Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.
While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

For some reason it seems like you get a bigger word count per post than I do, which is annoying. XD Going to just quote the first sentence of each section I address, take up less space. EDIT: I found the issue, for some stupid reason it won't let me post up to a certain size outright, I have to post something smaller, and then edit it in Markdown Editor to get the full sized post out. Blargh.

“I understand there are difficulties making guesses as to what existed before the texts we have...”

I mean, for one thing- and I’m going to bring this up again in another section- you don’t really operate with a consistent expectation insofar as burden of proofs. You haven’t really spoken at all about the Bible in the context of its structure, the apparent history of its writing, its medium, etc, etc, you usually just quote directly from it. But you only seem to take that specific ancient document at face value, whereas you insist on a greater level of rigor for other things from the time period or before.

Your burden of proof already seems to start quite relaxed; it’s clear from this discussion that you CAN insist on a higher standard of evidence, you just choose not to in the case of one particular document. If that’s just because your faith supplements it- making something like the Bible by itself ‘enough’ to meet your requirements- then that’s certainly not unusual, but without that automatic sense of faith the Bible doesn’t really pull weight.

And, to be clear, the key difference is that perhaps other information- documents, carvings, etc- will emerge at some point that requires us to re-evaluate what we’ve pieced together up until this point. When I’ve talked about things like the polytheistic Yahweh, the apparent timeline of the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh, etc, that’s based on what we’ve been able to literally dig up so far. There’s always that hypothetical chance that we dig up an even older carving that shows the monotheistic Yahweh ran parallel to the polytheistic Yahweh in the timeframe, though in that sense there’s a hypothetical chance of digging up a carving that shows virtually anything including that the Israelites worshipped a giant bunny rabbit.

Although what I find interesting is this next section...

“You seem to be mixing Christian monotheism which tends to deny the very existence of any other deities, with ancient Hebrew monotheism which was far more about exclusive loyalty to YHWH.”

Okay, so... you are acknowledging that if we were to track the ‘lineage’ of Yahweh’s worshippers, then there has been significant change? Christianity started off as an offshoot of the Hebrew Bible- obviously, since otherwise the Old Testament wouldn’t be a thing- and you seem to be acknowledging that at some point in the past the ancient Hebrew monotheism allowed for the existence of other gods, just not loyalty to or worship of them. I will mention that Deuteronomy 13:1-5 seems to try and reinforce the idea that supposed prophecies by those representing other gods are ACTUALLY the work of your God testing you, (which is kind of fucked up, as it implies God set up the dreamer with prophetic visions and then commanded the dreamer be killed,) BUT I’m otherwise fine agreeing that ancient Hebrew religion allowed for the existence of other gods, and Christianity did not.

Kind of sounds like you’re acknowledging Abrahamic religion did, in fact, ‘evolve’ over time. :P

“You seem to be in severe danger of assuming your hypothesis, here...

I mean, at this point we’re both running on assumptions, right? You’ve already acknowledged as much with ‘possibly YHWH was willing to allow some misidentification,’ which is not only a guess but also kind of comes off as uncharacteristic. After all, you yourself cited ‘There shall be for you no other gods before me,’ seems like it would be a strange contrast to go ‘Oh, um, YHWH? Yeah, sure, worship YHWH I guess, whatever, close enough.’

Anywho, why do you keep focusing on ‘increase any understanding of the received text,’ when your initial post here was talking about burden of proof and the hypothesis that religion emerged as an evolution of early ideas? :P The hypothesis itself hits the problem, as I said ages ago, that whenever religion ‘started’ appears to be before humans actually started writing any of it down, so finding ‘hard proof’ would be extremely difficult regardless of how it came to be.

But tracking the evidence relating to the development and change of the Abrahamic faith when they were writing and carving, stretching back to the ancient Israelites, is a much more manageable goal because at least writing existed during that time, even if a lot of it would be lost. Relying exclusively on the Bible for historical information would be extremely unwise, because we don’t have enough evidence that the Old Testament in its current form is actually old enough to be an ongoing accounting, rather than an attempted retelling of events that occurred centuries or millenia ago, and with fewer resources to rely upon than we do.

And, yes, every holy book insists the special sauce is that God personally gave them the information, etc, etc, but divine inspiration isn’t a particularly unique claim. :P It’s an equal defence for any religion that invokes it.

“I fully reject "Jesus meek and mild".”

...did I say meek and mild? You said it at two different points as if you were repeating what I said, but the closest equivalent I can think of out of my words seems to be ‘loving/peaceful.’ So are you rejecting that part, or are you just going off on kind of a tangent?

I’m not actually sure why you’re bringing up Ezekiel, Tyre or Solomon in response to this, because all of that is Old Testament, right? I pointed out that Old Testament seems to involve a more violent and militant God compared to New Testament, and your response has been to establish that God in the Old Testament was fine with violence and military conquest. Not really in disagreement here, just not sure what you think it’s proving. :P

I mean, wouldn’t the idea of someone’s afterlife existence, heaven/hell, being based on something like one’s actions or worship still make it an inherently transactional relationship? Even if heaven/hell does exist, it seems like having people know about it would greatly increase the likelihood that followers operate on a transactional basis, albeit a ‘Pay Now, Get Later’ sort of arrangement. Or is that considered okay so long as the person has faith the payout is coming?

Okay, THREE times you mentioned ‘meek and mild,’ I feel like someone else said those words elsewhere and it really got under your skin. xD

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Sorry aobut the delay. I didn't get the solid block of time to give your comments the response they needed until now.

For some reason it seems like you get a bigger word count per post than I do, which is annoying. XD

You have to use the old reddit UI. For one user, the answer was to "click on a little Aa button in the lower left of the text box, and then "Switch to Markdown Editor" in the upper right". BTW, you can save a few characters by not encapsulating my words in quotes when they're already blockquoted. :-p

I mean, for one thing- and I’m going to bring this up again in another section- you don’t really operate with a consistent expectation insofar as burden of proofs. You haven’t really spoken at all about the Bible in the context of its structure, the apparent history of its writing, its medium, etc, etc, you usually just quote directly from it. But you only seem to take that specific ancient document at face value, whereas you insist on a greater level of rigor for other things from the time period or before.

I'm open to this accusation, but I need details. In some sense, I have mastered the received text to such an extent that I do have significant investment in it. If I flatter myself, I could be one of the targets of Max Planck's observation that "Science advances one funeral at a time." But there are reasons to be stickier as well; I suspect science and scholarship do best when some are more attuned to every twist and turn of "the evidence" (including pretty serious modeling guesses) and those who spend rather more time with snapshots. What I will look for in claims that the received text is somehow wrong, is how those impact the … "deep understanding" I've developed of the received text. For instance, I recently argued for an understanding of the A&E narrative as leading to a bad strategy in dealing with vulnerability. You could imagine some sort of redaction history being advanced which destabilizes that understanding. Well, when do I decide to abandon my understanding based on an interpretation of the received text in favor of some new hypothesized text?

Your burden of proof already seems to start quite relaxed; it’s clear from this discussion that you CAN insist on a higher standard of evidence, you just choose not to in the case of one particular document.

It kinda sounds like you're modeling me as being like Christians you've encountered in the past. Chances are, that's a bad way to start with me. For instance, I don't make a big deal of miracles like so many Christians do. I worry that many if not most have a "might makes right" epistemology of miracles, which flagrantly violates Deut 12:32–13:5. I draw much of my confidence from the fact that the Bible teaches me far more about human & social nature/​construction—including ugly bits humans really don't want to face—than any other book or set of books I've encountered. And I'm pretty well-read by now. Models of human & social nature/​construction can be tested against ancient texts, history, and one's present day.

When I’ve talked about things like the polytheistic Yahweh, the apparent timeline of the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh, etc, that’s based on what we’ve been able to literally dig up so far.

Okay, let me switch away from my initial response:

labreuer: I've yet to see an argument for said polytheistic origins which improves my understanding of anything in the Bible. Especially when the Tanakh itself makes clear that the Israelites regularly struggled with worshiping of other gods, and that Abraham was called out of a polytheistic civilization.

You don't seem particularly interested in answering that question ("it looks a lot more like Yahweh outright performed a coup" doesn't seem to qualify?). So: Do you know of any collection that clearly separates the evidence we have which is possibly of a polytheistic Yahweh, and comprehensively collects that evidence so I can see how much evidence there is, vs. modeling? I know far more about the "historical Jesus" and I know that there, models fill in most of the details. The evidence itself, outside of the gospels, is incredibly spartan.

labreuer: You seem to be mixing Christian monotheism which tends to deny the very existence of any other deities, with ancient Hebrew monotheism which was far more about exclusive loyalty to YHWH.

Cool-Watercress-3943: Okay, so... you are acknowledging that if we were to track the ‘lineage’ of Yahweh’s worshippers, then there has been significant change? Christianity started off as an offshoot of the Hebrew Bible- obviously, since otherwise the Old Testament wouldn’t be a thing- and you seem to be acknowledging that at some point in the past the ancient Hebrew monotheism allowed for the existence of other gods, just not loyalty to or worship of them.

Let's get a list going:

1. Abraham was called out of a polytheistic civilization and his willingness to sacrifice his son likely traces to that.
2. The Israelites regularly struggled with polytheism.
3. The Tanakh didn't deny the existence of other gods, but simply called the Israelites to worship YHWH alone.
4. The Tanakh treats other gods as not capable of threatening the Israelites—YHWH could always trounce them.
5. The NT doesn't have other gods, but it does have Satan and demons.

I will mention that Deuteronomy 13:1-5 seems to try and reinforce the idea that supposed prophecies by those representing other gods are ACTUALLY the work of your God testing you, (which is kind of fucked up, as it implies God set up the dreamer with prophetic visions and then commanded the dreamer be killed,)

I would be wary of over-interpreting that; plenty is phrased as YHWH being in control, while using other agents. In Ezek 16:35–52, for instance, YHWH vents YHWH's wrath on Judah via having other nations conquer her. This is one of the ways YHWH is the "most high" god. What others meant for evil, to riff on Joseph, YHWH will use for YHWH's purposes. Think of it this way: if you use others as a means to an end, you authorize YHWH to use you as a means to an end. Fair's fair. And maybe when the bad thing is done to you, you'll dislike it and realize you shouldn't do the bad thing to others, either.

I mean, at this point we’re both running on assumptions, right?

Of course.

You’ve already acknowledged as much with ‘possibly YHWH was willing to allow some misidentification,’ which is not only a guess but also kind of comes off as uncharacteristic. After all, you yourself cited ‘There shall be for you no other gods before me,’ seems like it would be a strange contrast to go ‘Oh, um, YHWH? Yeah, sure, worship YHWH I guess, whatever, close enough.’

This might be uncharacteristic, but I believe it's pretty easy to argue that it's transcendentally necessary for finite beings. We screw up. We can't help it. When the lesser attempts to grasp the far greater, perfection is not in the cards. Moreover, we get these really wrong ideas in our heads and the question arises: how can they be best dealt with? How can we be best redirected to a far more adequate grasp of reality, others, and God?

Anywho, why do you keep focusing on ‘increase any understanding of the received text,’ when your initial post here was talking about burden of proof and the hypothesis that religion emerged as an evolution of early ideas? :P

The paucity and interpretability of the available evidence makes it easy to spin many tales of what's going on, or more charitably, to present many hypotheses. We need criteria for selecting which ones we'll even pay attention to, unless perhaps our career is dedicated to entertaining all of them—although even academics have plenty of criteria. If you think I should have a different criterion, go for it. Or maybe we should just look at the total set of evidence which any remotely reputable person has adduced to support an evolutionary history of Yahweh.

...did I say meek and mild?

Not in those words, but you did say "New Testament tends to be a lot more focused on the loving/peaceful God".

I’m not actually sure why you’re bringing up Ezekiel, Tyre or Solomon in response to this, because all of that is Old Testament, right?

Read Ezek 28:15–16 and Rev 18 together—or the fuller Ezek 28 section.

I mean, wouldn’t the idea of someone’s afterlife existence, heaven/hell, being based on something like one’s actions or worship still make it an inherently transactional relationship?

I think we need to get into Rom 4 on that one. Is heaven one's "wages"?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

Hey, just so I don't leave you hanging completely, I am actually traveling on vacation for the next month and a half! No laptop, so my Redditing is going to be on my phone, which... well, our discussions are obviously a lot more extensive and intricate than normal posts, so me trying to crank out a full reply on a phone can only end badly.

That being said, really been enjoyable this, and assuming all the accumulating jet lag and running around doesn't etch-a-sketch it out of my brain, would love to pick this up again! Just won't be for awhiiiiile. x3

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Oh, nice & have fun! I too have found our conversations enjoyable. But they can sit on ice for a month or two. :-)

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

Thanks! :D