How so?
Itâs a misdirection, itâs a false representation. Also jokes ought to be shared after a fight is won. Not whilst one side has walled themselves in to avoid discussion.
Thereâs no wall. Historical research is not a closed system. There could be an archeological find tomorrow that opens up a whole new point of view like the Nag Hammadhi library and the Dead Sea Scrolls did in the last century.
Then too, minds were closed due to natural ignorance compounded by religious dogma, and modern materialism. There is spiritual revolution going on with people the recognizing the mystery of consciousness that unites all beings as One. In this non- dual vision, religion and science are completely compatible.
Show me where l cited dogma and made that dogma the thrust of my argument. That would be a circular argument. Iâm too self critical to permit myself such conceits.
My arguments are well honed. Read them, dissect them, sock it to me.
For the time being l will put it another way: Fast forward to the year 5000 CE.
It is established that England or what we now call The West European Continuation (former ⌠itâs all now submerged), was invaded by France at least once, some say that was the final invasion.
They were not âFrenchâ as we know it. It is well documented that they were Angevins from the Anjou region in France, They eventually shrank to become pure English as the Plantagenets and the Tudors emerged from thay lineage. It is clear from the Tudors they were an Anglican lineage, they founded the Anglican church and were possibly influenced by Hinduttva Nationalism, or maybe that emerged centuries later in immigrant populations. The Angevins etc are well documented and there are tryptiches and portraits in many museums that survived the Nuclear Meltdown of 2109 CE.
There is a minority opinion that, based on a fictitious Tapestry / Embroidery, that England was invaded by a dynasty called the Brittany People or âNormansâ, who, allegedly, Roman Catholic without Hindu or other influences.
There is no surviving evidence for this, if it ever happened, and itâs more likely that the Normans were a minor offshoot which evolved out of the Angevins, or maybe were a fictional branch named after a nobleman of the Angevin dynasty.
That is YOUR methodology for creating âYahwismâ, as an evolving monotheism that was preceded by Paganism and needed a frequent leg-up from Paganism for key concepts e.g. they narrowed deities to just 1 for convenience. Then they didnât know what to do next, but a trip to Persia soon fixed that - they came back to Canaan with a new idea: This One God is not just tribal, heâs UNIVERSAL.
Please sir, see how the only person making stuff up as they go along from scraps of history is your Yahwism Theorist. It becomes an academic offence when you ignore primary texts at will, because theyâre inconvenient. The Qurâan is a primary text from the end of the Dark Ages and holds valuable information on how Paganism was seen to relate to Monotheism. Whether either belief is genuine or false doesnât matter, the Qurâan provides an historical insight.
Which you totally ignore by telling me to put the book down (ref: âindoctrinationâ).
Nonsense!
It (the illustration) may be a âgeneralâ representation, but it certainly isnât a âfalseâ representation.
And even though I try to add a little bit of humor with it, it isnât nearly as funny as humans trying to visualize a Being (God) that, if real, is as far above humans in scope and consciousness as humans are above amoebas.
I appreciate your phantasy, although the reality is more covert and hard to distinguish.
I can probably be called a panentheist, which is slightly different, but along those lines.
My God never promised to behead people with frog legs. In fact he will not behead anyone to my knowledge. Heâll do far worse things for eternity but he wonât touch anyone as far as lâm aware. He will use the agency of âguardsâ to handle them as he is aloof. I shall now put you on ignore as my feeble mind needs to compensate for having answered you. Youâre the only person lâve put on ignore and itâs not for your drawing but for your lack of reasoning, a complete abandonment of intellect, in a place predicated on intellectual play.
Nice try, but ancient pre-history is something that archeology in the past wasnât able or willing to do, and even today, there are people that purposely deride new discoveries to protect the status quo. The more we âdigâ and discover, the clearer the picture will become. We already have so much evidence for what actually happened in what is now Palestine, that we can see that the Torah, ingenious as it was in giving Judah a founding narrative, is an anthology of sources, woven to present a battered people with a national identity.
I cannot say âNice tryâ to you as you have clearly not tried. You have not responded to what l have written.
If you had read what l wrote youâd answer according to that, and not put out statements already comprehensively gutted and rebutted by myself.
Yes l am aware of the drawings of Yahweh + daughters. Yes l am aware that you think Yahweh was a tribal Hebrew deity. Iâll tell you something beyond your comprehension: I was reading about this stuff way back in 1993. Not avidly, mind. But l was well aware of the Yahwist type views and even stuff youâre not aware of e.g. the Tribe of Benjamin had a wolf totem and they were nearly exterminated by other Tribes of Israel, not that itâs all that relevant but lâm aware of the tribalism, okay?
Yet l answered as l did because my intellect surrounds all that you and your friend felix wrote. This is not ego speaking, it is me saying: Read what l wrote. Please? Instead of rebutting for the sake of rebutting.
Iâm not telling you to put a book down or do anything. Iâm presented a theory that seems plausible to me based on archeological and critical analysis by peer reviewed academic historians. I havenât found your counter arguments persuasive. If I did, I suppose Iâd be a Muslim. Your last argument was a strawman.
The narrative you presented to the effect that throughout history God has sent prophets but the people have strayed into polytheism and idolatry again and again lines up pretty well with the narrative of the Christian Bible. And, the archeological and textual record will never be complete. So, historical research and argument can go on till the end of time.
Help me understand this if you would: As a fundamentalist Christian in my youth, I had to adhere to fundamentalist Christian dogma. How is it that you consider yourself an orthodox Muslim but deny that you are following Muslim dogma?
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I do not make straw man arguments. You are accusing me of indoctrination, that is what is meant by effectively telling me to put the book down. Try to think how l might have a point before calling out a logical fallacy otherwise your callouts go ignored and your entire footing fails.
What l am presenting is not merely that Monotheism degenerats into Polytheism but that is the core of it. I also presented reasons why it does so (materialism). I also showed how it does so e.g. Idol Intercessors and female daughters / wives (e.g. from female human babies being buried alive as attested in the Qurâan).
The shrine of the Kaâaba was originally built or at least worked on by Abraham (peace be upon him) and has a footprint he created there according to legend. The polytheists recognised Allah but accumulated deities around him.
This pattern is attested to also by the law of entropy. It never naturally works in the reverse direction, e.g. many deities to one.
Also this pattern rules out the need for the comic scene of a man in business suit clutching a briefcase, crossing your field of view in one direction, then disappearing, then re-appearing further in the distance crossing it in the opposite direction and on and on. Searching for new ideas to append to his tribal ug-mug me-invent-fire Monotheism. Like, oh, a bit of universal deity from the Persians. Oh a bit of i donât know what from the Indians. Why go to such lengths when the idea of basic monotheism unfolds naturally - e.g. One God, all powerful, universal, surrounding all creation. The only things that donât necessarily flow are resurrection etc. and bodily resurrection is a major idea inculcated in the Qurâan, in answer to Deists. The Qurâan clearly lays out the pattern of Deism as being what Monotheism devolved into via Polytheism. And it did not require travelling around to accomplish.
This is the MORE elegant explanation (compared to Yahwism), which doesnât make it true, sure. But what you have are scraps here and there, which arguably support what l wrote or what the Qurâan states e.g. that monotheism was the original position (recall: there are NO polytheist prophets, which you keep ignoring), and then sects formed, each group ârejoicing in what was with itâ = not debating it. This is the tribal deity stage not just the sectarian stage. Then materialism set in and people needed a personal deity they could reach out and touch as per Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus. Thatâs how polytheism formed. God was given daughters / wives e.g. via female baby sacrifice. These are the drawings of Yahwehâs daughters you cite.
So everything you say, already fits the Monotheism First pattern. And that Monotheism First pattern is long, long established. Your Monotheism Not First patttern, though it may cite ancient artefects, is only circa 19th Century.
You are therefore seen to be raising a frivolous suit. Frivolous in that itâs already explained by the Monotheism First theory, and the Monotheism First theory was longer established and youâve brought NOTHING new to upend that. Moreover, your artefects conclude nothing against the Monotheism First story. And finally, as l keep saying, it is unreasonable to require a person to travel hither and thither to piece your Yahwism together from disparate cultures.
The only basis for your Yahwism is: Human Civilisation expanded ever more rapidly during the 1st Millennium BCE and so many more cultures began communicating over greater distances, rather than being focused, say, in the fertile crescent. Now they were as far as Siberia, yet writing in Syriac, and as far as, say Ireland at the other extreme. And then Alexander Came along and conquered half of the arena and there was a great coming together of people, inc. Buddhists, Greek Pagans, Gnostics and Jews.
THAT is the key premise of Yahwism. The rest is wishful thinking and fragments of artefacts forced together to form the chimera of Yahwism, and thus you are raising a frivolous suit. THIS is my argument in a nutshell. Answer THAT please. And for a bonus, tell me what YHWH / Yahweh means. Google it if you must.
And kindly stop making the ad hominem that my arguments are flawed because l am Muslim, and thus l must surely be arguing based on Muslim dogma. Notihng of my arguments is circular reasoning / dogma.
When l say the Kaâaba was created by Abraham etc. what l mean is, that is what we believe and you have nothing to contradict it.
Also you have nothing to prove anyone taught Muhammad, which is what your Yahwism implies. It depends on Muhammad being coached, which the Qurâan denies too, as it was an ancient allegation.
You are just saying these things because they have to be true for Yahwism to be true. Begging the Question fallacy.
If itâs not the Begging the Question fallacy, then show me: who taught Muhammad. Bring me your fragments, my good man.
Iâll wait a bit for the fragments. A spindly deity served by spindly wives or something wontâ do (THAT was reconciled with Monotheism First theory long ago, if you scroll up several posts), l want the name of the guy that taught Muhammad.
Edited beyond recognition - no matter
Please admit your next argument will be ignoring my prior reasoning in at least two or three parameters.
EDIT: Do reply, but kindly stop ignoring what l wrote and trying to make it about me being somehow defective because l am of one religion. That is ad hominem. EVERYTHING you have presented of Yahwism, is swallowed up by the Monotheism First view seen in the Qurâan. It seems to me that you NEED to show the Yahwist Secret Agent (a Turk, likely, you know?) that taught Muhammad. Youâre good with these fragements and artefacts. Show me a fragment or artefect to explain Muhammad in the Yahwist scheme.
Reminder: Begging the Question = saying it is so, because it had to be so. Please sir, do not make this the basis of your next remark. Show me the Yahwists that taught Muhammad.
Listen, the attempts you make to present an equivalent have a flaw: The ancients didnât write history like we do today, and the example of Englandâs monarchy fails because we already have a broad historical record of what happened. Looking back to ancient times, the cuneiform clay tablets that we have do not give us as much historically as the thousands of books written about the recent past.
And yet, the cuneiform record does give us enough to realise that the political and religious situation in Canaan at the time when the Bible makes its claims was a different one, and the Bible exaggerates at best. It is very convenient in a narrative when a large people of twelve is reduced to two, Judah and Benjamin, and the others are assimilated into the Assyrien Empire, and the tribes will be recovered when the Messiah arrives to reinstate Israel.
It is convenient for modern generations (Jewish and Christian) to claim that this is what is happening today (although it isnât). Iâll give you an example of modern historical accounts:
" In the book of Samuel, we can reconstruct an older account of Davidâs life. It depicts him consolidating a kingdom in the South out of separate clans, regions, and towns under the banner of âthe House of Judah.â As a warlord, David secures the throne not by appealing to a national identity (even just a Judean one), but by greasing the palms of rival clans with spoils from his conquests.
In this early account, the place David chooses for Judahâs capital is not Jerusalem but Hebron, an ancient city situated directly at the center of the kingdom. David is remembered as the one who captured Jerusalem, which was strategically located on Judahâs northern frontier, and the legend of its conquest may reflect his historical achievement. However, this place would not become Judahâs capital until (much) later. It is not easy to say when the move from Hebron happened, but it may not have been until the final years of the Northern kingdom, in the late eighth century BCE.
Saul, too, is most probably a historical figure. He likely ruled over a region in Benjamin â a small strip of the hill country running between the North and the South where Jerusalem is located. Over time scribes connected Saul to Jonathan and expanded the traditions into a tale of Israelâs first monarch, which tells how Saul brought respite from the nationâs enemies but ultimately failed as a ruler and fell tragically in battle.
In a pivotal editorial move, one with profound political implications, scribes combined these separate stories, one about David in Judah and the other about Saul in Israel. In their new unified account, David mounts Saulâs throne, and when he does, he brings Judah with him, consolidating thereby the North and the South under one rule." (Bold by me)
Wright, Jacob L., Why the Bible Began: An Alternative History of Scripture and its Origins (p. 59). Cambridge University Press 2023. Kindle Edition.
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Please read what i wrote. Please see how l may have a point before raising your counter argument otherwise youâre just raising cavils.
I know the ancients didnât do history like we do today. And l know we have a broad historical record today. I was clearly speaking hypothetically about the year 5000 CE, not BCE, approx. 3000 years after a nuclear conflagaration destroyed civilisation as we know it and also at some point some vast tectonic shift accompanied by ice melting, caused almost the enitre UK to be submerged under water, and even âEnglandâ became a fanciful term, it was more likely to be called the semi-mythical land of the West European Continuation. It was to prove a point about scattered murky historical epochs and shaky conclusions drawn therefrom.
This is an analogy not a real situation, it is hypothetical. You are just raising cavils l think. You are deliberately dragging this out. I think itâs because you donât log on to the internet to be told youâre wrong. Understandable, but again: READ WHAT I WROTE
wOOSH. Nothing to do with Monotheism First. At all.
And l know the Bible was mostly tribal jabberwocky. Anybody can knock the Bible down. Doesnât make the theory you propose correct.
Sorry for getting heated just now but this is just you and felix ignoring what lâve written.
As for the wheeled throne of YHWH copied from Sumeria / Babylonia etc, please will you watch the video from the point indicated in th URL, it goes some way to explaining how some symbols are universal, everyone saw them in the sky. Apologies for breaking my usual rule about Video Slinging, but you do need to see this:
Is it truly a âphantasyâ to imagine (as is suggested in the illustration) that the truth of what you referred to as being the âdivine consciousness,â in whom ââŚwe live and move and have our beingâŚâ is that it (the âdivine consciousnessâ) is simply the fully-matured (fully-fruitioned) âadultâ version of what we are? - which is what the last part of the Biblical quote you left offâŚ
ââŚFor we are also his offspringâŚâ
âŚclearly implies?
How much more ânaturalâ and âorganicâ can the truth of reality be than that of the living Creator of this universe being âpregnantâ with us, with the universe simply being her (his/its) âcosmic wombâ?
So, yes, youâre right about it being ââŚhard to distinguishâŚ,â but only in the same sense that it was hard to distinguish what awaited us while we momentarily existed within our human motherâs womb.
Good choice, Bob, for I too am a âPanentheist.â
However,âŚ
(at least based on what little I have read of your insightful posts thus far)
âŚyou donât seem to think that the âdivine consciousnessâ is in possession of âagencyâ or âself-awarenessâ or âpersonhood.â
Am I wrong about that?