|
Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
![]() |
#241 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 66,308
|
Thou shalt not eat pork unless it is cooked until it is white throughout.
Even if it wasn't perfect, it would have been more than sufficient most of the time. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make so help me out. Do you think humans connected trichinosis with eating pork and therefore banned it as a religious restriction? AFAIK, no one at the time, as far as any literature goes, recognized the connection. Do you think avoiding trichinosis was an accidental benefit? If so then what the point as far as the food restriction goes? Do you think a god gave Jews special knowledge so that they could avoid trichinosis? Because if so, why not tell people to wash their hands, something we know today is the most useful simple measure one can do to lower infectious disease risks. Or do you think something else altogether? Because I'm not seeing your point. When the sea is red, thou shalt not eat shell fish from the sea. ![]() |
__________________
"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding!" — Betty White |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#242 |
a carbon based life-form
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 39,049
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#243 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,911
|
I'm not postulating any knowledge among ancient people, I'm saying the dietary laws had health benefits.
Smoking doesn't kill trichinosis. If you (or your host) cut it up with vegetables and made soup, you'd have to examine each little piece before you ate it. They can still be poison from time to time and not kill a whole culture. |
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#244 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Iowa USA
Posts: 12,131
|
|
__________________
"Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence. = godless Dave |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#245 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Iowa USA
Posts: 12,131
|
|
__________________
"Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence. = godless Dave |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#246 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 66,308
|
Only because in retrospect one can say about lots of things, you avoided the illness associated with that food..
There are illnesses one can get from eating a lot of things, beef, spinach, pork, seafood, whatever. Heck, in a particular region in China people get esophageal cancer and the local vegetables are suspected. Now say that food is restricted in a culture. Great, technically one avoided the illness risk associated with that food. You need to show that overall disease risk was lessened by said food restriction. |
__________________
"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding!" — Betty White |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#247 |
not a camel
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 64,007
|
I believe in miracles, you sexy thing!
|
__________________
"Jealousy makes you think the same thing over and over and the more you do that, the less reality-testing you do. Emotions all have an illusion of certainty, and jealousy makes you certain of your perception of the world.” |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#248 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 13,686
|
|
__________________
Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand? |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#249 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 28,749
|
I once heard a "Jewish spokesman" of some sort- I don't recall his "qualifications"- argue that it's the very silliness and difficulty of religious rules that makes them worth following.
He sounded a bright, articulate chap, which made me despair all the more. How does stupidity of this degree survive? |
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#250 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,911
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#251 |
Meandering fecklessly
Join Date: Dec 2008
Posts: 7,571
|
Sure, this particular one had some health benefits. However, the issue is that many theists use this dietary law as evidence (or 'proof') of god's existence and it's loving care of humans. I, and many here it seems, think that if an all-loving god gave a certain commandment in the interests of health, then, as Skeptic Ginger keeps pointing out, this god could have commanded people to simply wash their hands.
I think this is much more persuasive in that people made these commandments and said they were from god rather than an actual god giving these commandments. |
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#252 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 66,308
|
I think you need more evidence than a self selected coincidence.
What do we need to show to satisfy the claim, dietary laws had health benefits? You'd need to show that the benefit outweighed the loss. Dietary protein is scarce in some areas of the world. Did they have plenty of protein where you believe there was a benefit? You use the plural, "laws". So are there more examples besides the pork? And, can you really say a coincidental benefit is relevant? Otherwise, is there evidence the benefit was more than a coincidence? I think the health benefit may be grossly overrated, especially given some people claim a god was passing out special knowledge. Granted you say you don't make this claim. |
__________________
"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding!" — Betty White |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#253 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 13,686
|
Actually, the claim that there was more than one law is quite trivial to support. The restrictions against for example mixed grain or boiling goat in specifically its mother's milk (how did that get taken as a restriction against cheeseburgers, is a different question) are different verses.
Now whether it was a health benefit to effectively condemn more than a million people to live on bread and water, and at that a single grain... THAT I doubt. On a tangent, I think though what we're seeing is a question of tech level too in forbidding pork. Or for that matter shellfish. In the case of pork, I think the biggest problem was that meat fermentation (i.e., making sausages or salami) was not invented yet, so there was no way to safely preserve the meat for later. So basically there was limited use in fattening a pig, when a family can't eat all that in a couple of days. There's also a big problem with holding pigs in a fairly hot and arid region. Pigs need water (or mud) to even keep their internal temperature within the range where they can even live. So they'd be much more expensive to raise there than goats or sheep, and use up a very limited resource, unless you're right on the shore of a river. So it seems like a relatively safe thing to forbid. "Safe" in the way that nobody will riot about forbidding something most people don't do anyway. If you want to have an us-vs-them difference, you can't get much easier than picking a difference that was largely in place anyway. Of course, a God could have just told them how to ferment meat. (You can still fry it later before eating it anyway, if you're worried about trichinosis.) Or made better pigs for its chosen people. But, ah well, I guess that's the problem with a non-existent God. The things it could do are also non-existent. At any rate, it's kinda funny that a god is depending on the tech level of his followers. Hardly a century passes before the Romans get there, and have that technology, and God sends his son to lift that restriction. One could almost think God is impotent to do things himself and needs people to do the relevant stuff ![]() |
__________________
Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand? |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#254 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,911
|
I've read references to plagues of locusts, so (while I'm not an expert) I'd say probably yes.
I believe I've already mentioned "clams" a time or two. I'm not sure it's more than a coincidence, or what evidence might be offered if it was. And relevant to what? A coincidental benefit is relevant to the claim that there were health benefits to some of these dietary laws, which is the only claim I made. There were also laws against eating baby animals boiled in their mother's milk, and as far as I know there's no health benefit to following such a practice. |
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#255 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 13,686
|
Err, no. Actually spectacularly no.
1. There's a reason locust invasions are called PLAGUES, not happy times. I don't think there ever was any time when eating the locusts even offset the crops destroyed, much less made up for extra animal protein too. 2. The thing that makes it an epic fail as a defense of Jewish dietary laws is that... leviticus 11 puts restrictions on that too. You may only eat 4 species of locust. If your crops got razed by another, just starve and die. |
__________________
Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand? |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#256 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 6,620
|
Here's a recent example right here. I'm not going to spend an hour searching through this forum, the topic has come up before and I've even pointed it out to you before. If you want to deny it, deny it. I have no vested interest in slandering people I usually agree with if you feel this is me slandering anyone.
From No "Right" and "Wrong" Without A Higher Authority http://www.internationalskeptics.com...247223&page=11 In reponse to: There is no point for a theist to even attempt to discuss theism with us here if we're just going to randomly assert there is no God anyways in the middle of a discussion. It's nothing but self assertion and offers nothing to the value of the conversation. It smacks of dogma to me. |
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#257 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 35,398
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#258 |
a carbon based life-form
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 39,049
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#259 |
Nasty Woman
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 66,308
|
So if one doesn't preface the no-god-exists assertion with, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion no-god-exists, then it is a self-assertion smacking of dogma?
Do you preface evolution, plate tectonics, and the Earth isn't flat assertions with, 'the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion'? |
__________________
"Why do people say 'grow some balls'? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding!" — Betty White |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#260 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,911
|
Not true, you're allowed to eat any insect which has jointed legs for hopping on the ground, which includes all species of locust, grasshopper, katydid, and cricket. That's four species of insect (well, properly, only three, since grasshoppers and locusts belong to the same species), not four species of locust.
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#261 |
Hyperthetical
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 13,498
|
I believe that God is an aspect of personal experience.
Which is not saying that God does not exist, or is a delusion. The evidence for the existence of God is comparable to the evidence for the existence of, say, fun. Many people claim to have personal experience of God or being close to God, just as most people claim to have personal experience of having fun. Those experiences of God are associated with certain activities, behaviors, and measurable mental states, as are experiences of fun. Vast industries exist that claim (with varying success rates) to help provide experiences of God, just as in the present day even vaster industries claim (with varying success rates) to help provide experiences of fun. People who have experiences of God believe that those experiences improve the quality of their lives, as do people who have experiences of fun. Yet you can sift through every molecule of the earth and every atom of the universe, and not find a single particle of fun. (Unless you really enjoy sifting...) While you're at it, you can look for God too, but I don't think you'll find that either. So does fun exist? Is it a delusion? Big surprise: it turns out God isn't really a guy with a beard and a crown on a throne in the sky. Just as pain isn't really invisible demons poking your body with invisible pointy sticks (causing, recursively, pain), and dreams aren't really astral journeys into a spirit world, and creativity isn't really an invisible flying woman whispering ideas into your ear. Pain, dreams, creativity, and God exist nonetheless. Believing as I do, why do I call myself a Christian? For the same reason I call myself an English speaker. In both cases, it's a language I'm reasonably proficient in and is effective at getting the ideas across. The reason I'm proficient in it is that I learned it (its narratives, practices, and experiences) an an early age. I'm fully aware that had I been raised a Muslim, Jew, or Buddhist I would describe my religious practices and experiences in those terms instead, just as I could easily imagine myself describing those experiences in Arabic, Hebrew, or Chinese instead of English. My use of English does not, therefore, constitute proselytizing English as the One True Language. That is exactly why, in past discussions where I've discussed my experiences in Christianity, I have refrained from proselytizing Christianity. Many will be unsatisfied with that. "Do you or do you not believe that Jesus lived on Earth as an incarnation of God and gave us all access to eternal life by dying on the cross?" you will want to know. That is a narrative. I know the narrative. I understand the narrative. The narrative relates to my experiences in a deep though abstract way (not literally; I've never been tortured to death for my beliefs, though many others have), so in a comparably deep way, I accept the narrative. That, in my view, is more important than literally believing. But to answer directly: I do not believe that particular narrative is literally true in all respects, especially those respects that appear physically impossible. I am agnostic about other aspects of it. On that basis you can go ahead and call me a Universalist, or a mystic, or an agnostic, or an atheist in denial, if you must. I won't argue because the label is irrelevant. In the balance, I consider myself and call myself a Christian, because for me, practices and experiences outweigh narratives. Experiences and practices, by the way, are what ruin the analogy between God and Harry Potter. Both are entities with well-known narratives written about them. On that basis, focusing only on narrative, atheists claim that they are equivalent. But do people who meditate deeply, or are near death, or whose brains are affected by fasting or drugs or injury or Persinger's electromagnetic stimulation, tend to experience Harry Potter, as often as they experience the presence of a universal "all" or a comforting divine presence? Do many people experience a feeling of being "called" in life to aid house elves or support persecuted half-breed wizards or oppose Lord Voldemort or any of Harry Potter's other causes? I would say not, despite isolated examples. The big question, the question I care about, is, "do experiences of God mean anything, beyond their possible (good and bad) effects on the perceived quality of people's lives?" Experiences of fun, for example, do seem to have a meaning beyond the subjective: they are associated with, and apparently help motivate, certain kinds of learning which during recent evolutionary epochs (those that involved mammalian brains) have been valuable to survival. There are possibilities that experiences of God serve a similar function (promoting social cohesion, or acceptance of mortality, or some comparable advantage). But given the kinds of circumstances in which experiences of God tend to occur, it also seems plausible that experiences of God are directly associated with subjective experience itself. Either as some kind of inevitable side effect, or as a contributing cause. Awareness remains a deep mystery to me, despite being able to visualize every functional component of a system that would act as self-aware. (The ability to generate a narrative from memory appears to be the key; self-awareness is then simply the presence of the self in that narrative.) I can't see how that would create a subjective experience of awareness. so I wonder if that property might actually, in a sense, be inherited from an unknown property of the universe. That is of course a "god of the gaps" argument. But it is a very large gap, much larger than those filled in by meteorology or evolution. Without awareness, the entire universe becomes a gigantic Russell's Teapot, undetectable (because there is no one to detect it), and therefore not only useless, but more reasonably assumed not to exist at all. Respectfully, Myriad |
__________________
A zømbie once bit my sister... |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#262 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Nov 2006
Posts: 3,986
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#263 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 13,686
|
Well, I certainly won't argue with that. But sometimes there's more piss to be taken by pointing out that even if there was a God or a divinely-dictated Bible, most of that stuff still doesn't follow. Mind you, it depends on the actual argument.
|
__________________
Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand? |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#264 |
Winter is Coming
Join Date: Mar 2008
Posts: 8,516
|
|
__________________
Naturalism adjusts it's principles to fit with the observed data. It's a god of the facts world view. -joobz Now I lay me down to sleep, a bag of peanuts at my feet. If I die before I wake, give them to my brother Jake. |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#265 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 28,749
|
People do eat locusts in the middle east. They are considered a delicacy in Saudi Arabia for instance. (Except the pink ones, which apparently means the WHO has sprayed them with some hormone or other.)
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#266 |
a carbon based life-form
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 39,049
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#267 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 35,398
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#268 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 22,394
|
I must say I find the arguments about dietary laws amusing in an odd sort of way. I think the original point was that they did, at times, prevent some illnesses. As far as I can see that's true even if the laws were 90 percent crap, no matter who decreed them, no matter how much better they could have been done, no matter if there was or wasn't a god, no matter if they also forbid things they shouldn't have. Did observant Jews get trichinosis or die from red tide? If the answer is no, it is not yes even if there were a million better ways to get there.
The argument here comes across like this: a: Well, at least Christians who go to church stay out of the rain for an hour a week. b. Nonsense, there is no god. |
__________________
I love this world, but not for its answers. (Mary Oliver) Quand il dit "cuic" le moineau croit tout dire. (When he's tweeted the sparrow thinks he's said it all. (Jules Renard) |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#269 |
a carbon based life-form
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 39,049
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#270 |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,189
|
belief
It's had an awesome effect on my career...
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#271 |
Dental Floss Tycoon
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 16,923
|
|
__________________
Counterbalance in the little town of Ridgeview, Ohio. Two people permanently enslaved by the tyranny of fear and superstitution, facing the future with a kind of helpless dread. Two others facing the future with confidence - having escaped one of the darker places of the Twilight Zone. |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#272 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 13,686
|
@bruto:
Well, it's not just one thing. It's that if you do a shotgun approach and forbid a few dozen random things, even by sheer chance one or more will have some aspect which can be argued as worth avoiding. Especially when A) we're talking about ancient technology, where basically just about anything is a health hazard (E.g., if they had been forbidden to eat sheep instead, sure, then you can't get brain damage from scrapie sheep,) and B) one doesn't have to do a balanced tallying up of the pros and cons, and weigh it against what is given up by having that restriction. But really, there are ove six hundred 'don't's in the OT. I'm almost tempted to write a program that extracts 600 random words from a dictionary file just to make a point, and I'm betting that if you put appropriate 'do's and 'don't' next to them, you'll find a few which can be defended as good ideas. By sheer chance alone. |
__________________
Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand? |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#273 |
a carbon based life-form
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 39,049
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#274 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 13,686
|
Correction: the creator of the universe has been watching with indifference for about 197,000 years out of our 200,000 on this planet, and not intervened even for whole tribes massacred on accusations of sorcery, nor was moved by genocides that included stuff like impaling whole villages in Mesopotamian warfare or disemboweling pregant women in ancient midle eastern warfare. And in fact not only he wasn't moved by their dying screams, but he was planning to fry them in hell for eternity anyway, just because Jesus wasn't born yet to save them.
And going further back in time, we know that the Neanderthals had ceremonial burial, and included tools, weapons and supplies with their dead, or sometimes came and put flowers on the tombs. And therefore they quite likely had some kind of religion or at least a concept of some sort of afterlife. You don't go to such trouble if you don't think it will matter somehow. That's some 800,000 years of a sentient species looking up to the heavens for help and guidance, and God didn't give a screw about them. He didn't step in to save the last Neanderthal tribe, or anything. And again, if I listen to the fundies, he couldn't save them because Jesus wasn't born yet. That's 800,000 years of people who asked heavens for help and guidance, and at best heavens never cared about them, while at worst heavens was just waiting to fry them for eternity for no more than being born too early. But that God will totally leave all else and show up to help some Joe Random with a job interview ![]() |
__________________
Which part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand? |
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#275 |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,189
|
uh not exactly
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#276 |
Troublesome Passenger
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 15,790
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#277 |
Banned
Join Date: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,189
|
well..
Maybe he will appear to you someday.
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#278 |
Troublesome Passenger
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 15,790
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#279 |
Banned
Join Date: Feb 2008
Posts: 35,398
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
#280 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 6,175
|
|
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() |
Bookmarks |
Thread Tools | |
|
|