The Paradox of Immortality

[AlinC.]

No one who is actually clinically dead, has ever "come back to life".

No one. Either they were not really dead, (still alive) or they were actually dead. No one dead has ever returned to life.

The dead do not reanimate, ever. There are unusual cases where arrhythmias occur and people even go asystole for a period ... and appear to be dead.
If they wake up, they were not actually dead. I believe in none of them. There is no actual evidence for any sort of reanimation.
It's all very suspicious that "near-death" experiences are never  something totally different. Do Western near-deathers experience Chinese music ? Do African near-deathers hear Beethoven ?
LOL No. Everything they report are things they already have some concept of, locally.

The human race is very early in it's scientific journey. Geneticists know why humans age and die. There will come a day when that can be reversed, chemically, and genetically. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017...hromosomes
Scientific knowledge advances geometrically. There will come a day, since the human genome is known and will be subject to manipulation, that humans will transcend biology.
https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-...0143037889

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcent biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

[airportkid]

... only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God ...

So where did Jesus wind up?

[TheGentlemanBastard]

[quote="TheGentlemanBastard" pid='351354' dateline='1649110863']

Morality is not objective, at least not in the same sense as, for example, the law of universal gravitation.  However, the foundation of morality is universal enough that it may as well be objective for all practical purposes.  Moral judgment ultimately reduces to the maximal well-being and minimal suffering of sentient entities.  Genocide is wrong because it causes many sentient entities to suffer.  This is essentially a form of utilitarianism, which is just one of several secular solutions to moral grounding.  Perhaps none are quite perfect, but our options are at least promising enough to discredit the false dichotomy between divine command and unbridled relativism.  The project of establishing morality on godless grounds is not nearly as hopeless as you think it is.  

Well I think you've heard that expression "godless man"...so well it could be said "godless society"...that would be very evil, a godless society could do anything, just like comunism was.
In my country, Romania, happened a strong revolution against comunism in 1989, when the comunist regime crashed...you know what people were shouting on the street when the revolution begun? They were shoutting "God exists...God exists...God exists..." countinously, they had enough of the atheistic comunist regime, they wanted God back in their country, back in their society. The comunism in Russia under Stalin, which was again atheistic, caussed the death of at least 20 million people...is that "minimal suffering of sentient entities"? "The project of establishing morality on godless grounds" was tried before in history, and it seems like it did not bring anything good in the world, so...

And there's another notion you need to disabuse yourself of as soon as possible if you hope to have any meaningful debate.  God is not a requirement for joy and purpose in life.  Why do I need God to appreciate a beautiful song or celebrate good news?  Why do I need God to find fulfillment and meaning in my life?  The answer is simple.  I don't, and neither do you.  It's sad that you're so convinced otherwise.

Well it does, because without believing in God, how can you base anything objective and meaningful in this life? Without God, everything in this life is happening by chance, it doesn't make any sense, any ORDER, any MEANING, any PURPOSE in this Universe. That's what I said Nietzche was a good thinker, but he was also a stupid/bad thinker; because if you believe this, you have suicide thoughts (at least I do), you become melancholic and sad, and feel alienation for all the things around you.

Well you as an atheist may come with this as if being a "strong" thing, something that's for "adults", not for "babies", like a pride, like you take a big pride in this belief, saying : "Well I don't want to ruin your beautiful dream that God and good is real, that beautiful things and good things exists, it's not, it's just what you see with your eyes, that's all that it is, there is no soul, no after life, and when you die, you die forever, there isn't any God"...like it's something very "tough", that is not for "children"...
But I'm sorry, I'll give you something more "tough" than you have and you think, something that the Bible says: the grave is not the end of all things (that's easy if it will be like that)...when you die your soul will get either to heaven with God (if you trusted in Jesus Christ on earth with all your heart) or to hell, where demons exists, and they will torture you in fire, and you won't get out from there ever, because it is for eternity...so your soul or you will not die forever, as you think...that's for children, what you believe, not what I believe ! I believe God exists, and that there would be a frightening judgement day !

Please learn to use the quote function properly. I didn't write a single fucking word of the text you've attributed to me.

[Minimalist]

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life,

Okay, so now we see that you are incapable of anything other than spouting bullshit from your bible.  Really.  You are in the wrong place to trot out such fucking garbage.

[Dānu]

[airportkid]

So much quoting yet it's an absolute certainty that AlinC has not only not memorized every passage but hasn't even as much as read the whole book. 

[Dancefortwo]

No one who is actually clinically dead, has ever "come back to life".

No one. Either they were not really dead, (still alive) or they were actually dead. No one dead has ever returned to life.

The dead do not reanimate, ever. There are unusual cases where arrhythmias occur and people even go asystole for a period ... and appear to be dead.
If they wake up, they were not actually dead. I believe in none of them. There is no actual evidence for any sort of reanimation.
It's all very suspicious that "near-death" experiences are never  something totally different. Do Western near-deathers experience Chinese music ? Do African near-deathers hear Beethoven ?
LOL No. Everything they report are things they already have some concept of, locally.

The human race is very early in it's scientific journey. Geneticists know why humans age and die. There will come a day when that can be reversed, chemically, and genetically. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017...hromosomes
Scientific knowledge advances geometrically. There will come a day, since the human genome is known and will be subject to manipulation, that humans will transcend biology.
https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-...0143037889

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcent biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

Here you go again, quoting the Bible.   The Bible is not evidence.  How often do I have to tell you this.  The Biblical god is based on a old Canaanite tribal war god.   He was a war and wind god and probably a god of metallurgy and iron smelting.  The biblical god in it's earliest version had a wife, Asherah.  There are many examples of small statues of YHWH and Ashurah found in the earliest known Hebrew worship sites.   YHWH was originally part of a pantheon of about 200 Canaanite gods.  

Here's are early statues of YHWH's wife unearthed by archaeologists. 



The gospels aren't eyewitness accounts.  They were written by anonymous people 40 to 80 years after Jesus died. They don't even claim to be eyewitness accounts.  Go read them again.   None of the writers ever knew Jesus.  The Jesus stories are based on almost two generation of peasant storytelling at a time when superstitious belief was very common.    They are third hand anecdotal stories and wouldn't be used as evidence in any court of law in any civilized country in the world.   Nobody cares what the gospels say.  It's meaningless garbage.

[SYZ]

...You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected.

You seem not to understand that the Abrahamic bible is neither an accurate
historical record of the times, nor any sort of reliable scientific text.  It's a
farrago of myths, fallacies, superstitions, misconceptions, and outright lies.
As I said earlier, you have zero evidence that a human being has ever been
resurrected—and I challenge you to name even one person who has been in
the past 200 years.   And I'm betting you won't be able to.  So....?

But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

I'm truly astounded that you can come into an atheist forum, and say this sort
of thing.  Of course  none of us believe in the bible—that's one of the reasons
we're fucking atheists!   

Maybe you need to think more about what "atheism" means:

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities.
Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even
narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.

Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social and historical approaches.
Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence, the problem of evil,
the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be
falsified, and the argument from non-belief. Nonbelievers contend that atheism is a
more  *parsimonious position than theism and that everyone is born without beliefs in
deities; therefore, they argue that the burden of proof lies not on the atheist to
disprove the existence of gods but on the theist to provide a rationale for theism.

Although some atheists have adopted secular philosophies (such as secular humanism),
there is no ideology or code of conduct to which all atheists adhere.

*  See Occam's razor.

[Szuchow]

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

If you will read The Lord of the Rings then you will know that Gandalf returned to life. If you don't believe it then I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcent biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

Judgment? Poetic Edda says that Odin will be slain by Fenrir, Thor will kill Jormungandr yet will succumb to his poison and world will be reborn from destruction. So you have any reason to buy into christian mythology besides indoctrination?

[Minimalist]

In Sumerian mythology Inanna dies and is "resurrected' .... coincidentally in 3 days.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld . The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

Of course, a fine xtian lik Alin would say that such a belief is obviously bullshit because it is soooo different from his variation.

BTW, the Sumrians predated xtian assholes by 3-4,000 years.

[Alan V]

In Sumerian mythology Inanna dies and is "resurrected' .... coincidentally in 3 days.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld . The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

I guess early Christians mythologized their hero to compete with other wonder cults.  Good advertising for the underlying message or something.

[Dom]

In Sumerian mythology Inanna dies and is "resurrected' .... coincidentally in 3 days.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld . The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

I guess early Christians mythologized their hero to compete with other wonder cults.  Good advertising for the underlying message or something.

People always think they can improve on someone else's ideas. In religion, to wit the many different christian denominations.

[AlinC.]

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

If you will read The Lord of the Rings then you will know that Gandalf returned to life. If you don't believe it then I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcent biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

Judgment? Poetic Edda says that Odin will be slain by Fenrir, Thor will kill Jormungandr yet will succumb to his poison and world will be reborn from destruction. So you have any reason to buy into christian mythology besides indoctrination?

But you can't compare Odin and Thor with the God of the Bible...those are other "gods" that are not alive, they are dead gods.
Is Thor 3 times holy like God in the Bible, and for living creaturs covered with eyes who day and night shout saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come..." are they like that? I don't think so...

[AlinC.]

In Sumerian mythology Inanna dies and is "resurrected' .... coincidentally in 3 days.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld . The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

Of course, a fine xtian lik Alin would say that such a belief is obviously bullshit because it is soooo different from his variation.

BTW, the Sumrians predated xtian assholes by 3-4,000 years.

Yes but in the Bible You won't find any "godess", because God doesn't have any wife, because He is holy.
Îs like with that greek godess, Aphrodite...she îs described as a senzual woman...that is clearly she is a man-made god, a godess more exactly...but in the Bible you won't find any "godess"...that's why Jesus wasn't born with the normal sexual intercourse between a woman and man, He was conceived supernaturally from the Holy Spirit, a miracles from God.
Because the human nature was subiect to sin, from the sin of Adam and Eve, that's why Jesus was conceived from the Holy Spirit, not from the nature of man...

[Bucky Ball]

...in my country Romania a christian woman saw the hell in many visions (on periods of months), and she saw also the heaven and the angels of God and she saw the lord Jesus .....

No she didn't.
We know the detailed history of exactly when and why the human concepts of heaven and hell, (the Hebrews in the Old Testament, for most of their history did not believe in either heaven or hell. They are not Biblical concepts. St. Paul said "put on immortality" ... ONLY the saved are immortal.
What she *claimed* to have seen, if not a flat-out lie, was a delusion. A claim is not evidence. How many insane and crazy people have claimed all kinds of nutso shit ? A mental patient's delusion is not evidence of anything. And IF you claim this was a miracle, and a wondrous thing, why is it, .. a god, and your Lord Jesus, can make some nut see something, .. but cannot prevent the slaughter of children in Ukraine, or cure one child of cancer ?

[Bucky Ball]

No one who is actually clinically dead, has ever "come back to life".

No one. Either they were not really dead, (still alive) or they were actually dead. No one dead has ever returned to life.

The dead do not reanimate, ever. There are unusual cases where arrhythmias occur and people even go asystole for a period ... and appear to be dead.
If they wake up, they were not actually dead. I believe in none of them. There is no actual evidence for any sort of reanimation.
It's all very suspicious that "near-death" experiences are never  something totally different. Do Western near-deathers experience Chinese music ? Do African near-deathers hear Beethoven ?
LOL No. Everything they report are things they already have some concept of, locally.

The human race is very early in it's scientific journey. Geneticists know why humans age and die. There will come a day when that can be reversed, chemically, and genetically. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017...hromosomes
Scientific knowledge advances geometrically. There will come a day, since the human genome is known and will be subject to manipulation, that humans will transcend biology.
https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-...0143037889

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcend biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

LOL.
Isn't he cute. Using the Bible to support Bible stories. LOL. Circular much ?
I don't buy your Babble. It's all made up, and you have no evidence for it. It's "mythology" as Rudolph Bultman explained.
What scholars did you study under ?
There also was no Jesus. They made him up also.
The Bible was written by a bunch of ignorant ancient know-nothings.
There are thousands of contradictions. The Bible said God created evil. The genealogies don't match, the "voice" at Jesus' baptism say different things,
where did Jesus go the day after his baptism ... the Bible contradicts itself.
I really don't need you to lecture me on the Babble. You know nothing about ancient Near Eastern literature, of which, the later assembled Hebrew texts/scrolls, were much later called "ta Biblia" ... "the books".

BEFORE you start preaching the Babble at us, you must establish it's truth and authority.
Get your ass busy. Good luck with that.

By the way, your example of the girl who was raised, is one of the contradictions.
Don't try to fight atheists about the Bible. We know FAR FAR more than you ever will. Jarius goes to Jesus (in the STORY), as asks him to come to heal his daughter. In Mark, ... before they go to her, a woman comes up to him, and he heals her. When they get there she is dead. He raises her, in the STORY. In Matthew, Jarius comes to Jesus because his daughter has ALREADY died. They can't BOTH be what happened. Either she was already dead, or she was just sick.

[Bucky Ball]

In Sumerian mythology Inanna dies and is "resurrected' .... coincidentally in 3 days.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld . The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

Of course, a fine xtian lik Alin would say that such a belief is obviously bullshit because it is soooo different from his variation.

BTW, the Sumrians predated xtian assholes by 3-4,000 years.

Yes but in the Bible You won't find any "godess", because God doesn't have any wife, because He is holy.
Îs like with that greek godess, Aphrodite...she îs described as a senzual woman...that is clearly she is a man-made god, a godess more exactly...but in the Bible you won't find any "godess"...that's why Jesus wasn't born with the normal sexual intercourse between a woman and man, He was conceived supernaturally from the Holy Spirit, a miracles from God.
Because the human nature was subiect to sin, from the sin of Adam and Eve, that's why Jesus was conceived from the Holy Spirit, not from the nature of man...

Wrong again, AlinC.
In the Bible God does have a wife. Also the god in the Old Testament is not the highest god.
A god, higher than Yahweh, gives him Israel. I'll let you find the references, since obviously you need to take Bible 101
The god Ashura, Yahweh's female consort, is God's wife. That's pretty well established in Biblical Studies.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna42147912
You should take a class in the Bible some day.
There were statues of Ashura found in many Hebrew worship sites/temple by archaeologists, in Jerusalem, Dan, Beth-el and other places.

[Dancefortwo]

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

If you will read The Lord of the Rings then you will know that Gandalf returned to life. If you don't believe it then I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcent biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

Judgment? Poetic Edda says that Odin will be slain by Fenrir, Thor will kill Jormungandr yet will succumb to his poison and world will be reborn from destruction. So you have any reason to buy into christian mythology besides indoctrination?

But you can't compare Odin and Thor with the God of the Bible...those are other "gods" that are not alive, they are dead gods.
Is Thor 3 times holy like God in the Bible, and for living creaturs covered with eyes who day and night shout saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come..." are they like that? I don't think so...

But you can't compare Odin and Thor with the God of the Bible...

Au contraire, mon ami.  You certainly CAN compare  YHWH to Odin and Thor.   Gods are pretty much the same the world 'round.  All gods defy the shackles that bind us regular folks to the earth.  They defy death, and gravity and perform amazing things that normal human can't do.  They change one thing into another thing.  Dionysis changed water into wine.  Christian mythology used this story in their Jesus mythos. 

Gods are heroic and go through a suffering, cataclysmic event which transforms them.....a sort of metamorphosis. They start out as one thing then become another.  Christian mythology is no different.  Jesus starts out as human then transends to godhood through a suffering event.   Metamorphosis is a key element in almost all god stories.

Most gods have unusual birth stories.  Jesus is no different.     

So the Jesus story checks all the boxes of most other mythological gods.    It's a common story.

[Bucky Ball]

Jesus is but one of many dying and rising gods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying-and-...ng%20cycle.
It's a common meme.
Mithras had 12 apostles, among many other similarities to Jebus.
Virtually all of the mythic concepts in Genesis came from Babylonian mythology. Virgin births were also common mythology.

Remember this ? LOL.

Salvation / Mythic Origins
The Mythic Origins of Genesis
or salvation, ,,, why you don't need to run out and get any this week.

So I have always been fascinated by humans who preach that Jebus came to save us, and I need to go git me some of that salvation stuff, at my local 7-11, (church).

When I look at the roots of it all, in the history of human ideas, in Comparative Religion, and Comparative Mythology, I find I don't really need any. But thanks anyway.

When above the heavens were not named
Below the earth was not called by name
Apsu, the primeval, was their progenitor
Mummi-Tiamat was the bearer of all of them

(The first 4 lines of the Amorite Creation Myth, the "Enuma Elish").
Sound familiar ?

1. The myths

a. Prologue : Syncretism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism
Syncretism is a combination of similar, but sometimes contradictory belief systems, while ostensibly merging the various underlying belief systems, to make a seeming whole. There are so many similarities with Greek, Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian myth systems in the Bible texts, that is simply cannot be a coincidence. They borrowed ideas from each other all the time, in almost every text.

For example, take the great (sometimes) sea-beast, Leviathan. Leviathan is the primeval dragon beast which Yahweh subdued in Isaiah 27:1, Job 3:8, Amos 9:3, and Psalms 74:14. The sea beast is also referred to by the name Rahab, (Job 9:13, and Psalm 89:10). The Syro-Palestinian version of this myth was ubiquitous in the Ancient Near East, and occasionally just as the Abyss, (Habakkuk 3:10). The biblical references to the battle between Yahweh and Leviathan reflect the Syro-Palestinian version of a myth, where the act of creation is represented as the victory of the creator-god over a monster of chaos.

The closest parallel we know of to the Biblical version is the Ra's Shamrah, (from 1400 BCE), in which Baal defeats a dragon-like monster: “You will crush Leviathan the fleeing serpent; you will consume the twisting serpent, the mighty one with seven heads.” (see Isaiah 27:1 which uses the same phrase.)

An older version of this myth is found in the Babylonian Creation Epic, in which the storm god Marduk defeats the sea monster Tiamat, (in other places, the Dragon of Chaos), and creates the earth and sky by cutting her corpse in two parts. The latter motif appears a number of times in the Bible verses that extol Yahweh’s military skills: “Was it not you who split Rahab in half, who pierced the dragon through?” (Isaiah 51:9; see also Job 26:12; Psalms 74:13, and 89:10). It is important to understand the writers of Job were at least aware of the Dragon Myth.

Between 1792-1750 BCE, 1000 years before any Bible text had even begun to be written, Hammurabi made Babylon into the most powerful city in Mesopotamia and set up Marduk as his divine patron, in the divine assembly, or council of gods. About 600 years later, around 1100 BCE, a creation myth was created from the various traditions to specifically celebrate the military accomplishments of the city, and it's leaders. This written myth was called the Enuma Elish, and was recovered by archaeologists in 1849 CE, in the ruins of the Royal library at Ashurbanipal, in the ancient city of Nineveh. It was written on clay tablets. In the Enuma Elish the head of the council of gods, is Apsu, and he is identified with sweet/clean/fresh water, and the goddess, Tiamet, with the sea, (salt water). Their son Mummu symbolized the mist that rises from the waters.

In the myth, (the Enuma Elish), Tiamat marries Apsu, and many evil deities were born. Tiamat was an evil woman, whose purpose was to create conflict, strife, and confusion. She decided to kill her children, and a great war followed. Apsu, her husband was killed by Ea, (his son), and he, fearing Tiamat, fled to the farthest distance of the Fresh Waters. Tiamat, then remarried her son Kingu, and had more kiddies, and battled them also, and eventually was killed by her grandson, Marduk, the Sun God.

In Sumerian mythology, there was a council of gods, and Enhil, or Enki, who was boss, who lived in Abzu, which was a place synonymous with "the deep", or the place from whence the rivers and lakes, and swamps, drew their water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aps%C3%BB .

(For the Egyptian parallels, see the god Nun, the cosmic egg,and the Ogdoad. http://www.ancientegyptonline.co.uk/nun.html )

b. The origins. The Talmud
One cannot read the Bible, (the Torah) without also reading the Talmud, it's companion Jewish literary effort.
In the Talmud, a whole world of Hebrew thinking is revealed. There was a world called Adam Kademon. The word Adam, (which I was taught means "the man", in grade school), actually does not mean "the man" in Sumerian, and Hebrew. The word Adam, by itself), meant "in the likeness of", (Ha-Adam means "from the earth"). Kademon is translated as "primordial". Ok. So we got a myth goin'on. Get it ? A myth. What's a myth ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology . Myths are literary "explanation rituals". Not history. (There was no word for "history" in Ancient Hebrew). Explanation rituals were how they explained the world they saw around themselves, to themselves, in pre-scientific times.

In the Talmud, the Adam Kademon is a sublime world, which is the likeness of the infinite light, which is the most sublime level. (The Adam Kademon is NOT the Infinite Light.) There are complexities concerning the nature of this world, which one can further investigate. http://m.chabad.org/m/article_cdo/aid/380321 , and too long to go into here. The world of the Adam Kademon is a world of potentiality, (only). A world of unity, and simultaneity, (not eternity). There was no space, no time, no inside, no outside, no up, and no down, no before, no after. As light descends from this world, in this worldview/myth, (yeah, I know, descend is "down"..shut up), from the Adam Kademon, a primeval "order" which is an unstable world/level, is shattered, and breaks into ten individual "qualities", called the sefirot, or "the Sefirot of Tohu", which was a world of chaos and disorder. So there is the highest level, (the level of the infinite light), the next level... the level of the unstable Adam Kademon, and then the lower levels of the "broken light" or the sefirot, (Chaos). These ten "qualities" or "sefir", (plural sefirot), break up, and become "incompatible" with each other, and are completely independent of each other, (non-integrated). Each is a powerful concentration of the original light, from which it originated. The Tohu is also an unstable "plane" of reality. As a result of the lack of integration, or interaction, each of the Sefirot members, can not limit the activity or expansion of any of the others, and Chaos and disintegration results, and thus the Sefirot also shatters. Chaos and Order play a huge part in Ancient Near Eastern mythology, and is a very common theme, as we shall see.

FYI, there is a (supposedly), a somewhat lame attempt in Genesis to replicate this "shattering" of the Sefirot in the (known) incorrect listing of the Kings of Edom, as each one independently succeed, (Genesis 36:31-39), according to the Torah scholar Rabbi Yitzchak Luria. In any case, the shattering serves a purpose, and creates diversity, and an ontological state of separation, and partitioning, and is rectified in the Tikun.

In the world of the Tikun, the highest level, is that of "Emenation", which is derived from a word which means, "near" or "close". One tries to get back to the Infinite Light, and return to the world of Adam Kadmon. The world of Adam Kadmon, being lower than the Infinite Light, possess less "structure", (more Chaos), than the higher level. It's a matter of degree. or distance, ...devolution. The difference is one of inner structure. As one approaches the Atzilut, inner structure is revealed, from the inside out. Atzilut is the highest plane, or the world of Immanence. There is a rather technical discussion of the meanings of vessels and light, by Talmudic scholars, but for this it serves to know that the higher one goes to (re)-approach Emenation, (which is not "analyzable", but a "flash of intuition", (mysticism), the vessel both contains and limits the light. It's spoken of as a "eureka" moment, or sudden insight, and it's quality is dependent of the receptive ability of the "vessel". One who exists in a chaotic state cannot be receptive to the light. If the vessels are not receptive the light goes on to oblivion, and eureka moment cannot happen.

c. More Sumerian Myths
In Babylonian mythology, there is the concept of the "mes", (traits, or skills), which were collected by Enhil/Enki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology).The mes were an interesting aspect of this system. The mes were the skills or traits of a civilized life. The mes were collected and then handed over to the safe-keeping of Enki who was to broker them out to the various Sumerian cities, beginning with his own city of Eridu and then Ur, Meluhha, and Dilmun. This is described in the epic poem, "Enki and the World Order" which tells how he grants the gifts for various crafts and natural phenomena to the lesser gods. After telling himself, and everyone what a great guy he is, Enki's daughter, Inanna comes before him, complaining that he gave her too little in the way of divine influence. Her main intent is to bring more of the Arts of Civilization, (the mes)to Uruk", but mainly Inanna's discontent is the theme. She is the protector deity of Uruk and desires to increase its power, glory by bringing more mes to it from Eridu. She travels to Enki's Eridu shrine, the E-abzu, in her "boat of heaven", and asks the mes from him, when he is drunk, and he agrees. After she departs with them, he comes to his senses and notices they are missing from their usual place, and on being informed what he did with them attempts to retrieve them. The attempt fails and Inanna triumphantly delivers them to Uruk.We never learn what any of the mes look like, exactly, but they are represented as physical objects of some sort. Not only are they stored in a prominent location in the E-abzu, but Inanna is able to display them to the people of Uruk after she arrives with them in her boat. Some of them are indeed physical objects such as musical instruments, but many are technologies like basket weaving or abstractions like "victory". It is not made clear in the poem how such things can be stored, handled, or displayed.

Not all the mes are admirable or desirable traits. Alongside functions like "heroship" and "victory" we also find "the destruction of cities", "falsehood", and "enmity". The Sumerians apparently considered such evils and sins an inevitable part of humanity's lot in life, divinely and inscrutably decreed, and not to be questioned.

The mes were found by archaeologists in at least 4 separate lists. There are 64 mes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_(mythology)#List_of_mes .

In Babylonian mythology, the Tablet of Destinies, (a legal document, or "covenant") was conferred upon Enki, the Supreme Deity, as a measure of his authority. He was da boss, by virtue of the Tablet of Destiny. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablets_of_Destiny .

The most important myth for our purpose here, is Marduk slaying the Dragon of Chaos, (Tiamat). First here are a few of the other well known Babylonian myths, just to get a feel what the themes were, in general. Then I'll tell the Marduk story.

Enki, the (supreme and Water-god, and God of wisdom), impregnates his half-sister, Nin-Hursang. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninhursag . Enki wants a boy, but gets a girl. Then he impregnates the daughter, who also has a daughter. Nin-Hursang decides to stop all this immoral stuff by sowing eight poisonous plants in the garden. Enki eats the plants, and becomes ill. One of the sick organs is his rib. Nin-ti is created to heal Enki. Her name means, "she who makes live". Nin-ti means the same thing as the Hebrew word for "Eve". Nin-ti, is usually translated as the "lady of the rib". "Ti" means "to make live". Note : "Eve" is translated from the Hebrew chavvaòh , for lifegiver, as in "the mother of all living." Its root,
Chaya, means "serpent" in Aramaic. Eve and serpent are taken to be synonymous. Thus a "pun" is set up in the Hebrew, (which was used later.)

From the Babylonians also comes the legend of of Adapa. The son of the God of Wisdom (Ea, also called Enki), broke the wing of the Storm bird, who had attacked him in what is today, the Persian Gulf. Ea summons Adapa, and warned him about his behavior, and told him he would be offered food and drink which would be deadly, and he must refuse it. When Anu, (one of the council of three highest gods), found out about the disclosure, attempted to foil Ea, by offering Adapa the bread of life, and the water of life, instead. He, Adapa, refused, and Anu sent him to earth as a mortal.

In the myth of Gilgamesh and the Serpent, Gilgamesh heard about a plant that held the secret to immortality. By much effort, he pulled it up from the bottom of the ocean. On the way back to his peeps, he set the plant aside at a spring where he stopped to take a bath. A serpent came up from the water and grabbed the plant. As it returned to the water, it shed its skin. In so doing, the serpent robbed humans of the potential for rejuvenation and acquired an ability to renew itself by shedding its skin.

So we have poisonous plants, ribs, Eve, death by eating stuff, bread of heaven, water of life, plants which offer immortality, and snakes which bring about death, and most important, Chaos and Order.

( For a much more detailed summary of Sumerian Mythology see :
http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/sumer-faq.html ).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat
Another interesting Babylonian myth, is the Enuma Elish, and it's perhaps the most famous, (where Marduk slays the Dragon of Chaos), the quintessential Babylonian Chaos Myth. Tiamt is a chaos monster, and such as Laviathon, a goddess of the Ocean. She had mated with Abzu, and produced many other gods. First she is the mother-god, in a Sacred marriage, of fresh water, and salt water, in which the cosmos is generated. Then she becomes the evil monstrous embodiment of Primordial Chaos, and through her chaos reigns. Eventually she is killed by the Storm god Marduk, and he splits her corpse, and in making that order out of her, the heavens and the earth are formed, each from one half of her body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat

(In the Hellenistic Babylonian Berossus' first book of universal history, Tiamat is called "Thalatte", ...Greek "sea" is "thalassa".) The Greeks knew about this stuff.
So what's all this got to do with salvation ?
Biblical scholars agree on the approximate dates and order of the actual writing of the Bible texts, in general. There was no written "bible" at all, until the long process of assembling, writing, and re-writing began around 600-500 BCE.
The ancient Hebrews were, up until the time of one of the several writers of the Isaiah text, who are known by Biblical scholars as Second and Third Isaiah, a monolaterist polytheist culture. That means they acknowledged that many gods existed, but chose to have a "covenant" with one, and only worship one, in order to obtain his/her special favor and protection. There are still some fundamentalist scholars who still refuse to accept the facts that archaeology has found, and insist that they always were monotheists, and then "fell" into idolatry in Egypt. That is simply not historically true, and there are mountains of evidence for this fact, and these fundie scholars are not as numerous as they used to be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolatrism...ent_Israel , .

c. The cult of Yahweh. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh .
Yahweh, (El-Elion),and his covenant with the Isra-EL-ites.
The Ancient Hebrews believed in many gods. One of them was El-Elyon, and they eventually incorporated his name into what they called themselves. Isra-EL-ites. Isreal is actually a pun. It can mean both "struggles with god", (the name Jacob was given after his "wounding in the thigh".. his Grail Myth "experience"), and "walk with El",(Elyon).

In his earliest iteration, Yahweh was one of the 70 children of El. The 70 nations of the world were portioned out to the sons of El, and the Isra-El was given to Yahweh.
The Hebrew people made a covenant with one of the gods, and they did it for a specific purpose. The god they made a covenant with was Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of the Armies, also known as the Lord of Hosts. (A "host" was an arrayed group of soldiers, in battle formation). They picked this one god out from all the ones they had available because they wanted the god of the armies to help them with their expansionary land ambitions, against their neighboring city-states .. a theme which runs throughout the entirety of the Old Testament texts. They told themselves that a certain part of Ancient Canaan was their "promised land", and thus justified almost any act to get and maintain the land they picked out to be their "promised land". For much of the time, Yahweh had a wife, and her name was Ashura, or Ashera. In their world, the highest level of gods was the Elohim. The word Elohim was originally a plural form, (the COUNCIL of 3 highest deities), but we can leave that for another time. (There is also much archaeological evidence for the wife of Yahweh, Ashera.

The subject of the feminine god is also interesting, and remains to this day in it's present development, (the church as the "bride if Christ"). http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblia...ovah02.htm . Statues of Ashera were found in the temples of Yahweh in Jerusalem, Beth-el, and Samaria.

The word Yahweh, is simply the vocalization of what was called the "tetragramaton", (YHWH), which came about because they were forbidden to actually write out Yahweh's name, (the "naming" of something implies power over, and definition of something). There is also evidence that the traditional "I am who am" meaning which was given in the Mosaic tradition, is NOT the same as it was in the earlier forms. The tetragramaton may be a shortened form of a worship statement, which was "he causes to be" or "he creates". (el du yahwi seba'ot,...) "el/El who creates the hosts", meaning the heavenly army accompanying the god El, as he marched out beside the earthly armies of Israel. JAVEH, on the other hand, was originally not a Judaic god, or even a Canaanite god, but probably originated in Edom, to the South of Judah, and was worshiped by the Edomites. The worship of Yahweh alone, in Hebrew culture, did not occur until Second Isaiah, and Third Isaiah in the post exilic period, who insisted they finally give up their other gods. All the evidence for the origins point South, and Southeast, to Edom, and Midian, and maybe even Arabia, as in Arabic, for Javeh, The name could be "one who causes to fall", (a rain/storm god), which makes sense because Javeh appropriates some of the attributes of the rival storm god, (Baal).
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&...DDbzHogVeA
The Hebrews erected sanctuaries in various places and they were used to express devotion to Yahweh by means of "sacrifice, festival meals and celebrations, prayer, and praise". Toward the end of the seventh century BCE in Judea, the worship of Yahweh was restricted to the temple in Jerusalem, while the major sanctuaries in the Northern Kingdom were at Beth-El (near the southern border) and Dan (in the far north). Certain times were set for the gathering of the people to celebrate the gifts of Yahweh and the deity’s acts of deliverance and power.

d. The Babylonian Exile

In the late 7th Century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, was a client state of the very powerful Assyrian Empire. The enemy of the Assyrians was the Babylonians. The history of the Hebrew peoples is interesting, but too long to recount here. The "Babylonian Exile" was a series of three separate "exilic" events, in which King Nebuchadnezzar, (Babylon), besieged and defeated King Jeconiah and the Jews, and hauled them off to Babylon, and these events happened during 587-538 BC. Obviously, if one's priestly class, and national consciousness tells one that one is "chosen", and "promised" land by a god, and then is defeated, one is going to "go".."WTF !". Why is this happening to us ? Eventually Cyrus the Great, (Persia) defeated ole Nebuchadnezzar, and told the Hebrews they could return to their old lands, the Yehud Province, of the old Kingdom of Judah. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity . An interesting question is what caused the transition to 2nd and 3rd Isaiah's insistence on a monotheistc perspective. Seems it might have been cultural change, in social structure. At Ugarit, social identity was strongest at the family level. Ugarit's religion, with its divine family headed by El and Asherah, mirrored this human reality, (just as today the common "god is love" business mirrors this culture's view of what is ultimately important). The same was true in ancient Israel through most of the monarchy period, as seen the story of Achan, (in Joshua 8), which suggests an extended family as the major social unit. However, the family lineages went through trauma in the eighth century due to major social stratification disruption, followed by Assyrian incursions. In the seventh and sixth centuries, there is seen expressions of individual identity (Deuteronomy 26:16; Jeremiah 31:29–30; Ezekiel 18). A culture with a diminished lineage system, deteriorating over a long period from the ninth or eighth century onward, less embedded in traditional family lines, would be set up to hold the individual accountable for his behavior, and to see an individual deity accountable for the cosmos. In short, the rise of the individual as the basic social unit led to the rise of a single god replacing a divine family.
A second major cultural factor in making the change to monotheism may have been the rise of the powerful neo-Assyrian and neo-Babylonian empires. As long as Israel was part of a community of similar small city-state nations, it made sense to see the Israelite pantheon on par with the other nations, each one with its own patron god – the picture described in Deuteronomy 32:8–9. Each nation was as powerful as its patron god. However, with the neo-Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BCE, this was challenged obviously, as if the neo-Assyrian empire were so powerful, so must be its god; and conversely, if Israel could be conquered (and later Judah, in 586 BCE), it implied that Yahweh in turn was a minor divinity. The crisis was met by separating the heavenly power and earthly kingdoms. Even though Assyria and Babylon were so powerful, the new monotheistic thinking in Israel reasoned, (rationalized), this did not mean that the god of Israel and Judah was weak. Assyria had not succeeded because of the power of its god Marduk, but rather it was Yahweh who was using Assyria to punish and purify the one nation which Yahweh had chosen.


In the post-Exilic period, full monotheism had emerged: Yahweh was the sole god, not just of Israel, but of the whole world. If the nations were tools of Yahweh, then the new king who would come to reestablish Israel might not be a Judean as was taught in older literature (e.g. Psalm 2). Now, even a foreigner such as Cyrus the Persian could serve as the Lord's anointed (Isaiah 44:28, 45:1). (The Messiah was the "anointed one").

During the period of the Exile, the priests saw that it would be useful for PR purposes, for the development and maintenance of political unity and cohesion and order, to have in hand, a "national story", for the purpose of political cohesion. Thus the Bible was born, as a written text.

The Judean priests started assembling the traditions and sources they had at their disposal, and they started writing first the book of Job, (as they had the very real pressing problem of explaining to their people the problem of suffering, and how their deity could allow such horrible things to happen as they had just experienced, and witnessed), then Genesis, then Isaiah, then Exodus. In the writing, they were influenced by the cultures that had surrounded them for a thousand years. Sumerian Eden was located in the city of Dilmun, which is modern day Bahrain. The word "eden" came from the Babylonian name for Mesopotamia, which was gan-Eden, a "garden", (beautiful), city. Thus Genesis was written around the time of the Babylonian Exile. It is presumed by scholars that the essential elements of the Creation Myths, (Genesis), were made available to Judean priests, in Babylon, who re-wrote them, in forming their own national myth, (again, Job first, then Genesis and Isaiah, and then Exodus), The four major elements of the Enki myth which were appropriated from the Sumerian/Babylonian sources were : 1) the flood, 2) the confusion of speech, 3) the forbidden fruit, and 4) the general creation story.

We're only going to "do" the forbidden fruit myth.
If you're interested, here is the "confusion of speech" origin : http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/...n-deniers, (scroll to the Bucky Ball post 1).


E.Genesis and the Garden Myth.

In the Garden myth, the Judean priests take over the Chaos myths, and change the "poisonous plants" to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and add their own unique spin. The man and the "life giving" woman exist in a primordially innocent mythological state, in Eden, and they are enjoined from eating of this one tree. The injunction was that if they attempted to eat, or even touch it,"they would surely die". The actual temptation in the Genesis myth is not to eat of the fruit of this tree, really, but the real temptation as mythologically presented by the serpent, was that in "eating from the tree" they would "become like gods", (Genesis 3: 1-7) "knowing good and evil". The Apple itself is NOT the temptation. This CANNOT be overemphasized. The temptation is to attempt to escape the limits of the Human Condition, and encompass opposites. The Genesis text says, "But the serpent said to the woman, "You will surely not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will know what is good and what is evil", ie acquire the ability to "know" both, or "encompass opposites". On a practical level this is simply about choice. "Do I do my homework, or goof off ?". If I do my homework, I chose the path that promotes who I really am, and know I should and can be. It about the bringing into actuality, that which is possibility. It's about the promotion of the authentic self, (in Existentialist terms), (See Paul Tillich, "The Courage to Be" .. famous Christian Existentialist Theologian).

So, what's so bad about "knowing" / "experiencing" those two things ? Nothing. Trouble is, it's not possible. First of all, "knowing", as every Biblical scholar agrees, in every other use of this form of the word "know", means "to experience". The actual temptation is to try to "know, (both..at the same time), Good and Evil. It's simply impossible. One must choose, as we live in the dimension of spacetime. The temptation is not to disobey, or to eat apples. The real mythological temptation was to attempt to "encompass the opposites", ("good and evil"). Encompassing opposites is impossible, ontologically, in one discreet and unique temporal being. The point is the attempt is stupid, and misguided. The attempt is a mistake, an ontologically impossible error, but NOT a "disobedient act". It's not a "sin". It has nothing to do with ingesting apples. It is a mythological statement of the human condition. It is interesting that later Western cultures have deliberately chosen to look at the mythological "eating of the fruit of the tree" ... the tree which is now, and always has been the precise definition of "opposites", (Chaos and Order..Good and Evil), and instead chose to interpret/deflect to the "eating" as a "fall" instead of a mythological "error". The Genesis text says, when they ate they realized they were naked. Duh. They understood, (mythologically), they were humans, and could not "encompass opposites". It makes perfect sense. It's obvious. It requires no faith. It's an insight into the nature of humans existing in the dimension of time. Choices must be made. Chaos vs Order. Nothing more. Nothing less. The Human Condition remains the SAME, both before and after the attempt. The only thing that changes, (mythologically), is that they are "expelled" from the state of moral innocence, (Eden).

Another interesting sidelight in comparative mythology here is the "heel striking", in verse 15, which is a form of the vulnerability theme the Greeks used in the Achilles myth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles , and more proof that that the Judean priests were well aware of myths from other cultures.
Also interesting that the heel striking is picked up in Cretian de Troyes's Grail Myth, as the heel of the horse is clipped as it crossses the bridge, into the Grail castle. This myth also is the SAME theme as the fight of Jacob (wrestling with the stranger, and obtaining the "gererative" wound), yet another example of syncretism.

The fundie interpretation is that (a) the "fallen state" actually results from the "attempt at encompassing". But actually the fundie interpretation misses the point completely, and says it's about eating apples and completely fails to understand that myths were, and are, explanation rituals, not "causation" rituals. The myth was an "insight", (an explanation) into the Human Condition. One cannot encompass opposites, (and live authentically). One's authentic self ceases to exists, if one does not make (moral) choices. It's simply ignorance of ancient literature, and it's intent. This ignorance has two important consequences. A. The actual unique, albeit simple, insight of the ancients is obscured, and B. a new fundamentalist set of occurrences are set in motion, which continue to this day. The "fall" is absent from the Old Testament, and "original sin" is not present here, at all ..never..anywhere, any place, ever, until this myth was hijacked by another growing cult, about 600 years later, by one of the main formulators of the new cult, Saul of Tarsus, (St. Paul).

So that's the setup.

If there is no actual fallen state, but an explanation of the Human Condition, how (and why) in hell did they market both the need, and the possibility, to be saved from the Human Condition ?

Answer .. it was useful. "Useful you say" what's wrong with useful ?" Useful to whom ? Apart from whether it's "true", is also the utility. It is useful, if you need a job as a "keeper of the secret knowledge/power", (a priest), and need to increase the number of adherents to your cult.
Thus the myths were assembled, and reassembled into books, which eventually they called "that which is written", and used in worship "events". ("scripture"). Well, "duh". What is written is written. No kidding. Anything which is written is "scripture", technically. Sacred scripture is something else, obviously. Calling it "sacred" imputes "authority" to the myths, and gives the priestly class the right to interpret it, (and provides them with a job description), and presumes an uneducated group, which needs explanations. That is simply no longer the case.

When the Judean priests assembled the myth systems, they combined this Babylonian originated system, with the Mosaic tradition, which probably originated from a completely different source, in which Javeh, (this is known as the Kenite Hypothesis), (a god with a similar name) a mountain or volcano deity was grafted into the texts. , and there is much evidence of the working and reworking of multiple traditions into a common unified text. The proof of this is that the El-Elyon god of Genesis, is replaced in the Exodus myth, with the mountain, (or volcano god) Javeh, who was needed as they were "on the move", and had expansionary ambitions. The fist king, Saul, was a Gibeonite, a tribe with roots in Edom, who needed to unify his kingdom under one main deity, instead of the usual many "family gods" that each tribe had, up to that point. He picked an Edomite god.

Many Torah scholars believe there was an "upgrade", in the philosophical understanding of the Chaos myths, common to the culture, when it was changed, and presented in the Genesis myths. And I agree with them, completely. The myths advance from explanation rituals to a unique insight into the Human Condition, which remains to this day, the only truly unique lasting gift to human civilization of Hebrew culture. (It might have stood alongside the other unique advance, that of the "confederation of tribes" concept, from the Southern traditions, but they chose to give that up, and chose to become a kingdom, when they decided to "become like the nations", in their history, even though their own prophets well understood the monumental mistake they were making, and what a missed opportunity it was .. ""Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again, deserted in her own land, with no one to lift her up." (Amos 5:2), when they abandoned their confederate tribal status, (which could have developed into one of the first democracies on the planet), and chose political similarity with their neighboring city states, and demanded a king, instead of retaining their unique position as a tribal confederation.

So we have the injunction in the Garden Myth, in which the Hebrews took the Chaos myths and used them for their system. In my opinion, the slight change in the use of the Chaos mythology of the Hebrews represents a very unique and insightful development in human thought, especially for ancient desert dwellers. But, because of the overlay of fundamentalism onto the ancient texts it is almost always obscured. It it were understood, in it's original, (apparent) context, (Choas and Order), rather than slapped with the later "sin and disobedience" paradigm, the actual unique insight would be revealed. The insight was quite remarkable, actually.

The expectation for a political leader, (Messiah/"savior") did not arise in Hebrew history until Second and Third Isaiah introduced it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Isaiah . Jewish Apocalypticism and Messianism are huge interesting topics, but essentially irrelevant. They were historical political movements and expectations.

(Only) after the unfortunate historical events around 575 BC, did any of the Hebrews hope for, or think they needed a hero / "kingdom restorer". It never crossed their minds. The expectation by some, of a political hero, who would restore the former glory of the kingdoms, Messianism has various iterations, but was always a minority expectation. The Jews were not, in general, looking for a savior, nor are they today. Salvation from Chaos is meaningless. No one can make decisions for anyone else. They can market themselves as those with the "secret access to knowledge and secret powers", (priests), ...

2. the Hijacking

a. The salvation paradigm did not exist in the minds of the Nazorenes, (a subgroup of Jews, who were followers of Yeshua ben Josef, who eventually came to be called Christians, and who for many decades, and in some cases centuries, continued to think of themselves as Jews, who practiced what was called the "Way"), until it was introduced there by Saul of Tarsus. The proof is that the concept is absent in the Gospel of Mark, which was the first "proclamational faith document", (gospel) produced by the Nazarenes), and present on it's first version, (and there were many versions which developed, even as just proposed by Saul), the first version being presented in the 1st letter to the Corinthians.

The gospels were neither "biographies", nor "historical" documents in any way, and no one claimed they were. They were used, (proclaimed) only in liturgical worship events, (services), to believers who already accepted them as "authentic". Since they had no concept of "history", as we in the modern West think about that word, the authenticity, did not, in any way rest on any sort of "historical" authenticity. The "authenticity" was determined by the communities of worshipers, depending on whether the text reflected their subjective faith experience of the "Jesus events"and their HOPE for what they thought was about to happen. (Acts 22:9 "My companions saw the light, but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me"...a perfectly subjective self-admitted experience.) Trouble was, nothing happened, (except bad things). the Temple was destroyed in 72 CE, and still the Apocalyptic events did not happen. The bar Kochba revolt (135 CE), brought complete destruction to Jerusalem, after the turn of the century, and still Yahweh did nothing. Now what ? Go out of business ? Hell no. "I know. I know. Let's re-write the job descriptions, and try to justify the bullshit with an appeal to ancient Chaos myths, and market the salvation paradigm".

The gospels were assembled in the same way the texts of the Old Testament were assembled. Mark says nothing about Yeshua preaching about "salvation". No scholar disputes that. The attempt to make any "historical" claims from "proclamational faith documents" is obviously misguided. The intent of the authors was to present a position of faith, as a confirmation al ritual document, for those who already believed. They were NOT attempts at historical asserts of historical events. That was simply NOT the intended nature of their use. All the statements/verses in all the gospels were "placed" there for only one reason. To proclaim the gospel, only. Using them to prove anything about Yeshua is the ultimate circular argument, and a completely ignorant Argument from Ignorance of the nature of those kinds of literary texts. They are NOT 'historical" in any way we mean that word. A writer can at any time for any reason "place" something in a character's mouth. It's evidence of nothing, except the author's subjective opinion.

Messianism and Apocalipticism grafted onto/into the Nazareene, (Nazorean) sect the salvation paradigm for a reason. Yeshua and his followers expected the Apocalyptic event to occur during their lifetime, and it did not happen, and they needed a structural paradigm to rationalize keeping it going.

So how did Saul of Tarsus get the grafting accomplished ? It was not easy. He was hated by the James community in Jerusalem, and in fact at one point had to pay them off. He caused so much constant trouble in Jerusalem he decided to send himself away, and declare himself the "apostle to the Gentiles".

b. In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19, even that late, when the young man asked Yeshua, "Teacher, what must I do to gain eternal life?", Yeshua replies, "If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments". This in no way involves a convoluted cosmic pay-back scheme, where death was going to purchase the non-anger/angry state of a cosmic angry being. Yeshua did not teach Paul's "salvation" Paul invented it. The only question is, where did he get the idea. Two sources. By combining the "secret gospel" of Mark..(Mark's gospel's theme is that no one who heard Yeshua really understood his secret meaning, until later, when the secrets were revealed to insider), with the Greco-Roman Mystery cults, with which Paul was conversant. Paul was from Tarsus, a well known hot-bed of Mithraism. He knew well the braod popular appeal at the time, of the Greek mystery cults.

The word "gospel" comes from the English "godspell", which is a translation of the Greek "euangelion", which means "good news". Not the news. The "good news". Not the bad news. Not the good and bad news. Just the good news. The addition of that one word, (good) refutes any historicity. They were proclamations of subjective experiences, which were interpreted as "good", (not neutral, not "objective". Therefore not one historical claim can be made, based on the gospel texts.

No one sat around reading gospels. Written documents were relatively rare. The only place and reason a gospel was used, and proclaimed was in a worship event, (service), which had in attendance only already believing adherents. At most 5% of the population was literate. The gospel documents were locked in the homes of the leaders of the cult. They were not available for anyone to just stop by and read.

According to the eminent scholars, Klauch and McNeil, ( Klauck, Brian; McNeil (2003), The Religious Context of Early Christianity, Continuum International Publishing Group), "the Christian doctrine of the sacraments, in the form in which we know it, would not have arisen without this interaction; and Christology too understood how to 'take up' the mythical inheritance, purifying it and elevating it". In other words, the competition was the Mystery Cults. Paul had to offer something to compete. The main competition for adherents was the mystery cults.

The thought system of Paul is generally considered to be summarized in the Epistle to the Romans. Paul starts out by stating he did not believe in a miraculous virgin birth, (Romans 1:3)."his son, descended from David according to the flesh"). Paul was a maverick. he basically operated on his own, assuming he possessed the truth. Saul of Tarsus, with no compunction at all, changed the original message of Yeshua ben Joseph, in order to market it. It is also possible that he was a Roman "mole", sent to stir up dissension in the Way sect, of Judaism, from the inside. If so, he certainly succeeded. I"ll leave that to others.

So to sum up :

The ancient myths do not, in any way support the claims of Paul, and Augustine, ("original sin")..it's not what it's about, and any cultural historian knows that, and certainly not about Paul's invention, ..the salvation paradigm. The Torah and Talmudic scholars, who are THE most expert on their own texts do not need "salvation", in the Pauline sense.

Essentially, the need for salvation is a cognitive requirement, and an Argument from Ignorance, to attempt an external mechanistic explanation for why human moral evil exists, and Neuroscience and the rest of science, has now provided us with very good answers to that, and progress no longer requires an appeal to ancient mythological systems.

Yeshua ben Joseph did not preach the salvation paradigm, indeed told the young man to follow the Jewish law, and if he wished to be perfect, not to accumulate wealth..(why bother if the end times were immanent).

A "perfect" ancient deity who was cooked up to help one tiny specific local group in their local battles, who supposedly requires human sacrifices, before he will say "it's ok, I forgive you", is no role model for my little brother.

A being who is immutable, and eternal, but changes, (thereby refuting it's own definition), and can even imagine "change", (after the death of someone as appeasement to itself),as part of it's existence, who supposedly exists in a non-temporal dimension is too ridiculous to even consider.

Apart from all of the above is the entire question of "what" exactly is being "saved" anyway. By this I mean, that in 21st Century Christian Theology, it is assumed we're talking about a "soul", and on TOP of that, an "immortal" soul. That notion was NOT, (I repeat) NOT present as apart of the thought system of the human beings who wrote the Bible texts. We KNOW when, and why the concept developed, and how it changed. We also know how it changed at history passed through the epoch during which what is today called "Christianity" developed. This is another HUGE complex topic, and is another subject on it's own. I am addressing this in a thread called "Who was Saint Paul", and eventually will be broken out on it's own.

So relax. No need to run out and buy you some salvation. Nothing, and no one. can "save" us from the Human Condition.

[Szuchow]

But you can't compare Odin and Thor with the God of the Bible...those are other "gods" that are not alive, they are dead gods.

Dead? Can you provide some evidence that makes you think so? Apart from you being indoctrinated which  I hope you realize isn't evidence.

Is Thor 3 times holy like God in the Bible, and for living creaturs covered with eyes who day and night shout saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come..." are they like that? I don't think so...

You don't appear to be thinking much at all to be frank, which would explain constant deluge of meaningless quotations from book of fairy tales.

[TheGentlemanBastard]

You say "no one dead has ever returned to life"...well it has, haven't you read the Bible, when Jesus prayed for a dead girl, saying “Little girl, I say to you, get up" and the girl has returned to life, and for Lazarus, when He said "Lazarus, come out!", and the dead man was resurrected. Or when Jesus Himself, the Son of God, was resurected from death by God, at the third day, that's in the creed of christianity to this day.
But that is of course, if you believe the Bible, if you don't, I don't know what to say to you...

If you will read The Lord of the Rings then you will know that Gandalf returned to life. If you don't believe it then I don't know what to say to you...

Well again, I contradict you...there wouldn't be any day when "the human will transcent biology", because in the Bible it says that every man will die, then will come the judgement. They were only two men who did not die in history of humanity, those were Enoch and Elijah, who did not die, because they were raised to heaven by God.

Judgment? Poetic Edda says that Odin will be slain by Fenrir, Thor will kill Jormungandr yet will succumb to his poison and world will be reborn from destruction. So you have any reason to buy into christian mythology besides indoctrination?

But you can't compare Odin and Thor with the God of the Bible...those are other "gods" that are not alive, they are dead gods.
Is Thor 3 times holy like God in the Bible, and for living creaturs covered with eyes who day and night shout saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come..." are they like that? I don't think so...

You're not content with just drinking the Kool-Aid, are you?!? You have to dive right in, swim around, then try to drown yourself with the stuff.

Try reading a science book, kid. There's more to the world than any iron age book of legends, myths, and tall tales can ever figure out.

[Minimalist]

In Sumerian mythology Inanna dies and is "resurrected' .... coincidentally in 3 days.

The oldest known example of the "dying god rising myth" is the Sumerian myth of Inanna's Descent to the Underworld . The Sumerian goddess Inanna travels to the Underworld to see her sister Ereshkigal. While there, she is "struck down" and turns into a corpse. For three days and three nights, Inanna is dead, until she is resurrected with the help of her father, Enki, who sends the two galla to bring her back. The galla serve Inanna food and water and bring her back to life.

I guess early Christians mythologized their hero to compete with other wonder cults.  Good advertising for the underlying message or something.

There were dying and resurrected gods all over the Mediterranean world.  These people were certainly not original.

[Cavebear]

I love the most crazed theists sometimes. An endless source of amazement at the blind unthinking side of humankind. Sometimes, I wonder how they survive in a modern world that mostly depends on scientific thought (and scientific thought applies to social sciences, not just physics).

I wonder in this newest nutcase understands how much he owes to science rather than religion, in general. Solid shelter, a steady supply of nutritious food, medicine, transportation, etc.

In older times, pre-science, he might very likely have died by 30 in pain and misery. I myself, would likely to have been dead by 20. I had a serious hernia as a child, actually infected tonsils at 6, and appendicitis at 18. I am alive at 71 because of medical science 50+ years ago.

I would suggest nutcase read about evolution, but I doubt he could understand the concepts. He probably thinks dinosaurs and humans (created from dirt) lived at the same time. And the dinosaurs weren't ark-able (WAY too big). And I assume that the dinosaurs were made from dirt, too. Well, maybe that explains the oceans. It must have taken a LOT of dirt to make all those dinosaurs so of course there were low spots where water collected.

All kidding aside, I understand that nut-theists want to convince the world of the truth of their superstitions, but do they have to do it HERE? I come here to escape those morons. It's not like I go bother them! We should get the same respect.

[Bucky Ball]

BTW, the "virgin birth" *claim* in the gospel (Matthew) was a mistranslation of the Hebrew, and one of the errors in the New Testament.

a. Background :
Isaiah 7 talks about the history of King Ahaz, son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, who was king of Judah. At the time, King Rezin of Aram and Pekah, son of Remaliah, King of Israel, marched up to fight against Jerusalem, and the campaign was long and protracted. See the Syro-Ephraimite War, (Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syro-Ephraimite_War ), and it happened in the 8th Century (734) BC. When Ahaz was loosing faith, Isaiah went to visit him, and told him to "buck up", keep the faith, and continue the war, and told him that the SIGN from god, that they were favored, was that one of his wives, (a "woman of marriageable age") would be found to be with child. The SIGN was the CHILD, (and NOT the manner of the birth). ...."And they shall name him Emmanuel" which means "god is with us". The CHILD was the SIGN.

Any devout Jew in the time of the Roman occupation, (around 60 AD), would know that story, from Isaiah, and when they heard the words "a woman, (of marriageable age) will be found to be with child" they would connect the stories in their brains, and recognize that the gospel text's intention was to remind them of the Isaiah story, and would "harken" back to it, and realize the intent of the author was to claim that THIS child also was a sign. The general intent of the Gospel of Matthew was to claim the fulfillment of the various prophesies regarding the messiah, and this one was another one of those claims/stories of fulfillment.

b. The word "virgin" is a mistranslation, of a translation. So WE have a translation, of a mis-translation, of a translation. Matthew, writing in Greek about the "virgin birth" of Jesus, quotes the Septuagint text of Isaiah 7:14-16, which uses the Greek word "παρθένος" (parthenos,), (we still use the term "parthenogenesis") while the original Hebrew text has "עלמה" (almah), which has the slightly wider meaning of an unmarried, betrothed，or newly wed woman such as in the case of Ahaz' betrothed Abijah, daughter of Zechariah. He NEVER meant to imply that he was asserting "gynecological" claims, and THAT whole business was "off-the-wall", a mistranslation, taken to ridiculous extremes, by interpreters who missed the point. THE CHILD was the sign.

Also interesting that Matthew (1:25) only says that Joseph "knew her not till she brought forth her firstborn son". It does NOT say she REMAINED a virgin. (??)

See also : Mother Goddess, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_goddess ) and Joseph Campbell, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess ) and Courtly Love, ( http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl513...ourtly.htm ). The business of Mary, and her idealized state, was extremely important in the civilization/culture of the West, and in some circles remains very important today, (Lourdes & claims of "Marian" apparitions" etc., etc.)

[Dancefortwo]

But you can't compare Odin and Thor with the God of the Bible...those are other "gods" that are not alive, they are dead gods.

Dead? Can you provide some evidence that makes you think so? Apart from you being indoctrinated which  I hope you realize isn't evidence.

Is Thor 3 times holy like God in the Bible, and for living creaturs covered with eyes who day and night shout saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was, and is, and is to come..." are they like that? I don't think so...

You don't appear to be thinking much at all to be frank, which would explain constant deluge of meaningless quotations from book of fairy tales.

  Can you provide some evidence that makes you think so? Apart from you being indoctrinated which  I hope you realize isn't evidence.

Ah, there's the rub.  AlinC thinks that strong faith and belief is evidence and can't seem to understand that it isn't.  It's like talking to a wall.