Why do/don't you believe in a higher power? (Any HP)

[The New California Republic]

...

...wait a second, if you no longer believe in God then why do you think that Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory exist?

Wishful thinking. It makes life easier to believe there’s more at the end. Also, to me at least, it’s more believable for a godless afterlife to exist than a divine afterlife, if god is part of that great, if not oh well.

The system you believe exists after death is dependent on a God. It is fundamentally incoherent to believe such a thing in the absence of God; and if you know yourself that the afterlife is a lie that you tell yourself then it doesn't make life easier surely? For a lie to offer comfort one has to either not be aware that it is a lie, or suppress it through some very unhealthy cognitive dissonance which depends on partitioning parts of one's mind off.

[Genivaria]

The book of Exodus is a work of fiction, this is simply a historical fact.

[Nor Portland]

Because logically it makes since from a philosophical and historical standpoint

[Nor Portland]

The book of Exodus is a work of fiction, this is simply a historical fact.

Completely fictional? Or perhaps it was an actual event that was twisted down through oral tradition?

[The New California Republic]

Because logically it makes since from a philosophical and historical standpoint

Please expand on this.

[Genivaria]

The book of Exodus is a work of fiction, this is simply a historical fact.

Completely fictional? Or perhaps it was an actual event that was twisted down through oral tradition?

Which part of the 'event' is actually true then?
Slaves building the pyramids which never happened? Or thousands of Hebrews being slaves in Egypt which never happened?

Once you remove those from the story then the whole basis of the story falls apart.

[Nor Portland]

Because logically it makes since from a philosophical and historical standpoint

Please expand on this.

Sorry, I was in lunch at the time.

I personally am Orthodox but have looked greatly into perennialism, the idea that all old religions are different offshoots of a once universal one. As I stated earlier, it "historically" makes sense because nearly all ancient religions have similar events which they admire. The Tower of Babel, for instance, has its own variations in Hinduism and the Mayans. The story of the Great Flood has its roots all over the world.

I could go much more in-depth about this if I had more time but essentially given the correlations of similar beliefs between ancient religions, the idea that at one point there was once one universal religion strengthens the notion that such a universal religion worshipped a real God or divine essence

[Nor Portland]

Completely fictional? Or perhaps it was an actual event that was twisted down through oral tradition?

Which part of the 'event' is actually true then?
Slaves building the pyramids which never happened? Or thousands of Hebrews being slaves in Egypt which never happened?

Once you remove those from the story then the whole basis of the story falls apart.

What evidence is there that says Hebrew slaves never were in Egypt at the time?

[Andsed]

Which part of the 'event' is actually true then?
Slaves building the pyramids which never happened? Or thousands of Hebrews being slaves in Egypt which never happened?

Once you remove those from the story then the whole basis of the story falls apart.

What evidence is there that says Hebrew slaves never were in Egypt at the time?

Simply put if all of those slaves left after ten plagues Egypt's economy would collapse.

[The New California Republic]

As I stated earlier, it "historically" makes sense because nearly all ancient religions have similar events which they admire. The Tower of Babel, for instance, has its own variations in Hinduism and the Mayans. The story of the Great Flood has its roots all over the world.

Sources for those claims please?

[Nor Portland]

What evidence is there that says Hebrew slaves never were in Egypt at the time?

Simply put if all of those slaves left after ten plagues Egypt's economy would collapse.

Assuming the ten plagues never occurred (going along the lines that the Exodus tale was twisted), the Egyptian economy would crumble regardless if the Hebrews left. Probably not for long though since the peasantry of the time could replace such workers

[Andsed]

Simply put if all of those slaves left after ten plagues Egypt's economy would collapse.

Assuming the ten plagues never occurred (going along the lines that the Exodus tale was twisted), the Egyptian economy would crumble regardless if the Hebrews left. Probably not for long though since the peasantry of the time could replace such workers

That is true which throws massive doubt on Exodus because as best I understand it is about Moses freeing all the Hebrew slaves which would have if not collapsed Egypt's economy seriously hurt it.

[Genivaria]

Which part of the 'event' is actually true then?
Slaves building the pyramids which never happened? Or thousands of Hebrews being slaves in Egypt which never happened?

Once you remove those from the story then the whole basis of the story falls apart.

What evidence is there that says Hebrew slaves never were in Egypt at the time?

There is no evidence that there was ever a large Jewish population in Egypt except for a Jewish military garrison in post Alexander Egypt, that is to say Ptolemic Egypt.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History ... s_in_Egypt

There's little evidence of such a large community of Hebrews during the Old Kingdom and especially not slaves, and speaking of slaves the idea that slaves built the pyramids is also a myth as we have evidence that Egyptian paid laborers built the pyramids.

[Nor Portland]

As I stated earlier, it "historically" makes sense because nearly all ancient religions have similar events which they admire. The Tower of Babel, for instance, has its own variations in Hinduism and the Mayans. The story of the Great Flood has its roots all over the world.

Sources for those claims please?

Do note that the story is never the same. It's a story which described the reasonings for different tribes and languages, though a common denominator is often a tower (Abrahamic-Sumerian-Mayan)
Hinduism- http://espanol.apologeticspress.org/articles/2579

Mayans/ Polynesians- https://www.varchive.org/itb/confus.htm

[Nor Portland]

Assuming the ten plagues never occurred (going along the lines that the Exodus tale was twisted), the Egyptian economy would crumble regardless if the Hebrews left. Probably not for long though since the peasantry of the time could replace such workers

That is true which throws massive doubt on Exodus because as best I understand it is about Moses freeing all the Hebrew slaves which would have if not collapsed Egypt's economy seriously hurt it.

From an apologetic standpoint one could argue that no one recorded such events because, to Pharaoh, it was such an embarrassment that it was not worth recording

[Andsed]

That is true which throws massive doubt on Exodus because as best I understand it is about Moses freeing all the Hebrew slaves which would have if not collapsed Egypt's economy seriously hurt it.

From an apologetic standpoint one could argue that no one recorded such events because, to Pharaoh, it was such an embarrassment that it was not worth recording

if such a collapse happened it would be to big to really hide and there would be some records we could find. Yet there are none.

[The Land of Home]

Simply put I don't believe in God because his existence is irrelevant to me. From what I can tell, the events of this world aren't verifiably affected by some outside force. Sure there are unknown factors, but there's absolutely nothing to suggest that any of them are more than unknown particles or the unknown interactions of known ones. To put it simply, there's nothing about this world that requires a god to be explained, so if there is a god, he isn't a part of this world. I am in this world, my loved ones are in this world, everything I care about is of this world. So something that exists outside of this without meaningfully interacting with it is irrelevant to me.

[Nor Portland]

From an apologetic standpoint one could argue that no one recorded such events because, to Pharaoh, it was such an embarrassment that it was not worth recording

if such a collapse happened it would be to big to really hide and there would be some records we could find. Yet there are none.

Perhaps they were stored in the Library of Alexandria

[Andsed]

if such a collapse happened it would be to big to really hide and there would be some records we could find. Yet there are none.

Perhaps they were stored in the Library of Alexandria

Perhaps but this would have been a major event so I doubt all the copies would be there.

[Nor Portland]

Perhaps they were stored in the Library of Alexandria

Perhaps but this would have been a major event so I doubt all the copies would be there.

Given that there are hundreds of major events that occurred which we do not know of due to lost tablets or scrolls, this could be an exception. Only reason why the Jews wished to retain memory of it is because it is a central component of their religions plus they have always been very tribalistic

[Nor Portland]

Do note that I'm just playing the apologist here since I do not know much on the matter though maybe this will be of use:

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/dai ... r-fiction/

[The New California Republic]

Sources for those claims please?

Do note that the story is never the same. It's a story which described the reasonings for different tribes and languages, though a common denominator is often a tower (Abrahamic-Sumerian-Mayan)
Hinduism- http://espanol.apologeticspress.org/articles/2579

Mayans/ Polynesians- https://www.varchive.org/itb/confus.htm

Both of those sources look dodgy as fuck. "Apologetics Press"? Yeah, no. The second source aims to preserve the ideas of Immanuel Velikovsky, whose ideas are widely rejected:

Velikovsky's ideas have been almost entirely rejected by mainstream academia (often vociferously so) and his work is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions. Moreover, scholars view his unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_ ... #Criticism

So neither of those sources pass muster I'm afraid. Got any others?

[Nor Portland]

Do note that the story is never the same. It's a story which described the reasonings for different tribes and languages, though a common denominator is often a tower (Abrahamic-Sumerian-Mayan)
Hinduism- http://espanol.apologeticspress.org/articles/2579

Mayans/ Polynesians- https://www.varchive.org/itb/confus.htm

Both of those sources look dodgy as fuck. "Apologetics Press"? Yeah, no. The second source aims to preserve the ideas of Immanuel Velikovsky, whose ideas are widely rejected:

Velikovsky's ideas have been almost entirely rejected by mainstream academia (often vociferously so) and his work is generally regarded as erroneous in all its detailed conclusions. Moreover, scholars view his unorthodox methodology (for example, using comparative mythology to derive scenarios in celestial mechanics) as an unacceptable way to arrive at conclusions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_ ... #Criticism

So neither of those sources pass muster I'm afraid. Got any others?

I can respect the criticism of the latter author, thank you for the clarification. Mayan stories regarding it are still known but that is based off of Wiki and I'd rather not cite that

https://www.dawn.com/news/705037

[Genivaria]

Why are you ignoring the link I posted?

[Nor Portland]

Why are you ignoring the link I posted?

My apologies, I looked over it.
What am I supposed to gather from it?