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What would it take for the atheist to believe in God?

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  • tabibito
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post

    JEDP was big half a century or so ago. Since then it has lost much of its luster. I think it raises some valid points but proponents went way too far with their claims and dissections.
    The killer was probably the lame dissections. The current "big three" each owe some of their foundation to JEPD, and many proponents still adhere to the flawed methodology. The problem is the start point - it doesn't find a problem and try to explain the causes, rather, it invents an explanation and then tries to find a problem to fit.

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by tabibito View Post

    If I had not read the books, I would not have been able to provide the relevant page numbers, or the text therein that does not appear in the Wikipedia article.

    The issue of the waning acceptance of JEDP was also addressed four years ago on this site,



    And the methodological flaws of JEDP are ably documented in a satirical piece, "New Directions in Pooh Studies," published in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998, Volume 2 (JSOTSup 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp 830-839.
    Someone started a thread about that. I believe that's the same thread where a certain someone couldn't see the word "volume" in spite of it being repeatedly pointed out, and she still continued to demand it.

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  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by tabibito View Post

    There were some. People who wanted so much to believe their preconceptions that though they could not deny the miracles, refused to believe that God had anything to do with them. Also note, quite a few people who have witnessed miracles have to fight to believe they weren't hallucinating - which is frequently a more comforting assessment.



    Had she read either of them herself, she would NOT be recommending that I do so. Both destroy her claim that JEDP is the hypothesis accepted by the overwhelming majority of Theologians.
    JEDP was big half a century or so ago. Since then it has lost much of its luster. I think it raises some valid points but proponents went way too far with their claims and dissections.

    Leave a comment:


  • tabibito
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    It's the Catch-22 that atheists love.

    They demand testimony attesting to a miracle from someone who isn't a Christian because they'd be biased.

    But what sort of person do they expect to find? Someone who can testify to the veracity of a miracle -- but still chooses not to believe? I doubt there are many folks like that.
    There were some. People who wanted so much to believe their preconceptions that though they could not deny the miracles, refused to believe that God had anything to do with them. Also note, quite a few people who have witnessed miracles have to fight to believe they weren't hallucinating - which is frequently a more comforting assessment.

    Advice you should take wrt the Bible.
    Had she read either of them herself, she would NOT be recommending that I do so. Both destroy her claim that JEDP is the hypothesis accepted by the overwhelming majority of Theologians.
    Last edited by tabibito; 11-26-2021, 08:27 AM.

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  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post
    I suggest you actually read Carr's paper and Van Seeters book before offering pronouncements.
    Advice you should take wrt the Bible.

    Leave a comment:


  • tabibito
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    If that was your point then please do explain why you choose a fictitious person (Harry Potter) in a fictitious place (Hogwarts) to do so?
    Reading the post in question, one could be forgiven for thinking that she was dismissing the possibility of resurrection.

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  • tabibito
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

    I suggest you actually read Carr's paper and Van Seeters book before offering pronouncements.
    If I had not read the books, I would not have been able to provide the relevant page numbers, or the text therein that does not appear in the Wikipedia article.

    The issue of the waning acceptance of JEDP was also addressed four years ago on this site,

    Originally posted by psstein View Post

    The Documentary Hypothesis (or JEDP) is still the view of the majority of OT scholars. Other views, like the supplementary hypothesis (Van Seters, most notably) and the fragmentary hypothesis have become increasingly popular in recent years.

    I hold to something like the fragmentary hypothesis.

    My issue with the DH is that the division of sources seems arbitrary and I'm not convinced that there inexorably has to be an evolution of Israelite religion in the way that Wellhausen and later writers saw.
    And the methodological flaws of JEDP are ably documented in a satirical piece, "New Directions in Pooh Studies," published in On the Way to the Postmodern: Old Testament Essays 1967-1998, Volume 2 (JSOTSup 292; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp 830-839.

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

    The point being that fictitious characters are placed in real-life settings. The Battle of Borodino took place. St Petersburg was and is a real city. Napoleon and Czar Alexander I were real people.

    However, the Rostovs, and Pierre Bezukhov are fictitious characters in Tolstoy's work.
    If that was your point then please do explain why you choose a fictitious person (Harry Potter) in a fictitious place (Hogwarts) to do so?

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by tabibito View Post

    Should we take it that H_A believes that only people who don't believe what they say are credible?
    It's the Catch-22 that atheists love.

    They demand testimony attesting to a miracle from someone who isn't a Christian because they'd be biased.

    But what sort of person do they expect to find? Someone who can testify to the veracity of a miracle -- but still chooses not to believe? I doubt there are many folks like that.

    Leave a comment:


  • Hypatia_Alexandria
    replied
    Originally posted by tabibito View Post
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis

    The consensus around the classical documentary hypothesis has now collapsed.[5] This was triggered in large part by the influential publications of John Van Seters, Hans Heinrich Schmid, and Rolf Rendtorff in the mid-1970s.[7] These "revisionist" authors argued that J was to be dated no earlier than the time of the Babylonian captivity (597–539 BCE),[8] and rejected the existence of a substantial E source.[9] They also called into question the nature and extent of the three other sources. Van Seters, Schmid, and Rendtorff shared many of the same criticisms of the documentary hypothesis, but were not in complete agreement about what paradigm ought to replace it.[7]


    As bad as the Documentary Hypothesis is, the proposed alternatives seem not much better - inasmuch that proponents have a habit of finding inconsistencies where none exist. I can't claim to have investigated every claim of inconsistency, but those that I have don't pan out.

    [5] Carr, David M. (2014). "Changes in Pentateuchal Criticism, p 436. - [As early as] 1928 it was proposed that any multiple sources that might have existed did so at the pre-literary level. {{the proposal seems tenable}}

    [7] Van Seters, John (2015), pp 28-29. The Pentateuch: A Social-Science Commentary - Three models of compositional structure have been proposed. 1/ The "Fragmentary/Story-cycle/Block Model." Individual stories or blocks were brought together and imperfectly collated. 2/ "The Supplementation or Expansion of a Basic Text Model" The basic content of the Torah has been supplemented or expanded, with those additions introducing inconsistencies and discontinuity to the original coherent text 3/ "The Source/Document/Literary Strata Model" Inconsistencies in the Pentateuch result from varied sources, "while the breaks in coherence and cohesion point to the redactional activity of combining them."

    So - JEDP is dead in the water.
    I suggest you actually read Carr's paper and Van Seeters book before offering pronouncements.

    Leave a comment:


  • Hypatia_Alexandria
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    So there really is/was a Harry Potter? Same with Ron and Hermione?

    Care to make some other half-baked brainless quips?
    The point being that fictitious characters are placed in real-life settings. The Battle of Borodino took place. St Petersburg was and is a real city. Napoleon and Czar Alexander I were real people.

    However, the Rostovs, and Pierre Bezukhov are fictitious characters in Tolstoy's work.


    Leave a comment:


  • Hypatia_Alexandria
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    [/INDENT]

    And here we have Hypatia_Alexandria handwaving off an eyewitness because they believed what they were saying and for no other reason.
    The birth date for Quadratus of Athens is put at somewhere in the late first century and his writings are from the early second century [dated to between 120-130 CE].


    Do tell us all how you consider that he was an "eye-witness" to events in Judaea and Galilee the late 30s CE.

    Leave a comment:


  • tabibito
    replied
    Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
    [/INDENT]

    And here we have Hypatia_Alexandria handwaving off an eyewitness because they believed what they were saying and for no other reason.
    Should we take it that H_A believes that only people who don't believe what they say are credible?

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Hypatia_Alexandria View Post

    Not to their face. However, some of these people who claim to have had these experiences are often rather odd.
    Pot. Meet kettle.

    Leave a comment:


  • rogue06
    replied
    Originally posted by Rushing Jaws View Post



    The point of all that talk is, that the Christian experience of God is somewhat like human friendship. It is subjective, dynamic, alive, inter-personal, transcendent, not reducible to human calculation, dialogical, heart-to-heart. Not a quantitative, measurable, material, ecumenically verifiable object in the universe. There are differences between "Friendship" with God & human friendship, but there are also similarities; so the comparison is limited, but not wholly valueless.

    That is why C. S. Lewis' Aslan, the equivalent of Christ in Narnia, "is not a tame lion". He could not be shown to unbelievers, as though he were a lapdog subject to human whims & manipulation. And neither can the Christ in Whom Christians believe and hope. That is why appeals to Christians (on YouTube, say) to "show me your God" cannot be complied with - the God in Whom we trust, is not our plaything, but (so we believe) the Creator of our being, our existence, and our lives. We are (in some sense) from this God, as being His handiwork - He is not from us, nor in any way subject to us.

    That does not reply to all that you asked, but I hope it helps.
    It's times like this I wish we still had Post of the Day

    Leave a comment:

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