heaven (aka Nirvana) is not some place that you go to, but rather it is 'all around' one at the present moment, e.g., trees, rivers, sky, etc. One just has to be in the "right frame of mind" to perceive reality in a more "realistic" manner. My point is that the Nirvana of Buddhism does not take anyone to a different universe...it is the same ole universe we have always lived in. I find this plausible, though far be it from me to say that this is true, though I think that it certainly is true that, owing to different levels of serotonin, dopamine, etc., the way that we perceive reality (aka consciousness) is much like a spectrum from 'very tense' (e.g., schizophrenia) to 'very relaxed (e.g., meditative experiences in which people feel themselves merging with their surroundings). So I personally tend to agree that, for all practical purposes, there is no need for the average person on the street to concern him or herself with the question of whether there is another universe, either in a scientific or in, perhaps, a spiritual sense...since, as seem to keep pointing out, this is our universe and the only one we need.

@Memammal: Yes, that rings a bell...some scientists claim that everything is happening at once, but it seems as if time is flowing because of the different perspectives that people have. But, I fail to see how that relates to the issue of whether the universe was created or whether there are other universes, or whether there is life on other planets, or whether the universe is conscious as a whole. Indeed, when it comes to emotions, it seems to me that the solid block universe that you describe is likely to be deterministic....which, to most people, suggests a lack of free will. Personally, I am not opposed to the idea of a deterministic sort of universe (though it would have to somehow incorporate quantum randomness). However, it seems to me that even if it does endlessly repeat itself, even if only apparently, there will always be some sort of creative growth, be it the creation of more energy somewhere or of more consciousness or whatever...much like a windmill produces electricity. @tar: The aborigines of Australia as well as the 'traditional' Native Americans considered the lands on which they roamed as being sacred and defining who they were. In some cases, individual Native Americans felt that their spirits were firmly connected to the exact place/circumstance in which they were born, and there names often reflected this. Malraux and Nietzsche claimed that people's culture could be predicted from their environment, e.g., harsh, cold, language and austere Protestantism of Germans in contrast to warmer mellifluous language and colorful Catholicism of Italians. And circa, 1940, both Germans and Italians seemed to be especially tied emotionally to their Homelands. Perhaps you have just extended the perimeters quite a bit to include your affiliation with the entire universe. But, basic psychological terms aside, such as the idea of sibling rivalry (e.g., our universe in contrast with perhaps a sister mirror universe of our own), or the idea of abandonment (e.g., a deistic God sometimes giving attention to other universes), it does seem to me that you are using familial if not quasi-spiritual terminology to describe your 'ownership' of the universe, as if it gave birth to us, or that we belong to it, or it is our property, or it is where we live, etc. Perhaps you are not really attempting to provide reasonable arguments for or against the existence of other universes or other life supporting planets in our own universe at all. It sounds to me more as if you are trying to teach some sort of lesson to others, e.g., feel that you are part of something bigger than yourself, or the universe gave birth to you so you were put here for a reason, or take care of your environment and it will take care of you, or don't worry about life in other parts of the universe but rather focus on what is right in front of you, or we are all part of the human endeavor in this big, beautiful world of ours, etc.

Ten Oz: No, I don't think that all or even most of them were literally and consciously atheists, per se, nor do I think, on the other hand, that all of them were devout theists who believed every word they wrote. I suspect that, for the most part, it was unthinkable for the vast majority of people in the Western world and the Levant before perhaps that latter part of the 19th c. that anyone could be an atheist without being insane or possessed. Indeed, Nietzsche is sometimes credited with being the first to even conceptualize and formalize the concept of atheism as a worldview. Similarly, Jung, Campbell, and Comte, among others, I think would agree that prior to the Enlightenment, people thought more in terms of theology and metaphysics (including myth and superstition), so that a world or worldview that did not include demons, gods, ghosts, devils, sprites, and/or angels (etc.) was virtually unthinkable. When we look at major monotheistic religions, we see oral and written stories passed down, collated, rewritten, amended, etc. Jewish scholars, for example, debated the fine points of scripture for centuries, so I think that exaggerations, such as miracles, evolve gradually in a rather institutionalized manner, much like a story gets distorted and exaggerated through gossip. As for individual “upstarts, one must take it on a case by case basis: Did the heavens really open up to inspire Hiram Edson to inform him about the coming of the "High Priest"? Did Joseph Smith really have visions that he interpreted as being ones in which God and Jesus told him where he could find golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history? Did Jim Jones, master of control, really believe that he was the reincarnation of Gandhi, Jesus, Buddha and Lenin (and that it was somehow religiously necessary as a sign of loyalty, among other things, for over 900 people to commit suicide)? Who knows? But I tend to think that cult leaders are more likely to consciously lie or distort the truth, though even then, I suspect that they come to believe their own exaggerations and become victims of their own deception, much like a fisherman eventually believes his own tale that the fish that got away was three feet long. Of course, many religious leaders and scriptural writers get benefits from preaching what they do, but that does not mean that they are all charlatans. The courts system refuses to speculate too much about what people really think “given the mysteries, uncertainties, and doubts, in this regard,” and though it tends to lend more credulity to mainstream religions involving “Christians, Jews, and Muslims” than to lesser known cult figures, it must, in fairness, presume that all who claim to originate or embrace lesser known religious beliefs and practices are sincere, for, in the eyes of the law, the risk of condoning “charlatanism is a necessary price of religious freedom.” pp 197, 198 of The Agnostic Age: Law, Religion, and the Constitution by Paul Horwitz. So no, I don’t think that the majority of those who had a hand in writing the scriptures of the major monotheistic religions consciously and consistently told lies (for whatever reason), but rather they were a product of the religious fervor of their culture and times, igniting the raw material of time-honored stories with the spark of their imaginations, born of a universal desire to believe. Nevertheless, getting back to the Abrahamic tradition, the objective-minded anthropologist would do well to take such tales as Lot's wife being struck by the wrath of God for glancing back at 'sin city' with a grain of salt, even though, one can see to this very day a pillar of salt named "Lot's wife" located in Marsden Bay near the Dead Sea.

RobbityBob1: Did it ever occur to you that it might be somewhat biased to just rely on the Bible (a Judeo-Christian source) to decide whether Isaac or Ishmael was the son that Abraham almost sacrificed. Indeed, here is an Islamic site that attempts to analyze this issue in depth: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Contrad/MusTrad/sacrifice.html After a detailed scriptural analysis of the issue, this site concludes that “According to the Qur'ân, the sacrificed cannot be Isaac. According to authentic Islamic tradition, the sacrificed is Ishmael. The Muslim scholars have solved this case a long time ago..” Similarly, you appear to be biased in that you seem to be selectively looking for archaeological and/or cultural evidence that supports the idea that Isaac was the sacrificial son. Of course, it is fine to be selective, to a certain degree, in an effort to construct a particular theory of viewpoint (though it is not reasonable to be selective and biased when trying to determine whether a theory or viewpoint is valid). In any case, it would be helpful to know whether or not you acknowledge that you might be taking a rather biased approach to this issue. I, of course, am not suggesting that either Isaac or Ishmael was the sacrificial son. I have just pointed out that there are different versions of the story, and that those who write these versions typically claim that their version is divinely inspired and therefore undeniably true, while the other versions are false. The result of such disagreement is that it becomes more difficult to claim that anyone has the one, true, correct version of the story, or that the story is historically accurate, or, indeed, that the story happened at all. With regards to archaeology, the most objective and most definitive source of information that I found was “The Bible Unearthed Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts by Finkelstein and Silberman, 2002. The book attempts to objectively look at the pros and cons of the research done on the issue of whether or not the various stories found in the Bible were actual historical events. The introduction concludes that “Much of what is commonly taken for granted as accurate history — the stories of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, and even the saga of the glorious united monarchy of David and Solomon — are, rather, the creative expressions of a powerful religious reform movement that flourished in the kingdom of Judah in the Late Iron Age. Although these stories may have been based on certain historical kernels, they primarily reflect the ideology and the world-view of the writers…But suggesting that the most famous stories of the Bible did not happen as the Bible records them is far from implying that ancient Israel had no genuine history.” In short, the book states that a thorough archaeological analysis of the OT leads to the conclusion that the central stories of the OT are not genuine. https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/f/finkelstein-bible.html Amazon’s own review of this book is that it “is a balanced, thoughtful, bold reconsideration of the historical period that produced the Hebrew Bible. The headline news in this book is easy to pick out: there is no evidence for the existence of Abraham, or any of the Patriarchs; ditto for Moses and the Exodus; and the same goes for the whole period of Judges and the united monarchy of David and Solomon. https://www.amazon.com/Bible-Unearthed-Archaeologys-Vision-Ancient/dp/0684869136?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 Though I don’t often rely on Wiki, its review included relevant quotes: “The Bible Unearthed was well received by biblical scholars and archaeologists…biblical scholar Jonathan Kirsch called it "a brutally honest assessment of what archeology can and cannot tell us about the historical accuracy of the Bible", which embraces the spirit of modern archaeology by approaching the Bible "as an artifact to be studied and evaluated rather than a work of divine inspiration that must be embraced as a matter of true belief." So, if one takes an objective anthropological/archeological approach, it seems that one focuses on the motives that the writers had for writing stories such as the Abrahamic narrative in the first place. This approach does not really concern itself too much with whether there is a God or whether God spoke to humans, or made certain covenants with them, etc. Rather, one might see the OT as largely a collection of stories written largely in order to advance a particular agenda or ideology. In short, the OT can be seen as a form of spiritual education and/or propaganda. As to whether the writers actually believed the stories they wrote were true or not themselves is something of a side issue, much like the question as to whether or not people are justified in pretending that stories are true in order to make people behave or to make them happier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_Unearthed

RobbityRob1: It seems to me that you are looking for evidence that confirms that Biblical story, n'est-ce pas? In any case, are you just looking for evidence that supports that Biblical account, or are you also open to other accounts such as the Quran? You state that "The fact that the Muslim story of Abraham has variations does not carry weight in this investigation." Again, is the Muslim story irrelevant because you are focusing on Judaism or Christianity? Do you not agree that the fact that various religions have different accounts of the Abrahamic narrative tends to detract from the "accuracy" of any one account, particularly since each religion claims that they are right (i.e., divinely inspired) and other accounts aren't? I have no doubt that there may have been tribal people that did things that parallel some of the events of the Bible, though there are perhaps just as many things in the Bible that contradict archaeology and logic. Indeed, most myths in most cultures, I would suggest, have a grain of plausibility in them. My plausibility on its own is not of much use....the cut comes when we think we have enough plausible evidence to make some sort of leap of faith that becomes a claim of knowledge with regards to the miracles in the Bible, such as people having dialogues with God.

RobbityBob1: I can only go by what seems to be the most logical interpretation of what you actually write: You said that you did not blame Isaac for not speaking again, as if, I suppose, you are trying to say that the story is likely to be true because even today, children often do not speak to their parents when they feel that their parents have offended them. You did not say that you would not blame Isaac for not speaking if that is what actually happened. I think it quite logical that I inferred that you took what someone said as probably being true...that you can easily imagine it actually happened. I don't have to "imagine" whether or not the Aztecs really sacrificed children...I take it as historical fact...but so what?....does that mean that the Sun really is a God who will make crops grow better if one sacrifices children? Similarly, what significance do you attach to the fact that human sacrifice might be common to the times. Are you implying, for example, that the the idea that human sacrifice was common, again, somehow makes it more likely that the story of Abraham and Isaac (or Ishmael, depending upon your religious pov), is somehow true and actually happened. And, are you further suggesting that if the story of Abraham is likely to have happened (given that it is realistic to say that children stop speaking to offending parents and that it is realistic to say that a sacrifice might have been common practice back in that culture), then are you further suggesting that it is true that God actually spoke to Abraham? In short, are you suggesting that the scriptural account is factual or not? On the one hand you say, "how would you know" if it happened, but then on the other hand, you say "one could easily imagine" that it happened. Yes, one can imagine all sorts of Biblical accounts happening....though some seem more believable than others..personally I find the depiction of Moses parting the Red seas as depicted by Cecil B DeMille a bit hard to imagine, but hey each to his own. So what is your point....are you suggesting that the Abrahamic sacrificial story is likely to be true or that every miraculous event in the Bible is likely to have happened (e.g., the similar sacrifice of Jesus) or just what? It is difficult to know just what you are implying about the story of Abraham's sacrificial effort, though you seem to make various comments about the archeological and cultural events of the times as if to make some point. If you were more explicit about what you are trying to get at (that is, plainly state your contention), then I think there would be less room for misunderstandings, and less need for someone such as myself to make guesses as to what your point is.

Dimreepr: On the one hand you seem to be saying that we have even more reason to think that "miracles" we read about are just examples of "exaggeration, misdirection or just plain dishonesty" as if you disapprove. Then, on the other hand, you seem to be irrelevantly suggesting that it is sometimes best to tell people things that aren't true in order to make them happier. Perhaps you could give me a few examples as to the value of the sort of "exaggeration, misdirection, or just plain dishonesty" that you claim makes people so happy. Are you referring to such claims as the following that various people have made and that directly or indirectly relate to the Abrahamic tradition: People will go to hell and suffer everlasting pain or some other such discomfort if they don't believe in certain miraculous things People don't deserve to live if they don't believe in the same miraculous things as another group and refuse to convert Santa will miraculously bring you presents as he flies through the air in a sleigh drawn by reindeer if you behave You should thrust a knife into your son if, by some miraculous twist of logic, your God miraculously tells you to You should enter Canaan and slaughter people who have already settled there if your God miraculously says you are the chosen people to whom he gives this land You should believe that you are born a sinner because your earliest ancestors ate from an apple that miraculously gave them knowledge of good and evil, etc., RobbityBob1: Judging from your last post, you seem to be assuming that the account regarding Abraham and Isaac is fact. I am surprised that you ignore the fact that Muslims think that the account of the almost-completed sacrifice involved Abraham and Ishmael (their progenitor), not Isaac. Then you try to start an irrelevant dialogue about whether or not we should forgive our parents. Somehow you seem to think that scriptural history is so accurate as to be able to say whether the son actually stopped speaking to his father for whatever period of time. All in all, it seems as if you have crossed over into the twilight zone of religious proselytizing here. As I mentioned before, if you take away the assumption that a real God was involved in this story, then all you have left is a story of a bizarre culture in which human sacrifice is acceptable for whatever reasons and/or a story of a demented parent who hears voices telling him to "slaughter" his son with a knife. Funny how many people think that the Aztecs were cruel and barbarian to use a knife to cut out the hearts of children as a sacrifice to their god, while the story of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his child is somehow seen as an good, instructive Sunday story lesson about how one should be obedient and forgiving. Indeed, the culmination of the Abrahamic narrative is that God sacrifices his own son, thereby further illustrating the sacrifice-mentality of the times.

@John Jones: Your comments are based on an interpretation of scripture, whether you think you are being a literalist or not. Your conviction that your interpretation is true is a matter of subjective faith, and, as such, I fail to see how your proselytizing comments are compatible with science forums in general, or this discussion in particular. @tar: It seems that you are just stating the commonplace notion that all creatures live in this universe and experience it in their own way. Again, this is so obvious that I fail to see why it needs stating at all unless you are being something of a sentimentalist. And yes, we can not always know what people literally believe and what they don’t (even many scientists change their minds on Sunday mornings), though, as you state yourself, this does not mean that all knowledge is equal. I like Memammal’s definition of knowledge: “Knowledge is going to be more narrowly defined as that information for which we have either direct experience and/or data to confirm that it represents a, more or less, accurate interpretation of the world around us.” So, I think that we can safely say, for example, that it is highly likely that the paradigm that we (e.g., scientists) have of our solar system now is preferable to the paradigm that, say, even the great scientist, Aristotle, had a couple of thousand years ago. Nevertheless, there are those, as I mentioned, who have had experiences that seem to transcend the sort of usual data collecting source of our five senses, and even scientists are not justified, by their own criteria of truth, for absolutely ruling out the possibility that such knowledge is ‘valid’, despite the fact that no paranormal claims (e.g., mind reading) have ever been verified in the laboratory. The fact that God(s) appear to different cultures in different ways, and in ways that are congruent to the cultures in which they appear seems to be better explained (in terms of the above definition of knowledge) by claiming that they are, as you say, the projection of people in these different cultures, rather than claiming, as worshippers are wont to do, that God is the opposite of Proteus in that “he” willingly changes shape in order to reveal spiritual truth to people in a way that they will understand because the shape is compatible and congruent with their particular culture. Thus, an anthropologist might observe that monotheism is more predominant in desert regions owing to such factors as the mono-tony of the environment, and owing to the need for a ‘king’ to unite disparate wandering tribes (each of which had their own vague areas of land as well as their own dissimilar set of deities) under one all-encompassing God, while, on the other hand, a clergyman might claim, less convincingly imho, that monotheism is predominant in desert regions because the “one, true God” appeared early on in the cradle of early civilizations, which just happened to be, for the most part, one big desert. In any case, people in general and scientists in particular aren't about to agree on the authenticity of various transcendental/religious claims in general, and the existence of God in particular. From a scientific or even, I dare say, "common sense" point of view, we have as of yet no way of determining whether or not there is some background consciousness who is busily at work guiding the universe or, on the other hand, just twiddling his thumbs behind the scenes, as James Joyce once remarked. So, rather than get involved in the mire of such a discussion, I, personally, just took the approach of examining the possible reasons that people feel compelled to ask the question in the first place as to whether or not the universe is alone.

@dimreapr: It seems that you are saying that the prophets of the various scriptures most likely were atheists and just claimed to speak with God etc., in order to pacify and spritualize the masses. That seems rather far-fetched to me, unless you are being flippant, which, either way, clarifies nothing. For starters, we cannot assume that these prophets, etc. were actual people. I have been suggesting that the question as to whether or not they existed is not so important as the question as to whether they performed miracles (or heard the voice of a real God). Even if they existed, but did not perform miracles, then why di the various people who wrote about these prophets claim that they did (e.g., part the Red Sea, come out alive from a fire or a whale, bring a dead person back to life, etc.). In any case, the important thing to remember is that even if Abraham actually existed and was not just a literary creation, we cannot assume that, therefore, it is true that God actually spoke to him or that he could actually perform miracles. It seems unlikely that the people who actually wrote the Bible (e.g., Church Fathers) were atheists, and unlikely that they consciously made up the stories to discipline the masses, or to get them to obey the Church officials, or to justify taking over large areas of land from other people, or to get them to donate money to the church (e.g., via injunctions), etc., even if we assume that the the Church Fathers (monks, scribes, or whatever) knew that they were adding various miracles to stories that were in circulation at the time, e.g., they added the part about Abraham's dialogue with God to the story of an actual historical man named Abraham who almost sacrificed his son, but then decided against it. Similarly, despite a certain percentage of phony TV evangelists, etc., it would appear that, even today, most lay and clergy alike tend to believe that some, if not all, of the characters and miracles recorded in scriptures are true. Of course, there are cynics who might say that most ministers know they are saying things that are not true in order to make money, just as cynics might say that most doctors prescribe medications that they know will harm patients in order to make money. By the way, I thought you were suggesting that the details don't matter as long as someone takes away some, presumably moral, nugget of 'truth' from the stories, be it 'forgiveness' or righteous revenge. Now it seems as if you are sitting on the fence when it comes to the question as to whether, in a broader sense, religion has done more harm than good (e.g., when we weigh religious wars against all the charitable deeds that worshipers have done over the centuries). But again, whether Abraham's moral values, in particular, or those of Christianity/Islam/Judaism, in general, are good for individuals or good for the masses is not all that relevant. What is relevant, I gather, are such things as the following: Whether someone called Abraham did, generally speaking, perform the deeds attributed to him in various scriptures (e.g., almost killing one of his sons because he heard God's voice)? If so, was the voice Abraham heard the voice of God, or was it just a voice in his (perhaps own demented) head? If the story is pure fiction and there was no Abraham who ever existed in history to whom an imaginary or real God promised land, then why did the authors of the scriptures make the stories up? And finally (as something of an aside), what would happen if people around the world agreed that the stories were pure fiction?

@tar At no point did I suggest that sibling rivalry existed between people in terms of our universe (though there is, it seems, quite a bit of rivalry regarding the question as to who created and rules the universe), rather I clearly stated, with reference to Deism, that many people would not like the idea of God creating other universes. You keep stating that scientists have no better access to the reality of the universe than a layperson for some reason which I can't comprehend. Your claim really does not say much unless one qualifies it. Sure, even a frog can look at the stars just as a layperson or scientist can and access the experience of that reality in the same way, but an astrophysicist, for example, has a better understanding of stars in terms of information that can be related in language, e.g., knowledge of the Big Bang (which no one has seen anymore than anyone has seen Zeus). What can be said in symbolic form (e.g., math and language) is a crucial difference, and is often said to be a substantial if not categorical difference between the mentality of humans and creatures such as frogs. Similarly, the average astrophysicist has far, far more organized linguistic and mathematical information about the 'reality' of stars as the average layperson. As for emotion, a chimp can look at the stars and perhaps feel some sort of emotions just as we do. Perhaps you have some sort of special definition of "reality" that you are using when you suggest that everyone has the same or as much access to it, but in any case, your claim seems as pointlessly off the cuff as saying that a geologist has no better understanding of rocks than a layperson, or a dentist no better understanding of teeth than a layperson. You also state that "The evidence we have thus far collected suggest that an anthropomorphic god is more likely a projection of our own consciousness upon the universe, than an actual consciousness projecting the universe in its minds eye." So what do you consider to be acceptable "evidence." The fact that cultures tend to project Gods that reflect the attributes of their culture does indeed suggest to a psychologist such as Freud that God(s) may be a projection of our own consciousness, but that is not exactly scientific evidence, and such an comment on Freud's part does not rule out the possibility that any of these Gods actually exists. I would agree that we have no scientific evidence one way or the other that the universe is the projection of some consciousness projecting the universe in its mind's eye (aka a God)....but that does not mean that such a consciousness/God does not exist. Indeed, given that you repeatedly claim 'that a scientist's view of the universe is never any better than a layperson's, I would remind you that laypersons (i.e., nonscientists) throughout history have claimed that they have had intuitions, visions, voices, premonitions, revelations, and other sorts of "evidence" relating to the existence of such a transcendental consciousness. In short, you now seem to be saying that a scientists (e.g., psychologist, anthropologist) access to the reality of the universe is better than that of a clergyman. You also state that the old myths and stories should not be taken "as literally true when they were meant as stories." Again, how do we know that all of them are not true..given that, as you say, everyone has equal access to Reality? And who says that the cultures who had such stories did not mean that they were literally true...if anything, I would suggest that the opposite is true, that is, in the majority of cases, people from various cultures actually believed that such stories were true, and meant for them to be taken literally.

I don't think that most people care about whether, from a scientific standpoint, there are other universes: Not many people are holding their breath until the next article about the possibility of the existence of a multiverse comes out in Scientific American. However, from a religious standpoint, if we accept the original poster's assumption that the universe was created, I would suggest that there may be an element of sibling rivalry (syndrome) involved, in the sense that people may have, as per Freud, an innate tendency to want to be their creator's (God's) sole object of affection and center of attention as well the sole object of affection (as a group) and center of attention of their own creator parents (as individuals), and later the sole object of affection and center of attention of their romantic partner. Hence the widespread tendency for religion's to claim that they alone have the attributes that enable them to be saved; hence the tendency for religions to fight with each other; hence the tendency of religious groups to claim that they alone are God's chosen people (aka favorite people); and hence, I would also suggest, the tendency for people to resist the concept that God might have created other universes. Even infants compete for parental attention, and just about everyone, I suspect, has narcissistic tendencies that lead them to want to be the center of attention, and to be the only person who is loved (even if it is just by their romantic partner). Much like our parents, God typically provides people with similar things such as forgiveness, discipline, unconditional love. Often it seems that, much as many people's parents, God sometimes seems to abandon us, to the point where we are told that we just have to have faith that we haven't been abandoned or that we are still loved. In any case, people don't, on some level of awareness, I suspect, like the idea that ours is not the only universe, much like people centuries ago did not like the idea that they were not the center of the universe. Deism proposes that God created the universe, wound it up like a clock so that it would run on its own, and then just walked off. The universe seems forlorn and abandoned enough as it is, without people proposing that God could be busy elsewhere creating (or perhaps tending) other universes.

@Mike Smith Cosmos Roughly 68%of the Universe is dark energy. Dark matter makes up about 27%. The rest - everything on Earth, everything ever observed with all of our instruments, all normal matter - adds up to less than 5% of the Universe" http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/ I don't know by what logic anyone would assume that the universe was meaningless on the basis that so much has not been observed by humans. Which eminent scientists believe this?

There was no acausality in Aristotelian/Newtonian/Laplacean science. Perhaps one might add Einsteinian, as he famously said in response to the proposed randomness/acausality for which Quantum theory is known: "God does not play dice" (speaking of God in a metaphorical sense of course), though even his own work on relativity predicts a "spontaneous" Big Bang. How the universe might have arisen ex nihilo without the first cause of some divine creator is the subject of much research, an idea perhaps widely popularized by Hawking. See also, "Spontaneous creation of the Universe Ex Nihilo" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221268641300037X

I agree that the opening post (if that is what "OP" means) seems disjointed and unfounded, e.g., God taking away Satan's free will. I am not even sure how it relates to the title of the thread, "why free will doesn't spare God's omni benevolence." So yes, I guess anybody can post just about anything as there does not seem to be any clear guidelines.

RobbityRob1: God's promise to Abraham that through his descendants would a savior be born that would bless the nations appears (directly or indirectly) throughout Hebrew scriptures, and in the Bible: Gal 3:16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one, "And to your Seed," who is Christ. Genesis 22:17-18: "I will bless you greatly, and I will multiply your seed greatly like the stars of the heavens, and like the sand which is on the seashore...In your seed will all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice." This is why I brought Jesus into the discussion, as the question as to whether there really was a physical "historical Jesus" who was God and/or had a unique relationship with God is to a large extent contingent upon the the question as to whether there really was a physical "historical Abraham" with whom God had a unique relationship, and indeed, from whom (indirectly) a savior would be born . Indeed, a typical Christian interpretation of God's 'gracious' gift of land, etc., to the Israelites through Abraham is that they accept Jesus as their savior: "Today we have to have a better theological understanding of God’s workings so that we do not follow the shallow minded and popular approach of simply being pro-Israeli because God chose them. It is far more complicated than that; and all we have to do is look at how God dealt with unbelieving and unrighteous Israel to see the point. All people, both Jews and Arabs too, must turn to Christ by faith to have any share in the promises, i.e., salvation, eternal life, a share in the world to come." http://christianleadershipcenter.org/me2.htm Notice that the Christian interpretation of the Abrahamic lineage is that the savior comes through his son Isaac's line via Jacob->Judah-->David, while the Muslims claim (incorrectly according to many Christians) that: All Arabs are the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael. Ishmael and his descendants were included in the covenant God made with Abraham. Since the Abrahamic convenant included the land of Israel, the Arabs have a legitimate claim to it. http://www.bible.ca/islam/islam-myths-arabs-descendants-of-ishmael.htm Thus, many Christian argue that the Bible (OT and NT) is a unified whole, so that if one believes that Jesus literally rose from the dead to fulfill God's covenant through Abraham and to provide a means for sinners to be forgiven and saved, then one must also believe that Abraham was a real person who literally almost sacrificed his son, and that Adam and Eve were real (physical) people who sinned in the first place. What really matters, in terms of who has rights over the Holy Land and whose savior provides salvation, and whose people are favored by God, are all determined by the details (e.g., whether Abraham attempted to sacrifice his favored son Isaac or Ishmael), and not by supposed nuggets of moral guidance such as (universal?) peacefulness or forgiveness that allegedly are found in a general/basic story of Abraham that everyone might agree upon.

dimreepr: well, I was hoping for a little bit more of a clarification than that. As it is, I can only guess what you are thinking here. There are some parents who think that it is a good idea to tell little children that Santa exists because, after all, it encourages them to behave. If the criteria for saying that a story is true is that the story have a good moral tale in it, why then, there are any number of fairy tales that we might tell children and adults are the divinely inspired word of God so that they are more likely to behave better. On the other hand, there are parents who do not tell their children that Santa exists because they do not think that it is a good idea to lie, or even fib, to their children. Some such parents feel that once a child is old enough to know that the parent made the story up to get them to behave, the child will become resentful and less trustful, either in the short or long term. Similarly, a poll (n=2000) found that "a third of Church of England clergy doubt or disbelieve in the physical Resurrection," yet continue to preach, judging from personal statements, that the resurrection is a fact, because they think that the story encourages people to behave. Numerous philosophers and writers throughout history have similarly said that they don't take the Bible literally themselves, but think that it is a good idea for the masses to believe them literally because such beliefs make them behave better. http://www.religionnewsblog.com/143/one-third-of-clergy-do-not-believe-in-the-resurrection Indeed, if the majority of people in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic churches, ever did accept the idea that God did not literally make certain agreements with Abraham and his divine or divinely inspired descendant, Jesus or Muhammed, and instead came to believe that these people were just literary characters (based on various religious versions of shared stories) and never actually existed as real people, well then, how would Jewish people be able to still claim that certain Holy Lands rightfully belong to them because of a covenant that God made with them through Abraham, or how could over 2 billion Christians still claim that only through Jesus, as a fulfillment of Abrahamic prophecy, could one attain forgiveness and thus immortality, or how could Muslims still claim that Abraham almost sacrificed (not Isaac as Christians believe) Ishmael, ancestor of the divinely inspired Muhammed, who is the patriarch that can lead one to salvation? So which group of people has the right sacrificial son (Isaac or Ishmael) and inspired descendant (Jesus or Muhammad) who can provide one with eternal life hinges on whose explanation of the details of the Abrahamic narrative one believes. Of course, it would probably reduce world wide bloodshed, as per my last post, if the major religions just agreed that to take what seem to be the best moral teachings from the Abrahamic tradition. But again, details, such as to whether Abraham promised Canaan to the Jews or not and whether one can only be saved through Jesus, would continue to be a problem. Finally, as was mentioned elsewhere earlier, one can question whether all of the moral precepts found in the scriptures relating to the time of Abraham in particular, and of the OT in particular, are really all that desirable or compatible with, for example, laws found in our own society (e.g., 8th amendment prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, especially with regards to the death penalty). Indeed, a parent who said they either killed or were on the verge of killing their child because they heard God telling them to do so would be considered mentally unstable, or, quite probably, clinically insane in today's court system, not viewed as a venerable saint of some sort. But, as I think the moderator mentioned earlier, whether there is or is not a kernel or nugget of virtuous teaching in the Abrahamic tradition is not really relevant to the question as to whether he actually existed in the first place. And even if we could prove (with reasonable certainty) that there really was a person (Abraham and his prophesied descendant Jesus) who physically existed and walked around telling people to be good, that would be a far cry from proving that such a person was divine and therefore had the divine right to say who owns what land, who were the chosen people, who could be saved, and under what conditions they could be saved. Whether it be the narrative of Abraham and his descendants in church, or a tale of evil ghosts around a summer campfire, saying that the story is really, really true is more likely to impact your audience mentally and emotionally than saying that it is just made up to entertain people and teach them a lesson about life. I don't think that you will get a very positive reaction if you tell someone that they will live forever if they just follow the example of characters in a short story you just made up, or that, even if it seems too far-fetched to be true, he will still live forever if he just has faith and believes that it is true anyway. In any case, it sounds as if this is exactly what you are suggesting. (Unless someone has a new point to discuss and can state it with some clarity, I don't really have anything more to say on this topic)

Yes, I would be interested in your 'basic story' though, again, I fail to see that finding a simple story that fits Christianity, Islam, and Judaism equally well provides evidence that the character of Abraham must have existed or that he must have actually done the things in contained in your basic story, much less provide evidence for any parts outside of the basic story: In order to build a proper bridge between fact and fiction, one needs to make sure that each lily pad on the way over is close enough to the next to prevent one from falling into the river of delusion. In order to minimize great 'leaps of faith' on the way over the river, then, one must avoid jumping to conclusions such as the belief that because one part of a story is true, then (most or all of) the rest of it must be also be true.

@RobbityBob1: So you think that the basic story about Abraham is true, but you really haven't a clear idea as to what the basic story is?? Even if someone found conclusive evidence that there was a sheik/tribal leader named Abraham (meaning "father of many" in Hebrew) who had sons by the name of Ishmael and Isaac, it is a common fallacy that we can therefore then assume that everything in the Bible is unambiguous and true. But, alas, even religious scholars cannot agree as to just when Abraham might have lived when one tries to match scriptures with archeology, with different experts placing him anywhere from 600 to 2200 b.c. One can only wonder what might happen were Christians, Jews, and Muslims focused more on the concept that their religions were all cut from the same cultural cloth and that they had many shared ancestors. Indeed, in 1994, Pope John Paul II planned to visit UR in honor of Abraham, because he felt that Jews,Christians, and Muslims all regard themselves as Abraham's spiritual offspring, and thus it would be a uniting and peaceful gesture to make a trip there. @Strange: Similarly, one can only wonder what might happen if people from that region realized just how much intermarriage has occurred between Canaanite/Palestinian, and Israeli people over the centuries in the Middle East. Like many a war, the conflict is ironically, to a large extent, between people who are closely related. Whether the Abrahamic genealogy is based much on historical fact or not, it seems that the various major religions have tweaked the 'legend' to support their own religious dogma, and thus their own claim that they have 'dibs' on land, moral truth, and the unique path to salvation. Kudos to those who strive to find points of commonality rather than difference between the major monotheistic religions, e.g., Professor Muhammad Taqi Ja‘fari who stated the following at the conference on Islam and Christianity held in Switzerland on the November 27th, 1995: The study of the unity of a universal religion of Abraham begins with the premise that our purpose in stressing this unity is not so that all believers renounce their own respective religions in order to participate in a universal Abrahamic religion. Not at all! Rather, our view is that each religious community has its own religion and considers it binding to be observant of its beliefs and duties. A Muslim is a Muslim, a Christian is a Christian, and a Jew is a Jew. Our purpose in highlighting this universal religion is to unite all of us fellow followers of Abraham on the basis of common principles that are acceptable to all of us. These common principles are: Belief in God, His perfect attributes, resurrection and eternity, the angels, religious duties (worship and the like, according to a person’s religion), morality and ethics. From the standpoint of comparative religion, when we look at the various scriptural narratives surrounding the Abrahamic legacy, we must acknowledge that we don't know exactly what "covenants" God made with Abraham, nor can we be sure what moral practices might seem extreme and irrelevant to modern people, nor can we be sure which groups, if any, were chosen or favored by God in some way. In the absence of any definitive way to validate one version over another, it does seem to make a certain amount of sense to try to find common ground and perhaps Holy Land on which to stand.

@Strange: Does Christianity accept the idea that Mohammed was a descendent of Abraham? Are you suggesting that everyone else alive was a descendant of Abraham...if so, on what basis would you make such an extraordinary claim? Do you think that the Bible claims that everyone alive was a descendant of Abraham?

Luk 3:23-38 shows about 20 generations between Abraham and Adam, and 55 from Abraham to Jesus. Mat 1:16-2 shows about 40 generattions from Abraham to Jesus. http://www.complete-bible-genealogy.com/genealogy_of_jesus.htm Then there is the Islamic claim that Muhammed was a descendant of Abraham. One finds other disagreements between Christianity/Judaism and Islam in this regard: "Islam also claims that Abraham and Ishmael founded the city of Mecca, but Mecca was not in existence prior to the 4th century A.D." http://religionresearchinstitute.org/mohammad/ishmael.htm But I don't want to get embroiled in a discussion as to scriptural consistency of genealogies, but rather to point out that scriptural estimates of the time from Adam to Abraham can't possibly be in harmony with standard anthropological estimates: "The ultimate conclusions of this hermeneutical and mathematical analysis—as analyzed herein below—shows the Bible revealed absolute timeframe from the time when Christ created Adam, to the birth of Abraham, is between 1,948 to 1,984 years, i.e., almost but not quite 2,000 solar years." https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PCrFLroZgSMJ:https://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Using-Scriptural-Data-to-Calculate-from-Adam-to-Abraham.pdf+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Of course, such a brief span of time is not consistent with mainstream scientific views. Even the theory that there was a single mitochondrial eve goes back much further, and, of course, from an evolutionary standpoint, it is unlikely that scientists will agree that there is any one exact point where we can say that, in the line of hominids, one group is human and previous hominids are not: "Versions of the Adam-and-Eve story date back at least 5,000 years and have been told in cultures from the Mediterranean to the South Pacific to the Americas. The mythmakers spun their tales on the same basic assumption as the scientists: that at some point we all share an ancestor. The scientists don't claim to have found the first woman, merely a common ancestor -- possibly one from the time when modern humans arose. What's startling about this Eve is that she lived 200,000 years ago. This date not only upsets fundamentalists (the Bible's Eve was calculated to have lived 5,992 years ago), it challenges many evolutionists' conviction that the human family tree began much earlier." http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas102%20%28spring%2001%29/articles/tierney.html Richard Dawkins claims that there is no cutoff point when we can say that humans first came into existence, however, and the Smithsonian outline of the family tree likewise has no cutoff point and traces the human family tree back some 6 million years. (Estimates of 200,000 or 100,000 years ago have more to do with what is termed 'modern homo sapiens'.) http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-family-tree So even if there were consistent scriptural narratives relating the genealogy of Abraham, we certainly couldn't accept such a truncated genealogy from a secular (non-faith based) point of view. @ Robittybob1: What is this 'basic story' of which you speak....in other words, what, in your opinion, are the basic facts common to all religions, for example, about the life of Abraham? Also, on what grounds do you think that simple stories are likely to be true...if that is the criteria, I think that we have to accept the veracity of many a fairy tale. I am wondering whether the video you posted produces any proof at all that they have found Abraham's house, much less "definitive" proof. I have no doubt that archeologists have unearthed remains of cities that correspond with places mentioned in the Bible, but the fact that the video claims without batting an eye that one 'house' belonged to Abraham suggests to me that some people are unscientifically willing to make extraordinary assumptions based upon sketchy background information.

Robittybob1 I typically avoid using sources that come from religious websites, owing to the possibility of biased interpretations and information. However, in this case, I thought that it was acceptable because I was actually trying to show that there might be some rationale for the fact that Judaism and Islam contained a narrative about Abraham being in a furnace/fire, while the Bible did not. (In any case, I did not come across any other site that discussed this fine theological point.) Also, I thought it interesting, as I pointed out, that the Christian site was quick to claim that a misinterpretation of Biblical sources had led the other religions to create the story, as if that proved that only the Bible was really the Word of God and the scriptures of other religions were not (as if they were just distorted and poor imitations). In any case, my point was that the onus is on those to provide evidence that the claim made by the religious scriptures to the effect that Abraham could participate in miracles actually took place...and, as I mentioned before....At the end of the day, I don't see why it should matter whether the story was found in all three of the major religions we have been discussing or not. Another point that I was making was that the major monotheistic religions are not in harmony when it comes to agreeing about what events actually occurred in Abraham's lifetime, and indeed, as I mentioned in my last post, the accounts are so different (according to the scholar, Jon D. Levenson, American Hebrew Bible scholar and Professor of Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School, in his book, "Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (2012) as to make it illogical to presume that there is some neutral and 'real" Abraham that we can claim actually existed apart from the disparate interpretations offered by the various religions. (I did not quote directly from his book as it contravened copyright, but you can download the relevant chapter at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9815.pdf ). I would acknowledge that Levenson may be presenting a Jewish perspective, but again, I find that this suits my purposes in this situation because I have been consistently maintaining that leading authorities and religious leaders from the major religions that deal with the Abrahamic narrative do not agree as to what he actually did, and therefore do not agree that the Abraham depicted in other religions is valid. In short, even a disinterested person has no reason to think that any one religion's depiction of Abraham is any more valid than any other religion's, and for all intents and purposes, he can not be considered to be the same Abraham (apart from a similar genealogy, which most likely was copied from one religion's scriptural text to another anyway). In any case, I am attempting to take a disinterested anthropological approach, and certainly do not have any interest in advocating religious beliefs or of advocating one religion's viewpoint over another.

dimreaper The idea that the truth of laws found in the Bible are indisputable and absolute is perhaps entirely based on the notion that God spoke to various characters, as if they were his mouthpiece...much like the Pope is said to provide infallible truth because he has a direct line to God. So I think that to suggest that the Bible is inerrant because the patriarchs, for example, claim that God told them the truth, and, on the other hand, to say that God must have talked to them because the Bible says so and is an inerrant source is circular and meaningless tautology. I don't doubt that there is a nugget of truth in many of the stories in the Bible....but that really says nothing unless one makes a claim as to what such a nugget might be. If one considers it a detail that Abraham is in direct line of descent from characters such as Adam and Eve and a forefather of Jesus, I would say that is quite a significant claim. Similarly, if God promised Abraham and his descendants that they own a huge chunk of prime (green, lush) real estate, and if God said that only through him and his descendants could other people be eternally saved, then I consider those to be pretty significant details, and not just general nuggets about how to be loving and kind. The devil is in the Abrahamic details when it comes to deciding which religion supposedly has and is the Truth and the Light and the way to Salvation. Christians claim that one becomes a descendant of Abraham through Christian faith, while Jews say that one becomes a descendant through natural birth as a Jew or through conversion to Judaism. Islam also has a different interpretation, and thinks that one benefits from Abraham by having faith in Muhammed, the greatest of all prophets, who was in a line of great prophets beginning with Abraham. Thus, according to Biblical scholar, Jon D. Levenson, there is no "real" Abraham that existed outside of these religions and that is somehow an authority figure in each. (And I don't see how anthropologists and historians can take give much credence to a genealogy that traces Abraham's lineage after just a few generations back to some supposed first humans, Adam and Eve, to whom God also allegedly spoke and gave land. ) Yes, there is a nugget of positive thought in the Abrahamic legend: 'Rabbi Menahem Froman, who lives near Hebron said, "For me Abraham is philosophy, Abraham is culture. Abraham may or may not be historical. Abraham is a message of loving kindness. Abraham is an idea. Abraham is everything. I don't need flesh and blood."' This is all very well and good, and indeed, most of the major monotheistic religions today preach things such as love and kindness. However, it is the details that determine just what religion is considered to be the only one that can do the job of saving a person's soul and which religions are false and even pagan, and to determine just who is the rightful heir of temples and tracts of land. So no, I don't think that the idea that the Abrahamic tradition supports love and kindness towards ones own family and fellow worshipers (and, perhaps, in practice, not so much towards the "infidels" of other religions), has anything to do with whether we accept that Abraham was an actual person, or, to be more precise, has anything to do with whether the events attributed to him actually took place (e.g., God promised ownership of certain lands to his descendants...especially when there is militant controversy as to just who these descendants actually are!). In any case, with all due respect, I don't see that saying that nuggets matter and details don't unless one is actually going to be more specific and spell out just what nuggets and details one is talking about.