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"I'm saying the hypothetical approach from Cyber implies that narrative is the winner, based on what we know about it."
Maybe for humans, are you saying an omniscient and omnipotent deity can't do any better than humans when relating important facts?
Why not wait until we'd invented printing presses? Or until the modern digital era, where such information can be recorded and duplicated with no corruption? It allegedly created everything 14.5 billion years ago, then waited until just a 2 to 3 thousand years ago to get in touch after all, why not wait another couple of thousand year. Why not appear right now in the sky to every living human, and unequivocally tell us all it exists, and what it wants. we'd still have the same choices after all.
No John, narrative is not the winner here, far far from it.
Wait thousands of years lol? Moreover, appear right now and tell you what, the same thing thats already in the Bible?
Do you really see nothing relevant in such errant superstitious myths emerging during an epoch of ignorant superstition? Why not appear right now, why is that funny? Don't you find it a little odd that claims of miracles and divine revelations decrease almost in direct proportion to education, and the technological means to record things in real time?
If a deity, any deity wants me to believe it exists why it procrastinating? I'm right here right now, lying on my couch feeling miserable with a bout of very painful colitis, and at 53 it has ample opportunity to show me something a lot more compelling than archaic superstitious myths, and I really don't care if John breezy thinks they're part of a narrative and that is the best an omniscient mind can produce. I'm not forgetting John, that you also think the bible condemns slavery, and deny scientific facts like species evolution, so you clearly lack objectivity here.
Cyber "I’d write it in such a way that would not result in misunderstandings by my minions. And were I divine, I’d likely know how to do so."
ʝօɦn 6IX ɮʀɛɛʐy "Which, as I'll argue, implies narrative"
You mean because no one who has read it has ever misunderstood it? I think that is what is known as an own goal John.
It doesn't matter if everyone misunderstands a bad narrative. If no one misunderstands a good one, then Cybers criteria implies narrative.
You're welcome to show otherwise.
"It doesn't matter if everyone misunderstands a bad narrative."
Then your OP question was an odd thing for you to ask:
"Have you thought of this format at a bad thing, or a good thing for religion? In other words, if God is real, is this a smart move or a bad move?"
Why would an omniscient deity deliberately produce (or allow to be produced) a flawed message, filled with errancy and condoning appalling immoral acts? If it wants us all to know it exists and worship it, then this was an own goal. How many christians have been tortured and then immolated for supposedly misunderstanding this inconsistent and ambiguous and contradictory message?
Breezy: "Which, as I'll argue, implies narrative. Do you agree with that, or would you like to propose an alternative form?"
Yeah. It is called plagiarism.
rmfr
John, do you think the bible is effective at relaying your god’s message(s)?
I think its the most effective form of communication it could have possibly taken. As a preview of what I'll be talking about, here's an excerpt from a paper on narrative by Bruner (1991):
"The telling of a story and its comprehension as a story depend on the human capacity to process knowledge in this interpretive way. It is a way of processing that in the main, has been grossly neglected by students of mind raised either in the rationalist or in the empiricist traditions. The former have been concerned with mind as an instrument of right reasoning with the means we employ for establishing the necessary truth inherent in a set of connected propositions... Empiricists, for their part, rested their claims on a mind capable of verifying the constituent "atomic propositions" that comprised a text. But neither of these procedures, right reason or verification, suffice for explaining how a narrative is either put together by a speaker or interpreted by a hearer. This is the more surprising since there is compelling evidence to indicate that narrative comprehension is among the earliest powers of mind to appear in the young child and among the most widely used forms fo organizing human experience."
Narrative pervades our experiences, our memories, and our existence is such a way that we often do not realize its there. The way Bruner puts it, its been overlooked, in much the same way that fish will be the last to discover water.
@ Breezy
Narrative pervades our experiences, our memories, and our existence is such a way that we often do not realize its there. The way Bruner puts it, its been overlooked, in much the same way that fish will be the last to discover water.
I agree...buts it still not evidence for the gospels. What do you not/are incapable of/ understand/ ing?
Narrative is the bedrock of Human communication of ideas, concepts, morals. It does not mean that your collection of 'god' stories is any more valid than the Iliad, First Nation Dreamtime or Brer Rabbit.
It does not mean that your divine being 'decided' to inspire various humans to make up those stories and repeat them until they were written down (after a hundred years or so).
Humans communicate most effectively when young by 'stories'. Arguably, when reading safety manuals many people could make up or visualise consequences if they do not follow the instructions, creating their own narrative...whatever.
Narrative, therefore "god", is just arrant nonsense. The "eye witness" assertion you make about the gospels is just (tips hat to random) utter utter utter utter bollocks.
(Edited to add quote)
I guess that's one advantage I have over you; I'm better at remembering and parsing apart the conversations I have on here. Because who cares about narrative in the gospels? The eye witness stuff is a rabbit hole I'm going down with David. The homogeneous narration is with Sheldon.
Focus on yourself and the OP. Or at the very least, learn follow conversations down their various paths and don't bring stuff upstream. Because you're essentially creating a straw man by mixing unrelated claims together like that.
"I'm better at remembering and parsing apart the conversations I have on here. "
I'm sorry but that's nonsense, you dishonestly evade what you don't like .Take this thread for one example, you ask questions in your op then when others offer answers and opinions you nitpick so you can exclude what you don't like, and man handle the discourse in the direction you want. It's as if you think the atheists here have never listened to apologists or sermons before. We know how they like to focus on their belief first, and bend everything else around to create their shaky house of cards that is unjustified belief.
This a debate forum in an atheist orientated chatroom, you need to get over that.
The flaws in the bible don''t stop it being a collection of cobbled together separate narratives, though it quite demonstrably is not a single cogent narrative from an omniscient deity . However all those flaws people have highlighted are a compelling reason to be dubious about the claim it is message from a being with limitless knowledge and power.
@breezy
More evasion and you still haven't answered my questions...you know the ones you challenged me to produce as examples of your lies and evasions? Nor have you provided links to your " writings for academia". I am really starting to doubt they exist...would that count as a lie Johnny boy?
I consider a straw man to be a form of evasion. Thus when you say "Narrative, therefore 'god', is just arrant nonsense." You've made up a claim that doesn't exist. If it does find it
Breezy: "I consider a straw man to be a form of evasion."
Which is something you have perfected. Guess we should start calling you Straw Man.
rmfr
If you can evidence it, I'll gladly accept the label.
Just read every post you have made. All the evidence needed.
rmfr
You must be seeing things.
We must all be seeing things then. Try the thread you started claiming slavery was condemned in the bible, there's plenty of evidence of evasion in there.
@ Breezy
you said in regards to the gospels ""Its proof that it is written by someone that is recounting an event, as opposed to fabricating it."
If you were not making the point that the gospels were, in your view, likely to be factual eye witness accounts and therefore true because of the errors...what the fuck was your point?
To say what you did, because you believe the gospels are in narrative form with faults, therefore god, is the logical extension of your point.
If you were not making that point, why bring in the gospels at all?
CyberLN "John, do you think the bible is effective at relaying your god’s message(s)?"
ʝօɦn 6IX ɮʀɛɛʐy "I think its the most effective form of communication it could have possibly taken."
Really? You can't conceive of a deity with limitless power and knowledge communicating any better than a flawed archaic and disjointed collection of separate narratives that exactly mirrors the ignorance and superstition of the peoples cultures, and epochs that produced it?
How about it made a bible that couldn't be destroyed? Then every time it was accurately replicated that new copy also became indestructible? I'd fine that more compelling it had a supernatural origin, than erroneous creation myths from the bronze age. How about it contained morals and laws that didn't date exactly as if the belonged to bronze and iron age humans? Maybe morals that every single human immediately said "wow, that's brilliant,, and they never dated", I'd find that compelling. How about a message that explained accurately how this deity created everything, and why the fuck it wasted hundreds of millions of years on dinosaur evolution?
Would anyone else find that more compelling evidence that the message had a supernatural origin, than the bible, or the koran?
John, to my question, you replied, “I think its the most effective form of communication it could have possibly taken.”
Well, then I think you lack creativity and imagination.
Great, but then again, you gave no alternative to it. So whatever I lack, you lack more of.
My kids used to say that when they were little. They worded it a bit differently: “I am rubber and you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”
I think thats far more poetic than the way you put it. Perhaps, then, they were better writers at six years old than you claim to be now.
Certainly, and notice they're using imagery in their narrative, it has characters, and plot. It's far more appealing than my version, which is devoid of imagery and story, and to the point.
Goes to show the superiority of narrative for getting a point across.
ʝօɦn 6IX ɮʀɛɛʐy "then again, you gave no alternative"
http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/narrative?page=5#comme...
Breezy: "Great, but then again, you gave no alternative to it. So whatever I lack, you lack more of."
Perfect example of the Yes-No Logical Fallacy.
rmfr
@John
The Bible is a storybook written by superstitist people.
The Bible is the claim, not the evidence.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 New International Version (NIV)
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Thu, 11/15/2018 - 19:39 Permalink
xenoview "The Bible is the claim, not the evidence."
rat spit "16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God[a] may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."
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You have to admire the irony, even if it is unintentional.
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