Intro and 7 Wonders of Jewish History

[Get_to_the_Truth]

Hello again, this is GttT with the 7 Wonders of Jewish History (Henceforth 7WoJH). (You can skip this intro if you need). Sorry for the delay.

In order to avoid us misunderstanding each other, avoid discussions that go off on tangents, and becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity) I will lay down some parameters of discussion. Im not really sure how much this is needed tbh, as this is my first work post here. So if Im stepping over the line and you know all this, or I wrote to much, just lmk.

Please stick to rebuttals on the topic, while there is a lot on religion to discuss, its most productive if we go one topic at a time.

First off, I do agree with the basic premise of Athiesm, which is that things are unproven, generally assumed untrue until proven true. This is because there are so many more ways the reality doesnt work, than ways it does. So if you want to posit xyz is how reality works, prove it. Next, I am not looking to be 100% sure of anything, only up until an unreasonable doubt. This is a bit of a subjective measurement, but even so, sometimes its more obvious than others, and I will do my best to be as objective as I can. In my words, if Im 80% or 90% sure of something, thats enough.

 Second, No ad hominim attacks please, or on Religious Jews (such as, 'but Jewish schools dont teach evolution, so they dont know anything!').  You may be right, you may be wrong, but either has no bearing on if Judiasm is true. No ad hominim attacks on the Torah either please (such as 'its sexist'). Again, wether right or wrong, how appealing you think it is has no bearing on how true it is. In general, I hope Im preaching to the choir (heh) here, but it is intellectual responses that prove something right or wrong, not emotional ones. 

Third, No rebuttals from bible criticism that axiomatically assume the Torah is manmade. (such as, but 'we know it wasnt written by God, since we know the Torah is manmade'. Or 'yeah but judiasm isnt true, cause the jews got their idea of God from the babylonians'). No, we dont know those, much of that field and their conclusions is based on archeology, which is far from a hard science. To be clear about what I mean, I am willing to consider that the Torah is manmade of course, and willing to accept historical events rebuttal, from bible criticism. But to say something like 'we know that the jews got their God from the neighboring tribes, cause obviously they didnt get it from God 'Himself' ', and then later say 'See, we know the Torah isnt true because they got it from the Neighboring tribes' is circular reasoning.

I dont think it makes no sense for the Torah to be true if it describes God doing things the break the laws of nature. If God does exist and made the universe, of course 'He' could play with its laws. 
Also, no dogmatic axiom that materialism is true. To get to the Truth (heh), you have to be at least willing to consider that God and spirituality exist.
Rebuttals that destroy the Christian position on a matter don't necessarily mean that matter is wrong; Christianity and its views do not represent Judaism. 
Honestly, even if they look similar on the surface, Judaism really is pretty different.


Naturally Contradictory: Where one phenomena makes it naturally less likely the other will occur. Not impossible, and if it does happen, it will happen through natural means. But it is a lot less likely an outcome because of the first phenomena. (I.e. Being severely dehydrated is naturally contradictory to winning a footrace. It can happen, and if it does, it will happen through natural means (aka, you literally just ran faster), but still winning that race is a lot less likely when one is severely dehydrated.)

Naturally Unlikely is just what it sounds like, and outcome you would not expect, or one that is unlikely in a natural world. Again, It can happen, and if it does, it will happen through natural means, but its unlikely. (i.e. In general, smaller people are naturally unlikely to win fights.) Often, a naturally contradicting phenomena can make an unlikely event even more unlikely. (i.e. being severely dehydrated makes it even less likely a small person will win a fight.)


NOW THE PROOF. YOU CAN SKIP TO HERE IF THE ABOVE IS UNNECESSARY TO SAY.


The basic structure of this proof is that the Torah predicted these highly unlikely often naturally contradictory phenomena to happen to the jewish people across history, and they did. Additionally the prophecy itself is (often) suprising and unlikely if it was in a manmade religion. 
The predictions were made at a minimum of 2500 years ago, before any of these events take place.
Enough of this, and the unlikelyness builds to where it makes no sense that it would naturally occur in an unguided materialistic world, and really only makes sense if the same entity that wrote those predictions could also control history. aka God.

Some of these phenomena have happened to other nations/cultures as well (I.e. The Hellenistic Greeks had a similar cultural/educational impact on the world,) but all 7 happened to the jews. The difference between one (or even 2) unlikely phenomena happening to you, even ones that you guessed/predicted right, and 7 is a vast gulf in unlikeliness. So it isnt just about one or 2 wonders, but all of them happening as a whole. Especially when you add them together and many naturally contradict each other, yet they all still happened.


Im going to skip to the 2nd wonder here actually (which is more like 2 itself tbh, but it was been combined into one bigger one). Also I am trying to make the post as short as possible, so i may need to go back and add details later.

Exile/Scattering/Wandering. 
The Scattering of the Jews happened to a pretty high degree, and is pretty unlikely I think. In the initial diaspora of the 2nd temple, the jews were scattered (after and during the exile itself) to almost all of the (then) civilized world; all over the roman empire, to places in Mesopotamia, and upper africa. In the medieval peroid ish to almost all of Europe, the Muslim world, and a few more parts of Africa. In more modern times, North America, South America, more parts of asia, and Australia. 
The Jews have also been kept wandering; tons of expulsions from places they were living, then later coming back when reinvited. Persecution have driven tons of jews to move, large migrations to lands of more opportunity. The Jews have been kept on the move a ton. (On a national scale. For a person, to live in one place for 100 years is pretty sedentary, but on a national scale, a community that only exists 100 years in one place before it must pick itself up and move again is pretty mobile.)
The exile is also rare. Exile less so than Scaterring and Wandering to the extreme degree as the Jews have done, but still not that common. Usually the native population is killed, subjugated and brought into the empire, or restricted to one corner of their lands. and the jews were exiled 1.5 times (the .5 is the 2nd temple exile; only a half, cause only half of the jewish nation was there to be specifically exiled.), which is even rarer.
All of these are pretty rare (and therefore naturally unlikely) to happen to a nation, especially all 3. And yet they were predicted in the Torah, and in fact happened.
As well as I would think the prophecy itself is a little unlikely to happen/me made, if one is manufacturing a religion.

[Get_to_the_Truth]

Ok, finally i did it. If you want you can skip the intro, straight to the all caps line. 
I may have make a typo here and there.

Ill reply to the replies after shabbos.

[Inkubus]

...In order to avoid us misunderstanding each other, avoid discussions that go off on tangents, and becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity) I will lay down some parameters of discussion.

Oh no you won't!

You posted this thread in an open discussion forum and you will abide by forum rules as do we all. You don't make up your own.

[Inkubus]

Place your bets please.

I'll wager five internets that's from Here.

[Dom]

Hello again, this is GttT with the 7 Wonders of Jewish History (Henceforth 7WoJH). (You can skip this intro if you need). Sorry for the delay.

In order to avoid us misunderstanding each other, avoid discussions that go off on tangents, and becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity) I will lay down some parameters of discussion.

Oh no you won't!

You posted this thread in an open discussion forum and you will abide by forum rules as do we all. You don't make up your own.

I am in favor of no ad hominems here, instead cogent, non combative answers.

He is not here for combat, he is here because he is trying to understand what atheists object to, and open to de-conversion.

I have been repeatedly pissed off over the years when we drove people looking for answers back into the faiths by just attacking them personally.

We are here to HELP people deconvert, if they are open and thinking about things.

He simply wants to know why we think of the above things the way we do. Let's tell him without shooting the enquirer. Please.

[Inkubus]

We'll see.

[Szuchow]

You don't get to dictate how others can respond to your posts.

Also till you provide evidence for existence of your tribal deity then I see absolutely no reason to assume that some particular "holy" book is anything other than man-made.

[Dancefortwo]

There's zero proof that the exodus happened.  It's a myth.   Moses did not write the first five books of the Torah, Judean priests did.   Moses is a mythical character.  Archaeologists found that whoever wrote the first five books has the kings of Edom in the wrong order and they were not "kings" but generals of a city-state sort of an affair.

Archaeology also found that Joshua and Walls of Jericho tumbling down is a myth.   It didn't happen. 

YAWH was originally a Canaanite deity, one of about 200 gods.  He was a war and mountain-wind god and archaeologists suspect he was also worshipped by the Canaanites in the mines of Timna as a god of mettalurgy similar to the Greek god, Hephaestus.   After the Canaanites moved out of the area ancient Hebrew tribes adopted YHWH into their culture as their mountain deity.  There's a reason mythical Moses goes up a mountain to get the 10 commandments.

Solomon may have existed but his role was highly exaggerated in the Bible.  Archaeologists may have found his famous horse stables which the Bible claims held something like 40 thousand chariot horses but what they found held only about 50 horses.  

The Bible is embellished storytelling and family lore.  Every culture has a book of prophecy or storytelling that claims it predicts the future.  The Chinese have a book that they claim predicted WW I and II.   The Greeks used the Oracle at Delphi to predict the future and it worked very well for them because they could interpret the oracles to fit the prediction however they wanted.  People do the same thing with the Bible.  It's all a bunch of confirmation bias mixed in with a large dollup of hooey. 

So there.

[Dom]

You don't get to dictate how others can respond to your posts.

Also till you provide evidence for existence of your tribal deity then I see absolutely no reason to assume that some particular "holy" book is anything other than man-made.

Please help him understand what you see wrong with his wonders. He wants to know. He may agree with you. He has an open mind.

[airportkid]

... To get to the truth, you have to be at least willing to consider that God and spirituality exist ...

If the terms "God" and "spirituality" are defined such that they can be falsified, perhaps.  Otherwise, no.

[Dom]

We'll see.

Jews don't proselytize. He is not one of our preachers.

[Szuchow]

You don't get to dictate how others can respond to your posts.

Also till you provide evidence for existence of your tribal deity then I see absolutely no reason to assume that some particular "holy" book is anything other than man-made.

Please help him understand what you see wrong with his wonders. He wants to know. He may agree with you. He has an open mind.

Believing in tribal fairy tales does not make one open-minded. He is merely indoctrinated.

[Dom]

You don't get to dictate how others can respond to your posts.

Also till you provide evidence for existence of your tribal deity then I see absolutely no reason to assume that some particular "holy" book is anything other than man-made.

Please help him understand what you see wrong with his wonders. He wants to know. He may agree with you. He has an open mind.

Believing in tribal fairy tales does not make one open-minded. He is merely indoctrinated.

and reaching out. Lend a hand.

[Szuchow]

Please help him understand what you see wrong with his wonders. He wants to know. He may agree with you. He has an open mind.

Believing in tribal fairy tales does not make one open-minded. He is merely indoctrinated.

and reaching out. Lend a hand.

Reaching out? Spouting bullshit is far more accurate summation.

[airportkid]

... Naturally Unlikely is just what it sounds like, and outcome you would not expect, or one that is unlikely in a natural world ...

None of us is qualified to make that determination generally, and few of us are qualified to make that determination even limited within a field of detailed study.  Our greatest mistake in evaluating our experiences is assuming our own personal fund of knowledge is sufficient.  Ignorant declaration of what can or cannot happen is the bane of religion, and the boon of casinos.

[Aliza]

Have I ever proselytized to anyone here?

[Szuchow]

Have I ever proselytized to anyone here?

Irrelevant. OP is not you and you aren't representative of all Jews.

[abaris]

Irrelevant. OP is not you and you aren't representative of all Jews.

Jews in general don't proselytize. That's simply how it works.

[Szuchow]

Irrelevant. OP is not you and you aren't representative of all Jews.

Jews in general don't proselytize. That's simply how it works.

So perhaps op is an exception.

[abaris]

So perhaps op is an exception.

Yeah, and maybe he's a Marsian. Have you thought about that? Or might it be possible that he really just wants to discuss and seek an outside view?

[Inkubus]

Or perhaps he be ...

[Aliza]

Have I ever proselytized to anyone here?

Irrelevant. OP is not you and you aren't representative of all Jews.

I'll give you that I'm not representative of all Jews. It's just that Jews, as a rule of thumb, do not proselytize. I didn't pick up notes of proselytization in the OP, nor did I pick up intent to proselyte in GttT's intro thread. 

So just looking at the evidence in hand, I don't think we have strong enough reason to conclude that GttT is here to proselytize.

[Szuchow]

So perhaps op is an exception.

Yeah, and maybe he's a Marsian. Have you thought about that? Or might it be possible that he really just wants to discuss and seek an outside view?

Or it might be that he is just another peddler of religious bullshit deserving no more attention and respect than previous one or next one. What is there to discuss with a guy who is merely willing to consider that his tribal holy book could be man-made? It's on him to prove that there is even a shred of possibility of his holy book not being work of men.

[Bucky Ball]

Hello again, this is GttT with the 7 Wonders of Jewish History (Henceforth 7WoJH). (You can skip this intro if you need). Sorry for the delay.

In order to avoid us misunderstanding each other, avoid discussions that go off on tangents, and becuase there may be confusion as most of you are coming from Christian backrounds (Judaism =/= Christianity) I will lay down some parameters of discussion. Im not really sure how much this is needed tbh, as this is my first work post here. So if Im stepping over the line and you know all this, or I wrote to much, just lmk.

Please stick to rebuttals on the topic, while there is a lot on religion to discuss, its most productive if we go one topic at a time.

First off, I do agree with the basic premise of Athiesm, which is that things are unproven, generally assumed untrue until proven true. This is because there are so many more ways the reality doesnt work, than ways it does. So if you want to posit xyz is how reality works, prove it. Next, I am not looking to be 100% sure of anything, only up until an unreasonable doubt. This is a bit of a subjective measurement, but even so, sometimes its more obvious than others, and I will do my best to be as objective as I can. In my words, if Im 80% or 90% sure of something, thats enough.

 Second, No ad hominim attacks please, or on Religious Jews (such as, 'but Jewish schools dont teach evolution, so they dont know anything!').  You may be right, you may be wrong, but either has no bearing on if Judiasm is true. No ad hominim attacks on the Torah either please (such as 'its sexist'). Again, wether right or wrong, how appealing you think it is has no bearing on how true it is. In general, I hope Im preaching to the choir (heh) here, but it is intellectual responses that prove something right or wrong, not emotional ones. 

Third, No rebuttals from bible criticism that axiomatically assume the Torah is manmade. (such as, but 'we know it wasnt written by God, since we know the Torah is manmade'. Or 'yeah but judiasm isnt true, cause the jews got their idea of God from the babylonians'). No, we dont know those, much of that field and their conclusions is based on archeology, which is far from a hard science. To be clear about what I mean, I am willing to consider that the Torah is manmade of course, and willing to accept historical events rebuttal, from bible criticism. But to say something like 'we know that the jews got their God from the neighboring tribes, cause obviously they didnt get it from God 'Himself' ', and then later say 'See, we know the Torah isnt true because they got it from the Neighboring tribes' is circular reasoning.

I dont think it makes no sense for the Torah to be true if it describes God doing things the break the laws of nature. If God does exist and made the universe, of course 'He' could play with its laws. 
Also, no dogmatic axiom that materialism is true. To get to the Truth (heh), you have to be at least willing to consider that God and spirituality exist.
Rebuttals that destroy the Christian position on a matter don't necessarily mean that matter is wrong; Christianity and its views do not represent Judaism. 
Honestly, even if they look similar on the surface, Judaism really is pretty different.


Naturally Contradictory: Where one phenomena makes it naturally less likely the other will occur. Not impossible, and if it does happen, it will happen through natural means. But it is a lot less likely an outcome because of the first phenomena. (I.e. Being severely dehydrated is naturally contradictory to winning a footrace. It can happen, and if it does, it will happen through natural means (aka, you literally just ran faster), but still winning that race is a lot less likely when one is severely dehydrated.)

Naturally Unlikely is just what it sounds like, and outcome you would not expect, or one that is unlikely in a natural world. Again, It can happen, and if it does, it will happen through natural means, but its unlikely. (i.e. In general, smaller people are naturally unlikely to win fights.) Often, a naturally contradicting phenomena can make an unlikely event even more unlikely. (i.e. being severely dehydrated makes it even less likely a small person will win a fight.)


NOW THE PROOF. YOU CAN SKIP TO HERE IF THE ABOVE IS UNNECESSARY TO SAY.


The basic structure of this proof is that the Torah predicted these highly unlikely often naturally contradictory phenomena to happen to the jewish people across history, and they did. Additionally the prophecy itself is (often) suprising and unlikely if it was in a manmade religion. 
The predictions were made at a minimum of 2500 years ago, before any of these events take place.
Enough of this, and the unlikelyness builds to where it makes no sense that it would naturally occur in an unguided materialistic world, and really only makes sense if the same entity that wrote those predictions could also control history. aka God.

Some of these phenomena have happened to other nations/cultures as well (I.e. The Hellenistic Greeks had a similar cultural/educational impact on the world,) but all 7 happened to the jews. The difference between one (or even 2) unlikely phenomena happening to you, even ones that you guessed/predicted right, and 7 is a vast gulf in unlikeliness. So it isnt just about one or 2 wonders, but all of them happening as a whole. Especially when you add them together and many naturally contradict each other, yet they all still happened.


Im going to skip to the 2nd wonder here actually (which is more like 2 itself tbh, but it was been combined into one bigger one). Also I am trying to make the post as short as possible, so i may need to go back and add details later.

Exile/Scattering/Wandering. 
The Scattering of the Jews happened to a pretty high degree, and is pretty unlikely I think. In the initial diaspora of the 2nd temple, the jews were scattered (after and during the exile itself) to almost all of the (then) civilized world; all over the roman empire, to places in Mesopotamia, and upper africa. In the medieval peroid ish to almost all of Europe, the Muslim world, and a few more parts of Africa. In more modern times, North America, South America, more parts of asia, and Australia. 
The Jews have also been kept wandering; tons of expulsions from places they were living, then later coming back when reinvited. Persecution have driven tons of jews to move, large migrations to lands of more opportunity. The Jews have been kept on the move a ton. (On a national scale. For a person, to live in one place for 100 years is pretty sedentary, but on a national scale, a community that only exists 100 years in one place before it must pick itself up and move again is pretty mobile.)
The exile is also rare. Exile less so than Scaterring and Wandering to the extreme degree as the Jews have done, but still not that common. Usually the native population is killed, subjugated and brought into the empire, or restricted to one corner of their lands. and the jews were exiled 1.5 times (the .5 is the 2nd temple exile; only a half, cause only half of the jewish nation was there to be specifically exiled.), which is even rarer.
All of these are pretty rare (and therefore naturally unlikely) to happen to a nation, especially all 3. And yet they were predicted in the Torah, and in fact happened.
As well as I would think the prophecy itself is a little unlikely to happen/me made, if one is manufacturing a religion.

TL;DR
You don't get to set ANY rules for any discussion here.
It's all a pile of hogwash, coming under the title *Confirmation Bias*.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

The premise of this entire pile of crap is false.
*If a series of events is unlikely, then the series of events prove something*.
That is logically false. EDIT: It's also mathematically and probablistically false :
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/precalc...robability
Thus the entire foundational premise of the 7 Wonders, is false.

As a scholar of the period, I will decide which topic I will respond to, and how.
So far, there is not one topic in the "seven wonders" nonsense that has not been historically debunked, and easily refuted.
All this demonstrates is that Can't-Get-To-The-Truth-This- Way, basically has no education in either History or Biblical Studies.

Oh, and BTW, you're 100 % wrong about Archaeology.
"Archaeology is based on facts. Often these facts end up extrapolated into theories. The basic techniques of archaeology are essentially logic and hard science based. Thanks for demonstrating you also know nothing about Archaeology, and wish to dismiss it. It is hard science. For example, the Exodus. At the time, we know FOR A FACT, that Egypt controlled the entire ancient Near East. There were Egyptian garrisons in what became Israel. It would make no sense for wandering Semites, (and actually we know from Archaeology that there were already Semitic settlements in what would become Israel), ... why would wandering Semites go from one place Egypt controlled, militarily, to another place they controlled militarily ? Yeah it's all bullshit.

We also know when the Torah of Moses (the first 4 books of the Bible) first appeared in human history.
Ezra brought back with him from Babylon two things.
1. The decree from Artaxerxes saying that the man he picked could rule in his name as king.
2. The Torah of Moses, until then, never once known of or mentioned in human history, .. that same Torah the Judaic priests assembled and invented in Babylon, with all its Babylonian references, borrowed concepts and Babylonian ideas.
(If you doubt that, see famous Jewish Philosopher and scholar, Martin Buber's book, "Good and Evil".)
This introduction in a Fall festival as described in the Book of Nehemiah, by Ezra, is the first time any human says anything about the Torah of Moses. They invented it from various sources, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis as anyone who has actually studied the subject knows well.

[Dancefortwo]

Irrelevant. OP is not you and you aren't representative of all Jews.

Jews in general don't proselytize. That's simply how it works.

That's one of the things I admire about the Jews.  They don't threaten to lop off people's heads as the Muslims do or threaten people with eternal torture.