this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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First of all, a literal reading is not required but let's read it literally.
God is all powerful. God could have made light circles (days) without the sun.
If days means the time unit... Then... Where is the issue.
This is embarrassing. Like even for a meme.
Literally made light and dark and called them day and might on day one too lol.
For what reason was the sun created then?
I'm guessing it was probably for the same reason he buried dinosaur bones all over the place... Or for the same reason he created trillions of stars billions of years before he felt like creating light earlier that week (or are stars actually a lot closer to get their light here so quickly after creation?)
That is a bit of a pointless endeavor.
For what reason was the sun created if it was created for light cycles? I mean what is the point of light cycles? Whatever the point of it is, what is the point of that? You see the issue.
Also you are asking for a motivation when a motivation doesn't prove or disprove anything. I mean maybe God has multiple personalities and they like to fuck with each other. Maybe it was a creative process and he liked the idea of a sun. Maybe he wanted everything to have a "natural" reason to better test our faith. Maybe he got high and thought the idea of a huge burning ball is funny.
I understand why you ask. But I don't have an answer and I don't think an answer matters for what I propose. Which is, even in a literal reading It is not really contradictory, maybe just a little odd.
Since those light cycles existed before the sun was created there is no reason for the sun to exist.
Or the god is a bunch of aliens. Or some other fantasy. If you wish to pose such twists as parts of arguments I'd guess your point is to remove any value from conversation in order to stop more people from taking a part (aka trolling).
No. I am not trolling. You are missing my point.
I don't believe in a god. But even if I want to assume that there is a god like describe in the bible. There is no way to know what the motivation of a god is that e.g. created an apple tree that Adam wasn't allowed to eat from and place it accessable for Adam, knowing that Adam will eat from it because he doesn't understand right and wrong and than punish him for it. The god in the bible is acting in way that at the very least I don't understand and would argue that it is crazy behavior.
I am saying I don't know the motivation of a (probably non-existent) god with that kind of history. But I also don't understand why Hilter committed the Holocaust and that happened. Mine or your ability to understand someone's motivation is not required for someone to act a certain way.
I see. You're only generally accepting that there may be crazy justifications for anything. But this very aspect switches the topic of discussion to "we'll never know bruh", thus silencing the discussion. I've also talked to some people who told me about their god. My impression is that their logic is mostly the same as the above. Arguing with them is mostly useless, but it doesn't remove my desire to argue. "Leave them alone" is basically what your logic says, and I disagree that I shouldn't express myself in discussion.
No, that is not my point at all.
My point is that if like OP intended, you want to criticize the religion's contradictions, do it well. In the case of the creation story, a lot of christians do not believe it to be a literal story and have a bunch of different Interpretation. I have my own issues with that approach but those Interpretation might or might not be contradictory without looking into the precis interpretation, it is impossible to tell. As the goal of op was to highlight the contradictory nature of the christian beliefs and didn't provide any precis interpretation of the text, I looked at the specific text that op provided and considered some interpretation and figured that op did an embarrassing job to show the contradictory nature of their belief. as with the provided text even if read literally, there is an non contradictory way to understand the text. While maybe odd or unlikely, totally possible and therefore non contradictory.
Your question about the motivation of god to be that way as you thinks it doesn't make sense, is utterly valid from the perspective of a person trying to figure out how credible they perceive the religion in question but that was and isn't what this discussion was about and what I am arguing. I am arguing about whether or not it is contradictory and not that pointing out contradictions is bad, or that you can't criticize it, or that god's actions would make sense to me.
If you think it makes no sense that god created the sun after the light cycles, I disagree with you but I don't say that you shouldn't argue your perspective. I am saying that you joined a different discussion and my reaction was based in that discussion. And I think if you want to have the other discussion about whether or not it makes sense, you are welcome to but maybe don't inject it in another discussion and be surprised if the other person thinks that your injection is intended to be on topic. That creates confusion.
Tldr: topic is "is it contradictory?" And your injection was about "does it make sense?". Different topics. Different discussion. Not the point of the discussion that I had, therefore I dismissed it as not relevant to the discussion. Have the other discussion if you want, just don't be mad that anyone misunderstood your intentions with the injection.
It doesn't seem like you can contribute to any religion based discussion if you're willing to accept that many possibilities (interpretations) of basic concepts or events. This also reminds me of how flat-earthers justify stuff.
So you think it is smart to engage in a discussion with e.g. a Christian about Christianity while dismissing their actual beliefs and instead force your own Interpretation onto them? Do you think you can change Minds like that?
Of course, I am willing to accept any given sincerely hold belief for the sake of the conversation when my aim is to point out contradictions or issues in their belief. Otherwise I am not really talking about their belief and the issues with it.
And again the goal of op was to point out contradictions. That is the conversation that we are having.
If you have an issue with how general and open the discussion in regards to the Interpretation of the text is, blame op for keeping it vague.
Also why are you ignoring in your response anything about the fact that your injection was seemingly off-topic and the consequences of the misunderstanding that it seemingly caused? No objections or no acception? No questions? No thoughts?
Why do you continue to be hostile? I understand that you might felt like I dismissed your point and that you thought I was trolling but it seems to me as if I made clear that I wasn't doing either. So what is up with that?
I have more reasons to blame the book for being vague.
I don't see it like that.
So just that I understand:
Do you think that op and me weren't specifically talking about it being contradictory?
Do you think that your question about "how it wouldn't make sense for God to create the sun after the light cycles" is about the bible being contradictory?
Do you think that "does it make sense?" Isn't off-topic in a discussion about contradictions?
Basically what do you disagree with specifically?
I wouldn't call it contradictory, because the original material has to many other problems. It's like calling coal dirty. The original post is a meme and it works fine for me.
Other questions: ok yes even though I don't think it matters, no, with the whole premise of injecting possibility of nonsense into the discussion in order to avoid contradictions (in a boring unfunny way).
Then I see our disagreement.
I think and you are welcome to disagree, even if the intent is to call coal dirty and you provide an example, you would give an actual example of it being dirty.
If I don't want to argue the obvious and just want to call the coal dirty. I wouldn't provide an example because that is the whole point of "calling the coal dirty", it doesn't need to be explained.
If I would choose to provide an example, I would provide an actual example.
If we assume his intent was to call coal dirty and he choose to provided an example of the bible being contradictory, I expect the example is actually contradictory. That was what I was arguing.
And I think his example fails, as even in a literal reading, there are interpretations that work just fine without creating contradictions, e.g. a day is ~24hr; and god needed x hrs, or y days. All of us might doubt that it is the intended meaning of the word by the author. But that is our doubts and not a contradictions.
My nonsense was strictly to highlight my point that whether or not, we think it makes sense for someone to act a way, is irrelevant when talking about contradictions.
I hope this helps to understand my intentions. I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
Dude, your meme is about logical consistency of the bible. To test for logical consistency, you have to assume it is true to test it against itself.
Also I am not a believer, so I don't believe it is true... But I can argue in favor of something that I am not believing. A basic skill that people need for scientific process.
That’s a literal quote from Carl Sagan. Now argue in favor of it being literal.
I am not sure what is a quote from Carl Sagan and I am not sure why anyone should care who said it in this context.
I assume the second "it" is the quote? Maybe not? Do me the favor and help me to understand your message.
is a literal arrangement of words, but nonsensical, like the logic of the creation of the bible. Can you argue in favor of Lorem ipsum?
Assuming you mean the content of "Lorem Ipsum", I can't argue in favor of it. The content of "Lorem Ipsum" is literally intentionally meaningless. It doesn't propose a position, argue a point or even express a thought. I can't argue in favor of nothing.
But as your way of expressing yourself is so poor, I could intentionally misunderstand you and argue in favor of "Lorem Ipsum"... As a placeholder text. Easy first Argument, it is meaningless and well known as a placeholder text, making difficult to confuse it with real content while being similar to real European languages.
I am disappointed that you didn't help me to understand what quote you meant or what "it" was. But I can only blame myself at this point.
“Light Circles” and “Time Units” are literally not in the Bible. You literally used literally incorrectly.
You seem unaware how an explanation works and what literally means.
Let's start with the obvious, I never claimed to exclusively words that are in the bible. I claimed that a literal reading could be understood a different ways. at least some, I included in my message.
Now that we know that you are on the same page (not the literal meaning of page, here)
Literal just means "taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or exaggeration." The word "day" is used multiple ways. One is for the time in which the sun starts directly illuminating the speakers location until it stops. Another is as a time unit; 24 hours. So the literal meaning of a day is very much both. Just as an example, "page" has a few literal meanings too. A book page, a webpage. But also in "being on the same page", "page" can mean "being in agreement", e.g. in the earlier case, agreement on what I said and meant.
An explanation of a literal reading of a text is not required to use exclusively words from the text. Think about it for a second. If someone asks you what a word means, you probably at least want to include the literal meaning of the word, right? So, will you respond with just that one word? "What is 'orwellian' "? "Oh, it means Orwellian" of course, you wouldn't. People would think you are an asshole.
I want to apologize if I made any wrong assumption about you, e.g. that you agree on the facts of what I said.
I hope this helps
This is embarrassing. Like even for an explanation.
Words literally have definitions; not to be used figuratively when it helps your argument.
I hope this helps.
Yeah, be mad but a "day" can be a time unit and a light cycle. In it's literal meaning. I know that. You know that.
If you doubt it, google "how long is a day on Mars?".
The answer of that question makes it clear that the word "day" have "light cycle" meaning in a literal sense.
And I really hope you aren't arguing that "day" can't literally mean 24 hours.
Figure of Speech
Hope this helps.
Back to poor communication. What do you mean by that?