Wednesday, July 22, 2009

More JP Lunacy

I think that JP is going through a crisis of faith. There is no other explanation for the increasingly desperate and absurd arguments he is making for proving the truth of the Torah.

The first error in his post is the obvious logical non-sequitur:

1. Some historical documents are accurate.
2. The Torah is a historical document.
3. Therefore the Torah is accurate.

This absurdity would dictate that we accept as truth any faith's claims, including the the Native American Abenaki creation story of the earth's land mass being formed from a big turtle.

Furthermore, as some have said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The Torah makes quite a few extraordinary claims.

An excellent article on the Da'at Emet site summarizes very nicely the archeological evidence for the dating of the Torah. The author notes:

"To determine the date when the Torah was written, a working research hypothesis must rest on a coordination of what was told with the findings. The likelihood is that the author knew his own period, but not the distant past nor the future. Thus, for example, when one wants to determine the date of the book of Daniel, one follows the story to see up until which point it matches historical fact and when it stops. At the transition is when the time of authorship is set. "

Based on the biblical inaccuracies, anachronisms, and contradictions, historians place the authorship around the 7th century BCE. Events recorded from that period and beyond more or less correspond to history as we know it.

5 comments:

Holy Hyrax said...

I think you are wasting your time

Shalmo said...

DrJ I stopp discussing when the argument goes in circles, so I won't bother with the previous posts.

But I am still waiting to be given a reason for Orthopraxy as a replacement for Orthodoxy. Why do you remain in the Orthodox world if you believe its all a lie.

You told me I should have stuck with humanistic judaism as an alternative. Well then why don't you follow that branch yourself?

This is the sad dilmena of atheism. Atheism does not give you community, culture and belonging which is why you still stick with the religious folk despite you rejecting what they believe.

Touche!

DrJ said...

"Why do you remain in the Orthodox world if you believe its all a lie."

In this world, as you know, "truth" and "falsehood" are relative and depend on your vantage point. Sadly, absolute "truth" is available to very few mortals...

HH- as far as wasting time, perhaps you're right, let's see if JP comes up with something new or juicy. Right now its the same old garbage.

To summarize orthodox as a "lie" oversimplifies a complex phenomenon which includes myths, traditions, hitory, wisdom, and some fantasy.

Because I wish to remain in my community and because I think the lifestyle is basically healthy for people, I choose to accept orthopraxy, as I would accept living in any culture I were part of, notwithstanding its "myths".

Some atheists would disagree with you about community. They claim to have it, although I can't say that I am familiar with it. I would say it would be similar to any secular person (atheist or not) who finds meaning and community in some cause or another.

OTD said...

Great stuff. Keep it up.

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